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!
The only sound within the small, richly appointed office was the soft scritch of a quill pen upon parchment, broken only by brief interruptions as the chamber’s sole inhabitant paused to dip the pen into the crystal vial of ink set slightly off to the side in front of him.
At first glance, the man seemed like a prosperous clerk. His face, lined by the passage of fifty years or so, showed nothing but a quiet concentration as he wrote, and the pen did not waver, did not make so much as a single error as it left a trail of letters across the page. A careful observer might have noticed more, however; the fact that the writer’s shirt was silk rather than linen, or that the small pin at his throat was solid gold rather than gilt.
The man finished his writing, and after blotting the text he folded it efficiently, reaching out to dribble wax from the candle burning on the front edge of the desk. He drew out a signet ring from a small carved wooden box to his right, and pressed in into the wax, marking the missive with a seal.
The door opened, and a soldier came into the room. He was a man in his early twenties, clad in a hauberk of steel scales, a longsword with an ivory-inlaid hilt resting easily on his hip. There was more than a subtle similarity in his features that bespoke a relation to the man at the desk, even before either spoke.
“You seem upset, Carzen,” the seated man said, placing the sealed parchment into a tray that lay on one corner of the desk. An identical tray sat on the opposite corner, empty.
“It’s that bastard Jakkanis,” Carzen said. “Father, that man is insufferable! You should hear what he said to me this morning, in front of the—“
“Jakkanis is the Commander of the Moonguard, and your superior officer,” the older man interrupted, cutting Carzen’s sentence off as neatly as a knife. The young soldier opened his mouth to counter, but his father continued over him, adding, “Just because you are now my heir does not mean that I will tolerate any shaming of our family name.”
The statement obviously stung, and the soldier bit back an angry retort. Instead, he said, “If I were magi, like Ahlen, you would say different.”
“If it were simply a question of magical talent, I would have made your younger sister my heir,” the older man said. “You have made your choice of profession; now you must follow its rules, and excel. That is what is expected of a member of the house of Zelos.”
The young man’s lips tightened, but he did not directly challenge the man seated in front of him. The older Zelos sighed, and held up the signet ring. “Do you see this? Do you know what it is?”
Carzen nodded. “It’s Lord Markelhay’s sigil,” he said.
“It is. And while the Lord Warden is in the distant south, I wield it in his name.” He paused, just for a moment, a contemplative interval that a casual observer might have easily missed. “The Markelhays have ruled Fallcrest since its inception, long before our family first came to the Nentir Vale. A long time. But few things last forever, do you understand?”
The youth nodded; for a moment he looked much like his father. Slightly subdued, he said, “You sent for me, father?”
“Indeed I did. Vhael has arrived with his party in Fallcrest.”
“Already? But I thought he was coming all the way from Albestin.”
“One of the things you must learn, Carzen, is to always question one’s assumptions.”
“I still don’t see why we need that scaly to deal with this.”
The old man rose out of his chair. “That is why I have this,” he said curtly, holding up the signet, before he put it back in its box. “And you will refrain from the use of that term, even in private. The Zelos do not resort to crass racial slurs, regardless of our inner feelings.”
Carzen’s expression darkened further, but he held his tongue. There was a knock at the door behind him, and a servant entered, bowing his head to the elder Zelos, acknowledging the younger with a nod.
“M’lord, General Vhael has arrived with his companion.”
“Have you asked to their comfort?”
“Yes, m’lord. They indicated that they would prefer to meet with the Lord Warden’s designee at once.”
“Please ask them to join us in the South Hall,” Zelos said.
The South Hall of Moonstone Keep was only a fraction of the size of the Great Hall below, but it offered a striking view of the town of Fallcrest, spread out in tiers along the banks of the Nentir River. Today the sky was a brilliant azure that stretched from horizon to horizon, broken only by a few pale wisps of clouds above the mountains to the south.
Lord Zelos and his son entered through the side door even as the main doors opened to yield the servant, accompanied by Vhael and his escort. The two of them were about as mismatched a pair as one could ever hope to encounter. Vhael was only a scant inch or two taller than Carzen Zelos, but the dragonborn warlord’s shoulders were broad enough to present him with difficulty at some doorways sized for humans. He was clad in a simple tunic of faded blue over a hauberk of dwarf-forged links of silvery mithral. He was not carrying a weapon, but the claws and teeth that were a product of his draconic heritage made him look utterly dangerous nevertheless. Several visible scars creased the scales covering his head and hands, which were a deep coppery hue, tinted slightly with red under his jaws and on the pads of his hands.
The dragonborn’s companion was a half-elf woman. She looked to be in early middle age, at least as humans judged such things, but her body sagged with the weight of a deep, ingrained weakness. She wore a habit of dark blue cloth and a robe that concealed her from neck to ankles, but even those bulky garments could not conceal the damage that her body had suffered. Faint lines of scars were just visible at the edges of the cloth that framed her face, and she moved with the slow deliberation of one who felt pain. Like the dragonborn, she bore no weapons, and the only decoration she wore was a bright silver sigil of Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon, which shone upon her chest in the light streaming through the slit windows of the hall.
The pair came forward, the woman’s arm resting upon that of the dragonborn, the priestess looking almost like a fragile glass carving in contrast to the sheer vitality of the warlord.
“General Vhael, on behalf of the Lord Warden, welcome to Fallcrest,” Zelos said, coming forward to greet them. Carzen followed, but he kept a short distance back.
“General no longer,” the dragonborn said, his voice deep and heavy, though he spoke the common speech without a trace of accent. “The days of great armies and desperate battles are past.”
If Zelos was surprised by the comment, he hid it well. “There is always a need for strength of arms and the wisdom to know when to use it,” he said. “This is my son, Carzen.”
The dragonborn’s nod was barely noticeable. He indicated his companion. “The Lady Draela Silverbow, priestess of the Platinum Dragon,” he said. “We had expected to find Lord Markelhay here. The letter we received was sent in his name.”
“Sadly, the Lord Warden has been detained longer than expected at the conclave of the great lords in the south. I am empowered to represent him in these matters, in his absence.”
The dragonborn’s stare, from eyes recessed beyond ridges of bone, weighed him for a long moment. Finally, the half-elven priestess shifted her hand slightly on Vhael’s arm, and he said, “Very well. I understand that you have a problem with raiders.”
“Slavers,” Zelos clarified. “A foul band, that calls themselves the ‘Bloodreavers’. They have been a thorn in our side for quite some time, but their attacks have grown increasingly brazen of late.”
“And your own forces? Lord Markelhay retains a considerable garrison, or so I have heard.”
“That is true, but the Nentir is a large place, and we lack the troops to garrison the more far-flung settlements, or even to actively patrol the back roads and trails. The slavers are not fools; they avoid large parties of armed men, and dissolve like the fog before the sun when we shift our troops about.”
“So what do you expect me to do about it?” Vhael asked.
“The raiders must have a base of operations. We believe they have at least one outpost mountains to the northeast, on the edge of the Vale. They cannot fly, and even minor parties leave tracks. A small company, comprised of veterans, would be more effective than an army, in this case.”
Vhael glanced down at the woman on his arm, who met his gaze with her own. He turned away, and walked a step, then two, looking out through the windows at the town below. Carzen fidgeted a bit, but Lord Zelos waited patiently, his hands folded in front of him.
“A small company,” the dragonborn finally said.
“Soldiers from the garrison, and a few men from my own personal guard,” Zelos said. “My son, a capable fighter.” Carzen drew himself up slightly, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, though his expression had not shifted from the slight frown he’d worn since coming into the room.
Vhael’s eyes slid over the young fighter for barely an instant. “Supplies. Horses would be more hindrance than help in the mountains, but we’ll need pack animals.”
“You shall have everything you need.”
“What about…” Carzen said. The young soldier looked at Draela, at the sagging, frail outline of her form, but his words trailed off before he could finish his thought. His father’s eyes shifted to him, boring like cold augurs, but he finished lamely, “It’ll be a hard journey.”
Now Vhael’s look was openly hostile, but as he walked forward the half-elf woman placed her hand again on his arm, forestalling him. “I will remain here in Fallcrest, and serve as liaison between the civil authority here and the expedition,” she said.
“I will need whatever intelligence you have gathered regarding these attacks,” Vhael said.
Zelos nodded. “There is a pair of halflings from the west, whose village was the latest victim of the Bloodreavers. The slavers carried off a number of their people. They seemed intent on tracking them, even alone if necessary, but I prevailed upon them to wait for your arrival. I believe that one of them is a veteran of that nasty business with the hobgoblin warlord Dal Durga, a few years back.”
Vhael absorbed the information, but it was clear that the dragonborn was ready to depart. “We leave with the dawn,” he said, his words directed in the general direction of Carzen. Then, with the faintest of shifts that might have been a nod at Zelos, he turned and departed, the servant opening the doors for them as the pair exited. The servant hesitated for a moment, then at Zelos’s gesture he departed and pulled them shut behind him.
“Well, he’s big enough, but he didn’t seem all that special to me,” Carzen said.
“As I told you before, assumptions can be deceiving,” the elder Zelos said. “You heard the General; you had best make your preparations, if you are to be ready for the morning’s departure.”
