Pathfinder Tales: The Crusader Road

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Another thump, and more weight evaporated.

  And then he heard her voice. "Get. Off. Mouse!"

  Jerrad wriggled from the pile. As he stood, two goblins came for him. An arrow splashed back to front through the throat of the furthest, then struck the other in the back of the head. The razored broadhead skewered the left eyeball on its way out. The goblin stiffened, viscous fluid streaming down its face, then flopped to the ground.

  Beyond it stood Kiiryth, another arrow already fitted to his bow. He gave Jerrad a nod, then turned and sped another shaft into the night.

  Between them stood Serrana, a four-foot length of pine sapling clenched tight in her fists. She whipped it up and around, spraying blood and goblin brains all over, then crashed it down. The blow pulped a goblin's bulbous head. The club rose again and struck the same goblin.

  "Serra. Serrana!"

  She looked up at him, feral fire burning in her eyes. Lips peeled back in a snarl. She flashed a grin, then whirled and battered another dead goblin's skull into wet mush. "Get. Off. Mouse!"

  "Serrana, its okay, they're off me."

  His sister stopped for a moment, a thick, dark slurry running down over her hands. "Mouse?"

  "Yes, Serrana. You saved me."

  "I saved you."

  Kiiryth closed with both of them. "There are more to save. To the longhouse, now."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Maraschal Sunnock stood alone in the chaos within the longhouse. He'd gone there to give some last-minute orders to his servants concerning the next day's journey. He'd heard the scream and seen forms running through the night before someone had closed and barred the door. And even when a goblin thrust its face through a window, he still couldn't believe it.

  This is wrong, all wrong! His mouth went dry. I wasn't supposed to be here.

  "You, help us!"

  Sunnock looked up. One of the woodsmen had joined two other men at the door, pushing back against a horde of goblins. Boards began to creak. Nails squealed and worked free of the wood. The man waved him forward and, dazed by disbelief, Sunnock joined him.

  The second his hands touched the door's wood, fear burst within his heart. Until that moment, the attack had been an abstract thing. Here, leveraging his muscle against that of the goblins, he could feel their insistence. They were avatars of gluttony and hatred and greed. A knot in a board popped free, striking him in the face. He stared out through it, eye to eye with a goblin.

  Sunnock spun, slamming his back against the door. People warded every window, stabbing and battering goblins, shoving them back into the night. But there, toward the center, children huddled with older folks. Faces ashen with fear, they looked toward him. His presence gave them hope. They counted on him. He was their salvation.

  For a heartbeat before he realized the pressure on the door had slackened, Sunnock felt like a hero. He understood that all the gold in the world couldn't buy the sensation of having someone look upon you with gratitude for saving her life. He was all that stood between them and the end of everything. His selflessness would live on forever.

  And it was that thought, as yet untainted by wondering how he could turn that gratitude to his own advantage, which occupied his mind the very moment the massive root ball exploded the door. Sharp oaken splinters pierced him through and through. A heavy board crushed his skull. His lifeless body flew into the room, bouncing and rolling to the edge of the circle of people he had saved.

  He never heard the terrified screams attesting to his failure.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Jerrad arrived at the longhouse's far end just as the huge, ugly beast struck his first blow. Wood shattered. What had once been the door was now a jagged hole. People screamed from beyond it.

  Jerrad choked down fear. "What is that?"

  "Some unholy creature gotten on someone by an ogre." The archer's eyes narrowed. "Not full-blooded—usually called ogrekin—but just as nasty as the purebreds."

  The ogrekin tugged its club free. Eight feet tall, with flesh the color of a bruised mushroom, the creature bulged with muscle. The sheer power it could generate was terrifying enough, but its face could only be described as blasphemous. One pointed ear sat lower than the other, and the pale blue eye on the left had to be three times the diameter of the brown one on the right. Yellow teeth were jumbled in a jaw that gaped open, and the nose had been broken so many times Jerrad had to cant his head to make the nostrils line up right.

