by A. Giannetti
“Have they guessed that Durio is behind the stone?” wondered Elerian to himself. “Surely, it will not be much longer before they go up to investigate.”
The sound of soft, evil voices attracted his attention. Moving quietly from tree to tree, making no more noise than a shadow would, Elerian drew closer to the source of the voices. His greatest concern now was the surviving canigrae. Being invisible would provide no defense against their keen noses.
Less than a hundred feet from the edge of the wood, Elerian found two Mordi standing together beneath a great oak tree. The five surviving canigrae lay on the ground nearby, red tongues lolling over long white teeth, crimson eyes burning in the darkness. Luckily for Elerian, the night breeze carried his scent away from them. They did not sense his presence although he was barely twenty feet away from them.
The two Mordi, who had a look of authority about them, were arguing quietly. Elerian guessed that one was the captain of the troop, for he seemed much older than the second Goblin.
“How can you be sure the monster is behind the stone, Morghie?” asked the younger Goblin softly. Anger was evident in his pale face, and red sparks floated in the back of his dark eyes.
“Don’t be a fool, Gorfo,” replied the Goblin named Morghie. “Either the Dwarf or the human is a mage. They carried the changeling behind the stone with a spell of some kind. I once saw an Uruc do something similar.”
“We should still investigate,” said Gorfo heatedly. “Even if the changeling is there, he must be dead by now. He took in enough poison from our spear points to kill him ten times over.”
“He is not like other beasts,” cautioned Morghie. “He was fashioned with potent spells to be a powerful weapon for our Dark King. I will not risk approaching the stone until I am certain the creature is dead. There is also the matter of his companions. Before we left Calenus, I heard rumors that a Dwarf and a human slave had escaped from Nefandus after wounding the old guardian of the mines. If this is the same pair of escaped slaves, they are extremely dangerous. It makes more sense to wait until they come out into the open. If we cannot kill them with our arrows, we can follow them until you bring help.
“And if you happen to kill them while I am gone, what is to stop you from taking all the credit for their deaths?” asked Gorfo suspiciously.
Stepping one long stride back from Gorfo, Morghie suddenly drew a long black bladed knife with a whisper of steel on leather
“Go for help or go yourself to see what is behind the stone. It is all the same to me, Gorfo,” hissed Morghie impatiently. “Do something or I swear the company will feast on your flesh tonight.”
Neither prospect seemed to appeal to Gorfo who no longer seemed disposed to argue. He began to shed all his gear except for his long knife.
“I will go but I want a share of the credit for their death or capture,” he said sullenly, staying well out of reach of Morghie’s knife.
“Take all the credit you want,” said Morghie indifferently. “Just make sure you return with Sargon as quickly as you can. The Urucs are more than welcome to deal with whatever is behind that rock.”
“They seemed ordinary enough to me when we fought them,” said Gorfo resentfully as he prepared to depart.
“I can’t let him leave,” thought Elerian grimly to himself as the conversation between the two Goblins ended. “As soon as they find out about Ascilius and me in Calenus, the hunt for us will be on in earnest.”
He raised his bow and in the space of a heartbeat, both Mordi fell to the ground, gray feathered arrows protruding from their throats.
“Do not miss now,” Elerian cautioned himself as he unleashed a deadly hail of arrows at the startled canigrae. None of the beasts reached the surrounding forest. Each dropped in its tracks with a gray feathered shaft through its dark heart or throat.
“Now for the rest,” thought Elerian to himself as he hid his bow and quiver, with its last remaining arrow, behind a tree root. Drawing his long knife in his right hand, he set off up the hill, hesitating when he came in sight of the remaining Mordi. They were a formidable group for one person to attack by himself. All of them were within sight of each other, and he knew from past experience that their senses and wood craft were almost as good as his own. He might kill one or two of them, but once alerted, the rest would fill him with arrows, invisible or not.
“I must panic them,” thought Elerian to himself, and in spite of the danger, a smile crossed his face.
