Ник О'Донохью - Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes

An incredibly gorgeous, dark-haired and dark-eyed beauty approached Tanin. Putting her hand on his spear, she gently pushed it to one side. Her eyes lingered appreciatively on the young man’s strong body, most of which—due to the loincloth—was on exhibit.

“My, my,” said the young woman in a sultry voice, “did you know it was my birthday?”

More laughter sounded through the vast stone hall like the chiming of many bells.

“Just—just stay back,” Tanin ordered gruffly, raising his spear and keeping the woman at bay.

“Well, of course,” she said, raising her hands in mock terror. “If that’s what you really want.”

Tanin, his eyes on the dark-haired beauty, fell back a pace to stand beside Palm. “Little Brother,” he whispered, beads of sweat on his upper lip and trickling down his forehead, “are these women enchanted? Under some sort of spell?”

“N-no,” stammered Palin, staring around him. “They ... they don’t appear to be. I don’t sense any kind of magic, other than the force of the Graygem. It’s much stronger here, but that’s because we’re closer to it.”

“Lads,” said the dwarf urgently, scrambling to his feet and thrusting himself between them, “we’re in big trouble.”

“We are?” Tanin asked dubiously, still holding the spear in front of him and noticing that Sturm was doing likewise. “Explain yourself, dwarf!” he growled. “What do you know about these women? They certainly don’t appear to be prisoners! Are they banshees, vampires? What?”

“Worse,” gasped the dwarf, mopping his face with his beard, his eyes staring wildly at the laughing, pointing females. “Lads, think! We’re the first to enter this castle! These women probably haven’t seen a man in two years!”

Surrounded by hundreds of admiring women reaching out to touch them and fondle them, the confused and embarrassed “rescuers” were captured by kindness. Laughing and teasing them, the women led the brothers and the dwarf from the vast entry hall to a smaller room in the castle, a room filled with silken wall hangings and large, comfortable silk-covered couches. Before they knew quite what was happening, the men were being shoved down among the cushions by soft hands, the women offering them wine, sumptuous food, and delicacies of all sorts ... all sorts.

“I think it’s sweet, you coming all this way to rescue us,” purred one of the women, leaning against Sturm and running her hand over his shoulder. Long blonde hair fell down her bare arm. She wore it tucked behind one ear, held back by a flower. Her gown, made of something gray and filmy, left very little to the imagination.

“All in a day’s work,” said Sturm, smiling. “We’re going to be made Knights of Solamnia, you know,” he added conversationally. “Probably for doing this very deed.”

“Really? Tell me more.”

But the blonde wasn’t the least bit interested in the Knights. She wasn’t even listening to Sturm, Palin realized, watching his brother with growing irritation. The big warrior was rambling on somewhat incoherently about the Oath and the Measure, all the while fondling the silky blonde hair and gazing into blue eyes.

Palin was ill-at-ease. The young mage felt a burning in his blood, his head buzzed—not an unusual sensation around such lovely, seductive females. He felt no desire for these women, however. They were strangely repulsive to him. It was the magic he sensed, bum-ing within him. He wanted to concentrate on it, on his feeling of growing power. Thrusting aside a doe-eyed beauty who was trying to feed him grapes, Palin inched his way among the cushions to get nearer Sturm. The big man was enjoying the attentions of the attractive blonde to the fullest.

“Sturm, what are you doing? This could be a trap, an ambush!” Palin said in an undertone.

“Lighten up for once, Little Brother,” Sturm said mildly, putting his arm around the blonde and drawing her close. “Here, I’ll put your mind at ease. Tell me,” he said, kissing the blonde’s rosy lips, “is this an ambush?”

“Yes!” She giggled, wriggling closer. “You’re under attack, right now”

“There you are, Palin. No help for it. We’re surrounded.” Sturm kissed the girl’s neck. “I surrender,” he said softly, “unconditionally.”

“Tanin?” Alarmed, Palin looked to his oldest brother for help, and was relieved to see the serious young man getting to his feet, despite all efforts of the dark-haired beauty to drag him back down beside her. The dwarf, too, was doing his best to escape.

“Get away! Leave me be, woman!” Dougan roared, slapping at the hands of a lithesome girl. Struggling up from among the cushions, the red-faced dwarf turned to face the women.

“What about Lord Gargath? Where is he?” the dwarf demanded. “Using you women to seduce us, then capture us, no doubt?”

“Lord Gargath? Hardly!” The dark-haired beauty who had been making much of Tanin laughed, as did the other women in the room. Shrugging her lovely shoulders, she glanced at the ceiling. “He’s up there ... somewhere,” she said without interest, caressing Tanin’s bare chest. The big man shoved her away, glancing nervously about the room.

“For once you’ve made sense, dwarf. We better find this Gargath before he finds us. Come on.” Tanin took a step toward a door at the end of the perfumed, candle-lit chamber, but the dark-haired beauty caught hold of his arm.

“Relax, warrior,” she whispered. “You don’t need to worry about Lord Gargath. He won’t bother you or anybody.” She ran her fingers admiringly through Tanin’s thick, red curls.

“I’ll see for myself,” Tanin returned, but he sounded less enthusiastic.

“Very well, if you must.” The woman sighed languorously, nestling her body against Tanin’s. “But it’s a waste of time—time that could be spent in much more pleasant pursuits. The dried-up old wizards been our prisoner now for two years.”

“He’s your prisoner?” Tanin gaped.

“Well, yes,” said in the blonde, looking up from nibbling at Sturm’s ear. “He was such a boring old thing. Talking about pentagrams and wanting to know which of us were virgins and asking a lot of other personal questions. So we locked him in his old tower with his stupid rock.” She kissed Sturm’s muscular shoulder.

“Then who’s been taking the women hostage all these months?” Palin demanded.

“Well, we did, of course,” said the dark-haired beauty.

“You?” Palin said, stunned. He put his hand to his forehead and noticed his skin felt abnormally hot. He was dizzy, and his head ached. The room and everything in it seemed to be just slightly out of focus.

“This is a wonderful life! ” said the blonde, sitting back, and teasingly rebuffing Sturm’s attempts to pull her down. “The Graygem provides all we need. We live in luxury. There is no work, no cooking and mending—”

“No children screaming—”

“No husbands coming back from battle, bleeding and dirty—”

“No washing clothes in the stream day after day—”

“No endless talks of war and bragging about great deeds ”

“We read books,” said the dark-haired beauty. “The wizard has many in his library. We became educated, and we found out we didn’t have to live that kind of life anymore. We wanted our sisters and our mothers to share our comfortable surroundings with us, so we > kept up the ruse, demanding that hostages be brought to the castle until all of us were here.”

“Bless my beard!” exclaimed the dwarf in awe.

“All we lack are some nice men, to keep us from being lonely at night,” said the blonde, smiling at Sturm. “And now that’s been taken care of, thanks to the Graygem ...”