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Sins of Our Fathers - 2/10 - Final Update
- Thread starter Destan
- Start date
WizarDru
Adventurer
Quite honestly, I have no idea. Zad posted details in my story hour, and I know who was invited, but I don't know who's said "Yes", though I suspect you'd recognize the names of all the authors, and I'm assuming that several of them were planning on attending. I'll double-check if Harlock had posted the details anywhere, yet.grodog said:
If not, I may start a thread to raise awareness about it. It's not that far off, really.
Destan
Citizen of Val Hor
The Beginning
Baden eyed the small hole in the mountainside as one might eye a deadly viper.
It was as wide as his shoulders – if but barely - and pierced the mountainside about ten paces above the narrow trail. The scent of the Deepingdelve wafted outward – it smelled of stale air, of mines, of deep earth. The snow around it was melted somewhat, and stained gray from the warmer air issuing outward. Baden doubted he would have noticed the hole if Bardo and Tamil had not pointed it out to him.
Which, of course, was a good thing; most likely the rucken now within Axemarch were unaware of the its presence. If they did know of it…Well, Baden quietly mused, my lifeblood will be spilt upon the flagstones of my people. There are certainly worse ways to die.
The hole led to the lower level of a relatively new mine – a mine that had not existed, Baden regretted, when he had first departed Axemarch. The rucken had established a base of sorts somewhere near the hole’s opposite end, below the Halls of Axemarch.
Bardo had told Baden as much, many times, but such did not prevent Baden from asking again. “Tell me, one last time - where does this hole lead?”
Bardo had the courtesy not to sigh. “The hole is the mine’s air vent, Baden. It slides downward, at an angle, for two hundred feet-”
“Three hundred, more like. Perhaps four.”
Bardo shrugged at his brother Tamil. “Perhaps, perhaps. We will know once we descend how far it goes, but – now – I can only hazard a guess.”
“And it ends in a room?” Baden did not care whether the shaft stretched for two hundred feet or two hundred miles – there would be no escaping, at least not along the same route they proposed to enter.
“Yes,” Bardo explained for perhaps the fifth time since Wilan and Katon had left. “A small room. One exit – it leads westward, further into the mines. And there be a well in the floor, with a grating on top o’ it. We’ll be on the second level of the mine when we exit the hole’s tunnel.”
“The well is dry? And the well leads downward to the third level?”
“Yes, Baden.”
“And the third level,” Baden continued with methodical diligence, “is where you last saw these beasts?”
“Aye.” Tamil drew a circular shape on the snow with the butt of his warhammer. “Our miners had broken into a large cavern. It was part of a wet cave; the walls glisten therein and there are pools water scattered about. A number of natural tunnels branch outward from that main room.” Tamil illustrated by sketching lines from the circle he had drawn.
Baden had already seen the room’s shape – he had made Tamil draw it more than four times already. Still, he wanted to be certain, wanted to know as much as he could about where they intended to go. He did not like feeling responsible for the young dwarven brothers, but responsible is what he was.
Bardo spat, his spit creating a hole in snow within the center of the drawing. “That be the location of the main pool. The waters glow blue, so we be pretty sure that katshko fungi be growing under the surface. Them orcs seem to like feeling light-headed and seein’ things that ain’t there; they don’t venture too far from those polluted waters.”
“For now,” Baden agreed. “But the katshko will not last forever, and they will soon grow immune to its effects. Then they will leave, most like head upward into our central Halls. I wonder if they know our people have already deserted?”
Neither Bardo nor Tamil offered a reply.
Baden shook his head, as if waking from a dream. “No matter. We head down the shaft, as we discussed. When we drop into that room, do not tarry. We put on our armor, gather our weapons – quietly, mind you. Then we head down the well to the third level and…well, we do what we must.”
Baden hefted a leather rucksack over his shoulder. Borbidon’s armor was within the satchel. His shield would remain here, buried under sticks and snow; it was too wide and large for the airshaft. Baden hoped the axe on his back would not stopper him like a plug within the vent. He looked to Bardo and Tamil – both dwarves had likewise stuffed their own armor in bags.
“Tie ‘em up, boys.”
The three dwarves looped cords about their satchels and tied the bitter end to their ankles. They would be moving downward, at a steep angle, headfirst. The bags would drag – or, perhaps, slide – behind them. It was the only way.
“Me first. Then Bardo. Then you, Tamil. Once you pull yourself into that shaft, there ain’t no coming back. You won’t be able to move backward, even if you try. So, think long and hard ere slipping through. Should I reach the bottom, and not have you with me, I will think no less of either of you.”
Baden turned away, then. Before either of them could respond.
***
In the end, all three of them had agreed it would be best to skirt the Marcher Lords of Rhelm. Dun Meggen’s Earl was known to kill noble and commoner alike on nothing more than a whim. And Dun Tullow was worse – Enion Cold-eyes had sent countless Valudians to their deaths over the past twenty years. Though none of them were Valudians by birth, and though Kellus was a Rhelmsman, the threat of the Marches caused them to turn their route southward earlier than they would have liked.
So it was that they rode outward from Lonely Heath along the far banks of the Bramble, the same river whose headwaters began near the halls of Baden’s homeland of Axemarch. The weather was tolerable if not pleasant, and the air seemed permanently white from falling and swirling snow. The breath of their mounts mixed in wispy tendrils with their own as they continued the trek. The Weedsea was desolate and serene around them. It was as if they were alone in the world, and the laughing taprooms of Lonely Heath retreated more quickly than their progress would suggest.
They had John, however, and the bard was ever the enemy of silence. He strummed more tunes during those days than he had since the party first gathered beneath Aramin’s hide tent. John had been a bit perturbed at dodging the Marches in favor of the cold plains; he had heard of the fabled beauty of Dun Moor’s reigning Countess and wished to gaze upon her with his own eyes. He gave voice to his annoyance through his selection of tunes. He would sing simple verses that painted Tundreth Clansfolk as primitives, wait until Raylin’s mood grew too dark for comfort, and then John would switch to ribald, lecherous rhymes that caused Kellus to blush crimson.
Despite the southlander’s verses, the wintry desolation of the surrounding prairies, and the bitter cold – the journey was not unpleasant. They gave their mounts the reins, allowing the horses to pick their way in a southerly direction. There were no roads, and little landmarks. Raylin lead them southward by a cheerless sun, and by stars when the trio rode into the evening hours. And when such astrological guides were concealed, the ranger merely followed the downward slope of the land.
In this manner did the three Olgotha brothers first spy the eastern edge of the Boarswood. The forest was vast and menacing, its green so dark as to appear black. Two months’ of fallen snow draped its trees in a white mantle, a contrast which only served to accentuate the shadows beneath the boughs.
“Decision time, friends.” Raylin cupped both hands and blew warm air.
“I choose – yes.” John dismounted, undid his breeches, and urinated onto the snow. His mount copied him.
Raylin produced a small tin from his pack and removed the lid. He dabbed fingers onto the waxy contents and smeared ointment on his lips and the tip of his nose and ears. He offered the tin to Kellus who accepted it without comment.
“The decision,” Raylin continued, “was not whether you should piss or not. We must decide our route. Into the forest or around it?”
John tied his breeches with fingers made clumsy from the cold. “Are we close to Val Hor?”
“One-hundred fifty miles. Mayhaps more.”
“That’s not close.” John coughed, spat, and flung snot from his upper lip with one hand. “Which way is quicker?”
Raylin considered. “Entering the forest, here. We could cut south until intersecting the Coastal Road, then turn westward into the lands of Valudia.”
Kellus dismounted and walked to the front of his mare. He fed the horse oats from his own pouch. “The Boarswood is unkind to those who leave its paths. Have you ever penetrated that forest?”
“No,” Raylin allowed. “But it is a wood, like any other, and I believe I could keep us from becoming lost.”
John looked up, hesitated, and then spoke, “But if something should happen to you?” The bard climbed once more atop his horse. “A man could wander the rest of his years in such a forest and never see another tavern.”
Raylin shrugged as if such a fate would not be wholly unpleasant. “Then you wish to go around?”
Kellus nodded. “I think it best.”
“Very well.” Raylin stood in his stirrups and shielded his eyes from the sun. “We will keep the woods to our right, within sight. In two days’ time we should see the Coastal Road. From there we cut west, through the forest but on the road, and then…then, friends, we approach Val Hor.”
“And,” Kellus added softly, “see once more the faces of our lost companions. Helm willing.”
***
Amelyssan’s light revealed a small alcove off the tunnel they had been traveling for the better part of the day. All thought of the pursuing Cormicks was now gone; they had not been followed in the subterranean darkness. Vath, would could see in the blackness, had already slipped within the alcove. Amelyssan found the half-troll resting on his haunches, shaggy head swaying side to side as he sniffed the still, cool air.
