El-Vador's Travels Read Online Free PDF Page A

officer, walking
out of the tent and somehow evading the rain of arrows. 'Protect the
gateway, and fight for your lives. If they break into the fort, we're
history. Stand fast and stand with me.'
    Gurgash
could clearly hear another officer shouting about protecting the
archers, who were already pouring shafts into the lines of Elves that
had come out of the forests to greet them.
    Every
so often one would find its mark and one of the Elven enemies would
drop dead. Others seemed impervious to the retaliatory arrows, diving
into the Orcs at a staggering speed and eating up the ground to the
palisade walls.
    Gurgash
suddenly discovered that he was terrified. Jogging toward the gateway
with Harg and his Commander he felt an almost overwhelming urge to
flee so that he need not fight for his life
    Then
came the collision, and he forgot all about fear.
    An
Elven warrior swinging a two-handed sword that shouldn't have been
possible to lift raged toward him, shouting something Gurgash could
not understand but felt very intimidated by.
    Gurgash
stabbed wildly at the creature with his pike, feeling the blade sink
in with as much surprise as his Elven foe.
    To
his shock, the Elf tore the pike from his chest and levelled his
greatsword at a defenceless Gurgash. The Commander's sword came
clattering down and decapitated his foe before being swept off into
another skirmish on the field.
    Gurgash
had to find a weapon in a hurry, if he remained this vulnerable some
other Elven beast would cut him down. At his right hand, Harg speared
another Elf, too engrossed in his own fighting to notice that his
cousin was weaponless.
    Gurgash's
cousin could not defend himself against another Elven warrior, this
one swinging a wicked looking mace directly at his head. Gurgash had
no time to thrust but drew the dagger from the Elf's belt and tore at
his face with it.
    The
enemy warrior wore a leather cap strengthened with iron strips, it
did little to protect his face from the slash and he went down
screaming. Harg's pike made short work of the man afterwards.
    As
the Elven warrior fell, Gurgash dropped the dagger, a blinding pain
enveloping his left hand. It was as if the blade had turned on him
and set itself ablaze.
    'Are
you hurt?' Harg asked, thinking his cousin mortally wounded.
    'I'll be fine.' replied Gurgash. 'These Elven blades burn to the
touch.'
    Harg
nodded, 'I should have warned you about that.' Then they were back
fighting once more.
    They
were being pushed back through the gateway by the Elves in spite of
their efforts, it wasn't looking good.
    Raising
his voice above the din of the fight, he called once more to his
cousin. 'Harg, we're losing ground!'
    'I
can see that!' screamed Harg, locked in combat with an Elf he was
slowly getting the better of.
    Gurgash
had to fall back several paces or be left behind by their retreating
allies, which would have left them cut off, assailed from all
directions at once and doomed to quick destruction. Harg risked
staying forward a moment longer to finish his opponent before being
surrounded by Elves.
    'Get
back here you mad fool!' Gurgash wailed at him as he saw the Elves
converging on his position.
    Harg
skewered his opponent and leapt back, dashing toward the palisade
gates and narrowly avoiding getting speared in turn.
    The
reinforcements from the gateway were entering the fight too slowly,
the Elves they were facing were not the prancing fools the Orcs had
slaughtered in earlier campaigns. The Elf that nearly ended him
roared out a wordless bellow of hate and rage at having narrowly
missed, his face contorted into a mask of fury that would have made
any foe quail.
    Harg
jabbed with his pike to keep the warrior at a distance as he
retreated. The Elf howled incomprehensible but oddly musical curses
at him.
    Harg
didn't mind being cursed, so long as he could join his cousin's side
in one piece at the gateway. Then his foe reached out with his left
hand to seize the pike and shove it aside so he could