For the moment the two men shared a quiet stare. Then, with a slight click of his heels, accompanied by a curt nod, Carzen turned and headed to the door. For a moment, he hesitated, his hand on the handle. He glanced back.
“Do not disappoint me,” the elder Zelos said, not turning from where he stood at one of the windows.
Carzen departed without a word, leaving his father staring in silence upon the town below, his brow furrowed with the weight of private thoughts.
“I do not like leaving you here alone,” Vhael said, adjusting his pace automatically to match the much smaller stride of the woman at his side.
“I can take care of myself,” she said. “Dost my lord think me weak?”
“You are the strongest woman I have ever met,” the dragonborn replied simply. “It is just that I do not trust this Lord Zelos, or his brood.”
Draela shrugged slightly. “All the more reason for me to remain here,” she said. “Gazur’s orcs may have taken the strength of my body, but my eyes and ears remain sharp, as does my mind.”
A slight growl sounded deep in Vhael’s throat, as it often did when the priestess spoke of the torture that had left her crippled. Even magical healing could not fully restore what had been taken from her; powerful priests had tried. Gazur had paid for his crimes, along with his torturers, but by the look on Vhael’s face, he would have welcomed having them present to pay some more.
“Gral is coming, unless I miss my guess,” Draela said, patting Vhael’s arm once more before letting her hand fall to her side.
A slight tapping sound became audible, followed by the appearance of a dwarf from one of the side passages that branched off of the long central hallway. He was old, his face a complicated landscape of ridges and valleys, obscured by bushy eyebrows and a long beard that was more white than gray. He wore a tunic of blue cloth that fell past his knees, trimmed in black sable that rose to a high fringe around his neck and out his cuffs. A belt set with a dozen tiny pouches circled his torso, and he carried a staff that was as tall as he was, a shaft of wood so pale that it seemed almost white. That was the source of the tapping, the staff marking the dwarf’s approach upon the floor with each pace.
“General Vhael. Lady Draela,” the dwarf said. If Vhael’s voice was like the rumbling of a mountain, Gral’s was like two rocks being crushed together.
“Gral,” Vhael said. “What have you discovered?”
The dwarf reached into a pocket—the tunic had several, woven cunningly into the fabric—and drew out a tightly wound parchment scroll. Vhael unrolled it as the dwarf spoke. “The men all seem competent enough, but mark me, they’re all in this nobleman’s pocket, whether they be in his direct employ or no. Five humans and an elf. Nothing particularly dirty that I could dig up, but mind you, I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to work with.”
“It will be sufficient,” Vhael said, scanning the list. None of the family names were familiar, but then again, it was unlikely that he would have recognized anyone this far afield as one of those he’d fought with, back in the day.
But then again, the veterans of those times were outnumbered by those who had never returned.
“What about this younger Zelos? We’re to be saddled with him on this trip, it seems.”
Gral grunted. “From what I was able to dig out—not easy, his family name shuts a lot of mouths—he’s good with the blade, but he’s something of a wastrel. His elder brother and younger sister are both magi—the brother was killed by brigands out near Winterford just a few weeks back, and the sister’s an advisor to one of the southern barons.”
“It would seem that the family has gotten over its grief,” Vhael said. His finger paused at the bottom of the scroll. “What of these halflings?”
Gral grunted. “An odd pair, to be sure. The one, Jaron Feldergrass, he served in the campaign against that hobgoblin chief, Dal Durga. Owns a farm in one of the smaller villages of the western vale, the one that was raided by these slavers. The other… well now, that one’s a bit tougher to put down. Nobody seems to know much of anything about him, ‘cept that he’s the cousin of the first.”
“I suppose we shall learn more soon enough,” Vhael said. “Good work, my friend.” He tucked the scroll into his belt. “Any more information on the raiders?”
Gral nodded. “I looked into what you’d suggested before. Nobody here talks much about the Seven-Pillared Hall, or the Labyrinth, but there’s a few who know about them here in town. I couldn’t find anyone who could confirm that the raiders are operating out of Thunderspire, but I’d bet my staff that we’d find someone there who would know, or at least who could point us in the right direction.”
“I agree,” Vhael said. “Samazar would know the truth.”
“If he yet lives,” Gral replied. “It’s been almost twenty years.”
“If he is not there, we will speak to the current Ordinator. Our supplies?”
“Everything we need, or near enough. The boy’s getting everything together in the side yard behind the stables. Told him we’d meet him there, if you’re ready, sir.”
Vhael turned to Draela. “I will be here when you return, m’lord.” She touched his arm, a slight gesture that carried a lot of meaning. With a nod at Gral, a look that also carried an unspoken message, she turned and withdrew back down the hall toward the guest quarters deeper in the citadel.
“I wish we didn’t have to leave her here,” Gral said.
Vhael felt the same way, but he did not speak. A thin wisp of smoke issued from the corner of his mouth, whirling around his head before dissipating. “Let’s go meet our troops,” he said, leading the dwarf toward the door that led out into the inner courtyard of the keep.
“My name is K’rol Vhael. Some of you may know me by reputation. Most of what is said about me is exaggeration or outright fabrication. I cannot fly; I do not customarily decapitate giants before breakfast, and I have never eaten a subordinate, no matter what his offense. However, this much is truth: when I state something, you can expect that it is so.”
“I have been summoned by your Lord Warden to deal with the raiders who have been conducting slaving operations in your Nentir Vale. This we will do. I have been assigned the command of this operation. As such, you will refer to me either as ‘Commander Vhael,’ or more simply, ‘sir’.”
“This is my second, Graladiran Thunderhammer. He is a wizard, and when I am not present, he speaks with my voice. You will follow his commands, and mine, without question or dissent. If you cannot follow this stricture, then it is best to speak now, because I will not tolerate challenges to my authority once the operation has begun. A man who cannot follow orders in combat is a threat to his companions and to the mission, and will be treated as such.”
“Very well then. You have been briefed on this assignment, and issued weapons, equipment, and supplies that will support the operation. We will be conducting activities in regions that are mountainous or otherwise hazardous to horses, so we will not be mounted. From what I am told, the distances are not very great in any case. Soldier Allon, you will be in charge of the pack mules; Soldier Ladren, you will be his second.”
“These gentlemen beside me are halflings from the western part of the Vale, near Winterford. They have first-hand knowledge of the slavers and their operations, and will be accompanying us. As civilians, they are not directly subject to the chain of command, but as a part of this operation, they will be expected to follow directions and contribute to the activities of the group.”
“Soldier Gezzelhaupt, I am told that you have something of a gift for foraging. Very well, you shall be our quartermaster. Soldier Tomon will be your second, and will also be responsible for upkeep of the party’s weapons. A quantity of tools, oils, whetstones, spare bowstrings, and other necessities are included in our supplies. In addition to the material carried on the mules, each of you will carry a small pack of essentials, in case something should happen to the animals.”
“Soldier El’il, you are in charge of scouting; your elvish eyes will be of particular use to us in ferreting out any ambushes. While much of the Nentir is quiet, you should learn now that I make no assumptions about ‘friendly’ or ‘hostile’ territory; all will be considered the latter once we leave the walls of this city.”
“Corporal Chaffin will be responsible for supervising you in your various assigned tasks. He will provide you with our marching order and the watch schedule. He will report to Lieutenant Zelos, who will report to me.”
”This operation will function based on the principle of the chain of command, with which I know that you are familiar. However, given the nature of this expedition and its small size, you may also expect direct orders from me, or from Mage Thunderhammer. I expect to be kept informed of any matters that relate to the operational effectiveness of this expedition, whether they are related to its personnel or its equipment. Any of you may request an interview with me at any time, subject to the immediate requirements of actions in the field.”
“By the time we encounter the enemy, I expect that we will have a better understanding of each other. You have all heard enough of our foe to know that they are not common bandits; these raiders are organized, well-equipped, and dangerous. Do not underestimate them. Remember that discipline, mutual reliance, and dedication to the task are all fundamental foundations of success in martial endeavors of any sort, regardless of their scope or scale.”
“Are there any questions? Very well then. We depart at the next bell, in approximately fifteen minutes. Dismissed.”
Jaron felt the wind catch at his cloak as he nimbly clambered atop the jut of rock. The outcrop rose only about fifteen feet above the level of the trail that passed below, but it still gave a decent view of the Khel Vale, which stretched out before him like a spearhead. The terrain was much like that around Fairhollow, if somewhat more rugged. The halfling scout glanced up to his right, where the valley tapered into a point, its floor ascending into the narrowing gap between the sharp hills.
And looming over it all, Thunderspire. It was under that mountain that Yarine and the others had been taken, if the dragonborn’s information was accurate. Jaron’s stare lingered, and his hands tensed into fists.
Finally, Jaron shifted his gaze back toward the open end of the Vale. The trail they’d spent the day navigating faded in and out of view, disappearing behind low rises or other undulations in the land. He could see a few of the settlements they’d passed, tiny steadings of shepherds, woodcutters, or trappers, their dwellings alike in that they were all heavily fortified, mostly solid turf huts built into the stony soil of the Vale.