The Mordi were nervous, starting at every sound. Obviously, they were not sure that Durio was dead. Behind their backs, Elerian cast an illusion over himself, giving himself the semblance of a great bear, before sending away his ring. Visible now, he roared in imitation of Durio, and his voice, amplified by the spell, made the leaves overhead tremble. The fearsome sound caused all of the Goblins to start violently. When they looked behind them in Elerian’s direction, their pale faces turned paler yet and panic filled their dark eyes when they saw the form of their ancient enemy rearing up on two legs behind them, seemingly recovered from all the deadly poison that they had introduced into his body. In the twinkling of an eye, they abandoned their posts. Parting around Elerian like a swift flowing stream around a great boulder, they fled down the hill in great bounding leaps, their feet seeming to spurn contact with the ground.
This was exactly what Elerian had hoped for. He should have put on his ring now. Pursuing the Goblins safe behind the protection of the ring’s invisibility spell, he could have safely picked them off one by one. The sight of his fleeing enemies, however, drove that commonsense course of action out of Elerian’s mind. Their wide, staring eyes and panic filled faces woke the spirit of mischief that was never far beneath the surface of his mind. Maintaining his illusion, like a moth drawn to a flame, Elerian set off after the fleeing Goblins, determined to have some sport with them. Feet falling lightly and swiftly on the ferns and leaves that covered the ground, he pursued his enemies. Soon, he was on their heels, roaring and pretending to swipe at them with his great paws, urging them to even greater speed. Their panicked shrieks, their frantic leaps to escape his illusory claws, and the sight of their eyes, like small white saucers when they looked over their shoulders, filled him with delight.
Suddenly, the crowd of Mordi in front of Elerian, who up to now had run in a fairly tight pack, split apart, one group veering left and one right. Momentarily confused by the maneuver, Elerian slowed and started to return to his senses, but it was too late. The ground beneath his feet writhed, and strong cords rose up like snakes, tightening around him like live things. With his third eye, Elerian saw that each thick strand of the net wrapping itself around him was covered by a red film of light, clear evidence of the spell which animated it.
“Fool,” Elerian silently blasted himself. “They led you right into a trap.”
More annoyed than frightened, he ended his illusion, but before he could cast a spell that would release him from the enchanted net that held him, four Goblins, left behind to tend the trap, appeared like ghosts from behind the trees around him, surrounding him with drawn bows.
Elerian heard the deadly hiss of released arrows and cast a shield spell barely in time to deflect the missiles. With his attention on the shield spell, the net continued to tighten around him, binding his arms, constricting his chest so that he could not breathe, and wrapping around his throat to choke him. Other Goblins, likely some of those he had pursued, appeared out of the forest and joined the others.
“Clever creatures,” thought Elerian, admiring the cunning of his enemies despite the desperate situation he found himself in. “If I maintain the shield spell to repel their arrows, I will eventually weaken, and the net will kill me. If I end my shield spell to cast a different spell to free myself from the net, their arrows will find me before I can escape.”
One nick would suffice to kill him. Elerian’s sharp eyes had already noticed that some of the arrow points were smeared with poison. It was more than likely that the net he wa
s caught in had originally been set up to catch Durio. Certainly, the weighty strands were strong enough to hold the powerful changeling.
A red haze appeared before Elerian’s eyes. He felt himself growing lightheaded from fighting the net, which was leaching away his own power to fuel the spell that animated it. Elerian knew that it was time to escape the net or die, for death was not far away from him now. Ending his shield spell, he opened his mouth. A golden orb of light shot out, growing and spreading until every cord of the net became inactive beneath a film of golden light.
“Useless,” thought Elerian to himself. “The arrows of the Mordi are doubtless already on their way.”
