“They are … in the way.” Hobarth found the concept of the attack difficult to explain. He himself had doubts about assaulting a target not directly useful to the defense of Gwynneth, but his god had commanded the attack. He explained to Ysalla the words of Bhaal: “The humans will then have no place to flee to when we complete the destruction of this island Gwynneth. Bhaal will claim as his domain the lands in the heart of the isle. You and your king are free to claim the coast.”
Ysalla hissed, which Hobarth understood was an expression of eagerness or perhaps bloodlust. “And you will swim with us to Iron Keep?”
“I shall walk my own paths,” said the cleric, looking at the water with a shudder. How he hated the sea! “But fear not, I shall be there when you arrive.”
“What is fear?” asked the high priestess, puzzled. And then she turned back to her bloody feast, and the cleric slipped quietly away.
Thorax the owlbear grew more and more angry with the passing of each day. Though it stalked the vale tirelessly, pressing ever outward, away from the Darkwell, it could find no trace of prey. Like Shantu, Thorax desired blood for the joy of the kill, not for any need for sustenance. But the owlbear lacked the displacer beast’s cold cunning and shrewd sense of stealth. Thorax was a creature of stupid nature and brute strength.
And so the malformed brute lumbered along. It turned its feathered head around on its broad shoulders, looking behind itself like an owl. The owlbear walked sometimes on all four of its massive paws, and other times it walked upright, but it remained always hungry, always seeking prey.
Finally its search was rewarded.
A cracking in the dried brush provided the first alarm, though Tristan didn’t hear it. He stood still, warily watching the firbolg as the creature gazed blissfully at Tavish and her lute.
Canthus, however, whirled with a sharp bark, the first to notice the attacker bursting from the woods. Tristan turned at this sound of alarm, shouting a warning to his companions. Then he raced forward, sword at the ready, prepared to face …
“What in all the Realms is that?”
He heard Robyn’s gasp behind him, and Pawldo shouted in surprise. But his attention remained riveted on the thing that bore down upon him with frightening speed. The horses shrieked and whinnied in terror, turning to bolt along the shore of the tar pit.
At first, he thought it to be a huge bear. Indeed, the broad shape, shaggy coat, and lumbering gait all came from an unmistakably ursine body. But that head! The thing uttered a screeching shriek, like some monstrous bird, and lunged for him with a widespread beak. Its eyes glittered amid a face covered with brown feathers, like the beady orbs of a bloodthirsty hawk.
Canthus lunged past him and bit the creature, whirling away before the owlish bear could land a return blow. The moorhound dived and ducked, barking and snarling, but the creature continued to advance on the companions with deadly purpose.
The king’s astonishment slowed his hand a bit, or perhaps he underestimated the tremendous speed of the monster. He slashed his blade at the last minute and felt the steel bite into the thing’s shoulder. His sword tingled in his hand, joyously cutting into the obscene flesh. But then a massive paw struck him full on the chest. The silver chain mail absorbed the force of the blow, but he still flew twenty feet through the air before landing in a stunned heap. The Sword of Cymrych Hugh fell, still gleaming, some distance away.
The monster spun with another screech and leaped toward the king. Suddenly it turned to the side as Tavish darted forward. She brandished her shortsword awkwardly, as if she wielded a giant fork. Tristan groaned and tried to sit up, fearing desperately for Tavish, but the monster again moved too quickly. It reared onto its hind feet, towering over the bard, and lunged toward her.
The firbolg, growling and grunting in his crude tongue, sprinted with amazing agility to the bard’s side. The giant bashed one ham-like fist into the monster’s snout, momentarily knocking it backward, and Tavish dodged out of the way. The bear returned the blow and the firbolg fell, kicking a huge foot into the monster’s belly even as he crashed to the ground. The creature dropped to all fours and prepared to spring upon the prone giant.
Once again Canthus closed, sinking his fangs into the owlbear’s haunch. The dog sprang away in the split second before the blow that would have crushed his body struck.