The side room was a cache of sorts – that much was obvious at first glance. Neatly stacked torches were against the far wall. Other items were likewise organized throughout the chamber - two barrels, four boxes, seven red Cormick cloaks, and a number of arrows. But, Amelyssan thought, if the Cormicks stock these warrens, why did their riders not follow us herein?
Vath poked a talon through the tops of both barrels. “Water. And oil.” The half-troll pulled the lid from the first and plunged his head as far into the barrel as its dimensions would allow. Amelyssan watched the half-troll’s chest rise and fall as he sucked in the water. After what must have been nearly a minute, Vath stood, water streaming over the lesions and boils upon his face. “Good water,” he announced without preamble.
“The water was good,” Amelyssan said with a soft smile. Still, the horadrel stepped forward, cupped one hand, and drank. “I taste the lice from your head.”
Vath showed broken teeth, eyes glinting.
Amelyssan opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. “Behind you. A door.”
Vath turned, reached out and ran a hand along the cave wall. He saw it, now – a thin line marking a square, perhaps one foot to each side, in the stone. Without delay the half-troll pushed the square, and stone ground on stone. Behind, to one side, was revealed a niche cut into the wall. “Another box. Iron. Small.”
Amelyssan detected magic and, seeing none, shrugged. “Let us see what these Cormicks felt was worth hiding.”
Vath removed the iron coffer and set it down on the floor between them. He flicked a latch with a fingernail and lifted the lid. Both half-troll and elf recoiled in surprise as a cave cricket, the size of a small house cat, jumped from the container. Immediately, it began to chirp.
“I am not sure what I expected,” Amelyssan murmured, “but it was not that.”
Vath frowned and ran his hand along the interior of the box. Vegetable scraps, rotted but still moist, littered the floor of the container. The half-troll leaned back on his haunches and winced. “By Ilmater, the smell is wonderful.”
“Indeed.” Amelyssan held a kerchief to his nose, eyes watering from the horrid stench. He stared at the box as a man might a riddle. “There is a mystery here, one we should solve before continuing.”
Vath’s hand shot out and grabbed the cricket. The chirping stopped.
“The box was sealed so tightly as to prevent us from smelling the creature; no mean feat considering your scent ability. And the fruit is still moist, yes?” Amelyssan pursed his lips in thought. “Someone regularly sees to the insect, else it would have suffocated long ago.”
Vath appeared unconcerned. Slaver dripped from his chin. “I am hungry.”
Amelyssan, try as he might, could not answer the riddle. If indeed there was a riddle. Perhaps some eccentric Cormick simply kept the cricket as a pet? For some reason, that did not seem probable, or even possible. “Eat.”
Vath grabbed the bug as one might an ear of corn, the ensuing feast noisy and wet.
***
Baden fought to keep his breathing under control. He was red-faced and soaked with sweat from the descent and the sudden, chaotic fight afterward. Two rucken guards – both cave orcs – lay in their own blood at his feet. They had been standing sentry near the base of the well, on the third level. Had their post been one level higher, outside the airshaft’s exit, doubtless the whole complex would have been alerted of the dwarven intruders.
Bardo and then Tamil climbed down the knotted rope Baden had tied above. They glanced from the dwarf to the dead orcs. Bardo frowned. “Seems we be a bit late. Sorry.”
Baden waved a hand, chest heaving. “No need. It is over.” He once more took stock of his armor – every strap was in place, every buckle clasped. Still, he felt naked without his shield. “Where now?”
“Behind that bend is a tunnel that leads to the wet cave.” Bardo toed one of the corpses with his boot. “More of his ilk will be found therein.”
Baden wiped sweat from his brow. “Good, then. Let us-”
Tamil hissed a warning for silence. The three dwarves stood quiet as the stone around them. For long moments nothing was heard and then – a muffle. A groan, perhaps. Tamil pressed a finger to his lips then pointed around the bend.
Baden nodded, hoisted his axe, and moved forward with as much stealth as he could muster – which, admittedly, was not much at all. By Moradin’s singed brows, he swore silently, this is work for Raylin, not me.
The tunnel cut to their right after twenty paces. Baden peered around the corner, saw the hallway as it continued into the mountain. Empty. Opposite his position was an iron gate. Odd. A second tunnel continued beyond the bars before turning around its own corner. “The sound comes from there,” Baden whispered behind a cupped hand. “Beyond the gate, around the corner.”
Bardo squinted past Baden’s shoulder. He pressed his mouth to the dwarf’s ear. “The gate was fashioned by our own miners. That tunnel was to lead to the surface, but was never finished.”
Baden chewed the whiskers of his beard. The gate appeared sturdy – as all dwarven craftsmanship should. It also, by appearances, was locked. Do I open it? He answered his unasked question after a moment’s thought. “Leave it. We move to the wet cave. Are you ready?”
Both Bardo and Tamil gave grim nods, and so they continued.
***
“We should go around.” Raylin sat easily on his horse, facing John and Kellus, the dark sentinels of the Boarswood to either side of the road. A palpable threat issued from beneath those shadowy eaves, though nothing stirred.
“You want us to step off the path?” John’s voice was hushed, incredulous. “Do you know what happens to those who leave the roadway while within this evil wood?”
“No,” Raylin answered. “Do you?”
“Well…no. No, I don’t.” John spat quietly. “That’s not the point. It’s only a bug up ahead. Not reason enough to leave the trail.”
“It is a rather large bug.”
John frowned. He disliked the Boarswood the moment his horse stepped beneath the canopy. City folk, such as he was, were unaccustomed to such a huge swath of greenery. The forest was massive, stretching in all directions, its walls of wood and ceiling of branches pressing ever upon his mood. He felt…little. Everything was huge around him – trees, limbs, pinnacles of solitary rock. The sun was forgotten, hidden by the leafless firmament. The place must have been even darker, John knew, when the trees yet held their leaves. Though they sat upon their hoses in the middle of the Coastal Road, John could not help feeling lost.
“I don’t give a harlot’s hello how big it is. ‘Tis a bug.”
Raylin looked to Kellus. “What say you?”
The Rhelmsman frowned. He had been quiet since entering the forest – even quieter than his normal, reticent self. At the end of their journey, all knew, he would face the officials of his Church. Atonement was never easy, should it even be allowed. “It grows dark. We could camp here, on the road. Perhaps it will be gone by the morrow.”
Raylin shook his head. “I doubt it, friend. The beast is a wasp of sorts – as big as a destrier. It hovers, buzzing, above the body of a spider that is its equal in girth. A stranger sight I have never seen.”
“A spider?” John blanched. “Is it blocking the road?”
“It is dead. I think the wasp means to eat it. No,” Raylin corrected himself, “the wasp may be laying eggs within its corpse. Both are astride the road.”
“We could wait for travelers from the west. Perhaps they will do our work for us.”
Raylin eyed Kellus. “We have been within these woods for two days, and have not seen fellow journeyers since. This is not a season for travel.”
John had heard enough. The menacing forest, the lightless sky, the frigid air – it was too much. “No more chatter. Let us ride at the thing, scare it off for a bit. It can go back to whatever work it was about once we pass. I sicken of these woods.”
Kellus withdrew his mace and unlimbered his shield. “As you wish.”
Raylin chewed upon his lip, measuring the mood of both his companions before finally nodding. “Very well. We ride it down. Stay close. Do not pause. Should one of us fall…we stop. Otherwise, we gallop onward.”
Kellus and John agreed with grunts.
The trio kicked spurs to flanks. They thundered forward, their battle cries sounding foolish and feeble beneath the weight of the forest.
***
“Wait,” Amelyssan interrupted, “do not eat that one.”
It was their fifth alcove, and the fifth time they had found a box containing a very lively cave cricket. Vath had devoured the previous four insects.
“Something is amiss, friend,” Amelyssan whispered. The blackness of the tunnels seemed a thing alive. The horadrel hated not knowing the answer to a question, but hated even more not knowing which question to ask.
Four alcoves, four hidden boxes, four crickets. Now, five.
He thought aloud. “Why seal the box so that neither sound nor scent cannot escape?”
“To hide them,” Vath answered, his eyes solely upon the silent cricket in his grasp.
“Perhaps,” Amelyssan answered. “But, then - why hide them? I wager that Cormicks do not appreciate the taste of cricket as much as you, friend.”
Suddenly the cricket within Vath’s hand began to squirm. Half-troll and horadrel stared at the creature with mild surprise. None of the previous insects had moved once Vath had grabbed them. They all had gone completely quiet, nearly immobile, the result perhaps stemming from an innate defense mechanism.
But this one…this one grew agitated. It began to chirp.
“Odd,” Amelyssan breathed.
Even as the word left his mouth, the cricket’s chirps changed in frequency and rhythm. The sounds were loud now, nearly screeching, one quickly after the other. Clearly, the insect was excited.
“Vath-”
The half-troll, face wrinkled in confusion, dropped the cricket onto the floor.
“No,” Amelyssan murmured. The cricket - it is afraid! It serves as a warning! The elf dropped his lighted staff and dove forward, manicured hands grabbing for the insect. “Quickly! We must get it into the box!”
