HAIL TO THE CHIEF
Shadowmist told Rico of how he’d come to be a captive of the goblins. His former master had been a merchant whose train was attacked by the ‘two-legged rats,’ as the stallion referred to his captors. His master had managed to escape on one of Shadowmist’s lighter and speedier brethren, while Shadowmist himself had held off the goblins, bringing four of them down before they had overwhelmed him. They had bound his legs and loaded him onto one of the wagons. As Rico knew, horses tended to become quiescent when forced to lie for long periods of time, and during his transport to Thistletop, Shadowmist’s captors had mistakenly thought him gentled. When they brought him before their chieftain and cut his bonds, however, he had shown them the price of assumption. The goblins had fled before his fury, all save the chieftain, who sought to bring him down single-handedly. That was how the foul creature had left, however, when Shadowmist had shattered one of his arms with a powerful kick. Enraged, but unwilling to continue the fight, the cowardly chief had instead sent his minions against the stallion. They had ultimately managed to trap him within the shed, but not before losing three more of their kinsmen.
‘Where would you go now?’ Rico asked the magnificent beast, communicating with him in his own language. ‘We will not be leaving this place until we have cleansed it of the vermin. The bridge is treacherous, and the briar warren equally dangerous.’
‘Then I will await you here,’ Shadowmist replied. ‘If you do not return, then my death is assured, but if any of your enemies come, I will not go to the Great Plains alone.’
“Sounds like the horse’d be more use to us than the blind soldier, eh Skud?” Dexter whispered to his friend. The half-orc chuckled and nodded.
“I’m glad you’ve made a new friend,” Wesh said impatiently to the druid, “but we need to get going. The goblin chief is still here somewhere, not to mention Nualia.”
Several doors led off the small courtyard, but most of them gave onto only storerooms or privies. One, however, led to a narrow hallway that ended in a stair leading down, presumably into the bedrock beneath Thistletop.
Wesh sighed. “Why can’t things ever be simple? There’s no telling how deep this goes. I suggest we continue our investigation of the fort for now. I’d rather not leave any enemies behind us.”
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The company retraced their steps to the entry hall, where a set of double doors still stood closed against the north wall. Beyond this, a short hall ended at a second pair of doors. These, it turned out, were locked. Dexter stepped past his comrades and went to work on the tumblers as he pressed his ear to the wood. After a few moments, he turned his picks one last time, and the twin portals swung open. The large room beyond was decorated with hanging furs along its walls, mostly black and red-striped firepelt skins, various dog pelts, and is some cases, what looked like horse hides. Four square timbers supported the ceiling, their faces studded with dozens of iron spikes, with the lower reaches decorated with dozens of impaled and severed hands in various stages of decay. In the northeast corner of the chamber, a wooden platform supported a throne heaped with dog pelts and horse hides. Dog skulls adorned the armrests and a horse skull leered over its back. A burly goblin sat hunched upon the throne, a hammered steel breastplate on his chest, and a dented crown upon his head, which would have been comical, if not for the look of pure evil and malice upon the creature’s face. What appeared to be a large gecko, approximately the size of a pony, crouched on the floor at the goblin’s feet.
“Parley!” the goblin shouted in Common as soon as the door opened. “Me Ripnugget! Me Chief of Thistletop! You!” he pointed one bony finger at Luther. “You look smart. No armor. No weapons you have. Must use brain…like me! You come forward!”
Luther glanced at his companions, shrugged, and started forward. Before he could take more than a step, however, Adso’s hand clamped down firmly on his shoulder.
“What?” the priest said, irritation in his voice. “We finally have a chance to solve a problem without bloodshed. Let me go.”
Dexter stepped up next to Luther, and bent to whisper in his ear. “I think you’d best take your friend’s advice, or can’t you see the half-dozen or so goblins hanging on to those pillars, not to mention the one ducking behind the throne?”
