Chapter 14
Mara yelled and tore her arm free of the drake’s grasp. With her other hand she pulled her shortsword out of its scabbard and whipped it up into the seam of her cloak, tearing the fabric. The other drake fell back, spitting out cloth, snarling as it pressed her again.
Mara was still outnumbered and hurt, but her companions had not been idle in those initial moments of duress. The charging drake opened its jaws to attack, but it suddenly shot up, jumping almost comically in the air, screeching in sudden pain. Beetle, all but forgotten in their ferocity in attacking Mara, had come up behind it and delivered a two-handed strike with Mara’s axe to a rather delicate part of the creature’s anatomy. The drake, dazed by the unexpected attack, landed off-balance and tried to turn around, still not quite sure where the assault had come from.
The other drake lunged at Mara before she had time to recenter her stance, but before it could bite her again the silvery streaks of witchfire exploded from its mouth and eyes. The drake, hissing in sudden pain, pressed its attack, but this time Mara easily avoided its snapping jaws.
The fighter was merciless in her counter. Hoping that Beetle could handle the distracted drake he’d drawn off for at least a few seconds, she turned her full attention to the other. Her hands and legs moved in harmony, unleashing the maneuvers that Torvan had drilled into her until they became automatic. She made her first stroke count, stabbing the tip of her sword into the muscled juncture where the creature’s left leg met its body. The drake screamed and started to draw back, but she followed with a vicious kick that knocked it sprawling.
“Hang on, Beetle!” she yelled, stepping forward to finish the bloodied foe.
A thug with a club yelled and ran at Beetle’s back, only to go down as Jaron shot an arrow through his neck. The halfling rogue was doing a fairly good job of evading the drake, which had recovered enough to recognize him as an immediate threat. Beetle had lured the drake away from its companion, and it was having a difficult time on the rocky slope. But on the other hand, Mara’s axe was an awkward weapon for the halfling to wield effectively, and after the initial strike that had so distracted it, he hadn’t really been able to hurt it.
Jaron wanted to rush to his cousin’s aid, but knew that he was far more effective here, wielding his bow. He’d clipped the gnome with an arrow, but the wily bastard had simply vanished after that, and now could be almost anywhere. The last tough had made it up to the top of the slope, and was now moving cautiously around the perimeter of the pit, thinking to come up on Jaron from his flank. The ranger was not going to be caught that easily, and the thug froze as Jaron lifted his bow, the arrowhead pointed directly at his heart.
Something whizzed by his head. His brain processed the threat and he dropped back even as a second stone glanced off of his bracer, stinging him even through the thick leather.
“Watch out, there’s a sniper!” he yelled in warning. He started to look for the new threat, scanning the brush that gathered along the far lip of the depression, but before he could see anything another stone zinged off his temple, sending a blinding flash of pain through his skull.
“Aaaah!” he yelled, as the thug rushed toward him, club raised.
Beetle echoed his cry a moment later, as the drake seized his shoulder in its jaws, lifting him off his feet. The halfling batted his axe uselessly against its thick neck, but before it could shake him into submission a black fog gathered around its head, seeping into its eyes. The drake, stunned by the curse of the dark dream, dropped Beetle and staggered several paces from the halfling. It stumbled on the rocky slope and fell onto its side, sliding roughly down to the bottom of the pit.
Fighting through the stars that flashed across his vision, Jaron lifted his bow and fired. The shaft flew through the thug’s body, and he stopped as if he’d hit a wall. His club fell from his hands, and he toppled over, landing in a tangle of twisted roots.
The ranger turned to see Beetle’s opponent trying to get up from the bottom of the pit. His cousin seemed fine, and Mara was just extracting her swords from the carcass of the first drake, looking grim but hale. Elevaren had not been hurt at all, save for the grazing hit he’d taken from the gnome’s crossbow at the start of the battle.
There was no sign of the gnome, or of the still-unseen sniper that had buffeted him with rocks. Jaron lifted his bow and put a shot into the head of the wounded drake, finishing it. He fitted another arrow to the string at once and held it, although he suspected that their remaining foes had likely fled by now.
“Is everyone all right?” Elevaren asked. Mara grumbled something as she wiped blood from her swords, favoring her battered side, while Beetle seemed none the worse for wear for his encounter, rushing down into the pit to recover his knife. Jaron kept a close eye on the downed humans, but none of them stirred; his shots had proven accurate enough this time.
“Nice shooting,” Mara said to him, before turning and following Beetle down the treacherous slope. Elevaren took his time following, but Jaron remained up at the top, making his way cautiously around the perimeter of the depression, scanning the brush for any more surprises.
Beetle was the first to find the figure concealed under a blanket at the far side of the excavation. Mara was there in a flash. “Douven!” she exclaimed, bending to slice through the prisoner’s bonds.
The old man looked all right, although his hair and clothes had been mussed and his face was smudged with dirt. Once Mara freed his hands, he pulled away the gag that had been secured over his mouth. “Mara, my dear. And Elevaren! Thank the gods that you found me. These rascals had no good end in mind for me, I fear.”
“Lucky for you that Gelira found us, and sent us to find you, you mean,” Mara said. “Gods, Douven, I thought that you were smarter. Coming out into the wilds alone like this? What were you thinking?”
“Perhaps I was thinking that I was an adult, and capable of making my own decisions,” Douven said, his tone slightly scolding. But he accepted Mara’s help in standing, and leaned on her as he regained his bearings.
“These bandits, what were they after?” Elevaren asked.
“An old mirror buried here, that supposedly dated back to the days of the Empire,” Douven explained. “Agrid wasn’t very talkative, I think that the men working for him were just hired help.”
“Agrid was the gnome, I suppose?” Mara asked.
“Yes. There was a halfling, too. Real quiet fellow.”
“Probably the sniper,” Jaron said, who’d been listening from up above. The ranger rubbed his forehead, where a spectacular bruise was already growing into what would be a painful lump.
“Did they find this mirror?” Elevaren asked.
Douven nodded. “It was over there, by those bags. They were getting ready to leave, when you came. Quite good timing, my dear.”
Mara looked at Elevaren, who poked into the bags with his staff, but the eladrin shook his head.
“Do you think that these guys were connected to the kobold bandits?” Jaron asked.
“I doubt it,” Douven said. “Gnomes and kobolds have a quite intense racial rivalry; I have never heard of them cooperating on anything. However, I do believe that Agrid was working for someone. I heard him mention the name, ‘Kalarel’ to the halfling.”
The adventurers exchanged a look, but none of them recognized the name.
“Well, we’d better get going if we’re going to get back to Winterford before dark,” Mara said. “Douven, can you walk? Are you all right?”
“Just a bit knocked around. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Are my things in that pile? Agrid stole my locket, quite poor behavior. Oh, hello, little fellow.”
Mara shared a glance with Elevaren as Douven shook hands with Beetle, who’d come over to join them after looting the corpses of the dead humans. She looked up at Jaron. “Any sign of our missing friends?”
The ranger shook his head. “They knew how to cover their tracks.”
Mara nodded. “Well then. We’d better get back to Winterhaven. Once we’ve seen Douven returned safely, we’ll see what we can do about these bandits.”
As it turned out, however, there was no need; the bandits saw to them first.
Easy, Lazybones, don't you go about getting carpal tunnel with so much story hour goodness! 
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