The cricket bounded away from Amelyssan, still frantic with its cries. Vath frowned but obeyed. The monk leapt forward, landing smoothly next to the hopping insect. He reached downward-
-and the world exploded.
Stone and earth shot upward from the ground. The cricket was gone – swallowed by a wide, gaping, black and red maw. Vath was propelled upward with the force of a shot bolt, his head slamming against the tunnel’s ceiling before he collapsed heavily to the rock-strewn floor. Amelyssan, already prone from his dive after the cricket, rolled away from the explosion.
The horadrel’s eyes went wide. “An ankheg!” he hissed, though the clattering debris and groaning corridor muffled his call. He spat a word and a pair of arcane, purple missiles shot outward to impact against the worm’s nearest eye – a lidless, lightless orb that bespoke of death.
Vath stood, blood running freely down his face. He took but a moment to survey the situation before doing what he always did – he charged headlong into suffering. The ankheg belched a yellowish fluid, and the half-troll’s hide hissed like wine spat into a campfire. Vath wrapped both arms about the worm’s head, its carapace creaking beneath the brute force of his grip.
Amelyssan gained his feet, the words of fire burning across his consciousness. But he could not – not while Vath was locked in a deadly embrace with the creature. So instead he attempted to scare the ankheg, his once-aquiline features twisting into rictus of horror as he barked the invocation.
The ankheg, apparently, shrugged off the effects. Both mandibles closed upon Vath. The half-troll’s hide split from pressure more than sharpness, green blood oozing outward, pooling upon the tunnel’s floor. Amelyssan watched in horror as he saw his friend’s eyes slowly close – Vath was losing consciousness along with his blood.
Again, Amelyssan considered sending a fireball down the tunnel. But…but it would be too much. He was certain Vath could not withstand such an inferno, even though it would certainly immolate the worm. Two more missiles streaked outward from the horadrel’s fingers, cutting sinuous lines through the air and imprinting their course upon Amelyssan’s vision.
Vath grunted, fighting to remain conscious, prodigious muscles rippling beneath his scabbed hide. He gripped one wrist with his left hand, squeezing the beast’s head even as he was squeezed in turn. The ankheg began to twist and writhe, attempted and failed to withdraw into the hole it had created when first bursting into the tunnel.
Amelyssan looked at his outstretched hand. The ring upon his finger glimmered. A Ring of Life Transference. The elf was unhurt – he could give some of his health to his companion, perhaps saving them both in the process. Just as he opened his mouth to speak the command word, however, he heard a rumble in the wall nearest him.
A second ankheg.
Rocks showered onto the horadrel as he shielded his face with his arms. The newly-arrived beast shot forward, maw dripping the same amber ichor that had eaten through Vath’s skin. In the time it takes a man to know his death has arrived, Amelyssan was pinned within its mandibles – each the size and length of a greatclub.
The elf swooned in pain, his eyes watering. The bite was horrible, the acid burning his hips, sliding down his legs and pooling in his boots. His arms were pinned to his sides.
It is over for me, he thought, in a single, odd moment of peaceful clarity. But not for Vath.
He spoke the command word, and his life – all that he yet possessed - fled.
***
The giant spider wasp had no intention of waiting upon their charge. It rose, buzzing angrily, the sound more than that of a hundred hives. The bloated creature streaked forward, eggs the size of apples dropping from its swollen abdomen. Raylin raised his swords, surprised by the furious onslaught.
John cried out as he saw the beast’s stinger enter the Larrenman’s stomach, lifting him completely from the saddle. Raylin rolled backward off his now-panicked horse, landing with a crack and thud onto the dirt of the Coastal Road.
“Die!” John screamed, nothing more poetic coming to mind. He stabbed outward with his rapier, the point slicing easily into the thorax of the wasp. Kellus was beside him, also mounted, his sword hacking in great downward strokes, blood and gore fanning outward in its wake.
Chaos ensued. John was not nearly as nimble on the back of his mount as he was on his feet; it took all his effort to guide his horse with both knees, and the mount threatened to break at any moment. Kellus was faring better, but the wasp had turned to him. Once, twice – the stinger shot outward. The first missed, the second clanged hollowly on the priest’s breastplate.
John slipped off his saddle, ignoring his horse as it bolted into the trees, and leapt forward. He stabbed and thrust. Wildly. Gore splattered into his eyes, was warm on his forehead.
Thunk!
The stinger took Kellus in the breast. The priest grew pale, almost instantly. His arms froze. He toppled from his horse like a statue, landing inert on the ground near where Raylin had first fallen.
John ran.
***
Baden wept, even as he strode forward, death in his eyes. The narrow tunnel was made more constricted from the bodies of dead dwarves. Tens, scores, perhaps one hundred of them. Pushed against the walls without thought or care. Their corpses were stones, their entrails a macabre mortar.
“B-Baden,” whispered Tamil, voice hoarse, face white from the horror of the scene. “We should go.”
But Baden was beyond words. Beyond thinking. DAMN THIS WORLD! His head pounded, his fingers were white upon the shaft of Borbidon’s axe. Somewhere, far off, he heard Ilvar whimpering within his head. He paid no heed to the child-spirit.
Baden spoke the language of his enemies. “RUCKEN! DA KOM AT’K K’TAR!” Rucken! I am here! Over and again he called, his voice choked with rage and hard upon his own ears.
He felt rather than heard the creatures mobilize. The tunnel’s floor thrummed with their bootheels. A drum began to beat. A horn blew. They were coming. All of them.
Good. Baden breathed deeply, suddenly quiet. This is my goddamned house. “MY HOUSE! DO YOU HEAR ME!”
The cave orcs came streaming into the far end of the tunnel, the blue light of the fungi pools behind them. This would be a battle in blackness. Darkvision. Baden spread his legs and, though it pained him to do so, kicked the rotting corpse of a fallen Axemarch warrior away from his position.
Bardo and Tamil took up positions behind him, the latter scrambling upward onto the palisade of corpses to gain a better vantage point for his crossbow. Twang! The lead orc somersaulted backward, feathered bolt in his forehead.
Baden heard Tamil begin to crank upon the windlass of his crossbow. “Bardo, stay with me.” It was the only guidance he could give. The orcs were upon him in a wave of black flesh, burnt armor, and stink.
Baden nearly went under. He shot his hand downward to stop his fall, his fingers tearing through the decayed flesh of a dead dwarf. He swung the axe with his other arm, upward, the blade skipping along an orc’s greaves until impacting its groin. Bardo chopped downward like a man cutting firewood. The sound of steel on orc helmets – both the teeth-grinding screeches of near misses and the loud report of direct hits – mingled with the din of dwarven cries and rucken shouts.
Baden regained his footing and began to lay about with the fury of his fathers. He was a stone pillar, the orcs little more than driftwood as they fell at his feet. Footing grew treacherous. The tunnel sloped gently toward the dwarves, causing a slow-moving canal of gore to flow toward them.
Chop. Cut. Punch. Baden even bit one orc that foolishly attempted to grapple him. He spat out a glob of rucken flesh, flashing a red smile. Once Bardo was nearly bowled over, but Baden sundered the spine of the orc who had climbed atop him. Through it all, Tamil’s bolts sped into the tunnel. The dwarf hardly needed to aim, so thick was the press of rucken bodies.
The drum stopped. The horn silenced.
The few orcs that yet remained tried to scramble backward. Baden would not let them. He left his position, his boots making sucking sounds in the grisly mire. Two more fell to his axe. A third. A fourth to Bardo’s crescent blade. A fifth to Tamil’s bolt.
The wave, which had once rushed forward, began to recede.
“Behind us!” Tamil hissed a warning. And then, “I have no more bolts!”
Baden did not turn. A silhouette blackened the tunnel before him, the few orcs still upon their feet appearing like children at the knees of their father.
Bardo had not lied – a cave troll.
“Bardo,” Baden whispered quietly, voice even, “assist your brother. This one is mine.”
Cave troll and Axemarch dwarf met in the tunnel, surrounded by bodies upon bodies of both orc and dwarf.
And in the blackness, death came swiftly.
***
Vath felt life swirl and explode within the very core of his being. The smell of horadrel, the smell of Amelyssan, was in his nostrils.
His eyes snapped open, his mouth cried a shout of rage, his muscles bunched once more. With a grimace, the half-troll shifted to one side, dragging the ankheg bodily from its self-made hole, twisting the beast’s great neck.
As the wyvern had died to Vath, so too did the ankheg.
The crack of its spine was loud. It echoed in the tunnel.
The half-troll turned, dripping blood and acid and hate. Amelyssan lay on the floor between him and the second worm. The elf had been severed in two.
“Praise Ilmater,” Vath croaked. Tears, foreign to him, flooded his vision.
The ankheg mindlessly scampered forward, its hard feet pattering like rain upon the stone. Vath went to meet him.
