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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 650923" data-attributes="member: 143">Book VII, Part 41The Battle of Kolova Gorge began on a miserable, blustery morning.  Spring had arrived across much of Faerûn, but here in the mountains, it felt as though winter’s lingering claw sought to maintain its hold upon the land.  The rains had given over for a time, leaving a dull gray sky above, but mud and damp were everywhere, and the mountain streams that flowed down from the range were gorged and overflowing in their rush toward the lowlands.  In different circumstances the Gorge might have been beautiful, but on a day like this one it just seemed dreary and cold.  Certainly the hobgoblin warriors who marched into the gorge by a little-used trail from the south paid little heed to the natural splendors around them, noting only the obstacles that they would have to traverse as they viewed the difficult trail that wound down into the gorge ahead of them.  The canyon wound a twisting course for several miles ahead of them, its far end lost in a clinging mist born of the several waterfalls that thundered into its depths from streams that poured over its edge.  The hobgoblins moved with efficiency, chivvying their remaining prisoners to hasten their steps.  Already a good score had perished on the journey, and of the fourscore that remained it looked as though a further score would not long hold up to the strains of the hard march.  It was either walk or die, however, so the captives continued as best they could, under the watchful eyes of their drivers.   At the head of the column, behind the advance screen of scouts and a vanguard of ten hulking elite fighters, the hobgoblin shamans walked in a tight knot.  There were six of them remaining in the column, now that one had been detailed to escort the prisoners sent to Guthan.  All were garishly accoutered in a medley of hides, totems, and fetishes, their faces decorated with streaks of pigments, tattoos, and piercings.  Their leader was a bulging bear of a hobgoblin, by the name of Bir’achkek, whose face was creased with wrinkles and old scars; age had not been kind to him, but it would have been an obvious falsehood to call him weak.  Behind the adepts came a pair of hill giants, massive, lumbering creatures that barely fit on the narrow trail, and behind them came the remainder of the warriors and the two strings of weary slaves.The old adept’s eyes missed nothing, so they were quick to spot the warleader as he hurried through the column toward the knot of spellcasters.  The hobgoblin fighter was competent if unimaginative, and his name was Turg.  He saluted the shamans and offered a sharp bow. “The scouts that we sent ahead into the gorge have not returned, Exalted Ones,” he said.  The shamans exchanged a few glances before their eyes settled on their leader.  The old adept seemed nonplussed, but his hands tightened slightly on the length of his warstaff. “Push the column forward, warleader,” the shaman commanded.  “Find a defensible spot, and establish a perimeter.”The warleader saluted once more, and hurried off to pass on the shaman’s orders.  The other adepts did not question his command, recognizing the situation as quickly as he had.  They could turn back, retrace their steps to the mouth of the trail that led down into the gorge, but that way led back to a narrow gap that could be defended by ten good warriors against a hundred—a perfect place for an ambush.  The trail through the gorge held many similar dangers, and limited their room to maneuver, but at least they would be able to pick the ground for their stand.  The leader gestured toward another adept, a hobgoblin with half his face a mess of old burns.  He had a familiar perched on his shoulder, a vulture whose eyes glimmered with the same feral intelligence as its master.  The adept nodded and launched the bird into the air, and soon it was flying out away from the column in a widening spiral, just a speck high in the distance.  They pressed on, hastening their pace, the prisoners catching some of the mood that passed through the column and hurrying along without resistance.  They had barely covered a few hundred yards, however, when a cry from behind drew everyone’s attention back along the trail.  With the trail back rising above them, it was easy to spot the warrior among the rearguard as he lurched and fell, a long black arrow stuck in his back.  His companions had their bows out and strung, looking for targets as the column continued to move ahead in good order.  A few more arrows lanced out of the sheltering rocks higher along the slope, but no enemies yet presented themselves to view. “Shield us from view,” the shaman commanded, and two of his adepts moved out of formation into the rocks.  A few moments later thick clouds of obscuring mist rose up along the sides of the trail, blanketing it as the hobgoblins and their prisoners moved quickly ahead.  