Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Sadly, I had to trim down my non-D&D fiction from my Web site, due in part to space issues and in part to the fact that a lot of it requires some thorough editing. During grad school I wrote six full novels and part of a seventh. Five of those were based on an original campaign setting I'd originally written for a 1st ed game I hosted back in the late 80s. The game only went about 5 sessions, but the campaign setting was fleshed out a lot more in the novels. I thought about posting them here before, but they're really only peripherally related to D&D now. I reworked a lot of the mechanics, as I'd planned on trying to sell them at some point, but with hindsight I can see that they were pretty rough.
I think that Thunderspire Labyrinth will be my last 4e story. The system just isn't grabbing me the way that 3.0/3.5 did. I have a few ideas percolating.
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Chapter 12
“Impressive,” Jaron said, once they had emerged from the passage and gotten their first good look at the Seven-Pillared Hall.
The place was vast, a bubble in the mountain that stretched out before them, its far end all but lost in the distance. The place was dimly illuminated by faint patches of glowing material affixed to the walls at intervals too regular to be entirely natural; the light was bright enough for them to clearly make out the broad outlines of the place, if not all of the specific details. They could identify the natural pillars that gave the place its name, and what looked to be a stream that bisected the complex across its middle, dividing the settlement into two halves.
The floor of the Hall was occupied by maybe a score of buildings of various shapes and sizes, ranging from squat single-story blockhouses to structures that looked tall enough to host three or even four stories within. But those were augmented by what looked to be additional quarters excavated from the walls of the cavern itself, stacked two or three or even four atop the other in tiers, accessed by precarious ledges and fragile-looking ladders. Beetle’s hands had started to itch at the sight of those, but Jaron took his cousin literally in hand, keeping him close to him as they made their way forward through the guardstation.
Their passage through that entry proved rather anticlimactic. The guards, which included men, orcs, and an ogre amongst their number, recognized Rendil, and only asked a few bored questions of Vhael about their purpose here. The dragonborn’s response was vague, but it apparently was enough. The adventurers barely had time to share a wary look before they were being waved through.
“They don’t seem to take security very seriously here,” Gezzelhaupt observed, once they were far enough away from the guards to speak without risk of being overheard.
“Look more closely,” Gral replied, inclining his head toward a niche in the cavern wall, where a large statue of a minotaur was just visible. “The Mages of Saruun are not to be trifled with, and they respond quickly to those who would bring disorder here.”
Vhael fixed a cold gaze on Carzen, but it was Jaron who shuddered at the wizard’s words, and he couldn’t help but tighten his grip on his cousin’s hand. “Good advice,” the dragonborn said.
“Come on,” Rendil said. “I’ll show you to my family’s inn; you can rest and get some hot food there.”
“Gral and I have an errand to attend to first,” Vhael said. “Go on ahead, but remember our purpose here. Don’t attract attention, and don’t invite trouble.”
“What errand?” Carzen asked, persisting despite the warning in the warlord’s eyes.
“We have a contact among the mages who might be able to give us information about these slavers,” Gral finally said. “It won’t take long, and we’ll meet you at the inn shortly.”
Vhael leaned in, close enough so that Carzen could feel the heat of his breath on his face. “No trouble,” he repeated. Then he turned and walked away, the dwarf close on his heels.
“Sheesh,” Carzen said, after a moment. “What does he think we are, children?”
“He knows the Hall,” Rendil said, “and what he says, it is good to listen. In this place, the trouble is always around the bend. Come on, my family’s probably worried sick about me, and I’m buying the first round.”
“Now you’re talking,” Gez said, falling in with the others as they set out across the Hall, following the halfling.
wait no more 4e stories....does that mean no more stories are just that they will be based off a different set of rules? *please say it's the latter*
Well, thus far the writing bug shows no signs of easing up, although I have been a lot busier of late, which has reduced the time I have to write. But yes, the ideas that I have percolating would use other systems than 4e. I'd share more but I still need to check a few things before I know for sure what I want to do as my next project. Let's just say that one idea would revisit an old setting of mine, and the other would explore some of the games I've been running in the CRPG arena.
Thanks for the support! You guys have kept me posting here for so long, with your feedback.
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Chapter 13
The common room of the Halfmoon Inn looked smaller than it was at first glance, with swirling clouds of tobacco and other smokes drifting thick among the heavy pillars supporting the ceiling almost ten feet above. The crowded nature of the chamber was bolstered by the use of the available space, which placed the long bar in a U shape in the middle of the room, and curtained alcoves off to each side that offered a small modicum of privacy to premium customers.
The place looked fairly busy, with maybe thirty patrons and staff at the tables and bar. A majority of them were halflings, but the rest comprised a diverse collection of humans, dwarves, orcs, goblinoids, and other races both common and unfamiliar. Many of them had the pale, sallow look of those who spent most of their lives underground, out of the reach of the bright sun above. A few glanced up as the newcomers entered, but their attention returned quickly to their private conversations or to their drinks.
“Oh, crap,” Rendil said. They followed the halfling’s eyes to the far side of the room around the bar, where the largest ogre any of them had ever seen was causing a stir.
The ogre, clad in a vest of mail links that might have barded a warhorse, stood over the remains of what had recently been a table and bench. A halfling lay in the splinters, his coat soaked with ale, a confused look on his face that was quickly evolving into terror. He stared up at the ogre, blinking, trying to take in what was going on. Those patrons nearby were doing their best to ignore what was happening, although a few hastily took up their possessions and made for the door.
“I said, what you lookin’ at, you little crudder? You deaf, o’ somepin?”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Carzen hissed.
Jaron blinked; he’d crossed halfway through the room before the fighter’s question drew him up. He realized that Beetle had disappeared, and that meant trouble, even as he took in anew just how big the ogre was. He was so tall that its head scraped the rafters bolstering the ceiling, but beyond that he was thick, with meaty arms that were thicker around than Carzen’s torso.
Jaron swallowed, and started forward again. The ogre had bent over the terrified halfling, close enough so that spittle from his jaws sprayed over the halfling’s face. He hadn’t made a move toward the greatclub slung across his back, but that meant little; the ogre could have crushed every bone in the halfling’s body with one fist.
“What did I tell you about breaking furniture in here, Brugg?”
The voice came from a newcomer who entered the room through the low doorway in the rear wall near the end of the bar, presumably from the inn’s kitchen. Jaron’s jaw dropped as he recognized its owner.
It was Mara.
As the ogre shifted slightly, Mara caught sight of Jaron. She started in surprise, her attention distracted just enough so that the ogre’s sudden movement caught her off guard. Twisting his body, his long reach allowed his forearm to catch her hard across the chest as he spun around. The blow knocked Mara back a good five feet, and only the presence of one of the supporting beams stopped her there. She hit hard enough for Jaron to hear it clearly even across the room, and a sudden quiet spread across the chamber as the fighter slumped against the beam, gasping for breath as the ogre stepped forward to loom over her, blocking her from the view of the others.
Well, thus far the writing bug shows no signs of easing up, although I have been a lot busier of late, which has reduced the time I have to write. But yes, the ideas that I have percolating would use other systems than 4e. I'd share more but I still need to check a few things before I know for sure what I want to do as my next project. Let's just say that one idea would revisit an old setting of mine, and the other would explore some of the games I've been running in the CRPG arena.
Good! I really don't care what system or setting you write in. I'm just happy to know you'll still be writing.
The ogre stood over Mara, his lips twisted into a sinister grin.
The fighter’s hands twitched at her hips, brushing the hilts of the two swords that dangled there, but as she sucked in air to replace that knocked from her lungs by the ogre’s push she forced them back to her sides. Straightening, she said, “Are you going to break the mages’ law, Brugg, in front of all these witnesses?”
A young halfling behind the bar was joined by an older woman who emerged from the kitchen wearing an apron covered in flour. “I’ll see that the Ordinator hears of this! You know better than to fight in my inn!”
Brugg smiled, but coming from the ogre it was a sinister expression. “Nobody’s fighting, Erra,” he growled. “Your help’s just a little… clumsy.”
