by Wilson Harp
Shortly the three men were riding onto the Reighart farm where Oliver Reighart was watching from his barn.
“Farmer Reighart, where was your boy when he was taken?” Bartimus asked as they approached.
“He was in the low pasture, past the pecan trees, all the way near the edge of the bog. The grass is high there, and the most we have ever had to worry about were some snakes.” The farmer had obviously been weeping over the thought of losing his son. “Please do what you can to bring him back.”
“How did you discover he was missing?” Donal asked.
“The herd ram came back with most of the sheep following him this morning just an hour or so after Patrick took them to graze. When I went out to where he should be, I found my son’s sack with his lunch and flute. I looked around and saw lizardman tracks leading into the bog. That’s when I came and sent my daughter into the town to raise the alarm.”
Donal nodded at Bartimus and Hemal. “Goodman Reighart, we will go after him. I’m not going to wait for more, so if more come to help send them out to where the boy was taken. We will leave our horses there.”
The men said their farewells to the distraught farmer and headed to the low pasture beyond his fields.
“Hemal, do you have a bow?” asked Donal as they rode quickly through the wheat fields.
“No, I was just coming to aid with whatever needed to be done. I didn’t bring my bow,” the young priest answered.
“You can use mine. Do you have a hand weapon?”
“No. I wasn’t really planning on going into the swamp.”
Bartimus handed Hemal a short handled mace. “Take that, it’s my backup weapon. We both have our swords, but if the lizardmen decide they want to keep us out, there will be plenty of them to swing at.”
Hemal nodded as he took it. He had only been in combat once before, but he’d had some weapon training as a young man before deciding to serve the Divine as a priest.
The men soon arrived at the low pasture and found the large rock that the shepherd boy would sit on while watching the flocks. The clouds were thick, but not enough to hide that the sun was an hour from noon.
Donal dismounted and handed his bow and quiver to the priest. He then started looking for tracks as Bartimus hobbled the horses and Hemal checked through his shoulder bag to make sure he had all of his herbs and other supplies.
“I have the tracks. Definitely lizardmen, maybe a dozen or so,” Donal said as he came back to the other men.
Bartimus nodded and looked over at the priest. “If it is a Shaman who ordered the boy taken, we may be looking at foul magic being used against us. Would you give us a blessing of the Divine, Brother Hemal?”
A minute later the blessing against foul magic had been given, and the three men started into the bog following the trail that the lizardmen had left a few hours before. The trail led almost straight south, deep into the heart of the Willow Bog. Donal went through a series of nonverbal hand signals with them as they walked. Although people referred to him as a woodsman, he had traveled extensively through many types of wilderness and had acted as a scout and guide through dangerous places for decades.
About half an hour after leaving their horses, Donal drew his sword and motioned for the others to get their weapons ready. He had seen a movement from a nearby willow tree that had to have been made by a creature of some size. He never slowed his pace nor broke his speech as he approached the tree about which he had signaled danger.
Suddenly three lizard men rushed at them from the low branches of the willow. They held stone tipped spears above their heads and screamed at the men in the high pitched hissing that made up their language. Two more lizard men jumped up from behind a fallen log to the men’s left, and several more were heard coming over a low rise off to their right.
But Donal had prepared his party well.
An arrow from the bow that Hemal held caught one of the lizardmen in the middle of the chest before he had cleared the willow branches. Donal motioned to Bartimus to take the two on the left as he moved forward to engage the two charging from straight ahead. Three quick chops by Bartimus ended the threat of the two creatures he faced while Donal quickly dispatched the two from the front. Hemal turned towards the rise and took one of the lizardmen in the face with an arrow before the other four, seeing that their ambush was routed, fled back into the swamp.
The three men made sure the foul creatures that they had felled were truly dead and then searched the area for other enemies lying in wait. When they were sure the area was free of lizardmen, they went up on the low rise to the east and looked out into the bog.
