Jean Rabe - Downfall

"Don't bother to thank me." It was the mariner. Rig had made it down from the canopy and slew the snake.

Dhamon quickly retrieved Wyrmsbane, and without a word he went back-to-back with the mariner as they worked their way along the curtain of serpents, eventually slaying all of them.

More than an hour after the assault began, the last vine was dispatched, and Rig gulped down the contents of another waterskin, still trying to get the taste of the blood out of his mouth. He retrieved the long sword he'd dropped, while Dhamon kicked small piles of serpent-vines, making sure they were all dead.

Nine ogres had died, either to venomous bites or falls from the canopy. A tenth remained missing. Fiona considered the fellow lost and decided no one should climb into the canopy to look for him. Then there might be two men missing.

"Our numbers have been cut by a fourth," Maldred announced.

"By someone who doesn't want us here," Dhamon added.

"Obviously," Rig muttered.

Murmurs of «Sable» rippled through the pack of remaining ogres, that one word distinguishable in their otherwise guttural language.

Dhamon turned to Mulok and spat out a series of simple words in ogrish, pointing at the corpses. Then he regarded Maldred. "Maybe the Black, like some of the ogres say, but I don't think so. More likely one of her minions. If it had been Sable, we'd all be dead." And if it had been her or another dragon, Dhamon thought to himself, I would have sensed it. The scale would have told me. Like it did when the dragon flew over the Vale of Chaos, and like it warned him of the big green in the Qualinesti Forest. "I would have known," he said aloud.

Rig was rubbing the blood off his cheeks, gently pressing at the bite wounds and tugging free his last waterskin, upending it over his face and knowing he could refill it in a nearby stream. The wounds stung, and several felt swollen and tender. Maldred seemed to have fared just as badly but was doing nothing to tend to his injuries. The ogres were taking good care of themselves, using their water, some spreading the sap from roots they were digging up. Rig considered trying that, too, then decided better of it. Perhaps such ministrations were why they were covered with boils and warts and overall looked as ugly as they did. Dhamon seemed to have suffered only a few bites, and he blotted at these with a scrap of cloth soaked in alcohol.

Satisfied there was nothing else he could do for his wounds, the mariner began searching around the base of the shaggybark where he'd propped the glaive. He was certain he had found the right tree, as he recognized knobby roots that looked like giant spider legs. Yes, this was the right tree.

"Where?" he whispered. "Where is my weapon?" He knelt and felt the ground, found the impression the haft of the glaive had made. It was too dark to see any details, the tree was so far from the torches. "We'll see," he said, rising and striding toward Fiona. He stopped a few yards short of her, tugging a torch free and carrying it back to the shaggybark, unaware that she was following him and that Dhamon and Maldred were watching. The mariner stuck the torch in a solid patch of ground and knelt again.

"What are you looking for?" she asked him.

"My glaive. Sat it here when I tried to sleep. Before the snakes came. This is the right tree. It was right here. See?" He stabbed his finger at the impression. "Then the snakes came and…"

"Maldred says they were enchanted. Not really snakes at all. Simply vines brought to life through a spell. He knows because he dabbles in magic."

"Well, he's just full of surprises, ain't he?" Rig's fingers were prodding at the ground. "Anyway, it must be a powerful spell to bring all of those slimy creatures after us. Something that would've been out of Feril's realm."

"Dhamon thinks…"

"Yeah, I know, maybe a minion of the black dragon. Or Sable herself. I got ears. But I don't think so. Dragons leave bigger tracks. And besides, I don't care what Dhamon thinks."

"He didn't say a dragon, he said a…"

Rig dismissed her words with a beckoning wave of his hand. He found a footprint, a small one, no longer than his open hand. Then another and another, narrow and childlike. He pointed to them. They led off into a bog.

She crept closer and examined them herself. "Maybe an elf," she said. "Maldred!"

Rig scowled when he heard the big thief sloshing over. Maldred knelt next to Rig, and Dhamon padded a few feet away, examining more of the small footprints.

"Fiona is right," Maldred said. "It could be an elf. There used to be plenty of elves in these woods before the Black moved in and turned everything into a swamp."

Rig moved away from Maldred and Fiona, edged closer to the bog, which spread to the west as far as he could see in the torchlight. "Damn. Took my glaive, some faerie or little elf, maybe whatever made it rain snakes. Maybe it rained snakes so the little demon could make off with my weapon. My very magical weapon. Better have your ogre friends look around the camp and see if anything else is missing. See if they can spot my glaive."

He tested the ground at the edge of the bog, his boot sinking deep.

"You're not going after the weapon," Fiona stated. "It's too dangerous."

It might not be too dangerous if you came with me, he mused. He almost said it aloud, but he didn't need to. She must have picked up on what he was thinking.

"If the circumstances were different," she began, "if we weren't going to Takar to ransom my brother, we'd all go with you and help you find the glaive. But a weapon isn't worth…"

A wave of his hand dismissed the rest of her words. A frown was etched deep in the mariner's face. He treasured weapons, had ever since he was a youth and stole aboard a ship to escape an unfortunate home life. The glaive he'd been toting around was remarkably enchanted, and he prized it above all the others he had strapped to him. An artifact, Palin Majere had called it, from a very long ago time. It had been given to Dhamon Grimwulf by a bronze dragon, discarded after Dhamon had nearly killed his friends with it-including the mariner. Rig was quick to snatch it up. It parted metal like it was parchment.

"Took my glaive," he repeated. "Now how am I gonna get it back?"

Dhamon persisted in examining the footprints as he listened to the mariner continue to grumble. For a brief moment he considered asking Wyrmsbane where the glaive was. But he quickly discarded the notion, not wanting to do any favors for the mariner. He would save the magic of Tanis's sword for his own questions, which might, tomorrow morning, involve these small footprints that troubled him.

"Too dark," Dhamon said, finally giving up on the footprints. He rejoined the ogres, seeking out Mulok and sharing some more of the bitter drink, then he began examining the ogre corpses.

Fiona backed away from the shaggybark and Rig, and instructed her charges, via Maldred, to search through the dead ogres' belongings. "Just in case other things are missing," she said. "Make sure they gather any rations they find."

Mulok and the other ogres busied themselves stacking their dead comrades around the base of a cypress tree. It wasn't practical to bury them here, or to burn them. Maldred said they'd be left for carrion-after they were first stripped of any weapons and armor that could be used.

Rig noticed Dhamon pluck a large silver ring off the hand of one corpse and stuff it in his pocket. He watched him take a silver bracer off the arm of another and slip it in his pouch, then move on, pretending to be interested in the lianas. The mariner was disgusted, shaking his head and wishing ardently that he'd never crossed paths with Dhamon Grimwulf, and that the Solamnic Knights had agreed to this ransom. They could've done it for Fiona, who had dedicated her life to the Order. It would have saved Fiona and him time-weeks. They wouldn't have had to struggle across the length of the Kalkhists following Dhamon and Maldred, and they wouldn't have gone to the village of goatherders on an errand for the arrogant ogre chieftain.