Dream (14 page)

“No.”

“Circle around him and check his back trail, I’ll check him. You two,” The Jinxman hissed over his shoulder. “Cover.”

Shield in position and a throwing knife in hand, Shad eased down the slope, trying to keep an eye on the man and everything around him at the same time, the infantryman’s eternal struggle for situational awareness.

Fred had been right, he saw as he closed to within twenty feet: the man was dead. Closing with more confidence, he sheathed the knife and knelt to examine the corpse.

“He was wounded quite a ways back,” Fred advised, stepping up. “Dragging steps and blood loss for a good hundred yards and more.”

Shad waved for the others to join them. “He was carrying these wounds for a lot longer than a hundred yards. Hasn’t been dead very long at all, an hour or less is my guess.”

“Guess or class knowledge?” Derek asked.

“Class. Looks like he’s a bravo: studded leather jack, empty sword scabbard, dagger, quiver of arrows.”

“The chest is moldy,” Jeff observed, easing the container from the dead man’s grasp. “Metalwork is rusty, too. I’m thinking he was running with loot.”

“Big problem, guys,” Derek used the knife he had been given in Wyrm to cut free a projectile lodged in the man’s quiver, and held it up: a foot-long shaft with thin leather streamers and a delicate flint head. “Elf shot.”

“What?” Shad frowned at the weapon.

“Elf shot. It’s a dart they throw.”

“He ripped off some Elves?”

“Yeah, the chest is moldy, and they live underground.” Seeing their confusion, Derek pressed on. “Look, these are not the cool Elves from Lord of the Rings, these are, well, the Elves of legend, the
Dökkálfar
. Only they’re real. They don’t like iron or steel, use only stone or bone, and they don’t like sunlight all that much, although they can handle it. They live in caves, not tunnels, and operate on the surface at night. Big-time raiders and slave-takers. They offer up most loot to dark worship.”

“Good choice in skills picking Humanoid Lore,” Shad examined the dart. “How tough are they?”

“No metal, so gear-wise they’re so-so, but they’re fierce and fearless. Thing is, they operate in small bands, rarely more than ten warriors.”

“What are you thinking?” Fred asked Shad.

“They’re small bands, and I bet this guy wasn’t alone. He’s got tar drops on his sleeve from a torch, and clay in the cracks of his boots. They’ve been raided once today, and I’m betting the bravos this guy was with did some damage. He’s got blood splatter on his armor and pants, and it doesn’t look Human. Derek, how are they for loot?”

“They raid a lot, and all metal goes to offerings, and their artwork and flint gear is valuable to collectors. Pretty good, I would say.” Derek’s gaming greed glowed in his eyes.

“What do you guys think? This is an opportunity. These Elves are bad guys, they’re weakened by the raid, and they’re likely to have loot. Plus we could use the XP-it’s a long haul to level four.”

“I dunno,” Jeff rubbed his mustache thoughtfully. “Up to now we’re been attacked, or rescuing someone. Kinda crossing a line, going in for loot and XP.”

“True,” Shad conceded. “On the other hand, they’re not Human, and they’re slavers. At least, as a group they are.”

“They’re definitely evil,” Derek pointed out. “Lotta Human sacrifice. They were the inspiration for the Drow in AD&D.”

“Would we hesitate if they were Goblins?” Fred asked. “I wouldn’t.”

“Good point,” Jeff conceded. “I’m still stuck in the gaming ‘
Elves are just people with pointy ears
’ thinking, I guess.”

“They’re not that,” Derek assured the Night-grifter.

“OK, are we agreed? Good. Jeff, sort out what we have here while Fred and I dig a grave. Derek, keep watch.”

“OK, we’ve got a couple Marks for the group fund, a decent dagger, and some arrows from the guy,” Jeff ticked off points on his fingers. “They never bothered to open the chest, which was full of business papers. It had gotten wet so they’re a pretty nasty mess, but from one dry one it looks like somebody was moving their records from the City-State to elsewhere. Plus fifty Marks in cash.”