“Somehow a lot of people get ‘clumsy’ around you,” Erra said. As she spoke she caught sight of Rendil and the others on the edge of her vision, and her eyes widened. But she did not let the ogre escape her stare, nor did she back down against a creature that could have trampled her to death with a careless step. The ogre held that look for a few moments that seemed overly long, then he let out a chuckle.
“Time for my shift, anyway.” He shot a look at Mara. “Maybe we’ll meet again somewhere more… private.”
Mara’s stance adjusted just barely enough to be noticeable, but in a way that moved her hilts closer to her hands. “That would be interesting,” she said, her tone giving away nothing.
Brugg snorted and turned away, but as he took his first step, his feet got tangled up and he toppled over with a surprised roar. Those few patrons that hadn’t cleared the area during the earlier altercation threw themselves out of the way of the falling ogre, with one dark-skinned dwarf narrowly avoiding being crushed under the hulking brute’s weight. A pair of high stools weren’t so lucky, and the brass footrail that ran along the bar rang loudly as Brugg’s shoulder hit it hard enough to leave a deep dent.
The ogre wasn’t really hurt, and he recovered quickly, pulling himself to his feet. He glanced down at one foot, where one of the throngs that laced his boots had torn free. Somehow, it had gotten tangled with the other boot, causing his fall. A few people had started to smirk at the ogre’s misfortune, but they had been quick to turn away before the creature’s gaze swept the room.
“Looks like I’m not the only clumsy one,” Mara said, not bothering to hide her own grin.
Brugg snarled and left. As he passed the new arrivals he shouldered Carzen roughly aside, knocking the fighter into the bar. The ogre glanced back to see if the human was going to protest, but Carzen merely caught himself and turned away, brushing off his cloak. Gezzelhaupt was quick to get out of his way as the ogre reached the door and squeezed his bulk through it.
Rendil let out a held breath. “What a homecoming.” he said.
“So I met up with a merchant in Fallcrest, who was headed here,” Mara said, her eyes traveling over the inhabitants of the common room. “I hired on as a guard, but we didn’t get along, and when I arrived at the Hall, the Halfmoons put me up in exchange for some security work.”
It was noticeably quieter now, with only about a dozen people scattered at tables and in booths around the place. Jaron supposed that the residents of a place like this probably picked an arbitrary “night” that may or may not have any correlation to the cycles of the sun in the world above. The three of them—Jaron, Mara, and Beetle—had a wall to themselves, the curtains pulled back from the nook to give them a clear view to the door. Carzen and Gez had already retired, but Vhael and Gral had not yet returned from their errand.
“Good bread,” Beetle said, his words barely discernable through a full mouth. He smiled, and Mara smiled back at him. “It’s mostly made up of mushrooms and lichens,” she said, making a face, but Beetle took another slice, cramming in into his mouth to join the remnants already there.
She looked up at Jaron. “These Bloodreavers you’re looking for… I’m still finding my way around this place, but I’ve heard enough to know that they’re bad news. Are you sure about this?”
“They took my people,” Jaron said simply. He hadn’t eaten much, and he pushed a bit of bread around on his place as he spoke, distracted.
Mara nodded. “I understand.”
Jaron looked up. “We could use your swords.” “Sthords,” Beetle echoed, his mouth still full.
The fighter shook her head. “It’s not my fight. Anyway, it looks like you guys picked up some new muscle. And you’ve got a wizard now, you say?”
“Dorf,” Beetle mumbled around the bread.
“They’re all right, I suppose,” Jaron said. “And Commander Vhael seems to know what he…”
He trailed off at the change in Mara’s face. “Vhael? K’rol Vhael is with you?”
“Well, he’s not here, but yes, he’s in charge of the expedition, he’s working for the lord that sent us here. Why, do you know him?”
“You could say that, I suppose. Yes, you could say that, seeing as he killed my father.”
She got up, roughly, the hilt of her shortsword catching on the lip of the table. She nearly tore the table free of its moorings as she pulled away. “I wish you the best of luck, Jaron, I really do. I hope you find your people.”
“Mara, I—”
But the fighter had already walked away, disappearing through the low doorway into the back of the inn before Jaron could say anything further.
I'm going away for a long weekend starting tomorrow, and I probably won't have access to a computer. So this is most likely the last update until Monday. The Friday cliffhanger will just have to keep.
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Chapter 16
Jaron’s internal clock was all askew, even only after a few days in the deep gloom of the underworld, and he had no idea what time it was supposed to be as he and his companions left the relative security of the Seven-Pillared Hall behind, and delved back into the winding tunnels of the Labyrinth. They had relatively clear directions from Rendil, and a clear destination, but that was all that was clear about this mission. An expedition that had started with the basic objective of recovering Yarine and the others had been getting more complicated by the minute, Jaron thought.
He didn’t need to look at the faces of his companions to see the tensions there. The hostility between Carzen and Vhael formed a frisson that the halfling could feel like the heat of an open flame. There were lesser cracks in the outward face presented by their team, including the barely-constrained fear in Gezzelhaupt, the sole survivor of the soldiers that had accompanied Carzen from Fallcrest, and the secrets that Vhael and Gral held about their past knowledge of this place. And Mara, whose sudden reappearance had slid another current of uncertainty into their presence here.
He hadn’t told Vhael about Mara, and Carzen hadn’t volunteered anything about their encounter with the ogre. Jaron supposed that put him in the category of keeping secrets.
And then there was Beetle. His cousin had been in a sulk all morning, and had trudged along with the rest of them, instead of wandering off and vanishing constantly as was his habit. He seemed to sense Jaron’s attention, and he turned just long enough to stick his tongue out. He moved over to the other side of Vhael and Gral, muttering about “his stuff.”
Jaron sighed. Beetle was another simmering problem waiting to explode. The confrontation that had created this latest clash had come last night, shortly after their meeting with Mara. The Halfmoon Inn had included several small rooms sized for halflings, so the two of them hadn’t had to share space with any of the others. Jaron had come in from his trip to the bathhouse to find Beetle hastily stuffing something under his pillow. Perhaps it would have been better to leave well enough alone, but at the time curiosity and all of the worry that had been building up since leaving Fallcrest had pushed him to ferret out what his cousin had been hiding. It was a small satchel, barely bigger than a purse, made out of ratty leather that looked like it had seen more years than the two of them combined. It had bulged slightly when Jaron had picked it up.
“Come on, Belden, I thought I told you…” Jaron had said, as he’d opened the purse to dump its contents onto the bed.
Even in memory, he felt some of the startlement he’d felt last night. The little bag had somehow contained a deluge of assorted items, ranging from pieces of petty trash to a veritable horde of gold and silver coins that plinked as they slid off the bed to tumble about the floor. The cache had included weapons, too, small blades and darts and even a crossbow with a broken crossbar that barely seemed able to fit through the mouth of the bag. The container was magical, obviously, but Beetle hadn’t been willing to share where he’d acquired it, only insisting that he’d “found it,” and that everything in it belonged to him.
Jaron carried the bag now, along with most of its contents. He suspected that he was only starting Beetle again from scratch; no matter how hard he tried to impart to his cousin the dangers of theft, especially in a place like this, the younger halfling seemed incapable of being anything other than what he was. Part of him suspected that his cousin’s behaviors were partly an act to cover his desire to continue such activities, but that did not change his own sense of responsibility toward the other halfling. No matter how much he might drive Jaron to frustration, Belden was still family, and about all he had left of it.
As they left the more-traveled passages near the Hall behind, Jaron had to give up those layered distractions and focus on the journey, for it became quickly clear that they were entering dangerous territory. Even staying on the main tunnel, which extended for miles beyond the boundaries of the Hall, they passed numerous places that showed signs of battles in the not-too-distant pass. Odd noises and unpleasant smells carried long distances to them, and more than once, as they passed a side passage, Jaron felt the unpleasant sense of being watched. His companions felt it too, and as they pressed on further Jaron saw their hands dropping more and more often to the hilts of weapons. There was no conversation save for the minimal exchanges needed to impart information. Jaron served as scout, but did not go more than a few dozen paces ahead of the others, carrying a small mining lamp he’d purchased in the Seven-Pillared Hall to brighten the pure black of the tunnel. The tunnel narrowed from six paces across to five, and then to four. It was still plenty wide enough to accommodate their small group, but Jaron could not help but feel as if all that stone was pressing in upon them, squeezing them like a hand crushing a lemon for its juice.
