D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch

by Robin Wayne Bailey

  Garett knew it was over when Guardian lost its glow. He and Burge crept forward again and peered down at the body of a human man. He was fully armed and armored, save for a helm, obviously a soldier, though his garments were all of black and devoid of any rank or insignia that might have revealed his origin.

  “Good shot,” Blossom muttered over her shoulder to Rudi. “You aim for a black bird and bag us some turkey.”

  “It’s not the sewers!” Garett shouted with sudden understanding. “It’s the birds! The damned birds!” He glanced up at the sky. Hundreds of black, moon-frosted shapes winged over the Garden Wall. He could hear them now, hear their high-pitched cries and screeches.

  “You were right, Cap’n!” Burge cried, running to his horse and swinging into the saddle. “It’s an invasion, all right.”

  “Congratulations,” Blossom added with her usual sarcasm as she handed Garett his reins.

  They raced off toward the Garden Gate, but the closer they came to the Processional, the thicker were the crowds that impeded them. “Out of the way!” Garett called uselessly. Few heard or paid any attention. He pushed a man roughly out of the way with his boot. “Move! ” he shouted. “Clear the way!”

  At the Garden Gate, Garett stopped and shouted to the six watchmen on sentry duty. “Close the gates!” he ordered. No civilians to go through. We’re under attack!” With his comrades close behind, Garett rode under the wall’s high arch and paused only long enough to make sure the guards carried out his orders. Even as four of the guards labored to push the heavy doors shut, celebrants protested and tried to force their way into the Garden Quarter. Likewise, some of those already on the north side of the gate looked around in alarm when they saw the great doors closing.

  “Get off the streets!” Garett shouted to them.

  But Blossom steered her horse to the fore, her blond hair flying in a sudden gust of wind. She brandished her sword. “Or, if you’re men enough, take up weapons!” she cried. “The Hierarchs have come to Greyhawk. Show them a fight!”

  “Black uniforms!” Burge shouted, raising his own sword. “Know them by black uniforms!”

  The music and the dancing went on. Only a few seemed to hear the warning, and they stared back dumbly, as if it were all somehow part of the festivities. Garett wasted no more time. He lashed out with the ends of his reins, cursing loudly, to drive the mob aside. Yelling and screaming curses, Rudi, Blossom, and Burge came after him.

  Then a chorus of cries rose over the music, and a surge of human flesh came sweeping south down the Processional. Garett gave out with another curse as he saw the panicked faces that rushed for the closed gate. He grabbed the nearest man by the collar and lifted the frightened fool half off his feet as he bent down from the saddle. ‘‘What is it, man! Tell me!” he demanded.

  The man’s eyes were fear-widened. He stuttered to get his words out. “Fighting in the High Market!” he managed. “I saw it! Birds! Birds!” He struck at Garett’s hand and twisted suddenly, freeing himself, and he disappeared in the crowd.

  Now the panic was spreading. The songs and cheers that filled the night turned to screams and shrieking. A wave of men and women crashed against the Garden Gate, crying to be let out as more and more people came running down the Processional and the side streets emptied. It was no use trying to hold them all back, he saw, so he raised an arm and signaled the guards to let them through.

  Turning his horse, he rode up the Processional. The clang and clamor of battle soared on the night as a force of black-clad warriors clashed with garrison troops. A dark figure ran into his path suddenly, startling Garett’s horse. As the animal reared, the figure raised a sword to strike. In almost the same instant, an arrow sprouted from his chest. The sword tumbled from numbed fingers, and the warrior fell.

  “Thanks! ” Garett shouted as Rudi nocked another arrow and held it ready on the string.

  In the market square, a tent suddenly went up in flames. Revealed in the fire’s glow, scores of birds landed and began to transform. Garett cursed and whipped his steed up the Processional and onto High Street. In the shadows of the gardens and groves on either side of the fine road, birds settled to the ground and began to metamorphose.

