Edge of Destiny

CAT AND MOUSE

Logan Thackeray knelt beside a boulder and glanced back, motioning for the other scouts to vanish into the rubble field. They did. Logan smiled. With dun-colored leather armor, the scouts could move like ghosts through this blasted landscape. That was fortunate, since they were stalking a company of charr.

Logan cupped a hand to his ear and made out the distant thunder of clawed feet. Brown eyes flashing with anticipation, he slid to his stomach and crawled out across a shelf of stone. Just ahead, the shelf dropped away. Logan crept to the edge and peered down.

Below lay a deep, narrow canyon, a passage through this arm of the Blazeridge Mountains. About a mile to the east, the charr were on the march. They looked like beetles in their glinting black armor, scuttling along the base of the canyon.

Up close, though, charr were huge. Five-hundred-pound brutes. Muscle and fur and fang. They had faces like lions and horns like bulls, barrel bodies and bowlegs, clawed hands and feet. Ravenous. They'd already stolen all of Ascalon-all except for Ebonhawke-and they were determined to take that fortress, as well. They were marching to intercept a supply caravan from Divinity's Reach, but they hadn't figured on Logan and his scouts.

"Got to stop them." The stone shelf underneath Logan was crisscrossed with fractures. "A little more weight, and this would shatter like an egg." He glanced back up the boulder-strewn slope. "The right lever beneath the right stone at the right time…"

This was exactly the kind of job Logan loved-moving fast, striking hard, vanishing. His brother would call him a mercenary, but Logan preferred leather armor to polished steel.

Staying low, Logan drew back from the cliff's edge and motioned for his team to follow. They picked their way up the boulder-strewn slope. At last, near the peak, Logan found what he sought-a great round stone poised on a lip above the rest and hidden from the canyon by a fir tree.

In its shelter, he gathered his team. "Ready to strike a blow for humankind?"

Twelve pairs of eyes returned a look of eager resolve.

"We'll need a lever-a sapling, stripped of branches. And we'll need a fulcrum, flat on the bottom and angled on top. This stone, here, will start the rockslide."

"Close off the gap," said Wescott, "before the charr can march through."

"Exactly. We've got little time. Wescott, take Perkins and Fielding and get us a lever. Bring the tree down quietly, out of sight from the canyon. Everlee, work with Dawson and Tippett to position the fulcrum. Castor, take the rest of them to scout an escape over that ridge to the west. When we bring this rockslide down, this hill will be swarming with charr."

"We've never faced charr," said Everlee. "We're not Vanguard or Seraph."

"Thank the gods you're not. You'd be in a hundred pounds of plate mail." Logan grinned. "No, we're scouts-fast on our feet. Now, get going."

The young scouts went swiftly and silently.

While his teams worked, Logan climbed to a lookout point. He surveyed the scene-the keystone boulder, the rockslide slope, the choke point that would soon become a wall, the canyon…

From it rose a streaming banner of dust, kicked up by hundreds of claws on the march. Logan watched the ribbon of dust rise and stretch and coil, approaching the choke point. "Almost time." He withdrew, rejoining his team beside the trigger stone.

Already, they had a long bole poised atop a fulcrum, and the team had positioned themselves on either side of the lever.

"Hold," Logan said, lifting his hand. He peered down the slope to see the snake of dust approach the choke point. "Now!" The scouts heaved on the lever. It strained against the fulcrum, hoisting the great boulder. The huge rock creaked forward, tilted up on the lip of stone, and tottered. The scouts climbed onto the lever, and Logan put his hands on the rock: "Push, you sods!"

The boulder teetered beyond the lip and began to roll. It bounced once against the slope and bashed another boulder. The second rock rumbled down as well. These two struck more, setting off a chain reaction. Giant rocks leaped into motion, and the hillside became a thundering herd of stone.

The ground shook.

Logan and his comrades stared in awe.

The rockslide reached the cliff and poured over it, breaking loose more stone. Massive blocks hurled themselves into the canyon and funneled in to fill the gap. Dust and debris plumed above the cleft while more boulders cascaded down. They piled atop the charr, forming an impassable wall. "We've done it!" Logan called to his team, pounding Wescott's shoulder.

The last of the stones tumbled down, and the roar of rock gave way to the roar of the legion-a sound of fury.

Logan cringed. "Everyone, stay low and out of sight. Castor, take us over that ridge. And quickly!"

The young woman nodded, turning to lead them down a dry wash, through a cut of trees, and to a narrow pass over the ridge. They left the roar of the charr legion in the valley behind them and gazed out on a rugged but silent wilderness.

"Well done, everyone," Logan said. "We bought the caravan a day, maybe. Might've even crushed some of the vermin. Still, some of the charr'll track us, so we can't go back to the caravan. We've got to lead them as far away as possible before the sun quits us."