They had marched for the better part of two hours before they reached the side-tunnel that led to their destination. Jaron found the marker that Rendil had spoken of without difficulty, although he might have walked past it had he not been forewarned. The stylized eye etched into the stone looked out from the mouth of a passage much like the others they had passed, but somehow the knowledge of what lay in that direction made it seem rather more menacing.
After verifying that the others were following, Jaron led them in that direction. The passage continued for maybe a hundred paces, bending slightly around to the left, before it deposited them into a large chamber. The place showed signs of decay and neglect, and was littered with piles of rubble from what might have once been statues and carvings along the perimeter.
The place seemed to be deserted. As Jaron lifted his lamp the darkness receded, enough for him to make out a set of doors recessed into an alcove in the center of the wall to his right. He could also just make out a balcony along the far wall, a ledge some fifteen feet above the level of the floor. There was no one up there either, at least no one he could see, and as he made his way forward he observed that there was a small door up there as well.
He moved across the room toward the alcove, careful not to disturb any of the loose rocks that were scattered across the floor. Behind him the others entered the room, and spread out, their eyes searching every niche and shadow for any sign of danger.
“The slavers have lax security,” Gral muttered.
Carzen heard him, and said, “Maybe because nobody down here’s stupid enough to take them on.”
“Quiet,” Vhael said, gesturing for Carzen and Gez to take the left flank as he and Gral moved after Jaron toward the doors.
The alcove was flanked by a pair of statues that were no longer distinguishable as anything other than vague humanoid shapes. But the doors themselves looked very solid, heavy planks reinforced with generous banding in cold iron. There was a locking mechanism set into the door on the right, and Jaron didn’t need to probe to guess there was likely a bar on the far side as well. Shrouding his light so that it wouldn’t betray them through any cracks in the doors, he bent forward and pressed his head against the thin crevice where the two panels came together. He heard the voices almost at once, recognizing again the familiar cadences of the goblin speech. He listened for a few seconds, picking up the tone of the conversation, if not the words, which were muffled by the thick wood.
“Goblins,” he mouthed, turning back to face the others.
“If we have to cut our way through that, every goblin in the place will be waiting for us,” Carzen said. At least he had the sense to keep his voice low, Jaron thought, but at the moment he couldn’t disagree with the fighter’s assessment.
Vhael gestured them back from the alcove, moving into the room where they could speak quietly without standing directly in front of the doors.
“There’s another door up…” Jaron began, but his voice froze in his throat as he looked in that direction in time to see Beetle running up the wall.
He didn’t, not really, but it was still pretty impressive to see him ascent where the two walls met, kicking off one and then the other, gaining about five feet with each hop, until he sprang off the wall and snared the edge of the balcony with the fingertips of one hand. He dangled there precariously for a moment, grinning down at them, then got enough leverage with his feet to push himself up over the lip, rolling back up to his feet with aplomb and dusting himself off.
“Beetle!” Jaron hissed, but if his cousin heard him, he didn’t pay any heed. The halfling started toward the door, a dagger popping into his hand out of nowhere.
“Should we go up after him?” Gezzelhaupt asked, nervously fingering his bowstring.
“There’s no way we’d make that ascent without making enough noise to alert the complex,” Vhael said.
“I can get up there quietly, especially if one of you gives me a boost,” Jaron said. He took a step in that direction, but Vhael cut him off. “We cannot afford to further divide our strength.”
“I can’t just sit here while he’s in danger.”
Vhael’s expression did not shift in the slightest. “There is more than one person at stake. Your cousin took rash action on his own initiative; now we must hope that he can find a way to open the door.” And as they watched, Beetle reached the door at the end of the balcony. He paused barely a moment before it opened and he vanished into the space beyond.
“And those guards?” Carzen asked.
Vhael turned back to the alcove and the doors. He glanced at Gral. “If necessary, we must be ready to do things the hard way.”
“If necessary, we must be ready to do things the hard way.”
LOL, what other way is there?
I always appreciate the little details you put in to show different cultures, locations and environments.
Just doing my fanboy duties for March lol, thanks for the updates!
Beetle wasn’t preoccupied with guards or complex plans when he vaulted up atop the balcony and went through the door at its end. Had he taken the time to consider the implications of his actions, he might have thought better of heading alone into a complex of deadly slavers, but the halfling wasn’t one to get bogged down with such considerations. If it was exciting, and dangerous, and maybe offered the chance of reward, that was enough.
To be honest, there was a bit of resentment at work too; he was still a bit angry with his cousin for taking away his magic bag. That boon, found in a cramped crawlspace in the dungeon under the Keep on the Shadowfell, had proven a delightful find, offering a solution to the frequent dilemma of insufficient pocket space to accommodate all of the wonderful things that he came upon in his travels. But now he’d show Jaron and all of them, by dealing with these slavers personally.
He heard voices as soon as he opened the balcony door, and almost unconsciously blended into the shadows, making as much noise as a soft puff of wind as he slipped through and closed the door behind him. The passageway beyond the door opened onto a stair that descended into a room. He crawled up to where he could get a good look.
The room wasn’t especially large, and rather crowded with the crude pieces of furniture that filled it. There was another exit on the far side of the room, but Beetle’s eyes were drawn to the room’s occupants, two big and rather ugly goblins, clad in metal armor, with axes thrust through their belts and bows slung across their backs. One was sitting on a small cot, sharpening a knife, while the other was seated on a stool in front of a table, gnawing on some bones had already been well stripped of meat. A small iron brazier on a three-pronged stand provided heat and a weak, ruddy light. It was just enough for Beetle to make out the hulking mound atop another of the beds, a form far too big to be another goblin. As he watched, it shifted slightly, and issued a fragment of a snore. The goblin sitting on the other cot said something, but unlike his cousin, Beetle did not speak the Goblin language, so he had no idea what he said. The other one snorted and responded, tossing his bone aside and yanking another from the pile heaped on the plate in front of him.
Beetle let out a soft breath. This was going to be tricky.
“How long do we wait?” Gezzelhaupt asked. He was trying to keep his hands busy, testing his bowstring, adjusting the arrows in the quiver at his hip, fidgeting until Vhael shot him a hard look that quieted him. He had reason to be nervous, Jaron thought; he’d watched his comrades get slaughtered, and it was likely that what awaited them behind the door was at least as dangerous as a wyvern. How many goblinoids waited beyond those portals? From everything he’d heard, from Rendil and the others in the Hall, these Bloodreavers were not a trivial force.
And yet here he was, planning on taking them on directly.
Was Yarine even still alive? He had no idea of the priestess or the others from Fairhollow lived, or if the Bloodreavers still held them captive. But there was nothing else he could do.
Still, the passage of the seconds seemed to build the tension in his gut like bricks stacked one upon the other. He held his own bow ready, standing in the shadow of the dragonborn warlord, who stood facing the doors, outwardly patient, a statue that might still be here hours, days, or even years from now, unaffected by such mortal concerns as fear and worry.
When all hell broke loose a moment later, they heard it clearly even through the doors.
The first indication that the goblins had that something was wrong was a soft snick, a noise like a sharp blade being stropped on leather. The goblin at the table turned, looked at the bugbear warrior asleep on his pallet. He started to turn back to his bones, but something subtle that couldn’t quite be defined froze his stare, drew his attention back. The bugbear wasn’t moving, but a faint hissing noise came from him. Then the goblin’s eyes dropped, to the thread of fluid draining from the bottom of the cot, gathering in a spreading pool of red upon the floor. His eyes widened, but before he could do anything further, a small figure sprang up from behind the cot. The goblin’s surprised stare was drawn to the bare steel of the blade in the intruder’s hand, glistening with bright red blood…
The goblin tumbled back from the table, clutching at his axe. The chair fell over as he pulled free, making a loud noise as it hit the floor. The creature—smaller even than a goblin, he realized—let out an odd noise and flicked his hand forward. The goblin started to duck before he realized that the attack wasn’t aimed at him.
The goblin on the bed had only started to realize that something was wrong, and as his head turned the thrown knife drew a line of bright red across his forehead, scoring it to the bone. He drew back, almost tumbling off of the cot, clutching his face as blood spurted down into his eyes.