They clashed above the corpse of Amelyssan. The half-troll rained blow after blow upon the worm. Knees, elbows, teeth, fingers, fists. The beast’s carapace was hard, but not so hard that it did not sunder and split and crack under that furious onslaught.
The ankheg bit in pain and fear, its mandibles crunching upon Vath’s neck.
It was a lucky attack. A deadly one, for Vath. He tried to speak but his windpipe had been crushed in the viselike grip. Blood – his own – poured outward from Vath’s mouth, a steaming waterfall over his chin. It fell in sheets, mixing with that of Amelyssan, green amongst the red.
Vath, his vision already growing black, reached upward. He plunged an outstretched hand into the eye of the worm, pushed forward as far as his elbow. He opened his fingers then, twisting and turning his hand, watching with grim satisfaction as the beast’s eyes grew dim, then dark.
Half-troll and ankheg fell atop Amelyssan’s upper torso. The tunnel went quiet.
Vath lay still. His face was inches from Amelyssan’s. The elf was composed, even in death, his alabaster skin so smooth and so unlike Vath’s own cratered hide.
“I suffer,” Vath choked.
None hearing him could have discerned the words, but such did not prevent the half-troll from speaking. His jaw opened and closed jerkily, the feeling leaving his limbs, his tongue swollen and numb. The blood upon the ground rose as the worm’s dying heart beat fluid outward rhythmically. Soon Vath’s nose and mouth were drowned.
Still, he spoke, or tried to. “I suffer.”
His hearing went first. The cave, already quiet, was suddenly as silent as death. He no longer heard the trickle of blood, the clicking of the dying ankheg’s appendages, his own wheezing.
For once, Vath did not moan while breathing.
For he no longer breathed. He tried once more to speak, but such was beyond his capacity. Blackness fell upon him, complete, stifling.
He heard his own voice, now strong and clear and filled with the breath of his god: “I suffer.”
***
John sprinted, turned, and pulled the crossbow from the holster at his thigh.
The wasp had retreated. It was buzzing about the eggs that had fallen onto the ground during its rush. After a moment, it returned to the spider carcass.
John dragged a hand across his eyes. He was weeping. Openly.
He lifted the crossbow and tried to aim at the wounded wasp. It was impossible. He was in no condition to make such a shot. His gaze kept going toward the still bodies of his friends, both frozen in odd caricatures, covered in blood.
John forced himself to breathe evenly. If he died, there was no hope. Not for any of them. He walked forward, along the path. He stepped over his friends. He could not bear to look, not now. One of their horses had been killed in the fight, though John could not remember such happening.
He sat down, behind the animal’s body, and placed a handful of bolts onto its flank. Just like shooting dwem at Olgotha, John tried to encourage himself.
He pressed the butt of his crossbow to his shoulder, aimed, and squeezed. The bolt flew harmlessly over the wasp. The insect raised upward, buzzing, fly-like eyes staring in his direction. A moment passed. Once again the creature fluttered downward and began to lay its eggs.
John spat phlegm. His nerves were returning. He fitted a bolt to his crossbow, lay full upon the dead horse, closed one eye, and shot. The bolt flew true. It took the spider just above its wing, burying itself completely.
The insect’s buzz was maddening, loud. It filled the forest. It turned and sped toward John, just as it had done earlier. Blood fountain in its wake. Yet now its flight was erratic, slow.
One…more…shot. John calmly reloaded, for all the world appearing like a man at target practice. He exhaled. The beast closed. He lifted the crossbow to his shoulder. The wasp was nearer still. Fifteen paces. Ten. Five. John sighed, and fired.
He missed.
***
Baden had not known cave trolls could speak, until this one did.
“I am Buk’lokik,” came the sonorous voice in the tongue of giants. “I have smashed forty-two grubs” – the word for dwarves – “and pissed upon the altar in your Halls.” The massive troll walked forward, stooping beneath the tunnel, a great iron warbar held easily in one hand.
“I am Buk’lokik,” it continued, ignoring the fleeing orcs beneath its ponderous belly. Its flaccid manhood swung in the blackness of the tunnel. “I have ground the bones of your women for my porridge.”
The cave troll stopped, feet spread wide, war bar swinging casually from one hand. The sounds of fighting filtered forward from the rear of the tunnel where Bardo and Tamil engaged in a bloody, hand-to-hand fight.
“I am Buk’lokik,” it said, again. “I am favored of the morhedrel, chosen of Sorvakia, lord-warrior of the Deepingdelve.”
“Well, Buk’lokik,” Baden replied without emotion, “go f*&k yourself.”
Baden charged.
He was beneath and inside the reach of the warbar before Buk’lokik could register his surprise. Borbidon’s axe sung and spat as it cut, again and again, into that unprotected, rotund belly. Baden stood beneath the cascade, triumphant, eyes white, mouth agape.
The warbar slammed onto his shoulder. He heard his bones crack. He cared not. Again and again and yet again he swung. For each three of his blows, the great brute landed one upon him. A lesser dwarf would have been pulp, but Baden was no lesser dwarf. He was fighting for home and hearth and all those things that mattered to him. This was the fight of which he had dreamed.
He would not die, because he could not die. He was immortal.
Buk’lokik stumbled backward, great, black fingers pressing upon a horrendous gash crossing its navel. The cave troll’s eyes were wide, his mouth panting like that of a frightened hound. It tried to escape the fury embodied within Baden, but the tunnel was too tight, the ceiling too low.
The cave troll fell. The warbar rolled, clattering, from its fingers. Baden climbed atop his chest. From behind him he heard Tamil cry – an anguished, horrible sound. But Baden paid it no heed. His enemy was beneath him.
“That axe…” Buk’lokik whispered, mouth filling with his lifeblood.
Baden nodded. “This axe.”
With one, savage stroke, he cut the abomination from the crown of its head to the quivering jowls beneath its jaw.
“This is my home.”
***
John ran through the forest, terrified at the prospect of leaving the road. But such could not be helped. He knew he should be tired, near exhausted, but he was not. And – as thick as the growth was – no thorns or branches scoured his face or scratched his arms. His flight was smooth, unhindered by tree or hillock.
Finally, after an eternity, he stopped.
John opened his mouth to suck in air, but found he did not need to do so. He sat upon a stump, raising hands that should – by all rights – have been shaking. They were smooth. Untouched by gore.
A cowled figure approached.
John reached for his rapier, but it was gone. As was his crossbow. He stood, eyes guarded. “Who…who are you?”
John’s voice echoed oddly in the forest, where no echo should exist. The figure glided forward from the boles and boughs. It stopped but paces from John.
The southlander was quickly becoming frightened. “Speak, or by the gods I will kill you where you stand.”
“With what?” The voice was that of a man barely past childhood. Soft, holding no menace.
“Are you a gammhedrel, then?” John stepped forward, crouching, and attempted to pierce the blackness beneath the figure’s hood. “A wood elf? A fey? I…I did not mean to leave the road, but…”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I do.”
“Then…” John, for once, was at a loss for words. “Then will you help me? I have two companions – no, two friends, lying back there. Dear, dear friends. I would see them saved, if this cursed world would allow such.”
“They are beyond you.”
John sat. Tears welled in his eyes. “Then they are dead.”
“They do not share your fate.”
John ignored him. He no longer cared. The figure could produce a dagger and slit his throat; John would not so much as raise an objection.
“Look upon me, John of Pell.”
John did.
The figure reached upward and pulled back his cowl. He was a boy. A man. Somewhere in between both. His face, like his voice, was familiar.
“How do I know you?”
“You killed me.”
Then John knew. “You are the singer, from Basilica. From Arens. The one we sacrificed.”
“I am.”
“But you are dead.”
“I know.”
John was quiet for a long, long moment. The bard stood, tried to smile, but failed. He went to wipe the tears from his cheeks but found there were none. He smoothed his tunic, ran his hands along his clean breeches.
“Tell me, my colleague – is there music where we now go?”
“Oh, yes,” the man-boy breathed, eyes wide and voice filled with wonder. “Ever and always. Wondrous. Beautiful. Finer than has ever been heard upon the face of this world.”
John nodded. “I have a great desire…” The bard licked his lips, face upraised. “I have a great desire to sing.”
Baden eyed the small hole in the mountainside as one might eye a deadly viper.
It was as wide as his shoulders – if but barely - and pierced the mountainside about ten paces above the narrow trail. The scent of the Deepingdelve wafted outward – it smelled of stale air, of mines, of deep earth. The snow around it was melted somewhat, and stained gray from the warmer air issuing outward. Baden doubted he would have noticed the hole if Bardo and Tamil had not pointed it out to him.
Which, of course, was a good thing; most likely the rucken now within Axemarch were unaware of the its presence. If they did know of it…Well, Baden quietly mused, my lifeblood will be spilt upon the flagstones of my people. There are certainly worse ways to die.