“The tracks tend towards the southeast now. I was afraid of this,” Donal said as he sheathed his sword.
“The ruins of Balcchor?” Bartimus asked.
“Yes, I fear that’s where they have taken the boy.”
“What are the ruins of Balcchor?” Hemal was staring off in the direction that Donal had indicated.
Donal started down the rise as he spoke. “Balcchor was a city that used to exist here before these lands became bogs. There is a lake not three hours from here by foot that has a few stone structures of Balcchor still standing. The rest of the city lies under the surface of the lake.”
“The last time the lizardmen became a problem, they had infested the ruins. Took a bit of work to drive them out,” Bartimus added.
Hemal looked back to where they had come from but couldn’t see anyone else following. “Do you think the others will catch up to us by the time we run into any more lizardmen?”
“Likely, unless the lizardmen want to make sure we don’t get to them by nightfall,” Bartimus said.
For the next hour the men moved through the bog at a good pace. Donal picked their path and rarely had to lead them through thick mud or open water. Twice they saw lizardmen in the distance, but they never came close to the small party of men. Finally they came upon a hill that had a few large willow trees growing near the top.
“We’ll be able to see the outskirts of the ruins from the hill,” Bartimus said as they started up. “One of the structures still standing is an old temple to some long forgotten dark god. The roof is gone, and we turned over the altar the last time we drove the lizardmen off, but the pillars and walls themselves still stand strong.”
A sudden shriek from above was the only warning Donal had before a lizardman dropped down upon him. The smaller reptile man hit the large woodsman, and both went tumbling down the hill past Bartimus and Hemal. Before Hemal could blink, Bartimus had his sword out of its sheath and was charging up the hill with a growl.
Hemal dropped the bow he was carrying and pulled the mace that Bartimus had given to him. He took a quick look down the hill but couldn’t see where Donal had landed. The sound of combat from the top of the hill stopped him from going down to aid the woodsman, and he raced to the top to help Bartimus.
The guardsman was being pressed on all sides. He had backed his way towards one of the large willow trunks but was still trying to get a position to keep his attackers from pressing in. One lizardman had hold of his shield and was trying to pull it away from him while three others were jabbing at him with their short spears. Hemal’s focus was pulled up into the trees as he heard several of the lizardmen scrambling through the branches trying to get to Bartimus from above.
Hemal jumped over the two creatures that Bartimus had killed in his initial charge and swung his mace at the nasty savage pulling at the guardsman’s shield. It was a glancing blow, but enough to knock the shield out of the lizardman’s hands. His next blow missed, but he saw Bartimus stab one of the other lizardmen in the chest. Hemal was raising his mace to swing again when a lizardman fell on him from the branches above. It knocked him to the ground, and he scrambled to get up. When he did, he saw one of Donal’s daggers sticking out from the creature’s chest as it lay still upon the ground. A sharp pain suddenly shot through his back. He turned to see what had hit him but saw nothing but the image of Donal picking
up a lizardman by one of its arms and throwing it into two others coming up the hill to join the fight. Hemal tried to stand, but his back was hurt too badly. He looked for a place of safety to crawl. He saw that Bartimus had control of his fight, and Donal was moving and killing lizardmen too fast to focus on. Finally Hemal pulled himself over to the tree that Bartimus had been fighting near. As he sat back against the trunk, he realized the pain was dulling. He also realized that the sounds of battle had abruptly come to an end and Donal and Bartimus were walking over to him.
“He took a spear in the back,” Donal said as he kneeled beside the priest. He helped him to lean forward and looked at the gash.
“It’s not bad from what I can see,” said Bartimus as he leaned over the woodsman. “Three thick layers of cloth stopped that stone tip pretty well.”
Donal smiled at Hemal. “You’ll be fine Brother Hemal, just a good bruise on your ribs and a few stitches in your clothes. Likely just knocked the wind out of you.”
