Stoneweaver

Stoneweaver - Chapter 29

The slaves made enough noise with their approach to the surface that Welden couldn't help but notice, but kept his attention on directing the pair of stone avatars popping up in the midst of the guards, who backed nervously away. Occasionally one or more would try to dash around and charge him, but they didn't get far, and now appeared to just be holding him there, with pointless attacks on his avatars.

From the noises behind he guessed they'd reached the surface, although their eyes would take a short while to adapt to the light. Some sounded like they could see the battle, and he thought he caught an edge of excitement in there. Time to push the guards into a rout then.

A fragment of his consciousness maintaining the air, to protect from any sneak attacks, the rest of his mind focussed on directing the pair of avatars as they made their inexorable way through the diminishing force facing them.

The guards seemed about ready to break, but this didn't encourage him. Why had no Stoneguards responded, even if none had been stationed here? Possibly any stationed here had been called to search for him earlier. Or maybe they'd been the ones down in the mine. But some should have responded to the noise by now. He hadn't expected the invasion to start yet, so what would be taking so much of their attention.

First one, then another, and eventually all the remaining guards finally gave up the futile battle, running away. He heard the whispers spreading among the slaves at this, and turned to watch them stumbling out into the sunlight, eyes shielded but focussed on the fleeing guards.

They'd begun to accept the possibility of freedom, but he didn't delude himself into thinking that would turn things around. They could still break at the first sign of a setback. He needed a victory they could claim for their own.

Another noise intruded on his consciousness, and he barely recognised it in time to duck aside from the mace swung at his head. Rolling away, he felt one of the stone avatars slipping from his control, but he let the other stop as well. If his opponent stayed in the air, it wouldn't do much good, but if he landed it could be a surprise.

The Stoneguard did land, as did another three, surrounding him in a circle, which drew panicked gasps from the slaves. All four placed gemstones on the ground, quickly raising avatars as he reached his knees. He hesitated, meeting the eyes of each in turn, but they didn't stop, their animations closing on him.

He shot up into the air before they covered half the distance, and after quickly scanning the air, ensuring no more were close by, he glanced down, and before they could follow him, his stone avatar charged one, hitting him with finality.

This drew the attention of the other three, and their animations quickly moved to intercept the threat before it could reach the next of them. Welden kept it moving, even as he dove at another of them, who spotted him at the last moment, too late to stop the impact. The Stoneguard had his own air avatar surrounding him, but it didn't cushion enough of the blow as he fell to the ground with his neck at an odd angle.

Rolling out of the collision, Welden quickly regained his feet, and turned to face the remaining two. Their avatars battled his, but the one to the left, not threatened by his avatar, glanced his way, recognising him as the immediate threat.

He glanced away, his avatar disengaging form the fight and disappearing into the ground. Welden took the brief opportunity to glance at the slaves, catching Arganell's eye, and then flying up a short distance before the Stoneguard looked back his way. Cursing, the man followed him into the air, and drew his sword, darting forward to thrust at Welden.

Barely drawing his own sword in time, he managed to deflect the charge, spinning out of trouble, and coming around to face him again, even while keeping the avatar just in sight enough to direct.

The next thrust followed in seconds, also deflected, but followed by a slash which nearly got through. Not that it had been intended to do real damage, as much as to draw his attention from the other fight, so the other Stoneguard could join them. From the corner of his eye he could see the man backing away from the avatars, and glance up at the aerial fight.

The Stoneguard's attention didn't stay there long though, as he spotted movement behind him a second after Welden had, but didn't react in time to avoid Arganell charging him to the ground, a few of the less timid slaves joining in, with more moving slowly towards them. But they started hesitating, and Welden caught sight of the guards returning to the fight, now he was occupied.

Returning to his own fight, he dodged another wild slash from his opponent, who appeared unaware of events below. Obviously trained, his sword fighting up here felt slightly awkward, as though he'd trained with the sword and in the air, but doing both together caused him problems.

Fighting defensively, Welden wanted to keep this going until he could see how the battle below would go, and when he could spare a glance he saw Arganell rising from the dead Stoneguard with his weapon in hand. A few of the other former slaves moved towards the other fallen to retrieve their weapons, and the guards seemed to slow their approach in response.

Satisfied things seemed to be going right, Welden turned his full attention to ending this fight. Unwrapping an invisible strand of his air avatar, he held it ready in front of him as the Stoneguard made another thrust straight at him. The invisible hand pushed the guard's sword hand wide as Welden kept his blade in place, flying forward and catching the Stonegurad straight on. The light went from his eyes a moment after his weight returned with his avatars absence, and he fell.

Their Stoneguards down, the guard broke again. The slaves began to give chase, but Welden landed in front of them, holding them back. "They'll be organising before coming in greater numbers. We need to go through the barracks and get weapons for as many of us as possible."

By that time they should hopefully have allies, if only of convenience, on the field. He scanned the skies, wary of more Stoneguards. All in all, things appeared to be going a lot better than he should expect. Okay, he'd taken a possibly fatal wound, and his army were undernourished and unused to sunlight, but he'd expected worse by this point.