He could see their companions now, coming out of a forested dell about a thousand paces back along the trail. Vhael, of course, was instantly recognizable, his broad shoulders distinct against the smaller humans around him. The guardsmen seemed alert enough, their weapons catching the afternoon light even with the blacking that the dragonborn had insisted they use to conceal the gleam of the bare steel.
The journey thus far had been mostly uneventful. The soldiers had seemed competent, if a bit sullen, in the way of men who were given an unenviable task. The elf, El’il, had not minded Jaron’s assignment to supplement his scouting duties; he’d spent most of his time apart from the others, ranging on ahead and blazing the trail with subtle marks to indicate what lie ahead. Jaron, with his much shorter legs, had stayed closer to the main group, keeping an eye out for ambushes and the like.
Jaron tried to find Beetle among the much taller members of the company, but did not see him. His cousin had been utterly fascinated with Vhael, and he’d followed at the dragonborn’s heels for most of the first day out of Fallcrest. Jaron had been worried at first about his cousin saying or doing something that would offend the veteran warlord, but when they’d come together in camp that first night, the others more or less ignored both halflings. Vhael had listened to Jaron’s reports with attention, but the dragonborn seemed distracted, and he spent much of his time in quiet consultation with his dwarf companion, or marching in silence in the forefront of the main column.
Now Carzen Zelos, he was another matter entirely.
Beetle had taken an immediate dislike to the young nobleman, and Jaron had cringed inwardly at the potential there for disaster. Almost since the beginning of the expedition, Carzen had fallen victim to a series of unpleasant “accidents”, including a mysterious affinity between his blanket and stinging nettles, an unfortunate incident involving a necessities break and a nest of paper wasps, and the almost classic frog-in-the-boot that morning in camp. Jaron had tried to keep an eye on Beetle, but the halfling had been nowhere in the vicinity during any of those misadventures, and Carzen was starting to regard everyone in the group with a cold suspicion, a situation that Jaron knew was not going to be helpful, going forward. He’d tried talking to his cousin, to reason with him, but Beetle’s aura of innocence was almost impermeable, and Jaron had felt almost like he was trying to teach one of his dogs to fly.
Jaron waved as Corporal Chaffin caught sight of him; as the company approached he descended the back face of the outcrop and moved back to the trail to await their coming.
“Anything?” Chaffin asked, more to make conversation than anything else; he knew that Jaron would have reported at once if there’s been any signs of trouble ahead.
“El’il marked that there’s another fasthold up ahead,” Jaron said. “The signs he left indicate that it is deserted.”
“Might be a good place to make camp,” Chaffin ventured, turning as Vhael and Gral joined them. The other guardsmen formed a perimeter, each of them taking a quadrant as they kept a lookout for any threats. Jaron saw it and appreciated the professionalism. Vhael stared up into the canyon, as if judging the distance, and how long it might take them to reach their destination.
“Might be better to camp down here, rather than up there,” Gral said, as if putting Jaron’s thoughts into words. The dwarf mage had not had any difficulty keeping up with them, despite his obvious age and the shortness of his stride; Jaron had yet to see him so much as stretch a tired muscle or show any other sign of being affected by their long marches. Vhael was much the same, but Jaron suspected that the dragonborn would have to be on the brink of collapse before he betrayed any hint of weakness to the others.
“What are we doing here?” Carzen Zelos asked, sagging against a boulder adjacent to the trail. “My father’s sources said that the slavers have outposts up in the mountains. If they were camped on Thunderspire, we would have heard of it.”
Vhael ignored the man, but the dwarf turned to him. “Our own intelligence sources suggest that we might learn more here,” he said.
“If they’d come this way, they would have left some sign,” Carzen persisted. The other men were gathering around them, now, Allon wrestling with the two pack mules, which were somewhat nervous in the immediate vicinity of the dragonborn. Jaron didn’t blame them. He watched Vhael as Carzen spoke. Inwardly, he couldn’t disagree with the human soldier; he’d been looking for signs since they’d left the main road that wound through the vale east from Fallcrest, and there had been nothing. Of course, it had rained several times since the night of the slaver raid, but he’d tracked enemy soldiers through worse conditions in the past.
“Master Feldergrass, lead the way to this abandoned settlement,” Vhael finally said, his rumbling voice brooking no disagreement. For a moment Carzen looked as though he might step forward to challenge the dragonborn directly, and Jaron tensed, expecting trouble. But the human warrior seemed to draw upon some reserve of good sense, and fell back into line as the small company continued up the trail.
It took only about fifteen minutes to reach the ruined fasthold. Jaron could see at once that the place had not been occupied for months, if not years. The turf house was partially collapsed, its heavy roof caved in on one side, its front doorway gaping open like a misshapen maw. The adjacent gardens were overgrown with tangles of brush, and the two small outbuildings—drying shacks for pelts, Jaron judged—were little more than wreckages of timber and weeds. A sour stink filled his nostrils, blown toward him by a stiff breeze that flowed down the mountain through the vale like water pouring backwards through a funnel.
A faint hint of unease tickled at Jaron’s senses. He looked around for El’il, but the elf scout was nowhere in evidence; most likely he’d gone on ahead to check the trail leading up the canyon.
“Desolate,” came a voice from behind him. He glanced back to see the soldier Gezzelhaupt standing there, rubbing his hands together. He looked somewhat different than the other men, his skin shaded in the swarthy coloration common to men of the distant nations to the far east of the Vale. He looked down at the halfling and smiled. “T’will be good to get out of this wind.”
Jaron nodded. The others were coming up behind them, spreading out as Vhael issued orders. The dragonborn caught his eye and made a motion that Jaron recognized as a command to scout out the area. He looked around once more for Beetle, but there was still no sign of him.
First the elf, and then Beetle. Jaron’s intuition was whispering warnings in the back of his mind, but he pushed them astray. There was nothing to be done for it in any case; the best he could do was to conduct his search, and find out for himself if there was any danger.
He left the conversation of the others behind him, and the sounds of activity as the soldiers started preparing their camp. The sun had already dipped beyond the shoulder of the hills to the west, but the slopes of Thunderspire still glowed bright, like a torch held up high. The solitary peak was eerie, a lonely blemish upon the eastern Nethir, standing apart from its peers that rose along the boundaries of the vale to the north and east. Beyond those ranges, Jaron knew, lay other lands and other kingdoms, but the halfling had never been there, did not even know the names of those places, which may as well have been part of the legends that the bards told around flickering hearths in the depths of winter.
The tall grass off the trail quickly swallowed him up, and he slowed his pace. It was strange, the way that the wilderness pushed up close against the paths and holds forged by men in places like this. Even the voices of his companions quickly faded, replaced by the noises of the wind through the brush.
With the instincts of the veteran ranger that he was, Jaron pushed through the growth toward higher ground. He took care not to mark his trail, the grasses folding back into place behind him in the wake of his passage.
The wind shifted, bringing a new smell, familiar, that raised his hackles. He found the first bloodstains a few seconds later, a spot of red on a green blade, then more, the grasses stained like the blades of daggers waving in the wind. They led him quickly to a depression where a mangled mass lay in a heap, surrounded by roughly shredded brush.
There wasn’t a lot left, but Jaron quickly noted the signs that identified the corpse—a broken arrow, part of a brooch still affixed to a fragment of wool cloth. El’il, or at least what had once been the elf. His senses were honed to a razor’s edge as he scanned the line of trees further up the rise, and he almost jumped out of his boots as a voice sounded right behind him.
“We’re in trouble, Jayse,” Beetle said.
Jaron spun to look at his cousin. At first a wild thought crept into his mind, that Beetle had somehow killed the elf scout, but then, as he looked back at the body, the damage the ground around it, the patterns told in savaged greenery… he put it all together.
“We’ve got to warn the others!” he said, darting back through the grass toward the ruined settlement. But even as he shouted an alarm, a violent bellow echoed back from the location of their camp, and he realized that the warning had come too late.
Reaching for an arrow, all he could do was run, hoping that he wouldn’t arrive to find the others like El’il.
What an eerie feeling, enveloped in tall-grass, finding a mangled corpse - your ally - and then Beetle just popping in behind him. One of these times Jaron is going to beat Beetle senseless ... erm.
Beat some sense into him? ... Well he'll beat him!
“We’ve had worse crews,” Gral pointed out. “Remember that time we had to take command of the militia at Greatcliffe?”
The dragonborn snorted. “Was that the time that ogre berserker threw you across the square and through a roof?”
Gral raised a bushy white eyebrow. “That was Haldenford, as you well know.”
The two were standing off to the side of the camp, near the remains of one of the settlement’s ruined outbuildings. The soldiers were unloading the pack animals, and otherwise preparing the camp for occupancy. Gezzelhaupt and Chaffin had already investigated the sagging remains of the turf house, but reported it unfit for occupancy, its interior sodden and dank with mold and fungus, the surviving half of the roof tentative at best.
Vhael gave an expert eye to the deepening evening sky. The weather looked to hold at least through the night, and by tomorrow, it would no longer be a concern to the expedition.
The same could not be said of the nobleman’s get, who was approaching the two of them, a stormy look on his face.