Hemal nodded as he felt his strength returning. His breathing was better already. He tried to stand, but Bartimus motioned him down.
“No use in wearing yourself out; we will be here for a little bit.”
Between twenty and thirty bodies of lizardmen littered the top of the hill. Donal and Bartimus were busy making sure they were all dead and checking for movement in the surrounding area for more that might attack the men. Donal went to retrieve his bow while Bartimus made sure that all the lizardmen were dead. They then started scanning the ruins in the distance.
“Bartimus, come and look at this,” Donal said as he pointed into the distance.
“Divine bless us, there must be hundreds of them.” The shock on the guardsman’s face was enough to convince Hemal that this was not expected.
“The boy is down there. It looks like they rebuilt the altar. He’s tied down on it.”
“Donal, look over there, that’s a man.”
“Black and red robes, looks like he is in charge.”
“Who do you think he is?”
Donal dropped his head and stared at the ground for a few moments “I think it means we need to get the boy out of there, and not just to save his life. We need to hurry; we definitely don’t have time to wait for the others now.”
“There are hundreds of them, Donal. I know they aren’t good in a fight, but that number will overwhelm us,” Bartimus argued.
“That’s why we need to scare them off, at least enough so we can get up to the altar. Hemal, can you walk?”
“I believe so, what do you have in mind?”
“We need to make a fire pit. Do we have any oil?” The woodsman asked.
“I have a flask of lantern oil,” Bartimus said as he started going through his pack.
“Good, that will work for what I have in mind.”
Hemal started helping Baritmus dig a fire pit in the hilltop. “What exactly do you have in mind, Donal?” the priest asked.
“Lizardmen fear fire above anything else, so if we can get a few fires going near the temple we should be able to scare quite a few of them off.”
“Could we shoot them from here?”
“No chance. My bow could probably reach, but I would just be shooting at the crowd. Plus I need what arrows we have left to spread the fire.” Donal came over and started helping to build the fire pit. About an hour later the pit was coaling and they had cut up Bartimus’ tabard into strips and soaked them in lantern oil. Hemal’s back was feeling sore, but well enough that he could move quickly.
“If we can wait until help arrives I’ll feel a lot better about this,” confessed Donal as he finished wrapping the last arrows with the oil soaked rags.
“I don’t think we will have the chance,” Hemal said looking over at the temple. “Something is starting over there.”
Bartimus and Donal came over to look towards the gathered lizardmen. A dark aura was emanating from the altar, and dark clouds were starting to gather above the temple itself.
“Donal, they are starting something down there. We can’t wait if we want to get that boy out,” Bartimus said.
Donal nodded and went to go ready the arrows. In just a few seconds he had scattered fifteen flaming arrows into clusters of high grass close to the temple. A few clumps of vegetation were already starting to smoke heavily as the men made their way down the hill.
The dark aura filled the temple by the time the party reached the bottom of the hill. The rolling storm clouds above the temple started shooting lightning across the sky while a cold wind was blowing into the temple from all directions. This was also having the effect of stirring the small smoldering grass fires and pulling the smoke into the assembly of lizardmen.
As they approached the outer reaches of the fire line, the smoke was thick and starting to billow in heavy waves towards the temple. Bartimus pulled his horn and gave three long blasts which rang out across the swamp. The guardsmen of Black Oak carried these horns to signal where they were, but the lizardmen of the Willow Bog just knew them as the sounds that human hunters used when they were in the bog hunting for lizardmen villages.
Several groups of lizardmen soon went running through the smoke out into the swamp. Donal signaled the men forward and into the area of the ruins. Unrest descended on the lizardmen as the smoke from the grass fires intensified. Another short blast with the horn sent several dozen more of the creatures to flight. One group of lizardmen ran towards the party of men half-shrouded in smoke, and Donal took the lives of four of them in a series of rapid slashes with his sword. Two others were outside his sword’s reach and started screeching loudly as they fled from the attackers. With that, panic went rippling like a wave all the way to the temple. Donal, Bartimus and Hemal made their way up to the temple steps without a single lizardman challenging them, but the dark aura and storm above the temple raged fiercer than ever.
