Authors: R.A. Salvatore
“End-o’-the-World,” Paulson agreed angrily. “And we’ll tell the fools, but I’m not thinking that they’ll be listening.”
Elbryan nodded and looked at Pony. “Weedy Meadow,” he instructed. “You and Avelyn.”
“And what of Dundalis?” the woman asked.
“Bradwarden and I will return to Dundalis with word of the goblins,” the ranger explained. “But first, we will return here.” The ranger pointed down at the map with his stick, to a spot on the map northwest of Dundalis, a point nearly equidistant from Dundalis and Weedy Meadow, and not much further from End-o’-the-World.
“The grove?” Pony asked.
Elbryan nodded. “A diamond-shaped grove of fir trees,” he explained to the trappers.
“I’m knowing the spot,” said Paulson, “and not much caring for it.”
Elbryan wasn’t surprised by that response—likely the same elven magic that drew the ranger to the grove made a rogue like Paulson feel uncomfortable around it. “One week, then,” the ranger explained. He looked to Paulson. “If you go straight to the south from End-o’-the-World, be certain that the folk of the town know where I can be found.”
Paulson waved him away, the man seeming quite displeased by it all.
Elbryan motioned to Bradwarden. “Symphony is about,” the ranger said confidently.
Before the next dawn, the ranger and the centaur were racing to the north, Bradwarden working hard to keep up with magnificent Symphony.
Avelyn and Pony, walking side by side, set a more gradual pace, for they figured that they could arrive in Weedy Meadow before the nightfall.
The road was a bit longer for Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk, but though the latter two pressed Paulson hard for desertion, telling him every step of the way that they should abandon End-o’-the-World and go straight on to the south—all the way to Palmaris, perhaps—the big man, duty-bound for the first time in years, would hear nothing of it. He had given his word to the ranger that he would go and warn the folk of End-o’-the-World, and so he would.
Pony and Avelyn had underestimated the distance and camped outside Weedy Meadow that night, the monk reasoning that it would be better for them to go into town with such grim warnings during the brightness of day. They rested easily in the quiet forest, having learned much of camp building from Elbryan over the last few days, and Pony was soon asleep.
She awakened to the screams of Avelyn, the fat man in the throes of a nightmare, rolling about on the ground. Finally Pony managed to stir him from his slumber, and the look upon his face as he stared at her was one of madness, one that sent chills up and down Pony’s spine.
Avelyn lifted his hand and opened it, revealing several small stones, the burned smoky quartz that he had taken from the corpse of Brother Quintall.
“I felt that they had magic left in them,” the fat monk explained. “Distance sight is their trademark.”
“You looked for the goblins,” Pony reasoned.
“And I saw them, my girl,” said Avelyn, “a vast host. Paulson did not exaggerate!”
Pony breathed hard and nodded.
“But that was not all!” Avelyn said to her, grabbing and shaking her. “I was compelled beyond the army.
Compelled
, I say, pulled by the magic of the stones, by a distant power that lone ago attuned itself to these special stones.”
Pony looked at him curiously, not really understanding.
“Something terrible is awake in Corona, my girl!” Avelyn spouted. “The dactyl walks Corona!”
The words were nothing new to Pony; Avelyn had been making such claims for a very long time. Indeed, he had spouted similar words in the common room in Tinson on the night Pony had first met him. This time, though, there was something more to the claim, something personal. Always Avelyn had been firm in his belief, but now his expression showed him to be far beyond simple belief. At that moment, in the light of a dying fire, Pony had no doubt that Avelyn’s knowledge of the awakened dactyl was now something more than the suspicions aroused by ancient texts. It was something entirely personal.
“So there ye have it,” Bradwarden said quietly, ominously, he and Elbryan looking out over a vast field of dark tents. “Them three wasn’t lying.”
“Or even exaggerating,” Elbryan added in subdued tones. When first he had crested this ridge, looking down upon the massive army setting its camp, the ranger’s heart had dropped. How could the folk of Dundalis, Weedy Meadow, and End-o’-the-World resist such an army, even if all of them stood together behind fortified walls?
They could not, of course.
