Artifact of Evil (27 page)

Although he took a vicious bite on the leg, Gord could not be pinned down by weight or grip, as the attacking humanoids discovered to their immense chagrin. The young thief seemed to squirt from the heap of struggling bodies, stabbing with dagger and slashing wide shortsword as he came free. He sprang up, thrust both blades randomly into the mass before him, and then leaped and rolled to a position off the trail. Huge arrows from the bows of the infuriated gnoll archers sank into the three humanoids attempting to rise and follow their slippery adversary. In an instant these three already wounded creatures were done for, pierced by the shafts of their own fellows.

Almost a third of the enemy were accounted for, dead or wounded, and some certain harm had come to those at the head of the company. What more to do? Get away, thought Gord as he heard a loud commotion to the north and realized that the main camp was sending more troops to help die party under attack.

The young thief made a dash for escape, angling slightly toward the humanoid encampment but away from the pathway through the forest's heart. He kept very low and used every bit of brush and tree trunk to cover his movement. Quarrels and arrows whizzed through the woods, but they seemed to be released at random. After covering about fifty paces Gord halted and made a soft hooting noise, a prearranged recognition signal that he and his friends had agreed to when they entered the forest.

When no answering hoot came, but branches near the trail thrashed and bent, Gord moved quickly onward. Gellor would be able to fend for himself, and the losels, anyway, were still looking for those who had attacked their band. Much shouting and noise of running feet could be heard along the trail now, and Gord knew that a considerable reinforcement was coming up. The humanoids might still go on, and there was no need for silent attack any longer. Gord remembered the enspelled acorns that Curley Greenleaf had given him long before, and dug the pair of nuts out of his pouch. Giving a silent prayer to Nature that the missiles would retain their power, he slung both in rapid succession toward the noise and crashing of brush that came from near the trail.

Gord remembered to shut his eyes and avert his gaze even as he whipped the second of the two acorns toward the chosen area. The first one burst before he could manage to shield his eyes. There was a flash that momentarily revealed a mass of humanoid shapes, a sheet of fire and screaming curses, then all was totally black. Gord's tightly shut eyelids had sparks and floating balls of light inside them, but his ears heard the second missile burst, followed by more cries and oaths. He fell flat on his belly and crawled as rapidly as he could, heading in the direction that he was sure was directly away from the enemy.

After a minute or two of worming his way, Gord halted and allowed his breathing to slow to its normal rate, then he willed it even lower and listened. His vision would be useless for some time yet, but his ears were functioning perfectly. There was a lot of noise behind him, so he gave a little sigh of relief. At least he had managed to do that right. What the young thief heard indicated that the humanoids now had officers who were setting about their work with precision and discipline. Orders were shouted, and responses made. Squads were beginning to beat the bushes; there were losels in the trees, and more climbing up from the sound of it. Gord surmised that the enemy encampment must have contained not a few score of humanoids, but hundreds! The attack on their scouting and raiding party had merely stirred them up. Well, no help for that, and at worst Chert and the lads with him would have a chance to get the hell out of the way of the swarm of enemies coming back along the trail.

Suddenly the order of the search was disrupted. There were sounds of terrible squeals and grunting, crashing of vegetation, and then the shouts and screams of the humanoids. They had evidently disturbed more than one wild boar, and the huge pigs were attacking savagely. Gord's exceptional vision was returning now, and he looked toward the commotion as he stood up and prepared to slip eastward and then head back south toward his own camp. Energy, glowing and crackling, was playing about the area. Now Gord cursed, for his special vision was again ruined for minutes, but his normal sight allowed him to judge that at least two magic-users were plying their arts against the ravening swine.

Time and more to be gone, no question. Gord gripped his enchanted shortsword tightly, allowing the power of the blade to surge upward. He could see just as humanoids and demi-humans saw now, a strange illumination of things warm and cold. It was inferior to the power of sight that his ring bestowed, but it was not clouded by the exposure to light from the magical missiles and bolts he had just seen. With this sight, he managed to escape the ongoing battle and slip southward without detection by the enemy.

