Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 64
THE VANGUARD
“That was too easy,” Dar said.
Kiron looked up at him, an incredulous expression flitting across his features before he schooled them under iron discipline. Both men were covered in blood, some of it their own, but most belonging to the huge carcass that steamed hot and foul in the late afternoon air.
Dar heard people coming down the rough slope behind them, and turned to see Allera at their head. “Everyone all right?” he yelled up to her.
“Petronia suffered a broken collarbone, and one of the dwarven sappers had his skull cracked,” the healer reported. “But they’re all right.” She didn’t have to check Dar and Kiron; a mass heal had preceded her down the hill, even as the creature’s death struggles had come to an end.
A slight rush of air announced the arrival of Mehlaraine, who descended on the wings of a fly spell to land gently beside him. “Just the one?” she asked.
“For now,” he said, quietly. He looked up, scanning the dozens of faces that looked down at him from the emplacements atop the surrounding hills. More foot soldiers were approaching, but what happened here was already finished. One more of the ravager’s spawn slain.
This was just a warm-up, Dar thought, the words grim within his mind.
The debriefing went smoothly, with Dar’s battle commanders, representing all three races gathered at the site, reporting their perspective on what had happened.
Just about everything had gone according to plan. The creature had emerged from the Well seriously injured, whether from Amurru’s delaying action or from the half-dozen glyphs of warding that the priests of the Father had placed within the shaft. The dwarven sappers had set up a series of deadfalls, and the creature’s ascent had been hindered by hundred-pound slabs of rock that had fallen on it from above. They had failed to dislodge the creature from the walls of the shaft, however, and Dar was partly relieved that the attacks had only enraged it to push ahead faster. The smart tactic would have been for the creature to pause until its natural regenerative abilities healed the wounds it had suffered in its escape from the vault. At least that was one area where they seemed to have an advantage over the things; they were pure, raw destruction, and not possessed of fine nuance.
The creature had certainly seemed pissed when it had finally emerged from the top of the shaft. Just to make sure, several more explosive glyphs had gone off around it, blasting it with shards of rock and tongues of fire, but doing little in the way of serious hurt to it.
That’s when a dozen massive bolts, fired by the scorpions on the surrounding hilltops, had slammed down into it. Most of the missiles struck it, but nearly all simply shattered—shattered!—on its dark red hide. The thing’s skin was tougher than a dragon’s scales, a fact that Dar had learned through hard experience. But two of the shafts had penetrated, and the creature had certainly felt those. Each of the steel heads had a long groove down the center, into which enough purple worm poison had been poured to slay a whole cavalry troop’s worth of horses. That had been a contribution of Alzoun and the church of Dagos, along with the flaming burst arrows that had begun lancing into the creature from the emplaced archers. Most of those had likewise had little or no effect, but one flashed into a bright spurt of flame as it hit the creature’s head right at the corner of its jaw, and another vanished into the creature’s left nostril.
Dar never did learn which of the two had come from Selanthas’s bow, but he knew that one of them almost certainly had.
The creature had hesitated, just for a moment, looking for foes close at hand, confused by the attacks coming at it from all directions. But its indecision had come to a sudden end as Sultheros had blasted it with a streak of lightning that had briefly silhouetted its entire body in a raging nimbus of blue sparks. That made its decision; the creature had launched itself forward, straight for the hill where the elf had taken up position.
That had been part of the plan as well, but they’d underestimated the creature’s speed. It ignored the traps that had been set for it, even as long wooden stakes had pierced its legs and stuck in its lower body, and flashes of yellow fire erupted where it stepped. The steep slope of the hill barely slowed it, its claws digging deep into the bare rocks as it shot up toward its tormentors, intent only on rending these little creatures that had dared to challenge it. Arrows and bolts continued to strike it, and a lighter barrage of spells from the flying wizards above, but while the assault wore at it, none of the wounds it suffered were serious enough to slow it.
And then it reached the summit, where the defenders were waiting.
The creature knocked down the outer edge of the emplacement with its first surge, ignoring the long pikes that stabbed deep into its chest, the reinforced shafts snapping as though they were toothpicks. Petronia, who’d set one of the pikes, went down, clutching her shoulder. More missiles struck, including another scorpion missile, fired at point blank range into the juncture where the creature’s neck connected to its armored body. Shards of rock from the shattered barricade were blasted into the defenders, pinging off their armor; a dwarf went down as a rock the size of a grapefruit caromed off his forehead.
The creature turned, looking for Sultheros, who stood calmly not ten paces away, flanked by Selanthas and one of the elven rangers he’d brought from Aelvenmarr. But before it could spring at the elf, Dar and Kiron rose up from behind the ruins of the barricade and struck.
Both blades bit deep, Justice carving through ridged flesh like a butcher’s knife, while Kiron’s sword of fiery red brilliant energy tore off its foremost left leg, severing it clean from the spawn’s body. The creature let out a scream that had shattered the night and rang in the ears of those present for minutes after. Unbalanced, it was hit by a barrage of arrows and then a freezing sphere, tossed almost casually by Sultheros. The globe hit the creature in the head and exploded, engulfing it in a torrent of utter cold. Crystals of ice formed and were shattered by the thing’s desperate movements, and accompanied it as it toppled over backward and plummeted back down the slope.
