torch. She burned her hand as she grabbed up one long stick, but ig-nored the pain and spun about, thrusting the flaming end right into the eye of a zombie.
And so the tide of battle turned, briefly, as zombies fell back from the flames. One toppled, fully ablaze, and then another.
But even so, Juraviel and Brynn knew that they could not win out against o many, for their supply of firebrands was limited indeed, and would fast exhaust itself.
Lut through one line and run away! ? Juraviel instructed.
Brynn nodded and turned to move beside the elf, but then stopped sud-denly, feeling a burning sting in the side of her neck. She reached up, her expression curious.
"Brynn?" Juraviel cried.
The woman exploded into motion, coming forward again, thrusting her brand into the face of one zombie and driving it back.
But then Juraviel watched as her movements unexpectedly and inexplic-ably slowed, as her arms drooped.
"Brynn!" he cried again, slapping his torch to the side, then leaping out the other way as the zombie went up in a blaze of fire.
Juraviel turned just in time to see Brynn tumbling down, zombies falling over her, thrashing and punching.
He could not get to her, could do nothing to help her!
Now Juraviel knew that he had to escape, to flee to Caer'alfar with this horrible news. He turned a complete circuit, his outstretched torch forcing the mob back. He ended the turn by throwing the torch into the face of one creature, then leaped straight up, his wings fluttering to carry him to the boughs.
He almost made it, but one zombie caught him by the ankle.
Juraviel fought against it, his little wings flapping frantically. But elven wings were not meant for flight. They were meant for enhancing leaps and breaking falls, and the zombie's grip was too strong and unrelenting.
Juraviel felt himself spinning down to the side, then swinging about fast.
He saw the tree right before the zombie smacked him into it.
Dazed and on the ground, Juraviel's thoughts were for Brynn, and for his own failure in coming back to her.
He should have flown off immediately for the north. His duty to the Touel'alfar demanded it.
But what of his duty as a friend?
He saw Brynn, then, briefly, lifted from the ground by a zombie and thrown back down hard, while others fell over her limp form, kicking and punch-ing, though she was offering no resistance at all. She appeared to Belli'mar to be dead already.
He kicked and thrashed, trying to break free. He scrambled away as soon as he felt the grip relent, climbing to his feet and taking two quick strides.
But he was tackled, then he was punched, and, finally, half-conscious and helpless against the rain of blows, he saw another creature, this one fully en-gulfed in flames, coming toward him.
In his last flicker of consciousness, Juraviel felt fortunate that one of the other zombies smashed him into blackness before he felt the burning flames.
Belli'mar Juraviel knew no more.
PART 1 TO THE EDGE OF DARKNESS Chapter 6 The Iron Hand of Yatol
The long-caravan snaked its way across the broken brown clay. It appeared like a giant centipede, its torso a long line of camels and covered coaches, its legs the flanking soldiers riding tall horses. In the middle of that center line, in the largest and most lavish coach, Yatol Grysh sat back in his cushy seat, complaining about the heat constantly, though he had several attendants, all beautiful young women, fanning him and patting his brow with moistened towels.
"I do so hate this," the Yatol said repeatedly. ?With the To-gai dogs, there is never any rest from my duties."
The two of his four attendants who were of obvious To-gai-ru descent, with their softer and straighter hair and almond-shaped eyes, didn't flinch at the remark, having long ago gotten used to Grysh's demeaning manner.
"It will calm the outposters," said Carwan Pestle, Grysh's advisor Shep-herd, and the sixth and final person in the wide coach. ?They fear that the thieves grow bolder by the day."
The caravan had been barely out of Jacintha, making its way along the southern shadows of the Belt-and-Buckle toward Dharyan, the town con-trolled by Yatol Grysh, the seat of his power in northwestern Behren, when couriers from Temple Yaminos of Dharyan had caught up to them, inform-ing the ruling Yatol that the thieves of the Corcorca region of To-gai, just west and south of Yaminos, always a thorn, had become even more active. That, of course, had unsettled the outposters, the Behrenese emigrants