The hole led to the lower level of a relatively new mine – a mine that had not existed, Baden regretted, when he had first departed Axemarch. The rucken had established a base of sorts somewhere near the hole’s opposite end, below the Halls of Axemarch.
Bardo had told Baden as much, many times, but such did not prevent Baden from asking again. “Tell me, one last time - where does this hole lead?”
Bardo had the courtesy not to sigh. “The hole is the mine’s air vent, Baden. It slides downward, at an angle, for two hundred feet-”
“Three hundred, more like. Perhaps four.”
Bardo shrugged at his brother Tamil. “Perhaps, perhaps. We will know once we descend how far it goes, but – now – I can only hazard a guess.”
“And it ends in a room?” Baden did not care whether the shaft stretched for two hundred feet or two hundred miles – there would be no escaping, at least not along the same route they proposed to enter.
“Yes,” Bardo explained for perhaps the fifth time since Wilan and Katon had left. “A small room. One exit – it leads westward, further into the mines. And there be a well in the floor, with a grating on top o’ it. We’ll be on the second level of the mine when we exit the hole’s tunnel.”
“The well is dry? And the well leads downward to the third level?”
“Yes, Baden.”
“And the third level,” Baden continued with methodical diligence, “is where you last saw these beasts?”
“Aye.” Tamil drew a circular shape on the snow with the butt of his warhammer. “Our miners had broken into a large cavern. It was part of a wet cave; the walls glisten therein and there are pools water scattered about. A number of natural tunnels branch outward from that main room.” Tamil illustrated by sketching lines from the circle he had drawn.
Baden had already seen the room’s shape – he had made Tamil draw it more than four times already. Still, he wanted to be certain, wanted to know as much as he could about where they intended to go. He did not like feeling responsible for the young dwarven brothers, but responsible is what he was.
Bardo spat, his spit creating a hole in snow within the center of the drawing. “That be the location of the main pool. The waters glow blue, so we be pretty sure that katshko fungi be growing under the surface. Them orcs seem to like feeling light-headed and seein’ things that ain’t there; they don’t venture too far from those polluted waters.”
“For now,” Baden agreed. “But the katshko will not last forever, and they will soon grow immune to its effects. Then they will leave, most like head upward into our central Halls. I wonder if they know our people have already deserted?”
Neither Bardo nor Tamil offered a reply.
Baden shook his head, as if waking from a dream. “No matter. We head down the shaft, as we discussed. When we drop into that room, do not tarry. We put on our armor, gather our weapons – quietly, mind you. Then we head down the well to the third level and…well, we do what we must.”
Baden hefted a leather rucksack over his shoulder. Borbidon’s armor was within the satchel. His shield would remain here, buried under sticks and snow; it was too wide and large for the airshaft. Baden hoped the axe on his back would not stopper him like a plug within the vent. He looked to Bardo and Tamil – both dwarves had likewise stuffed their own armor in bags.
“Tie ‘em up, boys.”
The three dwarves looped cords about their satchels and tied the bitter end to their ankles. They would be moving downward, at a steep angle, headfirst. The bags would drag – or, perhaps, slide – behind them. It was the only way.
“Me first. Then Bardo. Then you, Tamil. Once you pull yourself into that shaft, there ain’t no coming back. You won’t be able to move backward, even if you try. So, think long and hard ere slipping through. Should I reach the bottom, and not have you with me, I will think no less of either of you.”
Baden turned away, then. Before either of them could respond.
***
In the end, all three of them had agreed it would be best to skirt the Marcher Lords of Rhelm. Dun Meggen’s Earl was known to kill noble and commoner alike on nothing more than a whim. And Dun Tullow was worse – Enion Cold-eyes had sent countless Valudians to their deaths over the past twenty years. Though none of them were Valudians by birth, and though Kellus was a Rhelmsman, the threat of the Marches caused them to turn their route southward earlier than they would have liked.
So it was that they rode outward from Lonely Heath along the far banks of the Bramble, the same river whose headwaters began near the halls of Baden’s homeland of Axemarch. The weather was tolerable if not pleasant, and the air seemed permanently white from falling and swirling snow. The breath of their mounts mixed in wispy tendrils with their own as they continued the trek. The Weedsea was desolate and serene around them. It was as if they were alone in the world, and the laughing taprooms of Lonely Heath retreated more quickly than their progress would suggest.
They had John, however, and the bard was ever the enemy of silence. He strummed more tunes during those days than he had since the party first gathered beneath Aramin’s hide tent. John had been a bit perturbed at dodging the Marches in favor of the cold plains; he had heard of the fabled beauty of Dun Moor’s reigning Countess and wished to gaze upon her with his own eyes. He gave voice to his annoyance through his selection of tunes. He would sing simple verses that painted Tundreth Clansfolk as primitives, wait until Raylin’s mood grew too dark for comfort, and then John would switch to ribald, lecherous rhymes that caused Kellus to blush crimson.
Despite the southlander’s verses, the wintry desolation of the surrounding prairies, and the bitter cold – the journey was not unpleasant. They gave their mounts the reins, allowing the horses to pick their way in a southerly direction. There were no roads, and little landmarks. Raylin lead them southward by a cheerless sun, and by stars when the trio rode into the evening hours. And when such astrological guides were concealed, the ranger merely followed the downward slope of the land.
In this manner did the three Olgotha brothers first spy the eastern edge of the Boarswood. The forest was vast and menacing, its green so dark as to appear black. Two months’ of fallen snow draped its trees in a white mantle, a contrast which only served to accentuate the shadows beneath the boughs.
“Decision time, friends.” Raylin cupped both hands and blew warm air.
“I choose – yes.” John dismounted, undid his breeches, and urinated onto the snow. His mount copied him.
Raylin produced a small tin from his pack and removed the lid. He dabbed fingers onto the waxy contents and smeared ointment on his lips and the tip of his nose and ears. He offered the tin to Kellus who accepted it without comment.
“The decision,” Raylin continued, “was not whether you should piss or not. We must decide our route. Into the forest or around it?”
John tied his breeches with fingers made clumsy from the cold. “Are we close to Val Hor?”
“One-hundred fifty miles. Mayhaps more.”
“That’s not close.” John coughed, spat, and flung snot from his upper lip with one hand. “Which way is quicker?”
Raylin considered. “Entering the forest, here. We could cut south until intersecting the Coastal Road, then turn westward into the lands of Valudia.”
Kellus dismounted and walked to the front of his mare. He fed the horse oats from his own pouch. “The Boarswood is unkind to those who leave its paths. Have you ever penetrated that forest?”
“No,” Raylin allowed. “But it is a wood, like any other, and I believe I could keep us from becoming lost.”
John looked up, hesitated, and then spoke, “But if something should happen to you?” The bard climbed once more atop his horse. “A man could wander the rest of his years in such a forest and never see another tavern.”
Raylin shrugged as if such a fate would not be wholly unpleasant. “Then you wish to go around?”
Kellus nodded. “I think it best.”
“Very well.” Raylin stood in his stirrups and shielded his eyes from the sun. “We will keep the woods to our right, within sight. In two days’ time we should see the Coastal Road. From there we cut west, through the forest but on the road, and then…then, friends, we approach Val Hor.”
“And,” Kellus added softly, “see once more the faces of our lost companions. Helm willing.”
***
Amelyssan’s light revealed a small alcove off the tunnel they had been traveling for the better part of the day. All thought of the pursuing Cormicks was now gone; they had not been followed in the subterranean darkness. Vath, would could see in the blackness, had already slipped within the alcove. Amelyssan found the half-troll resting on his haunches, shaggy head swaying side to side as he sniffed the still, cool air.
The side room was a cache of sorts – that much was obvious at first glance. Neatly stacked torches were against the far wall. Other items were likewise organized throughout the chamber - two barrels, four boxes, seven red Cormick cloaks, and a number of arrows. But, Amelyssan thought, if the Cormicks stock these warrens, why did their riders not follow us herein?
Vath poked a talon through the tops of both barrels. “Water. And oil.” The half-troll pulled the lid from the first and plunged his head as far into the barrel as its dimensions would allow. Amelyssan watched the half-troll’s chest rise and fall as he sucked in the water. After what must have been nearly a minute, Vath stood, water streaming over the lesions and boils upon his face. “Good water,” he announced without preamble.
“The water was good,” Amelyssan said with a soft smile. Still, the horadrel stepped forward, cupped one hand, and drank. “I taste the lice from your head.”
Vath showed broken teeth, eyes glinting.
Amelyssan opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. “Behind you. A door.”
Vath turned, reached out and ran a hand along the cave wall. He saw it, now – a thin line marking a square, perhaps one foot to each side, in the stone. Without delay the half-troll pushed the square, and stone ground on stone. Behind, to one side, was revealed a niche cut into the wall. “Another box. Iron. Small.”
Amelyssan detected magic and, seeing none, shrugged. “Let us see what these Cormicks felt was worth hiding.”