The attacker had gained complete surprise, but the goblin was a Skullcleaver, no common, inexperienced warrior sealed into a burrow to earn his first kill. He’d been caught off guard, but as his axe finally tore free and came into his hands he started yelling an alarm, drawing the attention of the pair of guards in the hallway outside. As the intruder started toward his injured companion on the nearby cot, the goblin lifted his axe and snarled a challenge.
Unfortunately, he failed to notice the throng that had been strung between the table and the brazier, and with his first step he snagged it. He fell awkwardly forward, his momentum knocking the brazier wildly aside, scattering its contents across half of the room. A shower of sparking ash filled the air.
The Skullcleaver felt a jab of pain as a burning coal settled on the back of his right knee. He snarled and pulled himself to his feet, trying to sift through the chaos that surrounded him. He could hear his companion yelling, and staggered forward, not quite clear what was happening until he was almost right on top of the battle. The small invader was lunging at the other goblin with another knife, moving with incredible speed, not giving the dazed Skullcleaver a chance to recover. Blood was splattered all over the cot and the adjacent crates of supplies, and it continued to flicker about in fat drops as the little demon’s knife darted in and out.
The goblin followed his instincts, and attacked. His axe sliced toward the intruder’s head, but at the last instant the little bastard ducked, and the sharp blade only clove through cloth. The enemy fell back against the wall, and the cowl of his cloak fell back, to reveal…
A halfling.
“You little bastard!” the goblin cursed, coming forward to attack again before the fast little bugger could move away. The halfling seemed frozen, but as the Skullcleaver committed to his attack he countered with a sudden lunge, coming in low under the goblin’s swing. The Skullcleaver grunted as the halfling’s knife cut into his knee; the wound wasn’t serious, not through the thick leather leggings he wore, but it knocked him off balance, and he caromed off the wall and fell to the floor. The goblin cursed and tried to get up before the halfling could slit his throat.
But the enemy assassin’s position was growing more precarious by the second. The other Skullcleaver had finally recovered his axe, and the two door guards had arrived, adding their numbers to the battle and shifting the odds decisively in the favor of the defenders. The halfling seemed to realize this, for instead of attacking he sprang up into the air, bouncing off the cot and then up onto the stack of crates. Even as the wounded Skullcleaver, still half blind from the blood smeared across his face, crushed the end of one of the crates with his axe, the halfling jumped again, landing halfway up the stairs that led up to the corridor above.
He’d barely gotten his balance when he lifted his cloak and thrust his buttocks boldly in the direction of the goblins. Then he ran up the stairs, the goblins not far behind. Behind them, the room was slowly filling with smoke as the burning coals from the fallen brazier fueled small fires here and there.
The halfling was faster than the goblins, and he might have gotten away. But as he sprang up the last few steps, he couldn’t resist a last rude gesture toward the goblins, one that transcended the limitations of language. Thus he didn’t see the dark figure that stepped into view at the top of the steps, or the heavy hammer that he lifted.
He turned back just in time to take the blow squarely in the chest. It knocked him back roughly, reversing his momentum and flipping him heels over head as he was flung off the stairs and fell into the smoky chaos below.
“Take him alive, if you can,” the duergar snorted.
“He’s in trouble!” Jaron cried, as the first shouts filtered through the heavy doors that warded the entrance to the Bloodreaver hideout.
“We have to hack through it!” Carzen said. He started forward, although his sword was ill-suited to the task of destroying a door. But Vhael stopped him with a raised arm. “Hold your blade,” he said.
“You’re not going to do anything?” the fighter hissed. But Gral was already moving forward, lifting his staff. Wisps of icy fog stirred in the air along its length, and as he pressed its tip to the center of the doors, frost spread from the point of contact, forming intricate patterns across the metal and wood as it thickened. A slight cracking noise accompanied the spread of power, which seemed longer than the seconds that Gral held his staff in place.
“Ware your ears,” Vhael warned, as the dwarf wizard drew back the staff. Then, muttering a word of power under his breath, Gral thrust his focus forward again, unleashing a potent surge of magical energy as the staff struck the frozen surface of the door. The thunderwave shattered the new coating of ice, and the substance of the door itself was damaged as the potency of the spell weakened it. The doors held, but all of them could see the new cracks in its surface as Gral stepped aside.
Vhael took his place, surging forward, delivering a massive blow as his armored shoulder crashed into the door. Wood cracked, metal groaned but held. Vhael didn’t wait, and spun into another immediate attack, driving his other shoulder into the portals. This time they gave way, and the doors sprang open. The others rushed to follow him as he staggered forward into the hallway beyond the doors.
Right into the largest wolf any of them had ever seen, which seized the dragonborn in its jaws, yanked him off his feet, shook him hard, and dashed him to the ground.
“AAaargh!” Carzen yelled, thrusting his sword ahead like a spear, stabbing its point toward the wolf’s face. The attack went awry as the monstrous dire wolf shook Vhael in its jaws, but the tip pierced its shoulder, sinking half a foot into its body. He brought his shield up just in time to absorb a head-butt that nearly drove the upper edge into his helmet; if Gez hadn’t caught him from behind and steadied him, he almost certainly would have fallen.
Vhael, still caught, roared violently, and drove a mailed fist into the hollow under the wolf’s lower jaw. There was an ugly crack, and the wolf released him, the dragonborn’s blood showing on its teeth briefly before it lunged forward to attack again. Vhael was unable to bring his big sword into play in time to block it, but he took the bite on his arm rather than his body this time, and tore free before the wolf could bring its superior size and strength to bear.
Armored figures came into view in the corridor behind the wolf, obscured by the creature’s bulk. Gral saw them, however, and summoned a freezing cloud that obscured the space behind the dire wolf. Frost began to sparkle in the fur covering the creature’s hindquarters, but otherwise it paid no heed to the chilling effects of the dwarf’s spell, instead surging forward to deal once more with the dragonborn. It surged forward, using its sheer mass as a bludgeon to drive these enemies before it.
But Vhael held his ground, and as the snapping jaws came down again he raised his sword, holding it up like a quarterstaff, with one hand on the hilt and the other on the blade a few feet from the end. The wolf snarled as the edge cut into its throat, but it pressed forward, driving Vhael back inexorably. The dragonborn’s jaw tightened as he struggled to keep the sword above his head, keeping the wolf just slightly off-balance, its neck just barely exposed.
Carzen Zelos leapt into that gap, his sword plunging down into that opening, drawing a long gash across the wolf’s throat that pulsed, then suddenly erupted in a spray of bright red blood. The creature reared and thrust forward, knocking both Carzen and Vhael backward, but its struggles were now the violent thrashings of the dying, rather than a prelude to a renewed assault. Behind it, the freezing cloud continued to roil, but the magic fueling it was already beginning to fade, and they could see figures moving behind it, waiting for its collapse. Carzen reached out a hand to help Vhael, but the dragonborn shook it off, a deep rumble coming from his throat as he took up a warding position at the mouth of the passage.
The wolf shuddered a last time and collapsed, its bulk narrowing the corridor considerably, so that only one enemy could easily navigate it at once. But as the cloud faded, they could see the new threat already waiting for them.
“Take cover!” Vhael warned, dodging to the side as a hail of arrows and crossbow bolts shot down the corridor. The dragonborn shifted behind the threshold of the doorway just in time, as one of the missiles clipped the lintel and spun past him, and a second passed through the place he’d been standing just a moment before. Carzen was just a fraction slower, and he had his shield up, but through some combination of luck and skill the archer’s shot came in just under the lower edge of the barrier, and hit the fighter in the leg just above his greave. Carzen cursed and sagged back against the wall out of the direct line of fire, grimacing as he clutched at the nasty wound.
Jaron and Gez returned fire, but their shots didn’t seem to have much effect, as the enemy snipers dodged back into cover. But they were replaced by a formation of armored warriors, as a trio of hobgoblin soldiers followed by a pair of humans stepped into view. The humans looked like bandits, clad in dirty leather tunics covered haphazardly with metal plates, and armed with metal bludgeons. They remained behind the hobgoblins, who formed up into a disciplined phalanx before moving forward, their shields raised to form an interlocking wall of metal before them.
