D&D 04-City of Fire Read online

  Now the bastard's here, Tahrain thought, intent on killing what's left of my company.

  Below the knight, a soldier from the rear guard struggled to draw her own weapon, but the knight's arm came down. The black sword fell just as the Kalpeshian's blade cleared its scabbard. The woman cried out as the black blade split her skull. Blood splattered the horse's side as the soldier collapsed into the sand.

  The knight spurred the horse forward. Soldiers dived out of the destrier's path, or simply collapsed to the side. The knight ignored them. The full, black helmet fixed itself on Tahrain, as if the wearer suddenly knew who led the desperate company. The horse lunged.

  Tahrain readied himself for the charge, but a hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him off-balance. He stumbled and fell. The knight swept over him, the horse's hooves missing his head by inches. He heard the beast stumble on the suddenly rocky ground. As the captain looked back, he saw the knight struggle to stay astride the animal as it tried not to fall or break a leg.

  Rolling away and up, Tahrain turned toward his rescuer to tell him to obey orders and keep running, but then he saw the man's face. It wasn't Krusk, whom he'd expected, but Polrus. The half-orc was nowhere to be seen.

  Polrus grinned feebly as the knight fought to turn the horse.

  "My turn, sir," he said. "Get going."

  The lieutenant maneuvered so the knight would have to ride over him to keep Tahrain from escaping toward the canyon. He braced his shortspear for the charge.

  The captain looked around. Krusk was gone. He'd obeyed orders, finally, and gotten away. Tahrain silently sent a quick prayer to Pelor to protect the half-orc then he drew his own weapon. It was a long-handled falchion and Tahrain gripped it in both hands. The howls of the gnolls grew closer.

  "No, lieutenant. I'm staying with you. I've fulfilled my oath. Our mission goes on though we do not."

  Nodding without fully understanding, Polrus turned toward the knight.

  "Someday," he said wryly, "you'll have to tell me what all this is about."

  Tahrain grinned.

  The black knight stood over the bloody, arrow-filled corpses of Captain Tahrain and Lieutenant Polrus. Barks and howls sang out all around, and gnolls, some carrying bloodstained axes and others wielding crude bows, loped up to the armored figure.

  "Any survivors?" asked the knight. The voice sounded almost musical, but also cold, even metallic.

  The gnoll's tongue lolled in its mouth as it ducked its head. It bore two weapons, a hand axe and what looked like an oversized scimitar with a cruel, hooked end. A white patch of especially long fur adorned its canine head. Its ears had many notches—marks of challengers to the gnoll's dominance, all defeated.

  It barked a reply in its own language.

  "Good," the knight replied. "We'll question them, but we must hurry. I need to get back to the army before it disintegrates."

  The gnoll howled quietly. It was almost a whimper.

  "Don't worry; you'll have your fun. Make them talk. Find out if any escaped. If you can't get anything out of them—"The knight toed Tahrain's corpse and the gnoll's answering bark took on a cruel, snickering tone. The blood from the captain's body had stopped flowing, but the sand all around it was mud-red. "Well, that's why I brought the shamans. You'll get answers. From them, or from him."

  The gnoll bobbed its head and stepped back. The knight crouched to look at the body. Gauntleted hands gracefully removed the black helmet. Long ebony hair spilled out and across armored shoulders and framed the narrow face of a severe, yet beautiful woman. Her blue eyes traveled up and down Tahrain's fallen form and her fingers felt along the blood-soaked raiment. For a moment, she gazed into the captain's dead, staring eyes, then she stood and walked away.

  Krusk watched the slaughter from the relative safety of the canyon's rocky edge. He felt his rage grow until he could barely control it. He hugged the rock to stop himself from bursting forward when the captain dueled the black knight, and he pressed Tahrain's packet to his face when the man was struck down. Never had the half-orc done something so difficult, or that felt so shameful, as hiding while his only friend fought and died. Krusk knew that he couldn't have saved the captain, he couldn't even have saved himself if he'd been with the others. He would be dead, and the woman in the black armor would have Tahrain's papers and the golden disk. If not for his promise, that's how Krusk would have wanted it.

