“I like the first option,” Uldane said.
Roghar nodded. “I agree. Let’s aim for that.”
“Do you have a plan?” Tempest asked.
“When have I ever had a plan?”
“You sound like Shara,” Uldane said with a grin that quickly dissolved into a scowl.
Roghar walked a few paces in silence, confident that if the halfling wanted to talk about whatever was bothering him, he would. Uldane could generally be counted on to speak up in any circumstance, even on the way to a battle that might be his last.
“It’s like she just doesn’t care any more,” Uldane said at last. “I mean, she always enjoyed fighting, but after Jarren died she just got reckless. And you know nothing scares me, but I don’t like the feeling that my friend doesn’t care if I live or die-doesn’t even care if she dies. Jarren cared. Jarren cared for us both.”
Roghar put a hand on Uldane’s shoulder as the halfling rubbed at his eye. “And the drow?”
“He doesn’t give a damn. He doesn’t care about anything but himself. It’s like being with him is just another way for Shara to put herself in danger.”
“You think she’s in real danger?”
“Yes! I don’t think he’d pause a minute before turning on her if he thought he could save himself.”
Roghar scratched his chin. “Shara told the soldiers on the bridge that he had saved her life, more than once.”
“He helped us fight the demons, it’s true. But he’s just looking out for himself.”
“Hm. I think that’s a little different than saying he himself is a danger to her.”
Uldane shrugged. “I don’t see how.”
“Well, Uldane, Shara’s heart was broken. And I think she blames herself for Vestapalk’s return when we all thought he was dead.”
“So she’s punishing herself?”
“I think so, yes.”
“That’s stupid. It’s like … like making a wound larger because it doesn’t hurt enough.”
“People who are hurting sometimes do things that don’t make much sense.”
“All you tall folk do things that don’t make sense, all the time. I guess it’s nothing new.”
Roghar stopped walking. The straight and level road had come to an end, and ahead was the winding track leading down the bluffs to Lowtown and the Market Green. “Like leading a ragtag gang of militia into battle against a horde of demons?” he said.
Uldane stepped to the very edge of the bluff and leaned over so far that Roghar felt a rush of vertigo on his behalf. “Exactly like that,” the halfling said. “Look, you can see some of the burning ones moving around down there.”
“Do you see any on the trail down the bluff?” Roghar asked.
“No sign of fire. But it was the nightmare ones that attacked us over on the west side. They’re not so easy to spot in this light.”
“Right. They’re hard enough to spot right before they attack. Eyes and ears wide open as we head down, then. We’ve got to spot them before they attack the soldiers behind us.”
Uldane and Tempest both nodded, their attention focused over the edge of the cliff.
Roghar turned to face his little army again. The numbers had swelled further, to more than he could quickly count, and he felt a surge of gratitude that made his chest ache. “Warriors of Fallcrest!” he called. A chorus of cheers, louder than anything he’d heard back at the inn, answered him. “We march into enemy territory,” he said. “But we’re not going to find massed lines of demon soldiers waiting for us-they don’t fight that way. They’ll send little squads to harry us, to bite at our flanks and nip at our heels. That means we need to be as nimble as they are. If there’s too many of them and too few of you, fall back and find help. There’s no disgrace in it.”
He let his eyes range over his troops. He saw nods of understanding, faces set in determination as soldiers steeled themselves for battle, and a few of them taking nips from little flasks of liquid courage. The early rays of sunlight gleamed on their steel caps and spearheads, resting like the favor of the gods on each of them.
“On to victory!” he shouted.
“Victory!” came a cheer in response.
Roghar lifted his glowing sword over his head and started down the trail, Uldane and Tempest close behind him and a surge of desperately eager soldiers pressing him on.
The cliff that divided Fallcrest in two offered a sheer drop of more than two hundred feet in the center of town. The track made use of natural ledges and dwarf-cut switchbacks to provide a path a wagon could follow, albeit slowly and very carefully-especially on the turns. It was only barely wide enough for a wagon, and every time a wagon started the descent a runner would hurry to the bottom to make sure a different wagon didn’t start up at the same time. But even that arrangement was better than what the other two roads that traversed the bluffs offered-riders and small carts could navigate them, but wagons were out of the question. That made Market Street the best option for his soldiers, but still not a great option.
Roghar tried to listen for any sign of an ambush, but the soldiers behind him made an unbelievable amount of noise. Wayward footsteps sent trickles of gravel down the cliffside around him, and even the whispers of more than two dozen men added up to a constant low murmur that made him despair of hearing anything else.
“Up ahead!” Uldane said suddenly. He pointed to a narrow stretch of the trail, where the cliff edge was marked with red warning banners. Roghar knew that at least one wagon had slipped over the edge there and plummeted down, killing several people and as many horses. It was a logical place for an ambush.
He followed Uldane’s pointing finger and tried to make out what the halfling had seen, but his eyes showed him no sign of danger.
“I see it,” Tempest said. “One of the nightmare demons.”
“More than one,” Uldane said. “Look up the bluff from the road.”
Roghar looked up and spotted at least some of the demons Uldane saw-three or four of the shadowy demons, lurking among the scrub trees that clung to the bluffs. “Well done, Uldane. Let’s get them!”
His sword blazing like the sun, Roghar charged forward. As he neared the point where he’d spotted the demons, he called on Bahamut’s power, and a gust of wind like a swooping angel lifted him off the ground and set him down in the midst of the demons on the bluff. One foot slipped as he landed, and for a moment he feared he was about to tumble down the cliff, but he got his feet under him again and stood his ground as three shadowy figures surged toward him.
“You killed us,” one of the figures said, no longer a demon of shadow and Voidharrow but a soldier just like the ones behind him, clad in leather and clutching a spear. The man’s eyes were dead and his flesh gone gray, but he moved with all the speed of the living. The other two figures took on similar shapes, and they reached for him with their dead hands, whispering words of condemnation.
“You led us to our doom,” one said.
“Foolhardy,” said another.
The ground beneath Roghar’s feet began to rumble, matching the pounding of his heart. His mind knew that these demons could prey on his fears and turn them against him, but when faced with his deepest terrors given flesh, he found it nearly impossible to listen to that part of his mind. He glanced around and saw gravel tumbling down the bluffs, and he realized what the rumbling meant.
A landslide would obliterate his entire, pathetic army in one blow.
“You did this to us,” a dead soldier said, clawing at his eyes.
Roghar whirled his sword around him in a wide circle, trailing light like a comet. Steel and radiance bit into the walking corpses that threatened him and they recoiled, allowing their true demonic faces to show through for a moment.
“Hurry!” he yelled to the soldiers behind him. “Landslide!”
The demons in their dead-soldier guises closed around him again, and the rumbling of the earth grew louder. His sword exploded in light as he slammed the blade into the middle demon’s shoulder, cutting through red crystal and shadowy flesh until nothing remained but dust. He spun to face the two remaining demons and roared his triumph, punctuating his roar with a blast of dragonfire from his mouth. As he conquered his fear their faces with their haunting eyes melted away-and he realized with a start that the rumbling of the earth stopped as well.