Just as the cleric readied to give Krusk "the stare," Alhandra stood beside the half-orc, put her hand on his shoulder, and said, "Don't lose patience, Jozan. Krusk is merely a little shy when he meets new people. He'll open up a little later and you'll see that he can be quite a help."
"You mean you trust this…this… barbarian?" All of Jozan's cache of eloquence disintegrated in an explosion of pure jealousy.
Alhandra didn't seem to understand Jozan's agitated demeanor, but she answered quickly and quietly, "I know Krusk as a very brave man who fights against evil at every opportunity. I've fought beside him and I even sought Heironeous's guidance a moment ago to guarantee that this is the Krusk I know. There is no way I couldn't trust him."
At that moment, Jozan had the eerie experience of watching a past sermon come true. On several occasions, he had preached about the providential protection of Pelor and how evil has a tendency to overplay its hand.
Even before he could apologize to Krusk and Alhandra for his almost hostile behavior, a cloaked merchant crashed through the door shouting, "Orcs! Wolves! Boars!"
As one, the tavern regulars pulled knives, swords, and axes that seemed more recently scavenged than used. They certainly weren't the well-honed weapons of even an active militia. As they started walking shakily but resolutely toward the door, Jozan saw the empty eye sockets within their hooded visages. He observed their resolve born of desperation and humiliation as they moved unenthusiastically toward the pending battle.
All these observations took only a moment and they were punctuated by an almost involuntary reaction. Krusk crashed out the front door and, with mace in hand, Jozan followed. Alhandra, he was not surprised to discover, was beside him. They heard the mob, Pergue's makeshift militia, moving behind them, yet the main attraction was clearly before them.
A one-eyed orc priest adorned with bone necklaces and antlers in his hair was driving a two-wheeled cart pulled by the largest one-eyed dire wolf Jozan had ever seen. The cart's wheels were augmented by radiating spikes oozing a sticky substance, and the druid was joined by a large eagle, two large, one-eyed orc warriors atop similarly deformed war boars, and six smaller orc soldiers. One of the orc soldiers pounded a crude cadence on a drum adorned with human skulls and stretched, Jozan suspiciously assumed, with human skin, as well.
Seeing the motley assemblage moving to meet him, the orc wrapped his reins around one arm and moved his other hand in small spirals descending from head and face to below the sides of the cart. Then, as the cart drew nearer, the orc's gray skin began to glow with an eerie, green tinge followed by a brown crust that seemed to crawl from forehead downward. In only a few seconds, it seemed as if the orc had changed his skin to the texture of tree bark.
Jozan realized he faced a potent rival-a druid.
10
Yddith heard the drumming and the shouts. Even with tears forming a crystalline stream below her one good eye, she recognized the danger.
"Not again," she said to herself and shuddered.
Even as the makeshift militia decided it was better to go down fighting than to be captured again, Yddith re-entered the common room and moved swiftly to the shuttered window where she could observe the action through its narrow slit.
"I am Hassq!" intoned the priest, speaking in the preferred mono-syllabics of the orcs but without the harsh accentuation and awkward grammar exhibited by most of the northern orcs. "Come, slaves! Come now or lose more eyes!"
"Not on your life!" shouted a blacksmith as he charged forward. This precipitated similar shouts from other townsfolk and a few angry syllables from Krusk. It also sparked considerable action.
Yddith saw Hassq's eagle take to the air and launch itself against Dyffid, the wine merchant, as he charged the druid. She saw the bird rake a claw across the man's face and peck frighteningly close to the merchant's remaining good eye. She was encouraged to see Dyffid stab the bird with a rusty dagger stripped from a dead slaver's body and she almost cheered as she watched him withdraw the blade with a new adornment of feathers and blood. Then the eagle squawked and flew upward to circle around for another attack.
Yddith was frightened. She couldn't keep track of all the separate battles in the rapidly darkening street. She watched the dire wolf charge, pulling the cart directly toward the ragtag defenders. She saw Krusk and Alhandra closing on the two mounted orcs and even saw the town's blacksmith join with Alhandra against the orc. All the while, the drum pounded. The orc soldiers continued advancing to the sound of the drum and Yddith knew that she needed to stop them before they entered the fray.
Yddith reached for the curtain nearest her and started slicing off some of the cloth with a greasy kitchen knife when she saw Jozan lift his mace and point its head at the drummer. She heard him summon the power of Pelor and watched the mace glow with the sun god's blessing.
"Run!" commanded the cleric in a mellifluous tone that engulfed the orc percussionist with sound and tiny sparkles of sunlight that danced around his head.
The drummer missed a beat. Then, with panic in his yellow eyes, he turned to run. Jozan thanked Pelor aloud for intervening and smiled in grim satisfaction. As the drummer ran, the remaining orcs looked at each other in confusion.
Yddith intuitively grasped the young cleric's intent. She took a portion of the woolen curtain she'd just chopped off and rolled it into a ball. Then, quietly summoning the power within her that had saved her life once before, Yddith breathed the power word. This time, as she invoked the grace of Pelor, Yddith concentrated on creating the sound of armor clanking behind the closest orc. The soldier spun around to face the non-existent threat behind him and received a meat cleaver wedged in his back as his reward. Yddith hadn't realized that Imel the butcher was about to throw his cleaver just as she'd seen him do in every spring festival for five years running, but she was thankful for Imel's prowess. The orc stumbled and his remaining compatriots looked even more confused.
Satisfied that she had helped throw the orc infantry squad into confusion, Yddith glanced quickly at the rest of the battle. She saw Lovan, the miller, joining in the melee alongside Krusk. The orc warrior they fought was shouting something in its own guttural language just as Lovan swung a rusty axe at the war boar and struck the orc's knee by mistake. The cut wasn't deep, but it got the attention of both the orc and the boar. The tusked mount shifted to slash at Lovan. The boar missed, but only because its tusk was partially broken off. Unfortunately, as Lovan stumbled backward, the animal sank its teeth into the miller's leg and ripped away a large gouge of flesh and muscle.
Yddith winced as she saw the boar fear at Lovan's leg, but she also recognized that the maneuver had brought the orc within range of Krusk's axe. Krusk smashed the side of his weapon like a hammer across the orc's shoulder blade, toppling the warrior backward. From this distance, Yddith couldn't hear the bones cracking like dry firewood over the sounds of battle, but she saw the stain of blood splashing down the warrior's weapon arm like ale pouring down a drunkard's shirt. The orc's shattered arm dropped but he kept his grip on his weapon. With the grit and concentrated effort of an experienced veteran, he reached across the saddle with his good arm and reclaimed the axe from the useless, blood-slickened right hand. In a moment he was trading blows with the half-orc, his handicap offset by the advantage of being seated on the giant boar.
Yddith's attention was riveted on Krusk's challenge. She didn't see the eagle dive at Dyffid again and again, clawing and pecking until the poor wine merchant covered his remaining eye and fell exhausted and bleeding to the ground. She missed the brave intervention of Kix, the stable boy, as he impaled the bird on his pitchfork, saving Dyffid from further clawing and biting.