Hounded

have lost it quickly after seeing Leif take down their leader in the street and then another one lose his feet in my lawn. No, these lads were betting that I wouldn’t be able to dodge three spears thrust at me from a height from three different angles. I might be able to deflect one and dodge another, but the third one would get me. If I jumped straight up or back, I’d get tangled up with my own mesquite tree. If I rolled forward, beneath their thrusts, they’d just stomp on my dumb ass. I was guessing these guys were pushing six hundred pounds, so I didn’t want to be in the middle of their clog dance. That meant I had less than a second to do some impossible shit. The ones on the left and the center had solid footing for their thrusts, but the one on the right had to plant his foot squarely on the back of his fallen, screaming, footless friend, so that was the one I was willing to take my chances with. I leapt to the left, leaving the ground, which they obviously did not expect. Since the lad on the right was out of reach, I slashed at the spearheads of the other two and was gratified to see Fragarach cleave through them easily. But it was too easy: The cut was so clean that, while the heads careened off at an angle, the shafts continued on course, and so both of them caught me full force—one in the shoulder, one in the gut. They threw me backward to crack my back painfully against the trunk of my mesquite tree. And I had been planning such a graceful tuck and roll too.
    The Fir Bolg on the right had missed completely, his thrust stabbing the air where I had been, but he was stepping off his screaming friend’s back and preparing for another thrust. » Coinnigh, « I said, pointing at him, and he unexpectedly found himself immobile. While he tried to figure out what to do about his captured feet, I returned my attention to the first two giants, who were now holding long wooden staves. I assumed that the other four Fir Bolgs were anxious to get at me too, but perhaps Leif and Oberon were keeping them busy. I saw nothing beyond my own personal battle. The one who had been the center attacker decided to steal the spear of his footless friend, since he wasn’t doing anything except bleeding to death. As he bent down to retrieve it, the one on the left decided he would try playing golf with my head. Well, that was easy enough to deal with. I held out Fragarach in the path of his swing, and then I was able to spend a couple of seconds concentrating on the pain my tumble had caused. The blow to my shoulder had deeply bruised the muscle, and it wouldn’t be much use until I healed it. The shot to my abdomen was much more serious: It had penetrated, though not through to the intestines, and I was bleeding freely. As for my back, I was damn lucky I had not broken it. It was probably a chiropractor’s wet dream as it was.
    I wished I could do one of those ridiculous fairy-godmother routines, where you just wave a wand, some sparkly lights fill your vision, and then everything is all better, but my magic doesn’t work like that. I can start the healing process and accelerate it, and I can force my body to ignore pain, but I cannot simply make damage disappear. So I did what I could in two seconds: I activated the healing charm on my necklace, which blocked pain and put me firmly on the mend, and then I had to move. Golf Boy was getting ready to take another swing, his first one shortened a foot or so by Fragarach. The lad from the center now had his footless mate’s spear and was ready to skewer me with it; the immobilized one had decided to throw his spear at me, off balance though he might be. It was time to take the offensive.
    I gathered myself into a crouch and then leapt, but this one was more like Leif’s: I put some earth power behind it, so I was fairly launching myself at the Fir Bolg’s would-be Phil Mickelson. He saw my intent and raised his shield, but that was what I was counting on: I slashed down from right to left and followed through as I arrived, cutting cleanly through both his shield and his skull before crashing my right shoulder into the remainder of his shield and sliding back down to the earth with his crumpling body.
    The Fir Bolgs get my highest marks for battle savagery: The slain giant’s fellows spared him not a single thought but only looked for vulnerabilities my attack might have exposed. I had to whip Fragarach back up across my body to deflect a thrown spear from the