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He lost sight of the battle as he sprinted down the valley Those few armed men he encountered he passed before they could raise a challenge, until he got to Black Bridge There, half a dozen men with pikes and short swords at their belts turned fro man shouted
As Kylar stopped in front of them, a crack like thunder shook the earth Kylar was the only one who kept his feet He turned his eyes to Black Barrow The slight rises and dips of the plain between hireat dome were covered arriors, both human and krul, but the battle slowed as those not in the front line looked to the great shining black sphere Another thunder crack shook the plain, and this tihest point of the dome down its sides Men cursed in fear and wonder
The third crack shattered the doe chunks of black rock three feet thick exploded into the air and rained onto the Dead De krul and es sharp around the hole in its crown
More sharp blows followed and the rest of the doe cloud of black dust like a stain of night across the ethe bridge asked
Kylar was already running
Most of the fighting rim business of war took all their attention The allies’ ar extremely well if what Kylar had seen of their relative nuon’s archers fit an odd arrow to his Ymmuri bow and shoot Two hundred paces away, one of the Khalidoran signal flags went up in flames It was obviously on purpose, because only one or two Khalidoran signal flags reood idea that had been
Curoch was still strapped to his back and the black ka’kari concealed it Kylar drew neither as he closed with the rear of the Cenarian line His battle senses see out everything but the sharp outlines of the figures in his path This group was spear forward There would be no slipping through these ainst the backs of thetheir elbows up so their spears wouldn’t becoled in the press
Kylar leapt lightly and pushed off one man’s shoulder, twisted, pushed off another’s spear hand, then planted both feet on the shoulders of a man in the second row and jumped as hard as he could He was over the Cenarians so fast he didn’t even hear their cries of surprise
His leap took him over the first six lines of krul Kylar read the bodies of those a which he would land Five black creatures and one a diseased flaky white that seemed their leader T him Kylar tucked his knees to his chest, flipped, then threw his feet forward at the last second His feet connected with a big black krul over its eyes Its head snapped back and its neck cracked Kylar rolled to his feet
He’d never seen krul before They were shaped like gish, brows prominent, shoulders heavy, necks almost nonexistent, but beyond that, each was different, as if they were the products of many different hands The one closest to Kylar’s left was covered with fur, two others were hairless The one directly in front of him had a nose s horns Three had an extra knuckle’s worth of finger on their hands, sharpened into claws Their skin or fur was the black of a bloated corpse, and they smelled of rot None wore armor or clothes except the white one, and few had weapons other than their claws or horns The white was taller than the others, e dull blade at Kylar
Kylar dodged it and crushed the white’s throat with a kick Kylar darted behind another, grabbed its horns, and broke its neck before he realized that perhaps a dozen black krul weren’twhite leader It was hissing, trying to breathe Unnerved by their sudden listlessness, Kylar paused for a moment--a pause that in a normal battle could have been lethal He pulled a tanto from his belt and jammed it into the white krul’s heart Krul apparently kept their hearts where men did, because it died as he withdrew the blade
What little light had been in the piggish eyes around hiuttered out The ten krul looked lost For three impossible seconds, they didn’tThen, as if each had been yanked on a leash toward a new master, the krul bolted in ten different directions
A jolt of fear h Kylar’s bond with Vi She o hundred paces to his left
Kylar ran through the Dead Demesne, over corpses that looked oddly fresh but didn’t stink He was behind the main line of krul, but there were still hundreds that saw him His Talent filled him like a fire He was a blur
As always, he could feel Vi ot She was in the ic was astounding Magae flanked Vi and they faced a dozen V&uuh every inch of exposed skin On a white charger in white enauards faced dozens of an slashed his sword into the top of its head Its claws scored his horse’s armor as it fell dead
A wash of fire spurted froainst a shiae had put around him A squat red krul, a head shorter than most of its kin but three times as wide, with skin that looked like it was entirelyThe horse whinnied as its leg cracked It fell, spilling one of Logan’s bodyguards to the ground He ju off its skin He stabbed it; his blade bowed but then pierced the creature’s skin It ignored it and grabbed his arrabbed the man’s other arm and tried to pull hiainst the krul’s palether Gnasher kept pulling, not understanding the guard was already dead
Greenish krul with splayed legs like frogs leapt at Logan, trying to knock hiuards opened their throats
As Logan’s knot of warriors ground slowly toward the Dead De chanted calmly Kylar saw the sword-tooth cat’s split head mend, and moments later it stood Everywhere, the scene was repeated The V&uu the most powerful krul they lost
Kylar unlimbered Curoch and decapitated that Vürdmeister, and then another before it could raise the red-skinned ogre, and cut a third in half Through the press of bodies, he saw Vi A krul claw slapped into her arm, but bounced off as her blood-red dress hardened like armor She sliced off the krul’s arm and met Kylar’s eyes She pointed behind hie It had cracked open Black Barrow and noas co to war The sheer size of it was hard to believe It was shaped almost like a man, its skin a coolly luold and short and spiky like an unruly boy’s, its eyes black with silver vertical irises like a cat’s, its od froe spikes extended fros draped froed behind it It wielded a spiked pole as a cudgel