to strike. The s’kash and the yataghan clashed, parted, and clashed again. The orc jumped back, waiting for his fellows to move up.
“You’re finished, you scum!”
Elodssa did not bother to answer. Of course, five against one was very bad odds, but the elf was saved by the fact that he was standing in the doorway and only two of them could attack him at once.
“Duck!” a familiar sharp voice said behind him.
He did as he was told and the bow that appeared above his shoulder fired an arrow that buried itself in an orc’s eye. Another shot, and a second orc fell, shot through the heart. Midla fired her third arrow point-blank into the face of the enemy running at her. Elodssa joined in the fight, giving the elfess time to put her bow away and draw her two swords.
Dodging a blow from the right, he raised his s’kash over his head, offering the flat side of the blade to his opponent’s yataghan. The orc was caught out, his yataghan slid along the downward slope of Elodssa’s s’kash, and the force of his own blow carried him forward an extra step, exposing his flank. The elf’s curving blade sliced through his opponent’s left arm and deep into his side. The elf then raised his weapon, stepped to the side—and the s’kash severed his enemy’s neck, sending the head tumbling across the floor until it stopped somewhere under the table.
Elodssa hurried to assist Midla, but she had already dealt with the final orc herself. There were two curved blades protruding from the enemy’s dead body. Midla slumped back against the wall, hissing in pain as she squeezed shut the gaping yataghan wound in her leg.
“Are you all right?”
“No, by a thousand demons! How could you be so stupid as to come here alone? What if I hadn’t got here in time?”
“I’d have had to manage on my own,” he said, tearing up a cloth he had found in the dwarf’s workshop.
“On your own,” Midla muttered, tightening the knot. “That wolf’s spawn even managed to wound me.”
“Can you walk?”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to walk for the next few months.”
“We have to get out of here. Who knows how many enemies entered the galleries.”
“Are these the ones who killed the guards on that distant gate?”
“Probably. I’ll carry you.”
Midla simply nodded. “Pull the swords out of the body—they mean too much to me.”
“Of course.” Elodssa pulled the twin blades out of the dead body, handed them to Midla, and set off toward the body of the man, intending to pull his own dagger out of it.
In defiance of all the laws of nature, the shaman was still alive, although there was bloody foam on his lips and it had dribbled down onto his chin and beard. Elodssa indifferently tugged the dagger out of the wound and listened to the man wheezing, gurgling, and whistling.
“You . . . ,” the man began, trying to say something. “The Ma . . . ster will po . . . ssess the key . . . any . . . way.”
“I don’t know who your master is, but elves don’t part with their property that easily.”
Elodssa finished off the wounded man, watching with satisfaction as the brown eyes turned glassy. Then he took the key off the table, thought for a moment, and raked all the dragon’s tears into the bag lying on the floor, reasoning quite soberly that the dead had no more need of them, while the gnomes and dwarves would be able to get along without them.
“Is he dead?” Midla asked when he came across and lifted her up in his arms.
“Yes, he was working a spell when I got here. Doing something with the key.”
“That’s none of our business, let the shamans sort that out. Was he working for the orcs?”
“More likely the other way round,” Elodssa panted as he carried Midla out into the corridor. “They were working for him.”
“How is that possible? The orcs never obey anyone they consider inferior to themselves.”
“I didn’t have time to ask them. By the way, did you notice that they weren’t wearing clan badges?”
“Yes. That’s very strange.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Report everything to the gnomes or the dwarves and get out into the open air.”
“And then?”
“Then?” Elodssa thought for a moment. “Then I’m going to give the key to my father and change a few old laws, regardless of the opinion of the head of the house.”
“What laws?”