Luther’s eyes narrowed and he turned back towards the throne room. Sure enough, shadowy figures clung to the tops of the pillars, holding on to the spikes. They were attempting to hide, obviously, and doing a very poor job of it, though apparently good enough to have fooled his eyes. Silently he cursed himself and his naiveté. Perhaps Adso had been right. Perhaps he should have returned to the monastery. He always wanted to see the good in others, but the more evil he saw, the more he feared his own good intentions would be the death of him.
“Come! Now!” Ripnugget bellowed, his hands gripping the armrests of his throne.
Luther shook his head and stepped back behind his friends. Ripnugget growled deep in his chest, then began barking out commands in his own harsh tongue.
In an instant, the throne room was hip-deep in goblins. As the warriors scrambled down from their perches, and the female hiding behind the throne began to warble an ear-splitting tune, Ripnugget vaulted from his throne onto the back of the gecko. The reptile lurched into motion at the chief’s urging, as Ripnugget drew a long ‘horsechopper’ polearm from a sheath lashed to the beast’s side. The big goblin leaned forward in the saddle and dug his heels into the gecko’s flanks as the beast nimbly dodged the other scrambling goblins, sometimes scaling a nearby wall to do so. As Ripnugget closed on the seven companions, Skud bulled his way to the front, bracing himself. Ripnugget struck him at full speed, the horsechopper tearing a large gash across the half-orc’s chest. As Skud was knocked to the side, the goblin warriors swarmed into his companions.
Luther raised his hands defensively, a prayer on his lips to ward his comrades, but a vicious slash from a dogslicer cut his chant abruptly short. Randall turned his head this way and that, straining to pinpoint any of their assailants, but the clamor of the melee was too much. It was only when he started feeling the stinging pain of multiple nicks and cuts that he realized he was a sitting duck. Wesh struggled to bring his magic to bear, but the press of bodies around him was too much of a distraction. Rico tried in vain to clear some breathing room for them all, swiping and slashing about him with his curved sickle, but the goblins were fast…faster and better armed than the rag-tags they’d encountered in the briar maze. Abruptly, however, the battle shifted. The goblins began to fall back, cursing and squealing, several bleeding from deep punctures. Rico looked up and was amazed to see that it was Dexter who was causing such a commotion. The wily rogue practically danced among the goblins, twisting and whirling like a performer on a stage, and for every step he took, his rapier darted out. In rapid succession, four of the warriors fell, and the remaining two quickly withdrew to Ripnugget’s side.
Meanwhile, Adso was nowhere to be seen in the confusion. The monk had astutely noted that much of the goblins’ ferocity seemed to derive from the song the female was still singing. Though painful to his ears, it was whipping the other vermin into a frenzy. Moving with a speed that belied his size, he dodged among the combatants, avoiding swinging blades on all sides. Before the warchanter realized it, the half-orc was upon her. She yelped in surprise once before a lightning-fast chop from Adso’s hand crushed her windpipe.
Skud was having Asmodeus’-own-time with Ripnugget. The chieftain’s superior height and reach with his polearm from atop the gecko foiled every attempt the howling barbarian made to reach him. Time and again Skud charged, and each time he paid for it in blood, either from Ripnugget’s blade, or from the sharp teeth of the goblin’s mount. Worse yet, the remaining two goblin warriors had moved to flank the half-orc, and Skud quickly found himself surrounded and bleeding heavily. Suddenly, three fiery, blue bolts streaked over the barbarian’s head, and struck Ripnugget head on. The goblin chief reeled in his saddle, but managed to keep his perch. Still, the assault momentarily distracted his henchmen, and when they turned to look for the source of the attack, a silvery dagger appeared, as if by magic, in the neck of one, flicked from Dexter’s hand. As the second stared wide-eyed at his falling comrade, another fusillade of Wesh’s missiles struck him in the head, killing him instantly.
Ripnugget snarled in fury as he saw his minions cut down around him, but still the chief did not falter in his attack…until a flying sidekick from Adso knocked him completely out of the saddle. He landed sprawled at Skud’s feet, and the half-orc’s blade raised above him in an overhand chop was the last thing he ever saw. Adso dropped nimbly to his feet right beside the giant gecko’s head. Wrapping both hands around the beast’s sinuous neck, he twisted with all his strength, snapping it sharply. Ripnugget’s mount collapsed into a heap beside its dead master.