“Great. Ten apiece, and ten to the kitty. A handy little bonus.” Shad stood up and shouldered his pack. “Here comes Fred.”

“Good clean trail,” the Barbarian advised them when he rejoined them. “I don’t know why they didn’t follow.”

“No point,” Derek shrugged. “Once the sun went down they would have found him. These guys make a habit out of wounding stuff just to see it suffer.”

“Man, you got a lot for two points,” Shad grinned.

“Let’s get there before dark,” Jeff checked his crossbow. “No point in giving them any advantages.”

“The opening is in the bushes to the east,” Fred whispered, crouching behind the boulders at the hill’s crest. “The display and the path are a deception.”

Shad studied the slope below them. A dozen posts were set in a sort of star pattern and connected by a web of chains. Hung from the chains were numerous skulls and decaying heads, mostly Human, but with a few others as well; three of the Human heads were obviously very fresh. A graveled path led from the poles to a cave mouth hung with vertebrae and rib cages.  

“How good are they in terms of woodcraft?” he whispered to Derek.

“So-so. But they see well in the dark, so all they need is tracking.”

“Are they disciplined? Likely to post guards?”

“They’re like Plains Indians: free warriors following a leader by choice.”

“So, no.” Shad turned to Fred. “Did the Bravos fall for the decoy entrance?”

“No.”

“The question will be, did the raid increase their security or make them complacent?” Shad muttered half to himself.

“Frontal assault either way you slice it,” Jeff shrugged. “Let’s just
doooo eeet
.”

“Derek, we’ll need your Light spell,” Shad decided, shrugging out of his pack. “Torches will be in the way.”

“I can do two for the cost of one missile,” Derek said. “Who gets the second one?”

“Jeff, since he’s point. Anything else? Let’s go”

The cave opening was six feet high and perhaps three wide, more a slit in the hillside than what Jeff would call a cave, well-screened by a stand of birch-like trees whose leaves had piled up into a thick carpet save for a narrow path to the cave mouth. The carpet was a layer of crisp leaves atop a couple inches of older, damp leaves moldering into compost, a jungle for beetles and fierce-looking brown ants.

Easing forward, pistol crossbow in his right and the enchanted Dwarven-forged dagger in his left, the shop teacher was forcibly reminded of an alley ambush in Iraq. For an instant be was back in the foul-smelling passageway as the AKs opened up from ahead and above, seeing Shad firing his under-barrel grenade launcher while Fred pounded away with his SAW and Derek dragged a small, wailing child to cover while blazing away blindly with his sidearm. Thirty long minutes to extract themselves from the kill zone and clear the shooters’ positions, thirty minutes in which they fired off all their ammo and everyone got banged up and filthy. In the end, all they had to show for it was some blood trails, mounds of expended brass, and a bloody abandoned Romanian AKM.

The kid’s mother had died, he remembered, caught in the crossfire. But for Derek’s courage and Fred’s suppressive fire the kid would have gotten it too. Eventually Derek had gotten a Bronze Star with a V device for that operation and Shad had been credited with a confirmed kill, but they had been back on patrol that afternoon. Life had been brutally simple in Iraq. Simple and cheap.

Slipping to the opening with more skill than he could have back home, he felt the tingle as Derek cast the Light Orb spell on him. Darting through and immediately to the side, Jeff caught movement and an impression of buckskin and fired, dropping his crossbow on its lanyard and drawing his sword-rapier.

His class skills brought the dagger up in time to parry a flint-topped spear thrusting at his belly; sliding his left foot back as he leaned into an instinctive riposte, he felt the blade slide through leather and then flesh. Then one of Shad’s throwing knives ended its improbable flight buried in the throat of his attacker and Jeff was up and moving.

