THE STAG LORD COMETH
The fortress of the Stag Lord, such as it was, sat on the northern shore of the lake known as the Tuskwater. Perched on a low hill surrounded by grassland, it was actually more of a ruin than a true redoubt, though the high wooden palisade surrounding it would make a frontal assault daunting. The clear land around it would also leave anyone approaching completely without cover or concealment. A trio of makeshift watchtowers loomed above the wall, and even from a half-mile away, men could be seen patrolling their heights.
“So what’s the plan?” Tungdill growled. “Suicide’s not in my plans for the day.”
“The way I see it,” Mox replied, “the best way to put someone off their guard, is to do what they would least expect. I’ve found that men stop thinking with their heads when women are involved. We’ve got the last password they used. We ride up to the front gate, act like we belong there, and then follow my lead. Any questions?”
For a moment, the others could just look at her in quiet disbelief. The sorceress had been invaluable in combat, but she had usually kept her own council. This sudden show of force caught all of them flat-footed.
“Um…no,” Velox said after a moment. “I think it’s a sound plan. Once we’re among them, with their defenses down, we should be able to use the element of surprise to our advantage.”
The others nodded their approval. Mox nodded back in satisfaction and, throwing an old travelling cloak over her normally out-of-place riding gown, she swung into the saddle.
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“Password,” the bored guard in the gate tower called down.
“By the Bloody Bones of St. Gilmorg, who wants to know?” Mox called back, her voice low, sultry, and her eyes just a gleam beneath her hood.
The guard straightened, his head cocked. “Open her up!” he shouted over his shoulder.
The gates rumbled open, and the six cloaked riders moved into the courtyard. The small, dusty area separated the palisade from the inner structures. The ground was hard-packed, barren earth. Dozens of barrels lay stacked against the inner wall of the palisade, each with a wooden or metal bucket sitting nearby. Two skittish horses were tethered to a hitching post, and this was where Mox led her companions. As it became obvious to the guards in the other two towers that not one, but two women were among the newcomers, catcalls and hoots rang out. Mox bowed her head and allowed herself a brief smile. Men.
From the central building, a man strolled casually out into the sunlight. He had a dark complexion, and straight, long black hair. Tattoos covered any exposed skin, and he wore fine, studded leather armor. A beautiful rapier hung at his side, daggers protruded from his boots, and silver, stag’s head amulet was around his neck.
“I’m Dovan,” he said in a heavily accented voice. Ustalov perhaps? His eyes prowled over Mox as he spoke. “I don’t see any cargo. Please don’t tell me you’ve come here empty-handed.”
“We come bearing…services,” Mox purred as she threw back her cloak, “a special request of the Stag Lord.”
Dovan smiled cruelly. “I see,” he nodded. “Her as well?” He indicated Selena.
“My protégé’,” Mox smiled back.
“Follow me,” Dovan said as he turned back towards the keep, “but the men stay behind.”
“My services don’t come cheap, and they’re well worth the price,” Mox replied, her voice growing cold. “For this reason, I never travel alone, and I trust no one…except the men I pay handsomely to guard my person. I’m sure the Stag Lord would not be pleased at this delay.”
Dovan regarded her coolly, the promise of great suffering in that gaze. “Follow me,” he said again.
The edges of the large, drafty room Dovan led them into were crammed with crates, barrels, and boxes. Hammocks strung on wooden posts denoted sleeping areas, while dirty bowls and utensils rested atop rickety, makeshift furniture. Elsewhere, chamber pots sat tucked into corners, while a large iron gate was wedged into a wide gap in one wall. Chips of ancient plaster flaked from the walls, exposing the stone construction; whatever plaster still clung to the stonework was covered with strange and erratic scribbles and pictographs. The floor consisted only of hard-packed earth. Three men sat around a table playing cards, their voices low. They stopped talking altogether as they watched the women with hungry eyes. A fourth man, obese and greasy from the whole chicken he was devouring, sat near the iron gate. A strong, animal musk wafted from the dark opening beyond the gate, and a large shape shifted within. In an archway at the far side of the room, stood a final bandit. He was human, middle-aged, and he too wore a stag’s head amulet. Something about him spoke of authority, though his eyes were hollow and haunted. He wore beautifully crafted chainmail, and a steel shield on his left arm. A longsword hung at his hip, and a masterfully made bow lay across his back.
“What’s our move, Mox?” Davrim whispered in the sorceress’s ear.
“Wait for my signal,” she murmured back.