  Kiiryth's bow came up. The bowstring twanged as he loosed an arrow. It pierced the monster's left shoulder, the broadhead emerging out the back. Blood ran in rivulets down the arm and dripped from the arrow's tip.

  The ogrekin didn't give the wound so much as a glance.

  Tyressa, butcher knife in one hand and fishing spear in the other, appeared and whistled loudly. "You're not welcome in my town."

  Mother! Jerrad started toward her, but Kiiryth grabbed his collar and held him back.

  "You'd only slow her down."

  The behemoth looked at her. Contempt further warped its face. It snarled, flashing a tangle of uneven teeth. The ogrekin reached for her with its left hand.

  Tyressa ducked beneath the attempted grab and circled around toward the monster's back. It turned to keep with her, but its grip on the club slowed it. By the time the ogrekin had pulled the club from the longhouse, Tyressa had darted in and slashed the thing's right heel. Black blood sprayed from a deep cut over the tendon.

  Tyressa danced wide, carrying her outside the range of the ogrekin's swinging club. The club came around and slammed into the longhouse's wall. It splintered boards and snapped the corner post. The longhouse shifted, the wood closing like jaws on the club, clinging to it with a fierce tenacity.

  The ogrekin snarled and set itself, muscles bunching in shoulders and back. The monster heaved, trying to free the weapon. Wood groaned. Some nails squeaked as they came free, but the building didn't release the club on that first attempt. So the behemoth planted its feet and hauled back for all it was worth.

  The damaged tendon popped. The creature's right foot slid out from under it. The ogre landed hard on the base of its spine. The tremor rattled teeth in Jerrad's head. The monster threw its head back and howled in pain.

  And a little bit in fear.

  The people of Silverlake boiled from the longhouse. Woodsmen chopped into the ogre's shoulders and wrists. People stabbed it, using knives, scythes, and even sharp sticks. Kiiryth shot arrows into any exposed flesh. Even Serrana charged in, battering it with her blood-stained club.

  But Tyressa slew it. As others hacked at its limbs, Jerrad's mother leaped onto the ogre's chest. The monster's head came up. It hissed a challenge. Tyressa roared back, the stepped on its throat and thrust the fishing spear straight through the larger eye.

  The ogre thrashed, ripping the spear from her hand and tossing her into the crowd. Its death throes crushed one man and broke several others. The people withdrew, weapons ready, as the monster thrashed out the last seconds of its life, then cheered as it lay still.

  Tyressa emerged from the bloodthirsty throng bruised but otherwise unhurt.

  Jerrad stared at her, and wasn't alone. You're my mother, but are you my mother?

  Tyressa bent, resting hands on knees. She breathed heavily for a moment or two, then let her skirt hem slip down and straightened up. She looked around, then nodded.

  "This is a terrible night, but you've all done well. See to yourselves. See to our wounded. Then we shall attend to our dead." She wiped her bloody hands on her skirts. "This is a night we mourn now, but shall celebrate in the future. And because of you, Silverlake will have a future."

  paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas , Aug 10, 2014

  Chapter Fourteen

  To Begin Again

  Aside from the dozen gravestones evenly spaced against the south wall, Silverlake bore little evidence of the previous month's attack. Many people had wanted to mount the ogrekin's skull on a post above the gate,
and flank it with goblin heads, but Jerrad's mother had vetoed that idea—wisely, as far as Jerrad was concerned. Goblins and ogres would certainly see it as provocation, and the fey weren't likely to think much of the idea either.

  Jerrad walked along the wall, stooping to rip weeds from the grassy mounds. Each of the dead had been given identical stones, quarried nearby and finished by two stonecutters from Thornkeep. The markers—white, slender, and rounded—bore the name of the deceased, birth and death dates, and the simple legend "Silverlake Mourns for Thee." It didn't matter who they had been, or their station in life, all of them had been treated equally.

  Even his servants hadn't protested Lord Sunnock being treated as an equal with commoners. Unkind Silverlakers suggested that Tyressa's decree that each of the deceased be treated equally was so Sunnock wouldn't be given a small wooden marker which would decay quickly. Many folks, especially those who had seen him using his body to secure the longhouse door, counted him a hero and credited him with saving their lives. In their minds, his modest marker didn't lower him—everyone else's identical markers elevated them.