Vath removed the iron coffer and set it down on the floor between them. He flicked a latch with a fingernail and lifted the lid. Both half-troll and elf recoiled in surprise as a cave cricket, the size of a small house cat, jumped from the container. Immediately, it began to chirp.
“I am not sure what I expected,” Amelyssan murmured, “but it was not that.”
Vath frowned and ran his hand along the interior of the box. Vegetable scraps, rotted but still moist, littered the floor of the container. The half-troll leaned back on his haunches and winced. “By Ilmater, the smell is wonderful.”
“Indeed.” Amelyssan held a kerchief to his nose, eyes watering from the horrid stench. He stared at the box as a man might a riddle. “There is a mystery here, one we should solve before continuing.”
Vath’s hand shot out and grabbed the cricket. The chirping stopped.
“The box was sealed so tightly as to prevent us from smelling the creature; no mean feat considering your scent ability. And the fruit is still moist, yes?” Amelyssan pursed his lips in thought. “Someone regularly sees to the insect, else it would have suffocated long ago.”
Vath appeared unconcerned. Slaver dripped from his chin. “I am hungry.”
Amelyssan, try as he might, could not answer the riddle. If indeed there was a riddle. Perhaps some eccentric Cormick simply kept the cricket as a pet? For some reason, that did not seem probable, or even possible. “Eat.”
Vath grabbed the bug as one might an ear of corn, the ensuing feast noisy and wet.
***
Baden fought to keep his breathing under control. He was red-faced and soaked with sweat from the descent and the sudden, chaotic fight afterward. Two rucken guards – both cave orcs – lay in their own blood at his feet. They had been standing sentry near the base of the well, on the third level. Had their post been one level higher, outside the airshaft’s exit, doubtless the whole complex would have been alerted of the dwarven intruders.
Bardo and then Tamil climbed down the knotted rope Baden had tied above. They glanced from the dwarf to the dead orcs. Bardo frowned. “Seems we be a bit late. Sorry.”
Baden waved a hand, chest heaving. “No need. It is over.” He once more took stock of his armor – every strap was in place, every buckle clasped. Still, he felt naked without his shield. “Where now?”
“Behind that bend is a tunnel that leads to the wet cave.” Bardo toed one of the corpses with his boot. “More of his ilk will be found therein.”
Baden wiped sweat from his brow. “Good, then. Let us-”
Tamil hissed a warning for silence. The three dwarves stood quiet as the stone around them. For long moments nothing was heard and then – a muffle. A groan, perhaps. Tamil pressed a finger to his lips then pointed around the bend.
Baden nodded, hoisted his axe, and moved forward with as much stealth as he could muster – which, admittedly, was not much at all. By Moradin’s singed brows, he swore silently, this is work for Raylin, not me.
The tunnel cut to their right after twenty paces. Baden peered around the corner, saw the hallway as it continued into the mountain. Empty. Opposite his position was an iron gate. Odd. A second tunnel continued beyond the bars before turning around its own corner. “The sound comes from there,” Baden whispered behind a cupped hand. “Beyond the gate, around the corner.”
Bardo squinted past Baden’s shoulder. He pressed his mouth to the dwarf’s ear. “The gate was fashioned by our own miners. That tunnel was to lead to the surface, but was never finished.”
Baden chewed the whiskers of his beard. The gate appeared sturdy – as all dwarven craftsmanship should. It also, by appearances, was locked. Do I open it? He answered his unasked question after a moment’s thought. “Leave it. We move to the wet cave. Are you ready?”
Both Bardo and Tamil gave grim nods, and so they continued.
***
“We should go around.” Raylin sat easily on his horse, facing John and Kellus, the dark sentinels of the Boarswood to either side of the road. A palpable threat issued from beneath those shadowy eaves, though nothing stirred.
“You want us to step off the path?” John’s voice was hushed, incredulous. “Do you know what happens to those who leave the roadway while within this evil wood?”
“No,” Raylin answered. “Do you?”
“Well…no. No, I don’t.” John spat quietly. “That’s not the point. It’s only a bug up ahead. Not reason enough to leave the trail.”
“It is a rather large bug.”
John frowned. He disliked the Boarswood the moment his horse stepped beneath the canopy. City folk, such as he was, were unaccustomed to such a huge swath of greenery. The forest was massive, stretching in all directions, its walls of wood and ceiling of branches pressing ever upon his mood. He felt…little. Everything was huge around him – trees, limbs, pinnacles of solitary rock. The sun was forgotten, hidden by the leafless firmament. The place must have been even darker, John knew, when the trees yet held their leaves. Though they sat upon their hoses in the middle of the Coastal Road, John could not help feeling lost.
“I don’t give a harlot’s hello how big it is. ‘Tis a bug.”
Raylin looked to Kellus. “What say you?”
The Rhelmsman frowned. He had been quiet since entering the forest – even quieter than his normal, reticent self. At the end of their journey, all knew, he would face the officials of his Church. Atonement was never easy, should it even be allowed. “It grows dark. We could camp here, on the road. Perhaps it will be gone by the morrow.”
Raylin shook his head. “I doubt it, friend. The beast is a wasp of sorts – as big as a destrier. It hovers, buzzing, above the body of a spider that is its equal in girth. A stranger sight I have never seen.”
“A spider?” John blanched. “Is it blocking the road?”
“It is dead. I think the wasp means to eat it. No,” Raylin corrected himself, “the wasp may be laying eggs within its corpse. Both are astride the road.”
“We could wait for travelers from the west. Perhaps they will do our work for us.”
Raylin eyed Kellus. “We have been within these woods for two days, and have not seen fellow journeyers since. This is not a season for travel.”
John had heard enough. The menacing forest, the lightless sky, the frigid air – it was too much. “No more chatter. Let us ride at the thing, scare it off for a bit. It can go back to whatever work it was about once we pass. I sicken of these woods.”
Kellus withdrew his mace and unlimbered his shield. “As you wish.”
Raylin chewed upon his lip, measuring the mood of both his companions before finally nodding. “Very well. We ride it down. Stay close. Do not pause. Should one of us fall…we stop. Otherwise, we gallop onward.”
Kellus and John agreed with grunts.
The trio kicked spurs to flanks. They thundered forward, their battle cries sounding foolish and feeble beneath the weight of the forest.
***
“Wait,” Amelyssan interrupted, “do not eat that one.”
It was their fifth alcove, and the fifth time they had found a box containing a very lively cave cricket. Vath had devoured the previous four insects.
“Something is amiss, friend,” Amelyssan whispered. The blackness of the tunnels seemed a thing alive. The horadrel hated not knowing the answer to a question, but hated even more not knowing which question to ask.
Four alcoves, four hidden boxes, four crickets. Now, five.
He thought aloud. “Why seal the box so that neither sound nor scent cannot escape?”
“To hide them,” Vath answered, his eyes solely upon the silent cricket in his grasp.
“Perhaps,” Amelyssan answered. “But, then - why hide them? I wager that Cormicks do not appreciate the taste of cricket as much as you, friend.”
Suddenly the cricket within Vath’s hand began to squirm. Half-troll and horadrel stared at the creature with mild surprise. None of the previous insects had moved once Vath had grabbed them. They all had gone completely quiet, nearly immobile, the result perhaps stemming from an innate defense mechanism.
But this one…this one grew agitated. It began to chirp.
“Odd,” Amelyssan breathed.
Even as the word left his mouth, the cricket’s chirps changed in frequency and rhythm. The sounds were loud now, nearly screeching, one quickly after the other. Clearly, the insect was excited.
“Vath-”
The half-troll, face wrinkled in confusion, dropped the cricket onto the floor.
“No,” Amelyssan murmured. The cricket - it is afraid! It serves as a warning! The elf dropped his lighted staff and dove forward, manicured hands grabbing for the insect. “Quickly! We must get it into the box!”
The cricket bounded away from Amelyssan, still frantic with its cries. Vath frowned but obeyed. The monk leapt forward, landing smoothly next to the hopping insect. He reached downward-
-and the world exploded.
Stone and earth shot upward from the ground. The cricket was gone – swallowed by a wide, gaping, black and red maw. Vath was propelled upward with the force of a shot bolt, his head slamming against the tunnel’s ceiling before he collapsed heavily to the rock-strewn floor. Amelyssan, already prone from his dive after the cricket, rolled away from the explosion.
The horadrel’s eyes went wide. “An ankheg!” he hissed, though the clattering debris and groaning corridor muffled his call. He spat a word and a pair of arcane, purple missiles shot outward to impact against the worm’s nearest eye – a lidless, lightless orb that bespoke of death.
Vath stood, blood running freely down his face. He took but a moment to survey the situation before doing what he always did – he charged headlong into suffering. The ankheg belched a yellowish fluid, and the half-troll’s hide hissed like wine spat into a campfire. Vath wrapped both arms about the worm’s head, its carapace creaking beneath the brute force of his grip.