“Al’alzin’s Comment on Leadership states that, ‘A commander of men must be as patient as the oak,’” Gral said under his breath.
Vhael wasn’t feeling especially patient, but before Carzen Zelos could get close enough to speak, the dragonborn heard a faint cry over the rustling of the wind. He shot a look at the wizard, who’d heard it too, coming from the sloping hill behind the settlement, covered in deep grass. The content of the shout was lost over the breeze, but Vhael had heard enough warnings to be able to divine the message in this one in an instant.
“Alert!” the dragonborn shouted, reaching for the huge sword slung across his broad back. But even as the men of Fallcrest looked up from their labors, more curious than alarmed, Vhael saw the threat, rising up behind the squat bulk of the turf house, the ruins barely big enough to conceal its approach. He yelled a warning, but knew it was too late even as he drew out the sword and charged, flicking the long sheath free of the blade with a twist of a clawed hand. Behind him, Gral followed more slowly, his staff tapping the packed earth, approaching to bring the enemy within range of his magic.
The creature that leapt onto the ruins of the turf house was a long reptilian shape, the ancestry that it shared with Vhael obvious in its scaled hide, and the long dagger-shaped head dominated by a jaw full of rows of sharp teeth. “Dragon!” someone screamed, but Vhael knew it for what it was, a wyvern, a lesser but still deadly cousin of the great drakes. Its wingspan was easily thirty feet across, and the dragonborn paid particular heed to the long scorpion-like tail that rose above its hindquarters, bearing a sting that carried a deadly venom.
But this was all in the first chaotic second, for even as men—his men—turned toward the threat, just beginning to understand that they were in deadly danger, the wyvern sprang to the attack. With a powerful kick of its muscled legs, bolstered by a push from its wings, the wyvern shot forward in a flat arc like a catapult stone. Behind it, the turf house groaned and collapsed, but it had served the creature’s needs for the moment. Tomon, still fumbling with his blade, screamed as the wyvern landed on him, his body crumpling as a claw bore him to the ground. A few paces away, Ladren turned and ran, but he only managed a few steps before the wyvern’s head darted out on its long neck, its jaws snapping down with finality on the guardsman’s shoulder. His scream died almost before it began, and the wyvern lifted him high into the air, bright red droplets of blood flying everywhere before it flicked its head and tossed the dead man almost casually aside.
The attack had come with such suddenness and vicious intensity that the remaining survivors were stunned. The wyvern lifted its head and roared, its jaws streaked with garish red.
“Rraaaaaaaaarrrrrgggh!” Vhael roared in echo, lifting his greatsword above his head in both hands. But the dragonborn was still a good twenty paces distant, although he seemed to almost fly over the ground with his great strides.
The pack mules panicked, breaking their tethers in their frenzy to get free. Allon tried to grab the harness of one of them, but the terrified mule twisted and lashed out, a hoof slamming into the guardsman’s leg hard enough to snap the bone. He screamed and fell, and was trampled by the second mule as it tore free and followed the first out of the encampment and back down the valley.
The wyvern looked toward the mules, but its attention was drawn back across the clearing as Chaffin rushed forward and delivered a solid strike with his sword. The razor-sharp blade bit into the wyvern’s flank, but the creature’s hide was like old leather, and the wound was only superficial, drawing blood but failing to penetrate through the dense muscle beneath to the vital organs. The wyvern clearly felt the hurt, though, and it shifted to face him. Chaffin lifted his shield and readied for the darting jaws.
“Ware the tail!” Vhael warned, but even as the corporal saw the threat, the tail and its deadly sting lunged forward. Chaffin raised his shield, but the sting came down over it, driving into his shoulder. The soldier screamed and fell back, staggering as the venom worked its speedy course through his body. Within a pair of heartbeats he fell to the ground, his struggles weakening quickly.
A javelin hurled by Carzen flew across the battlefield and glanced off the wyvern’s scaled neck, but it ignored the attack, focusing on the closer threat of the dragonborn warlord as he closed to attack. The long neck lashed out again, the wyvern’s tail sweeping around to balance it as it shifted. Vhael dodged under the probing jaws, and swept his sword around in a powerful two-handed strike. The sword bit into its torso just below the junction where its left wing met its body; a thin squirt of dark blood jetted from the wound. He had positioned himself to shelter the fallen Chaffin, to give the man a chance to crawl free of the wyvern’s reach, but when he glanced down at the corporal, he saw that the man had stopped moving. Snarling in anger, Vhael lifted his sword into a defensive stance, ready for the inevitable counterattack.
White energy flared in a ray that shot past the wyvern’s head. The creature reared, and the second of Gral’s icy rays hit it squarely in the center of its chest. The wyvern screamed as the magical cold penetrated its body. Unable to lift its wings to drive forward to attack, it instead took out its frustrations on the dragonborn warlord. But Vhael was ready for the darting sting, and he narrowly deflected the thrust aimed at repeating the deadly hit on Chaffin. But he could not avoid the attack entirely, and as it snapped back its tail the poisoned tip caught on his shoulder, tearing through the links of his chainmail and nicking his tough skin. Vhael grimaced at the venom burned a fiery trail through his shoulder, but the dragonborn held his ground. Opening his jaws wide, he spat out a gout of flame that washed over the wyvern’s body. The fire splashed over the creature’s hide but did little real damage; even as it died, another frosty blast lanced into the wyvern from fifty feet away, where Gral continued working his magic. Another javelin flew past, missing entirely; Carzen snarled and drew his sword, raising his shield as he edged forward toward the melee.
The wyvern did not wait. It fell into a crouch, spreading its wings wide to catch the air. Vhael, seeing what was coming, tried to dart back, but as the wyvern lunged forward he was clipped hard on the side of his head, and he was flung onto his back. The creature swooped forward, driving its wings back, flashing scant feet above the ground as it rushed toward Gral. The dwarf held his ground, and raising his staff conjured a freezing cloud that engulfed the charging creature. For a moment, the beast vanished within that billowing sphere, but then it surged through, roaring again as the icy chill frosted on the leading edges of its wings. Its momentum had not quite taken it far enough for another claw attack, but as it landed, its long talons digging furrows in the packed earth, it lunged out with its long neck, snapping at the dwarf’s head. Gral fell back, narrowly avoiding decapitation, but the teeth snagged on his robe, tearing the fabric—and more than a little of the skin beneath—as those powerful jaws snapped shut. The wyvern threw its head back, and the dwarf was launched high into the air. He flipped end over end as he arced over the wyvern and his magical cloud, and finally landed with a hard thud on his back, some twenty paces from where he’d started.
Gral groaned, and drew himself slowly up into a sitting position. He looked up to see Vhael looming over him. The dragonborn looked a little battered, and blood still seeped from the wound on his shoulder, but he was far from finished.
“Are you all right?” he asked the wizard.
“It’ll take more than a little beastie like that to put the tell to me,” the dwarf growled. He accepted Vhael’s hand, and came to his feet, patting down his body, and checking that his pouches were all still in place.
“Over here, wait for it!” Vhael yelled to Carzen, who’d started tentatively toward the wizard’s cloud, which was just starting to disperse. The young nobleman looked over at them and nodded, moving to join them, his shield lifted in the direction of the foe.
The wyvern, seeing no more foes directly in front of it, and apparently not quite grasping where the wizard had gone to, ponderously turned in place. As the freezing cloud dissolved, it caught sight of the three foes standing in the open, and roared again, charging back toward them.
This time, arrows greeted its rush; a shot from Gezzelhaupt arced over the defenders from where the guardsman had taken shelter behind a fallen log on the far side of the clearing, while another emerged from the tall grass a short ways up the hillside, likely from the halfling scout. Both struck the wyvern, but it wasn’t clear if they penetrated the proven thickness of its hide. The monster kept coming, and Vhael stepped forward to put Gral behind him. He nodded to Carzen, who took up a warding position next to him, directly in the onrushing creature’s path.
At least he is not a coward, the dragonborn thought, as the young human raised his shield and sword, his boots twisting as they dug into the muddy dirt of the trail.
But before the wyvern could strike, both warriors were struck dumb by the utterly unexpected emergence of a streaking form from the tall grass, which shot out into the open and at the wyvern, intersecting its route of charge. The new attacker was utterly dwarfed by the charging drake, which failed to notice the threat, at least at first. That changed once the newcomer sprang up onto its leg, using the creature’s own momentum to boost him up onto the trailing edge of one wing. From there he ran up to the first carpal joint on the front of the wing, where a small protrusion jutted up from where the bones intersected. By now the wyvern had realized that something wasn’t quite right, but even as its lumbering stride altered, the small figure let himself fall, steel flashing as his knife bit at the leathery membrane of the wing, punching through and opening a long gash as his weight drew him down the full length of the wing. The wyvern let out a blood curdling shriek and nearly fell as it suddenly stopped and lunged at the foe that had maimed it. The sting shot straight down, perfectly aimed to impale the enemy, but in the instant before it struck the little form tumbled under the wyvern’s body, and the sting pierced only dirt.
