The Game of Fates (66 page)

Unknown
to them, Drakebane the Mighty lay among the wounded.  He had seen many of his
warriors go down around him and, though he’d only been hit in the shoulder by
one of the kobolds’ arrows, he went down as well and waited while the second
and third volleys killed or incapacitated the few warriors who had been too
stupid to do the same.

His
impetuous rush after the raiders had been a mistake he would not soon forget. 
Not long after Durik and his cavalry left, Drakebane the Mighty struggled to
his feet as an ogre, then the next group of his warriors and some more ogres
hurried past.

“Get
them!” he yelled.  “Kill them!”

After
watching several of his warriors and ogre mercenaries go past, all in a rage to
catch and capture the impetuous kobold raiders, Drakebane grabbed his axe with
his good arm and walked back toward camp, looking for that lazy shaman he kept
around for just such circumstances as these.

“Hurry! 
Hurry now!” Durik urged a lagging warrior onward.  “There will probably be
ogres in the next group.  We must be set at the next position before they
arrive!”

The
warrior, whose mount had stepped on a thorn, had stopped to pull the thing from
its paw.  Manebrow rode up behind the pair as the rest of the line moved past,
led by Drok toward their next ambush position.

“Sire,”
Manebrow called out, “I’ve got this one.  You go on ahead!”

Durik
nodded and remounted Firepaw.  The additional weight of his armor was much for
Firepaw to bear, but so far he had not complained.  Durik wondered if his
magnificent wolf would be able to make it through this night.  If everything
went as planned, it looked to be a very long one indeed.

Suddenly,
from not far behind the column of riders, Durik heard the noise of a huge beast
pushing its way through the trees and underbrush of the forest.

“Manebrow! 
Ogre!” Durik called out.  Fear rippled through the column as riders urged their
mounts to go faster.

Manebrow
turned and looked.  “Sire, you go ahead and make sure things are ready for them
at the next position!  I’ve got the rearguard!”

Looking
back at his second, Durik could see that he had already begun to form a line
with the rear half of the group, giving the command for everyone to ground
spears and draw bows.

Turning
back about, Durik urged his mount onward, quickly rejoining the other half of
his contingent and eventually beating them to the next ambush position.

Behind
him, Manebrow saw the trees jerking and bucking against the passage of the
massive ogre.  Not a heartbeat after Durik and his half of the contingent had
made it over the hill, the yellow-eyed beast punched through a stand of trees
and out onto the path.

“Fire!”
he yelled, and fifteen arrows flew forward in unison, all of them finding their
mark.  The ogre screamed in pain and fell backward into a stand of trees,
uprooting two of them as he fell backward, arms thrown across his face to ward
off any more of the pesky darts.

“One
more volley, warriors, then mount up and go!” Manebrow yelled as he fired a
second arrow.  Putting his bow over his shoulder, he grabbed his spear, mounted
up and prepared to ride, waiting only long enough to ensure the last of his
riders was mounted and following him.

Behind
them, the ogre screamed in pain. As he pulled the little arrows from his body,
however, blood began to spurt from two of his wounds, coloring the surrounding
trees with a spray of bright red.

From
behind him came another group of orcs with three ogres.  Seeing their wounded
companion, the three ogres looked carefully into the darkness of the forest,
but continued on.  After another group had passed, barely noticed by the
wounded ogre, he was finally left alone in his pain and misery.

Soon,
the ogre picked up his massive axe and thought about moving back toward camp. 
He was bleeding a lot, and he didn’t like that.  He wondered if, by chance, he
did go back to camp, if the chief ogre could do something about it.  While he
thought about that for a few moments, his axe slipped back to the ground.

Angry
with it for falling down, the ogre picked up the worn tree trunk with its
massive, sharp chunk of iron embedded in it that he called his axe yet again. 
Then he propped it against the ground and tried to use it to help him stand
up.  After a few dizzy tries, each one failing as he found his legs strangely
wooden and weak, he noticed he was feeling very tired. 

After
thinking about it for a while, and looking down at the blood still somewhat
spurting from his inner thigh, he decided that sleeping for a little bit would
be a good thing.  Soon, once he got up the energy, he lay his massive axe down
on the ground and lay back against the two trees that had broken his fall.

In
a few moments he had fallen unconscious.

There,
in the dark of the night, the ogre’s massive heart soon ceased to beat.

