Free I Know Not (The Story of Fox Crow) by James Daniel Ross Page B

and moved my sword to its chin. I gripped the damnable thing under the arm and heaved it right, allowing the creature’s weight against the blade of the Phantom Angel to sever its own throat.
          Yes, it was cold blooded. Yes, it was an act that would horrify anyone looking upon me. At that moment, however, it was just a method to get the corpse out of my way and ensure its death as the last redcap came within striking distance. As the second slumped into a shower of its own juices, I yanked at the Angel and brought it up, ready to impale.
          The redcap slung its sword in a circle, leaving me no choice but to lunge forward, mating our chests and making sure the only part of his swing that connected was his arm. The Phantom Angel took the thing low, in the gut, and pierced the faerie effortlessly from front to back. The thing howled, but it did not slow in the slightest.
          Remember when I said there were things out in the world that would fight on, even when mutilated and dying? Redcaps are like that, and this is why things stopped going according to plan.
          We went down in a tangle of limbs, my sword lodged in the redcap’s entrails and his too long to bring to bear while we embraced like lovers. It abandoned its sword and locked both hands on my shoulders, seeking to swallow my face. There seemed to be no neck, and no place safe to jam an arm while it tried to bite whatever part of me it could reach. I heard Theo shout, but the horrible rotting-meat smell of the redcap’s open maw enveloped my entire world.
          It bit once, twice, again, and again, catching nothing but air but nearing frenzy with the anticipation of fresh blood. Left continued to hold him barely at bay using the hilt of the Angel while right continued to play the heavy offstage. The cap dug its claws in and yanked me closer as Right came back into the light with my boot knife.
          I plunged it into the thick mass of arteries I hoped the redcap had hidden in its armpit, took it out with a twist. Hot, sticky blood burned over my fist. Four rows of teeth snapped shut next to my face. I stabbed again. The teeth came even closer, rubbery lips brushing my throat apple as I removed the blade with a twist, aimed the tip of my weapon for the ball joint in the shoulder, and rammed it to the hilt. The thing screamed. The hands loosened. The arms slackened. The mouth snapped again…and again…slower and slower.
          I heaved, throwing the creature from me as it trailed thick ribbons of black blood that streamed from a dozen wounds. My boot knife trembled in my hand as I lunged at the redcap. It began to roar, straining not just against me, but the sword buried in its chest and the host of dagger wounds I had given it. It was a matter of only a second to guess at the right spot, drive the dagger in deeply into the back of the skull, and remove it with a twist of grinding bone. I smiled obscenely as it died.
          Then the moment was stolen from me as Theo yelped again, accompanied by the fading sounds of a dying pig and the distinctive ring of shattering steel. Momentarily I considered letting him die. I had a dozen aching muscle groups, stinging scratches across my back, and a strained finger that was starting to throb insistently. Then he cried out again and something whispered that it would be a shame to waste all that effort I had spent getting him to worship me. I hawked a gobbet of phlegm on the head of one of the bleeding bodies, scooped up the Phantom Angel and ran to his rescue.
          Theo stood on the north bank of the village, his sword truncated by the strike of a redcap’s weapon. The creature pressed its advantage, swinging a stolen axe wildly. The boy dodged back and forth as his enemy cleft posts, sliced through a tree limb, shattered a sapling, and threw whole clods of soil into the air. Every strike seemed to shake the entire world, and splinters of wood, blades of grass, and