Surrounded

Dozens of horses barreled toward the humans each carrying a reptilian rider on its back. Unlike the ones who were already chasing them on foot, these creatures held spears. It was a horrifying sight.

"They can ride?!" Renat yelled, frustrated. "And they have horses?!"

"Looks that way," Eria jerked her horse to the side to avoid a pitfall in the sloping ground. "Keep clear of the flames and keep going!"

She allowed Renat to take the lead, falling behind the royal twins to intercept any creature who came too close with her sword.

Realizing her brother was not going to return for her satchel, the princess became sullen yet determined. With a motion that nearly sent her careening off the back of the saddle, Mairwen managed to turn around and press her back up against her brother.

"What are you doing?!" Alaron threw his arm behind himself to hold onto his sister.

"Target practice! Give me another bow and keep the horse steady!" Mairwen ordered him. Although the quiver was still looped around her torso, the bow had been lost when she was swept up onto the horse.

Resisting the urge to grumble about the assumption that he had multiple bows, Alaron whipped out a weapon from his cloak and passed it over his shoulder. The new bow was larger than her normal weapon, and required more strength. However, the blue-eyed woman had no intention of letting that slow her down.

The princess wasted no time in letting the first arrow fly as a flash lit up the clouds. Since the creatures on horseback were not yet close in range, Mairwen's first target was one of the pedestrians.

Rather than aim at the torso of the lizard, which seemed to have unusually leathery thick skin, Mairwen aimed for the creature's joint, specifically his knee.

She didn't need to kill the monster, just stop it from following them. The tip of the arrowhead lodged in the creature's leathery green flesh right at the bend where a human kneecap should be. The lizard managed one more bounding step, but whatever held the monster's muscles to the bone had been severed. The creature collapsed into the high brown grass, disappearing into the foliage.

Two more arrows yielded similar results to those following on foot. The rest of the monsters who were on the ground began to fall away both from fatigue and because they were wary of being next. If only those had been the only problem, the humans would have been in the clear.

But the second wave of attackers was growing nearer. Mairwen tried to aim her arrows at the riders, but downing them was a bigger challenge. She had no desire to hurt their horses, and aimed at the reptilian heads instead.

The task proved difficult, and eventually the princess was down to only a few arrows without having done much to thin the riders' ranks. Because the moon was now fully concealed by the angry clouds, Mairwen had no concept of how much time had passed.

They had covered a considerable amount of ground, though which direction they were going was unclear. She thought they were heading northwest. They were going ever upward, though, as if on some interminable mountain.

What would be their end game? They could not trot on forever hoping their foe would give up and leave. Already the horse underneath the twins was growing weary from having two riders.

"Where are we heading?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Anywhere but here," Alaron answered.

Mairwen sniffed at the air. The smell of charred earth and dampness filled her senses. "We need to get out of the open."

"I agree, but you aren't going to like how we accomplish that." Alaron had barely spoken when the finally crested the rise to view the impressive mountain chain.

In the deep darkness of the upcoming valley, the outline of a dimly lit city came into view. Without having to ask, Mairwen knew the name of the place inside the sprawling fortress walls. Only one spot like this was within a short distance: Oblivion.

"I promised Mother!" she cried, her heart racing more about angering her mother than from the impending reptile hoard.

"Do you have a better idea?" the Guardian asked.

Mairwen shot off an arrow with the next flash of lightning, as she had become accustomed to doing. This however was her final shot. Her quiver was empty. "I do not," she admitted at last.

"Uh, Mairwen? Alaron?" Renat yelled over the wind that was beginning to wail. His voice was twisted and pulled by the howling force so that it nearly did not reach the royal children.

"We know! Oblivion is up ahead," Mairwen called back to him.

"Well, yes," the scientist's brow was drenched with perspiration, "but that isn't what I'm worried about. They are coming around to cut us off."

The twins turned their gaze, and to their dismay, Renat was right. From their left a four horseback riders were coming in ahead of them to block their route to the fortress. Whatever their hopes had been to avoid a confrontation, they were surely dashed now. For like the jaws of a sprung beartrap, the enemy was coming at them from both sides.

"Do you have anything else I can throw?" the princess begged her brother. Her arm was screaming from the added pressure of the larger bow, but she would not stop until they were free of their attackers.

"What do you think I am? A one man army?" Alaron grumbled.

"Well, aren't you?" Mairwen screamed in reply. The thunder's rumble nearly drowned her out, and the Guardian wished it had.

The first of the enemy horses was almost upon them; there was no time to lose. Rather then argue, he decided to just give her what she requested, and then deal with the problem.

Alaron passed behind him a thick rope attached to heavy metal balls. "To use these you need to--"

He got not further before Mairwen spun around on the horse and balanced on her knees on the stallion's croup. With one hand on her brother's shoulder, the princess held one of the heavy balls in her fist while she swung the other in a wide arc.

Alaron ducked to avoid losing his head. "Crazy person! Watch where you..."

Releasing the bola, Mairwen allowed the primitive weapon to sing through the air. It hit the lizard directly in the face, cracking its leathery jaw and knocking it from its horse. The speckled steed, spooked by the sudden impact, reared back and threw the lizard from its saddle.

"Oddly effective," the princess noted. "What else do you have?"

"Sit down!" Alaron yanked his sister back into her seat. He did it just in time as something whizzed right above her skull at that very moment. It was one of the spears from the pursuing monsters. They were also coming into range. "We have to get to Oblivion."

"The gates are closed, Guardian." Eira pointed as lightning lit the sky. Sure enough, the fortressed city was shut up tight for the night. She couldn't look for long as one of the monsters came at her from the side with her spear. Fortunately, the lizard had not noticed the soldier's armor under the cloak, and the spear head glanced away with a spark.

The lizard's horse, already anxious from the battle going on in the clouds, took the spark to be something much more sinister. It jerked to one side, giving Eira enough time to use her sword to cut the spear in two. As a result, the creature was left only with a stick and her claws to fight the warrior. Now Eira had a fighting chance.

Seeing the group descending on them, the prince swallowed as he pulled something else from his cloak. Reluctantly, he forcefully dug a thorn into the riderless horse's hide as he passed--not too deep, but enough to sting. The panicked animal reared again and took off toward the lizards behind the group, crashing into the front rider and causing a few of them to come crashing to the ground. The act bought them precious time.

"Signal them!" the Guardian screamed at the scientist. "Maybe they will see us and let us in."

Renat nodded. While Eira wheeled around and engaged one of the creatures attacking from the front, and the prince and princess rushed in to take on the other two, the scientist dug in his bag for balls of colored smoke. He broke one in his hand and threw it into the air, a stream of pink streaking the sky in the next burst of lightning. The others he threw backwards in hopes of disorienting the enemy.

But the strong wind had other ideas, it wrapped all of them in the colored mist, such that the heroes lost sight the tiny bit of visibility they had. Only the prince's plea of "Hurry to the walls," gave the young scientist any idea of the direction he should go.

Urging his dappled gelding forward, Renat pushed out of the cloud he created back into the even more haunting night. Somehow he had almost reached the wall, yet the gate was still closed.

"Help!" he screamed up at the battlements. "We are under attack!" The wind carried his voice, and he had no idea if anyone above him could hear it.

Mairwen, Alaron and Eria emerged almost simultaneously with him, also entreating the gate before them to be opened.

The smoke cleared, revealing a semi-circle of lizard riders pinning them to the wall. The humans were trapped. The lizards sneered, a sick sense of pleasure on each of their leathery faces. There was no way out.

That's when everything broke loose.