Centurion Korrak Blacksnout led three hundred charr soldiers through the Blazeridge Gap. The centurion lifted his grizzled face, snorting dust from lionlike nostrils and sneezing. The scars that crisscrossed his dewlaps seized up as if his face might fall apart. The old creature blinked cloudy eyes and ran a claw over his horns, broken from hard campaigning. He growled, "Can't wait to sink my claws into some fat human merchants."

"They say it's the last caravan," said Legionnaire Sever Sootclaw beside him. "They say Queen Jennah's going to get the asura gate in Ebonhawke repaired. It'll be a highway for troops."

"Let her try! We'll turn our siege to storm and tear down the walls and the damned gate," Blacksnout growled. "In the meantime, we've got to stop this caravan!"

"Got to get through the pass, first," muttered Rytlock Brimstone.

Korrak shot a hateful look at him. The dark-furred Brimstone wasn't even Iron Legion, just a Blood Legion cur who'd volunteered for this thankless duty. "What are you doing up here, Soldier Brimstone?" growled Korrak. "I sent you to the rear so I wouldn't have to listen to you."

"I came up to warn you."

"About what?"

Rytlock grunted his disbelief. He nodded horns toward the steep canyon walls. "You're heading into a trap."

"To the animal mind, all is a trap," Korrak hissed, though he, too, scanned the upper canyon. "Where's your courage?"

"It doesn't take courage to march into a trap," Rytlock snorted, eyes narrowing beneath black brows. "It takes idiocy."

Korrak snapped, "Watch your mouth, soldier!"

"Don't you see the rubble fields up there?" Rytlock gestured with pointed claws. "If I were trying to stop a charr legion, that's where I'd be."

Korrak whirled on him. "Is that what you're trying to do, Brimstone-stop a charr legion? Trying to stop me!"

"Heh heh," Rytlock chuckled. "If I wanted to stop you, Centurion, you'd be stopped."

Korrak seized Rytlock's armor and planted the barrel of his axe-rifle in the upstart's throat. "What are you doing here, Brimstone?"

"I told you, warning you about the trap."

"No! I mean what are you doing here, a thousand miles from your own legion?"

"I go my own way!"

"Only because they wouldn't have you! They drove you off-your own legion-not because you couldn't fight. I've seen you fight. No, it's because they couldn't stand you!"

Brimstone's eyes blazed, and his nostrils flared as if he had heard this speech countless times. But a slow smile spread across his lips. "You've got it wrong. I couldn't stand them."

"Or anyone else."

"I don't suffer fools."

"Insufferable!" Korrak roared, jabbing the barrel of his rifle deeper into Rytlock's jaw. "Why shouldn't I empty that hateful head of yours?"

Rytlock's eyes still blazed, unflinching. "You Iron Legion cowards are all alike, hiding behind your guns."

Korrak Blacksnout lowered the axe-rifle, and his voice became a deadly growl. "If this is a trap, Brimstone, you're going into it first." He waved his rifle toward the defile. "March!"

The Blood Legion rogue stared at him for a moment, then marched ahead of the column. He trudged into the narrowest section of the canyon.

Behind him, Blacksnout walked with the rifle aimed ahead, his dewlaps stretched in a smile. "Why do you fear humans, Soldier Brimstone? They're cowards in caravans. They've lost Ascalon, and they're losing Ebonhawke. You have nothing to fear from them."

"I don't fear them," Rytlock replied thoughtfully, looking up the rock wall. "I know them."

A few more steps brought Korrak and a dozen other charr through the choke point. "You even think like a human."

There came a boom like a mallet blow, and the crackle of rocks.

The charr looked up.

Sound lagged sight: A huge rockslide was scouring the slope above. The tumbling chaos of boulders poured over the edge of the cliff before the roar of it reached their ears.

Rytlock, Korrak, and the command corps turned around, shouting to the warriors behind them in the choke point. Their warnings were drowned out.

The first boulder smashed down atop a charr axeman. Another slab hammered a whole warband. Then stones pounded down in such numbers that the soldiers were lost in a crimson cloud of dust.

Korrak, Rytlock, and the command corps fell back as rocks cascaded into the canyon. Stones spun in clouds of dust and hurled out shrapnel. They mounded in the gap-thirty feet and sixty feet and ninety feet high, filling the canyon. At last, the final stones slid over the cliff's edge and clattered to a stop on the huge pile.

It was more than a pile. It was a cairn. Warbands lay interred there.

"A trap!" Rytlock shouted.

"Shut up!" Korrak snarled.

"I told you it was a trap!"

"I said shut up!" Korrak swung the axe end of his weapon in a wide arc.

Rytlock rolled away and came up in a crouch. A fierce smile ripped across his face. He grasped the hilt of his sword and drew it slowly from its stone scabbard. A fiery blade emerged, forged of two sharpened strands of twisted metal. Its name was Sohothin. Long ago it had belonged to a human prince of Ascalon. Now it was Rytlock's.

"You would raise your blade against me?" Korrak Blacksnout growled. "I will put an end to-"

The centurion's threat was cut short along with his neck, severed and cauterized. The head toppled, and the body crouched and fell.