  Some people suffered had wounds which would handicap them for the rest of their lives. Broken bones had been set to mend, but no one yet had a cast off. Cuts had long since scarred over, but the attack had done more significant damage. Not a night went by when two or three people didn't wake screaming from a nightmare—Jerrad included. When the slivered moon came again, Silverlake braced for another attack.

  But the goblins didn't return.

  In the week after the attack, the settlers completed work on the lake wall. Not only did they raise the palisade, but they dug a trench deep enough that even an ogre would have been stuck in it up to his eyes. They sharpened and included plenty of wooden stakes, both pointing up and slanting down. Anything which fell into that pit would remain there until rescued.

  That precaution meant the only practical way to get from the shore and into the town was to pass north or south and assault the gates, leaving attackers open to archers along the walls. To make that defense work, the citizens of Silverlake began practicing archery two hours a day. A bowyer and two fletchers took up temporary residence to create the necessary equipment.

  Jerrad had hoped that Kiiryth would teach the people how to shoot, but two Wolfmane hunters appeared. Without any prompting or promise of pay, they began to give people little tips about shooting. They even took some of the better archers out into the wood to bring back rabbit, deer, and other meat. While they steadfastly refused to move in on a permanent basis, they showed no signs of leaving, and gladly accepted gifts of skins and what other things Silverlakers could spare.

  Jerrad understood the reasons behind his mother dictating that everyone learn to shoot. Aside from the need for archers to defend Silverlake, the training gave them the ability to do something to defend themselves. They easily saw signs of their improvement, and to be invited by a Kellid to go hunting took on the honor of being knighted in some civilized land. Having a bow in hand and the weight of a full quiver at the hip calmed many.

  Serrana seemed never to be without her bow, or at least a leather bracer on her left forearm. Since that night she'd not worn any of her finer gowns—and the one she'd had on during the attack had been burned. She most often wore homespun tunics and skirts, and for hunting would wear trousers. At first some of the other women had been scandalized over this, but "hunting trousers" soon made up a part of every woman's wardrobe. Some even made a small ceremony of awarding an archer her first pair to coincide with her first kill.

  Once the wall had been completed, progress on Silverlake slowed. Part of it was because of the deaths. The dead accounted for a seventh of the population, and the wounded half again that many. Not only did they leave the workforce, but the necessity of posting guards and caring for the injured pulled even more people out. The woodsmen had to travel further into the wood to harvest lumber. That made them more vulnerable to attack, which in turn meant they worked more slowly and cautiously, shrinking output.

  Repairs to the longhouse stalled because some people believed it was haunted. Tyressa ordered it razed, then had it rebuilt closer to the front gate and oriented north-south. She had the door placed in the eastern wall, facing a large green and away from the gates. The second longhouse—which had only yet been framed—had been started on the opposite side of the green, with its door facing west. They'd rebuilt the first with much stouter walls and loopholes for shooting any invaders.

  Despite some setbacks, Silverlake's population had grown past what it had been the month previous. The stonecutters and fletchers brought their families in to join them. Fishermen who seasonally based themselves in a camp on the lake's south shore relocated. Their choice was one of convenience, since the rains had washed most of their camp away. Then again, as one of them allowed, with goblins massing in the area, Silverlake looked very inviting.

  "Jerrad, have you forgotten?"

  He looked up at the sound of his mother's voice, raising a hand to block the sun. "No, I was just finishing up weeding."

  "Be quick. I'll be in the tent." Tyressa turned and walked off.

  He watched her go. Though she had been gifted a pair of hunting trousers by several grateful women for having slain the ogrekin, Tyressa never wore them. She didn't carry anything more than her skinning knife. She remained stiff and wary, ready to react at the slightest sign of trouble.

  And she's still disappointed in me.

