Visions of Hell

The mighty horse stormed in, bravely bearing its rider toward the enemy leader. Bugbears stepped out to intercept the ride, but Temmerisa lowered its head and plowed straight through them, scattering them like falling leaves.

Temmerisa stumbled, the great horse's forelegs tangled in one falling creature. A trident, thrown from the concealing brush, entered Temmerisa's side, finishing the proud horse's charge. Down Temmerisa went, heavily, whinnying and thrashing from the poison that had tipped the devilish weapon.

Elbereth rolled free of the tangle and looked back in horror as his proud steed stilled.

When the elf prince looked around, he saw that his path was clear all the way to Ragnor.

"Come along, elf," the ogrillon spat, recognizing Elbereth from their earlier encounter. "I have beaten you before. This time I will kill you!" Just to spur his opponent on, Ragnor kicked the elven corpse at his feet.

For all his confidence, though, the ogrillon was shocked at the sheer wildness of Elbereth's ensuing charge. Elbereth's sword whipped and hacked furiously, cut in on Ragnor, then stubbornly came back in after the ogrillon barely managed to parry the first strike.

"I avenge my father!" Elbereth cried, slashing away.

Confident Ragnor smiled wickedly. The elf king was this one's father? What victories Ragnor would pile up this day!

Elbereth's furious assault went on and on; Ragnor's actions remained defensive. The ogrillon was a veteran of a thousand battles. He knew that this one's rage would play itself out and soon give way to exhaustion. Then it would be Ragnor's turn.

*****

By the time Cadderly got in sight of any of those doing battle, he had passed the scarred remains of the earlier fights. Blasted trees and bodies lay all about him. The cries of the dying seemed a macabre game of ventriloquism with too many bodies about for the young man to discern the source of any single cry.

One goblin grabbed his ankle as he passed. Instinct told him to fire his crossbow at the monster, but he realized that the goblin, blinded from a sword slash and near death, had grabbed him out of fear, with no thoughts of attacking. Cadderly pulled his leg free and stumbled away, having neither the courage to finish the creature, nor the time to tend its mortal wounds.

In the distance, another of the walking trees tumbled, buried under the bulk of a hundred monsters. Most of these creatures were already dead, tangled in strangling branches, but those that weren't hacked wildly at the fallen oak. An elf rushed to the tree's defense, taking down two orogs before he was buried by the others and ripped to pieces.

Cadderly didn't know which way to run or what to do. For the young scholar, who had lived his whole life in the sheltered and secure library, this was his vision of Hell.

He heard soft weeping in a nearby tree and saw Hammadeen in its boughs, her shoulders bobbing with her sobs.

Another groan came from a goblin dying in the shadows; another shriek split the air from somewhere in the unseen distance.

Cadderly ran on, circling the monsters still hacking at the fallen tree. He wanted to find a hole and hide in it, but he knew that to stop moving meant death.

He crossed through a tight copse of birch the birch tangle that he and the others had avoided on their way to Syldritch Trea, he assumed and came into a small field of chest-high blueberry bushes, dotted by occasional trees. Suddenly the fight was all about Cadderly. At the tree line across this small field, a force of goblinoids tried to penetrate the stiff defense of many elven archers, and in several places combatants rolled about in the blueberry bushes, altogether hidden from Cadderly's view.

He heard them, though, and saw the bushes tremble with the vicious fighting.

Cadderly worked his way through, went down a slope, and came around to the backside of a hill. There he froze, stunned by yet another sight. "Great Deneir," the stunned young priest muttered, hardly conscious that he had spoken. Cadderly had seen ogres before, and had nearly swooned at the size of the huge monsters. Now he saw his first giant, nearly twice the height of an ogre and, Cadderly would guess, ten times an ogre's weight. That made Cadderly, standing in its shadow, puny indeed!

Fortunately, the giant's back was to Cadderly and the creature was busy gathering rocks, probably to throw at the elves in the tree line. Cadderly would have been wise to walk past, but his reactions came from his terror.

He fired a dart into the giant's backside.

"Hey!" the monster roared, rubbing its burning buttocks and turning about. Cadderly, having realized his drastic error, had already taken flight and turned about just once to fire another dart. This one caught the monster squarely in the chest, but the giant hardly flinched at the explosion.

Cadderly put his head down and sprinted for the safety of the trees, hoping that no elf would mistake him for an orc and shoot him down.

He didn't look back again at the giant, guessing correctly that it had taken up the chase.

The giant laughed stupidly, thinking this human an easy catch. Its expression changed considerably when the two dwarven brothers popped up from the bushes beside it. One sliced into the back of the monster's hamstring with an axe; the other crushed the giant's kneecap with a club.

The giant veered and tumbled down, and the Bouldershoulders were atop it before it ever stopped bouncing.

"Nice high ground to make a stand," Ivan remarked to Pikel, burying his axe into the giant's neck.

"Oo oi!" Pikel heartily agreed, striking the giant on the back of the skull with his tree-trunk club.

"Was that Cadderly that came running by?" Ivan asked. Pikel looked to the dark trees and nodded.

