Maldoch was having an equally tough time. The dwarf Ogre, matching the wizard in height, outweighed him by a good 100 lbs. Using his wit to level the uneven playing field, the spellcaster twirled his staff like a cheerleader's baton at a jousting tournament, lunging forward with the lightning speed of a darting cobra to whack the entranced Norg'kthar on the head before springing away. More annoying than damaging, the strikes provided a distraction while the wizard composed a suitable spell to immobilize his beastly opponent. He never got the chance to finish up his incantation. Fed up with the wizard's pussyfooting, the Ogre tripped up Maldoch with the butt of his mace and brained the fallen mage with the stony business end before he could rise.
J'tard leapt to the dazed wizard's rescue before the Ogre could finish bashing his head in. Hardly a champion wrestler back in his desert home, the plucky Troll was betting that even the smartest of backwoods monsters did not possess an ounce of wrestling knowledge.
Delivering a flying drop kick at the Ogre's chest with both feet, J'tard sent the Norg'kthar lurching backwards in disarray, losing its blooded mace in the process. Removing his multicolored wool mantle, now more red than rainbow, and flinging it aside, the Desertlander followed up with a back-fist to his opponent's head, instantly regretting the move as he skinned the knuckles of his fisted hand against rigid Ogre horns. In return the beast scrunched the smarting Troll in a bear hug, lifting J'tard clear off his splayed feet, squeezing the breath from him and crushing his ribcage.
Gasping for air, J'tard panicked and futilely tried to squirm free of the Ogre's unbreakable clench. Despite the Troll's slippery overcoat of blood, the grip of the embracing Norg'kthar remained firm and unyielding. Someplace deep within J'tard recalled wrestling know-how to thwart the bear hug and employed the tried and true bell clap counterblow. That too failed, Ogre headgear warding off the sharp clap of hands about the ears meant to upset the monster's equilibrium, the attempt numbing J'tard's palms. Desperate now, the life being compressed out of him, the Troll recklessly head butted his foe and for his trouble came off nearly blinded by a horn tip scraping along the brow ridge protecting his right eye.
Luckily help was on hand. Struggling shakily to his feet, one hand clutching a weepy gash to his forehead, Maldoch foolhardily punched at the Ogre's exposed back. Dropping the breathless Troll to face his tormentor, the Ogre swept the groggy wizard off his feet with a beefy forearm. Maldoch snapped around and crashed heavily into the underbrush, joining the detritus matting the forest floor. Turning back to his worthier adversary, the snarling Norg'kthar found J'tard breathing hard and shaking his head, but recovered enough to launch into the next round of their life and death bout.
Counting on the wizard's belief that all Ogres were male, J'tard opened round two dispensing a savage toe-kick to the hulk's groin. When contact was made the Ogre squealed then doubled over, cross-eyed and clutching his bruised private parts. Disregarding his own pain and dizziness the Troll staggered up to the crippled Norg'kthar, pondering his next action as the troublesome horns precluded using a number of the standard wrestling moves. Opting for simplicity over complexness, J'tard threw the Ogre over onto his back with a basic hip toss, trailed by an elbow drop that further disabled the downed Westie. Demonstrating superhuman strength powered by an adrenalin rush, the grim Troll picked up his immobilized opponent. Struggling with the immense load, he dropped him back first across one knee, using the Ogre's own considerable weight to snap the brute's spine with a sickeningly audible crunch.
J'tard rolled the broken Ogre off his knee. Permanently put out of action but not dead, the paralyzed Norg'kthar groaned as he flopped onto the ground like a sack of spuds. Stepping over his victory, J'tard searched the undergrowth with worried eyes for the struck wizard. Locating the unconscious spellcaster by the soles of his booted feet sticking out from under a shrub of Mountain Ash, he grabbed Maldoch by the ankles and hauled him back out into the open, turning him over along the way. Overtaken by fatigue, the Troll slumped to the ground behind the mage.
