Before The Mask by Michael Williams

Daeghrefn's men slumped, dead or dying, on
     the stone bridge, and three more had fallen into the gorge. Fifteen in all, a dreadful
     blow to the castle garrison.
    Ahead of the young men, the Nerakans made another vicious assault. Crouching and sidling
     like maniacal crabs, they would have been ludicrous if it hadn't been for their long
     knives, sharp and glittering. Daeghrefn's men backed unsteadily to the bridge, their
     shields raised again and their swords waving fruitlessly. Another man fell to Nerakan
     knivesEdred, it was, and he called out only once as the bandits swarmed over him. Soon the
     whole party, from Daeghrefn down to Verminaard and Aglaca, were huddled together behind
     their horses at the edge of the gorge, their feet slipping in rubble, their swords held
     narrowly before them. They braced themselves against the Nerakans, who regrouped not
     twenty feet from their makeshift lines, preparing for yet another charge.
    Cramped against Aglaca on one side, with Robert on the other, Verminaard looked over his
     shoulder, past the huddle of horses to the bridge. There, amid the cluttered corpses, the
     first Nerakan archers had set foot on the
    rocky span.
    Far behind them, on the other side of the chasm, a girlish form burst forth from the
     rocks, galloping on a roan mare, chased by two mounted bandits. Hooded and slight, her red
     robes kirtled around her thighs, she seemed diminished, almost elflike before her two
     hulking pursuers.
    On her right leg was a prisoner's tattoo, the hand-sized silhouette of a dragon's black
     head.
    The girl raised her hands toward the battle, and Verminaard noticed the ropes that bound
     her wrists together.
    A captive, he thought. And a lovely one. She is blond and fair, I'm sure. ...
    What am I thinking of, here at sword's point? He shook his head to fling loose the
     distracting thoughts as the men around him stumbled forward. Overtaken by the bandits, the
     girl and her horse moved into the rocks. When Verminaard looked back, she was gone.
    Finally the bandits had taken account of numbers. They were turning, retreating before
     Daeghrefn's superior forces, and the Lord of Nidus's troops were driving them, pressing in
     with their swords and shouting the names of the fallen.
    Over the rocks and the gravel they chased the Nerakans, leaving the bridge, rushing up the
     mountain pass until the bandits vanished among the branching paths and the crags of the
     towering cliff face.
    Just ahead of Verminaard and Aglaca, drawing his sword and casting his bulky shield aside,
     old Robert shouted and redoubled his pursuit of a scraggly, bearded Nerakan, who ducked
     into a tight passage and vanished.
    “Follow me!” the seneschal cried, and when Aglaca hesitated, the veteran turned and
     scowled at him comically.
    “After me, Lord Aglaca!” Robert rumbled. “Lest that sword of yours is good only for
     slicing beetles in the garden!”
    Recklessly the old man pivoted and lurched after the retreating Nerakan, and Verminaard
     and Aglaca, soon lost amid the maze of rock and rubble, followed.
    Verminaard's thoughts outpaced his feet, and he fell behind. The girl... I should have
     rescued her, burst back over the bridge like a questing knight. I could have found the way
     amid the archers and carried her off from her captors. She would have ...
    He blinked stupidly. It was the Voice that spoke to him now, entirely enmeshed with his
     own thoughts. Ahead, Robert turned, slipped between two narrow rocks ...
    And immediately there came an outcry, the sound of too many voices. Instead of one
     Nerakan, there were three.
    Bursting through the narrow passage after Aglaca, Verminaard saw the old seneschal hemmed
     in by a pair of bandits. One had forced him against a black rock face, while another,
     dagger in hand, had scrambled into the rocks above. He was coiled like an adder, waiting
     his chance to strike. The third, crouched not ten feet away,