"Good bait, that one!" Ivan roared. The conversation ended abruptly as a group of orogs crashed through the brush and charged at the exposed dwarves.

*****

A blinding flash ripped through the shadows. Cadderly heard several goblins squeal, then spotted the source of the lightning bolt, a familiar and welcome face.

"Tintagel!" he called, rushing to the elf wizard's side.

"Well met, young priest!" the blue-eyed elf replied sincerely. "Have you seen Elbereth?"

Cadderly shook his head. "I just came onto the field," he explained. "Dorigen is down." He displayed the rings he had taken from the wizard and the wand sticking from under his belt. "Might these be of - "

"Down!" Tintagel cried, pushing Cadderly aside as a spear narrowly missed them both. The elf threw out one hand and uttered a spell. Magical bolts of energy erupted from his fingertips, swerving unerringly through the trees and diving behind one large trunk. Out the other side fell a dead bugbear, its hairy body singed in several places from the magical attack.

"Elbereth," the wizard said again to Cadderly. "I must get to him, for it is said that he battles Ragnor!"

"He does," said a dryad's melodic voice to the side.

"Where are they?" Cadderly demanded, moving toward Hammadeen. The dryad shied back against the tree, and Cadderly suspected that she meant to vanish.

"Do not go, I beg," the young scholar pleaded, mellowing his voice so as not to frighten the skittish creature. "You must tell us, Hammadeen. The fate of Shilmista rests in your hands."

Hammadeen did not reply or move, and Cadderly had to look hard to sort her out from the tree bark.

"Coward!" Cadderly growled at her. "You claim to be a friend of the trees, but you will do nothing in their time of need!" he closed his eyes, then, concentrating on the tree hiding the dryad. Strange and marvelous emotions came over him as he attuned his senses to that tree, and he recognized the paths the tree had privately opened for Hammadeen's escape.

"No!" Cadderly growled, reaching for the tree with his thoughts.

To Cadderly's amazement, the dryad suddenly reappeared, looking back at the tree as though it had somehow betrayed her.

"They fight in the grove of beech, to the south and west and not so far," the dryad said to Tintagel. "Do you know the place?"

"I do," Tintagel replied, eyeing Cadderly sidelong. "What did you do?" he asked after the skittish dryad had fled.

Cadderly stood dumbfounded, having no idea of how he might reply.

The elf wizard, so very familiar with this forest, his home, conjured an image of the beech grove and recalled the words of another spell.

"Watch over me," he said to Cadderly, and the young scholar nodded, knowing that the wizard would be vulnerable while casting. Cadderly took one of the two remaining darts from his bandolier and cocked his crossbow.

A door of shimmering light, similar to the one Cadderly had seen Dorigen step through, appeared in front of Tintagel. Cadderly heard a familiar rustle as another nearby bugbear heaved a spear.

The young scholar spun around, picked out the target, crouching in some bushes, and fired, blasting the monster right out the back side of the brush. There was no joy in Cadderly, and his satisfaction was soon lost, for when he turned back, he found Tintagel slumping, the spear buried deep in his side.

Cadderly cried out to him, grabbed the elf close, and, having nowhere else to go, leaned forward, taking them both through the shimmering door.

*****

The giant groaned loudly, and Pikel broke away from his fight with an orog just long enough to smack the fallen behemoth on the back of the head. Seeing its opponent diverted, the orog tried to leap up onto the giant's back. Pikel's club caught it in midflight, dropping it back to the ground some distance away in a writhing heap.

The dwarves fought back-to-back, as they had atop the dead ogre in Dorigen's camp. Only now the dwarves were even higher, standing taller than the orogs they battled, and the evil creatures had a considerable climb in trying to get at their enemies. Half the orog band of ten lay dead beside the giant, and not one of the monsters had gotten close to standing beside the dwarves.

The brothers Bouldershoulder were truly enjoying themselves.

A commotion from the tree line made both dwarf and orog glance to the side. Out came Danica, running like the wind, a mixed group of orcs, goblins, and bugbears close behind. Two of the orogs broke away from their fight with the dwarves and moved to cut her off.

An arrow got one in the chest, a second arrow thudding in a split second later, just an inch from the first. The remaining orog made the mistake of looking to the side, to the elven maiden in the shadows of the tree line.

Feet first, Danica soared through the air, connecting with a double kick into the distracted orog's chest. It flew away, disappearing under the blueberry bushes, and did not reappear.

Danica was back up and running in an instant.

"I'll cut ye a path!" Ivan promised, and he leaped from the giant, right between two orogs. His axe whipped left and right, and his promise was quickly fulfilled.

"Good to see ye, Lady Danica," Ivan said, offering his gnarly hand. They went back up together, joining Pikel as he clobbered the last orog. New enemies were not far behind, but the mixed band of monsters found their ranks thinned as they charged. Arrows soared out from the tree line, scoring hit after hit.

"Shayleigh," Danica explained to the admiring dwarves.

"Glad she's on our side," Ivan remarked. Even as he spoke, another arrow soared out, hitting a goblin in the side of the head and dropping it dead on the spot.