Cradling Maldoch's head in his lap, J'tard wiped away the drops of redness trickling into his eyes, uncaring if it was his or Ogre blood. Assessing his plight, the satire did not escape the Desertlander. His second excursion with Maldoch the Magnificent had gone as sour as week old Unihorn milk. The pattern was clear; journeying with the wizard was hazardous to one's health. J'tard came up with the notion of sewing a warning label on Maldoch's cloak if they ever got out of this fix alive, which was doubtful. Clubless, magicianless, and homeless deep inside the borders of a foreign land, surrounded on all sides by creatures desiring to either kill them, eat them or both, Sandwalker and sage were dead men sitting.
Resolved this time to face his fate with eyes wide open, J'tard brushed strands of blood-matted hair off the wizard's ashen face as the rotten day wore on, awaiting their inescapable deaths.
—
Noises stirred the Troll from his weariness. For a horrifying moment after he sat up from his unplanned nap, J'tard thought himself blind before realizing that night had fallen, though the deepening of the perpetual gloom in Darkling Forest was hardly appreciable. Letting his eyes adjust to the blackness was scarcely worth the effort. Ideally suited to coping with the desert glare of sand-reflected sunlight, Troll sight equated to poor night vision. Reverting to his marginally better hearing, J'tard listened for the indistinct sounds that roused him. His straining ears picked up nothing but blank silence. Even the Ogre whose back he snapped like a dry stick of kindling no longer whimpered.
Wondering if tiredness and an overactive imagination combined to addle his sleepy brain, J'tard was not mistaken when the foliage at his back rustled warningly. With no time to grope around in the dark for anything to use as a makeshift weapon, he patiently sat huddled protectively over the senseless wizard as the shadowed brush disgorged formless shapes to encircle the defenseless pair like a hunting wolf pack.
A deeply feminine voice addressed the Troll in a forceful whisper from behind his left shoulder. “Move not one muscle. Utter not a word out of turn."
J'tard could not help but backchat. “Okay for me to breathe?’ he grunted.
"Shallowly.” The knife tip pressing against his kidney punctuated the woman's point.
That was not a problem. Every breath the Troll took aggravated his pained sides. Going solely by the talker's low-level threat, J'tard guessed the demanding female to be short, around Highlander height in scale if measured against historical statistics. Figuring that Dwarfs would be rather thin on the ground in these parts, the Unihorn wheeler-dealer surmised that his captors were none other than...
"You're Gnomes,” he challenged them.
That same imposing contralto indulged his curiosity without drawing blood. “Gnomes. Underlanders. Hobgoblins. You Topsiders call us many names. Yet we remain the unnamable. Be silent now, unless you want to draw the attention of the mus muris alatus lamia."
"Which is?'
"The mouse-winged vampires, those termed Harkies in the topside speech."
"What do I call you?” asked J'tard, pushing the conversation further along.
"Ma'am. Nom, report on your sweep."
A male's voice slid out of the darkness ahead of J'tard. “Two Bellua both deader than rock."
"You slew them,” the unseen woman murmured to J'tard.
"If by them you mean those Ogres, then yes."
"Single-handedly?"
"Mostly."
"What breed are you?"
"I belong to the Troll race."
Silence surfaced in the wake of his declaration. Abruptly the knifepoint was withdrawn, replaced by a bony finger tentatively poking the Sulander's glossy skin. Wincing when the exploring fingertip prodded his busted ribs, J'tard ground his teeth in order not to cry out from the pain. The intrusive inspection lasted for a hurtful minute, leaving the sore Troll feeling like a slab of meat.
Whispering in an awed tone, the questioning woman breathed in his ear, “You are calvus kin to t
he promontorium lemures."
"I am amicus—friend,” responded J'tard, unsure of her inference.
The knifepoint returned in a flash, digging this time into the hollow of the Troll's unprotected throat. “How dare you!” the unrevealed Gnome amazon hissed, her tone menacingly condemnable. “No Topsider may befoul the sacred words of Antiquitas Lingua with his own tongue.” The sound of her disdainful spitting was patently clear in the unsuppressed dark. “Punishment is executable by death. Before I send your immunda animus—unclean soul—to whatever afterlife your people prescribe to, you will tell me how you come to know the Ancients’ Speech."
