Inheritance
Page 225

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.
Roran wet his lips, unable to look away from his approaching foe. He had only the spear. He had no shield. He could not outrun Barst, and he could not hope to match Barst’s unnatural strength or speed. Nor was there anyone nearby to help him.
It was an impossible situation, but Roran refused to admit defeat. He had given up once before, and he would never do so again, even though reason told him that he was about to die.
Then Barst was upon him, and Roran stabbed at his right knee, in the desperate hope that he might by some chance cripple him. Barst deflected the spear with his mace, then swung at Roran.
Roran had anticipated the counterattack and was already stumbling backward as fast as his legs would allow. A gust of wind touched his face as the head of the mace swept past, inches from his skin.
Barst showed his teeth in a grim smile, and he was about to strike again when a shadow fell on him from above, and he looked up.
Islanzadí’s white raven dropped out of the sky and landed on Barst’s face. The raven screeched with fury as it pecked and clawed at Barst, and Roran was astonished to hear the raven say, “Die! Die! Die!”
Barst swore and dropped his shield. With his free hand, he batted the raven away, breaking its already-injured wing. Ribbons of flesh hung loose from his brow, and blood painted his cheeks and chin crimson.
Roran lunged forward and stabbed Barst’s other hand with his spear, causing Barst to drop his mace as well.
Then Roran seized his chance and stabbed at Barst’s exposed throat. However, Barst caught the spear with one hand, tore it from Roran’s grip, and broke it between his fingers as easily as Roran might break a dry twig.