"We cannot stay here for long," Danica told the brothers. "The area is in turmoil. Goblins and giants are everywhere, it seems!"

"How are the trees doing?" Ivan asked.

"Yeah," Pikel concurred excitedly.

"The trees have caused tremendous losses to our enemies," Danica answered. "But they are few, and fewer still since several have been brought down and several more battle the fires our enemies have started. The elves are scattered, and many, I fear, are dead."

"To the woods, then!" Ivan bellowed. He leaped down again and charged into the approaching host, swinging so ferociously that more monsters turned and fled than remained to fight him. Danica nearly laughed aloud, and she pulled out her daggers, whipped them into the nearest target, and charged down, Pikel going right beside her, to join Ivan.

They were back under the trees in minutes.

*****

Cadderly loaded his last explosive dart as he came through the other side of Tintagel's shimmering gate, carefully laying the wounded elf wizard at his side. He spotted Ragnor and Elbereth immediately, in the throes of a titanic struggle just a few yards away.

He spotted Galladel, too, dead in the dirt at their feet.

Cadderly had no doubts as to where he wanted to place this last dart, and told himself that he would feel no remorse for blowing a large hole in Ragnor's ugly face.

A charging bugbear changed Cadderly's plans.

The young scholar had no time to think of his movements, just swung about and popped the dart into the hairy monster's belly when it was only a stride away. The bugbear lurched violently and stumbled past, tumbling facedown in the dirt.

Cadderly looked to Tintagel, lying helpless and writhing in agony. He wanted to tend to the elf wizard, to get the spear out of Tintagel's side at least, but he saw clearly that Elbereth could not hold out against the powerful ogrillon.

"I vowed that I would die beside you," the young scholar whispered. He thought for a moment of searching his pack, of getting out the flask of Oil of Impact and trying to load another dart, but realized that he had no time. Reluctantly, Cadderly dropped his useless crossbow and took up his walking stick and spindle-disks, thinking them ridiculous against a foe as obviously powerful as Ragnor. He reiterated his vow to Elbereth one last time and charged in beside the elf prince.

"Why are you here?" Elbereth demanded breathlessly when Cadderly rushed up. The elf ducked a quick cut of Ragnor's heavy sword, one of the few offensive strikes the ogrillon had taken.

Cadderly understood immediately the course this fight had taken. Elbereth was plainly tired, couldn't even seem to catch his breath, and Ragnor showed a dozen nicks and scratches, none of them deep or serious.

"I said I would fight beside you," Cadderly replied. He stepped ahead, motioned with his walking stick, then threw out his spindle-disks. Ragnor blocked the attack with his forearm, curiously eyeing the strange but hardly effective weapon.

"You have powerful allies, elf prince," the ogrillon laughed derisively. Cadderly struck again with the spindle-disks, and the ogrillon didn't even bother to throw up his arm, taking the blow squarely on the chest and laughing all the while.

Then Elbereth came on wickedly, his fine sword darting to and fro, and sometimes straight ahead. Ragnor showed considerable respect for this weapon, and while the ogrillon was fully engaged, Cadderly grabbed his walking stick in both hands and connected on Ragnor's elbow.

The ogrillon winced in pain. "You will die slowly for that!" he promised Cadderly, while furiously parrying Elbereth's cunning cuts and slashes. "Slowly."

Cadderly looked to his weapons as if they had deceived him. He knew he couldn't really hurt Ragnor, no matter how clean his blow, but he knew, too, for Elbereth's sake, that he must try to play some important role in the battle.

He waited and watched the fight's ebb and flow, stayed back in the hopes that Ragnor would pay him even less attention over the next few moments.

If Ragnor was at all concerned about the young scholar, the ogrillon didn't show it.

Elbereth's blade spun in circles about Ragnor's, then poked ahead, into the ogrillon's arm. Ragnor growled, but if Elbereth was the faster swordsman, Ragnor was the tougher. The ogrillon went on the offensive, repeatedly hacking with his huge broadsword. He connected on Elbereth's shield, the sheer force of the blow splitting it and throwing Elbereth to the ground.

Cadderly knew he had to act then or watch the elf prince be cut apart. He dropped his walking stick to the ground and yelled wildly, taking two steps toward Ragnor and leaping onto the ogrillon's arm. The young scholar caught hold stubbornly, his arms about the ogrillon's neck and both of his legs locked tightly around one of Ragnor's.

Cadderly was neither a small man nor a weak one, but powerful Ragnor hardly swayed from his path toward the elf. The ogrillon glanced to the side incredulously, and Cadderly hung on for all his life.

Ragnor would have finished Cadderly then, except that Elbereth jumped back to his feet and wasted no time in returning to the attack. With Cadderly clutching and tugging and generally distracting Ragnor, Elbereth's cunning maneuvers scored even more hits.

"Off!" the ogrillon howled. He drove Elbereth back with a vicious flurry, then slipped his free arm around Cadderly's, breaking the young scholar's grip. Ragnor's strength was frightening indeed, and a moment later, Cadderly found himself flying through the air.