This didn’t sit well at all with the inquisitor. He was a man of action and all of this skulking about among the bandit vermin made his blood boil. He fixed his eyes on the armored man at the end of the room, and found his gaze returned with equal intensity. In that moment, Davrim knew their ruse had been pierced. Time seemed to slow as he stepped forward and grabbed Dovan’s arm, drawing his sword free as he did so. The bandit turned, shock in his eyes as three-feet of steel slid between his ribs. Behind the half-orc, Stevhan never missed a beat. He didn’t expect the sudden outbreak of violence, but his instincts took over nonetheless. He darted forward and delivered the killing blow to the Stag Lord’s lieutenant. After that, it was chaos.
Selena’s eyes briefly caught those of Mox, and though the women were from vastly different worlds, their thoughts were momentarily in sync…men! The witch spun towards the trio of brigands at the card table and proceeded to bathe them in fire from her outstretched fingers. They screamed in agony, overturning the table as they leaped to their feet. One of them promptly hit the floor as Mox blasted him with a flurry of magic missiles. Across the room, the fat bandit also got to his feet, but instead of drawing his sword, he seized a rope that hung beside him and began to pull, raising the iron portcullis.
In a shadowy corner of the common room, a lone figure sat, unnoticed by neither the bandits nor the newcomers. Leaf rose quietly to his feet, and began edging towards the door. He’d lost track of how long he’d been in the bandit camp, and he still had very little memory of how he’d come to be there in the first place. The only thing he’d become certain of over time was that he didn’t belong there. He’d bided his time, waiting for the right opportunity, and now it had simply fallen into his lap. As he reached the door, he saw Ayles Megesen rushing down from the gate tower. The man may have be soft-spoken, but he was a pig. Of all the bandits in the fort, he enjoyed torture the most, and often spent hours after a fight “exploring” surviving victims. Leaf stepped calmly aside as Ayles barged in.
“What the Hells is going on here?” he roared.
“Trouble,” Leaf replied. “We’d better get in there.”
“You’re next!” Davrim bellowed as he pointed his sword at the armored man. He rushed forward, Stevhan at his side. They flanked the big man, whose sword had appeared as if by magic in his hand. He parried and dodged expertly, but couldn’t deflect the pair completely. Blood flowed freely.
“Stand down, fool!” he hissed. “I can help you! The Stag Lord will be here any moment! You’ll need all the help you can get!”
Something in his eyes told Davrim that he spoke the truth. The inquisitor focused his thoughts, reading the man’s aura, and he found no evil there.
“If this is a trick,” he growled, “be assured, you will not live to regret it!”
Tungdill happened to be standing directly in front of the portcullis as it opened. He sensed more than saw the huge shape bearing down on him. As it entered the torch light, he groaned.
“Not again!”
In an instant, the owlbear was on him, its claws and beak ripping and slashing. Behind him, the fat bandit laughed obscenely…until he collapsed to the floor, snoring.
“Close it!” Selena cried.
The druid didn’t have to be told twice. Leaping clear of the beast’s talons, he dove towards the rope and released it, sending the iron gate crashing back to the floor, and trapping the enraged owlbear behind it.
While Selena was busy keeping Tungdill alive, Mox was looking out for her own interests. The two immolated bandits, by some miracle, were still on their feet, and still coming towards her! Taking a page from the witch’s arsenal, she tugged a wand from her sleeve and spoke a brief command,
“Flickum biccus!”
A fan of fire burst from the tip of the wand, engulfing the brigands again. This time, their screams were mercifully brief, and they did not rise again. At that moment, however, she felt a sharp pain in her side and she cried out. Behind her stood Ayles, his sword dripping, a sadistic leer on his face. A moment later, however, his eyes went wide, and then blank as he slid soundlessly to the floor. A slim man stood over him, his own blade now dripping. His slanted eyes met Mox’s, and though a stained bandage wrapped his head, it didn’t quite hide the tell-tale pointed ears of his heritage.
“I never did like that sonofawhore,” Leaf said.
Stevhan and Davrim whirled as the back door smashed open. Two more bandits entered. One of them was obviously Varisian, older and with graying hair and an unruly beard.
“That’s him,” Davrim nodded.
“Who?” Stevhan asked.
“Falgrim Sneeg,” the half-orc replied, “the man Garess asked us to find. Make sure you take him alive.”
The ranger nodded, and then moved like a snake, slashing at the throat of the man beside Sneeg. Choking on his own blood, the brigand went down. Sneeg looked uncertain at the two men bearing down on him, debating whether it was time to start moving on.
“Just so you know,” a sinister, bass voice boomed from behind Sneeg, “I’m gonna kill whoever let Beaky loose this time!”
A giant of a man staggered out of the shadows. He wore a leather kilt, a heavy cloak and thick gloves, though his chest was bare. His skin, where it was visible, rippled with thick scars as if burned. His face, if he had one, was not visible, for upon his head he wore a great helm shaped in the form of a great stag’s skull.