He lay helpless on the quiescent coils, too weak to do anything except brace his body to receive the arrows of the Goblins, but the expected volley never came. Instead, a wild, deep-throated battle cry split the air, and all the Goblins looked up in surprise as Ascilius rushed out of the trees, ax in hand. They shifted their arrows to the Dwarf, but before they could release them, a thunderous roar broke out behind them. Durio burst into their midst like a thunderclap, crushing them to the ground with his enormous paws. Ascilius rushed up to help him, dealing out two handed blows left and right with his ax. The remaining Mordi fled, all except for one. Turning toward Elerian, long black bladed knife ready in his right hand, he seemed determined to account for at least one of his enemies before he ran off. Dark eyes gleaming with malice, he raised his knife to strike Elerian, who was still too spent to mount any defense.
There was a sudden, deadly hiss through the air, and the Goblin blinked in disbelief as his hand and knife fell to the ground, sheared off by Ascilius’s ax. The Mordi gave a strangled cry as Ascilius, a red gleam in the back of his dark eyes, dropped his ax and seized him by the throat, throttling him with his powerful hands. The Dwarf only released his grip when Elerian, who had recovered enough by then to stand and remove himself from the reach of the net, spoke from beside him.
“I think you can let him go now Ascilius,” said Elerian dryly.
At the sound of Elerian’s voice, Ascilius returned to his senses. Flinging the body of the Mordi to the ground, he turned toward Elerian. There was a bloodthirsty look on his face, and a wild gleam in his dark eyes that would have sent a chill through any live Goblin unlucky enough to cross his path. His eyes darted around as if hoping there were still one or two live Goblins he might have overlooked, but he and Elerian were alone. The remaining Mordi were gone. Durio, too, had vanished.
“Lucky for you that Durio felt better and we decided to follow you,” Ascilius admonished Elerian.
“Whatever do you mean? I had everything well in hand,” said Elerian with a straight face. “In another moment, I would have dealt the Goblins myself.”
“What!” shouted Ascilius, outraged. “Without our timely assistance, the Mordi would, even now, be carving you into pieces for their dinner.” He would have gone on, but just then, he saw the gleam of laughter in Elerian’s gray eyes. “You would indulge in your peculiar humor even on your death bed,” he said disapprovingly.
“More than likely,” agreed Elerian with a smile. “What shall we do with this Goblin net, Ascilius,” he asked in a more serious voice. “It will trap anything that touches it.”
“I will deal with it,” said Ascilius. He touched the forefinger of his right hand to one of the cords. It started instantly on fire, even as it tried to wrap itself around his hand. Leaving Ascilius’s fingers unscathed, red flames raced along the thick cords of the net, utterly consuming all they touched.
“This foul thing has taken its last victim,” said Ascilius in a satisfied voice.
A smug look crossed his craggy features when he saw the envious look on Elerian’s face, engendered by the sight of the magical fire.
“Perhaps you, too, will learn to master the red flames some day,” he said condescendingly.
Elerian let Ascilius have his moment of triumph.
“How did you and Durio happen to appear just when I needed you?” he asked curiously.
“After you left, Durio felt decidedly better, so I suggested that we follow you,” said Ascilius. “He was still a bit weak from the poison,” he said apologetically, “or we would have arrived sooner.”
“Believe me,” said Elerian sincerely, “I was quite happy to see you arrive when you did.”
“Your mad humor will be the death of you someday,” Ascilius could not help adding. He did not know the particulars, but he shrewdly guessed that some sort of mischief had led Elerian into the Goblins’ net.
“And your rashness will be the death of you,” Elerian shot back at once. “Where is Durio?”
“He is probably chasing the Mordi,” said Ascilius. “I would wager a wagonload of gold that not one of them will escape his wrath,” he said grimly. “In the meantime, we should dispose of these bodies. When these Wood Goblins fail to return to their camp, others may be sent out to find them.”
A quick search revealed a dry, rocky ravine nearby with no trees down at the bottom. Elerian helped Ascilius carry all the dead Goblins, their weapons, and the canigrae from the forest and from the hillside where the first battle was fought to the ravine. After helping Elerian recover his spent arrows from the bodies, Ascilius used his magical red flames to destroy the heaped up corpses and weapons.
