Eternal Beasts

Chapter 11: Echoes of Destiny

Seth leapt forward to catch the Lord of Eternal Beasts before he could hit the ground, the tuathan commander grim. Carefully he eased the wounded being to the ground. Then, taking the rider's own bow, he stood into a careful crouch and began to fire on the flanking platoon with a speed and accuracy that only a nomad could possess. Arrow after arrow he loosed at them until, with a scream of pain, the last one dropped, an arrow in its left eye. Then, tossing the bow aside, he knelt again to see how bad the damage was.

A small dart, no longer than Seth's middle finger, now protruded about halfway out of the nysim's left eye socket, the eye itself ruined and torn by the dart's impact. It looked to be some kind of blow dart, launched with a spit tube. If the rider hadn't flinched when he did, it would've fatally pierced his right temple.

As it was, the damaged area was of such importance that the nysim's life was still in danger. Fluid and blood from the eye mixed into a sticky ooze that slowly seeped from the side of the destroyed orb to trickle down the rider's face, pooling beside his head on the ground. As the nomad leader held the nysim close, he could feel the rider's entire body spasm in reaction to the pain that now radiated from the damaged socket like boiling lava.

Then, in a spray of dirt and gravel, his second in command Joshua skidded in beside Seth and the fallen rider, his hand axe red with cholim blood.

"Is he dead?" the wiry nomad huntsman asked, looking down at the twitching Jared for a moment before returning his attention to their surroundings. The big nysim had gouged out a mighty chunk of the cholim force's numbers with his astounding counterattack, but there were still at least two company's worth engaging nomad forces all across the plateau. And a half dozen dragons in the air, turning anything they could catch out in the open into ash.

"Not yet," Seth bit out grimly. "But if we don't act fast, he will be." Taking a deep breath, he slid his arms beneath Jared's legs and, with a smooth surge of tuathan strength, stood, the stricken human cradled against him.

"We need to get him to Dalene. I can only hope she has the power to counteract whatever that dart is doing inside his head!"

"Not a good idea, Seth," Joshua countered. "Service was the first thing to get overrun when the shades broke through the camp perimeter. I don't even know if Dalene is still alive!"

"Only one way to find out, lad," Seth said with no small amount of resolve. "Cover me." Then he was off at an awkward run for the path leading down into the beleaguered camp. Grimacing, Joshua slammed the haft of his axe through his belt then pulled his bow off his back. Then, running sideways, twisting and turning to look at their backtrail as often as he could, he followed the grim nomad commander, an arrow nocked for immediate firing.

Somehow, despite his burden and a battle raging all around them, Seth managed to reach Service, the part of their camp where services like healing, smithing, and leatherwork, was centralized. And he groaned when he saw that Joshua was right; the place had been virtually obliterated by the initial wave of the assault. Even their healer's tent, belonging to stately Dalene, their Maker-blessed and skilled healer, was a smoldering ruin.

He was about to sink to his knees in despair when there was a flurry of movement from that smoldering ruin. Then he watched in astonishment as one of his huntsmen that was skilled in field and battle medicine, Caleb, stood, his arms piled high with various supplies.

"Caleb! Over here!"

"Blessed Maker, Seth, the blood just isn't stopping!" Caleb snarled, a young man with wisdom and skill beyond his years, the medic grimacing as he pulled a bloody piece of padding free to replace it with a clean one. Seth nodded grimly.