Ten large lizardmen stood near the top of the steps up to the temple with large steel swords. Obviously these were elite warriors from the lizardmen tribes as they had acquired the swords by barter or trade; lizardmen don’t know the working of metal. A large lizardman covered in feathers and skins stood at the top of the steps with a spear.
Bartimus tossed the horn to Hemal. “Blow this as much as you can. The other lizardmen might come back to defend the ceremony.” The guardsman drew his sword and stood at the ready.
Donal nodded to both men and charged into the aura, the point of his sword leading the way. With a shout Bartimus followed, leaving Hemal alone at the base of the steps a few feet outside the expanding aura. Hemal lifted the horn to his lips and blew a long blast. When he did, the lizardmen at the top of the steps sprang to action and charged at Donal and Bartimus as they ran forward.
Donal ran through one and took the head from the shoulders of a second as he skirted to the side of the charge. Bartimus severed the leg of one lizardman and pushed it screaming into the path of two others. Donal went past the line of lizardmen heroes and went straight at the Chieftain with the spear at the top of the steps. Hemal started forward into the aura and blew the horn again as he did. Bartimus took two more lizardmen down before Hemal got to the melee. A heavy blow from his mace killed one of the creatures, and then he heard a loud screech from where Donal had run.
Bartimus was still engaged with three of the lizardmen champions when Hemal made a run for the top of the steps. When he got there he saw Donal pulling his sword from the chest of the lizardman Chieftain, his large spear still clutched in the hand of a severed arm laying several feet away. At the altar three lizardmen shamans were painting dark symbols on the Reighart boy’s naked body. A tall bald man was beside the altar obviously incanting some dark spell. In his hand he held a dark red gemstone.
With a yell, Donal charged forward towards the altar. One of the lizardman shamans darted behind a pillar on the far side of the altar while the other two turned to face Donal.
A line of fire shot from the hand of one of the shamans, striking Donal in the chest.
Donal rolled to the side and was back on his feet running towards the lizardmen without hesitation. Hemal made himself move towards the altar and the bald man who was now holding a long knife above the boy’s body. The evil man’s mouth was rapidly moving although Hemal couldn’t hear what he was saying with the storm and sounds of combat around him. The knife in the man’s hand slashed down towards the boy.
A flash of lightning and a roll of thunder knocked Hemal to the ground. When he got up his vision was blurred, and it took him a few seconds to see the man by the altar clearly. There was blood dripping from the blade of the knife, and the red gemstone was now pulsing with a bright scarlet light. With a shout Hemal lifted his mace and charged forward.
The bald man simply lifted his knife at Hemal and spoke a few words, and Hemal froze in mid-stride. Hemal could still see and hear all around him, but he could not move a single muscle. The bald man smiled and held the gemstone up to look at it. He was still smiling as Donal’s sword ran him clean through. The gem fell from the man’s hand as he looked in shock at Donal who was trying to pull his sword out of the man’s chest. The man slashed at Donal with the knife in his hand and started moving his lips. Donal easily avoided the blade and backhanded the man across the mouth, cutting short his incantation.
Hemal could suddenly move again and stumbled forward towards the altar and the boy lying there. Donal pointed to the glowing gem and shouted something as he darted back to the steps of the temple where the sound of battle was growing louder. Hemal had turned to pick up the gem when the lizardman shaman who had hid behind the pillar behind the altar dashed forward and grabbed it. Hemal tried to move quickly after him, but the lizardman jumped off the edge of the temple and down into the bog.
Hemal saw that the shaman was running away from the ruins out into the open swamp. Hemal jumped down the ten foot drop and started to run after him, even knowing that he could never catch him. As he started after the shaman, the lizardman dropped straight to the ground.