  The fighting had already come to the mayor’s house. Garrison troops, stationed there to guard Ellon Thigpen, thanks to Garett’s warning, fought furiously against greater numbers. Already the street was slick with blood. Garett drew Guardian from its sheath. It radiated a dull emerald glow that cast an eerie light upon his face. At full speed, he rode his mount into the rear line of black warriors, smashing them aside as he lashed out to the left with his sword. The downward stroke made a green streak through the air as he cut through the nearest foe.

  Then Burge was beside him, swinging his own blade. A warrior rushed up on the half-elf s left side. Burge brought his foot out of the stirrup and crushed the soldier’s face with a solid kick.

  Blossom and Rudi charged through the line side by side, riding over black-clads, trampling them. A figure flew through the air and swept Blossom from the saddle. With a cry, she went falling. Almost immediately, though, she rose, tall and beautiful and full of rage. She gripped her sword in both hands and swung it right and left as if it were a scythe and the street a field of black wheat.

  Rudi wheeled his horse about, knocking a pair of soldiers over with the beast’s powerful shoulders. He flung his bow over his back and jumped down, abandoning his mount, then fought his way to Blossom’s side. Together, they cut a bloody swath to the marble porch of the mayor’s house.

  Garett did his best to rally the garrison soldiers. He estimated their number at twenty. Twenty plus the four of them, against unknown scores. From the corner of his eye he saw a black-clad kick a soldier in the stomach and raise his sword for a deathblow as the man sagged. Without thinking, Garett ripped the throwing star from his left arm band and let fly. It caught the black-clad forcefully in the side of the throat, and blood fountained.

  “Nice!” said a voice just behind him.

  Garett risked a glance over his shoulder. It was another garrison soldier, a sergeant. As he watched, the man blocked an attack with his blade and quickly sidestepped to smash a black warrior’s nose with his sword pommel. Instantly, he followed through with a fatal thrust.

  “"You’re not bad, either, Sergeant!” Garett complimented, turning to face his own foe. They traded a swift exchange of strokes. A sudden thrust passed just under Garett’s right arm as he leaned away from it. He brought his foot up with all his speed and might into the foe’s groin and brought Guardian whistling down. “Look me up if you ever want a job in the watch,” he added as the sergeant whirled around and they blocked a pair of blows together.

  “You must be Garett Starlen,” the soldier said. “I hear you’re always trying to recruit from the cream of the garrison. We train ’em, and you take ’em away!” He dropped downward almost to one knee and chopped unexpectedly at his foe’s unprotected shin. The black-clad screamed as the blade went to the bone. The sergeant thrust upward, slamming his point under the chin to silence the scream.

  “Is the mayor still inside?” Garett demanded when he had breathing space.

  “We moved him to the Citadel earlier tonight,” the sergeant answered, wiping his forehead with the back of a sleeve. “It’s the safest place.”

  “Not from birds that can fly over any wall or through any window!” Garett shouted back. “Let’s not waste lives defending this place then. Run for the Citadel!”

  Garett turned and ran along the west side of the estate, calling to Blossom and Rudi as he went past the corner of the porch. Burge and the sergeant were close behind, followed by those few garrison troops who were able to disengage. Through a grove of lemon trees they raced, and over an open lawn. A low ridge rose before them. Scrambling up it, they emerged in another garden and finally into Wizard’s Row.

  At the end of the road, the broken tower of the wizards’ guildhall loomed against the night sky. On either
side of it, Kule and Raenei floated, burning and full, pouring silvery light upon the world. Necropolis! Garett thought with a silent curse. Nothing seemed more evil to him than those two full moons and that dark ruin of a tower.

  “They’re coming up the ridge!” Burge warned, looking back over his shoulder.

  Garett could .see nothing, but then he didn’t have Burge’s elven eyesight. He led the way at a run, back toward the Processional. A pair of blue-cloaked night watchmen lay dead in the middle of the street, blood pooling rapidly around them. Garett bent down and snatched up one of their swords, and Burge took the other.

  Sounds of combat could still be heard from the High Market. The garrison troops must be holding their own there, Garett reasoned. He turned his party northward and raced for the Citadel. It was the strongest fortress in the city, and the seat of much of Greyhawk’s business and government. The city’s treasury was also secreted in vaults far below the barracks. It was natural that an enemy would try to take it.