Soon it might become expedient to leave the captives behind, but the hobgoblins would not give up valuable slaves unless it was clearly necessary. The vanguard had already chosen their bastion, as the trail ahead curved around the base of a rocky tor that rose up fifty feet above the floor of the gorge in a knot of jagged boulders and uneven stone.  The warleader was already up amidst the boulders atop the strongpoint, giving orders to the warriors that were taking up positions around the summit.  To their left rose the cliffs of the gorge, while to their right the trail followed the edge of an adjacent ravine.  The ravine was filled almost to the brink with a rapidly rushing mountain stream, its waters lashed into white froth by the violence of their course.  The air here was heavy with damp, and the sounds of rushing water echoed off the steep cliffs to either side.  As good a place to die as any, the shaman thought, moving to join the others as they took up positions atop the tor.  The prisoners they shoved into any convenient place, not particularly concerned if they were shielded against attack from either direction.  Suddenly the adept who had launched the vulture staggered and nearly fell, pain crossing his features in a rictus of sharp pain.  One of the other adepts moved quickly to his aid, but they all knew what the spasm signified.  That was why the shaman leader did not take a familiar for himself; they left you vulnerable.  “What manner of things are those,” one of the other adepts commented, drawing their combined attention skyward.  There, high above them, set against the backdrop of the flat gray expanse of unbroken cloud, they could see a handful of specks in the distance, swirling in a wide circle. The high shaman’s eyes narrowed.  “Zhent skyriders,” he said.  Even as he spoke, a cry from back down the trail behind them drew their attention back, to the high slopes that fronted their route into the gorge.  Dark forms were visible moving along the trail they had just traversed, their purpose clear even before the watchers caught sight of the long black shafts that lanced down toward their position.  At the same time, a warning shout from the opposite side of the knoll indicated that enemies lurked on that front as well, approaching from deeper within the gorge.  They were trapped.  But the hobgoblins were no strangers to battle, even caught outnumbered in an unfavorable tactical position, and they were quick to respond.  Their own sturdy horn bows launched a steady return fire up the trail, where a line of Zhent spearmen had emerged from the cover of the rocks, slowly advancing upon the hobgoblin position.  On the far side of the battlefield, along the ravine, another cluster of spearmen had taken up defensive positions along the trail, although they seemed content to block any escape rather than to advance any closer. The head shaman looked up and saw that the flying creatures they had seen earlier had descended into the gorge, his earlier suspicions proven as they resolved into the forms of winged beasts bearing human mounts.  A few arrows lanced up at them from the defenders, but the skyriders remained hundreds of feet above them and none of the shots hit.  Small objects flew down from them as they passed over the hobgoblin position, exploding into hot flames when they hit.  One of the adepts fell back into the rocks as one of the flasks hit nearby, flames licking his arm and burning his cloak, and on the other side of the tor a pair of warriors were struck by the full force of a blast and fell screaming, covered in flames, while their companions tried with great difficulty to smother the tenacious alchemist’s fire with their cloaks.   The old adept held a wand at the ready, but the flyers were too far distant, flying back up along the route of the canyon before wheeling back in a wide sweep to return for another run.  He took a moment to cast a protective ward against fire upon himself, and saw that another flying beast, this one significantly larger than the others, was swooping down, its rider a bearded man wearing a familiar sigil upon the breast of his robe.  A few more archers fired missiles at the Zhent skymage as he drew nearer, but those few that came close were turned by an invisible defense.  The wizard pointed, and a pellet of fire sprouted from his fingertips and streaked toward the hobgoblin position.  The shaman recognized it and ducked behind the cover of a boulder, but it was too late for a warning as the fireball erupted into a blast of fiery death.  One of the lesser adepts that had not had the foresight to shield himself screamed as he clutched at his blackened face, and around him twenty seasoned warriors had been reduced to mere heaps of smoldering char.  The shaman’s ward had absorbed most of the impact of the flames, but all he could do was snarl a curse as the wizard flew away, too far away for their own spells or missiles to impact him. The Zhents had meanwhile moved forward to within several hundred yards of the hobgoblin position, forced by the narrowness of the trail into a compact formation of spearmen three across and many rows deep.  