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A cursory search of Ripnugget’s throne room turned up no clues as to Nualia’s whereabouts, but did reveal a strange, silver amulet hung about the chief’s neck. It looked like a three-eyed, fanged jackal head with tiny garnets for eyes. Luther recognized it instantly: a holy symbol to the goddess of monsters, Lamashtu.
“So let me get this straight,” Wesh said. “The quasit was a follower of Lamashtu, and we believe Nualia is one as well, now the goblins are worshipers to?”
Luther tapped one finger against his chin in thought. “I think we might be missing something here,” he said. “Let’s look at the facts: the quasit was in a previously hidden catacomb beneath the factory of Nualia’s lover’s father, and we don’t know how long it had been down there; that same catacomb had been walled off some time in the past, and recently reopened; it’s possible that Nualia had something to do with the death of her own father, and it’s a fact that she arranged for his body to be stolen; Nualia is now here, somewhere, leading the Thistletop goblins.”
“So what are you getting at?” Wesh asked.
“I’m saying,” Luther answered, “that perhaps Nualia came to Lamashtu by happenstance. Maybe she stumbled onto the quasit’s lair by accident and somehow became enthralled by the demon. Now she too worships Lamashtu, and by all appearances, is seeking to make herself over in the image of her dark goddess. This may be what’s behind the raids. She’s founding a cult, for which she needs followers and sacrifices.”
Dexter shook his head and chuckled.
“You know, as I’ve said before, the motives of these people really don’t concern me. Once they’re dead, it’s a moot point.”
“That’s just it!” Luther exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “This might just be the tip of the ice berg. Who knows who, or what, might be pulling Nualia’s strings?”
“Well, I’ll be sure and have Skud ask her before he rips her arms off,” Dexter shrugged, and headed towards the doors.
The remainder of the keep was empty. The remaining goblins had either fled, or waited below ground. The company had no choice but to proceed deeper into Thistletop. Unlike the crude, wooden walls and dirt floors of the palisade above, the surfaces below were well-worked stone. The stairwell gave onto a small room. A large table surrounded by chairs filled much of it. A slateboard on one wall was covered with scribblings in chalk, but the map of Sandpoint that had been carefully inscribed on it left no doubt as to the purpose of the chamber…it was where the raid had been planned. The writing confirmed this fact, but also contained a more cryptic message…
“ ‘Once the whispering beast is tamed.’ What does that mean?” Adso asked.
“I’m not sure,” Wesh replied, “but look here. It says that once this occurs, the second raid will begin, and this time it will bring even more goblin tribes together, even some from as far as the Fogscar Mountains, and it also mentions the sinspawn invading from below.”
“Looks like we got here just in time then,” Dex said.
Beyond the war room was another empty chamber, its walls covered with crude drawings in mud, blood and paint. Most of these showed goblins engaged in some sort of violence against humans, horses or dogs. One picture, however, was at least three times the size and complexity of the other scrawlings. It showed Thistletop from the side, the goblin stockade perched atop it like a crown. A cave had been drawn into the center of the image, and looming inside was what appeared to be an immense, muscular goblin with snake-like eyes and a dogslicer in each taloned hand. If the scale compared to the rest of the drawing was to be believed, the goblin must have been at least thirty feet tall.”
“I hope that’s just an example of goblin fancy,” Wesh commented, “or I suppose Ripnugget just thought an awful lot of himself.”
“Little Man Syndrome,” Dex laughed as he elbowed Skud. The half-orc laughed harder as he showed a very small distance between his thumb and forefinger.
A short hall led from the art gallery onto a larger one. This one came to a four-way intersection, the western branch of which held two large, stone doors. Their faces were carved with images of horrific, deformed monsters clawing their way out of pregnant women of all races.
“Careful,” Luther warned as Skud and Dex approached the doors. “Those carvings are common in places sacred to Lamashtu.”
Dex waved dismissively, and bent to examine the portals.