  She'd not discovered that he'd been teaching himself wizardry until a week after the attack. Serrana had spent most of that time sleeping or crying, sometimes both. Tyressa had done her best to tend to her daughter's needs as well as those of the larger community, but she was only human. She only had so much emotional energy, and had said to him, "At least I don't have to worry about you," more than once during that time.

  Then, in one of her crying jags, Serrana had described everything which happened that night. Jerrad's mother had picked up on the spell he'd used. She immediately woke him out of a sound sleep and demanded to know why he was being so stupid.

  He learned, then and there, that while the author of his grimoire thought the idea that a wizard would be somehow hurt by his magic was silly, his mother feared mightily for his safety. She'd stared at him in horror one moment, then hugged him tightly the next, her tears soaking his tunic.

  As much as she was scared for him, what hurt her most was his betrayal of her trust. He tried to explain that he wanted to see if there was any truth to his ability to work magic before he worried her. She latched onto that, using it as proof that he knew magic was dangerous and that he shouldn't have been playing around with it without her express permission. He attempted to point out that a spell had allowed him to save Serrana, but Tyressa countered that if it had failed, she'd have lost both of her children.

  She capped that with a coolly delivered, "I expect that sort of irresponsibility from your sister, but not you. I thought I could trust you."

  That had sunk the knife in and Jerrad had started crying. He didn't want to, but he couldn't hold the tears back. "I just wanted to help," was all he managed to squeak out past the lump in his throat. He balled his fists and pounded them against his thighs, wanting to scream, but refusing to do so.

  That was when his mother sat him down and hugged him. She kissed his head and brushed away tears. Her "I know, I know," melted into whispered apologies from each of them. She held on tight, and he clung to her until both of them had stopped shaking.

  Then, after he blew his nose, she demanded he tell her everything. He had, save for the part about Kiiryth having given him the grimoire. He told her that he'd been running from sprites and stumbled into a hole where he found it. He wasn't sure what it was, so he started and reading, and...

  From that point forward, as others gathered to practice archery, Jerrad reported to their tent to study and work spells. Not many of the Silverlakers complained about his not joining them for practice, since bows meant
for war proved a bit stout for him to draw, and yet he was a bit older than the children who practiced with bows suitable for shooting varmints. Tyressa also hired Kiiryth to instruct him in archery and other woodland skills, which mollified anyone inclined to protest his special treatment.

  He joined his mother in the tent and produced the grimoire. "Is it okay to practice?"

  "Read for the moment. The Kellids have been more inquisitive of late." His mother scratched the back of her neck as she studied a map of the settlement. "We can't afford to alienate them."

  Because of their history, the Kellids had little liking for magic, and even less use for practitioners thereof. Jerrad hadn't known that at his first encounter with them, but Oreena had explained things after his mother took her into their confidence concerning his abilities. Had he used magic to win the game and the shaman detected it, it might have been barbarians storming Silverlake, not goblins.

  That made Jerrad mindful of the grimoire's first admonition concerning magic, and glad he'd observed it. Cheating wasn't really in his nature, but he could see how magic would make some things very easy. Pretty quickly he realized that this was what his mother feared: that with power could come an erosion of his compassion and sense of duty to others.

  He seated himself on a camp stool and opened the grimoire. He flipped first toward the back, to see if any new pages had materialized. None had. "There's nothing new."

  "Then you might read something else."

  Jerrad dropped to his knees and studied the spines arrayed in a small bookcase. Half the books had come with them from Ustalav, while the rest had been traded for or, in the case of the book he pulled from the bottom shelf, rescued. Back in the woodsmen's camp, Pine Callum had been tearing pages from it and using them to light fires. Gods alone knew where he'd gotten it, or why he chosen to destroy it rather than selling it off, but he'd been forced to leave it behind—along with plenty of other things—when his workers confronted him about his crooked accounting.

  Jerrad placed the book in his lap and brushed his hands over the cracked leather cover. The title had been incised on the front and spine, then had gold leaf applied to it. He knew the book to be Syrin Gorthath's Brief History of Brevic Noble Houses, but the lettering appeared to be gibberish.