Beetle came up on the far side of the wyvern. He glanced over at Vhael and Carzen, and waved, a wide grin on his face. The wyvern, still trying to figure out what had happened, yanked its sting free of the ground, hissing malevolently.
Carzen shot an incredulous look at Vhael, but the dragonborn was already charging forward. “At it, before it can recover!” he shouted.
Vhael was on the drake in seconds, his sword coming down in a blur. It bit deeply, and this time the wound was a nasty one, unleashing a spray of blood that left garish streaks across the warlord’s chest and face. The wyvern quickly responded, the deadly head coming down to strike, but Vhael avoided the snapping jaws, suffering only a glancing hit across his forearm where the bony ridge along the side of its head grazed him. The creature was slowing, now, but the warlord knew better than to underestimate the beast, even blooded as it was.
He felt rather than saw the impact that shuddered through the wyvern as Carzen took advantage of the distraction offered by Vhael’s attack to drive his blade home under the joint of its left wing. The sheer punishing force of his brute strike drove the wyvern back a half step, forcing it to pause a moment to regain its footing on the trampled ground. Carzen nearly had his sword torn from his hand at the wyvern’s rough movements, but the pair finally parted, the bright steel now slick with dark blood from the tip to the hilt. The wyvern lunged at him with its sting, but its attack was sluggish, and the warrior easily blocked it with his shield.
A thud announced the arrival of another arrow, this one sticking into the ridged flesh at the base of its skull. The wyvern’s gaze was more glassy than angry now, though it could still feel pain, and as Beetle busied himself with his dagger at its rear it started to bring its head ponderously around. It did not seem to even see Vhael as the dragonborn brought his big blade up, and with a roar he swept it down in a stroke that took its head from its shoulders.
They did not linger long on the battlefield. Insects and other carrion-seekers came quickly at the stink of death that blew down into the valley on the evening breeze, and by the time that the companions were ready to leave, there were numerous eyes watching them from the grass. The ravens were bolder, darting down to seize bits of flesh, worrying them from the wyvern’s corpse with dedicated effort.
Vhael did not leave the soldiers to suffer such a fate. He’d barely let Gral bandage his wounds before he took up one end of the crude sledge that Gezzelhaupt had put together out of branches and rope, helping the soldier drag the bodies of their fallen from the site of the brief but violent clash. The eastern soldier and Carzen were the only survivors of the contingent from Fallcrest. Allon had been unlucky enough to have had his skull cracked by a mule’s hoof as it fled the battlefield, so they put him beside Tomon, Ladren, and Chaffin, who had been slain by the wyvern in the first few seconds of the battle. Jaron and Beetle had returned to the grassy hill to bring back what was left of El’il, dragging the remains in an extra cloak. They buried the soldiers in a wooded glade a long bowshot further up the valley. By then they’d needed torches to see, but Vhael still did not linger. The mules were gone, likely halfway back to Fallcrest by now, but the warlord had insisted that each of them carry a few supplies in their backpacks, so they had at least enough food for two or three days between them, once they’d collected what could be salvaged from the slain.
“We’ll camp up in the shadow of the mountain,” the dragonborn said.
“What? You mean, we’re not going back?” Carzen exclaimed.
“Our mission has not changed.”
“Meaning no disrespect, general, but we just lost half our force, and most of our supplies. I think that under the circumstances…”
“You misunderstand me, lieutenant,” the dragonborn interrupted. “I was stating a course of action, not inviting comment.” Shouldering a pack now bulging with twice its original weight of gear, ignoring what had to be a painful jolt from the bandaged wound on his shoulder, the dragonborn moved to the edge of the glade, back in the direction of the trail. After a moment, Gral moved to follow, and then the halflings, after they shared a brief look between them.
Carzen turned to Gezzelhaupt, but the soldier was already walking after the others. Vhael didn’t wait to see if everyone was coming; he’d already started back through the trees to where they’d left the trail, his heavy tread crushing dead leaves and fallen branches under his feet. The halflings moved out to the flanks, scouting the route ahead, and vanished into the undergrowth within ten paces. Within just a few heartbeats, Carzen was alone in the glade.
The young nobleman glanced back once more at the five fresh graves lying in a neat row in the center of the glade. Then, his lips twisting back into a snarl, he checked his sword in its scabbard, and strode off to catch up to the others.
Is it just me, or has the SH forum gotten real quiet of late? I'm still seeing new stories posted, but it seems to be taking much longer for threads to drop down the page lately. I remember where I could go a few days without a post and end up at the bottom of the page.
* * * * *
Chapter 8
Carzen swallowed at the thought of the weight of all of the stone piled on top of them. This tunnel, a broad avenue cut into the side of the mountain like a knife, lined with bricks the size of a man’s forearm, looked as though it had existed unaltered for centuries, but for the warrior, that was little consolation. Men were not meant to come into these deep places under the world. That was the province of dwarves, orcs, and other creatures of darkness, and he was happy to leave it to them.
The eerie features of the tunnel did not reassure him. The entrance, a black opening that gaped in the surface of a cliff at the summit of the Khel Vale, had been flanked by a pair of massive statues, fearsome minotaurs bearing great axes and depicted in suits of armor that flowed oddly over their huge bodies. Those had been imposing enough, but they had been much preferable to the vividly imagined carvings of demonic figures that marked the tunnel proper at regular intervals. There was light, as well, green flames that sprang from copper lanterns that were positioned in niches every fifty paces or so, their radiance adding to the unreality of the place. Gez had asked about these, how they were kept fueled, and the dwarf wizard had indicated that they were magic, burning endlessly without intervention.
The answer had not pleased Carzen. He had grown up around magic, what with his brother and sister both studying the Art since childhood, but he had never been able to grasp it, and he profoundly mistrusted things that he could not himself touch with his hands.
Things like his sword, which he frequently touched with his hand, seizing the hilt, or idly toying with the fittings of the scabbard.
He was not a coward; he’d proven that in the battle with the wyvern. But Carzen Zelos was quick to judge things that did not fit into his perception of how the world should work. And this dragonborn, Vhael, was quickly moving out of that favored category in the young man’s mind.
The company moved single file, even though the tunnel, stretching nearly thirty feet across, could have accommodated all of them had they chosen to walk side-by-side. There was little conversation; words spoken here carried oddly off the brick walls, and occasionally distant echoes filtered back to them, noises that they could not identify, let alone gauge their source. Only that idiot halfling—the mentally defective one—seemed comfortable in these surroundings, peering around with wide eyes like some yokel that had been invited into Moonstone Keep on a feastday. He had even clambered onto one of the demon statues, crawling over it like a child, ignoring all of their warnings until finally Vhael had barked a command. At least he listened to the dragonborn.
Gez muttered something under his breath, probably an invocation to one of his alien gods. Carzen had interacted little with the Issandrian before the wyvern ambush; although the man had been a guardsman at Fallcrest for almost two years, he’d said maybe ten words to him before he’d been picked for this mission. Before his father had picked him. Lord Zelos had not deigned to provide his son with insights as to his reasoning, so Carzen had had to make the best of things. At least he’d known the others that had been chosen better, and in fact had got along well enough with Ladren and Chaffin, both of whom had been players of dragonshard. Now that he was an officer he couldn’t take their money, but it was still fun to drink and tell stories in the company of good men.
Except now that they were dead, all of them. And he was stuck with an Issandrian, a pair of halflings, a dwarf, and a dictatorial dragonborn who still thought he was a general in the great wars. Wars that had ended before Carzen had even been born.
He forced himself to meet Gez’s eyes and make a reassuring smile. Issandrians were known for their quick fingers—one watched their purse closely when around them—and their limited habits of personal hygiene, but at least the man was still one of them, a man of Fallcrest even if a foreigner by birth. It wouldn’t hurt to have an ally if things came to a head with the dragonborn.
Even as the thought passed through his mind, the scaly raised a hand, calling a stop. Carzen moved forward enough to see that the halfling scout was coming back; he was a slippery one, disappearing quickly from view when he didn’t want to be seen. He reported quietly to the scaly. Carzen came closer, but Vhael didn’t elect to share what he’d learned, and merely gestured them forward, the halfling moving ahead again to take the lead. The nobleman clenched his teeth in frustration, and glanced at Gez, rolling his eyes in exaggerated fashion with a nod of his head at the dragonborn’s back. The Issandrian grinned, but he held an arrow fitted to the string of his bow as they continued their movement down the tunnel.
They came to what the halfling had found a few minutes later. The stink alerted them first, although there wasn’t much of whatever had caused it left, just some bones, bits of fur, and some bloodstains on the faded bricks. There was another side-tunnel here, one of several they’d passed since they’d set out on this fool’s errand. Vhael knelt beside some of the remains, carefully examining the debris, and the marks upon the floor nearby.
The halfling came up holding something—a broken piece of arrow, not much except for a bit of wood and fletching. Vhael accepted it as though it were the most important thing in the world, and he nodded to himself as he rose. He showed it to the wizard, who said, “Hobgoblin make.”
Carzen let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s just a piece of arrow… we don’t know how long it’s been down here, or whether it was used by the raiders, our raiders. What does that prove?”