It had been a dramatic moment, but forewarned by Dar, the defenders had not let up. The scorpion crews continued to shoot it with their heavy bolts as quickly as they could reload, while Dar and Kiron had shot down the hill after it, each of them nearly falling in their hasty descent. Magic missiles streaked down from the wizards hovering above, but even with all the wounds it had suffered, still the thing was starting to stir again as Dar and Kiron reached it. But fortunately Dar had learned how to stop the spawn from regenerating. It was a messy business, destroying the brain that resided deep within that armored skull, but shortly, less than one minute after the creature had first emerged from the shaft, it had been finished.
Once the last of them had recounted the tale, the gathered men, dwarves, and elves paused, letting the moment of what they had just witnessed settle around them. They had beaten the ravager spawn, but that had only been a minor foe in comparison to what still waited below. More allies were on the way, and they had a few surprises left to them, but would it be enough?
“Swap out the front-line teams; send those who have finished two shifts back to the rear camp, and make sure those who are on the night watch get an hour’s rest at the relief tent, in shifts. I want everyone to be ready.”
There was a chorus of assents through the assembled group.
Dar looked at Dalvev Gorr. The dwarf’s face was as craggy as the hills on which his team had spent the last few days working, but Dar had seen the man work from dawn to dusk since his arrival two days ago, pushing his team to do likewise, even after a forced march from the small dwarven outpost in the foothills of the Galerr Mountains leagues distant to the southwest. The dwarves were as hard as the iron they worked, and Dar was glad to have them.
“When will you have that onager finished, Gorr?”
“We’ll have the thrower done by midnight, general,” the dwarf said simply, as though another night without sleep were a trivial matter, not worthy of mention.
Dar nodded and turned to the elven wizard. “And you, archmage?”
“With the dawn, I will teleport back to Aelvenmarr and bring more rangers back, along with more supplies. It will be modest; we only have a handful of bags of holding left among the aelfinn.”
“Whatever you bring will help,” Dar said. He shifted his eyes to Maricela. “The wardings?”
“We will refresh those that we can now,” the priestess said. “The rest, in the morning.”
Dar would have preferred not to wait, but the priests of the Father prayed for spells with the coming of the dawn, and needed rest even for that. Some of the priests would sleep on the front lines with the men on watch, but they would sleep.
“All right,” he told them all. “Set watches and get some rest. I have a feeling we’re all going to need it.”
THE VANGUARD
“That was too easy,” Dar said.
Kiron looked up at him, an incredulous expression flitting across his features before he schooled them under iron discipline. Both men were covered in blood, some of it their own, but most belonging to the huge carcass that steamed hot and foul in the late afternoon air.
Dar heard people coming down the rough slope behind them, and turned to see Allera at their head. “Everyone all right?” he yelled up to her.
“Petronia suffered a broken collarbone, and one of the dwarven sappers had his skull cracked,” the healer reported. “But they’re all right.” She didn’t have to check Dar and Kiron; a mass heal had preceded her down the hill, even as the creature’s death struggles had come to an end.
A slight rush of air announced the arrival of Mehlaraine, who descended on the wings of a fly spell to land gently beside him. “Just the one?” she asked.
“For now,” he said, quietly. He looked up, scanning the dozens of faces that looked down at him from the emplacements atop the surrounding hills. More foot soldiers were approaching, but what happened here was already finished. One more of the ravager’s spawn slain.
This was just a warm-up, Dar thought, the words grim within his mind.
The debriefing went smoothly, with Dar’s battle commanders, representing all three races gathered at the site, reporting their perspective on what had happened.
Just about everything had gone according to plan. The creature had emerged from the Well seriously injured, whether from Amurru’s delaying action or from the half-dozen glyphs of warding that the priests of the Father had placed within the shaft. The dwarven sappers had set up a series of deadfalls, and the creature’s ascent had been hindered by hundred-pound slabs of rock that had fallen on it from above. They had failed to dislodge the creature from the walls of the shaft, however, and Dar was partly relieved that the attacks had only enraged it to push ahead faster. The smart tactic would have been for the creature to pause until its natural regenerative abilities healed the wounds it had suffered in its escape from the vault. At least that was one area where they seemed to have an advantage over the things; they were pure, raw destruction, and not possessed of fine nuance.
The creature had certainly seemed pissed when it had finally emerged from the top of the shaft. Just to make sure, several more explosive glyphs had gone off around it, blasting it with shards of rock and tongues of fire, but doing little in the way of serious hurt to it.
That’s when a dozen massive bolts, fired by the scorpions on the surrounding hilltops, had slammed down into it. Most of the missiles struck it, but nearly all simply shattered—shattered!—on its dark red hide. The thing’s skin was tougher than a dragon’s scales, a fact that Dar had learned through hard experience. But two of the shafts had penetrated, and the creature had certainly felt those. Each of the steel heads had a long groove down the center, into which enough purple worm poison had been poured to slay a whole cavalry troop’s worth of horses. That had been a contribution of Alzoun and the church of Dagos, along with the flaming burst arrows that had begun lancing into the creature from the emplaced archers. Most of those had likewise had little or no effect, but one flashed into a bright spurt of flame as it hit the creature’s head right at the corner of its jaw, and another vanished into the creature’s left nostril.