  From the rocks, Krusk marked the dark warrior and the gnolls, memorizing their faces and voices. He would take the packet to the place Tahrain described, with or without help, and he would keep his promise. Then, with his oath fulfilled, Krusk would see the knight and the gnolls again.

  He would see them again.

  The Hunt

  The rain slackened as the hunters made their way through the forest, but the light continued to dim. Early tripped over two logs and what Naull thought may have been a hedgehog, but neither Ian nor Regdar would agree to light torches.

  "Ian can see the tracks just fine," Regdar said shortly when the wizard brought the subject up for the third time, "and I can see him. The rest of you follow me and we'll make it."

  Naull silently cursed her partner's stubbornness, but privately agreed it was the wise choice. Orcs, she knew, could see well in the dark—but only over short distances. If the party lit a torch, anybody within a hundred yards would see them coming.

  "He's slowing down," Ian said suddenly, stopping short. Regdar nearly stumbled over the half-elf and Naull bumped into him, her small body banging against the hard metal of his armor. Trebba put a hand out and Early—now well in the back of the party—managed to hold up. "He's stopped fleeing. He's going more carefully."

  Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Naull thought.

  She brushed her black, wet hair back from her eyes and looked around. Trees, nothing but trees. She didn't like the seeming openness. A human through-and-through, she still preferred "adventuring" in caves. The woods looked open and boundless, but all those trees could be hiding eyes, and bows, and arrows.

  "Spread out a little," Regdar ordered.

  Everyone, except Ian, who still searched for the fugitive orc leader's tracks, obeyed automatically. Naull couldn't help but smile a little. She'd known Regdar for quite some time, but the others had been with them for only four days. She hardly knew anything about them, and they knew a little about her and her partner, yet they followed his direction almost without question. She'd trusted Regdar for a long time, but why did they? Naull looked over each of her companions in turn as they searched the darkness for signs of their foe.

  Trebba, a self-professed thief, picked her way up the slick angle of a fallen tree, probably in hopes of getting a look around in the dim light. She moved gracefully, even over the damp, moss-covered bark. Soon she was nothing but a shadow against the broken trunk.

  Off to the other side, a branch snapped and a soft, pained curse followed—Early. The tall man had joined up with them at the village, and Naull knew for certain that he was a local. He couldn't have been more than eighteen years old. He had no beard and chubby cheeks, but he was very, very strong. The "boy" had submitted to a few tests before being accepted as part of the group. Lightly armored and wielding nothing but a wooden shield and an old, plain long sword, he'd nearly broken through Regdar's well-trained guard with nothing but strength and enthusiasm. Naull watched him pick his way around a broken tree limb, trying not to make any more noise. He started looking around, squinting into the darkness, as if foes might leap out from behind any tree.

  Green, Naull thought, but Early's actions reminded her she had work to do, too. She did a quick inventory of her spell pouches and sighed. She still had everything she needed to cast her remaining spells, but her "big bangs" were gone, used up in the ambush that afternoon. Her web spell had snared most of the orcs at one swoop—all but their leader, who sacrificed his troops to make his own escape. They were tracking that lone orc through the darkening woods, hoping it would lead them to its l
air, what remained of the raiding party, and their spoils.

  Scanning the woods, Naull tried to locate Ian and Regdar. She found them both quickly. Regdar, the burly fighter who led the group, was easy to spot in his plate armor. He stood almost motionless over Ian.

  The half-elf, on the other hand, was an enigma. Except for his chosen vocation—his woodcraft spoke to his part-elven background—he didn't act like any half-elf she'd heard about or met before. An abrasive mercenary by his own admission, the slight, short man still had a compelling, almost intense, nature. Even his name was strange. Elves, in Naull's limited experience, usually had longer, more sing-song names. "Ian" seemed too plain, somehow.

  Ian's light hair and white skin, however, went along with Naull's image of elves. The fact that his clothes somehow stayed inexplicably clean as he searched the dark ground for tracks fit, too. His sharp, ice-blue eyes pierced the darkness and turned toward Naull. He'd sensed her staring at him, she knew suddenly, and he held her gaze for a moment, then turned back to his work.