Archers in cover in the rocks that flanked the trail continued to fire upon the hobgoblins atop the hill, although at that range the missiles on both sides only infrequently found targets.  The hill giants had joined the barrage by taking up boulders the size of an ogre’s skull and were hurling them at the Zhent formation.  The soldiers of the Black Network were disciplined, holding their line even when a boulder crashed into it, crushing one soldier’s chest and knocking another four men sprawling with the impact.   The skyriders had turned and now came in again, once more remaining high above the effective range of the hobgoblin archers.  This time they targeted the giants, bombing them with more heavy flasks of alchemist’s fire.  The first giant hefted another boulder and hurled it at the fliers, scoring a lucky hit that crushed the wing of one of the hippogriffs.  Mount and rider fell in a spiraling streak that hit the whitewater and quickly vanished from view, carried off by the raging torrent.  The giant did not have long to enjoy its victory, however, as a pair of flasks struck it, one in the shoulder and a second in the leg.  Liquid flames spread over it as it staggered about, roaring in pain.  Once more the skymage followed the other riders in, and he targeted the second giant.  This time he flew lower, and bolts of energy blasted in sequence from his fingertips, scorching the giant’s chest as they scored consecutive hits across its body.  Once more arrows darted out from the hobgoblins, and once more they were turned by his arcane defenses.  But the shaman, observing the course of his flight with a careful eye, hefted his wand and uttered a command word as the magician started to wheel his griffon back up into the air. A jagged streak of lightning cut through the sky, slamming hard into the belly of the griffon.  The creature squawked in pain and cut hard to the right, losing altitude before its powerful wings could carry it and its disgruntled rider back into the relative safety of the open sky.  The hobgoblins cheered as the enemy wizard retreated, but there was no time for more celebration as the enemy line came on in a steady rush.  As the spearmen neared the tor they spread out into a heavy wedge forty men across and up to five deep, a forest of deadly points that charged into the face of the hobgoblin defense.  Behind them came a squad of heavy cavalry, among them the distinctive figures of three plate-armored clerics, wearing the sigils of their black god prominently across their chests.  More than a few arrows were sent in their direction, but between their heavy armor and whatever magical defenses they had up, none penetrated to cause injury.  One of the clerics raised her mace and shouted an invocation to her god, and the Zhent army came forth in a violent wave.  At her call, however, a beam of pure light blasted from her palm into the face of the wounded giant, and with a final gurgle of pain it fell hard to the ground, struck stone dead by the power of her magic.  The other giant hurled a final boulder and hefted its club, charging toward the ranks of oncoming warriors, but the Zhents calmly set their spears and absorbed its rush on the points.  Pierced by a dozen spearheads, that giant too fell, and the attack came on around it. The hobgoblins, now reduced to fewer than a hundred warriors, met the charge bravely.  Now they had the advantage of position and cover, and they fought with the desperation of men who had nowhere to escape save over the corpses of their foes.  A streak of lightning from the shaman’s wand erupted into the line of spearmen, slaying a dozen, while the other adepts cast defensive wards or healing spells to aid their warriors.  But then one of the clerics pointed and a globe of silence fell over the shamans, negating their efforts, forcing them to retreat further from the lines of battle.  Meanwhile blasts of sonic energy exploded elsewhere among the defenders, sending hobgoblin warriors reeling moments before spears thrust into their positions.  The skyriders returned, flying low, dropping their missiles onto the heads of the defenders, until the top of the hill was wreathed in flames.  At that range several took hits from the archers still plying their bows, and soon they were winging off again, nursing their injured mounts.  For a moment the rush of spears faltered, falling back with nearly a quarter of their number dead or dying around the base of the hill.  But the delay was only long enough for them to reset their line, and soon they came again, this time with the armored knights and the evil clerics accompanying their charge. The hobgoblins that could still lift weapons charged down to meet them, and Kolova Gorge was filled with the echoing crash of melee combat. It went on for quite some time.</blockquote>

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