Dar never did learn which of the two had come from Selanthas’s bow, but he knew that one of them almost certainly had.
The creature had hesitated, just for a moment, looking for foes close at hand, confused by the attacks coming at it from all directions. But its indecision had come to a sudden end as Sultheros had blasted it with a streak of lightning that had briefly silhouetted its entire body in a raging nimbus of blue sparks. That made its decision; the creature had launched itself forward, straight for the hill where the elf had taken up position.
That had been part of the plan as well, but they’d underestimated the creature’s speed. It ignored the traps that had been set for it, even as long wooden stakes had pierced its legs and stuck in its lower body, and flashes of yellow fire erupted where it stepped. The steep slope of the hill barely slowed it, its claws digging deep into the bare rocks as it shot up toward its tormentors, intent only on rending these little creatures that had dared to challenge it. Arrows and bolts continued to strike it, and a lighter barrage of spells from the flying wizards above, but while the assault wore at it, none of the wounds it suffered were serious enough to slow it.
And then it reached the summit, where the defenders were waiting.
The creature knocked down the outer edge of the emplacement with its first surge, ignoring the long pikes that stabbed deep into its chest, the reinforced shafts snapping as though they were toothpicks. Petronia, who’d set one of the pikes, went down, clutching her shoulder. More missiles struck, including another scorpion missile, fired at point blank range into the juncture where the creature’s neck connected to its armored body. Shards of rock from the shattered barricade were blasted into the defenders, pinging off their armor; a dwarf went down as a rock the size of a grapefruit caromed off his forehead.
The creature turned, looking for Sultheros, who stood calmly not ten paces away, flanked by Selanthas and one of the elven rangers he’d brought from Aelvenmarr. But before it could spring at the elf, Dar and Kiron rose up from behind the ruins of the barricade and struck.
Both blades bit deep, Justice carving through ridged flesh like a butcher’s knife, while Kiron’s sword of fiery red brilliant energy tore off its foremost left leg, severing it clean from the spawn’s body. The creature let out a scream that had shattered the night and rang in the ears of those present for minutes after. Unbalanced, it was hit by a barrage of arrows and then a freezing sphere, tossed almost casually by Sultheros. The globe hit the creature in the head and exploded, engulfing it in a torrent of utter cold. Crystals of ice formed and were shattered by the thing’s desperate movements, and accompanied it as it toppled over backward and plummeted back down the slope.
It had been a dramatic moment, but forewarned by Dar, the defenders had not let up. The scorpion crews continued to shoot it with their heavy bolts as quickly as they could reload, while Dar and Kiron had shot down the hill after it, each of them nearly falling in their hasty descent. Magic missiles streaked down from the wizards hovering above, but even with all the wounds it had suffered, still the thing was starting to stir again as Dar and Kiron reached it. But fortunately Dar had learned how to stop the spawn from regenerating. It was a messy business, destroying the brain that resided deep within that armored skull, but shortly, less than one minute after the creature had first emerged from the shaft, it had been finished.
Once the last of them had recounted the tale, the gathered men, dwarves, and elves paused, letting the moment of what they had just witnessed settle around them. They had beaten the ravager spawn, but that had only been a minor foe in comparison to what still waited below. More allies were on the way, and they had a few surprises left to them, but would it be enough?
“Swap out the front-line teams; send those who have finished two shifts back to the rear camp, and make sure those who are on the night watch get an hour’s rest at the relief tent, in shifts. I want everyone to be ready.”
There was a chorus of assents through the assembled group.
Dar looked at Dalvev Gorr. The dwarf’s face was as craggy as the hills on which his team had spent the last few days working, but Dar had seen the man work from dawn to dusk since his arrival two days ago, pushing his team to do likewise, even after a forced march from the small dwarven outpost in the foothills of the Galerr Mountains leagues distant to the southwest. The dwarves were as hard as the iron they worked, and Dar was glad to have them.
“When will you have that onager finished, Gorr?”
“We’ll have the thrower done by midnight, general,” the dwarf said simply, as though another night without sleep were a trivial matter, not worthy of mention.
Dar nodded and turned to the elven wizard. “And you, archmage?”
“With the dawn, I will teleport back to Aelvenmarr and bring more rangers back, along with more supplies. It will be modest; we only have a handful of bags of holding left among the aelfinn.”
“Whatever you bring will help,” Dar said. He shifted his eyes to Maricela. “The wardings?”
“We will refresh those that we can now,” the priestess said. “The rest, in the morning.”
Dar would have preferred not to wait, but the priests of the Father prayed for spells with the coming of the dawn, and needed rest even for that. Some of the priests would sleep on the front lines with the men on watch, but they would sleep.
“All right,” he told them all. “Set watches and get some rest. I have a feeling we’re all going to need it.”