T Lain - City of Fire

“Will it follow?” Naull asked as they neared the entrance to the caves.

The sky had cleared slightly and Naull could see the faint outline of the cave mouth ahead. She’d seen smears of blood—Early’s or Trebba’s—as they came, but there was no sign of either of them.

Regdar had a hard enough time running in his damaged armor and didn’t answer.

Ian shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Probably. I can’t have blinded it permanently.”

He looked down at the ranger, shrugged off everyone’s assistance, and said, “I can walk. We must get moving. If we can make it to the road…”

The half-elf winced as they stumbled into the open air. As the three helped each other along, Naull felt two of her three protective spells fade. She looked back at the cave mouth but it was too dark inside to see anything. If the ogre caught them in the open, her mage armor wouldn’t keep her from ending up as so much paste on the creature’s bludgeon.

They passed the broken wagons the orcs had used for a barricade and Ian paused.

“Early and Trebba,” he said. “They came this way, too.” The ranger pointed at a small patch of blood and picked up a torn piece of cloth, probably from Early’s tunic. “They shouldn’t be too far ahead of us.”

“At least Trebba’s still alive,” Naull said hopefully. “Did you see her stab that orc?”

Neither man answered. Naull looked back over her shoulder again. Nothing. She started to breathe a little easier.

The wizard breathed a lot easier a few minutes later. They’d picked their way around more debris—pieces from the broken wagons, empty casks, and discarded, rotting food—and finally reached the main road. This far into the woods, the “road” wasn’t more than a well-beaten path, wide enough for two men to walk abreast. A few yards away, they saw Early crouching by Trebba. Naull looked at Regdar and Ian, and ran forward.

“Early! Is she…?”

The big man looked up, tears in his eyes, then back down at the woman he’d carried up from the caves. Trebba had a crude bandage wrapped around her midsection, bloodstained white against her dark skin. Naull looked at Trebba’s face. Early had cleaned it somehow, but only after. The thief was dead.

“H-her wounds,” Early stammered. “I couldn’t do nothin’. She tol’ me t’leave her, but I thought she was just being…”

“Heroic?”

It was Ian. He’d walked up behind Naull. His wide, elf eyes shimmered in the darkness, and his pale face reflected the starlight.

“She was,” he said, placing a hand on Early’s shoulder.

“We’ve got to keep moving,” Regdar said. His face was grim, but Naull could see the grief behind the mask. “Ian, take point. Naull, Early, go side-by-side. I’ll bring up the rear.”

Ian nodded and started forward. He’d spent a few moments wrapping his burned hand in another bandage, but he moved with obvious pain. Early bent to pick up Trebba’s body.

“No, Early,” Regdar said flatly. “Leave her.”

Early turned and started to snarl, but Regdar didn’t let him speak.

“She died to help get us out of there. If that ogre comes on us now, we’re finished. You want her sacrifice to mean anything? Leave her.”

The big man bristled, then he seemed to collapse in on himself and he nodded. Sword in hand, he turned away and followed Ian.

Naull started to say something to Regdar, but he met her eyes and frowned. His pain was obvious, but it only matched hers. This isn’t the way to earn a wizard’s tower, is it? she thought with more than a little irony.

She caught up to Early and they walked in silence.

They’d gone nearly a half-mile when Ian stopped. The ranger leaned against a tree and started the painful process of unwrapping a makeshift bandage from around his shoulder. He winced with every twist but kept silent until Regdar caught up.

“Is it following?” the fighter asked.

“How the—oui!—bloody hell should I know?” Ian grimaced as he spoke. He’d hastily wrapped more than a few wood splinters into his wound and the bandage was sodden and red. “Sorry,” he finally continued. “I don’t know, Regdar. You hear anything back there? Ogre’s aren’t known for being sneaky.”

Shaking his head, Regdar looked back into the woods in the general direction of the orc caves. “No. I thought I did, but it must’ve been an animal. When I stopped, it—”

And then the woods erupted.

How something so large and so violent could come upon the group unawares, Naull couldn’t understand. Later, she knew it had to be their fatigue and the creature’s knowledge of the area. It came up out of the dell, not along the path but through some secret way, something either the orcs had found or perhaps even prepared in case they’d needed a fast and silent exit from their lair. It had somehow known, or smelled, or guessed, which way the battered party would go, and it roared out of the forest at them.

Early went down first, before he even had a chance to draw his sword. The ogre’s club swept around after smashing the big man’s shoulder and barely missed Naull as she dived forward onto the ground.

Ian fell next. The half-elf had picked up a stout branch during their retreat, but it snapped when he slashed it against the creature’s tough hide. Whirling around, the ogre caught Ian with the horny knuckles of his off-hand and the half-elf flew six feet through the air to crumple against a tree, unconscious. The ogre stumbled over a tree root as it lurched toward the road.

The creature had picked on the softest targets first. As Naull desperately scrambled away on all fours, Regdar drew his bastard sword and screamed in anger at the giant.

“Take this, you misshapen bastard!” the fighter yelled.

The sword split two saplings but didn’t slow as it whirled toward its target. Biting into the ogre’s tree trunk thigh, it caused the creature to bellow once more in pain and rage. The ogre smashed down with its club, hammering at Regdar’s dented armor. He went down on one knee. The ogre, feet planted firmly on the road, raised its weapon for a finishing strike.

The sound of hoofbeats echoed on the path. The ogre whirled toward the south but as the hoofbeats grew closer it saw nothing coming. Across the narrow road Naull lay, speaking a few arcane words and gesturing with components drawn hastily from her pouch.

It wasn’t much of a distraction, but it was enough. Regdar caught the ogre’s arm as the club came down, then he used the force of the creature’s own back-swing to pull himself upright. He stumbled backward, toward the wizard. Screaming in anger, the ogre whirled and came at the pair. It swung its club two-handed, and Regdar readied himself to receive the blow.

Hoofbeats rang out again, this time from the north. The ogre started briefly, then looked down at the wizard and snarled. Naull grinned feebly, still holding the remnants of her spell components, and she pushed herself farther back into the brush. The club reached the apex of its swing, then came down in a killing arc.

From the ogre’s chest, a spearpoint blossomed. It was followed immediately by an eruption of red-black blood. The ogre dropped its club in surprise and looked first at Regdar, then at Naull. It tried to twist around but the spear broke and the creature pitched forward just inches shy of Regdar’s booted feet.

The two adventurers looked up in wonder. On a gray horse that seemed to shine slightly in the starlight they saw a knight clad in full plate. The knight cast away the broken haft of her spear and raised her mailed hand to her visor.

The noose snapped the rat’s neck. Slowly, the slim line dragged the small corpse over the gravel toward the scrub brush and down past the roots. A scarred, dirty hand grabbed the rat and drew it up. There was a sharp crunch and blood stained the canyon floor.