“Let them come to us,” Vhael said, glancing out from the shelter of the doorway.
“I’m not stupid!” Carzen shouted back.
Smoke was starting to gather in the passage, coming out of an opening to the left about twenty feet from the entry doors, and there was yelling coming from that direction. Vhael would have taken odds that somehow Jaron’s cousin was involved with that.
“Beetle’s in there somewhere!” Jaron yelled, but as Vhael looked down the crowded passage, his chest and arm burning where the wolf had abused him, he knew that at the moment, at least, there was nothing they could do for the last member of their company.
Beetle was starting to wonder if maybe he’d made a small mistake.
For some reason, his lungs didn’t want to seem to work, and the room spun around him a bit as he tried to get up. He felt almost like he had the time that Dale Wanderwarren’s bull had head-butted him, and he laughed at the memory—or at least tried to; only a sick wheezing noise came out of his throat.
Then rough hands were grabbing at him. While he was still not quite sure what was going on, instinct told him that being grabbed wasn’t a good thing, and his body took over for his seemingly absent mind.
He twisted backward and away, leaving his cloak in the possession of the grabbing hands. Someone snarled at him, and he felt a cool breeze as something flashed by, inches in front of his face. There sure was a lot of smoke, making it hard to see. An ugly face lunged in front of his, and he darted back, nearly tripping over something big lying on the floor. A chair, he thought, then a table, the latter apparently on fire. He ducked under the table and came out on the far side. There was an opening there, a vague outline through the smoke, and he started toward it, only to come up short as several big—very big, and very armored—forms materialized in the doorway.
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw the outlines of the goblin warriors, trying to find him in the smoke. There wasn’t really anywhere to go, so he dove under the sagging bed where the bugbear warrior he’d killed earlier lay. There was a lot of blood there, and he couldn’t help but getting it all over him as he rolled under the bed and came up on the other side, looking for a way out.
Nothing really presented itself at the moment, except for a goblin that suddenly materialized out of the smoke, right in front of him. Both jumped, the goblin’s surprise perhaps understandable at the sudden appearance of the garishly blood-streaked form of the halfling, appearing like an unholy fiend summoned out of the deepest pits of the hells. Both responded instinctively, the goblin with a swing of his axe, the halfling with a jump backwards. The goblin felt his weapon connect with something, and his mouth twisted into a grin at the cry of pain that accompanied it, but a moment later he felt a nasty stab of agony in his arm. Reaching down, he plucked out the tiny knife that had buried there, and tossed it aside.
The Skullcleaver called out to his companions, who converged on the corner of the room, penning in their elusive foe, cutting off any avenue of escape.
Barely twenty feet away, Jaron was all too aware of the danger to his cousin, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it at the moment, for between here and there a raging, desperate melee was being fought.
Jaron and Gez had brought the approaching phalanx under fire as they’d made their way up the corridor toward the position where Vhael and Carzen waited, but their bows had had little effect on the heavily armored warriors. Gral’s icy beams were somewhat more potent, but the hobgoblins had shrugged those off as well, seemingly immune to anything that the adventurers could throw at them. The warriors pounded their flails on the inside of their shields as they approached, raising a din that reverberated off the walls of the passage. It was the dead mound of the dire wolf that finally forced them to break their formation, and it was then that Carzen and Vhael attacked, spinning out of their cover to lunge with their straight blades. Carzen’s initial surge bounced off a hobgoblin shield, but Vhael’s longer sword came in over a warrior’s guard and clipped him hard on the side of the helmet. The stroke failed to penetrate the steel cap, but the hobgoblin was staggered by the impact, shaking his head to clear it as he pushed forward back into formation. His companions lashed out with their flails, and now it was Carzen and Vhael who were forced back, giving the hobgoblins the precious seconds they needed to reform their line.
“We need to do something!” Jaron yelled. He raised his bow, but he didn’t have a shot that wouldn’t put the front-line fighters at risk.
“I don’t have a shot!” Gez shouted back, echoing his thought. The soldier didn’t bother rushing to bolster the front line; in the narrow space of the doorway, he’d only get in the way of the two fighters. And anyway, Gral was there, just a few steps back from Vhael, firing rays of frost into the hobgoblin ranks with pinpoint accuracy.
Jaron’s gaze traveled back to the balcony. “Boost me up there!” he said to Gez, and started running in that direction.
But he’d barely covered three steps before the door atop the balcony was flung open. Hoping to see Beetle, instead Jaron felt a cold fist in his gut as a pair of hobgoblin archers appeared, arrows already fitted to their bowstrings.
The feeling of dread deepened as the pair lifted their weapons and pointed them at him.
Jaron fumbled for an arrow, but he’d been anticipating a climb, not another shot, and he wasn’t able to beat the new arrivals up on the balcony. He twisted aside and narrowly missed getting impaled by the first shot. Even so, the arrow clipped his shoulder, going clear through the leather of his jerkin and the heavy wool of his cloak, and taking a divot of flesh with it. He grimaced as the pain tore through his body, but he knew he’d gotten lucky. Hobgoblin bows were powerful, and that shot could have just as easily gone through him as his garments.
The other archer exchanged fire with Gezzelhaupt. Both missed, though the hobgoblin’s arrow came close enough to stir up the hairs on the left side of his head in its passing. The soldier, all too aware of his disadvantage, took cover behind the statue on the far side of the alcove.
Jaron had no such opportunity, and as he looked around in vain for a chance to escape this trap, he realized that he could be in serious trouble.
But as the hobgoblins reloaded their bows, Gral stepped back into view. The dwarf lifted his staff and fired a ray of frost that struck the archer on the left solidly in the chest. The hobgoblin grimaced as the blast formed an icy rime across his torso, but as he drew his bow the crystals shattered, and he managed to get off his shot. His companion fired almost at the same time. Jaron looked back over his shoulder to see that the dwarf had taken both missiles in his chest, the arrows jutting out like pins from his body. He sagged under the impact, only the support of his staff keeping him from keeling over right there.
Jaron shouted something incoherent as instinct replaced conscious thought, and he brought his bow up. He targeted the one that Gral had injured, and his shot flew true, barely missing he lip of the balcony and driving deep into the hobgoblin’s meaty thigh. But even that wasn’t enough, and while the archer’s face was twisted into a rictus of pain, it didn’t stop him from reaching for another arrow. His companion did the same, and as both took aim at Jaron, the halfling wondered if the story of his adventures was coming to a rapid and abrupt end.
Carzen and Vhael were in no position to help him. While they still held the doorway, the threshold offering them some small modicum of cover from the devastating and powerful swings from the hobgoblin flails, the enemy continued to press them hard. Carzen took a solid hit to his right arm that bruised him to the bone even through his greave, and as he shifted back the arrow still jutting from his leg almost caused him to fall. Vhael stepped forward and delivered a gout of flaming breath that made the hobgoblins hesitate, if only for a few seconds.
“Shake it off!” he growled at Carzen, offering him a hand to pull him back into place next to him. “Fight or die, there’s no other option!”
Carzen looked sick, but he did as the dragonborn said, shaking off his hand and lunging into an attack that almost cost him his renewed balance. The hobgoblin he hit only grunted as the fighter’s sword struck him in his gut, and in turn Carzen nearly died as he brought his shield up just barely in time to deflect a blow from the adjacent hobgoblin. He heard a strange noise next to him and nearly lost his concentration, before he realized that it was Vhael, and the noise was the dragonborn… singing? The warlord’s echoing roar was louder even than the banging of the hobgoblins on their shields earlier, but even that wasn’t as loud as the crash as he brought his sword down in a glittering arc that crashed through a hobgoblin helm and the skull beneath it, splattering out a mess of blood and brains in a wide spread. The hobgoblins, their order sundered by the attack, were slow to react.
But their side still had the odds in their favor, a fact that was reinforced again as one of the human bandits that had been lurking behind the hobgoblin line leapt forward, darting in and stabbing with his long dagger before Vhael could recover from his attack. The dragonborn’s cry became a trill of pain as the knife tore down into his neck, opening up a vicious wound that spurted forth a garishly bright stream of blood. Now it was his turn to crumple, his nails digging furrows into the door as he fell back against it, his heavy sword falling with a clatter at his feet.