Amelyssan gained his feet, the words of fire burning across his consciousness. But he could not – not while Vath was locked in a deadly embrace with the creature. So instead he attempted to scare the ankheg, his once-aquiline features twisting into rictus of horror as he barked the invocation.
The ankheg, apparently, shrugged off the effects. Both mandibles closed upon Vath. The half-troll’s hide split from pressure more than sharpness, green blood oozing outward, pooling upon the tunnel’s floor. Amelyssan watched in horror as he saw his friend’s eyes slowly close – Vath was losing consciousness along with his blood.
Again, Amelyssan considered sending a fireball down the tunnel. But…but it would be too much. He was certain Vath could not withstand such an inferno, even though it would certainly immolate the worm. Two more missiles streaked outward from the horadrel’s fingers, cutting sinuous lines through the air and imprinting their course upon Amelyssan’s vision.
Vath grunted, fighting to remain conscious, prodigious muscles rippling beneath his scabbed hide. He gripped one wrist with his left hand, squeezing the beast’s head even as he was squeezed in turn. The ankheg began to twist and writhe, attempted and failed to withdraw into the hole it had created when first bursting into the tunnel.
Amelyssan looked at his outstretched hand. The ring upon his finger glimmered. A Ring of Life Transference. The elf was unhurt – he could give some of his health to his companion, perhaps saving them both in the process. Just as he opened his mouth to speak the command word, however, he heard a rumble in the wall nearest him.
A second ankheg.
Rocks showered onto the horadrel as he shielded his face with his arms. The newly-arrived beast shot forward, maw dripping the same amber ichor that had eaten through Vath’s skin. In the time it takes a man to know his death has arrived, Amelyssan was pinned within its mandibles – each the size and length of a greatclub.
The elf swooned in pain, his eyes watering. The bite was horrible, the acid burning his hips, sliding down his legs and pooling in his boots. His arms were pinned to his sides.
It is over for me, he thought, in a single, odd moment of peaceful clarity. But not for Vath.
He spoke the command word, and his life – all that he yet possessed - fled.
***
The giant spider wasp had no intention of waiting upon their charge. It rose, buzzing angrily, the sound more than that of a hundred hives. The bloated creature streaked forward, eggs the size of apples dropping from its swollen abdomen. Raylin raised his swords, surprised by the furious onslaught.
John cried out as he saw the beast’s stinger enter the Larrenman’s stomach, lifting him completely from the saddle. Raylin rolled backward off his now-panicked horse, landing with a crack and thud onto the dirt of the Coastal Road.
“Die!” John screamed, nothing more poetic coming to mind. He stabbed outward with his rapier, the point slicing easily into the thorax of the wasp. Kellus was beside him, also mounted, his sword hacking in great downward strokes, blood and gore fanning outward in its wake.
Chaos ensued. John was not nearly as nimble on the back of his mount as he was on his feet; it took all his effort to guide his horse with both knees, and the mount threatened to break at any moment. Kellus was faring better, but the wasp had turned to him. Once, twice – the stinger shot outward. The first missed, the second clanged hollowly on the priest’s breastplate.
John slipped off his saddle, ignoring his horse as it bolted into the trees, and leapt forward. He stabbed and thrust. Wildly. Gore splattered into his eyes, was warm on his forehead.
Thunk!
The stinger took Kellus in the breast. The priest grew pale, almost instantly. His arms froze. He toppled from his horse like a statue, landing inert on the ground near where Raylin had first fallen.
John ran.
***
Baden wept, even as he strode forward, death in his eyes. The narrow tunnel was made more constricted from the bodies of dead dwarves. Tens, scores, perhaps one hundred of them. Pushed against the walls without thought or care. Their corpses were stones, their entrails a macabre mortar.
“B-Baden,” whispered Tamil, voice hoarse, face white from the horror of the scene. “We should go.”
But Baden was beyond words. Beyond thinking. DAMN THIS WORLD! His head pounded, his fingers were white upon the shaft of Borbidon’s axe. Somewhere, far off, he heard Ilvar whimpering within his head. He paid no heed to the child-spirit.
Baden spoke the language of his enemies. “RUCKEN! DA KOM AT’K K’TAR!” Rucken! I am here! Over and again he called, his voice choked with rage and hard upon his own ears.
He felt rather than heard the creatures mobilize. The tunnel’s floor thrummed with their bootheels. A drum began to beat. A horn blew. They were coming. All of them.
Good. Baden breathed deeply, suddenly quiet. This is my goddamned house. “MY HOUSE! DO YOU HEAR ME!”
The cave orcs came streaming into the far end of the tunnel, the blue light of the fungi pools behind them. This would be a battle in blackness. Darkvision. Baden spread his legs and, though it pained him to do so, kicked the rotting corpse of a fallen Axemarch warrior away from his position.
Bardo and Tamil took up positions behind him, the latter scrambling upward onto the palisade of corpses to gain a better vantage point for his crossbow. Twang! The lead orc somersaulted backward, feathered bolt in his forehead.
Baden heard Tamil begin to crank upon the windlass of his crossbow. “Bardo, stay with me.” It was the only guidance he could give. The orcs were upon him in a wave of black flesh, burnt armor, and stink.
Baden nearly went under. He shot his hand downward to stop his fall, his fingers tearing through the decayed flesh of a dead dwarf. He swung the axe with his other arm, upward, the blade skipping along an orc’s greaves until impacting its groin. Bardo chopped downward like a man cutting firewood. The sound of steel on orc helmets – both the teeth-grinding screeches of near misses and the loud report of direct hits – mingled with the din of dwarven cries and rucken shouts.
Baden regained his footing and began to lay about with the fury of his fathers. He was a stone pillar, the orcs little more than driftwood as they fell at his feet. Footing grew treacherous. The tunnel sloped gently toward the dwarves, causing a slow-moving canal of gore to flow toward them.
Chop. Cut. Punch. Baden even bit one orc that foolishly attempted to grapple him. He spat out a glob of rucken flesh, flashing a red smile. Once Bardo was nearly bowled over, but Baden sundered the spine of the orc who had climbed atop him. Through it all, Tamil’s bolts sped into the tunnel. The dwarf hardly needed to aim, so thick was the press of rucken bodies.
The drum stopped. The horn silenced.
The few orcs that yet remained tried to scramble backward. Baden would not let them. He left his position, his boots making sucking sounds in the grisly mire. Two more fell to his axe. A third. A fourth to Bardo’s crescent blade. A fifth to Tamil’s bolt.
The wave, which had once rushed forward, began to recede.
“Behind us!” Tamil hissed a warning. And then, “I have no more bolts!”
Baden did not turn. A silhouette blackened the tunnel before him, the few orcs still upon their feet appearing like children at the knees of their father.
Bardo had not lied – a cave troll.
“Bardo,” Baden whispered quietly, voice even, “assist your brother. This one is mine.”
Cave troll and Axemarch dwarf met in the tunnel, surrounded by bodies upon bodies of both orc and dwarf.
And in the blackness, death came swiftly.
***
Vath felt life swirl and explode within the very core of his being. The smell of horadrel, the smell of Amelyssan, was in his nostrils.
His eyes snapped open, his mouth cried a shout of rage, his muscles bunched once more. With a grimace, the half-troll shifted to one side, dragging the ankheg bodily from its self-made hole, twisting the beast’s great neck.
As the wyvern had died to Vath, so too did the ankheg.
The crack of its spine was loud. It echoed in the tunnel.
The half-troll turned, dripping blood and acid and hate. Amelyssan lay on the floor between him and the second worm. The elf had been severed in two.
“Praise Ilmater,” Vath croaked. Tears, foreign to him, flooded his vision.
The ankheg mindlessly scampered forward, its hard feet pattering like rain upon the stone. Vath went to meet him.
They clashed above the corpse of Amelyssan. The half-troll rained blow after blow upon the worm. Knees, elbows, teeth, fingers, fists. The beast’s carapace was hard, but not so hard that it did not sunder and split and crack under that furious onslaught.
The ankheg bit in pain and fear, its mandibles crunching upon Vath’s neck.
It was a lucky attack. A deadly one, for Vath. He tried to speak but his windpipe had been crushed in the viselike grip. Blood – his own – poured outward from Vath’s mouth, a steaming waterfall over his chin. It fell in sheets, mixing with that of Amelyssan, green amongst the red.
Vath, his vision already growing black, reached upward. He plunged an outstretched hand into the eye of the worm, pushed forward as far as his elbow. He opened his fingers then, twisting and turning his hand, watching with grim satisfaction as the beast’s eyes grew dim, then dark.
Half-troll and ankheg fell atop Amelyssan’s upper torso. The tunnel went quiet.
Vath lay still. His face was inches from Amelyssan’s. The elf was composed, even in death, his alabaster skin so smooth and so unlike Vath’s own cratered hide.
“I suffer,” Vath choked.
None hearing him could have discerned the words, but such did not prevent the half-troll from speaking. His jaw opened and closed jerkily, the feeling leaving his limbs, his tongue swollen and numb. The blood upon the ground rose as the worm’s dying heart beat fluid outward rhythmically. Soon Vath’s nose and mouth were drowned.
