When he was sure it was safe, Roran looked over his shield.
Barst was lying on his back amid the rubble, his mace on the ground next to him.
“Get him!” Roran bellowed, and ran forward.
Many of the gathered Varden started toward Barst, but the soldiers they had been fighting shouted and attacked, stopping them from covering more than a few steps. With a roar, the two armies turned on each other once again, both factions inflamed with a desperate anger.
As they did, Jörmundur emerged from a side street, leading a hundred men whom he had collected from the edges of the battle. He and those with him would help hold back the scrum of combatants while Roran and the others dealt with Barst.
From the opposite side of the square, Garzhvog and six other Kull charged out from behind the houses they had been using for cover. Their pounding footsteps shook the ground, and men of both the Empire and the Varden scrambled to move out of their way.
Then hundreds of werecats, most in their animal forms, slipped out from the main body of the intermingled armies and streamed across the cobblestones, teeth bared, toward where Barst lay.
Barst had just begun to stir when Roran reached him. Grabbing his spear with both hands, Roran brought it down on Barst’s neck.
The blade of the weapon stopped a foot away, and the tip bent and snapped as if it had struck a block of granite.
Roran cursed and continued to stab as quickly as he could, trying to keep the Eldunarí within Barst’s breastplate from recovering its strength.
Barst groaned.
“Hurry!” Roran bellowed at the Urgals.
Once they were close enough, Roran sprang aside so that the Kull would have the room they needed. Taking turns, each of the massive Urgals struck at Barst with their weapons. His wards blocked them, but the Kull continued to hammer away. The sound was deafening.
Werecats and elves gathered around Roran. Behind them, he was half-aware of the warriors he had brought with him holding off the soldiers, along with Jörmundur’s men.
Just when Roran was beginning to think that Barst’s wards would never give way, one of the Kull uttered a triumphant shout, and Roran saw the creature’s ax glance off the front of Barst’s armor, denting it.
“Again!” shouted Roran. “Now! Kill him!”
The Kull lifted his ax out of the way, and Garzhvog swung his ironbound club toward Barst’s head.
Roran saw a flurry of motion, and then there was a loud thud as the club struck Barst’s shield, which the man had pulled over himself.
Blast it!
Before the Urgals could attack again, Barst rolled up against the legs of one of the Kull, and his hand latched on to the back of the Kull’s right knee. The Kull bellowed with pain and hopped backward, pulling Barst out of the knot of Kull.
The Urgals and two elves closed in around Barst once more, and for a number of heartbeats, it seemed as if they might subdue him.
Then one of the elves went flying, her neck crooked at an odd angle. A Kull fell onto his side, shouting in his native language. Bone protruded from his left forearm. Garzhvog snarled and jumped back, blood streaming from a fist-sized hole in his side.
No! thought Roran, going cold. It can’t end like this. I won’t let it!
Shouting, he ran forward and slipped between two of the giant Urgals. He barely had time to see Barst—bloody and enraged, with his shield in one hand and a sword in the other—before Barst swung his shield and struck Roran on the left side of his body.
The air rushed out of Roran’s lungs, and the sky and the ground spun around him, and he felt his helmet-covered head bouncing against the cobblestones.
The world seemed to keep moving beneath him even when he rolled to a stop.
He lay where he was for a time, struggling to breathe. At last he was able to fill his lungs with air, and he thought he had never been so grateful for anything as he was for that breath. He gasped. Then he howled as his body filled with pain. His left arm felt numb, but every other muscle and sinew burned with agony.
He tried to push himself upright and fell back onto his stomach, too dizzy and hurt to stand. Before him was a fragment of yellowish stone, veined with coiled branches of red agate. He stared at it for a while, panting, and the whole time, the only thought running through his mind was: Have to get up. Have to get up. Have to get up.…
When he felt ready, he tried again. His left arm refused to work, so he was forced to rely on his right alone. Hard as it was, he got his legs underneath him, and then he slowly rose to his feet, shaking and unable to take more than shallow breaths.
As he straightened, something pulled in his left shoulder, and he uttered a silent scream. It felt as if a red-hot knife were buried in the joint. Looking down, he saw that his arm was dislocated. Of his shield, nothing remained but a splintered board still attached to the strap around his forearm.
Roran turned, searching for Barst, and saw the man thirty yards away, covered in clawing werecats.
Satisfied that Barst would be occupied for at least a few more seconds, Roran returned his gaze to his dislocated arm. At first he could not remember what his mother had taught him, but then her words returned to him, faint and blurred by the passage of time. He pulled off the remnants of his shield.
“Make a fist,” mumbled Roran, and he did so with his left hand. “Bend your arm so your fist points forward.” That he did, though it worsened his pain. “Then turn your arm outward, away from your …” He screamed a curse as his shoulder grated, the muscles and tendons pulling in ways they were not supposed to stretch. He kept turning his arm and he kept clenching his fist, and after a few seconds, the bone popped back into the socket.
His relief was immediate. He still hurt elsewhere—especially his lower back and ribs—but at least he could use his arm again, and the pain was not so excruciating.
Then Roran looked toward Barst again.
What he saw sickened him.
Barst was standing in a circle of dead werecats. Blood streaked his dented breastplate, and clumps of fur clung to his mace, which he had retrieved. His cheeks were scratched deeply, and the right sleeve of his mail hauberk was torn, but otherwise he appeared unharmed. The few werecats who still faced him were careful to keep their distance, and it looked to Roran as if they were about to turn tail and run. Behind Barst lay the bodies of the Kull and the elves he had been fighting. All of Roran’s warriors seemed to have disappeared, for none but soldiers surrounded Roran, Barst, and the werecats: a seething mass of crimson tunics, the men pushing and shoving as they struggled against the eddies of the battle.
“Shoot him!” Roran shouted, but no one seemed to hear.
Barst noticed, however, and he began to lumber toward Roran. “Lackhammer!” he roared. “I’ll have your head for this!”
Roran saw a spear on the ground. He knelt and picked it up. The motion made him light-headed. “Let’s see you try!” he replied. But the words sounded hollow, and his mind filled with thoughts of Katrina and their child who was yet to be.
Then one of the werecats—who was in the form of a white-haired woman no taller than Roran’s elbow—ran forward and cut Barst along the side of his left thigh.
Barst snarled and twisted, but the werecat was already retreating, hissing at him while she did. A moment more Barst waited, to ensure that she would not trouble him again, and then he continued walking toward Roran, limping now as his new wound exacerbated the hitch in his stride. Blood sheeted down his leg.