“Where
are these hobgoblins you mentioned, sire?” one of Durik’s warriors asked him. 
“I’ve never seen one of those.”  The warrior was a year older than Durik, but
Durik’s recent promotion and the fact that he had somehow become the keeper of
the Kale Stone had given him something of an untouchability among those who
might otherwise be his peers.

“And
you’ll likely not see one of them tonight,” Manebrow interrupted.  “They’re too
smart to rush headlong into the darkness after a bunch of kobold wolf riders,
but orcs and ogres certainly aren’t.  Now keep digging!”

Durik
stood up and looked about himself.  The small detachment of cavalry he’d left
here at the top of this hill had moved four large boulders into place before he
and the rest of the group had fallen back to this position, and in the short
while that the rest of the group had been here, they’d rolled two more particularly
round boulders into position.

And
none too soon!  Reacting almost instinctively, the entire line of kobolds hid
behind the boulders or moved back behind the cover of felled trees to where
they had established yet another firing line.  Suddenly, almost without
warning, a massive brute of an ogre came smashing through the trees, followed
closely by a handful of orcs and a pair of smaller ogres.

Durik
began sweating profusely.  Three ogres!  This was a lot to handle!  For a
moment he thought they had bitten off more than they could chew, and that they
should just let them pass.

Manebrow
put a hand on his shoulder.  “Ready, sire?” he asked in a hushed tone, no hint
of fear showing in his voice or eyes.

Durik
blinked his eyes and took a deep breath.  If Manebrow wasn’t afraid, then he
wouldn’t be either.  Looking down the slope, he could see that the lead ogre
was in just the right place.  Standing up, he and the kobolds with him threw
all their weight onto the lever they had positioned underneath the large
boulder.  All around them the other kobolds did the same.  In a few moments the
massive boulders gave way and, almost as one, rolled down the hill.

Simultaneously,
the rest of the contingent stood and began firing into the enemy at the bottom
of the short, but steep hill.  With a terrifying weight, the boulders tore
through the dirt of the slope, leaving deep scars in the dirt and slamming into
the surprised group of orcs and ogres.  One of the large boulders smashed
straight into the massive ogre, snapping its leg like a tree-trunk struck by
lightning.  Behind the brute a pair of orc warriors tried to dodge the next
boulder, only to be smashed by another that bounded down the hillside an
instant later.

In
the back of the group, the pair of smaller ogres caught one of the boulders
together, though stopping it broke the wrist of one of them.  The other,
however, pushed the boulder off to the side just in time for both of them to
catch a volley of arrows in the face and chest.

The
handful of orcs had mostly dodged the other two large, ungainly boulders and
began to run up the short slope at the kobolds.  Two volleys of arrows later,
however, all of them lay either dead or wallowing in pain at the foot of the
hill.

Within
moments the entire group of orcs and ogres lay either dead or dying. 
Carefully, the contingent of kobold warriors went down the slope, slitting
throats and recovering arrows as they went, and giving the massive ogre a wide
berth as he thrashed about in pain.

“Stay
back from the wounded ogres!” Manebrow called out.  “Don’t get near them!  Let
them flee as best they can, if you want.  A wounded ogre is still a very
dangerous opponent.”

Drok
and his team, who had been approaching the two smaller ogres that lay bleeding
in the dirt, stopped and looked at them for a moment, then each threw his spear
in turn.  After the huge beasts thrashed about for a bit, breaking a spear or
two but losing much strength in the process, the team of kobolds moved around
to where they had a clear shot at the ogres’ necks.  Taking shots at point
blank range, soon the two ogres had bled out their lives and Drok’s team was
able to recover what spears and arrows had not been ruined by the ogres’ death
throws.

“Warriors!”
Durik called.  “Mount up!  Now!” he called with urgency, his voice being
partially drown out by the bellowing of the massive ogre, who had by now
crawled far into the underbrush.  Not far down the path, by the noise of it,
another group of orcs was coming, though they couldn’t hear the telltale sounds
of ogres among them.

“Well,
they sent more than I thought they’d send,” Manebrow said as he mounted his
wolf and rode up next to Durik.

“Aye,
they’re a bit more determined than I thought they’d be,” Durik replied.

“I’d
say a bit more stupid,” Manebrow said, kicking his wolf in the ribs to spur him
forward.  “I guess we’ve proved the old saying true one more time.  ‘Lead a pig
by poking it in the rear.  Lead an orc by poking it in the face.’”

“And
poke them we certainly did,” Durik said to no one in particular.  Taking one
last look back at the body-strewn path, Durik spurred his own mount as well.