"Will that be a quick execution or the other kind?” quipped J'tard.
The knife tickled his jugular. “Depends on your answer, paganus extraneus. It can be swift like a rockfall, or slow like a cave stream. Your choice."
Fatherly advice given long ago annoyingly pricked J'tard's conscience. “Be at all times truthful", his wise old dad had imparted. Good counsel if a perfect world existed. Adulthood straightened that idealistic thinking right out of J'tard. In real life honesty is not always the best policy. Tonight was a prime example. If J'tard told the truth, that what little Tanit at his command was irreverently gleaned from poring over dry and dusty library texts and not Holy Scriptures, he might as well put a club to his own head. The time was ripe to be inventive.
"I was coached by my offsider here, in readiness for when we bumped into you lot on our travels,” fibbed J'tard. “He said it might prove helpful. I think him mistaken."
"Humph, two impius Topsiders to be put to death then."
"Don't be so hasty, little lady. Dark as it is, it might pay you to take a closer look at my barbatus friend."
J'tard reckoned he could almost hear the Gnome's brain ticking over. Reputed to see better than the keenest-eyed owl on the gloomiest moonless night, the Underlander would have no trouble making out Maldoch's white-bearded countenance. Looks alone betrayed the wizard's profession.
"Magnificus veneficus, Maldochus!” she exclaimed, verifying J'tard's inducement before removing the blade from his neck. Identifying a key member of Terrath's wizardry triumvirate put a radically different spin on things for the Gnomes.
J'tard was abruptly clubbed on the back of his skull with the hilt of the knife. Pitching forward, the semi-conscious Troll moaned inaudibly as he was manhandled off the bashed spellcaster and laid flat on his back, hearing through the fog clouding his senses the female Gnome taking charge.
"Only the fact of the company you keep, plus the Bellua you slew, merits sparing your life, J'tard Sandwalker. Whatever your cause for journeying through Darkling Forest, wherever the destination you had in mind, the pair of you are now bound for Darkin Horr, where you'll be questioned by the Serpentwearer. He shall now decide what is to be done with you. Bind and truss them up."
Dimly registering rope cords being knotted around his wrists and ankles, J'tard dazedly mumbled, “Swell. Back to being tied up again."
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Chapter Thirty Six
A day later, things were about to get hairy for Garrich too. Nearly 900 leagues away on the other side of Terrath, he and Ayron took a breather from their rigorous climb into the fractured rock strewing the foothills of the mineral rich Northern Heights. Resting on his haunches halfway up the slope of a steep-sided gorge at the bottom of which snaked a narrow watercourse torrid with whitewater, the panting Goblin looked past his unreadable Elf companion. Sharing nothing in common but pointy ears and a continuing repugnance for one another, the pair had reached an uneasy understanding: Garrich told Ayron what to do and the Janyler disregarded him.
Gazing back along the length of the hot and dusty ravine to where the midafternoon heat haze blurred the unappealing rockscape into a fuzzy brown smudge, Garrich mopped his sweaty brow with the hem of his pre-loved travel cloak. Afterwards, he asked Ayron what the Elven connection to Berhanth was.
"Didn't Hombur tell you aboard that piece of driftwood he passes off as a ship?” rejoined the cool and collected Wood Elf, unbothered by the brief but intense northern summer.
"I don't mean trade, Ayron. What's the Elf history behind Berhanth? Why does a Dwarf outpost bear an elvish sounding name?"
"Good taste,” supposed Ayron. When that failed to satisfy the nosy Goblin, he gave in with shrug and a sigh. “There's an obscure ballad sung concerning a pair of star-crossed lovers, the reputed parents of Elfdom, who made their home where Berhanth sits, naming the place in honor of their firstborn daughter. The family relinquished it to the Dwarfs after moving south to put their roots down in Gwilhaire."
"How long ago did this fairytale take place?"
"We don't measure time in the way that preoccupies other races, Losther,” sneered the Janyler.
"Which is why Elves are seemingly ageless,” rebounded Garrich. “They can't count past a hundred."