“The tracks are fairly recent,” the halfling scout said. “As are those bodies. I’m not sure what they were…”
“Kruthik, unless I miss my guess,” the dwarf interjected.
The halfling nodded, although Carzen had never heard of them. The scout went on, “A group stopped here, after the battle. At least one of them was seriously injured, but he left under his own power.”
“How can you know that?” Carzen asked, but he could sense that he was losing the argument; all the others were looking at him, even Gez nodding along with the halfling’s words.
The scout pointed to a spot along the wall a few paces back. “There’s some bloodstains there, enough to indicate that whoever left them was in pretty bad shape. Scratches where metal—probably armor, or the haft of a weapon—scraped against the wall. If the body had been picked up, or dragged, there would likely be signs, and there certainly would have been a blood trail. I think that it was a group of raiders, a pretty good-sized party, and that they had prisoners with them. Some of the footmarks are too close together to have been left by hobgoblins.”
Another problem with the halfling’s logic occurred to Carzen, but this time he held his tongue. He looked at Vhael, who looked down the tunnel ahead, thoughtful, a faint rumbling coming from deep inside his chest.
Is it just me, or has the SH forum gotten real quiet of late? I'm still seeing new stories posted, but it seems to be taking much longer for threads to drop down the page lately. I remember where I could go a few days without a post and end up at the bottom of the page.
NP on the well-deserved praise.
I know what you're talking about on the post rates. I've been busier of late, I find it difficult to maintain a couple of PbP's and have limited myself to just two story hours, I've even missed yours for over a week... though it is very satisfying to sit and read several posts straight =0)
Hard to connect the economy, but many people seem to be buying into the media's Negative onslaught, Doom and Gloom are the watchwords of the day!
Meh... Life gets hard, the wimps whimper with their hands out and the rest of us keep moving.
'nuff babble, I know there's less time for me but your SH will always be part of my regular ritual, thanks for taking the time to write it, I'm sure there's many other readers - lurkers perhaps.
Honestly sometimes I feel like I'm over-posting... c'mon you lurkers! Do your part =-)
k, gonna sblock this ramble, don't want to ruin the story flow!
/delurk
Part of it may be economy - more time working for less/equivalent money means less time for gaming - less time for gaming means less material for story hours - less material for story hours means fewer updates in the same time span - fewer updates means fewer people coming back to read on a regular basis - fewer people coming back regularly means fewer posts in a given SH thread - which means that some authors get discouraged about their SH.
It's tough starting a new SH if you've got more limited game time - you have less material, so you need to stretch it out, which either means smaller updates and/or updates further apart. Unless it's a Play-by-Post game, which means it inherently takes longer to accomplish the same amount of progress.
Also, taking the kind of exhaustive notes that are required for an accurate SH isn't fun - I know that I was considering doing an SH based off a FR game I'm in - first session, fairly detailed notes, second session, pretty detailed still, third session quality really started dropping, and lately I've barely been bullet pointing things that go on, and not including much detail. I've since discarded that plan. Might do a SH if I run a campaign, though.
Anybody who can pull off a SH has my utmost respect, because it's a serious PITA to pull off a SH, much less a really good SH that has pretty reliable updates.
This is a really good SH with quite reliable updates; just like every other SH of yours that I've read, Lazybones. Props, kudos, etc. to you LB, for doing what you do so well.
/relurk
__________________ Wait, he did what?!
Yes, he burned down the reinforced adamantine gates, sir. We don't know how, but all indicators seem to support that claim.
[No fortification is safe from a psychopath with pet hellfire engines - the PC's know of at least 3]
Gah, no time to write lately. Digging deep into my reserve of chapters...
* * * * *
Chapter 9
Carzen Zelos drew off his helm, and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was not warm, not deep in the depths under the surface of the world, but they’d been walking for hours since they’d first entered the dark opening in the side of Thunderspire, and Vhael had set a hard pace. He had no idea what time it was, or how many hours they’d been down here altogether.
“Stay together,” came the dragonborn’s voice from ahead, though he had not even turned to see Carzen’s pause. The young nobleman stifled a curse and hurried forward to catch up with the rest of the group.
They’d been negotiating a slope for a good fraction of the last hour, following the main tunnel as it wound back and forth, in what Carzen recognized as the equivalent of switchbacks. They had passed more dark side-passages, but Vhael had kept them straight on the main corridor, following the regular incidence of demon statues and magical green flames.
Finally they paused, Vhael and his wizard stopping to confer at one of the bends in the tunnel. Gez and the halfling scout were nearby. The other halfling was nowhere to be seen, but the little bastard always turned up where you least expected it. “How far down does this go?” Carzen asked.
For a moment he thought that the others would ignore him again, but then the dwarf looked up. “The labyrinth is quite extensive,” he said. “Our destination, the Seven-Pillared Hall, is far from the deepest place under Thunderspire. We will be there shortly.”
Carzen grimaced; he suspected that he and the wizard had differing definitions of “shortly.” He leaned against the nearest wall and rubbed at the muscles of his legs, then bent to take off one of his boots.
“We’re not stopping,” Vhael said, and started down the next leg of the descending tunnel. Carzen had no choice but to follow.
After the next bend in the tunnel the passage straightened out and resumed a more or less level course ahead. The change caused new muscles in Carzen’s legs to start throbbing, but he tightened his jaw and forced himself to keep up. The halfling scout shot a look at him but turned back at Carzen’s scowl; the little bastard had short legs, but he wasn’t wearing thirty pounds of metal, and a twenty pound pack, so he had no right to fault him.
When Vhael called a halt about a thousand paces later, Carzen almost didn’t notice, and he had to shift suddenly to avoid tripping over Gezzelhaupt. The easterner nodded an apology and moved out of the way, and Carzen had to bite back an irate comment. He saw that Vhael was talking to the halfling and the dwarf, who pointed to the tunnel ahead and said something in response to a question that Carzen had missed.
He felt an odd instinct that something subtle had changed, and after a moment he realized that there was a faint but familiar change in the air, a hint of a smell that was strangely similar to that of Fallcrest. The stink of civilization, he thought to himself wryly, a reek that was identical whether it existed in the sunlit Vale above, or in this gods-forsaken pit deep underground.
“So we’re almost there?” he asked, coming up to join the others, forcing himself to walk as though his feet didn’t hurt and a million pounds of earth weren’t looming over his head.
Vhael didn’t answer his question directly, but he said, “When we get to the Seven-Pillared Hall, you will pay close heed to Gral and myself. We have been here before; you have not. Do not wander off; do not speak to anyone without direction. This place has its own unique customs and rules, and both are very unforgiving of ignorant outsiders.”
Carzen felt a stab of anger at the dragonborn’s words, but he forced himself to smile. “Sure thing, chief,” he said, taking some gratification at the dark look that flashed in the scaly’s beady eyes.
Vhael’s response, however, was interrupted by a sharp tug on his hauberk. He looked down in surprise, and Carzen followed his gaze to see the other halfling, the weird one, standing in the shadow of the big dragonborn. As usual, he’d come out of nowhere.
“What is it?” Vhael asked. For once, the halfling looked earnest, and he pointed back down the passage behind them, where a dark side tunnel they’d just passed was just barely visible.
“Some hobgoblins are beating up a halfling,” he said. “Come quick!”
So I'll take up Richard's challenge and delurk for a moment. This may be only the 2nd or 3rd time that I've ever posted a comment. Once to compliment Piratecat on his storyhour, once to compliment Sagiro on his, and now finally to lend my admiration to you Lazybones. Truly fantastic writing. I applaud you and your efforts. Your previous storyhours have been amongst my favorites and I hope that you continue. I especially enjoy the interesting things you can do given that you are writing a narrative without players involved. That seems to allow for possibilities that would be difficult to pull off at a table with players.
That's it for me. Maybe I'll have another post in another 2 years or so.
Thanks for coming out of lurkerdom for the praise, Oversight. I appreciate it.
And Neurotic, perhaps part of my position in the SH forum is simply outlasting most of the other longtime posters.
* * * * *
Chapter 10
Beetle led them forward almost at a run, barely pausing at intersections to ensure that they were following before shooting off again down another tunnel. The route off the main tunnel was truly a labyrinth, and they’d barely gone five hundred paces before they’d had to decide between at least a half-dozen tunnels and branching side-corridors. The passages were much tighter here, and some of the openings they’d passed were little more than cracks that might have led nowhere—or to some other mysterious place far from here.
Jaron wondered just how far afield Beetle had gone in his wanderings, and how he’d managed to avoid getting lost in this warren. He glanced back at his companions, and saw that the dwarf was making markings on a small piece of parchment. He nodded to himself; the dragonborn and his wizard were cautious veterans, and would not plunge headlong into danger.
Vhael now held a torch, the bright flame driving back the darkness in a ring around them. His eyes were wary, probing, and he glanced down at Jaron, briefly meeting his gaze as if evaluating the trustworthiness of his cousin through him. Jaron didn’t know what to say in response, so he turned back and hastened to the last bend ahead around which Beetle had most recently vanished.
He rounded it to see his cousin stopped about forty feet ahead. The tunnel continued on ahead, but there was an alcove there, from which a slab of light stabbed out into the passage, as though a doorway.