Leaf felt Auchs’s presence behind him before the half-wit spoke a word. He could also smell the big oaf. He reeked of sweat and garlic. Leaf turned slowly, his eyes going up and up until he could look at Auchs’s face. The man was almost as big as an ogre, with the brain to match. He clutched a wooden table leg in one hand, and a toy dragon in the other. He was one of the Stag Lord’s three lieutenants, but only because of Dovan. Auchs had followed the Ustalavian about like a loyal puppy, and as long as he was around, no one had dared try and usurp Dovan’s authority…until now.
“Why Dovan sleep?” Auchs bellowed. His piggy eyes narrowed as he stared down at Leaf. “You make Dovan sleep, pointy ear?”
“No,” Leaf replied smoothly. “It was them.” He pointed to the invaders. “They came here to kill the Stag Lord, and they’ve already killed Dovan and many of the boys. I think we need to make them pay!”
Auchs’s eyes began to water as it slowly sank into his thick skull that his friend was dead and not asleep.
“Nooooooooo!” he roared as he lifted his makeshift club and thundered across the room towards Tungdill.
“You any good with that bow, boy?” the Stag Lord sneered at Stevhan. He shouldered Sneeg aside as he put an arrow to his own bowstring.
“Why don’t we find out!” the ranger snarled, his hand a blur as it went for his quiver. It was then that he saw the black, hollow eye sockets of the Stag Lord’s helmet begin to grow crimson. The bandit king drew back to the full extent of his string, and then released. The arrow twirled almost languidly through the air before it sank to the fletchings into Stevhan’s chest. The ranger’s breath caught in his throat as he coughed up a gout of frothy red blood. He staggered back, falling against a wall to keep from falling. The Stag Lord’s head turned towards Davrim.
“You next, big boy?”
Selena had just finished putting Falgrim Sneeg to sleep when she felt the floor shaking from Auchs’s approach. The Varisian had been trying to slink away unseen. The young witch turned just in time to see the massive bandit looming over Tungdill, but as his club fell to crush the dwarf’s skull, a sword blade blocked its descent. From out of nowhere, the armored bandit lieutenant had appeared at Tungdill’s side, and now his arm quivered with the force of the impact of Auchs’s cudgel against his steel, but he didn’t falter. Instead, he bared his teeth and a low, animal growl sounded deep in his throat. Still, determination wasn’t everything, and brute strength counted for a lot. Inexorably, Auchs forced the armored man back. Then, an ululating wail came from behind the giant as Leaf leaped upon his back, swords in each hand. He jabbed both blades into Auchs’s neck over and over, causing him to reel backwards. The armored man leaped forward and drove his steel through the giant’s heart. He toppled like a falling oak.
“Well done, lads!” Tungdill shouted, slapping both men heartily on the shoulders. “Now with the riff-raff out of the way, let’s see what we can do about the big boss!”
The dwarf drew out his sickle and mistletoe and began to chant. A dim glow in the center of the room rapidly brightened into the familiar form of Adam.
“We’ve got work t’do, boy!” Tungdill told the giant ant.
Adam turned to follow his master, reaching out casually to snap the neck of the still-sleeping, fat bandit who’d tried to free the owlbear. The armored man trailed after them. No one noticed Leaf slip into the shadows.
Selena and Mox paused to catch their breath, making sure all of their foes had been dealt with. Only the owlbear was still on its feet, beating furiously at the gate that kept it from its prey.
“Sleep now,” Selena said soothingly as she passed her hand in front of its eyes from the opposite side of the portcullis. On command, the beast’s eyelids drooped, and it fell over in a heap.
“Now let’s go see of the boys need any help,” she smiled at Mox. Perhaps the noblewoman wasn’t quite as repugnant as she’d originally believed.
Davrim was still facing off against the Stag Lord, the two circling each other like feral dogs. That was when Adam skittered around the corner, closely followed by first the armored bandit, then Tungdill, Mox and Selena.
“Akiros!” the Stag Lord bellowed. “Kill them now!”
“I think not, ‘my lord!’” the armored man snarled. “I’m through taking orders from a drunken savage!”
Akiros lunged. To his credit, the Stag Lord managed to both drop his bow and draw his sword before his former lieutenant, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to parry the blow. It was a shallow wound, but a long one, and it threw the bandit king off-balance just long enough to present an opening. Adam surged in and locked his mandibles around the Stag Lord’s leg. As he hewed at the insect and tried to free himself, Davrim struck. The blow nearly severed the man’s arm, but he seemed barely to notice. A string of curses and epithets flowed from him as quickly as his life’s blood, and he flailed about him like a man possessed. Adam bit and stung repeatedly, but it was a final volley of arcane bolts from Mox that brought the brute down. Just like that…it was over.
Leaf, as quietly as he could, hoisted the portcullis. Softly, he crept over to the sleeping owlbear and slid one of his swords through its eye and into its brain. It simply stopped breathing.