“Clear,” he said as he straightened. Skud grasped the handles and heaved the doors open. Stone fonts containing frothy dark water sat to the north and south of the entrance inside the massive chamber beyond, and twin banks of stone pillars ran the length of it. At the western end, shallow stairs rose to a platform about two feet off the ground. The walls surrounding the platform were lit by hanging braziers that emitted glowing red smoke that gave the place an unnerving crimson lighting which threw the bas-relief carvings of countless monsters feasting on fleeing humans into lurid display. A black marble altar stone, its surface heaped with ashes and bone fragments, squatted before a ten-foot-tall statue. The sculpture depicted a very pregnant, but otherwise shapely naked woman who wielded a kukri in each clawed hand and had a long reptilian tail, bird-like taloned feet, and the snarling head of a three-eyed jackal with a forked tongue. Its left kukri flickered with fiery orange light, while the right one glowed with a cold, blue radiance.
Luther saw the creatures first, while his companions were still taking in the eerie surroundings. It was their eyes that first drew his attention…smoking red, peering down at him and his comrades from the deep shadows near the top of the pillars. Then they began to move, literally running through the air, four jackal-like hounds, completely black, even down to their fangs. As they came they began to bay loudly, the sound piercing the spines of the group as they all looked up. The mind-scraping howl threatened to drive all who heard it mad with terror. Each of the team gripped their ears reflexively, trying in vain to drown out the noise…all save Luther. At first, he felt the same blind panic grip him as it had his friends, but in the next moment, all fear was gone. Instead, he felt a blissful blanket of calm and peace wrap about him, as if Irori herself had placed her hands upon his shoulders. Within seconds, each of his companions opened their squeezed eyes and slowly dropped their hands, looking about them in bewilderment. The hounds rushed on, their vicious call still filling the air, but to the seven from Sandpoint, the clamor was distant, muffled, almost a background noise, like the buzzing of a fly. Then the hounds were upon them, snarling and snapping, black tongues lolling.
Skud stared down at the snarling beast in front of him, his sword dangling at his side.
“Good dog,” the half-orc said, a bemused expression on his face.
“Yeah,” Dex said as he rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Kind of reminds me of Garm.”
Luther was perplexed. His friends should have been knee-deep in bloodshed at that point, yet all of them were simply standing idly by as the demonic dogs slavered and snarled just a few feet away. Wesh had actually pulled a book of spells from his pack and was casually reading. Adso sat cross-legged in the lotus position on the floor, meditating. Rico was preoccupied with comparing various leaves he had taken from his belt pouch, and Randall tilted his head this way and that, as if listening to music only he could hear. What was going on? Then he realized that he himself still felt strangely calm, even though he could smell the fetid breath of the hounds. Whatever it was that was happening, it was originating from him. Cautiously, he began to back away from his companions, stepping back out the doors and into the hallway. It was as if a switch went on. The others visibly shook themselves and blinked in momentary confusion. Then Skud’s snarling battle cry broke the effect completely as he gripped his sword in both hands, raised it above his head, and brought it down in a vicious chop to the dog crouched before him.
The fight was on. Dex dove into a forward tumble, coming up behind the dogs, his rapier in one hand and his dagger in the other. He jabbed and slashed at one of the beasts, but it was if the creature’s hide was made of stone, and his blades were turned aside jarringly. As he involuntarily stepped back, the hound leaped at him and sank its fangs into his hand. He yelped and sprang away. The dog charged after him, but a crushing blow from Randall’s hammer brought it yipping and snapping to the floor. The big soldier stood, his head cocked to one side, listening for the direction of his foe’s movement. The attack should have crushed the thing’s spine, yet Dex’s eyes widened as it slunk towards Randall, only a slight limp betraying any injury.
Adso leaped to his feet as soon as Luther left the room. He quickly assessed the situation, seeing that Randall’s blow and Skud’s mightiest swing seemed to have merely angered the animals. Though the monk could kill with his bare hands, he had no illusion that his kicks and strikes would help him here, so he turned to another of the martial arts: grappling. He quickly side-stepped the lunge of one of the hounds and then fell upon it, wrapping his arms tightly around the beast’s body. It struggled like a fiend, straining to gets its jaws upon him, but the nimble half-orc managed to grab its muzzle with one hand as he pushed its head towards the floor. At that moment, however, he felt something heavy strike him behind his knees, and he tumbled to the floor. Still he kept his grip and wrapped his legs around his opponent as well.
