Medieval 02 - Forbidden

sacred amber pendant from her neck.
    The flash and slice of Amber’s dagger drew an answering scream from the outlaw. He jerked his hands away from her, but only for a moment. She saw his fist coming and managed to turn aside as it struck. Despite her quickness, she was so dazed by the blow that she fell full-length on the ground.
    The second time it was a dagger rather than a fist that the outlaw raised against Amber. Even as she gathered herself to turn aside from the attack, she heard the eerie steel moan of a war hammer slicing circles from the air. There was an awful crack as steel met flesh. The outlaw fell like a stone.
    When his limp hand touched Amber, she felt nothing at all. The man was quite dead.
    She jerked her hand back and began scramblingto her feet. An unexpected shove kept her flat, but no pain came from the contact. It was Duncan’s hand that had touched her.
    “Nay!” he ordered, standing astride Amber. “Stay down!”
    She needed no explanation of why the ground was safer for her at the moment. The hammer’s deadly humming had begun once more.
    Through a veil of her own hair, Amber watched outlaws surge forward again in a ragged charge, their staffs held like lances. Stout wood splintered as though it were charcoal. The single pike was destroyed. Another outlaw fell. He neither moved nor made a sound.
    The heavy war hammer was a lethal steel blur circling Duncan’s head. The remaining outlaws hesitated, then gathered themselves for another overwhelming rush such as they had used to drag Duncan and Amber to the ground.
    With no warning, Duncan leaped forward. The hammer became a lightning bolt, striking in the blink of an eye. The outlaws yelled in outrage as another of their own fell and didn’t rise again.
    Duncan leaped back, standing astride Amber once more, protecting her in the only way he could.
    “Get behind him,” shouted one of the outlaws. “He won’t leap so high-and-mighty with his hamstrings cut!”
    Three outlaws broke from the pack and began moving to Duncan’s rear, careful to remain beyond the deadly reach of the hammer. Duncan couldn’t watch the circling outlaws and the men in front at the same time.
    “Duncan, they will—” Amber began.
    “I know,” he interrupted roughly. “By all that’s holy, stay down !”
    Amber clenched the dagger in her hand and prepared to defend Duncan’s back as best shecould. The dagger’s red eye glowed balefully as she shifted the blade, following the progress of the closest outlaw.
    As the hammer wailed of coming death, Amber’s voice rose in eerie consonance, cursing the outlaws in a language forgotten by all but a handful of Learned.
    One of the outlaws stared at Amber in sudden horror, understanding too late whom he had dared to attack in his greed for wealth. He dropped the splintered end of his staff and ran.
    The remaining outlaws paused in their ragged charge, but only for an instant. The men standing in front of Duncan feinted with staffs, seeking an opening in the deadly circle made by the hammer’s swift, vicious flight. Other men moved well away from Duncan, angling toward his back.
    Suddenly two men rushed in from the rear.
    “Duncan!”
    Even before Amber’s cry left her lips, Duncan leaped and turned about in midair. So great was his strength and his skill with the hammer that the weapon’s deadly hum never hesitated during his turn.
    The hammer swept around in a savage arc, bringing death to the two outlaws who had thought that Duncan’s back made a safe target. Before the other outlaws could take advantage of his turn, he had leaped and faced about to confront them again.
    The hammer hummed once more its song of death, whipped in circles by Duncan’s tireless arm.
    His shocking skill with the weapon broke the outlaws’ will. One of the men made a lunge for Whitefoot, but gave it up when the mare shied violently away. The remaining men turned and ran for the cover of the surrounding mist and forest, leaving their dead behind.
    Duncan watched for the space of a few more breaths before he allowed the hammer to fall silent. A flip of his wrist slackened the chain. Instead of flying in deadly arcs, the hammer came obediently to rest. He slung it over his shoulder, balancing the weight of the ball in back with that of the chain in front. Should he need the weapon again, it would instantly be ready.
    And deadly.
    With shadowed golden eyes, Amber watched the man with no name who had come to her in shades of