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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4749244" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 22Gral Thunderhammer was no stranger to pain.  The dwarf was a wizard, and that made him somewhat unusual among his kind.  But while he had never borne an axe or hammer into battle, or held of hordes of creatures clad in layers of plate steel, that did not mean that he lacked the stamina and durability common to his race.  Dwarven resilience—more than just an axiom, it was a truth that pulsed in his blood.  And so he drew himself up, yanking out one of the arrows jutting from his body and tossing it aside.  One of the hobgoblin archers was shooting at Jaron, but the other saw him and hurriedly raised his bow to finish him off before he could unleash another spell.  Their eyes met for a long moment across the chamber.  “Take your best shot, goblin,” he growled, and while the archer obviously couldn’t hear him, it was obvious by the way his eyes narrowed that he understood the message. He released his arrow.  The shot thudded into the dwarf’s body, solidly in the center of his chest, no doubt sticking into the dense matter of his breastbone.  Gral looked down at the shaft quivering from his body. And smiled. “Not good enough,” he said, drawing upon the power of his staff to empower his ray of frost.  The beam caught the hobgoblin solidly in the chest, drawing a line icy crystals across his body all the way to where his shoulder joined his right arm.  The hobgoblin reached for another arrow, but his hands shook as he fought off the draining chill. His companion realized his mistake too late, and shifted his aim from Jaron to the wizard.  But he was too late; two arrows sank into his body before he could shoot, one in his gut, the other a few inches below his throat.  The hobgoblin toppled over and fell forward off the balcony, landing with a sick thud on his back fifteen feet below. As the hobgoblins in the corridor surged ahead to finish off Vhael, Carzen pushed ahead to meet them.  He feinted at the bandit that had disabled Vhael, but the man was obviously not interested in toe-to-toe fighting against a heavily armored opponent, and he quickly withdrew, leaping over the corpse of the dead dire wolf.  The hobgoblins were of tougher stuff, but Carzen absorbed the pounding blows from their flails on his shield, and countered with a quick lash from his sword that drew a painful wound across the bicep of one the soldiers.  The hobgoblin, already wounded, nearly lost his grip on his flail, and he stepped back to recover, forcing his companion to cover him. With that momentary respite, Carzen glanced back at Vhael.  “Fight or die!” he snarled, turning back with a quick lunge that forced the hobgoblins back.  “No other options, you bastard!” he yelled over his shoulder.  Vhael pulled himself up, and reached up with bloody fingers to yank the knife from his neck.  Fresh blood spurted from the wound, but the dragonborn only growled as he bent and recovered his sword.  The hobgoblins, Carzen noticed, had not resumed their attack.  The brief pause had made him suddenly aware of the flaring agony radiating out from his wounded leg, leaving aside the battering he’d taken from those heavy flails.  The part of his mind that could still think clearly wondered what was happening, what surprise the enemy was waiting to unleash.  Then his eyes caught signs of movement further down the passage, behind the soldiers, and as he saw what was coming, he felt that anticipation turn to grim understanding.  Vhael, still shaking his head to clear it, blood smeared in ugly trails across his neck and shoulders, didn’t see at first, but he could hear the deep voice that spoke a word of command, and he recognized that the hobgoblins’ leader had made an appearance. “Fall back,” he said, but Carzen was already retreating, moving in an awkward hobbling motion as his wounded leg resisted his commands.  The hobgoblins followed, but almost leisurely now, bolstered by reinforcements, knowing that their enemy’s retreat would only open them to more attacks once they cleared the narrow confines of the passage. “What’s happening?” Jaron asked, as the two fighters emerged from the alcove.  The last archer on the balcony had dropped prone, crippled by multiple hits from spells and arrows, but all of them save Gez were injured, some seriously.  He started toward the passage, but saw the hobgoblins following on the heels of the fighters, with more creatures coming up behind them, and froze.  “Beetle,” he said with dread, reaching for an arrow, his fingers fumbling on the feathered shaft.  “Fall back!” Vhael repeated, turning now to cover their withdrawal, his sword hefted above his head with the blade tilted low in a defensive stance.  He looked determined, but even a casual glance was enough to tell how badly he’d been battered.  Gez and Gral were already moving toward the entrance, but Jaron froze where he was for a long instant, indecision on his face.  “Go!” Vhael said, thrusting at him roughly, pushing him after the others.  But it was already too late.  The Bloodreavers spread out as they emerged from the passage, forming a line centered on the two hobgoblin soldiers.  The pair were both rather battered themselves, but they were bolstered by the two human bandits and a quartet of goblins.  Some of the latter bore wounds of their own, but they were still fearsome, clad in mail and armed with broad-bladed war axes.  As if that wasn’t enough, the door to the balcony was flung open once more, and another detachment of archers appeared.  One hobgoblin bowman and two goblins with light crossbows rushed out, weapons loaded and ready.  The final arrivals were a pair that came from the alcove in the wake of the bandits and warriors, emerging from the wisps of smoke that drifted out through the open doors.  The first was another warcaster, this one dressed in a hide cloak covered with fetishes of bone and metal, and a staff that bent almost into a hook at one end.  And the last to arrive was the worst, a massive hulk of a hobgoblin, clanking with the weight of heavy armor, hefting a spear half again as tall as he was.  His helm was fashioned into the shape of a skull, and there was a certain malevolent fury that burned in his stare as he cast it over the companions.  “You were fools to think you could challenge the Bloodreavers,” he said, his Common thick but understandable.  “I told you that our fight wasn’t over,” the warcaster added, filling the room with a fierce, terrible laugh.  Sparks of white energy flared around the end of his staff, casting his features into grim relief. “He’s the one, the one from the keep,” Jaron said.  But his companions didn’t understand the reference, and in any case they had more pressing issues.  “We’ve come for your prisoners, the ones you stole from Fairhollow,” Vhael said.  “Surrender them, or pay the price.”The bandits laughed together.  “The price!” the hobgoblin warchief snarled.  “The price we get for you will pay for the damage you’ve done here!”“We’ll not yield to you!” Vhael said, but his defiance rang empty.  Carzen was already edging back toward the exit, but it was obvious that wouldn’t be able to outrun anybody in his current state. The warchief smiled.  “Then you will die!  Take them!” he shrieked, and his forces surged forward.</blockquote>

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