  It never crossed her mind that Ian wouldn't find the tracks, even in the dark, even after the brief rain shower, and that proved a good instinct. After only a few minutes, the ranger stood up again and motioned the party in.

  "He's gotten away," Ian said flatly. Early cursed, but Regdar waited and watched the half-elf pause. "Or so he thinks."

  A rare smile graced the ranger's features, but it wasn't a pleasant one. The smile was that of a hunter who enjoyed the kill and who knew his quarry had been run to ground.

  "I wanted to make sure he hadn't gotten clever, but I'm convinced he thinks we're still back at the ambush site, picking through the wagons and his fellows' gear. It's what he'd be doing, probably." Nothing disguised the disdain in Ian's voice. But the half-elf grew professional again, turned toward a nearby slope, and said, "He paused here and looked around. He didn't hear us coming." A sharp look made Early blush, but Ian continued, "and he couldn't see us. We were just far enough behind to make him feel confident, so he headed down there."

  "Back toward the path?"Trebba asked.

  "Yes," he replied. "The path probably leads right up near their lair. Nobody comes this deep into these woods anymore," he added. "They didn't have to hide."

  Regdar nodded and asked, "Should we go back to the path, or do you want to follow him directly?"

  "The orcs obviously didn't think they'd be followed far into the forest. We found the path after only, what, two days of looking?" Ian continued, not waiting for confirmation. "They stayed careful until they got into the woods, but then they relaxed. I'm guessing they got sloppier the nearer they got to home."

  "So we should go back to the path," Early drawled confidently, "find 'em quick, and kick some orc tail. Heat up the oven 'cause we'll be back for breakfast."

  He patted his long sword and grinned.

  "Well," the half-elf drawled, mocking the farm boy's accent until Regdar's sharp glance cowed the ranger. "If we go back onto the path, we'll almost certainly find the orcs' lair—and probably quicker than if we follow the tracks of a single orc through the forest at night, in this drizzle, but then we'd be coming at them from where they expect. As I've already said, this one we're tracking thinks he fooled us. If we go back, we're doing what he expects—and night is orc time."

  "So what?" Early asked, a tiny bit of belligerence creeping into his voice. "There's just the one o' him left. We already killed over a half-dozen orcs in the ambush. If you're thinkin' about Yurgen, well, I'm sorry he's dead, too, but he did a foolish thing, charging into the woods alone after this brute. If he'd done like Regdar told him, he'd still be alive. I don't care how tough this orc is, I'm bettin' the five of us can take one more."

  As Ian opened his mouth for a scathing reply, he found it hard to talk with two hundred and fifty plus pounds of plate-armored human standing on his toe. The half-elf gasped and Regdar stepped back.

  "But consider this, Early," Regdar said as if nothing had happened, "there may be more than just the one we're tracking."

  "There certainly will be," Ian grumbled, flexing his mashed toes. "They've been operating out of that lair for a month now. This isn't just a hit-and-run raiding party. I'd guess that at least a couple of warriors stayed behind to guard the other loot, plus whatever others tagged along—young and such. They could still be strong enough to cause us some trouble if they catch us by surprise, or if we just stumble into their midst in the dark." Ian waved back toward the ambush site, several miles behind them and grinned. "Remember how well it worked for us."

  Early nodded in understanding and grinned back. Naull looked between the two of them, thinking perhaps the half-elf wasn't as cold as he seemed, and the farm boy wasn't as dumb as he acted.

  We all put on our little shows, she thought.

  "Hey, Naull," Regdar asked. "What about you? What's our wizard got?"

  "Well. . ." she started, fingers automatically going to her component pouches, even though she'd just sorted them out moments before, "not a lot. Don't worry about light. I can take care of that in a hurry, when we need it. And I might be able to distract one or two with some sounds."

  "What about the big stuff?" Early asked impatiently.

  She realized suddenly that her web spell may have been the most magic he'd ever seen. A lot of country folk had clerics to tend to their ills, but wizards preferred the city life. Books didn't grow on trees, after all.

  She chuckled at her inadvertent joke. Early took it to mean she had something nasty prepared and he nodded.

