The Battle of Olgotha
Baden opted against drawing his axe until he closed the mound, hoping such a decision might improve his speed somewhat. He eyed the earthen bank in front of him with no little sense of trepidation. It was four feet in height – as tall as he was. With a grunt, the Axemarch dwarf pressed a hand against the sod and vaulted over, the first of the party to begin the mad race toward the stone altar. For a few blissful, fleeting moments he was in the lead.
Vath loped past him on all fours, his trollish claws arcing clumps of dirt in his wake. Amelyssan, too, was quick; the elf and John of Pell kept abreast of one another, nimbly weaving down the slight decline before reaching the base of the hill and beginning their ascent. Raylin mac Larren was obviously slowing his considerable stride to match that of the old Rornman Aramin. The ranger sporadically reached out to propel their one-time employer forward or manhandle him over offending ravines.
Just me and you, Kellus, Baden voiced quietly, a wry grin hidden beneath his helm and beard. He had no sooner finished his thought before the former priest of Helm, despite the heavy breastplate of his dead father, out-distanced him.
Just me, then.
Baden reached the base of the mound even as Vath was nearing the domed summit. Sweat ran down his face, the salt burning his eyes and stinging his tongue. He pumped his arms, knees high, grunting with exertion. The dwarf could easily run all day and most of the next, but a run for him was more of a trot for anyone taller than four feet.
And to think, Baden sighed, back in Axemarch I was known as one of the faster dwarves.
The low howl of a dwem warhorn echoed across the prairie. Baden heard more than saw the black-armored dark dwarves rushing to meet their charge. There was no time to look, no time to choose an opponent, no time to ready himself for combat. There was, simply enough, no time. He fixed his gaze upon the dolmen above him as he ran, resolutely heedless of all else.
A bolt slammed into his helm, turning it to the side, and Baden soon found the right side of his vision impaired by his nasal bar. Another loud report indicated a second bolt had shattered upon his hauberk. A third thud sent a tingle down his leg, but was likewise blocked by the iron plates encasing his form.
The fourth bolt, though…the fourth one got him. Baden winced in pain as blood intermixed with the sweat running down his left side. Some lucky son-of-a-she-goat dwem had managed to catch him in his exposed armpit. He dared not look to mark his attacker, though he dearly wanted to halt his run and end this foolish game. Better to die standing than continue staggering forward like a drunken mountain yak.
“Meet me,” Baden wheezed as he continued his best attempt at a sprint, “at the top.” Baden hoped the crossbowman heard him and would be kind enough to comply. The Axemarch dwarf pulled his axe from his back, swung his shield around to better protect his flank, and continued his painfully slow ascent.
He took five steps, maybe six, before he realized it was hopeless. The dwem were already between him and his companions. A sadness descended upon him. Baden realized with surprise that he did not, after all, want to die.
The hell with it. He stopped running.
***
Raylin shoved Aramin forward none too gently. The Rornman practically fell atop the altar stone. He turned, eyes wild, but Raylin was heedless to the threat they promised. “Do it! Now!” After the briefest hesitation, the old man lifted the black staff above his head and began to bark syllables not meant for mortal tongues.
The party, excepting only Baden, gathered around the central stones and took a precious moment to survey the slopes falling downward in all directions. They had reached the summit – somewhat easily, as it turned out. Other than a few minor bruises left by quarrel and bolt, they appeared uninjured.
The sun, brilliant as it rose over the peaks of the Balantir Cor, made the onrushing dwem stand out in stark relief. Raylin watched as the black dwarves disappeared beneath the shade of a passing cloud. Their shadows – all their shadows – were distinct upon the weeds, their forms seeming to be drawn in smooth contours without any trace of ambiguity.
John raised his crossbow, took aim, and fired. Amelyssan dipped his fingers into the pouch at his belt, his golden eyes squinting in concentration. Raylin spied Vath putting his back to a dolmen that leaned forward like a drunken man, and hopped over a weed-covered stone pillar to stand near the half-troll. Kellus, true to his vow, remained next to Aramin, his own face drained of color as he watched the Rornman continue the dark chant.