The hobgoblins, reenergized, surged forward to finish him off.
Beetle dodged and tore maniacally through the room, narrowly avoiding the axe blades that swiped dangerously through the air in his wake. He sprang over a row of heaped crates and ducked under a cot, moments before a goblin axe smashed it into ruin.
Thus far the thickening smoke and his own quickness had kept the goblins from pinning him down, but there was no way that his luck could continue forever.
It came to a sudden end as he leapt up from the collapsing cot and onto a barrel near the stairs. That barrel wasn’t as securely seated as its neighbors, and the sudden weight of the halfling on it caused it to topple over. Beetle let out a surprised yell and flipped over roughly onto his back, coughing at the acrid smoke stinging his lungs. His head pounded where it had caromed off the unyielding stone plates of the floor.
He looked up to see all four goblins standing over him, a promise of death in their eyes.
The dwarf was a wizard, and that made him somewhat unusual among his kind. But while he had never borne an axe or hammer into battle, or held of hordes of creatures clad in layers of plate steel, that did not mean that he lacked the stamina and durability common to his race. Dwarven resilience—more than just an axiom, it was a truth that pulsed in his blood.
And so he drew himself up, yanking out one of the arrows jutting from his body and tossing it aside. One of the hobgoblin archers was shooting at Jaron, but the other saw him and hurriedly raised his bow to finish him off before he could unleash another spell. Their eyes met for a long moment across the chamber.
“Take your best shot, goblin,” he growled, and while the archer obviously couldn’t hear him, it was obvious by the way his eyes narrowed that he understood the message.
He released his arrow. The shot thudded into the dwarf’s body, solidly in the center of his chest, no doubt sticking into the dense matter of his breastbone. Gral looked down at the shaft quivering from his body.
And smiled.
“Not good enough,” he said, drawing upon the power of his staff to empower his ray of frost. The beam caught the hobgoblin solidly in the chest, drawing a line icy crystals across his body all the way to where his shoulder joined his right arm. The hobgoblin reached for another arrow, but his hands shook as he fought off the draining chill.
His companion realized his mistake too late, and shifted his aim from Jaron to the wizard. But he was too late; two arrows sank into his body before he could shoot, one in his gut, the other a few inches below his throat. The hobgoblin toppled over and fell forward off the balcony, landing with a sick thud on his back fifteen feet below.
As the hobgoblins in the corridor surged ahead to finish off Vhael, Carzen pushed ahead to meet them. He feinted at the bandit that had disabled Vhael, but the man was obviously not interested in toe-to-toe fighting against a heavily armored opponent, and he quickly withdrew, leaping over the corpse of the dead dire wolf. The hobgoblins were of tougher stuff, but Carzen absorbed the pounding blows from their flails on his shield, and countered with a quick lash from his sword that drew a painful wound across the bicep of one the soldiers. The hobgoblin, already wounded, nearly lost his grip on his flail, and he stepped back to recover, forcing his companion to cover him.
With that momentary respite, Carzen glanced back at Vhael. “Fight or die!” he snarled, turning back with a quick lunge that forced the hobgoblins back. “No other options, you bastard!” he yelled over his shoulder.
Vhael pulled himself up, and reached up with bloody fingers to yank the knife from his neck. Fresh blood spurted from the wound, but the dragonborn only growled as he bent and recovered his sword.
The hobgoblins, Carzen noticed, had not resumed their attack. The brief pause had made him suddenly aware of the flaring agony radiating out from his wounded leg, leaving aside the battering he’d taken from those heavy flails. The part of his mind that could still think clearly wondered what was happening, what surprise the enemy was waiting to unleash.
Then his eyes caught signs of movement further down the passage, behind the soldiers, and as he saw what was coming, he felt that anticipation turn to grim understanding. Vhael, still shaking his head to clear it, blood smeared in ugly trails across his neck and shoulders, didn’t see at first, but he could hear the deep voice that spoke a word of command, and he recognized that the hobgoblins’ leader had made an appearance.
“Fall back,” he said, but Carzen was already retreating, moving in an awkward hobbling motion as his wounded leg resisted his commands. The hobgoblins followed, but almost leisurely now, bolstered by reinforcements, knowing that their enemy’s retreat would only open them to more attacks once they cleared the narrow confines of the passage.
“What’s happening?” Jaron asked, as the two fighters emerged from the alcove. The last archer on the balcony had dropped prone, crippled by multiple hits from spells and arrows, but all of them save Gez were injured, some seriously. He started toward the passage, but saw the hobgoblins following on the heels of the fighters, with more creatures coming up behind them, and froze.
“Beetle,” he said with dread, reaching for an arrow, his fingers fumbling on the feathered shaft.
“Fall back!” Vhael repeated, turning now to cover their withdrawal, his sword hefted above his head with the blade tilted low in a defensive stance. He looked determined, but even a casual glance was enough to tell how badly he’d been battered. Gez and Gral were already moving toward the entrance, but Jaron froze where he was for a long instant, indecision on his face.
“Go!” Vhael said, thrusting at him roughly, pushing him after the others. But it was already too late.
The Bloodreavers spread out as they emerged from the passage, forming a line centered on the two hobgoblin soldiers. The pair were both rather battered themselves, but they were bolstered by the two human bandits and a quartet of goblins. Some of the latter bore wounds of their own, but they were still fearsome, clad in mail and armed with broad-bladed war axes.
As if that wasn’t enough, the door to the balcony was flung open once more, and another detachment of archers appeared. One hobgoblin bowman and two goblins with light crossbows rushed out, weapons loaded and ready.
The final arrivals were a pair that came from the alcove in the wake of the bandits and warriors, emerging from the wisps of smoke that drifted out through the open doors. The first was another warcaster, this one dressed in a hide cloak covered with fetishes of bone and metal, and a staff that bent almost into a hook at one end. And the last to arrive was the worst, a massive hulk of a hobgoblin, clanking with the weight of heavy armor, hefting a spear half again as tall as he was. His helm was fashioned into the shape of a skull, and there was a certain malevolent fury that burned in his stare as he cast it over the companions.
“You were fools to think you could challenge the Bloodreavers,” he said, his Common thick but understandable.
“I told you that our fight wasn’t over,” the warcaster added, filling the room with a fierce, terrible laugh. Sparks of white energy flared around the end of his staff, casting his features into grim relief.
“He’s the one, the one from the keep,” Jaron said. But his companions didn’t understand the reference, and in any case they had more pressing issues.
“We’ve come for your prisoners, the ones you stole from Fairhollow,” Vhael said. “Surrender them, or pay the price.”
The bandits laughed together. “The price!” the hobgoblin warchief snarled. “The price we get for you will pay for the damage you’ve done here!”
“We’ll not yield to you!” Vhael said, but his defiance rang empty. Carzen was already edging back toward the exit, but it was obvious that wouldn’t be able to outrun anybody in his current state.
The warchief smiled. “Then you will die! Take them!” he shrieked, and his forces surged forward.
Carzen started to turn toward the exit, but before he could take even one step, an arrow from the balcony caught him on the leg, this time in the thick calf muscle on the same leg where he’d been shot before in the thigh. He cried out as the limb buckled, and went down hard.
The one consolation was that the attack probably saved him from a worse fate, as a twisting tendril of force energy from the warcaster’s staff passed harmlessly over him, quickly dissipating into nothing.
Vhael was left alone to face the Bloodreaver charge, and he held his ground against the overwhelming odds, shifting slightly to protect the fallen Carzen. Under the enemy warchief’s direction the enemy line snapped shut around him, the humans moving to flank him while the hobgoblins threatened him from ahead. The goblins, rather than trying to press into the crowded space around the dragonborn, spread out around him and ran toward the others in the rear ranks.