Soldier Rytlock Brimstone turned to the dozen Iron Legion warriors standing with him on the near side of the rockfall and said, "Guess you're going to need a new leader."

One by one, they dropped to their knees and nodded their loyalty.

"We acknowledge you as our centurion-for the moment," snarled Sever Sootclaw. "Shall we clear the passage?"

"Let the charr behind the rocks clear it. We'll hunt down the humans who did this!"

Sootclaw's brow rose. "Humans? Here?"

"Yes. Here." Rytlock glared toward the cliff top. "They're cannier than you realize, but they're also cowards. They'll be fleeing now. We must be faster." Rytlock unclasped his breastplate and let it clank to the ground. "Take no needless thing. We have a long climb and a longer run and a battle afterward."

One by one, the kneeling warriors stood, their breastplates falling to the ground around them. They had given up their defenses. Now, they would fight to the death.

Day was dying as Logan Thackeray and his scouts reached a high pass above the timberline. They were about to descend into a new valley, but Logan lingered on a rocky overhang and peered back the way they had come, watching for movement. So far, only the shadows had moved, lengthening as the sun quit the world. The route they had taken would discourage any but the angriest pursuers.

Of course, these foes were furious.

At first, there was nothing. The mountain was silent, the air still. But then he glimpsed it. Five miles back and half a mile downslope, the saplings shivered with their passage.

The charr were coming.

Logan scrambled back from the overhang and went to his scouts. "They're closing on us. They're only five miles back."

The scouts stared at him, their faces white. They were light scouts trained for merchant caravans-not even part of the Ebon Vanguard. None of them had faced a single charr, let alone a dozen.

"The mountain and the darkness are our allies," Logan said. "We'll set traps as we retreat."

"Where? To the west? Those are ogre lands!" objected Wescott.

"Maybe we'll get past the ogres and the charr won't," Logan said simply. "Let's go!" He led the others down into a new valley.

Beneath a staring moon, Legionnaire Rytlock Brimstone bounded along a trail, dragging the air into his lungs. "They're close now. Can't you smell them?"

In the blackness, Sever Sootclaw crashed his foot on a stone. "Draw your sword. We need light."

"And show them where we are?" snarled Rytlock.

"We can't see. We've lost two already to their traps. How many more?"

"It wasn't the darkness that killed them. It was their own stupidity, and the cleverness of these humans. Their leader knows this land. He knows how we fight."

Sootclaw's brow rumpled. "You sound as if you admire him."

"Yes, like the hound admires the fox," Rytlock said, his eyes flashing. "Fall in! After me! They went this way-south and west." He grinned in the darkness. "We'll catch them within the hour."

"This way!" Logan hissed in the darkness as he ran along the rocky bank of a mountain stream. It was the only sure path through the forest. On all sides, moonlight showed thickets of pine that they couldn't navigate. Behind them flashed glints of horn or fang or steel.

The charr were converging.

Logan and his scouts pelted along the stream, fighting to keep their footing on water-smoothed stones. They were bunched tight, prey running from predators.

The stream dropped away before him in a sudden waterfall.

"Hold up! Hold up!" warned Logan.

The other scouts halted behind him, stopping just on the brink.

"How far down?" asked Wescott.

Logan kicked a stone over the edge and counted to five before he heard it hit. "Too far."

"What now?"

Logan smiled grimly. "Now we wade the stream and find another way."

"They're closing," Everlee noted.

"Yes, they are," Logan replied. "We've killed two or three, but their leader is a wily one. We'll kill a few more before they corner us. Come on."

He stepped into the frigid stream. Water rose to his knees and hips before it grew shallower. Sodden and shivering, Logan and his team rushed up the far bank and away into the darkness.

But there was no stream to guide them now, and little moonlight. In minutes, they had blundered into a thicket. Swords came out to hack through. At last, they broke into a high glade and ran beneath the moon.

Behind them, charr blades battered through the thicket.

Logan and his team ran between two stands of pine and into a narrow valley striped with moon shadows. Blindly they rushed forward and into a steep stone wall.

"Find a way out!" growled Logan.

"There's no way out!" Wescott replied. "A box canyon."

"Try climbing! Find anything to grab hold of," commanded Logan.

The scouts fumbled in the darkness along the rock walls.

Then a light dawned-a fiery light. The scouts turned to see a flaming sword sliding from a stone scabbard. The light sketched out a lionish face, grinning with fangs and eyes that smiled red. The charr stalked forward, towering over the man, and thrust his flaming sword high.

Logan pulled his war hammer from his belt and stepped up. "Wedge formation behind me."

The scouts lifted their weapons and positioned themselves.

The charr with the burning sword spoke. "At last, the rats are cornered."

Logan flashed a cockeyed smile. "We took out a few of you."

"And now, we'll take out all of you," the charr growled. Around him, more charr warriors marched up, slinging their axe-rifles down and pointing them at the humans. Their leader shouted, "Fire!"

The rifles roared, hurling out a barrage of smoke and lead.