Because he knew what to look for, Gord had no difficulty finding where his friends had gone. The original site they had chosen was deserted, of course, for Chert could not have failed to hear all the ruckus to the north and acted accordingly. The horses left a distinct trail if you knew that three had been in the place once. There were no droppings around, and a scent of nettles masked odors in the place. The tracks had been brushed, hurriedly but well enough. Gord grinned in admiration as he envisioned the flurry of activity that must have accompanied the process. The hoofmarks led eastward, winding between the massive trees, and then turned south to parallel the trail at two hundred or so yards. After a couple of minutes Gord could hear the faint sounds of hooves and men. He again gave the low hooting call, and this time there was a soft reply from ahead. Then another came from behind! Gord froze, pretending to be a tree. A soft footfall came, then the swishing sound of a disturbed bush. Another followed the tracks left… but was it friend or foe?

Gord heard a snuffling almost at the same time a repeated hoot came from ahead. "Shut up!" He sent this thought wildly in Chert's direction, even as he stared back toward the soft sniffing noise. He saw a losel bent close to the ground, traveling on all fours, while another of its unnatural kind followed closely. The second creature was alertly watching for any enemies as its fellow followed the scent. The challenge was to kill both before either could alert other humanoids nearby. The snuffling one was sure to detect his presence momentarily, so Gord had no time to plan. He simply acted and hoped.

Gathering himself without a sound, Gord sprang as if he were a two-legged cat. As he landed, he brought the point of his sword squarely down upon the crouching ape-ore. It sunk to the hilt into the creature's exposed back, but the young thief allowed himself no glance at the result. He was upon the second losel in the same motion that had enabled him to pierce the first. This creature had turned its head to survey the surrounding area as the two sought their prey. Gord had sprung when he saw this, and the upright ape-ore had no time to utter a cry. His long poniard bit into the creature's throat even as it raised its short club and struck at the attacking human. The bludgeon stunned Gord, and the two antagonists fell together, the losel snapping and tearing at Gord with its dying ferocity, as the young man locked his fingers around the beast's throat and squeezed with all his might to prevent any utterance from its foul throat. The nails digging into his flesh ceased their pressure, and the losel's jaws opened in a gurgle of death.

Just as he was rising and turning to retrieve his blade from the back of the first of the ape-ores, Gord heard scrabbling and gasping sounds from the direction the losels had come. What damned enemy now came? He jerked the sword free and spun, ready to strike.

"Hold," a voice said softly. "I've just done for the third of those things, and I think that's all that followed." It was the bard's voice, and Gord relaxed.

"Chert and the rest are just ahead," Gord whispered to Gellor as his friend stepped into view from behind the screen of brush that had separated them. "I'll signal them that we're coming."

The bard grabbed Gord and made a shushing sound. "Don't do that!" he admonished. "I've heard the losels make a very similar call when they want their fellows to come. It seems we picked a poor sound for recognition," he added ruefully. The two men trotted as quickly as they could, calling Chert's name softly as they went. Fortunately, Chert had been creeping toward the muted noises of combat with the losels, and the barbarian heard and recognized his friends' calling immediately. Together, the three rejoined the two lads and led them deeper into the forest, going directly away from the humanoid pathway that ran through the Vesve's hidden interior. As they went they worked up the whistle of a nightbird as their new recognition call. They wanted no more problems there, for what they faced was sufficient without the addition of bringing losels to them.

"What happened?" Chert asked when they were safely away from any likelihood of discovery.

"Tell us, please;" begged Thatch and Shad. "Did you kill all of them?"

Gord chuckled regretfully. "I only wish we had," he said to his companions. "We managed to bring an end to a half-dozen of those filthy ape-things, and a handful of other stinking humanoids as well, but there are hundreds left, I fear."

Gellor asked Gord several questions about his activity and then related his own work. He had used druidical power to cause the tree roots in the area to form a spiky bed mat had thrust up in the path of the party of marauders. That had been the cause of their consternation while Gord was attacking the rear of the party. The bard had then immediately begun a spell that was potent in the calling of wild things, especially fierce beasts and carnivores. He had had to work at it a long while, but its result was the summoning of a fair number of wild pigs to the scene. The swine, naturally, charged the humanoids, attacking without fear.

