They passed the hidden comrades without any indication of noticing them.
An arrow sailed out of the treetops and nailed one of the soldiers in the neck, dropping him to his knees.
Whitman somersaulted from the brush, back-flipping to a stop before the stunned soldiers. His hammer barred their path.
Clemf stepped from behind the tree, longsword leveled, blocking their escape back through the swamp.
Regdar stepped into clear view, his ornate longbow pulled taught, an arrow nocked and pointed at the trapped men.
"We can do this the easy way," Regdar chuckled, "or you can make it hard on yourselves."
The black-clad soldiers stood completely still.
"We've come looking for a woman," said Regdar, moving a bit closer. "A wizard named Naull."
The two soldiers still on their feet turned to glare at Regdar with malice in their eyes.
The man on his knees pulled his helm from his head. Tasca's arrow was lodged in the side of his neck, and the wound bled freely. Regdar could see that he would bleed to death before long without aid. The wounded man threw his helmet at Whitman and drew his sword, still on his knees.
"I thought so," said Regdar through gritted teeth. He let his arrow fly. It connected with the kneeling man's ear, knocking him stiffly sideways and pinning his head to the ground.
The other two men drew their swords, then both lunged forward at Whitman. The dwarf bashed away one attack but suffered a cut to the shoulder from the other. Reversing the head of his hammer, he used the momentum from his swing to wind up for another attack. The head of his dwarven-forged weapon collided with a bone-splitting crack against one man's shins. The soldier dropped to a crouch, clutching his obviously broken leg.
Clemf rammed his longsword into the back of the other man's ribcage. The scale mail separated before the sharp point, and the man gasped, arching his spine. The man stumbled away from Clemf's blade on his toes. He ran blindly into Whitman, who refused to give ground.
With a half step forward, Clemf held the man pinned on the end of his blade like a giant bug.
"Drop your sword," he growled, "or I'll saw this blade right down through your guts."
Regdar nocked another arrow. "You've heard of the woman Naull?"
The two black-clad soldiers remained still.
Regdar stepped up and kicked the soldier's broken shin.
The man collapsed to his side, whimpering. His face wrinkled up, and the ridges faded into white as he clinched against the pain.
Clemf twisted his sword, the tip still lodged in the other soldier's back. The man moaned and gripped the hilt of his own sword tighter. Whitman nudged him with his shoulder, pushing him farther onto Clemf's blade.
Regdar kicked the downed man again. "I'm going to keep asking you until you tell me," he said, exaggerating each word and pausing after each one to land another kick.
The standing soldier inhaled deeply, with much pain. Then he lurched forward and slashed with his sword toward Whitman. It was a stroke of defiance-he hadn't the strength remaining to be truly dangerous.
In a blink, however, four men moved.
An arrow launched down from the treetop, slicing into the back of the man’s neck, missing the helm entirely and sinking into the soft flesh below the head.
Clemf lunged forward, twisting his blade with all of his considerable strength.
Whitman jammed his shoulder deeper into the pinned man's gut, shoving him hard onto the sword in his back. The tip of Clemf's blade burst from the man's chest, just above Whitman's head.
A second arrow, fired from ground level at point blank range, slipped through the eye slit in the man’s helm to penetrate midshaft into his eye.
The soldier's sword slipped from his hand and hit the wet ground with a light splash. His limp body followed a moment after.
Regdar dropped his bow and grabbed the remaining soldier by the neckline of his breastplate. Lifting him to his feet, the big fighter shook the man.
"Tell me what you know about Naull."
The man cringed, trying to hold his broken shin. Beads of sweat dribbled down his forehead, and his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
Holding the man up with only one hand, Regdar knocked off his helm with the other.
"Talk to me, you slavemonger."
"Regdar-" started Whitman.
Regdar ignored the dwarf. Bending slightly at the knees, he lifted the captive into the air by his neck.
"I said talk!" He shook the man.
The soldier gurgled. He let go of his leg to claw at Regdar's hands.
"Regdar," shouted Whitman, "he couldn't talk now if he wanted to."
"Oh no?" shouted Regdar, still looking at the man he held more than a foot off the ground. He felt the dwarf's hand on his shoulder.
"You're killing him," insisted Whitman.
The soldier's clawing hands slowed, then dropped limply to his sides.
Regdar shook him one more time, then with a tremendous grunt, hurled the man into the air. The soldier flew backward and landed with a clatter a few feet from his fallen comrades. Regdar doubled over, breathing hard from the exertion. He looked at the tangled mess of a man lying still on the muddy ground.
Clemf bent down and put his fingers to the man's neck, then announced, "He's dead."
7
A cultist, wrapped from head to toe in black splintmail, pushed through the door to the blackguard's chamber.
"They've arrived at the edge of the swamp, my mistress," he announced.
The blackguard, hunched over a figure lying prone on a waist-high table, didn't bother to turn away from her work.
"That's good news," she said. "Keep me informed of their progress."
Tasca dropped softly down from the treetops, bow already stowed on his back.
Regdar straightened up. "Those men looked an awful lot like the ones who attacked the duke's keep."
Whitman scratched his beard, looking at the dead soldiers. "Maybe we should head back and inform the duke."
"No," shouted Regdar. He put his whole hand across his face, aware of how loud he had been. Then in a quieter voice, he said,
"You saw how they reacted when I mentioned Naull. She's here somewhere, and I'm going to find her."
Clemf stood up, finished with his inspection of the dead men. "Nothing," he declared, raising empty hands. "Not even a few coins."
"Professional soldiers," remarked Tasca. "Well-trained, well-outfitted, organized, and no nonsense. These aren't mercenaries. They have a purpose, a mission." He looked to Regdar, then to Whitman. "Even if we did return to alert the duke, then what? We'd just have to come back here, where the enemy is. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone."
Regdar slapped the elf on the shoulder and nodded his agreement.
Clemf grabbed the first soldier by the arms and dragged him back toward the eel pool.
"If these soldiers are who we're looking for, and this is their swamp, then it's a good bet that we made enough noise killing these three to bring more of them." He looked up at his comrades.
Whitman and Regdar grabbed the other two and dragged them into the water as well. Tasca followed behind with a tree branch, sloshing mud back over their tracks and smoothing out the drag marks.
When the bodies were submerged, the group struck out again. The path they followed wound deeper into the swamp. Though it was mucky, it seemed to be the firmest patch of ground in the smelly wetland. Around two more bends, the dense vegetation gave way to a small clearing at the base of Mount Fear.
Seemingly built right out of the mountain, on the edge of that clearing, climbed an imposing black tower fortress. The walls rose from the base of the mountain up to the height of two storm giants. It jutted out of the mountain as if it were emerging from a deep slumber, stepping out into the swamp for the first time in hundreds of years.