A pair of goblins ran up to Gral. The dwarf wizard slammed his staff into the floor before they could reach him, unleashing a thunderwave that drove both of them back. One fell to the ground, blood oozing from his mouth, nostrils, and ears. The other one shook his head to clear it and started forward again, more wary this time. Gral lifted his staff again, but before he could work another spell a goblin crossbow bolt shot him in the hip. The wizard, already seriously wounded, toppled over, grimacing in pain. Jaron had brought a goblin down with a point-blank shot, but he had his hands full with the last one, who was pressing him hard, forcing him to fall back. The only other person in a position to help was Gezzelhaupt, who’d gained the shelter of the exit. He hesitated there for an instant, with escape right in front of him. Finally he started to turn back around, but before he could intervene in the battle, he sensed movement out of the darkness of the tunnel. The startled soldier dropped his bow and started to draw his sword, but before he could ready his weapon or shout a warning, a tall figure barreled out of the darkness and knocked him roughly aside.
The battle degenerated into a violent, chaotic melee. There was no way that Vhael could stand against the enemies around him, yet somehow, in those first initial instants, he did. The dragonborn parried one attack, dodged another. He somehow got the two human bandits tangled up together for a moment, and they were forced to disengage briefly before coming in again, swinging at his less-protected flanks with their iron bludgeons. The hobgoblin soldiers attacked with methodical overhead strikes from their flails, but like the warlord they were wounded and tired, and Vhael was able to turn crippling blows into glancing hits that were absorbed by his coat of mail.
But even Vhael could not stand before the hobgoblin warchief, who stepped forward, and out of reach of any counterattack, thrust his spear with a single powerful jerk of his arm. The dragonborn tried to lift his own weapon to parry, but his effort came far too late, and the head of the weapon slammed into his shoulder, piercing steel and leather and hide and muscle, hitting him hard enough to topple him over onto his back, where he lay, stunned and bleeding.
When the shadow materialized out of the darkness and lunged at him, Gez thought that he was a dead man. The soldier had felt like he’d been living on borrowed time ever since he’d survived the battle with the wyvern, which had slaughtered the other men of his squad. He’d had an ill feeling ever since the dragonborn had led them under the ground, into the deep places where humans had no purpose intruding. He was a man of the blade and followed orders, but he’d all but given up any hope of surviving this expedition.
But the newcomer only pushed him roughly aside, and he caromed off the nearby wall before falling over onto his side, dazed. Looking up, he witnessed a remarkable sequence of events.
The figure that had knocked him down had charged into the room, moving almost in a blur. He wore a cowled cloak, so Gez couldn’t clearly make out the identity of the stranger, but the way he moved bespoke a long familiarity with the art of combat. He carried two swords, one long, the other short, and as Gez watched he put them to immediate use.
The goblin that loomed over the fallen dwarf wizard shifted to face the new enemy, and as he drew within reach, the creature brought his axe down to greet him. But the swordsman deflected the descending blade of the axe with a slight flick of his longer sword, without even breaking stride. He kept on going, and at first Gez thought he was just going to ignore the goblin, until the smaller sword snapped back, and seemed to lightly touch the goblin on the neck. That illusion was broken a moment later as the goblin collapsed, blood spurting in dark pulses from his severed jugular.
Gez suddenly realized that there were more newcomers, much smaller forms that rushed past him into the room. Halflings, four of them, most of them armed with slings that whirled in a blur around their hands. His surprise grew even more as the cloaked swordsman glanced back at them, and Gez saw that it wasn’t a man at all, but a woman. She shouted something that his addled brain couldn’t quite decipher, then turned back and charged into the melee still raging just a few paces away in the middle of the room. The halflings spread out, firing fat lead pellets as they moved, while one of them rushed forward toward the fallen dwarf, unfastening a fat leather satchel that hung at his side.
Almost as soon as the hobgoblin warchief had struck down Vhael, his men had surged forward to finish him off. The two human brigands were first in line, eager to take advantage of a foe that was unable to strike back.
But before they could crunch their bludgeons into the dragonborn’s exposed skull, they were confronted with another obstacle. Carzen half-staggered, half-crawled forward, his crippled limb tilted at a devastating angle, unable to fully support his weight. The fighter forced the first bandit back with a wild swing that nearly cost him his balance. He was unable to use his shield for protection, as he was relying on it to keep him propped up, and so he could do little to stop the lunge of the bandit’s friend as he swept his mace at the back of Carzen’s head. But through some stupid tweak of luck the bandit slipped on the trail of blood that Vhael had left, and the head of the weapon caught only air as he slid to the side.
Jaron just couldn’t shake the last goblin Skullcleaver, who continued to press him. He’d kept his bow but had drawn his sword to defend himself from the goblin, who had already scored one grazing hit with his axe, and kept up a steady progression of attacks that had forced Jaron away from the battle until the wall of the chamber loomed up behind him. Jaron’s own attacks had all failed to so much as scratch the goblin. He was aware that his companions were getting overwhelmed in the nearby melee, but he could not spare them so much as a glance, lest the goblin get in that solid blow that would put an end to his role in the battle, and then his life.
He heard someone shout an order; he couldn’t make out the words, but the voice was familiar. He started in surprise and almost died right there as his attention started to shift; the goblin, recovering from his last swing, jammed his forearm into Jaron’s face, stunning him with an unexpected strike. The halfling nearly fell, only the hard presence of the wall behind him keeping him up. But he couldn’t do much except stare as the goblin raised his axe in both hands, its head catching the light as it started down in a deadly arc.
Carzen’s leg felt numb, which he knew was even more dangerous than the burning agony he’d felt from it earlier. His strokes were slow and getting slower, and while he might have been able to handle the two bandits easily at his best, he wasn’t even in the same neighborhood of that right now.
But the bandits were hardly pressing the attack. They knew they had allies, and they let the two hobgoblin soldiers come in to finish this persistent foe, their shields forming a protective wall before them, their flails whistling through the air over their heads. Carzen grimaced. “Come on then, you gods-damned bastards,” he muttered, unwilling to waste the breath for a defiant shout. He spared a glance down at the limp form of the dragonborn general lying in a bloody mess beside him; the thought of dying protecting Vhael grated, but it wasn’t as if he was able to run away, and if he was going to go down, it would be swinging.
But then everything got suddenly confusing. The hobgoblins were careful to stay out of his diminished reach, extending their long weapons fully as they attacked. But the blows didn’t come at Carzen, instead pounding at a slim figure that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, so quickly that the fighter almost stabbed it before he realized what was happening. The spiked heads of the flail slashed through empty air, somehow missing the darting newcomer, who bent back and then snapped forward, two slender swords flashing forward, plunging through the gap between the shields before the hobgoblins could reset them, in and then out so fast that Carzen thought he would have missed it had he blinked. But he hadn’t missed it, and neither had the hobgoblins, who staggered back, and then, to his amazement, fell to the ground, first one, then the other.
“Who the hell are you?” he managed to say.
The newcomer turned and shot a grin at him. His own jaw dropped; it was the woman bouncer from the halfling inn at the Seven Pillared Hall. But her attention lingered only for a moment, as she lifted her swords again. “We’re not done yet, pretty boy,” she said, narrowly deflecting the mace aimed at her jaw.
As Carzen looked up to see the fallen hobgoblins replaced by two more foes, he felt a sudden cold twist in his gut.
The warcaster and the warchief had rejoined the battle.
Jaron flinched as the goblin’s axe came down toward his head. He couldn’t react; couldn’t do anything but watch his death coming.
But the blow went wide, far wide, and the goblin followed it, leaning over, then falling forward to land on the floor at Jaron’s feet. He could see the hilt of the dagger stuck in his back, a small knife like the ones that he and Beetle carried, but obviously big enough to do the job in this case.
He looked up and saw Rendil Halfmoon standing over him, in the company of another pair of halflings, a man and a woman who by their features looked to be close kin. The siblings were already reloading their slings, keeping up a steady barrage of metal bullets into the ongoing battle not ten paces distant. Rendil grinned and extended a hand to help Jaron up, but then shouted a warning, almost falling forward onto the ranger as an arrow sliced narrowly past his head.
Jaron fumbled to his feet as another arrow hit the wall behind him, its head shattering on the stone. The archers on the balcony were still a deadly danger, the hobgoblin bows much stronger than the slings used by the halflings. Rendil shouted an order at his fellows, and the twins unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of bullets toward the balcony as he pulled Jaron forward toward the closest cover, at the spot where the wall jutted out into the room near the center of the chamber. Glancing out of cover, Jaron saw that the halflings’ shots were forcing the hobgoblins to keep their heads down, but none of them looked to be wounded enough to scratch off the tally of foes. He still had his own bow, but despite the threat posed by the enemy archers, Jaron’s attention was drawn to the center of the room, where Mara was engaged in a violent struggle with the hobgoblin leaders.