  "Got it. You don't wanna spoil the surprise. No problem."

  He gave her a thumbs up and started off. Ian and Trebba already followed the orc's tracks, but Regdar hung back.

  "Seriously, Naull," he asked in a low voice, "what do you have left?"

  She sighed, "Well, I've got another magic missile, but everything else is pretty defensive. Not everybody can walk around in their own private golem, you know." She slugged his armored side in an attempt at playfulness and was rewarded with a dull clang. "Ow!" As she pretended to suck her knuckles in pain, Regdar grinned.

  "Can't blame you for that. I wish we had a healer with us," Regdar sighed. He pulled off one of his gauntlets and put his hand on her back, gently guiding her over and around the underbrush as they walked. "It wouldn't have done Yurgen any good, but..."

  He went quiet as the two of them followed the rest of the party.

  "You couldn't have stopped him, Regdar," she said. She reached around and gave his bare hand a squeeze. "He shouldn't have done what he did, but he died fighting."

  "That's the best we can hope for, I suppose," Regdar said.

  "Not me! I'm going to die in a big bed at the top of my own wizard's tower, surrounded by dozens of spellbooks and served by hundreds of apprentices!" She smiled lazily and winked. "Maybe you can be captain of my guard, if you play your cards right."

  She ran the fingers of her free hand over her tunic, fingering a few of her component pouches. Naull knew the cut of the pouch belts helped accentuate her modest curves and she was surprised to find herself flirting.

  He's my partner! she thought, a little embarrassed, but she smiled at the fighter anyway.

  Looking down at her, Regdar answered her smile with one of his own. His close-cropped goatee sometimes gave him a violent, even evil look, but now it nearly made Naull laugh out loud.

  "If I have time for it," he said."I figure I'll be a king and you'll be my court wizard... or jester. Depends on if you ever get better at this spell business."

  He let go of her hand and raised his arm in mock defense as Naull swiped at him again.

  "I guess I'm getting used to this ironmongery after all," he teased as he nimbly avoided another blow. He caught her wrist, lightly, on the third. "C'mon," he said, his voice serious again. "It isn't over yet."

  Naull straightened at the change in his voice and she nodded.

  Back to business, she thought.

  "You're right. Best not wear the
crown till they make you king."

  It took the party less than another hour to track the orc leader the rest of the way to his lair. Ian was right—the orcs settled in after their first few raids and looked comfortable. They laired in a small valley in the woods, a dell with good tree cover and caves in the northern side. If there were guards, they weren't there now. Perhaps the leader called them in when he arrived ahead of them. Night lay full upon them, and the party moved in a tight, quiet mass.

  "Whew!" exclaimed Early. "The smell!"

  "Shut up!" Regdar hissed. Early's voice sounded loud in the still darkness. "Everyone, hold up."

  Ian crouched near a tree, running his pale fingers up and down the trunk. In the gloom, Naull saw his bright eyes follow his hands, then his whole face turned upward. He pointed and her eyes followed his finger.

  Trebba, moving gracefully and silently over the leaf and twig covered ground, came up to Ian's tree and began climbing. The woman moved slowly at first, but seemingly found the going easier than she'd expected. Within a few seconds her black shape disappeared over the object in the tree. A few seconds after that a knotted rope slid down the trunk and into their midst.

  Early grabbed the end of the rope and steadied it for Ian. The elf climbed it nimbly and soon he was gone. Naull wondered if she should follow, but at a sign from Regdar, Early and the rope slid up against the tree trunk, putting it between them and the dell.

  Ian and Trebba returned after a minute or two, and the party huddled behind the tree.

  Regdar turned to Ian and asked, "Could you see the lair?"

  "Yes. They've cleared away a lot of the trees and brush down there. We missed a path they use to bring in their loot; it's in the southeast corner. Their leader knows the area well enough he didn't have to head for it," the half-elf explained. "They've got a rough barricade on it, but I guess they anticipated success. Most of it's been cleared away. Near as I can tell from here, they have a couple wagons filled with junk lying on the road now. Two or three strong orcs could move them, but not quickly. It looks pretty muddy down there."