G
orgon stood looking down the
shaft into the darkness below.  Far down the shaft little gray figures had
appeared in his heat vision.  He squinted as he looked down at them.  It was so
far below that it was almost impossible to make out what they were doing.  Was
it that Warrior Group from the Deep Gen that they had been chasing down the
long stairway into the depths of the underdark?  They seemed to be moving – but
which direction?

“Jerrig,
watch the passageway.  Arbelk, come here a moment.”  From their seated
positions against the cool stone of the landing’s wall, Jerrig stood up and
walked over to the top of the path that led down the slope and further into the
underdark, while Arbelk stood and stretched his legs as he joined his team
leader.

“What
is it, Gorgon?” Arbelk asked.

“Look
at that,” he said, pointing down the great shaft far down into the very bowels
of Dharma Kor.  “What do you make of it?”

The
pair of warriors watched for a moment in silence.

“Which
direction do you think Bantor is taking his warrior group?  Are they going away
from us still, or do you think they’re coming back?” Gorgon asked.

Arbelk
eyes narrowed.  A very serious look gradually grew over his silent features as
he stood watching.

“Well,”
Gorgon prodded, “what say you?  Are they running away, or toward us?”

Arbelk
shook his head in painful realization.  He’d only half believed Durik’s vision
until this very moment.  Now, as he stood looking into that abyss, Arbelk
looked up into Gorgon’s eyes. 

“Gorgon,
they’re running straight up the shaft,” he said, near panic creeping into his
voice.

“What? 
No kobold can climb like that!”

Arbelk
shook his head as he watched the relentless tramp of doom approaching.

“Those
aren’t kobolds, Gorgon.  Those are ants.”

Troka
propped himself against one wall as he struggled to catch his breath. 
Attempting to hold his breath for a moment, he tried to listen carefully for
some sound that would indicate he was close to catching up with Bantor’s
Warrior Group.

“No
good,” he panted to himself, “blood’s pounding too hard.”

Pushing
away from the wall, Troka walked a few steps and took a deep breath.  Just as
he started to run again, the loud braying of what had to be a war horn sounded
throughout the passageway.

Stopping
and leaning on his knees while he panted, Troka lifted his head and looked
quizzically back the way he had come.

“What’s
that all about?” he wondered out loud.  Remembering the great goat’s horn on
the landing where the rest of his team was waiting for him, Troka realized that
the only one that could have sounded the warning horn was his team.  To further
complicate matters, now that he had mostly caught his breath, not far ahead of
him Troka could hear the voices of what had to be the rearguard of Bantor’s
warrior group talking among themselves.

“Ah! 
Do I obey immediately, or do I press forward just a little further?”

Hesitating
for only a moment, Troka continued down the passageway.

Bantor’s
second was a grizzled old warrior.  He’d convinced Bantor and the other wizened
heads of his warrior group to ‘go deep,’ as he put it.  It hadn’t been hard,
anyway.  No one wanted to leave their home to rejoin a surface gen that had
cast them off before any of them were born, and even the least self-serving
among them had dreams of inheriting their gen’s entire enclave.  Yes, those
that stayed behind would gain power and stature once the fools who had followed
the paladin returned with their tails between their legs.

His
thoughts were broken as the sound of the alarm horn drowned out the shuffle of
many feet through the sand around him.  Turning, the old warrior saw one of the
surface-dwelling warriors that had accompanied the paladin running up from
behind.

“Halt
there, Kale warrior!” he commanded.

Troka
stopped in his tracks, his hands far away from his weapons as he breathed
heavily, the shield on his back finally coming to rest against his bruised
back.

“Sire,”
Troka began to plead, “my companions… they must have… sounded the horn… there’s
danger…”

“Stop
this silliness, Kale warrior.  We’ll not follow you back.  We will not be
delayed!  Go back and bother us no more.”

Troka
shook his head.  “But sire… we were sent… to pass a message along.  No one is
coming after you.  They’ve all fled for the surface.  We were not sent to stop
you, only to tell you that Lord Sennak the Younger has not sent anyone to chase
after you, but rather hopes to see you when this is all over.”

“Well,
you’ve delivered your message,” Bantor’s grizzled old second stated flatly. 
“Be gone with you, now.”

Troka
hesitated.  “But sire, what of the horn?”

Bantor’s
second didn’t answer.  He simply turned and continued after the rest of his
warrior group as they marched on to their doom.

Troka
turned and, shaking his head in frustration and sadness, began to run back to
the landing.