Raylin drew his second sword, wiped the sweat from his brow, and let his gaze sweep over the ground before them. Crumbled stones were hidden in the weeds like so many caltrops. Footing would be treacherous, the ranger knew, and he hoped the dwem would bunch to avoid the more prominent ruins scattered about.
The Larren clansman spared a glance at the half-troll monk at his side. “Tymora willing, them dwem will funnel to us here. Stand our ground-”
A crossbow bolt slammed into the ranger’s hip, spinning him halfway around. He winced, pulled the quarrel free, and tossed it onto the ground. “As I was saying, stand-”
Raylin ducked as another bolt came arcing downward from the heavens. The dwem had organized themselves, it appeared. A line of approaching axemen thundered up the side of the hill, axes raised, beards trailing behind them like so many snowy pennants. Behind the first rank stood a handful of crossbowmen; some would fire as others quickly cranked their strings back and fitted a new bolt to the shaft. Raylin heard the angry buzz of John’s own bolts speed past his head, but the bard was badly outnumbered in the ranged battle.
Over the rising tumult the dwem horn continued to blow like the sound of a wounded moose. And, distinct even above that braying, floated Aramin’s odd accent as he continued his ritual to destroy Margate’s Staff. Raylin risked a glance backward, saw the Rornman had produced a ceremonial dagger and held both it and the staff aloft. A thin mist, ochre in color, began to rise from the stones near Aramin’s feet.
Raylin looked downward once more. He had but a moment before the dwarven axemen reached his position. “Brother Vath,” he tried a third time, “stand our ground. Do not give chase, nor leave-”
Raylin jerked his head to the side as a bolt skimmed his cheek, leaving an angry red line in its wake.
“Do not worry.” Vath’s voice was more a croak than speech, soft and low, yet it carried to Raylin’s ears. “Suffering is patient.”
And then, even as the first rank of the dwem reached them, Raylin heard Kellus cry out in a voice strangled with fear.
***
Kellus scrambled backward like a Castamere crab. Aramin had…Aramin had changed. The leathery visage of the Rornman, always ugly, was now stretched into a rictus that could only be described as demonic. His nose had extended, dropped downward over thin lips, nostrils flared. The Rornman’s eyes were now balls of onyx, triumphant in their gleam.
Flickers of light, each no larger than a candle’s flame, appeared within the coruscating fog. The mist grew in thickness, swirling about Aramin’s boots before sliding up his legs like the hands of caressing lovers. The Rornman’s hair whipped about his face despite the fact there was no wind upon the plains.
Kellus dropped his shield and futilely reached for the symbol of Helm he had tossed into the quays of Tarn Cal nearly a decade ago. Whispers rose from the ground near him – unintelligible in their language but not in their intent. They promised a new coming, a black dawn, an eclipse of all held holy and good. Clouds – suddenly grown swollen and black – raced across the heavens to converge directly above the crowned summit of Olgotha Mound.
Aramin looked down at Kellus' supine form as a man would a beetle. Sultry arms of shadow thrust outward from his thrashing robes. Fingernails the color of dusk stroked the Rornman’s lips, wrapped about his hair, beckoned him to continue his chant.
Kellus stood. It took all his effort, all his will, but he stood. He raised the mace and stepped forward. “You die now, Rornman,” he meant to say. Yet no words escaped his lips.
The whispering had changed in tone, now. A chorus of delightful chuckling pattered across the stones like the footfalls of black fey. Suddenly Aramin stopped his chanting. The Rornman stood, his eyes still on Kellus, chest heaving from exertion and skin shining in an orgasmic sheen.
Kellus took a step forward. Then another. The mace was heavy in his hand, but he raised it.
Aramin thrust the staff toward him. “By my sacrifice, followed by the blood of six innocents, shall the gate be thrown…OPEN!”
Aramin's head snapped backward as a lustful cry not entirely his rent the air. The Rornman’s hand shot out, his wavy-bladed kris catching the light of the sparks surrounding him. Without pause he plunged the dagger, to the hilt, into his breast.
And yet, even as Aramin crumpled, Kellus saw a nightmarish form begin to climb from the bloody hole upon the mage's chest, coalescing into terrible reality even as he watched.
Kellus screamed.
