T Lain - Plague of Ice

Regdar and Sonja slashed and bullied their way through the other gnolls in their effort to reach Lidda, who was completely at the gnoll priest’s mercy. Sonja leaped at the tall monster with her left hand held before her. When it passed before the gnoll’s face, it erupted with a brilliant flash of white. The blinded gnoll fell back away from Sonja’s flare, dazzled and incapacitated.

Sonja bashed the flail from the gnoll’s hand with her cudgel. Regdar stepped next to her and thrust his greatsword into the creature’s chest. The sword struck against Erthynul’s breastplate, which wasn’t even dented by the full force of Regdar’s strength. The breastplate, however, was designed for a human and not a gnoll. Regdar easily redirected the blade to an unprotected spot. The greatsword sliced through the gnoll’s hide, and blood gushed down the blade. The gnoll cried out in a fruitless prayer to its god, concluding with a piercing, canine shriek when Regdar twisted the wide blade between its ribs. The gnoll slid off the steel and fell back, the agonized look of the abandoned faithful forever frozen on its hairy face.

Hennet twisted and slashed with his spear in a desperate attempt to deflect the magical morning star’s next assault, when the weapon pulled back and vanished. Breathing a sigh of relief and using his short spear for leverage, he rose onto his feet. Other gnolls still circled uncertainly, and Hennet thrust the spear before him to keep them at a distance.

Regdar wasn’t interested in keeping a distance. With the sorcerer defending himself, the easiest victim for the bloodthirsty gnolls was the paralyzed halfling. The gnolls closed in on Lidda and almost reached her when Regdar assaulted them, jumping straight into their midst.

Two gnolls died instantly when Regdar clove through them at waist height with a single, powerful swing of his weapon. A third gnoll would have joined them, but it managed to block Regdar’s blade with the head of its axe. Gore splattered off Regdar’s sword onto the creature. The gnoll, rather than trying to riposte with its ringing axe, let the weapon fall to the ground. It boldly grasped Regdar’s blade with its two bare hands. Blood rolled along the sword’s length and dripped onto the snow as the gnoll squeezed and pulled. With its great strength, it wrenched the bloody greatsword from Regdar’s grasp.

The gnoll hurled the heavy weapon far across the snow, yelping as the edge cut deeper into its palms. Regdar, weaponless but not helpless, drove a fist into the gnoll’s throat. The gnoll lurched backward, trying to defend itself with its bleeding hands. Regdar responded by kicking its armored belly, knocking the gnoll onto its back. He was about to reclaim his greatsword when the other gnolls attacked him from behind.

A studded mace struck Regdar’s left shoulder, cracking the bone. Regdar whirled about to face the attacker and tried to punch the gnoll, but it caught his fist in its free hand and twisted. The pain dropped the fighter to his knees. Another of the beasts wrapped its long fingers around Regdar’s neck and squeezed, emitting a snarl of victory as it did so. A third gnoll pinned Regdar’s struggling hands and arms from behind. Regdar would have screamed from the pain in his shoulder, but the grip on his neck was too tight. The human gulped desperately for air, neck muscles straining to keep his windpipe open.

Relief came when Hennet’s spell hit the gnoll that was strangling Regdar. The gnoll released its grip and stumbled back in time for another missile to catch it mid stride. The creature’s smoking corpse collapsed at Regdar’s feet.

The gnoll with the studded mace raised the weapon to smash Regdar’s skull, but Sonja stepped behind it and snapped its knee with a well-placed blow from her cudgel. The monster tumbled backward, and the cudgel cracked its forehead on the way down. The gnoll that held Regdar by the arms pulled away immediately, letting Regdar’s inert form collapse to the ground. Near panic, it fled directly toward Hennet and his short spear. The gnoll dodged and twisted past the sorcerer. Hennet turned and tossed the spear, hitting the gnoll in the back and bringing it down. The sorcerer ran and yanked his weapon from the living flesh then drove it hard into the fallen gnoll’s outstretched neck.

Moments later, the spell that held Lidda wore off, and she suddenly finished cocking her crossbow with a lurch.

“I missed the battle,” she lamented. “I didn’t do you any good.”

“Don’t blame yourself for that,” Hennet told her. “It could have happened to any one of us.”

Lidda turned around and surveyed the carnage that lay all about the snowy, bloodstained field. Regdar was sprawled across the corpses of two gnolls with Sonja kneeling at his side and grasping his wrist.

“Will he be all right?” Lidda asked, the worry clear in her voice.

“I think so,” the druid replied, though there was uncertainty on her face, “but I have much work to do.”

They pitched the tents early. Hennet, wounded by the gnoll priest’s spiritual weapon, rested in a tent with Lidda while Sonja worked her spells on Regdar in the other. Sonja needed a certain amount of quiet for her spells to work. They only hoped that their fire wouldn’t attract unwanted attention from gnolls or anything else. In their favor was the near-white out condition. Between the haze and blowing snow, visibility was almost gone. It was only Sonja’s excellent sense of direction that would keep them on the right path from that point on.

Lidda was cleaning the crusted gnoll blood from Regdar’s greatsword when Hennet asked, “How long have you known Regdar?”

“Quite a while,” Lidda said, looking up from the sword. “We were both fledgling adventurers when we first met. I was having some problems with the militia in a small town. Regdar and another friend, a priest named Jozan, helped me out. He saved my life, but don’t tell him I said so.”

“Then you owe Regdar,” Hennet suggested. “Do you travel with him out of obligation?”

“Not at all. I travel with him because I like him. Everyone becomes his friend in time. You will too; there’s no reason you shouldn’t. He’s not as immediately likeable these days as he once was. Lately,” she confessed, “I’ve been concerned about him. He’s not the same as he was when we first met.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Hennet said. “An indelicate question, to be sure…”

“Could that be,” Lidda responded, “what’s with him? Why is he so abrupt? Doesn’t he ever say ‘please’? Is he always like that?”

“I would have put it more diplomatically,” said Hennet, “but yes.”

Lidda considered before answering. “He can’t be with somebody he loves.”

“I know how that feels.”

“But you’re with the person you love,” she said, pointing to Sonja’s tent through the snow. Hennet twitched.

“Sonja, yes, but in the past it’s happened that…” Hennet trailed off, suddenly unsure of how to finish his sentence. He changed the subject. “Does Regdar always fight so rashly, rushing into danger like that? I’m surprised he’s lived this long.”

“No,” Lidda replied. “That’s something new since Naull disappeared. I’m worried about him. Naull’s disappearance has had a real effect on him, that’s for sure. I guess he feels disconnected from other people, even me. I’m worried this behavior might get really get him hurt.”

“You say I’ll get to like him in the end?” asked Hennet.

“I guarantee it,” said Lidda with a smile.

“Say,” said Hennet, “we’ve discussed the romantic status of the rest of our little party. What about you?”

This surprised Lidda. Her stature often made humans, Regdar included, forget that she was an adult woman. For Hennet to bring it up now touched her greatly.