"Too bad there were dweomercrafters amongst the enemy ranks," Gord said. "Did you see the response to the boars' attacking? Magic flew thick and fast, I'll tell you. Even wild pigs deserve a better death than that meted out by those humanoids."

"Humanoids and worse," Gellor interjected. "I saw a bit of the display too, and those castings came from no orcish dabbler in the arcane arts. There was a powerful magic-worker there, and one or two lesser dweomercrafters, too."

The lads were listening with big eyes at this talk, but they remained quiet and showed expressions of determination despite all that had occurred. Shad asked in a small voice, "What are we going to do now?"

"Rest," Gellor said practically. "In the morning we'll see if we can't work out a plan that will succeed against so powerful a collection of enemies."

"We know one thing, at least " Chert said heavily.

"We do?" his young associate asked in surprise.

"Sure," the barbarian replied. "All those ores and losels and gnolls, and spell-casters too, means something certain, Gord. The Second Key must be with that collection of scum, or I'm a Medegian merchant's arse!"

Night had fallen over the sprawling fastness of the Vesve Forest once again. The company of mixed humanoids pressed on in the darkness. The few humans within their ranks were allowed to march along the beaten path, with only occasional curses coming from them as they stumbled over tree roots and stepped upon one another in the blackness. Arboreal ores swarmed ahead in the treetops to make certain that no enemy lay in wait for the rest of the band. Fully three score had such duty, and woe to the one who lagged. Another twenty were strung out to either side, likewise brachiating as flank protection. In the center of the whole group were Obmi and his henchman Keak, well protected by tough humanoids and their powers, of course.

After the ambush and slaughter of so many of their rear scouts, Obmi had directed that the company of gnolls be placed under the command of a half-breed ore who had some small skill at spells of clerical sort and great ability with assassin's weapons. There was also another renegade elf, albeit not much of a spell-binder, now assisting Keak. Obmi saw to it that these two were in motion, up and down the line, frequently. Any further attack would be met with sharp retaliation. The loss of thirty of these scum didn't bother the dwarf a whit, but he disliked the reaction that Iuz would certainly have upon hearing the news. Obmi had reports from his outlaw woodsmen that there were no more than a half-dozen men involved in the attack upon his party. The fact that one or more of them was obviously a considerable foe was immaterial. Face had been lost by the dwarf, and with it came a lessening of Iuz's stature. Infinitesimal as this misfortune was, retribution would occur. Iuz's anger must fall somewhere…

The outlaw group moved more swiftly now, marching mostly by night and resting during the day. This allowed them to keep a better watch for those who followed and harassed, and it kept the scum too tired to fight amongst themselves at every halt too. Obmi was pleased with the arrangement.

In the twenty-four hours since he had slain the wild boars and then driven off the attacking men, Obmi had covered as many miles. Should there actually be a larger force than the handful the stupid scouts reported as having caused the trouble, then these enemies would have to run to keep up. Moving a mass of troops through this sort of terrain was slow work, and the dwarf cursed the fact that he had but a few hundred under his command. If he had thousands, he would not need to run as if chased by devils, while with only a score or two he could move much more swiftly. It almost seemed as if there was a plot to discomfit him. Had Obmi not understood the nature of the thing he carried to Iuz, he would, in fact, suspect the cambion of trying to be rid of him. At every turn in the path it seemed that another handful of humanoids joined his force, adding little to its real strength and slowing its progress disproportionately as they were fitted into the command in any hodgepodge fashion. Why couldn't he get some powerful spell-binders to augment this rag-tag regiment? With these, and a few ogres or trolls, he'd be able to get through the forest in speed and style!

"Rot your balls, Klabdul!" the dwarf shouted to the half-orc who rode near Keak. "Move your worthless butt ahead there and see what all that fuss is about – quick!" There was something happening in the trees ahead. Obmi's vision didn't extend that far, but the cries of the ape-ores and the noise told him that all was not well.

The half-orc priest went off immediately. Keak was giggling at the fear he'd seen in the fellow's ugly face. "Shut up, Keak! Stop that godsdamned cackling instantly!" roared Obmi.