And it was quite obvious that this force was moving southward. The army was many miles below the spot where Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk had indicated they had seen it, and the swath the goblins and giants had cut in the forest on the northern side of the encampment was visible even from this southern ridge.
“We’ll find us a hole to hide in,” Bradwarden said calmly. “Goblins been through afore, and’ll be through again. I’ve waited them out afore, and I’ll wait them out again!”
“We need to know more of their intentions,” Elbryan said suddenly, drawing a curious stare from the centaur.
“Not so hard to figure out what a goblin means to do,” Bradwarden replied dryly.
Elbryan was shaking his head before the centaur ever finished. “This is different,” he explained. “Goblins and giants should not be together in so large a group. And working in concert,” he added, sweeping his arm across the panorama of the encampment, indicating the disciplined manner in which the creatures were organizing their camp. “And what of those?” he went on, pointing to a dozen huge war engines circled on the far end of the camp.
“They’re a bit hungrier this time, is all,” replied Bradwarden. “So they’ll kill a few more than usual, maybe sack two towns instead of one. It’s an old tale, me friend, repeated again and again, though always do ye human folk seem surprised when it falls on yer heads.”
Elbryan didn’t believe it, not this time, not in looking at that military camp. He glanced to the west, taking note that the sun was touching the horizon. “I have to go in,” he remarked.
“Do ye now?” the centaur asked sarcastically.
Elbryan slipped down from Symphony and handed his reins to Bradwarden. “Scout the area,” he said. “See if any branches of the army have moved past our location. I will return at the setting of Sheila to this spot or to the back of the next ridge if the goblins have claimed this area as their own.”
Bradwarden knew that it was futile to argue with the stubborn ranger.
Elbryan made his way from tree to tree, to bush and to the back of hills, moving ever closer to the great army. Soon, goblin scouts were about him, walking through the trees, talking in their whining voices, complaining about this or that, about the fit of their uniforms or some particularly nasty commander who talked more with his whip than his voice. Elbryan couldn’t make out every word; the goblins were using the language spoken by the common folk of Corona, but the creatures’ accents were so thick, their slang so heavy, that the ranger could only get a general impression of their conversation.
That impression did little to calm Elbryan’s fears. The goblins were speaking of being a part of an army, that much was certain.
Elbryan got his next surprise an hour later. The ranger was up in a tree, lying low across a thick branch barely ten feet from the ground when a group of soldiers walked into the clearing below the tree. Three were goblins, but the fourth, holding the torch, was a creature the ranger had never before seen, a dwarf, barrel-chested but spindly limbed, wearing a red cap.
A cap red with blood, Elbryan knew, for though he had never seen a powrie before, he remembered well the childhood tales of the wicked dwarves.
The four decided to rest right at the base of the wide-spreading tree. Fortunately for Elbryan, none of the creatures bothered to look up into the tangle of branches.
The ranger wasn’t sure how to proceed. He felt that he should steal that bloody cap, as further proof for the townsfolk that danger was sweeping their way. Reports of goblins would do little more than stir up some interest and maybe incite a few patrols, Elbryan knew, a response he remembered from his own days as a villager. But a bloody cap tossed in their midst, proof that powries were in the region, might scare more than a few folk from their homes, might send them running down the road to the south.
How to get the cap, though?
Stealthy thievery seemed the order of the day. The four were down and resting; perhaps they would drift off to sleep. One of the goblins brought out a bulging waterskin, and as soon as the creature poured some of the foaming liquid into a mug, Elbryan knew that it held some potent drink indeed.
Elbryan’s blood began to boil with rage as the goblins talked of flattening the towns and killing all the men, as they described in detail the pleasures that might be had before they killed the women.
The young man found his breath hard to draw; the brutish talk brought him back to that awful day in his youth, made him see again the carnage in Dundalis, made him hear again the screams of his family and his friends.
All thoughts of stealthy thievery flew from the fierce ranger’s mind.
A few minutes later, one of the goblins went off a short distance into the brush to relieve itself. Elbryan could still see the creature, a darker spot in the brush, its back to him swaying back and forth as it watered a bush.