In the clear hard light of the orb above his head he could see he was in a natural chamber about thirty feet across, with an exit hacked out of the stone in the far wall. Starting for the opening his foot struck something yielding, and at his feet he saw his first attacker: a lean being at least six two but wiry, clad in well-worn and clean buckskins decorated with beads, coins, and bones. Its face was vaguely Human, but the bone structure was high and harsh, with eyes that were twice the size of a man’s and completely blue-black. The ears that thrust out of the dark, fine hair looked like a bat’s, and its skin was dusky, no Human shade to it at all. The crossbow bolt standing out from between its eyes ensured that he did not need to wonder as to its combat status.

Ducking into the passage, Fred hard on his heels, the lean Night-grifter found himself in a narrow but tall passage that ran twenty feet into the hill before emerging into a high-ceilinged chamber, where the Elves were waiting for them.

Spotting the trip line Jeff nudged it with his sword and jumped back, colliding with Fred as a weighted log swung across the opening with enough force to shatter bone and pulp flesh.

Then he was in the chamber as darts rained at him, cursing as one tore a line of fire down his cheek and several others punched into his leather armor. The Elves were drawn up and ready mid-way across the chamber, and for an instant he wondered why they hadn’t positioned themselves further back, but only for an instant as he and Fred crashed into the fighting line.

A flint-topped spear punched through his armor and grated across his ribs in a savage stab of pain that made his knees weak as he parried another spear and opened its owner’s throat. Then Derek’s silver-blue bolts and Shad’s knives were coming in, and the press eased slightly.

His rapier-based fighting style was fast, but the Elves were at least as fast, and Jeff found himself parrying with both blades as a tall Elf wearing a headdress and wielding a sword of some sort and a leather shield squared off with him. 

The shield was only leather stretched across a wood frame, but it was tough leather, and twice his rapier failed to pierce it. Sweating and bleeding from several shallow cuts, Jeff parried and tried a low-thrust, slicing open his foe’s thigh, only to receive a hasty cut across his forearm in return. He was dimly aware that arrows had replaced Derek’s Magic Missiles, and that Fred had moved away from him, but he had his hands too completely full to pay any real attention.

He parried with his rapier and tried with his dagger, getting an inch of blade through the foe’s bone-reinforced shirt before the Elf nimbly dodged away. A hand grabbing the back of his neck made him jump, but two surges of healing washed over him, several wounds closing and their pain vanishing.

Pressing forward with a flurry of thrusts and ripostes, he drove the Elf back towards what he could now see was a sort of cross between a statue and a wall-carving which occupied the far end of the chamber, probably the shrine where they made sacrifices, he assumed from the stench of blood.

The chamber rang with the clatter of weapons and the screams of the dying, but Jeff remained focused on his bloodied foe. At the edge of the shrine area the Elf chose to make a stand and the two exchanged flurries of attack and counters in the space of several seconds that stripped both of wind and strength.

The healing he had received was telling, although he had picked up several more cuts since; the Elf was losing blood steadily, and from the sounds of it the rest of the Black Talons were winning. Focusing on the enemy’s weapon, the Night-grifter feinted left, thrust low with his rapier, and when the Elf’s dark blade delicately slid his attack aside, stepped in with all his weight behind his dagger.

A second too late the Elf slammed his shield into Jeff, knocking the wind out of him and breaking his grip on his dagger, but five inches of the latter’s blade were already planted in the Elf’s belly.

Giving ground, Jeff dodged and parried the Elf’s frenzied blows, each attack slightly slower and weaker than the preceding. Having gotten the dagger out, the Elf discarded his shield to clutch at the wound, his thin chest heaving for air.

The two faced each other, swords ready. Jeff reached back and drew the knife they gave him at Wrym, and seeing that, the Elf lunged forward in an all-out thrust. Twisting to the side as the long blade scraped across his armored side, steel rivets popping loose from the leather, Jeff lashed out with a hasty but powerful slash, sending the Elf staggering back, dark blood fountaining from the rent in the side of his neck.

“That’s that,” the shop teacher gasped.

“Man, I’m going to have nightmares about that place,” Shad slumped to a sitting position on the grass. “That…cult area looked like a cross between a butcher shop and the set of a direct-to-DVD gore flick.”

“And the
smell
,” Derek nodded tiredly.