Shaking his head, his vision still blurred, Tristan sprang to his feet and scrambled to retrieve his sword. “Hey! Over here!” he cried, and the monster turned to regard him with those wickedly gleaming eyes. At the same time, the owlbear swiveled quickly, swiping at something in the air behind him. For a moment, Newt popped into sight, darting at the monster’s rear end. But in the next instant, the faerie dragon again disappeared, and the monster turned back toward Tristan.
This time the king was ready. He dropped into a fighting crouch and approached the beast, relieved to see it turn its attention back to him. He noticed several tiny arrows bristling from its shoulders. Obviously Pawldo and Yazilliclick had found the range, though the tiny weapons could do little to slow the monster.
He feinted a thrust, and the owlbear reared back. Good … it had learned to fear the blade. Then it lunged forward. Tristan stabbed desperately, feeling the sword sink into the creature’s massive chest, and then another powerful blow from a paw sent him reeling. The king did not fall, but he felt hot streaks of blood flowing down his left arm.
Robyn watched helplessly. Her staff offered little hope of harming the beast, and Daryth’s scimitar remained lashed to her saddle on the fleeing mare. Unlike a sorcerer, the druid knew no spell that would smite the thing with a ball of fire or singeing magical arrow. Suddenly, however, she had an idea.
“Newt, come here! Quickly!” she called, and the faerie dragon instantly popped into sight before her.
“What is it? I was having a great time chewing on his tail! Can’t I do it some more? Please?”
“This is more important. Remember those wonderful illusions you showed us when we fought the firbolgs in the fens? Can you show us some more?”
“Now?” Newt, disappointed, looked back at the fight. The king was giving ground steadily to the rushes of the beast. “I suppose … but the battle looks like a lot more fun to me!”
“Not just any illusion. This must be a very special one,” she said conspiratorially.
“Oh, good! That’s more like it!” The dragon hovered beside Robyn as she explained her plan, then giggled in delight as he darted away, ready to work his magic.
“Tristan! Over here!” Robyn called to the king, whose dance against death grew increasingly desperate. He backed away from the owlbear, dodging another lightning blow, and dashed toward Robyn.
“Now, Newt!” she cried, and to Tristan added, “Follow me!”
The druid sprinted along the shore of the tar pit. Tristan followed, trusting that she had some kind of plan, while Canthus remained behind, snapping and barking at the monster.
“Canthus, come!” he called, and the dog sprang obediently after him.
Tristan stopped, amazed at the sudden appearance of two brawny swordsmen. The fighters seemed to spring from the ground in front of the monster, both heavily armored and carrying great spears. Each wore a headdress of ridiculous yellow feathers. They fell back slowly, an illusion so real that the king could not distinguish them from truth.
Neither could the owlbear. One of the fighters appeared to stumble, while the other seemed to turn and run directly away from the monster. The beast crouched, screeched, and sprang, landing on the illusion that had stumbled.
The magic dissipated with the monster’s touch, revealing only an expanse of black, sticky tar. All four of the owlbear’s feet landed in the stuff as its leap carried it well beyond the pit’s edge. Twisting and turning in a desperate effort to break free, it only succeeded in wrapping itself entirely in tar. Squawking in rage, it turned hatefilled eyes upon the companions until finally its screeches drowned in a gag of sticky, deadly goo.
As he raged, his will crystallized into actions. The perytons, gliding in eerie silence, flew from throughout the vale to gather at the Darkwell. His clerics, Hobarth and Ysalla, paused briefly in their own plotting as the stuff of their faith shook from the deep disturbance. Each recoiled before the rage of his deity, and each likewise felt immense relief that the rage was directed elsewhere.
Instead, Bhaal’s rage brought them a command imperious and irresistible. Level the Iron Keep! Bhaal’s intense anger needed slaying before it would cool, and at that fortress there would certainly be many humans gathered, seeking the imagined safety of its high walls. But those within were not reckoning on the mighty power of the god of murder and his minions. His clerics instantly set to work upon the plan.
