The thud of an arrow piercing flesh, a cry of pain from an elven warrior who was thrown to the floor with the force of the bolt.
A
roar of anger, a plea for aid, the scream of a defeated soldier, the
desperate sounds of elves and Deviants locked in combat, fighting and
dying in the frigid cold. But Fel’annár did not flinch, even though he
stood in the midst of the chaos. He
couldn’t; he was the only master archer left, the only one who could eliminate the Deviant snipers that were picking off their warriors.
He sighted his next target, stance perfect; it
had to be. His arm did not waver, it
could not, and his heart did not feel; it
must
not. He would not allow that, and when the last sniper was down, he
whipped out his long and short swords with a morbid sense of
satisfaction and moved closer to Captain Comon and The Company’s
position, where the fighting was at its worst.
The shriek of
polished metal upon rusted iron grated on their ears, but it did not
deter the Alpine warriors of Tar’eastór, even though they had been
fighting almost constantly for the last weeks. They bore down upon the
rotting mass of Deviants that had thought to surprise them, their elven
faces twisted into snarls of hatred for an enemy that was relentless,
ruthless.
“Behind you,” warned Fel’annár as he moved closer to his
captain to engage another Deviant, whose massive scimitar swung
unnervingly close over his head. Shocked, he flipped backwards to gain
space and time and then moved to the side and scored a blow to the
Deviant’s shoulder. But that only served to enrage it. Roaring in
unbridled wrath, the beast bore down on Fel’annár with such strength it
sent him stumbling backwards. What was
wrong with him? Yet even
as he asked himself he knew the answer: he was tired, his concentration
slipping, and this opponent was not going down easily.
Swivelling
his right sword to the left, he whirled around and sliced into its other
side, garnering another unearthly shriek that vibrated painfully in his
ears.
He moved in from the front this time, but the beast’s
counter blow was so strong it was all Fel’annár could do to keep his
sword from flying out of his sticky hand; he was off balance once more,
and the nascent tingle of dread began to take hold of him.
Fel’annár
raised both blades and brought them down upon his enemy, but they were
blocked, and for one strange moment, bright green eyes locked with the
cloudy but challenging gaze of the Deviant. There was hatred and cruelty
there, as there always was; he had expected that, but Fel’annár
hesitated, for there was something more, something he could not place.
His brow twitched in confusion, but before he could ponder it any
longer, the handle of the Deviant’s blade caught him in the side of the
head with a heavy thud, sending him stumbling backwards and then, to his
utter horror, to his knees. He was down, and he desperately blinked to
clear his reeling mind, not fast enough to avoid the boot that crashed
into his mid-section, sending him gasping to the floor. It was all he
could do to roll out of the way as the scimitar came down upon him,
missing him by mere inches, a blessing in disguise, for the beast had
placed so much weight behind the blow that it overcompensated. Fel’annár
had just enough time to plunge both swords into its mid-section.