Mara moved in a deadly dance, her two swords flashing in a blazing storm of steel around her body. Her initial charge had taken out the two surviving hobgoblin soldiers, but against their leaders, it was all she could do to avoid their powerful assault.
She’d marked the warchief as the biggest threat, but she knew all too well of the dangerous magic wielded by the warcaster. Both attacked her, the warchief thrusting with his spear in a probing attack designed to test her defenses. She crossed her swords and deflected the thrust upward, but nearly staggered as the warcaster struck her with a coiling tendril of magical energy that tugged at her, pulling her off balance. She was able to plant her feet and snap free of the force lure before it could draw her into the range of the caster’s deadly staff, but the distraction cost her, as the chief punched his spear into her side. The steel scales of her armor held, but the sheer force of the impact felt like a hot knife through her body. The hobgoblin easily avoided her counter, but she had no time to regain her equilibrium, as she came under attack from every direction. One of the human bandits slapped her on the shoulder with his bludgeon, a love tap in comparison to the hit she’d taken from the chief, but still hard enough to leave a bruise. The other one tried to take advantage from the opposite side, but the crippled soldier from Fallcrest kneeling behind her made a desperate lunge that clipped the bandit’s hip, forcing him back.
A hissing sound drew her attention back for an instant, and she saw the fighter go down, an arrow jutting from his chest to match the two that protruded from his leg. She turned back, expecting another assault to exploit the distraction, but the chieftain only looked at her, his mouth twisting into an unpleasant grin.
“You fight well, human woman,” he said, his lips smacking. “But now you are alone. The Grimmerzhul would pay a fortune for you, but I think perhaps, that I will keep you for myself.”
He made a motion with his spearhead, and the warcaster moved to her left, flickering tendrils of electrical energy flaring around the head of his staff. The bandits, in turn, spread out to come at her from behind, careful to keep their distance for now.
The chief merely lifted his spear, and stepped forward, to take what he already thought of as his. And as Mara stood there, surrounded, her side still flaring where the chief had stabbed her, she wasn’t sure that she could stop him.
With two potential allies bleeding out their lives at her feet, surrounded by deadly foes, Mara found herself in a truly grim situation.
When surrounded by multiple foes, came her uncle’s voice, rising unbidden to her thoughts, Don’t wait for them to coordinate their attack. Take the fight to them!
The words were like a command, and she surged forward, toward the nearer of the two bandits. The man, caught by surprise, tried to fall back, but Mara’s longer sword batted away his mace, while the shorter tore through the light armor he wore as though it was old cloth. The bandit sagged like a punctured wineskin, and fell back, clutching at his side where a plume of crimson spread.
Mara pivoted and brought her sword up just in time to deflect another thrust from that deadly spear. The spearhead jerked out and came in again, so quick that it was only instinct that brought her short sword up in time to slide it away. The second bandit came in to deliver another blow to her flank while she was thus engaged, but even as she tensed to absorb the hit, the man jerked aside, stumbling over the limp form of the dragonborn warlord, an arrow protruding from his back. He too tried to win free, but even as he untangled his feet from Vhael’s sprawled limbs, another arrow buried itself to the fletchings in his neck, and he collapsed.
The warchief came on in earnest, now, his spearhead dancing a dance as beautiful and deadly as the twin arcs of Mara’s swords. He was incredibly strong, and precise, and she took another hit as she knocked the spear aside again; as the warchief drew his weapon back he twisted it and slide the blade up along the underside of her arm, tearing the leather there and snapping one of the straps holding her greave in place. She felt a hot lancing stab of pain as the steel edge sliced into muscle, but thankfully it hadn’t cut deep enough to cripple the limb. The hobgoblin, however, smiled.
“You will be a great pleasure to break,” he said, teasing her with another thrust that she knocked aside with her smaller sword. As of yet, she hadn’t been able to so much as scratch him in return.
But she was aware that there was a larger battle raging around her. The Halfmoons, while not fighters, were no pushovers, not in a place like the Labyrinth, where even running an inn was not without its dangers. Her new companions were all Rendil’s cousins; Dwallin with his herbs and poultices, the twins Tarra and Torrin, all of them knew their business. They had a score to settle with the Bloodreavers, and had agreed to sneak out here with her to even the tally. They knew how to use those slings that they carried, so easily underestimated, and she had spent enough time with the halflings to know that even a small lead pellet could take down a much bigger opponent. She’d spotted Jaron when she had first rushed into the room, and while there was no sign of Beetle, she had no doubt that he was creeping around somewhere, likely getting into position for a devastating sneak attack.
The Halfmoons were keeping the enemy archers busy, and had helped her whittle down the odds against her. Even as she battled the hobgoblin chief she sensed the warcaster shift his attention away for a moment, snarling as he plucked an arrow from his sleeve.
“Just you and me,” she said under her breath, dancing the dance with the hobgoblin chief. Now it was almost like the sparring matches she had fought with her uncle, often for hours, until both of them could barely lift a wooden sparring sword. He’d tested her on different weapons, clubs big and small, nasty spinning poleaxes, chains and knives.
And spears.
The hobgoblin did not let up, and Mara’s swords flashed up, down, left, right, and everywhere in between, keeping that gleaming tip, already slick with her blood, from touching her. She tried to counterattack, if nothing else to keep the hobgoblin on his guard, but each time she almost got within his reach, the spearhead danced back, forcing her back on the defensive.
Everything around her faded into the background, although a part of her remained attuned to the rest of the battle, in case another threat emerged from around the edges. But that was distant, vague; within that bubble that surrounded her and the chief, everything was sharp, fast, alive. She felt her swords like they were extensions of her arms; even the pain that throbbed in her side and arm were something she was aware of only insofar as it slowed her responses. For the moment, she was a living weapon, moving faster than she ever had, even during those practice sessions, when wooden swords had clacked and spun in a blur.
The hobgoblin was her equal, maybe even her better. He was strong, and fast, and well-protected with armor even heavier than the custom suit of metal scales that she wore. The spearhead moved as if it was alive, darting in and out like the tongue of a serpent. She parried it, deflected it, even felt its touch sliding along her armor when she couldn’t fully evade its touch. The hobgoblin kept attacking, giving her no opening to do anything but defend. She could have fallen back, used space to allow her to reset her stance and adjust the dynamic, but with the dead and dying scattered upon the floor all around her, she knew that a single false step would mean a quick end.
Then, suddenly, everything seemed to slow around her, and in that heightened state of perception that often came to her in moments of intense effort, she saw the hobgoblin shift his hands slightly on the haft of his spear, and knew what was coming. She almost saw her uncle’s features superimposed on the hobgoblin’s, as he feinted an attack and then drove in a thrust straight for the center of her torso, a blow too strong to parry or deflect.
But she was already moving, stepping into the attack, pivoting her body. She was barely aware of a faint gust trickling at her chin as the spearhead shot past her, the steel edge scraping on the scales protecting her chest. And then it was behind her, and she lunged, thrusting her short sword straight forward at the hobgoblin’s heart.
The impact kicked up her arm hard enough to shake her teeth. The blow dented the chief’s breastplate, but failed to penetrate. She started to follow up with her longer blade, sweeping it up in an arc that would cut into the hobgoblin’s leading arm, hopefully with enough strength to force him to drop the spear.
But the blow never landed. Instead of trying to recover his weapon, the hobgoblin slammed down the haft with one hand, spinning the spear with the other. It was just so damned fast… Mara abandoned her attack and tried to dodge, but the butt end of the spear caught her on the side of her head, clipping her helmet just below her left ear. The helm kept her skull from cracking, but she still found herself falling, landing awkwardly on her side, her short sword clattering out of her grip as she fell on that arm. She managed to look up in time to see the hobgoblin spin the spear back into a ready grip, holding it there above his head for just an instant before he stabbed the deadly head back down to finish her.
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