Jaron quickly dropped back around the corner to where the others were rapidly approaching. “Light ahead!” he whispered, loud enough for them to hear, but not for the sound to carry off the walls of the tunnel.
Vhael doused his torch at once, and darkness rushed in to embrace them. The dragonborn continued ahead much more slowly, unlimbering the big sword from across his back. The others followed, careful not to make any noises that might alert the foe, even the nobleman carefully pressing his weapons against his legs to keep them from jostling and making noise.
Jaron hurried ahead toward Beetle. His cousin saw him coming and raised his finger to his lips. Before Jaron could do anything to stop him, he then darted into the alcove. Jaron rushed after him, but stopped before following him into the lighted space beyond; he could hear voices now, harsh, guttural sounds speaking a language with which he was all too familiar.
“Goblins,” he muttered to himself.
He raised a hand to warn the others, in case they’d missed hearing it themselves, then slowly edged forward, until he could peer into the alcove without drawing the attention of those inside.
There was a set of heavy double doors there, ill-fitting and obviously old, quite the worse for wear. They stood partially open, the light slanting out through the gap into the tunnel passage. Beetle had vanished through the opening, and with a silent curse, Jaron crept silently up to the door, the muffled steps of his companions behind him sounding deafeningly loud to his ears. But the conversation beyond did not break off, and there were no shouts of alarm.
Moving slowly, so as not to draw any eyes that might be looking in his direction, he leaned forward and peered through the gap in the doors.
The chamber was irregularly shaped, its corners cluttered with old crates and debris of furniture, including a few small rickety tables. A row of huge wooden kegs ran along the wall to his right, almost big enough to reach the ceiling, their slats cracked and obviously empty. There was no sign of Beetle, but Jaron couldn’t spare much thought for his cousin at the moment; the five hobgoblins in the room drew his more immediate attention.
Four of them were soldiers, by the look of them, their shields and heavy flails slung across their broad backs but within easy reach in case of trouble. They stood in a rough line, facing away from the door, toward the far side of the room. One was bent over something, and it took Jaron a moment to realize that it was a prone figure, small enough to only be the halfling that Beetle had mentioned earlier.
“Not speak so bold now,” the soldier looming over the halfling grunted. He kicked the halfling, who appeared to be unconscious.
“The Grimmerzhul will scour his pride from him,” the last occupant of the room hissed. He was a tall but lean hobgoblin, his exposed skin covered with a crisscross hatching of scars old and new, clad in a drape of old leather over a hauberk of metal rings. Jaron didn’t need to see the tiny fetishes woven into his hair or the markings carved into his long hooked staff to recognize this foe as a warcaster; the ranger had met his type before, and knew enough to recognize how dangerous this enemy was. Obviously, he was the leader of this group.
For the moment, the hobgoblins were oblivious to the threat lurking just a few feet away, but Jaron knew that their advantage would not last long. Even if his companions did not give themselves away with a too-loud whisper or a clank of metal, hobgoblins were not known to be careless, and now that the distraction of the halfling prisoner had been taken care of, it was almost certain that they would return their vigilance to the gates to their lair.
And there was Beetle, of course, who as always was the unpredictable wild card in this situation.
Jaron drew back, again careful to move slowly. Vhael was there, looming over him, careful not to place any part of his body or his gear in the line of sight of the opening in the door. He’d heard the voices, Jaron had no doubt, although he did not know if the dragonborn understood the goblinoid speech.
He leaned in close and stood on his toes, and Vhael bent slightly, so that his ear was just inches from the halfling’s mouth.
“Four soldiers, in a row, backs to the door. A warcaster, far side of the room, looking in this general direction. Unconscious halfling prisoner on the floor, between them.”
Vhael nodded. He seemed to have come to the same conclusion that Jaron had a moment ago, and did not wait to brief the others. Instead he communicated through a series of curt but clear gestures that Carzen, Jaron, and Gezzelhaupt were to ready missile weapons, and await his signal. Gez slipped across the shaft of light to the far side of the doors, and fitted an arrow to his bow. Gral required no direction; the dwarf merely took up a position behind the dragonborn and waited.
The preparation took all of two seconds, and then the warlord was moving, driving forward with his shoulder lowered. The doors crashed open and the dragonborn hurled forward into the room, his sword slicing out of its scabbard and up into a ready position even as the hobgoblins, startled by the sudden appearance of two hundred and fifty pounds of armored fury, spun in the direction of the threat. Instead of charging blindly forward, Vhael quickly recovered and shifted to the left. Immediately a flurry of missiles shot through the space he’d just vacated. Gezzelhaupt’s shot narrowly missed its target, but Carzen’s javelin thudded hard into the hobgoblin’s shoulder a fraction of a second later. The missile failed to penetrate the soldier’s heavy armor, but by the way that the hobgoblin snarled in pain, it had clearly hurt him. A second hobgoblin standing in front of the kegs took an arrow from Jaron’s bow a moment later, the shaft penetrating the thinner armor protecting his side as he turned. The hobgoblin got his shield up, but it was obvious that the halfling’s shot had hurt him badly.
Their situation deteriorated further a moment later as Gral hurled a pair of icy rays at the two injured soldiers. The magical blasts painted a rime of frost across their breastplates, the chill penetrating to the bone. Neither hobgoblin fell, but both were now bloodied, and in dire shape.
But the hobgoblins were tough and disciplined foes, and they quickly reacted to the surprise attack. The two that had not been hit in the initial attack moved quickly to join their fellows, unlimbering their heavy shields to form a line. Trained and drilled in phalanx tactics, the soldiers would have made a strong force had they had time to get organized.
Vhael, however, did not give the enemy those critical seconds they needed. The dragonborn surged forward in the wake of his allies’ missiles, and drove his sword down into the more seriously wounded of the two hobgoblins. The edge of the greatsword came down under the soldier’s shield and clove deep into his shoulder, crunching through mail, leather, cloth, and flesh, finally cracking the clavicle under the sheer force of the impact. The hobgoblin, for all his discipline, could not choke off a cry of pain that turned into a gurgle as he staggered backward and fell. Vhael wrenched his blade free as he collapsed, bright droplets of blood flashing as he recovered into a defensive stance, challenging the three survivors to do anything about it.
The warcaster had recovered quickly from his initial surprise, but as his shoulders shifted to face the attack, he caught a hint of motion out of the corner of his eye. He looked down to see a long leather throng that trailed across the floor. One end was looped around the unconscious halfling prisoner’s wrist, while the other vanished into the narrow gap between the broken kegs and the chamber wall. There was a faint flicker of movement there, and the line suddenly drew taut; the prisoner started to slide across the floor.
The hobgoblin snarled and lifted his staff, speaking a guttural word of command. Magic flowed at his command, and the big tuns suddenly lurched within their bracing; the one at the end slid free as its frame snapped, and it crumpled as it hit the floor.
But the damage was incidental to the warcaster’s intent. As the keg disintegrated a small figure shot out from the wreckage, landing awkwardly with arms spread wide upon the floor just a few paces in front of the hobgoblin.
Beetle looked up at the hobgoblin, who hefted his staff like a weapon. Bright flickers of electric energy danced around its tip.
Vhael had broken the hobgoblin line before it could form, but he surviving three soldiers were quick to lay into him with everything they had.
The one to his right was wounded, favoring the side where Jaron had shot him, but he let out a vicious cry as he lifted his flail and slammed it down toward the dragonborn’s head. Vhael met the blow with his sword, deflecting the heavy swinging end of the flail. The spiked bar slid down and gashed Vhael’s fingers on the hilt, but the only sign that the warlord felt the pain was a slight shifting of his bloody hands on the hilt of the weapon as he spun to face the next attack.
The second parry came too late, as a second hobgoblin brought his flail up under his guard and smashed the head into his side. This time Vhael could not disguise the effect of the hit, and he grunted as the air was knocked from his body. The third hobgoblin came in behind his fellow and tried to put a finishing blow to the foe, but somehow Vhael was able to duck under the swung, which whistled through the air scant inches above his head.
With the initial advantage of surprise fading, the warlord was seriously outnumbered, but his companions were quick to come to his aid. As the first hobgoblin sought to follow up his initial attack another arrow slammed into his left leg just above the knee. Jaron had moved into the room, and had taken up a shooting position to the right of the doors that gave him a clear shot without risking hitting Vhael. But that also blocked his view of what was happening on the far side of the room, where chaotic noises suggested that Beetle was right in the middle of whatever the warcaster was up to.
“Hooo!” Beetle cried, as the warcaster’s staff thrust through air his head had occupied a fraction of a second earlier. The halfling had pulled himself into a crouch, but he was forced to bend backwards to avoid the attack, the back of his head almost touching the ground as his body formed an arch. The hobgoblin drew back his staff and lifted it to slam it down like a club, but the halfling shifted his balance like a taut bowstring suddenly released, shooting forward under the warcaster’s guard, and snapping out with a leg as he tumbled between his legs. The hobgoblin fell forward, landing face-first onto the ground where his magic had planted the halfling just a few moments before.
