Kriki's Gift, Chapter 29, Reading 8

Suddenly, a flight of arrows sliced through the air above them to blanket the landscape to the right of the road.  Rangers had taken up position on the steep and wooded slope north of the river and were plying the positions of the attackers with a steady rain of arrows.  They were using long bows so they had the carry to easily make their shots land on the slope across the river from their positions.  Rodal and his men still couldn’t see any of the Valkea’s people, but the pace of the attack slowed – presumably because the enemy was taking shelter from the Rangers’ ferocious counterattack.

Captain Rodal turned his horse out of the line of defenders to look at his men.  He could see that at least two of his men were down and he counted seven dead horses, not including Darrine and Kulm’s.  There were both men and horses numbering among the wounded.  “Those on the south side of the road - hold your positions,” he commanded.  He looked at several of the men perched on the wagons.  “Get our casualties loaded on the wagons.  We leave no one behind,” he yelled.

All of the men knew that the Valkea’s minions were cannibals and no man would leave a fellow Guardsmen behind to be so defiled.  Men started to jump from the wagons to help their wounded comrades and to load the bodies of the two men who had been killed.

The Rangers kept up an uninterrupted stream of arrows from their positions on the north side of the river.  Rodal continued to gaze up at the slope to see if he could spot what was happening.  It was obvious at this point that the Valkea was shielding her fighters from view.  Surely, some of the Rangers’ arrows were finding targets, but there were no cries of pain or other sounds coming from the Valkea’s people.  Perhaps she could disguise sounds as easily as she could sights.

The air was suddenly rent with an unearthly screech of outrage.  The scream was immediately followed by a roaring sound akin to a wind rushing towards them.  When the blast of energy reached them a vision of darkness exploded into everyone’s thoughts.  There was no hiding from this overwhelming sense of doom.  Some men staggered against the crushing will filling their minds with madness and held their hands to their ears in an ineffectual attempt to block out the insanity being forced into their thoughts.  Others became unmoving statues for they were powerless to do anything for their minds were so weighed down by the torment.  Eventually, several of the men were utterly overwhelmed by the Valkea’s mental assault and they lost consciousness and collapsed, falling off the wagons or from their saddles.

Carra leaned against Badger’s neck, buried her face in his mane, and hid beneath her shield.  Her thoughts were filled with writhing and twisted shadows of evil, things of darkness beyond the knowledge of human beings.  She couldn’t escape from this nightmare and wished she could faint or even die to escape this horror.