Like it was all happening underwater, muddy and slow, Regdar watched the goblin charge, saw Rezrex open his mouth to give the order to cut Naull’s throat —and the word “Silence!” boomed through the cave.
It was Jozan, using the grace of Pelor the same way he’d made Lidda scream to reveal herself in the woods on the surface. The hobgoblin’s throat visibly tensed, and the word or grunt or command that was about to be issued stopped there as if it had substance and weight.
Regdar looked back at Naull, still hanging limply in the arms of the hobgoblin. The humanoid was looking at his chief, awaiting the order to kill the helpless woman as if it was something he was dying to do. When his eyes went wide, Regdar took a splashing step forward and opened his mouth to scream. It looked like the hobgoblin was going to kill her anyway, maybe sensing Rezrex’s interrupted intention.
When the hobgoblin dropped the dagger, Regdar actually gasped. There was blood, and he thought it was Naull’s but realized soon enough that it was the hobgoblin who was bleeding.
A face passed into the light from behind the falling hobgoblin—a long, oval face as small as a little girl’s, but with an executioner’s grim countenance. It was Lidda—she’d sneaked up behind the hobgoblin and stabbed it with her short sword before it could kill Naull. Regdar wanted to kiss the halfling thief, wanted to buy her a drink, wanted to do whatever she wanted him to do.
A strangled, incoherent growl rose in volume and intensity, tearing its way out of Rezrex’s throat, and Regdar knew the spell was spent. The hobgoblin who had been holding Naull dropped her and turned on Lidda. It was still alive.
The halfling backed into the darkness, then Regdar’s attention was drawn to the spiked chain that wrapped around his shield, slapping hard into his vambrace to bruise his left forearm.
He pulled back on his shield, which bent a little at the edges under the chain, and the hobgoblin flicked its wrist again. The chain unwound fast, and though Regdar bent his neck painfully to avoid it, one of the spikes traced a line across his left cheek, drawing blood but missing his eye.
Glnk, still charging, crashed into Rezrex, and the hobgoblin chief roared with rage. The goblin got a good hit into the hobgoblin’s midsection with his stone club, but Rezrex stepped back and pushed Glnk to the side with his left hand while his right hand brought the beautifully crafted mace down hard at Glnk’s head.
Behind Rezrex were a group of goblins—Stonedeep goblins—who moved up, grunting and brandishing javelins, clubs, and other weapons Regdar couldn’t see. The cave was filled with a thousand echoed grunts as Tzrg ran up toward the advancing goblins, grunting at them.
Regdar could only hope that Tzrg was convincing them to abandon Rezrex. If Tzrg didn’t take the Stonedeep Tribe back from the hobgoblin usurper, the enraged, fatherless Glnk would kill them all if it took the rest of his life—Rezrex or no Rezrex.
Regdar, splashing through the cold water, advanced on the hobgoblin with the spiked chain, knowing he had to get in close or eventually the humanoid would manage to get the thing wrapped around his arm, his neck, his head—and disarm or kill him. He ducked low under a swing from the chain and tried to bat it with his shield when it came around again. He missed, and the hobgoblin twisted the chain, so it whipped up over Regdar’s head, only to come in lower the next pass. Regdar, knowing that’s what he would have done himself, was ready for that, though, and he got his shield low and batted the chain out and away, breaking its momentum enough to send it splashing into the water.
If it wasn’t covered with sharp spikes, Regdar would have stepped on the chain as the hobgoblin drew it back in. Instead, he made use of the time to advance closer into the hobgoblin while glancing over at Naull, who was lying still but breathing on the rock floor near the edge of the pool. The bleeding hobgoblin had dropped its dagger when Lidda cut its arm, but it had drawn a shining, sweeping-bladed falchion. The hobgoblin looked strong, but it was dumb and slow. Lidda seemed to be avoiding its one inept hack after the other, but she was slowly being backed up against the wall, and Regdar knew that her short sword wouldn’t stand up to the hobgoblin’s much heavier blade.
Tzrg was still grunting at his goblins, and Regdar could see the little humanoids’ eyes following the spiders that were all the while gathering around the released queen. This seemed to impress them, and they stopped their advance.
Glnk was having a difficult time holding Rezrex off, but Regdar could see Jozan advancing to help him.
Regdar heard the chain whipping through the air and realized that he had to kill this hobgoblin before he could help either Jozan or Lidda—and both of them needed his help and needed it badly.
He didn’t realize he’d closed his eyes when he hacked down at the hobgoblin, but he had. It wasn’t so much finesse and skill now as it was just brute force—the single-minded will to cleave his opponent.
The greatsword shuddered as it passed through skin, bone, lung, heart, bone, liver, bone, skin, and back out, leaving a twitching, bloody mess to splash dead into the cold water.
When he opened his eyes, Regdar saw that Glnk had tripped or been forced down in front of the raging Rezrex. The huge mace was coming down fast, and Regdar knew there was no way he could get there in time to stop Glnk from being killed.
A flash of yellow and brown appeared in front of him and in the time it took for Regdar to take a single water-slowed step, Tzrg smashed into Glnk, pushing the Cavemouth chief out of the way of the mace. When the weapon came down, it smashed into Tzrg’s calf. Regdar heard the loud snap of Tzrg’s leg breaking, then heard it over and over again as it echoed through the cave.
The Stonedeep goblins gasped as one, and Tzrg opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The goblin turned an even sicklier shade of yellow, and his eyes rolled into his skull.
“Regdar!” Lidda called. “Jozan! A little help here!”
Regdar saw that she’d been backed into the wall, and he shifted his momentum to try to get to her. The water was slowing him down when he needed most to move quickly.
Glnk, still rolling from Tzrg’s life-saving shove, slid to a halt into the back of the hobgoblin’s legs, though, and a swipe of the falchion that might have beheaded Lidda went wide when the humanoid had to hop to keep its feet. Lidda took fast advantage of the opening and jabbed the hobgoblin. The thing was wearing pieces of thick hide interlaced with bone and scraps of metal, so her blade didn’t dig as deeply into the thing as Lidda obviously hoped it would, but the hobgoblin howled in pain in any case.
Regdar came out of the pool between the stumbling hobgoblin and Rezrex, just as Rezrex roared at the still helplessly writhing Tzrg and started to bring the enchanted mace down on the goblin’s head.
The big hobgoblin was just at the edge of the reach of Regdar’s greatsword, but that was enough. Regdar threw himself to the side, knowing he would fall at the hobgoblin’s feet, swinging his sword with him.
The blade took Rezrex’s right hand off at the wrist, sending it—and the beautiful enchanted mace—whirling into the air trailing blood and slivers of bone.
The roar that burst from the wounded hobgoblin was almost deafening and made Regdar’s ears ring only worse. He hit the ground so hard his own spiked rander sent his pauldron into his shoulder hard enough to break the skin.
The Stonedeep goblins, apparently finally inspired, stopped their senseless face down of the Cavemouth goblins and poured like a yellow-skinned tide around the hobgoblin who was trying to kill Lidda.
The hobgoblin whirled on the goblins, brandishing the falchion, and Regdar saw Lidda slip back into the deep black shadows. The goblins fell on the already wounded hobgoblin, and it went down in a mass of javelins, kicks, stone clubs, and tiny little fists.