"Damn," he swore, as he watched the arrow glance off the thing's bony-looking shoulder. He dropped the bow and shrugged out of the quiver. "Wasted my coins on this in Bloten. Should stick with what I know." He drew his sword and advanced.
The others were doing the same, drawing weapons and moving in cautiously, studying the creature-the likes of which none of them had seen. They formed a semicircle about it, the creature keeping its back to the wall and eyeing all of them.
"Wh-wh-what is it?" Fetch squeaked from his perch on the pillar.
"Pigs if I know!" Rikali spat. "It's ugly, whatever it is. Probably the giant that's been eatin' all the goats."
"I don't know what it is, but it ain't a giant. Giants look a lot more human than that," Rig mused. "Yah! Over here!" His shout drew the thing's attention. The creature took a step toward the mariner and opened its maw, snarling now like a maddened beast. "I'll gut you like a…"
"Wait, Rig!" Fiona cut in. "We're the intruders here. We shouldn't just attack the beast. We don't know what it is. And we don't know if it truly means any harm."
"You're right," Maldred told her. "I revere life and…"
"Oh, it means us harm all right," Rig shot back. "Just look at it."
The creature stood still for several moments, its head moved jerkily, taking in Rig, Fiona, Maldred, Dhamon, and Rikali. A thick, black tongue wagged out to wet its bottom lip, then it snarled again, and with a speed that seemed peculiar for its malshaped body, it rushed toward Maldred.
Dhamon moved in that instant, too. He was quicker than the stony creature, darting in between it and Mal-dred. "I could use the exercise. I'll take him!" he hollered, as he drew a deep breath, pulled back, and swung. He braced himself, expecting to be jarred for striking the creature's stony chest. But the creature's flesh was soft like a man's, yielding when the blade connected, and the bones beneath crunching from the violent impact.
Both it and Dhamon were surprised. The creature glanced down at the line of dark green blood forming across its middle. It rubbed a hand against the wound and brought its claws up to its eyes, as if to study its own blood. It howled then, long and angrily, and it slashed at Dhamon.
Dhamon barely managed to drop beneath the swipe of its needlelike claws. Then he swung again, connecting with the creature's distended abdomen this time. The creature cried in pain, the sound echoing hauntingly off the cavern walls and bringing a squeal from Fetch.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dhamon saw Rig and Mal-dred edge closer. "I said he's mine!" Dhamon called to the mariner. It wasn't that he didn't mind help defeating the creature, he just had no desire to fight side-by-side with Rig again. "Back off!"
"It's your neck," Rig said as he retreated.
Dhamon slid to the side so he would be between the mariner and the creature. It howled once more, remaining fixated on Dhamon, who noticed that the wounds on its chest and stomach had stopped bleeding.
"So you heal quickly," he commented. "I can fix that."
Dhamon feinted to his right, the creature following him with both arms stretching out as far as it could reach. Then he spun to his left, crouched beneath the beast's claws, and drove his blade up, running the creature through. Blood spilled out, releasing with it the overpowering smell of decaying leaves. Dhamon gagged and stepped back, tugging the sword free and expecting to watch the creature fall.
Instead, it screamed maddeningly and clutched at the wound, eyes darting from the blood that flowed over its claws to Dhamon.
"Pigs, lover!" Rikali shouted. "Just kill the beastie and be done with it!"
"Tough to kill," Dhamon grumbled as he made a move to step forward again.
"My turn!" Maldred cut in. The big man darted up, his great two-handed sword held above his shoulder. "Stay low!" he called to Dhamon as he swept the blade in a high, wide arc. The metal shimmered as it connected with the beast's flesh, then it continued on, passing through the neck. The head plopped to the floor, the creature's body falling a heartbeat later.
"Impressive," Dhamon stated.
"Guess the two of you didn't need any help," Fiona said. She brought the torch nearer so she could get a better look at the creature. She glance at Maldred, then at Dhamon. "But I still think you were a bit hasty. It might not have been hostile. Dhamon attacked it first. Provoked it with the arrows. Not everything that looks different from us is an enemy."
The half-elf sheathed her knife. "It was mean, all right. And ugly. What were you gonna do, Fee-oh-na? Talk it to death? Or maybe invite it to join the Solamnic Knights?"
The mariner padded up to Fiona's side, glaive grasped tightly in his hands. He stared at Maldred's sword, the dark green blood on it. He watched the big man pull a cloth from his pocket and wipe the blood off, pausing to sniff the cloth before tucking it into his belt.
"Smells very strongly of copper," he commented to the mariner.
"Blood is blood, doesn't matter what it smells like, or what color it is. At least the thing's dead." After a moment's pause, Rig nodded to the two-handed sword. "Nice blade."
"It was a gift from Donnag. To replace a weapon I lost many days ago."
The mariner prized weapons. The glaive he carried was magicked, able to pass through armor as if it were parchment. And he had a penchant for collecting weapons, especially coveting enchanted ones. He glanced at Maldred's blade again, wondering if there might be some magic about it because it so easily cut through the creature. Shrugging, he quickly decided he didn't care; if it was a gift from Lord Donnag, it wasn't anything he was interested in. Then Rig knelt by the slain creature and examined its feet. "Had to have been one of those giants they were talking about. It would make big enough tracks for a common man to think it a giant."
"Probably," Dhamon said, padding closer. "But we might as well make sure. We can check down those alcoves, see if we can find any goat carcasses and…" The tingling sensation was back for just an instant. Was something else watching him? He turned and glanced at Rikali.
The half-elf was against the cavern wall, studying some of the carved images of dwarven children, tracing something with her fingers and making faces. For an instant it looked like one of the carved heads was making a face back. Dhamon blinked and looked closer.
"Riki!" He warned.
Too late! A second beast separated from the wall and grabbed for the half-elf, one claw completely circling her slender waist and raising her above the floor. As Dhamon dashed forward, the creature drew the other claw to her throat and growled loudly.
Dhamon skidded to a stop,the others behind him.
Rikali struggled frantically, but couldn't break the thing's grip. It was larger than the first, though not quite as tall. It had a wide chest and a big pot belly. Its legs were thick like tree trunks, and its feet were long and ended in claws that curled in on themselves. It met Dhamon's gaze, and as he inched forward it squeezed Rikali tighter. She screamed.
"Stop!" Maldred called to Dhamon. "It's threatening us."
"Aye," Dhamon returned. "That's clear enough. We come any closer and it kills her, it seems." Behind him, he heard a soft «shushing» sound, recognizing it as Rig tugging daggers free.
"It probably wants us to leave," Maldred continued. "Doesn't want to end up dead like its friend. Fiona's right. We're the intruders. But if we leave…"
"It'll probably still kill Riki," Dhamon finished. With that, he sprang toward the creature, pulling his sword over his shoulder and swinging hard, biting deep into the beast's side. He jumped back quickly. The creature howled in surprise and savagely flung the half-elf to the ground, stepping on her as it advanced on Dhamon.