"Stan Nicholls - Orcs First Blood 03 - Warriors Of The Tempest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nicholls Stan)

Soon the stockpiles were exhausted, and the sides fell to swapping jeers and taunts. Hands were filled with
close combat weapons.
'I give it another two minutes,' Coilla predicted.
She was wrong. The stand-off was broken in half that time.
Emboldened by their greater numbers, the humans suddenly rushed forward, a black tide thick with steel.
тАШThis is it,' Jup muttered darkly, hiking a butterfly axe from its saddle scabbard.
Haskeer drew a broadsword. Scooping back a sleeve, Coilla plucked a throwing knife from her arm sheath.
Alfray levelled the spiked banner spar.'Hold fast! And watch those flanks!'
Any other advice was drowned by the onslaught.
The custodians' larger numbers and lesser discipline had them grouping together as they came in to confront
the lesser force, hampering themselves. It didn't change the fact that each Wolverine faced towering odds, but
it did buy a few seconds grace.
Coilla used it to try picking off some of the enemy before they reached her. She flung her knife at the nearest
human. It smacked home in his windpipe and he plunged from his mount. Quickly snatching another blade,
she pitched it underarm at the next foe, spiking his eye. Her third throw was wide of its mark, and proved the
last. Now they were too close for anything but hand-to-hand. Shrieking a battle cry, she brought her sword
into play.
The first warrior to reach Jup paid for it dearly. A blow from the dwarf's weighty axe split his skull showering
blood and bone shards on all in range. Two more custodians waded in. Dodging their blades, Jup sent out a
wide horizontal swing that severed the hand of one and stove in the other's chest. There was no pause. More
opponents replaced the fallen. His weathered, bearded face straining with effort, Jup laid into them.
Haskeer's savage rain of blows downed both his initial attackers. But the second took the blade with him as
he fell, leaving Haskeer to face his next assailant bare-handed. The man had a pike. They wrestled for it,
knuckles white, the barbed spear jerking back and forth. Plumbing all his strength, Haskeer drove the butt
into the man's stomach, breaking his grip. With a dextrous flip, the weapon was delivered to its owner's
innards. Prised free, it served again on another custodian. But this vic-tim's writhing snapped it, leaving
Haskeer with a useless length of shank.
Then two things happened at once. Another human moved in on him with flashing sword. And a lone arrow
zipped from the scrum to pierce Haskeer's forearm.
Howling more with fury than pain, he wrenched out the gory shaft. Brandishing the arrow he lurched forward
and employed it like a dagger, stabbing at the custodian's face. The distraction let Haskeer snatch away the
wailing man's blade and gut him. His place was instantly taken. Haskeer fought on.
Favouring a hatchet over the spar for close combat, Alfray wielded it with deadly precision. But in truth it was
all he could do to hold back the storm. Though he had an orc's lust for bloodletting, his years were beginning
to tell. Yet despite his waning stamina he matched any in butchery. For now.
He scanned the melee and saw that he wasn't the only one over-extended. The whole band was on the point
of being overwhelmed, with fighting especially brutal at the wings, where the enemy was trying to outflank
them. The Wolverines may have had little option other than a
stand, but it was proving too bold a move. They were taking wounds though so far none of them had gone
down. That wouldn't last.
Though only a corporal, Alfray was on the point of ignoring protocol and shouting the order himself. Jup beat
him to it, yelling words that stuck in an orc's throat.
'Fall back! Fall back!'
The instruction spread along the besieged line. Grunts hastily disentangled themselves and withdrew. The
face-off became a rearguard action. But the custodians, suspicious of a feint, were wary of going after their
quarry with any zeal. The band knew their reluctance was temporary.
Arms aching from the exertion of slaughter, Coilla retreated with the rest, reopening the gap between the
lines. The Wolverines moved closer together.
She came to Jup. 'What now? Run again?'
'No chance,' the dwarf panted.