  “Didn’t think there’d be so many, Cap’n,” Burge managed to shout as they ran up the Processional.

  Garett hadn’t expected it, either. A small force, he’d figured. Enough men to come through the sewers, maybe take a few key points and open the outer gates. He’d alerted gate posts for possible trouble, never guessing the trouble was already inside the city.

  Suddenly, the Processional was littered with bodies. Citizens, Garett realized. They were cut and bleeding. Not all were dead yet, and their groans and weeping were pitiful to hear. But Garett could not stop to offer comfort. The sounds of fighting he heard now came from the Grand Citadel, and it was terrible indeed.

  He rushed through the massive gates, which were halfclosed. Someone had tried to shut them, but too late. Black-clads were everywhere. So were garrison troops and watchmen. A few men fought naked, or in trousers only. Those were day-shifters who had been sleeping in the barracks when the fighting began. A couple of St. Cuthbert followers were also there, swinging their cudgels left and right with consummate fury. They called the name of their deity with every stroke.

  A sword came hurtling down out of the shadows at Garett’s head. Reflexively, he brought up both his swords in a classic cross-block and caught the descending blade. He kicked out, finding soft flesh, as he drew back with Guardian and thrust. He barely had time to look at the dead man before another warrior was upon him. Garett met the foe and fought intensely with every dirty trick he knew.

  A loud crack and the crashing of wooden timbers filled the air, rising even over the noise of the battle. Then another sound, a new tumult of voices, caused Garett to turn and stare toward the Citadel’s gate.

  Led by watchmen and garrison soldiers, the citizens of Greyhawk surged into the courtyard. They attacked with knives, clubs, rakes, and shovels, with heavy skillets and broom handles. Watchmen fought alongside known thieves, and soldiers beside prostitutes. Yes, even the women fought to defend their city. A huge Rhennee bargeman grabbed a black-clad, lifted him overhead, and flung him with bone-cracking might against the battle wall. An old woman from Old Town flung herself, weaponless, onto the back of another warrior and gouged his eyes as she shrieked with anger.

  The tide of battle turned against the black-clad army. The people of Greyhawk forced them to the walls and butchered them mercilessly, and the courtyard ran with blood.

  It was then, in their moment of victory, that Garett felt the ground tremble ominously under his feet and Guardian began to shine like a star. His heart thundered with renewed fear. Desperately he turned, raising the enchanted sword high as he sought the source of the powerful magic.

  And somehow, through the light of his sword, he saw Kentellen Mar high on the Citadel’s roof, his arms outspread as the wind swept through his hair and lashed his robes. A fiery energy surrounded him, an energy that rushed down and stabbed into the heart of the earth itself.

  Garett ran to the Citadel’s entrance. The doors were sealed. No amount of tugging or pulling would budge them. On impulse, he stood back and struck at them with Guardian. Emerald light flared, and the blade passed through the wood as if it were vapor. When Garett tried the doors again, they opened at his touch.

  A mighty wind swirled suddenly around him and swept into the Citadel, extinguishing every torch, every lamp or candle or lantern, leaving darkness in its wake. Utter, frightened darkness. But Garett was not frightened. With Guardian’s light to guide him, he went inside to confront Kentellen Mar.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Garett raced headlong through the corridors of the

  Citadel. Not a lamp burned anyplace. But for the

  light of Guardian, he would have been lost and helpless in the absolute dark. Up a flight of stairs he ran, taking them two at a time, and up another flight. Through the stone tiles under his feet he felt the tremors that threatened the city. Tiny streamers of plaster dust cascaded in delicate plumes from the ceiling. He did his best to ignore it all, thinking only of Kentellen Mar.

  Higher and higher he went until he came to a wall and a ladder. At the top of the ladder was a trapdoor that opened to the Citadel’s roof. He climbed the rungs and set his hand against the door. He hesitated for only a moment, then pushed it open and sprang out.

  The two moons, Kule and Raenei, burned spectacularly in the heavens, huge and bloated, more frightening than beautiful as they bled their gleaming light onto the rooftop. They hung poised over the Citadel, like eyes dispassionately watching the battle.

