Elven Legacy

Chapter 2

Sand got kicked and tossed into the air all around, as Noah and Fenek stayed back and respectively unleashed knife and arrow. Fenek's opponent took the arrow in the shoulder but kept coming regardless. Fenek unsheathed his short sword just in time and parried.

Then Noah could no longer worry about his friend; his own opponent blocked the knife with his spear blade and it flew off to sink into the sand. Noah tried again with another throwing knife, got the tall Eonak man in the stomach. Didn't even slow him down.

Noah unsheathed his sword as hurriedly as Fen had and brought it up to deflect the charging spear. Noah leapt aside, letting his opponent stumble in the aftermath of his momentum. He tried for a horizontal sweep of his sword, but the Eonak man twisted away and brought up his spear again with a grunt. Noah's sword blocked the attack in a wild parry to the side, leaving an opening. He kicked the man's gut beside the knife, around which blood had started to gather. 

His opponent finally showed signs that he was in pain, reeling back with the kick, his breathing harder. Noah plucked another knife from his belt and threw it in less time than it took to exhale. The tribesman went down with the second knife in his throat.

Noah ran to retrieve the knife that had dived in the sand. As he straightened back up, he surveyed how his fellow Wraiths were doing.

The fight was already decided. As Noah watched, Seyar gutted one and slashed another, Grenna drove his spear through a tribesman with a sickening crunch, Fenek and Altad finished off one opponent together, and the rest fell like dominos. The Wraiths' training involved a lot of team fighting. Seyar had been right. Outnumbered like this, the Eonak should've just surrendered and released the girls.

Noah's head was starting to pound from the heat, the sand and dust in the air watered his eyes, and his ears rang with the last sounds of battle – pained grunts, thumps and thuds and metallic clatter of fallen weapons.

Thing was, he'd had a bit too much rum last night, plus this morning there hadn't been time to grab breakfast. The headache was catching up.

Everyone seemed unharmed. Grenna appeared to be limping a little and there was blood on his pant leg, but it didn't look serious. Save for a few scratches here and there, the others came away unscathed too.

The silence that followed was soon broken by another scream – young and female this time. It came from one of the tents.

Altad instantly sprinted over there, with both Noah and Fenek quick on his heel. They passed the tree and stepped between the first yurts, inadvertently knocking down a pole and clothesline in the process. Beneath the acacia, the two dromedaries had stayed still the whole time, though their heads were raised and their eyes wide open.

"Hannia!" Altad shouted.

Her response came from a big domed tent just behind him. "In here, dad!"

He spun wildly, tossed his spear aside and tore the tent's flap door open. Fenek was close behind Hannia's father. Noah stood nearby too, but he watched warily as other Eonak were coming out of their homes wielding spears, knives and sometimes just sticks. Most of them were women and children. Noah still had his short sword in hand, but he really didn't want to fight anybody else if he could avoid it.

Hannia screamed again, "No!"

Panic flared up Noah's heart as he turned back around, worried for Fenek. But Fen was fine, it was Altad who'd been stabbed by a man inside the tent. Hannia's father roared like thunder as he leapt and – Noah bent himself lower to look – now it seemed Altad was strangling this man. The frightened girls, meanwhile, accepted Fenek's hand to get up and out the tent.