And then Bhaal gave another command, this to his flock of perytons. The monsters had gathered at the well and circled, a great cloud of corruption, above the center of their master’s power. And they heard his command.
Bhaal sent them soaring across the vale, silently gliding above the wasteland of death. He ordered them to find those who had slain Thorax and kill them.
Their wings scarcely flapped as the hawklike bodies sliced gracefully through the air. Their ghastly antlered heads stood proudly upright, their eyeless sockets scouring the land. Like the clerics, the perytons hastened to obey the command of Bhaal.
The Starling sailed on into the long, dark night. Gwen cried herself to sleep on the bowseat as Koll stayed at the tiller, torn by an agony of doubt.
Had he done the right thing? His action in fleeing the massacre at Codsbay had been too instinctive to question at the time, but now uncertainty writhed within him. The vilest of afflictions that could strike a man of the north was cowardice, and he feared that it was cowardice that had spurred his flight.
Rationally he knew that his presence in the doomed village would have made no difference to the outcome of the fight. The monsters that had swarmed from the sea would have, in all likelihood, dragged the Starling under the waves before he even reached shore. But should that have been his only concern?
He looked at the maid before him, her tear-streaked face finally peaceful in sleep. Koll had no family in Codscove, but the village had been Gwen’s lifelong home. She couldn’t know if her parents even lived. Yet they could not have saved them even if they had made it to the village! The thought was only slight consolation.
He looked at the wicked dagger he had tucked into his belt, the prize from the fish-man that had climbed into their boat. The creature must have been some kind of scout for the army, Koll had decided, since they had seen no more of the monsters near them. He had dumped the body overboard but kept its weapon.
They had no food and very little water in the boat, but this did not concern him greatly. The crossing of the Strait of Oman was a voyage he had made many times and required but a single day—or night, as the case may be. By dawn, they would be in sight of Ramshorn, the village on Oman’s Isle closest to Codscove. There they would recruit help and spread the alarm. Certainly the hot-tempered northmen would flock to the rescue of their kin on Gwynneth.
His certainty died as the dawn’s light showed more than that he had been true to his course. The village of Ramshorn lay directly before him, visible from far out at sea. That visibility killed his hopes, for the village was marked by a tall, oily column of black smoke.
“What’s that?” asked Gwen sleepily, staring before them. Koll hadn’t realized that she had awakened.
“Ramshorn. It’s been razed as well. The attack is far more broad than I feared.”
“What can we do?” she asked anxiously, turning to him.
The pleading look in her eyes banished all thoughts of cowardice. Koll had a responsibility, he realized, to keep this woman alive and safe—as safe as they could be on the surface of an ocean teeming with enemies.
“We can sail to Iron Keep. There will be a gathering of warriors there, I’m certain, and there we’ll be safe from this scourge.”
“Daryth always told me that a trap could often be more effective than a weapon,” explained Robyn, “and since I didn’t have a weapon that would be of any use against that abomination, I tried to think of a way we could trap it.”
She stopped speaking suddenly as a shadow fell across her face. Closing her eyes, she turned away from the others. Tristan took her hand gently, understanding her pain. The mention of Daryth had brought his grief to the forefront as well.
“As a trap, it was well done—very well done!” exclaimed Tavish, hastily strumming another chord as the firbolg stirred restlessly. “I don’t mind telling you that the beast had me a little worried!”
“Worried?” Newt scoffed. “It was a great fight! I haven’t had so much fun since we burned down the firbolg lair!”
“B-But Tristan, Tavish—they could have been killed—killed!” Yazilliclick glared at the faerie dragon. “Our arrows were helpless against it!”
“But not my magic! That was the best illusion I ever thought of, I’m sure!”
“Who thought of it?” The bard grinned mischievously at the dragon.
“Well, maybe it was Robyn’s idea, but I added the yellow feathers! That was my idea!”
They sat at rest finally, watching the descent of another inky night. The gray clouds had dropped even lower as the day progressed and would certainly block out any trace of moonlight or starlight. Robyn had discovered a small grotto, surrounded with high limestone walls, where they could take shelter from the wind. The companions had climbed across a stretch of low, barren hills to reach the hollow. The walls towered close to them on all sides except for the wide, sloping entrance. A narrow crack split the walls behind them, where a steep, winding gully dropped toward a bleak stretch of swampland.