‘Now,’ he thought to himself, ‘if I were a bandit lord, this would be the safest place for me to stash my loot.’
He began to quickly and silently plunder the lair.
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“I suppose I owe you some sort of explanation,” Akiros said, his head bowed. “Suffice it to say that the life I have been living these past years has been a hollow one. I have much to atone for, and the step I’ve taken today is but the first on a long, long road. May Erastil forgive me.”
He pulled a medallion from his tunic…the symbol of Old Dead Eye.
“You…you’re a believer?” Stevhan asked. The color had returned to his face after Tungdill’s ministrations.
“I used to be,” Akiros said quietly. “Perhaps I can be again.”
“There is a place we know,” Stevhan replied. “It is an old shrine, long neglected, but I have felt the power that is still there. It is still a holy place, and now it has a new caretaker…a priest named Jhod Kavken. If you seek him out, perhaps he can help you find your way.”
“Perhaps I will at that,” Akiros nodded.
“You’ve done much more than take one step,” Velox said. “We owe you our lives, and we count you as friend from this day forth.”
Akiros nodded again. Then he reached down and wrenched the stag helm from the bandit king’s head, exposing a face that was little more than a mass of old scars and burns. He gazed down into the hollow eye sockets for a moment, and then handed the helm to Stevhan.
“I think you’ll find that the essence of the true Stag Lord still lingers here,” he said. “I certainly am not worthy of such a relic, but I feel that you are. Take this, my friend, and by wearing it, perhaps you can erase the memory of that horrible creature from this land, and replace it with hope.”
Stevhan silently took the helm, and as he did so, he felt something stir within his breast. He knew, without a doubt, that the stag helm did indeed come from Erastil. He knew as well that it was his destiny to wear it.
“And what’s your story, boy?” Tungdill turned to the elf, who’d remained silent since the end of the battle.
“Careful who you call boy, dwarf,” Leaf replied. “I’m probably older than you are. In any case, I’m not sure there’s much to tell. I honestly have no memory of how I came to be here, or where I was before I came here. I’m only certain that this was not my place, and now I’m free of it.”
“And where will you go now?” Davrim asked.
Leaf shrugged. “I’m not sure. Perhaps our roads will travel together for awhile. Perhaps not.”
“Before you leave,” Akiros interrupted, “there’s one more thing you should know. The Stag Lord kept a prisoner in the cellar of the fort…an old man, and I think…I think it’s his father. Beware, though. This man is no pathetic elder to be rescued. He’s every bit as sadistic and evil as his foul offspring.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Velox nodded. “We’ll deal with him. With luck, he will show gratitude at being freed from bondage. If not, his freedom will be gained nonetheless…and may his soul find peace.”
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The cellar of the keep felt miserably damp, and greasy swaths of mold caked the carved stone walls and floor. The ceiling was thick with cobwebs. Three archways in the walls opened into other rooms, all of which were filled with mounds of crates, furs, sacks, weapons, and other obviously stolen loot. Davrim led the group cautiously down the slippery stairs into the darkness. As he stepped into the main room, their torchlight caught the gleam of a pair of feral eyes on the ceiling.
“What is that?” the inquisitor cried.
A low growl came from the darkness near the ceiling, and a creature quickly scuttled out of the shadows like a giant spider…except it looked for all the world like a wolverine.
“Damn!” Tungdill cursed. “He’s a blasted druid! Kill’im quick!”
Davrim snapped off two shots from his bow, and both struck the animal dead-on. Mox followed this immediately with a trio of glowing missiles. Tungdill himself conjured a sphere of fire that leaped from his hands to the ceiling, setting the wolverine on fire. It howled and fell heavily to the floor. In an instant, Leaf leaped upon it, slashing its throat from ear-to-ear. As the last breath left the creature, it shifted forms, becoming that of a decrepit old man.
Velox sighed. “We reap what is sowed,” he said. “And so the cycle has come full circle.”
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The thing that once was Davik Nettles stood upon the waters of the Shrike river, staring up at the mortals on the banks. Davrim and Stevhan held the body of the stag lord between them, and with one heave, they hurled it into the river below. As it sank beneath the surface, Davik sighed and dissolved into the water, leaving only his ranseur behind to wash up on the shore.
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When the companions finally returned to Oleg’s, they were greeted by a mixture of shocked disbelief and admiring adulation. Kesten Garess said nothing when Falgrim Sneeg was handed over to him, but a simple nod conveyed the depth of his gratitude. News that the Stag Lord was no-more spread like wildfire, and in the weeks that followed, a substantial reward arrived from Restov. In addition to the gold, there was also a sealed document…a new charter, commissioning the new heroes to begin settling the Greenbelt, and establish a colony there…
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
