James Ward: The Paladins

"What have I done?" Noph wept, rocking his silent friend, back and forth. The warrior's eyes stared lifelessly. "He saved me. I would have died if he hadn't pushed me down." Tears streamed down his face. "Does he have parents? Someone will have to tell them. I should go back now… to tell them, I mean. No one should die in the darkness like this. Can I take him up and bury him in the sun? We can't just leave him here. What are we going to do? What am I going…"

"Noph, you're babbling," said Trandon. "Get up!"

Miltiades knelt down next to Noph and shut Harloon's lids. "He died well, Freeman Kastonoph, but we must move on."

Noph looked up at the paladin, shocked. "And just leave him here?"

"Indeed. The quest must continue."

The boy began to sob through his words. "Harl worshiped you, as well as Tyr! He gave his-his life for me and-and you expect me to walk away from him-leave him here? Is that some kind of-of honor?"

Miltiades stood erect and looked down severely upon Noph. "Foolish youngling, we have all lost friends- friends whom we have known for years. If Harloon died saving you, honor him by finishing what he started."

"But we can't just leave him here!" protested Noph. "We can't!"

"There will be time to mourn him when the quest is completed," said Kern. "Come on, Noph. Be strong."

"I don't want to be strong! My friend is dead!"

"I have an idea," Aleena intervened. She knelt next to Noph and stroked his hair. "I have an idea, Noph. Let's put him in the boat, set it on fire, and send it down the river. He would have liked that."

Noph looked into her eyes with a mixture of adoration and tears but did not speak.

"Freeman Kastonoph, he saved your life," said Miltiades. "If you honor Harloon, then justify his death by completing his quest."

Kern and Aleena helped Noph up. "After we finish rescuing Lady Eidola, I'll introduce you to Harloon's parents," the red-haired paladin offered. "They're merchant folk. You'll like them."

Able delivered a prayer for Harloon's quick passage to the Seven Heavens while the paladins chanted. Trandon and Jacob poured oil over the boat. Aleena drew a candle from her pack, anchored it in the floor of the boat, surrounded by the black oil, and carefully lit it. They launched the craft with Harloon resting at the stern, one hand on the tiller, the other on his warhammer. Aleena cast a spell as it drifted away, and the tiny flame of the candle flared brightly, touching off the oil. With a whoosh, flames swept over the vessel and its noble occupant.

Noph stood silently gazing at the flames. How could the paladins claim to be men of goodness and light, and abandon their fallen? he wondered. They didn't deserve Harloon, who would never let them down!

When the light of the bier had disappeared around the bend, Noph looked down at his feet and spied the coil of rope, barely noticing that it had magically wound itself up.

"Can I have this-to keep in memory of Harloon?"

Aleena waved her hand over the rope. "I detect no harmful energies," she said. "If no one minds, I think it'd be fine for you to keep it." The rest nodded assent.

Jacob and Trandon moved to the point position as the party prepared to move into the caves of Undermountain with only a fragment of map to show the way. Miltiades walked next to Noph.

"Freeman Kastonoph, you fought passably well in your first combat. I salute your courage. However, we are likely to be tested again before we complete our quest, and more may die. We will not have time to treat others as we did Harloon. Grieving is appropriate, but we must mourn after the quest is completed."

"Yes, sir." Pretentious bastard!

"Let's get moving," said Kern. "The princess awaits."

"She's not a princess!" insisted Aleena.

In the darkness ahead, the laughter burst forth again.

Interlude 4

When you lose control of the situation, just keep lashing out until you feel important again.

"Rejik, keep those manes under control!" "I can't help it. The reflections keep trying to attack each other."

The vrocks stood between two massive groups of lesser fiends, all jostling roughly amongst themselves; inarticulate obscenities echoed through the corridors around them. Hundreds of manes-bloated little creatures with pointed ears and noses, and spindly stalks of wiry hair growing from the backs of their heads- spread out of sight, filling the corridors of Undermountain with a horrendous din. Tiny slugs and leeches crawled under their colorless, fatty folds of skin as they jabbered incoherently and scratched at each other. Their pale, bulbous eyes seeped with yellowish, poisonous pus, which they wiped on their gnarled claws while they quibbled. To the other side stood dozens of brutish bar-lgura, looking like gigantic orangutans with savage lower fangs, surveying the army around them and shaking their heads balefully. They seemed to shimmer and blend with the stone walls beside them, as though they would disappear if they remained still.

Shaakat and Rejik cackled at their own ingenuity. The power required to beckon and command so many denizens of their cruel, chaotic native plane would have required weeks of exhausting work, but in Undermountain thanks to the power of a magical mirror they had found, they only needed to perform a summoning once for each type, lowly mane and sturdy bar-lgura. The floor-length glass lay embedded within the stone wall of a rough cavern, not far from the gate to the Utter East. Unadorned by any frame and unremarkable until the vrocks wandered within its radius of reflection, the device conjured perfect copies of the fiendish beings summoned by the vrocks. Now, instead of expending energy to muster troops, they labored magically to keep them from attacking everything in sight, especially each other.

"If the bloodforge can create obedient soldiers like the mirror creates berserk fiends, nothing can stop us," thought Rejik.

"Now you think like a true tanar'ri," returned Shaakat. "Now General Raachaak'll have to deal with us! Come! Let us lead these miserable troops to glory and power."

The vrocks flexed their telepathic powers. The manes squealed in protest, like a host of butchered pigs, but they turned and crowded after the vulturelike master tanar'ri, pushing and shoving. The barlgura frowned at the irresistible orders and grouchily complied, blending in with the screaming horde. In a river of shrill chaos, the fiends rushed toward the gate to the Utter East. They flowed into the terminal cavern and pooled around the two evil leaders, who ascended the platform and stood before the gleaming aperture. For a moment, the masses fell silent, instinctively bracing for a surprise attack.

"Victory!" cried the vrocks together as they strode through the archway… and to the other side of the platform, without teleporting anywhere.

"Passworded!" snarled Shaakat in sudden fury. "The gate is passworded!"

His rage swept over the troops, who promptly dissolved into anarchy. They turned and charged out of the chamber, surging into the corridors of Undermountain, shrieking madly as they fled. A party of wandering drow, who had been approaching stealthily to investigate the disturbance, suddenly found itself overrun by the rampaging manes. The dark elves desperately tried to escape, then to defend themselves from the murderous throng, but died screaming. And the stampede continued.

"We've been going east for hours, now," groaned Noph. "We've got to be close!"

The party stripped off their backpacks and sat in a cavern with just enough floor and head space to accommodate the seven of them. Its smooth limestone surfaces, streaked with strands of burgundy and brown blended like pools of color, spilling and swirling together. The rock gracefully bent and turned at right angles, creating natural seats for the weary heroes. Irregular rifts in the walls and ceiling led in every direction, but three large passageways branched off from the chamber-one to the southwest, from which they'd come, one to the southeast, and the third due east. A distant cacophony rumbled in from the passage to the east, perhaps a crowd of creatures or the rush of the sea.