Once again they dared light no fire to drive back the darkness. They all felt the presence of some sinister, nameless aura in the vale, and they did not want to call attention to themselves.
Tristan looked uneasily at the firbolg, wondering if it had been a mistake to bring him along. During the Darkwalker War, the firbolgs had been among their most implacable and hated foes. For all his life, he had known them as the natural enemies of humans, dwarves, and Llewyrr.
But now there seemed an unspoken bond that had developed between this monster and themselves. Perhaps it was because they all belonged here on the isles. They were a natural part of this world. As such, they made natural allies in the fight against a supernatural foe. The creature had shuffled along with them for the entire afternoon, occasionally calmed by a trill of the lute. After its courage in the fight against the owlbear, none of them wanted to send it away.
“You know, speaking of the firbolg lair, this isn’t far from where we first met Newt,” remarked the king. Tristan and Pawldo had made a brief reconnaissance of the area before dark. “The gulch out in back of our shelter drops directly into a swamp, and I think it’s the Fens of the Fallon.”
The firbolg looked up, blinking his oddly small eyes. “Fall-lon?” he grunted.
“And where you found the Sword of Cymrych Hugh? That’s what it says in the Song of Keren.” Tavish strummed a few chords of the ballad, as if to remind them.
Tristan nodded. “Yes, in the stronghold of the firbolgs.”
“I wonder what’s left of that place?” mused Pawldo. “It was quite a fortress. But then, we burned most of it down before we left!” The halfling’s eyes suddenly glinted at a secret memory, and he turned his face away from the others to hide his sly smile.
“I’m sure there’s quite a mass of ruins remaining,” mused the king. “After all, most of the place was made out of stone.”
“Fall-lon,” grunted the firbol
g again, pointing at himself.
“Firbolg.” The bard pointed at the giant.
“Fall-lon. Firr-bowlgg.” The creature was obviously pleased with himself.
“Human,” offered the bard, pointing to herself, then Tristan and Robyn.
“Hu-mann! Firr-bowlgg!”
“He’s smarter than I thought!” Tavish began to enjoy the lesson. She taught him more words, and he absorbed lute, sword, hand, head, and fist in rapid succession. “Tavish,” she offered, pointing to herself.
“Hu-mann?”
“No … I mean, yes, but humans, that’s all of us. Me, I’m Tavish!”
“Taff-ish?” The giant blinked, and then his face brightened. “Taffish,” he said, pointing at her and then at himself. “Yak!”
“You’re Yak? That’s wonderful!” She proceeded to teach him the names of the others, and soon “Triss-tun,” “Robb-inn,” “Pawll-doo,” and “Noot” had been formally introduced to their new companion. The firbolg stumbled on “Yaz-lick … Yoos-oo-luk, Yizz-ill,” and finally settled on “Yuz,” much to Newt’s amusement and the sprite’s discomfiture.
They chatted idly for a time, trying to avoid the pain lurking very near the surface of their awareness. All of them keenly felt the loss of Daryth. Tristan’s own guilt tore ruthlessly at him though he tried, quite unsuccessfully, to bury it. The Calishite was dead, in large part because of Tristan’s own stupidity in sending him out of their camp. It was an act performed in anger, resulting in tragedy.
All he could offer, and it was very little solace, was a prayer for Daryth’s soul and a silent plea for his forgiveness. And he had his own determination to succeed and by doing so, atone for his mistake.
Tavish once again pulled one of her wineskins from her pack, though the king declined the proffered drink. The others took small sips, but the sack remained mostly full.
The bard offered to take the first watch and continue the language lesson, so the others retired, each taking a shift in turn. The night, like the previous eve, was pitch black. At least the high walls of the grotto kept the worst of the wind from their camp, but even so, the temperature fell below freezing.
Darkwell Page 16