The Eighth Warden Bk. 02 Ch. 15-16

"They're red-eyes, all right!" Corec shouted back to the rest of the group.

The six nearest red-eyed men ran at them, and Corec and Boktar jogged forward awkwardly as the deeper snow gave way to slush and mud. In the distance, three more of the armored soldiers approached the battle, ignoring the bodies they were stepping over.

Sarette froze. She knew what she needed to do, but she couldn't make her feet move forward. Her training had always been one-on-one, and well controlled, and the sudden burst of chaos was overwhelming. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Treya running past her toward the melee. Sarette wanted to join her, but she couldn't figure out where to begin. Corec was directly ahead of her, but just as she started in that direction, he drew his huge sword back to swing. She doubted he was aware of how close she was, so she looked around to find some other way to help.

The spot where they'd stopped was bracketed by two of the only four buildings which still stood intact. Suddenly, the doors on both sides opened and more of the soldiers came streaming out.

"Trap!" Boktar shouted, slamming his shield against one of the men hard enough to knock him down.

Before she realized it, Sarette was surrounded, along with Treya, Corec, and Boktar. There had to be over twenty of the red-eyed men circling them.

One of them rushed at her. She let her training take over, parrying his arming sword to the side, then charging her staff-spear with lightning and touching it to his brigandine. The armor had too much cloth padding for the attack to kill him, but as the flash of blue light hit him, he let out a high-pitched squeal and fell forward, collapsing to all fours.

His helmet didn't cover the back of his neck, so she grasped her spear in both hands and plunged it down as hard as she could. He fell on his face, twitching. Then he stopped moving.

Sarette pulled the blade out and stared down at the body. She froze again, suddenly wondering if he'd had a family.

A weight slammed into her back, and she went sprawling onto the dead man. Wincing in pain, she managed to roll over and look up, finding one of the red-eyes standing above her with a longsword. He was eerily silent as he prepared to strike another blow.

Then a beam of white light hit him in the back of the head and he collapsed, still without ever making a sound. Sarette caught a glimpse of Ellerie aiming a hand in her direction before the swirling combatants blocked her from sight again.

Sarette braced her staff-spear against the ground and forced herself to her feet. She doubted the sword had penetrated her gambeson, much less her chainmail, but the impact had somehow been more painful than anything she'd experienced in her years of training.

She charged her staff-spear again, but knew she wouldn't have the power to do it a third time. Fighting through the pain would be difficult, and once she'd discharged her weapon, she'd be at a disadvantage.

Then, two more men charged at her, and there was no more time to think, only to react.