Still, he spoke, or tried to. “I suffer.”
His hearing went first. The cave, already quiet, was suddenly as silent as death. He no longer heard the trickle of blood, the clicking of the dying ankheg’s appendages, his own wheezing.
For once, Vath did not moan while breathing.
For he no longer breathed. He tried once more to speak, but such was beyond his capacity. Blackness fell upon him, complete, stifling.
He heard his own voice, now strong and clear and filled with the breath of his god: “I suffer.”
***
John sprinted, turned, and pulled the crossbow from the holster at his thigh.
The wasp had retreated. It was buzzing about the eggs that had fallen onto the ground during its rush. After a moment, it returned to the spider carcass.
John dragged a hand across his eyes. He was weeping. Openly.
He lifted the crossbow and tried to aim at the wounded wasp. It was impossible. He was in no condition to make such a shot. His gaze kept going toward the still bodies of his friends, both frozen in odd caricatures, covered in blood.
John forced himself to breathe evenly. If he died, there was no hope. Not for any of them. He walked forward, along the path. He stepped over his friends. He could not bear to look, not now. One of their horses had been killed in the fight, though John could not remember such happening.
He sat down, behind the animal’s body, and placed a handful of bolts onto its flank. Just like shooting dwem at Olgotha, John tried to encourage himself.
He pressed the butt of his crossbow to his shoulder, aimed, and squeezed. The bolt flew harmlessly over the wasp. The insect raised upward, buzzing, fly-like eyes staring in his direction. A moment passed. Once again the creature fluttered downward and began to lay its eggs.
John spat phlegm. His nerves were returning. He fitted a bolt to his crossbow, lay full upon the dead horse, closed one eye, and shot. The bolt flew true. It took the spider just above its wing, burying itself completely.
The insect’s buzz was maddening, loud. It filled the forest. It turned and sped toward John, just as it had done earlier. Blood fountain in its wake. Yet now its flight was erratic, slow.
One…more…shot. John calmly reloaded, for all the world appearing like a man at target practice. He exhaled. The beast closed. He lifted the crossbow to his shoulder. The wasp was nearer still. Fifteen paces. Ten. Five. John sighed, and fired.
He missed.
***
Baden had not known cave trolls could speak, until this one did.
“I am Buk’lokik,” came the sonorous voice in the tongue of giants. “I have smashed forty-two grubs” – the word for dwarves – “and pissed upon the altar in your Halls.” The massive troll walked forward, stooping beneath the tunnel, a great iron warbar held easily in one hand.
“I am Buk’lokik,” it continued, ignoring the fleeing orcs beneath its ponderous belly. Its flaccid manhood swung in the blackness of the tunnel. “I have ground the bones of your women for my porridge.”
The cave troll stopped, feet spread wide, war bar swinging casually from one hand. The sounds of fighting filtered forward from the rear of the tunnel where Bardo and Tamil engaged in a bloody, hand-to-hand fight.
“I am Buk’lokik,” it said, again. “I am favored of the morhedrel, chosen of Sorvakia, lord-warrior of the Deepingdelve.”
“Well, Buk’lokik,” Baden replied without emotion, “go f*&k yourself.”
Baden charged.
He was beneath and inside the reach of the warbar before Buk’lokik could register his surprise. Borbidon’s axe sung and spat as it cut, again and again, into that unprotected, rotund belly. Baden stood beneath the cascade, triumphant, eyes white, mouth agape.
The warbar slammed onto his shoulder. He heard his bones crack. He cared not. Again and again and yet again he swung. For each three of his blows, the great brute landed one upon him. A lesser dwarf would have been pulp, but Baden was no lesser dwarf. He was fighting for home and hearth and all those things that mattered to him. This was the fight of which he had dreamed.
He would not die, because he could not die. He was immortal.
Buk’lokik stumbled backward, great, black fingers pressing upon a horrendous gash crossing its navel. The cave troll’s eyes were wide, his mouth panting like that of a frightened hound. It tried to escape the fury embodied within Baden, but the tunnel was too tight, the ceiling too low.
The cave troll fell. The warbar rolled, clattering, from its fingers. Baden climbed atop his chest. From behind him he heard Tamil cry – an anguished, horrible sound. But Baden paid it no heed. His enemy was beneath him.
“That axe…” Buk’lokik whispered, mouth filling with his lifeblood.
Baden nodded. “This axe.”
With one, savage stroke, he cut the abomination from the crown of its head to the quivering jowls beneath its jaw.
“This is my home.”
***
John ran through the forest, terrified at the prospect of leaving the road. But such could not be helped. He knew he should be tired, near exhausted, but he was not. And – as thick as the growth was – no thorns or branches scoured his face or scratched his arms. His flight was smooth, unhindered by tree or hillock.
Finally, after an eternity, he stopped.
John opened his mouth to suck in air, but found he did not need to do so. He sat upon a stump, raising hands that should – by all rights – have been shaking. They were smooth. Untouched by gore.
A cowled figure approached.
John reached for his rapier, but it was gone. As was his crossbow. He stood, eyes guarded. “Who…who are you?”
John’s voice echoed oddly in the forest, where no echo should exist. The figure glided forward from the boles and boughs. It stopped but paces from John.
The southlander was quickly becoming frightened. “Speak, or by the gods I will kill you where you stand.”
“With what?” The voice was that of a man barely past childhood. Soft, holding no menace.
“Are you a gammhedrel, then?” John stepped forward, crouching, and attempted to pierce the blackness beneath the figure’s hood. “A wood elf? A fey? I…I did not mean to leave the road, but…”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I do.”
“Then…” John, for once, was at a loss for words. “Then will you help me? I have two companions – no, two friends, lying back there. Dear, dear friends. I would see them saved, if this cursed world would allow such.”
“They are beyond you.”
John sat. Tears welled in his eyes. “Then they are dead.”
“They do not share your fate.”
John ignored him. He no longer cared. The figure could produce a dagger and slit his throat; John would not so much as raise an objection.
“Look upon me, John of Pell.”
John did.
The figure reached upward and pulled back his cowl. He was a boy. A man. Somewhere in between both. His face, like his voice, was familiar.
“How do I know you?”
“You killed me.”
Then John knew. “You are the singer, from Basilica. From Arens. The one we sacrificed.”
“I am.”
“But you are dead.”
“I know.”
John was quiet for a long, long moment. The bard stood, tried to smile, but failed. He went to wipe the tears from his cheeks but found there were none. He smoothed his tunic, ran his hands along his clean breeches.
“Tell me, my colleague – is there music where we now go?”
“Oh, yes,” the man-boy breathed, eyes wide and voice filled with wonder. “Ever and always. Wondrous. Beautiful. Finer than has ever been heard upon the face of this world.”
John nodded. “I have a great desire…” The bard licked his lips, face upraised. “I have a great desire to sing.”
Destan
Citizen of Val Hor
Hi everyone,
Contrary to its title, the previous update marks the end of this thread. I thank each and every single one of you for reading, for posting, for joining the Olgotha Brothers in their quest.
I hope to get around to starting another thread on these boards. The campaign, as recorded hereupon, is still in its infancy. There is still many stories to write - there always will be.
I apologize to those readers who had favorite characters apparently die in this last update. This, I think, is the largest difference between a novel and a campaign. Sometimes things just don't make "sense".
Writing this story hour has proven better than even my most grandiose hopes. I had never thought it would become the living thing that it has.
That, friends, can be attributed to you. Without your posts of encouragement, your questions, and your criticisms - I'd never have stuck with this thing so long.
I hope you find the world interesting enough to, perhaps, grab a copy of the forthcoming supplement. It details the world, such as it is, in a much larger scale.
Which we just might see, regardless, when the Brothers of Olgotha learn of their true destiny, and first feel the horror of the creature known as Loroth.
Until then -
Shen tu fundin!
Destan
Contrary to its title, the previous update marks the end of this thread. I thank each and every single one of you for reading, for posting, for joining the Olgotha Brothers in their quest.
I hope to get around to starting another thread on these boards. The campaign, as recorded hereupon, is still in its infancy. There is still many stories to write - there always will be.
I apologize to those readers who had favorite characters apparently die in this last update. This, I think, is the largest difference between a novel and a campaign. Sometimes things just don't make "sense".
Writing this story hour has proven better than even my most grandiose hopes. I had never thought it would become the living thing that it has.
That, friends, can be attributed to you. Without your posts of encouragement, your questions, and your criticisms - I'd never have stuck with this thing so long.
I hope you find the world interesting enough to, perhaps, grab a copy of the forthcoming supplement. It details the world, such as it is, in a much larger scale.
Which we just might see, regardless, when the Brothers of Olgotha learn of their true destiny, and first feel the horror of the creature known as Loroth.
Until then -
Shen tu fundin!
Destan
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