When Ascilius extinguished the flames, all signs of the Goblins were gone. Even their metal weapons were unrecognizable lumps of melted metal. The floor and sides of the ravine, on the other hand, were unmarked and unheated, as Elerian discovered when he and Ascilius spread a layer of dead leaves over the place where the bodies had burned. Ascilius looked around the ravine in a satisfied manner.
“Once it rains, there will be little evidence of what happened here,” he said to Elerian as they set out for the bear’s cave, walking side by side.
“Other bands are certain to follow this one, though,” said Elerian thoughtfully. “Judging from a conversation that I overheard, they came with the intent of destroying Durio. I must warn him when he returns.”
“I guessed as much from the spears they carried,” said Ascilius. “Once Durio returns, we will leave. We are in danger as long as we remain near him.”
They returned to the summit of the hill and had breakfast, eating some of the food in their packs. Durio appeared at first light. A dim red light still burned in his eyes, and the fur around his massive jaws was wet and matted, soaked no doubt with Goblin blood.
“No one will ever know the fate of the Mordi who came to attack us,” he rumbled with satisfaction.
“Just the same, you are no longer safe here,” said Ascilius. “The Goblins have discovered where you live. Eventually, they will return. You should travel as far from this hill as you can.”
“I have other caves I can move my treasure to, although none as fine as this one,” said Durio sadly. “Before long, however, I fear there will be no more places where anyone who calls himself an enemy of the Goblins can consider himself safe. The Dark King’s preparations for war are almost complete, I think,” said Durio thoughtfully. “War is coming again to the Middle Realm.”
Remembering the vast store of weapons they had seen the Dwarf smiths forge over the years while they labored in the Goblins’ mines, Elerian and Ascilius were not inclined to disagree with Durio’s gloomy pronouncement. Ascilius felt a renewed desire to return home as quickly as possible.
“Better to say our goodbyes and be on our way,” he thought to himself. Before he could open his mouth, however, Durio spoke again.
“Before I move, I will accompany you for a time as I promised,” he rumbled.
Both Elerian and Ascilius were uncomfortable with Durio’s decision, but neither of them dared disagree, for a dim red light still flickered in the back of Durio’s small, dark eyes, a sign that the savage side of his nature was still near the surface. The two companions had witnessed firsthand the terrible consequences of the changeling’s anger, and neither of them wanted to chance rousing Durio�
�s wrath.
“Well then, let us be on our way,” said Ascilius with forced cheerfulness.
They set off, walking due east. Sometimes walking by their side and sometimes disappearing into the woods to reappear later, Durio accompanied them for a time. He proved to be a great help, for he knew all the surrounding countryside well, and from time to time, he suggested a change in their course to avoid some natural obstacle that would have delayed them.
When the sun neared its zenith, he approached the two companions and said, “My friends, I can go no farther. I do not like to leave my treasure unguarded for too long. I ask you again not to travel by way of Calenus.”
“We have no other way to go,” said Ascilius firmly. On this point, he was not inclined to give way, even at the risk of angering Durio. “We thank you for your help, and if we pass this way again, we will be sure to pay our respects.”
Ascilius then said something to Durio in his own language and to his surprise, Elerian heard Durio reply in the same tongue. Ascilius then walked away with Elerian following behind him. When they looked back over their shoulders, they saw Durio standing motionless, watching them through the trees. When he finally vanished from their sight, both companions could not help but feel a sense of relief, for Durio had proved a brave but dangerous companion.
“What did you say to him?” Elerian asked Ascilius.
“I said goodbye to him in the Dwarf tongue, and he answered me in the same language,” replied Ascilius. “I am more certain than ever that he was a Dwarf at one time.”
“He is certainly as reckless in battle as all the Dwarves that I am acquainted with,” said Elerian dryly.
Ascilius rose to the bait at once, and they quietly argued the matter as they made their way south through the ancient forests of the Broken Lands.