The ranger shifted slowly to a sitting position. He lifted an arrow to Hawkwing’s string and gently pulled back. He glanced down at the other three, growing louder and more boisterous as they drank deeply. The dwarf was telling some rowdy story, the two goblins laughing riotously at every grotesque detail.
Elbryan measured the words, waiting a moment longer, sensing that the dwarf was at some high point.
Hawkwing’s bowstring hummed, the arrow flying true, diving into the back of the peeing goblin’s head. The creature gave a slight moan and tumbled headlong into the brush.
The dwarf stopped abruptly and hopped to its feet, staring out into the night.
The goblins were still laughing, though, one of them making some crude remark that its companion probably passed out on top of its own urine.
The dwarf wasn’t so sure and waved the pair to silence, then motioned for them to move out a bit.
Up on the branch, the ranger fitted two arrows to his bow, one above the other and drew back the string. The two goblins paced out in front of the dwarf, side by side, calling softly to their missing companion, though neither seemed overconcerned.
Elbryan shifted his bow to horizontal, took careful aim, and let fly. The arrows whipped out, not quite parallel, their angle separating them as they flew. They were two feet apart as each burrowed into its respective goblin, dropping the creatures where they stood. One made not a sound, the other, hit below a lung, let out an agonized howl.
Elbryan leaped from the branch, letting fly another arrow in midair, this one silencing the wounded goblin forever. The ranger hit the ground in a roll, flicked the feathered tip and string from Hawkwing, and came to his feet, staff at the ready.
The dwarf was ready, too, a two-headed flail spinning in its hands. It came on in a wild rush, showing no sign of fear.
Elbryan leaped back, easily avoiding the short reach of the flail, then stepped ahead and poked hard with the tip of his staff, smacking the dwarf right in the face.
The stout creature hardly slowed, rushing ahead, whipping its flail back and forth.
Elbryan dodged and darted out to the side and, when the dwarf turned to chase, swinging its weapon with extended arms, Elbryan presented his staff vertically, both balls of the flail wrapping about it.
The ranger pulled hard, expecting to take the weapon from the dwarf’s hand, but the powrie was stronger than Elbryan believed, and only pulled back even harder. Always ready to improvise, Elbryan eased his muscles and ran straight ahead into the dwarf, turning his staff to smash its tip into the dwarf’s face once more.
Elbryan tugged again and the chained balls slipped off the staff’s end, freeing both weapons. The ranger had the advantage though, and he batted Hawkwing back and forth, clubbing the dwarf twice on either side of its hard head.
The powrie retreated a step and shook its head fiercely, then, to Elbryan’s disbelief, came charging right back in. Its swing was awkward, the flail coming in from a wide angle, and Elbryan thrust his staff out that way in one hand, enwrapping the balls once more. The ranger stepped straight ahead, cupped his fingers, flattened his palm, and slammed the powrie with a series of short heavy blows, each one snapping the dwarf’s head back.
His attacks showing little effect, the ranger spun to the side, grabbed up his staff in both hands, and tugged hard, pulling the flail free of the powrie’s grasp and launching it across the clearing. Sensing that the furious dwarf would be charging again, Elbryan came all the way around and jabbed Hawkwing hard into the creature’s throat, stopping it in its tracks.
The ranger spun again and smashed the staff down diagonally across the powrie’s jaw, cracking bone, but the dwarf only growled and pursued. Elbryan simply could not believe the punishment this creature had accepted!
The powrie dipped its broad shoulder, trying to tackle the ranger. Elbryan set his feet and launched a vicious uppercut jab with the staff, using the powrie’s momentum against it.
But still the dwarf came on, locking its thin arms about Elbryan’s waist and squeezing him tight, driving him back toward the trunk of the huge tree.
The ranger dropped Hawkwing, reached behind him to his pack, and tore free his hatchet. With a growl, he chopped it down hard on the back of the powrie’s neck.
Still the dwarf drove him backward.
Elbryan hit the creature again and again, then nearly lost his weapon when he collided with the tree, the powrie’s legs driving on, as if the dwarf meant to push him right through the bark.
And given the unearthly strength of the dwarf, Elbryan wondered if the creature might actually do so!
Now the ranger’s arm pumped frantically, and finally after perhaps the tenth blow, the powrie’s grasp at last loosened.