“Hurry!”
Gorgon hissed as he leaned all his weight against the massive rock he had
uprooted from the slope. 

At
the edge of the landing, not three paces out onto the narrow ledge that rimmed
the massive shaft, Arbelk chipped away at the little bit of dirt and rock that
seemed to be holding a large shelf of flat, slate-like rock in place.

“Just
a moment!  I’m working as fast as I can,” Arbelk replied.  “Don’t want to
fall.”

“Death
by fall… death by ants…” Jerrig mused.  “Not much of a choice.”

“Don’t
talk like that!” Gorgon snapped as he heaved the rock over the edge and out
into space, where it tumbled end over end, striking the walls and plowing
through the ranks of the advancing ant horde as it skimmed down the last few
hundred feet of the shaft.  After watching the impact of his efforts, Gorgon
turned to Jerrig.  “We may escape them yet.”

Jerrig,
having returned with a few, much smaller stones of his own, began dropping them
into the shaft as Gorgon went back for another large boulder.  “Not likely,” he
muttered under his breath.  Below them, the flood of ants up the thousand feet
or more of shaft below them came on quickly and relentlessly, with seemingly no
concern for their own safety.

“Where’s
that Troka!” Gorgon huffed between heaves against the boulder he was rolling
into place.  It hadn’t been long since they had sighted the ants and blown the
horn, but every second counted now, if they were going to have any chance of
escaping the ant threat. 

“Here,
Gorgon!” Troka yelled as he came bounding up the slope and onto the platform.

Over
to the side, Arbelk scrambled to get out of the way.  With a suddenness none of
them expected, the entire shelf gave way, dumping tons of earth and rock down
the shaft in a gathering storm of projectiles.  Simultaneously, Troka and
Jerrig fell in on either side of Gorgon and the three of them rolled the
boulder off the edge and into the abyss.

Satisfied
with the destruction their efforts were sure to cause, Gorgon yelled over the
din.  “Let’s go!”

Jerrig
immediately headed for the broad stairway, followed quickly by Arbelk.  Troka
grabbed his sheathed broadsword in both hands and slung it over his back, then
quickly took off running after his companions.

Taking
one final look down the shaft, Gorgon shook his head in frustration.  Down the
shaft, now almost a quarter of the way up, he could detect no holes in the
ants’ ranks, no slowing of their relentless march.  It was as if every hole
punched was patched the very next second.

Turning,
Gorgon looked down the slope.  No one would be returning from there, he now
knew.  That whole warrior group was as good as dead, or would be as soon as the
ants found them.  And find them they would.

Retrieving
his hammer from its place against the wall, Gorgon blew the warning horn one
more time, perhaps only to salve his conscience, then took off at a run after
his teammates.

Sennak,
now Lord Sennak the Younger of the Deep Gen, paused at the top of the massive
shaft that led thousands of feet down into the underdark, almost to the shores
of the undersea.  Far below the last few stragglers from his warrior group, the
sound of the warning horn from the middledeeps resonated.  Looking far down
into the depths, he saw a large number of creatures, by the warmth of them,
gathered around the bottom of the shaft.  Halfway between them and himself,
Sennak saw what had to be some of the Kale Gen warriors on the last landing,
rolling rocks into the shaft.

“What
is it, my lord?” the chief of his personal guard came up beside him.  Sennak
was still getting used to being addressed as lord, and to having a personal
guard.

“It
appears that something is massing down at the bottom of the shaft,” Sennak
replied.  “Do you think it’s Bantor’s warrior group?”

Both
leaders stood looking down the shaft as the last group of kobolds passed by
them and into the passageway that led up to the Crossway, and from there to the
cliff known as Sheerface.

“Sire,
Bantor’s people won’t be climbing walls like those seem to be doing, and I
really don’t think the Kale warriors would be dropping rocks on them, either.”

Sennak’s
blood ran cold.  He looked up at his companion.  “Chief, hurry the people
along, and pull every spare warrior out of the column.  I want you to form a
reserve… a rearguard.  It may be that the paladin’s prophecy is actually true.”

Having
seen the flood that was coming at them, both of them knew what serving as a
‘rearguard’ meant.  It was not a task to be given lightly.

Sennak
had not really believed Durik’s prophecy himself, despite the power that had
accompanied the giving of it.  Perhaps it had been his father’s influence. 
Perhaps it had been his own blindness.  Whatever it had been didn’t matter
now.  Sennak was glad he had given in to his fellow warrior group leaders’
demands on this point, and had gathered his people to flee their homes.