Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,54
penetrated their defenses. Most fell harmlessly but not all. One creased Elon’s thigh, another Jareth’s arm… then one slipped past Jareth’s guard to catch Colath in the lower back.
The pain struck, hard and fierce, shared across the bond between Colath and Elon, the shock of it startling, the force of it catching Colath off balance and nearly driving him out of the saddle.
Fear shot through him.
On the ground? Even with his swords and uninjured he’d be more vulnerable there. Wounded, against these numbers…?
Empathetic pain flared through Elon and his heart wrenched as he turned his head, already reaching for Colath but Jareth was closer.
Instinctively, Jareth snatched at Colath’s shirt, keeping his friend in the saddle.
With his free hand he sent a burst of mage fire flaming in front of them to guard against another arrow.
Fear for Colath was piercing but the swordsmen were closing and Elon only had time for a quick glance, the sight of Jareth steadying Colath in the saddle a relief so great his vision blurred. Then Elon turned back to the fight, his bow claiming the last of the archers.
Slinging it over his back, he reached for his swords as the swordsmen burst onto the road - shedding wheat chaff as they charged.
Willing himself strength, Colath nodded thanks to Jareth and drew his swords despite the pain of the wound in his back, freeing Jareth to fight as well as he could.
Spinning his swords in his hands, Elon looked over the oncoming men and set heels to his horse.
He charged into them, Faer wheeled and spun beneath him, hooves lashing out. Colath came in behind him, matching him with only his shortsword in hand, the other clasped to the wound in his side. Blood stained his tunic and Elon’s jaw tightened fractionally in helpless fury at the sight.
None of it showed clearly or these then might have turned their focus on Colath as such men had in the past, using the true-friend and soul-bonds to wound and weaken both.
The on-coming riders were almost upon them. They were running out of time.
At Colath’s back, reduced to using his sword, Jareth hacked and cut, clearly no swordsman, yet still keeping both Colath’s and Elon’s back covered as well as he could, despite the risk to himself. The men they fought were too close for his magic.
Elon trusted Zo to keep Jareth where he could do the most good and faithful Zo did as required, kicking at anyone who came too close.
Which left Elon to do what he did very well.
It was a deadly and nearly hopeless dance of swords and horses, driving off their attackers.
Colath lashed out on each side desperately as warm blood drenched his side, soaking his trews. He and Jareth kept the swordsmen from flanking Elon, who fought like a cornered lion, slashing on every side, driving this one back with a kick, his sword cleaving the throat of another.
Even so, the riders crested the rise before the last of those around them fell.
But the last did fall.
Resolutely, Colath drew his bow, despite the wound in his back, despite the pain, training an arrow on those who approached even as Elon finished the last of those around them.
“Hold,” Elon called to those riders drawing near, “on the orders of Daran High King. You attack his Envoy.”
“Daran is a paper tiger,” one of the men shouted. “Who will tell him of what passed here when you’re dead?”
“Arlis of High Reaches?” Elon called, the man’s voice familiar from Daran’s Council. “Do you know what it is you do?”
One of the lesser Kingdoms to the North, High Reaches was one of the Kingdoms that crowded tiny Lothliann, its people straying across the Enclave’s borders time and again to take what wasn’t theirs.
Warily, the men pulled up just out of reach of Colath’s bowshot.
Jareth couldn’t imagine how much pain Colath was in, how much blood he lost with each moment he held his bow at full pull. It was as if he were poised there, a statue of an archer, unmoving, locked on those beyond.
He frantically searched for a solution, a way out for all of them that wouldn’t require him to violate his oath.
“More of my men are on their way, Aerilann,” Arlis said, leaning indolently on his saddle horn.
He looked at the dead scattered around their horses’ feet, at the blood staining Colath’s tunic.
And smiled.
“How long do you think you can hold out against us, Aerilann?” he asked.
Tall and spare, balding with only a fringe of grayish