Gulo lowered his head and whined like a frightened dog.
Vadania looked at Gulo with an expression of astonished disappointment. Tordek guessed that she had never seen the great animal so cowed with fright.
"I'm with the big fellow," said Devis. Beside him, Lidda nodded emphatically and pointed at herself before jerking a thumb over her shoulder in the universal sign for, Let's get out of here.
Tordek felt the earth trembling. The monster's steps came ever closer, gradually picking up speed. He saw the thing's gray jaws clearly for the first time. They seemed as vast as a portcullis gate, with sharp teeth as hard and sharp as iron spikes. He hated to flee a fight, and yet…
"Damn it," Tordek rumbled. "Run!"
The trogs hooted in triumph as they saw their foes scatter. Another flight of javelins fell to the ground all around, but neither Tordek nor the others turned to see where they struck.
Tordek and Lidda soon lagged behind their longer-legged companions. With every six of his own labored steps, Tordek felt the impact of another of the gargantuan beast's long strides shudder up through the ground. He heard the thing's breathing, deep as a forge bellows. He wanted to call out for help, but his pride forbade it.
"Hey, it's catching up!" Lidda screamed to Devis and Vadania. Apparently, she was unhindered by Tordek's qualms. "Do something!"
There was no time to hope for help, thought Tordek. He slowed his pace, preparing to turn and swing his axe around to fight the beast. He would not prevail, he knew, but he might delay the thing just long enough to give the others time to escape. Maybe the bard would make a song of him, maybe not.
When Tordek felt the splashes from the monster's footfalls wet his back, he planted his feet and turned to face the foe.
"Tordek, don't!" shouted Vadania.
Her warning came too late.
The beast's roar was like an avalanche in his ears, its breath a noisome gale. Tordek swung his blade in a low arc, hoping to wound the beast so suddenly that it would stumble, giving the others a few more seconds' lead. Instead, his axe swept through the empty space where the monster's legs had been the instant before it hopped back from the dwarf, howling.
The beast dropped its giant club and clutched at dozens of tiny wounds in its feet, where sharp, woody spikes jutted from its thick hide. None of them was wicked enough to maim the creature, but collectively they gave it a fearsome pain. The monster bellowed and rubbed at the gigantic thorns.
Briefly, Tordek wondered how he had avoided treading on the spikes, but in an instant he realized their source and knew they had not been there when he passed. Vadania summoned them from the roots of the swamp growth to slow the brute.
Rather than take advantage of her spell, Tordek had turned to stand there like a half-wit.
"Hurry, you fool!" cried the druid. "I cannot do that again."
Tordek lowered his head and ran for his life, muttering a brief prayer of thanks to Moradin, who had forged his soul and watched over it, even when he made such blunders as this one. The monster's howls of pain turned to roars of anger as it regained its feet and chased after its prey. Even with their slight lead, Tordek knew the monster's vast strides would soon close the distance.
They ran until Tordek felt his pulse throbbing in his head. Ahead of him, Vadania and Devis slowed their pace so that he and Lidda might keep up. Tordek heard a mighty splashing behind him and saw Devis staring agape.
"Don't look!" shouted the bard. "Just run!"
Devis turned and obeyed his own advice, as did Vadania and Gulo. They ran for hundreds of yards, and each one felt like ten for all the clinging mud and rough terrain. They ran until their breath came in harsh wheezes. They ran until they could no longer feel their legs.
Tordek barely noticed when he slammed into a tall pole and knocked it down into the marshy ground. He stomped on some leathery fetish that had been mounted on its tip, but he spared it not so much as a glance.
He ran until his heart leaped to escape his chest, his eyes swelled almost to bursting, and his legs turned to rubber. At last he knew that the last stand from which Vadania had just spared him was indeed fated for this day. Once again, he planted his feet, grabbed his war axe, and turned to face his doom.
He saw nothing but empty swamp.
As his throbbing pulse slowed, Tordek could hear the distant splashing of giant feet running in the opposite direction. Soon after, a horn sounded in the distance. It came again a moment later, more distant still. The trogs were retreating.
For a long while they stood gasping for air, their bodies bent over, their hands clutching at their knees for support. Devis tried to speak, but all that came out was a harsh whistle. Gradually, their panting slowed, and they blinked away the dizziness.
"Well," said Vadania, "it wasn't Gulo who frightened off the mob this time."
"Maybe not," replied Tordek, "but something surely did the trick."
"Maybe it was one of these," suggested Lidda. She shook a tall pole with a troglodyte's head mounted atop it. Some of the bones that rattled beneath the rotting head looked more human than reptilian.
"Uh, oh," said Devis. "I have a bad feeling I know where we are."
They looked around in all directions, crouching low in an effort to see before they were seen-by exactly what, they were not certain, making them feel all the more exposed and vulnerable. They spread out slightly, keeping in sight of each other as they searched the area.
"There," said Vadania, pointing toward the northeast.
On a relatively dry mound of earth stood a homely cottage no better than those they had seen in Croaker Norge. All around it stood similarly gruesome warning poles, some mounted by skulls, others with frightful talismans of sticks and bones and skin.
"Shall we have a peek?" said Devis.
"No!" said everyone else.
"Aren't you curious about the fabled Sandrine?"
"We'll skirt the cottage," decided Tordek. He looked up to judge the sun's distance from the horizon. It was hard to tell how much daylight was left when precious little of it reached them through the mist.
"There could be treasure," crooned Devis, drawing out the last word in a manner obviously meant to tempt a dwarf. "Gold and jewels and fabulous trinkets plucked from her victims over the years."
"Knock it off, Bunny," said Lidda. "You just want to see whether she's beautiful."
"Well…"
Tordek turned his back on the argument and led the way around the cottage, staying as close to the totems as possible. Lidda and Vadania soon followed him, as did Gulo, who was gradually looking more and more ferocious after his embarrassing retreat from the bigger foe. Slowly, reluctantly, Devis followed them through the totem poles and north, away from the story of Sandrine the poisoner.
THE LITTLE FIEND
They trudged through the mire for hours, determined to get out of the swamp and into the hills near Andaron's Delve before setting camp. The stink of the mire and of its reptilian inhabitants still dulled their heads, but as the sun touched the horizon they settled for a dry spot in the lowlands to make their camp.
"Tell me those dwarves didn't build their forge in this swamp," said Lidda.
"Those dwarves didn't build their forge in this swamp," Devis assured her.