  The wizard stood with his back to Garett at the edge of the roof, before a low parapet, his arms high, his hands working mysterious gestures as he wove a cone of energy. The wind blew fiercely at this height. It snatched Garett’s cloak and nearly flung him back into the hole from which he’d emerged. He crouched lower against the gusts.

  The energy cone rippled suddenly, and coruscating lines of red-orange force lanced groundward. The Citadel gave a violent shudder, and the sound of screaming rose from far below.

  Kentellen’s wide back presented itself. This was no time to think of honor, Garett told himself, not with a city at stake. He ripped his last throwing star free and hurled it with all his strength. Even as he let fly, a blast of wind caught his arm, and he knew he had missed his mark. The wizard gave a cry of pain and surprise, and lurched forward, clutching at the missile as it sank deep just under his right shoulder blade. With another loud moan, he sagged down onto one knee, and the cone of power dissolved.

  Only then did Garett see Ellon Thigpen, bound hand and foot, gagged, bared to the waist. The mayor lay stretched precariously upon the parapet. He dared not even squirm for fear of falling over the side to the earth far below. Wide-eyed, he shot a look of terror at Garett. The wizard clutched at Ellon’s arm as he hauled himself to his feet and turned.

  “Heirarch!” Garett shouted furiously, moving forward, raising Guardian to strike. It was not Kentellen Mar, he told himself. Kentellen could not have lived so many years among the people of Greyhawk and kept this kind of power hidden. Nor even if he had gone to the Shield Lands could he have learned so much during his time away. Whoever this man was, he had to be one of the great masters of the Horned Society.

  The wizard’s mouth opened in a snarl. He flung out his hand, and a stream of fire leaped across the roof. Garett hurled himself aside to avoid its searing heat, rolled, and came to his feet again. He gripped Guardian in both hands and ran forward. The wizard’s brows knitted together in a hateful glare, and Garett bounced painfully off some invisible wall. The air rushed out of his lungs as he fell backward. Guardian clattered across the rooftop, out of his reach.

  Something darted out of the shadows. Cavel! Garett had forgotten the little blond child. The boy snatched up the blade and aimed a blow at Garett head. As he did, he opened his small mouth, and the shrill, high-pitched cry that issued forth was nothing human. The cry was of a savage, angry bird.

  Garett rolled aside, dodging the stroke, and scrambled to his feet. As the child delivered a second blow,
Garett caught his hands and jerked Guardian from his grasp, reclaiming the sword as his own. In an instant, Cavel was on him, scratching and clawing, screeching that unnatural sound. Somehow, the boy got his legs wrapped around Garett’s waist. His young fists thundered and beat at Garett’s face.

  A red haze of pain flooded Garett’s thoughts. Enraged, he flung the boy across the roof and turned again to advance on the wizard.

  “Heirarch!” he called again in challenge. Again the invisible wall held him back, but this time Garett raised Guardian above his head and sliced downward through the restraining force. The sword flared, and a greenish rift formed in the air, then faded. The barrier gone, Garett advanced again.

  “Stop! ” the wizard called, placing a hand on the chest of Ellon Thigpen. “Or this fool goes plummeting over the side!”

  The mayor stared in horror at Garett and shook his head frantically. Garett debated within himself, but he stopped, his sword still held at the ready.

  The wizard turned only slightly away, grimacing with pain from the throwing star still deep in his shoulder. He mastered himself, though, and drew erect. Keeping one hand on the mayor, he made a gesture with the other and shouted some foreign word into the wind. Just beyond the parapet, the strange cone of energy began to swirl again.

  “If I can’t rule this city,” the wizard snarled at Garett, “then I’ll destroy it!”

  “You’ve made a good start already!” Garett cried over the rush of the wind, trying to distract the wizard from his work. “First, it was the seers, because their powers might have detected your coming!”

  The man who looked like Kentellen Mar threw back his head and laughed, but the laughter was tinged with pain as he winced suddenly. “Yes, the seers!” he barked. “I was very creative there, striking at them through their own scrying devices!”