Vhael took another hit as the hobgoblin soldiers continued to harry him; the dragonborn was yielding ground now, moving back as the hobgoblins coordinated their attacks to bypass his guard without compromising their own defenses. The third soldier had disengaged from the melee, but only to turn toward the archers near the doorway. But before he could attack, Carzen Zelos came to him, his shield now in place on his left arm, drawing his sword with his right as he rushed forward. The hobgoblin was ready for him, but Carzen deflected the head of the flail with his shield and drove his sword into the soldier’s gut with a perfect thrust that sent him bleeding to the floor.
“Take one of them alive!” Vhael said, even as he parried another strike from a hobgoblin flail.
Beetle let out a yell as he sprang up and leapt at the fallen warcaster’s back, a knife appearing in his hand from one of the several sheaths he kept secreted about his person. But the hobgoblin proved to be faster than he looked. As Beetle reached the apogee of his jump and started down, the warcaster rolled and thrust his staff up with one hand. The head collided with Beetle, not hard enough to cause real damage, but there was a flash, a sizzling discharge of energy, and the halfling went flying, bouncing off the nearby wall and landing dazed just a short step from where he’d been standing. The hobgoblin took advantage of the delay to pull himself to his feet, thrusting the staff under him. He glanced back at the battle taking place just a few paces away in the middle of the room, and so it was that he spotted Gral as the dwarf wizard slipped around the melee and approached, stepping over the ruins of the broken cask.
“You will regret coming here,” the creature hissed, the words thickly accented but decipherable. “The Bloodreavers will collect their due from your flesh.”
“We shall see,” was the dwarf’s only response. He stood there, the bottom of his staff tapping slightly against the floor. The warcaster snarled and raised his own staff, summoning a pulse of force energy that he hurled at the wizard. But Gral was ready, and he responded with his own magic, invoking a glowing white shield that deflected the force pulse around him. One of the casks exploded, blasting a storm of splinters out into the room, but the dwarf was unharmed.
“Insufficient,” he said, and he lowered his staff slightly, unleashing a chill strike that drove a hard wedge of magical cold into the hobgoblin’s body. The warcaster raised his arms, crossing them in front of his body, drawing upon every reserve of strength to resist the potency of Gral’s assault. He managed to fight off the worst of it, although his lips chattered slightly as he started forward, obviously intent on engaging the dwarf directly in melee. Once again, Gral merely held his ground and waited, unperturbed despite the disparity in size between the two combatants.
As Carzen joined the melee raging around Vhael, the battle started to turn decisively against the hobgoblins. Jaron had kept up his barrage, placing arrows with precision that shot through the melee to pound into armored bodies, finding the smallest gaps in armor to pierce hobgoblin flesh. The hobgoblins could do nothing to counter, pressed as they were by Vhael. The dragonborn had seemed content to fight defensively, but as Carzen moved adjacent, forcing the nearer hobgoblin to shift to deal with him, Vhael struck. The sword that had been parrying attacks suddenly surged out and down, biting deep into the hobgoblin’s arm. The hobgoblin nearly dropped his weapon, and the attack left and opening that Carzen could not help but exploit, sweeping his blade up in an arc that sliced up through the hobgoblin’s armor and ended by clipping his jaw under the lip of his helmet. The hobgoblin, mortally wounded, staggered back a step and fell.
Vhael turned to demand the surrender of the other, but before he could speak he got a reply in the form of a powerful swipe of his flail. The heavy end of the weapon cracked hard against the side of the dragonborn’s head, and he fell to his knees, dazed by the blow. The soldier didn’t get a chance to finish him, however, as Carzen lowered his shield and surged forward, driving the hobgoblin back a full step, and forcing him to put his efforts into dealing with the fighter.
The warcaster closed to close quarters with Gral, who still had not reacted, even as the hobgoblin lifted his staff to strike. Unfortunately for him, he’d forgotten about Beetle. Even as the staff started down the halfling leapt at him from behind, his knife slicing across one hamstring with lethal efficiency. The warcaster’s attack was spoiled, and only a desperate planting of his staff kept him from falling as the damaged leg gave out under his weight. Unable to turn to deal with Beetle, he fixed a baleful stare at Gral. “To the hells with you,” he hissed.
The wizard said nothing, and watched with a cold expression as Beetle first kicked the hobgoblin’s staff away, then followed him to the ground as he fell, hooting wildly as his dagger thrust repeatedly into the caster’s body until it gleamed bright red down its entire length.
The last hobgoblin found himself outnumbered and outmatched, but to Carzen’s surprise he tossed his shield aside and surged forward with his flail in both hands, sweeping his weapon around in a powerful arc that battered through the fighter’s guard and caromed off his helmet hard enough to strike sparks. Somewhat dazed by the impact, the fighter barely got his sword up in time to meet the soldier’s brazen charge. The two collided and it was Carzen who gave way, stumbling back until the pair hit the solidity of the chamber wall. The hobgoblin snarled at the human, but before Carzen could react he could see the light dying in his foe’s eyes. Through some fluke of luck the creature in his charge had impaled himself on Carzen’s sword, the bright steel sliding up through a gap in his armor. Carzen shook his head to clear it as the hobgoblin slid off the fighter’s bloody blade to land in a clatter of metal upon the stone floor.
Vhael was already on his feet, with Gaz steadying him slightly. The dragonborn glanced around the room, confirming that the threat was over, before turning toward Carzen. “You fought well. But my orders were to take one alive.”
“Maybe the hobgoblin didn’t hear you,” the fighter snapped, his own legs still a bit unsteady as he took out a rag and wiped his blade clean before sliding it back into its scabbard. Vhael’s eyes were like icicles, but he did not respond, and if he was still hurting from the beating he’d taken, he didn’t show it as he walked over to where Gral was kneeling beside the unconscious halfling who’d been held prisoner by the hobgoblins.
“How is he?” Vhael asked. Gral had taken out a small crystal vial, and gently trailed a stream of clear liquid between the halfling’s lips. Jaron and Gez had started to follow, but Vhael gestured for them to take up a warding position at the door, and both headed off in that direction. Beetle stood quietly a few paces away, his face spotted with tiny splatters of bright red blood from the hobgoblin he’d killed.
“He took a savage beating, but he will live,” the wizard replied. “The Small Folk are a durable race,” he said, glancing up briefly at Beetle.
“You did not share that you had healing draughts,” Carzen muttered to Vhael as he came up to where he could watch what was happening. “That information might have been useful.”
Vhael ignored him. He grimaced slightly as he lowered himself to one knee next to Gral and the halfling, but with his back to the others only Beetle could have seen that sign of the pain the warlord was feeling. The unconscious halfling started to stir, groaning as he tentatively reached up and touched his head. “Ow,” he said. He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes widened as he took in those crouched over him.
“Rest easy, lad,” Gral said, while Vhael added, “We mean you no harm.”
The halfling’s expression grew even more surprised as he looked over at Beetle, who smiled and waved. His eyes lingered for a moment on the corpse of the warcaster, from which an arc of red continued to spread across the floor. “Who… who are you people?” he asked.
“We come from Fallcrest,” Vhael said. “We are here seeking prisoners, captured from the surface by slavers.”
“Hmm. Well, I thank you for the help. Name’s Rendil. Rendil Halfmoon. My family runs an inn in the Seven-Pillared Hall.”
Vhael nodded, as if this information was not unexpected. “Are you well enough to travel, master Halfmoon? This does not seem a safe place in which to linger.”
Gral extended a hand, which the halfling accepted gratefully. “No, no it’s not,” Rendil said. “Come on, I can show you the fastest way to the Hall from here.”
Vhael introduced each of them in turn. When he came to Jaron, the scout asked, “Have you seen a column of halfling prisoners, brought from the surface? They would have come through here not long ago, a few days, maybe.”
Rendil shook his head, and grimaced at the sudden pain that followed the movement. “No, but if there’s slaves involved, the Bloodreavers are likely up to their eyeballs in it.”
“The Bloodreavers are the ones we’re after,” Carzen said.
“Oh. Well, they probably took them to the Chamber of Eyes. It’s the main base of the Reavers in the Labyrinth.”
“Can you tell us how to get there?” Vhael asked.
“Sure. I mean, I haven’t been there personally, you know, but I know the Labyrinith pretty good, better than most.”
“Not good enough to keep from getting caught,” Carzen noted.
Rendil rubbed his sore head. “Yeah, I got a bit overconfident, I admit. I saw these Reavers slinking about near the Hall, and I thought they looked pretty suspicious, so I followed them. Looks like they were a bit more alert than I thought. Bad luck for me, but I guess it was a lucky bit that you were coming by, so it all balances out, I suppose.”
“Let’s get moving,” Vhael said. “We’ll need to rest and resupply before we set out again, in any case. In the meantime, you can tell us more about these Bloodreavers.”
I'll add my kudos. I started reading Doomed Bastards over a year ago on my lunch hours. I loved it enough to go back and read Travels and then move on to Shackled City. I have loved it all. I'm almost through with Shackled City and am a little depressed because once I have it done I'm not sure what I'll read at my desk at lunch. But I do know my first stop will be at your website to look at your other fiction. I thoroughly enjoy your writing and definitely love your characters.
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