The skinny elf snapped his mouth closed and looked at Obmi. "Master, as you wish," he intoned solemnly, then burst into a fresh torrent of high-pitched laughter.

"That's enough, you long-eared turd eater!" Obmi fumed. "You take your worthless elvish ass and get to the tail end of this gaggle of scum. If there's trouble ahead, it's probably a ruse. Any real attack will hit the rear. Be there and stop it if it comes, understand?"

"As if I'd thought of it myself, Lord Obmi," Keak called as he turned his horse and urged it along, yelling at hulking gnolls to clear a path for him or be castrated.

The column halted in confusion, and Obmi swore more loudly still. That must be Klabdul screwing around with the advance, the dwarf reckoned. There was no other reason, for the commotion in the trees had ceased, and no sounds of battle came from ahead. It was time to take a direct hand. Obmi got his mount moving, heading for the front of the confused band.

"What's the reason for this halt?" he demanded.

Klabdul materialized from behind a tree, an arboreal ape in tow. He bowed and said, "Pardon, lord, but I called it, for the losels had come down from the trees and were refusing to return."

"What? These miserable half-apes wouldn't dare such a thing! You there!" the dwarf said to the cowering creature held fast by the brutish priest-assassin. "Speak or die! Did you and your fellows do as this priest claims?"

Obmi spoke carefully in orcish, for these arboreal humanoids were more stupid than their cousins, if that was possible. Worse still, as simian as were the ores, these crossbreed ones were even more apelike, and their out-thrust jaws, baboonlike muzzles, and large canine teeth made their halting speech difficult to understand. Leave it to that perverted cambion to develop such a species as these so-called losels!

"Uh… uh… it killed Zhuf!" the ape-ore said, and it tried to grin to see if that would end the matter.

This was going to take a bit of time, Obmi realized. "What do you mean, 'it'? Tell me, what killed – "

"Zhuf!" the losel supplied.

"Bugger Zhuf!" the dwarf nearly screamed at the stupid creature. "What was it that killed him?"

"Duh… duh lion dat was in duh trees killed Zhuf, dat's what."

"Good!"

"Ain't good, Zhuf bein' chewed up like that," the losel countered, and then cringed when he saw Obmi point his hammer at him.

"Listen, you moronic mongrel," the dwarf spat without raising his voice. "Now, you tell me exactly what happened, and do it slowly and quickly. Otherwise, I will split your louse-ridden cranium, feed the small contents to those gnolls there, and ask another of your comrades to give me the information I require. You may begin now."

The losel couldn't understand half of what the terrible little dwarf said, but he understood the threat in Obmi's tone all too well. "Uh… wewuzgoin' 'longpretty easy-like. Nuttin'to see, no stuff to hurt us. Zhuf, he was duh furst ah us, so he's da one who sez, 'Lookout chums, dere's a lion!'

"Lions don't climb around in trees," Obmi interjected. "Did you actually see the animal?"

"Duh what?"

"The Hon! Go on with your report, you idiot!"

"Ah, sure ting, I seen da lion. It was a blackie, an' didn't have no mane. It was jes' sittin' an' lookin’ at us all. Den Zhuf, he flung his club al da lion and tried to jump back in where we wuz. Dat's when it got a holt a him an' chewed up ol' Zhuf inna big bite!"

"What did the rest of you do?" demanded the dwarf.

"Shit! Waddya 'spect? We pitched our clubs at da friggin' cat real good. Me, I hit 'im right on da schnozzle. Couple ah da boys, dey had dem funny li'l bows ya give 'em. Whang! Whang! Dey lets loose, an' da sticks fly right into da bassard's side like, only dey don't sink in. Jes' like da clubs, da arrahs ain't doin' no hurt to da lion…"

"So?"

"Dat big cat, he looks at us boys like we jus' patted his head. Den he opens his mout, all covered with Zhuf s blood, an' I saw da t'ing grin – scariest thing I ever seen! Den we got down from da trees, quick-like, an' none ah us goin' back 'til that cat's meat on da table!" Obmi struck the losel as hard as he could with the ensorcelled hammer. The blow sufficed to kill the stupid creature instantly, and it never knew what struck it. All the others were watching. He glared at these ape-ores from a visage filled with rage.

