Starday, 16th of Patchwall
Grumbar was on watch. It was roughly four hours to sunup. He was sitting there, singing a song (in his head, the way Kizzlorn told him to). The song was funny. Sometimes he’d substitute the words that were supposed to be there with other words, like names of people he knew, or rude terms for one’s rear end.
One of his favorites was a song called
The Twelve Men from Dyvers. In his head, the song played out its fifth verse.
Then the third man came and he strung his bow
He nocked two long arrows and fired on his foe
Prince Magar blocked both, pulled his sword, swore an oath,
And then slew the third man with a furious blow.
Grumbar happily replaced “third” with “dumb”, “Magar” with “Grumbar”, and “blow” with “butt”. He giggled to himself- but silently, so he wouldn’t wake Kizzlorn again. She got mad easily when awakened.
Someone shifted on their cot and sat up. Grumbar looked over to see Shade quietly putting on his boots. Shade locked eyes with Grumbar, and both nodded. To Shade’s right, Gryph was sitting up. He too began putting his clothes on as quietly as possible. Grumbar began to strap his bracers to his arms.
Kizzlorn was having something of an unpleasant dream. In the dream, she stood in the center of a black forest with her companions. They were surrounded by some unseen enemy. The treetops swayed violently against the dim blue of the sky. “We’re all going to be okay if we stick together,” she called out. Her friends looked at her and turned smiled.
“
We’re all going to be okay,” they said as they backed away from her into the darkness. “You can be okay too, if we just stick together…” Kizzlorn yelled at them to come back, but they abandoned her in the forest, and the forest was closing in on all sides.
She woke to a noise. She lifted her head from the feather pillow and looked around. Something in the room was moving. She blinked and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, then saw that it was Grumbar, Gryph, and Shade, putting their gear on. “Mmwhat are you doing?” She yawned. “It doesn’t feel like morning. Is there trouble?”
“No trouble,” Gryph said amiably. “Just going for a walk.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea. They’re shooting people leaving the castle grounds. Why would you want to take a walk in the middle of the night, by yourselves… in your armor?” What Jarl had told them before about people deserting in the night fled back to her. She kept herself calm and nudged Jo’nas in the next bunk over. He woke and quickly put two and two together.
Kizz stood up and tried to put herself between the three Knights and the door. “Now, hold on guys, why don’t we all just wait until sunrise, and we’ll go for a walk together?”
Gryph shrugged and smiled. “That’s okay, we really just want to stretch our legs a bit. Go to sleep, we’ll be back in a half hour or so.” His demeanor was friendly enough, but he was clearly watching her and Jo’nas very carefully. They all were.
Jo’nas joined Kizz by the door. He exchanged glances with Kizz. She gave a slight nod, and they cast together. The room exploded into action. Kizz cast
Dispel Magic on Grumbar. Jo’nas cast
Hold Person on Gryph. Shade bolted for the door- he was almost faster than the eye could follow, when he wanted to be. Gryph stood perfectly still for a second, then vanished. In his place was now a glowing orb of light. The orb floated after Shade. Grumbar rubbed his head and belched. “Wow, what was THAT?” He was clearly no longer under… whatever he had been under.
Kizz and Jo’nas ran out after the glowing orb. “Gryph’s turned himself into a Will-o’-wisp. He knows our spells aren’t likely to affect him this way.”
“Which is why he was able to slip out of my
Hold spell. Curses.” They saw ahead of them in the hall that roughly a dozen of the castle’s guardsmen were lined up by the drawbridge, which was lowering slowly. Shade joined them.
“They’re all trying to leave! HELP! GUARDS ON THE WALLS, WE’VE GOT DESERTERS! WE’LL TRY TO HOLD THEM- SHOOT TO WOUND, IF YOU MUST SHOOT AT ALL!”
“I think the guards on the walls are among the deserters, Kizz,” Jo’nas said. It seemed he was right; the walls were unmanned, and several of the deserters wore crossbows on their belts.
“Damn… looks like it’s up to us.” The deserters ahead were starting to walk out across the drawbridge. Shade and Gryph joined them and calmly walked out. “I’ll try to
Dispel more people, you run ahead and do your best to block them.”
“Way ahead of you,” he smiled. He disappeared in a greenish flash to appear before the mass of deserters. “STOP! Turn around, and march back into the castle, or prepare to be sent back against your will!” They kept walking towards him. With his bluff called, he wasn’t sure what to do.
Kizzlorn cast
Dispel Magic once again. It had seemed to work on Grumbar. It washed over Shade this time, and his eyes cleared up. He looked around and tried to figure out what had just happened to him. Kizzlorn cast another spell, this time on herself, and ran into the midst of the deserters. Her
Antimagic Field worked perfectly, and those close enough around her stopped walking. They looked around with wide eyes. Gryph turned from Will-o’-wisp to human again, and yelled “What happened?”
“Never mind that for now- stay close to me!” Stay close he did- almost too close, in fact. He practically clung around her waist like a frightened child. He knew what would happen if he left her
field, though… he’d be under control. It was like sharing a mind with hundreds of complacent slaves, and feeling completely at peace with it. He never wanted that to happen again.
The deserters who weren’t affected by Kizzlorn’s field kept walking, heedless of Jo’nas’ warnings. Jo’nas prepared to make good on his threats with another spell, but he heard something behind him.
He turned back to see nothing in the blackness. He’d heard a sound like a small pebble tumbling down a rocky hillside. He was about to ignore it, when he heard something else. It sounded like a heavy object being dropped on a bed of grass. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw only the black silhouetted treetops against the sky. Some of the trees on the treeline were not trees. They were as tall as trees, but shambling towards him. He looked closer and saw they weren’t shaped like trees. They were shaped more like heads and shoulders. He cried out and pointed. “GIANTS! GIANTS ARE ATTACKING!”
Kizz looked and saw that at least part of her nightmare had come true. Be they giants or not, there were a lot of them. It seemed like the forest itself was advancing on the castle. She yanked on the drawbridge lever, and the bridge began slowly ratcheting to its upright position. “Fall back!” she yelled. Jo’nas stood his ground and readied a spell. “FALL BACK, JO’NAS, I’M CLOSING THE DRAWBRIDGE! YOU’LL BE KILLED!!”
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, he will,” Shade cursed and ran out over the bridge. He jumped to Jo’nas’ side and whipped out his deadly longsword. He twirled it in the moonlight and tried to avoid thinking about the size of the things walking toward them.
The giants came closer to the light, and as they did, they could be seen holding swords that were nearly a dozen feet long, and three wide. The deserters walked right past them, and were not attacked. The black-skinned, red-bearded giants stepped closer and raised their swords to strike.
“Hope you had a plan, friend,” Shade said.
Jo’nas answered in an annoyed tone. “Yeah, I had a plan for ME, if I should have to retreat!”
“… …Oh.”
The giant swords came whistling down.
More to come...
