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[Lazybones]

Chapter 38


At that range, they could hardly miss.

Beetle dodged a spear thrust from the goblin warrior, but cried out as a bolt caught him hard in the shoulder from behind, punching through his leather armor and spinning him around from the force of the impact. A second bolt grazed his knee and nearly sent him to the ground, while the third punched through his right hand, inflicting a nasty, vicious wound. His dagger went flying away.

“Beetle!” Jaron yelled, darting around the corner. He drew his bow back almost to the point of snapping the string, releasing a shot that caught one of the snipers in the small of his back. The goblin staggered forward, seriously wounded. “Get out of there!”

Beetle rushed the injured goblin, running down the passage toward his cousin. The goblin, despite his wounds, tried to stop him, bringing its bow down toward his head like a club. But Beetle ducked under the swing, and as he shot past he drew another knife with his left hand, and plunged it into the goblin’s leg. The creature squealed and fell to the ground, Jaron’s arrow still quivering in his back.

The goblin warrior rushed after Beetle, trying to finish the crippled halfling before he could escape. Jaron yelled to draw the creature’s attention, taking aim with another arrow. The goblin, having already seen the deadliness of the halfling’s bow, flinched, and his thrust went awry, missing Beetle cleanly. The goblin screeched and darted to the side, taking shelter in the side alcove that led to the storeroom off the main chamber. Jaron let him go; the more immediate concern was the drakes, which were continuing to savage his companions. Stepping back into cover, thrusting Beetle behind him as his crippled cousin passed by, he fired his arrow into the back of the more seriously injured drake. The creature staggered and fell, but Mara was in little better shape than the lizard, stumbling back against the far wall. The ranger saw that her hand, when it brushed the wall, left a bright red mark.

The other drake was harrying Devrem, and as he watched it nearly ripped his staff from his hand, snarling as it tried to get past the cleric’s defenses. The raven priest was limping; apparently the drake had already gotten a good bite in. Elevaren was trying to help him, but the drake’s ferocious darting was confounding his fey magic, which thus far was having little effect.

Jaron fell back to the south, giving ground. He glanced back, but Beetle had, unsurprisingly, vanished again. He turned back just as the two surviving goblin snipers appeared in the mouth of the passage. As soon as they saw him, they lifted their crossbows to fire.

Without any more cover to protect him, Jaron could only pray that the goblins had poor aim. But from the course of the battle thus far, it seemed a thin hope indeed.