"There may or may not be some big cat – a leopard, probably – up there in the trees," he said threateningly. " But I am here; even you dimwitted monkeys can see that. I will certainly kill you all if you do not get back into those branches overhead and resume your work! You will move ahead, watch for enemies, and tell me if you see any. If there is a cat up there, you will slay it, or else I will have others do so. No matter. Now, get going!"

The losels bounded up into the branches quickly, and that was the end of it.

"Get going, the rest of you!" Obmi shouted. "You'll trot for the next hour to make up for the delay. Stragglers and laggards will be killed!"

A quarter of an hour passed, and then a new commotion occurred at the head of the company. The cause was the black leopard again, and this time Obmi had to use his hammer on two of the frightened arboreal ores before the rest could be forced back into the trees again. Now Obmi was certain that the creature was a were-cat of some sort. Knowing this, he called to the thin-faced elf to settle the matter.

"Keak, you are to take charge of the advance. Keep a close eye on what's going on above, for a were-leopard seems to be stalking the losels – bad taste in food habits, I'd say, but it is disrupting things inordinately. If the kitty shows its whiskers again, pluck them!"

Keak smiled at the prospect. "Any preference as to how I kill the thing?"

"Why should I care?"

The sticklike figure shrugged his narrow shoulders. "I thought you might like to have its hide for a saddle covering," Keak cackled, "but if it's no matter, I'll blast its balls off with a lightning bolt!"

"Bah! Just do it and be quiet."

When another disturbance came a half-hour later, Keak was there and ready. This Obmi knew, for a great flash and the sizzling crack of the stroke of blazing electricity gave clear evidence that the elven spell-caster had done just what he'd said. The dwarf smiled to himself and went ahead to view the body. A half-dozen charred losels were scattered on the ground, but there was no corpse of man nor body of cat.

"What occurred?" the dwarf asked with a calmness he did not feel.

Keak looked sick. "The bolt missed," he said through thin lips.

"These unfortunate apelings?" inquired Obmi mildly as he eyed the smoking remains of the losels.

"They were in the path of the stroke, or else in the tree, and took too much electricity and died," Keak replied with a wince as the dwarf stared unwinkingly at him. "That bastard cat is fast. Lord Obmi," the elven mage hastened to add. "It watched me stand near and begin my casting. Just as I loosed the stroke, it leaped away – vanished, possibly, I don't know. It is very smart and more than any were-beast I've ever seen, and you know I have slain my share!"

Obmi nodded at that and reslung his hammer. Keak did not make stupid errors like that without cause. Angry as he was, Obmi valued the elf too much to waste him for no purpose other than the satisfaction of frustrated ire. Too much, far too much, was at stake in this whole game for him to make foolish misjudgments or allow rage to blind him.

"See that the column is halted. Get sentries out. Make sure that we are as well protected as possible. When that's done, come back to me at once, dear Keak. You and I must work together on a plan to solve our problems."

The elf bowed and hurried off, relieved that Obmi bore him no malice for the failure. "Too bad," he mumbled to himself as he went. "Too bad the runt didn't have the balls to go after the black devil of a cat himself. Then he'd find out a thing or two. Hammer or no, that leopard would have a dwarf for dinner, and then I would be commander and bring the prize to Lord Iuz. What power I would have then…" Continuing to mull over this pleasant reflection, the elven renegade went about his duties.

In the hours just preceding dawn, Obmi and Keak worked out a plan of action. As they huddled in conference, there were several more incidents, but after a scream and the following commotion, the black killer went elsewhere to strike again. It didn't matter. The cat-creature seemed unwilling to come near the center of the party, and that meant that it was most certainly vulnerable to spell and weapon – at least, those enchanted weapons wielded by Obmi, Keak, and a few others of the officers of the motley collection of humanoids.

"Let us summon Klabdul, Phlug, and the gnollish captain… Harhaff, then."

"The name is Harharaff, Lord." Keak corrected the dwarf politely, being careful not to giggle. "I'll bring them here at once."

"You're certain this will work?" Obmi asked again.

"I see no flaw, Lord Obmi."

"Get them, then. Hurry!"