Rising above the snipe, Ayron revised the route Garrich was trailblazing. Following the directions stingily given by a vulgar Dwarf guide the previous day when the Elf had waltzed into Berhanth unescorted by the pesky Goblin to score provisions, Garrich prudently staying out of town lest he frighten the little folk, Ayron harbored doubts over his companion's navigation skills. Pinning Garrich down with a withering stare, he demanded, “Precisely where did your wizard instruct you to meet him upcountry?"
Avoiding the Forester's interrogating gaze, Garrich speciously replied, “Carallord.'
"From where I'm standing Dwarfland appears a pretty big place,” surveyed the Elf. “Care to name an exact meeting spot."
'Thataway,” said Garrich, pointing to the general north.
Not foolish enough to take a Goblin's word at face value, Ayron suspected Garrich of withholding information. But not having stepped beyond Gwilhaire's treed borders forced him to rely on the youth's lead. The wind in his face playing errantly with his yellow curls, Ayron waited for the call to resume their directionless journey. What reached his ears was the unsettling clatter of tumbling rocks.
"You hear that, Losther?"
"Way before you did.” Garrich was already on his feet scanning for the source of the commotion thanks to his superb sight and hearing, comparable to Elven senses. His roving eyes quickly searched out a minor rockslide 1,000 feet upslope away on the left.
Ayron picked it out too. “We in any danger of getting caught in a landslip?'
"I think falling rocks are the least of our worries,” forecast Garrich. The slip itself was not making him nervous; the coherent way the airborne stones were forming into a conical pile did. As if an unseen force handpicked suitably contoured and sized shards, fitting the pieces together like a kitset model, the cone rapidly took shape, enlarging and sprouting four leg-like appendages. Suffused by a reddish aura of mystical energy gluing it together, the three-dimensional rubble jigsaw wobbled once before toppling over.
"This looks bad,” Ayron agreed in a concerned murmur.
That was an understatement.
The magically animated creature of stone squatting on the scree incline looked about ten feet in length from the blunt-snouted head to the tip of its short tapering tail. The implausible beast sprawled with its sturdy limbs canted outward from the sides to support the considerable weight of its blocky body. Hand-like feet tipped with claws of jagged obsidian gripped the gravel that spawned it, preventing the oddity from sliding downslope. A single beady orb of glowing red malice flashed where eyes should have been sited, beneath which beaked jaws opened and closed rhythmically.
"Any idea what that is?” queried Ayron, unwrapping and stringing his bow without waiting for substantiation.
"One of Omelchor's concoctions."
"What makes you think so?"
Marking the beast's ruby pinprick of light even from this distance, Garrich related, “Red is his preferred color."
Reaching for the cluster of arrows filling his quiver, the Forester eased out and nocked an iron-headed shaft, Illebard supplying Lothber
en and Janyle with traded Dwarf metals. Drawing back the bowstring, Ayron said as he aimed at the nightmarish living sculpture, “Losther, you planning to pull your sword anytime soon?"
Garrich grimaced, saying, “No point. Ever heard of a game called paper-scissors-rock? Tylar and I played it all the time. Unless you can come up with a giant sheet of parchment to wrap that lump of pebbles in, we might as well be spitting into the wind."
"Such eloquence,” muttered Ayron, holding off on firing. Even a wind-assisted shot at this range would drop a hundred yards short of the target. “Garrich, do you mind waving your arms about?"
The Goblin snorted. “Now you call me by my name, when you want me to lend a hand. I should be flattered."
"Don't. I intend using you as bait."
Figuring Omelchor's magically infused pet was gunning for him anyway, Garrich surrendered to the Elf's coaching, adlibbing in a shout, “Here doggie!"
Deaf as a snake, the prey's movement attracted the Rockhound. Orientating on the flapping Goblin, it hopped down the stony gradient in forty foot leaps and bounds like a giant petrified toad, its posture precluding any other type of locomotion.
Compensating for the bounding, Ayron drew a fresh bead on the speedily descending brute. Discharging his arrow, the bowman watched the flight hit its mark ahead of the Rockhound's shoulder hump. The yew shaft snapped and splintered from the forceful impact, the deflected arrowhead not even chipping the monster's stone hide.
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