“Kill it!” He shouted.
Foam slinging from his mouth, Skud did his best to oblige. He drove his sword down like a spike, impaling the thrashing beast to the floor. Then Dex appeared beside his big friend and shoved both of his blades into the dog’s throat. Finally, its struggles ceased.
Meanwhile, Wesh and Rico had not been idle. Between them, through a combination of flaming balls and arcane bolts, they had managed to bring down another of the hounds. Then they turned their attention to the remaining two, harrying the creatures with their continued bombardment while Skud hacked and slashed, his face twisted with rage. Finally, the last of the hounds fell and silence returned to the blood-red temple, broken only by the labored breathing of the survivors.
“Would you care to explain what happened just here?” Wesh asked with a grimace as Luther reentered the chamber.
“I think I can answer that,” Adso interrupted. “My spiritual brother has long sought the peaceful solution to conflict, to the point of even risking his own life. That is why my order sent me to watch over him, knowing he would not lift a hand to defend himself. My superiors told me to be prepared for something such as this. It is said that the most devout and spiritually pure will, on occasion, receive the blessing of the gods for their sacrifice. Think of it as if the gods were providing the armor Luther will not wear, the sword he will not wield. They have made it so that none, save the strongest of willed, can even contemplate violence in his presence. Thus, his enemies will not attack him, though they may not be inclined to listen to his entreaties. Less fortunate for us, however, is that our own…passions are equally cooled.”
“Are you saying we won’t be able to defend ourselves either as long as he’s around?” Dexter asked incredulously.
“Yes and no,” Adso see-sawed his hand. “If violence is committed, then the spell is broken. So if your are yourself attacked, you will be able to respond, or, if your intent and purpose is singularly strong, it is possible you may be able to act first, but your own violence will again negate the effect.”
Dexter stalked up to Luther pointing his finger beneath the priest’s nose. “You stay clear of us, understood?” He hooked his thumb towards Skud. “We’ve been through a lot together, and we’re not gonna get killed just because you want to negotiate!”
Luther held up his hands helplessly.
“I didn’t ask for this!”
“Yet it is a fact, nonetheless,” Wesh sighed. “We don’t fault you, Luther, but it may be that your continued presence among us might be more hindrance than benefit. We shall see. I only hope it doesn’t cost one of us our life to make that determination.”
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After another series of empty rooms, the Sandpoint deputies were beginning to wonder if there truly was anyone left in Thistletop. Perhaps Nualia and her cohorts had fled prior to their arrival? But when they opened a door that led off of what seemed to be an abandoned feast hall, they got more than they bargained for. At least eight goblin females, dressed comically in cast-off harem girl ensembles, stood gathered around a larger, more heavily muscled male goblinoid…a bugbear. He was in the midst of pulling up his trousers when Skud burst open the door. A surprised gasp was heard from both camps, then Rico pushed his way to the fore of his companions.
“Bruthazmus?” he hissed.
“Elf-lover!” the bugbear snarled back as one hand went to a necklace of suspiciously pointed ears that he wore around his neck. “Your girlfriend’s not here to fight your battles for you this time, eh?”
Ironically, as he spoke, the female goblins formed a protective wall between him and the intruders.
“No,” Wesh said, stepping beside the druid, his sword bare in his hand. “He’s got me to do that for him!”
The wizard uttered a word and the blade burst into flames. Wesh leaned forward and blew gently on them, at which point they fanned out into a raging conflagration that filled the room. When the fires abated a moment later, only Bruthazmus still stood, smoke drifting off his charred fur. His harem lay crisped at his feet. Calmly, Rico moved into the room, stepping carefully around the corpses. As he went, his fingers lengthened into hooked talons and a growl more animal than human came from deep in his chest as he proceeded to rip the bugbear’s throat out, tearing the grisly necklace free as he did so.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
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