Another silence followed. Tordek rolled his shoulders and bent his knees to keep from being caught flat-footed should someone suddenly burst out of the cellar.
At last they heard the sound of the bar sliding out from the inner handles, and a reedy old voice called, "Stand back from the door. I want to see you first."
"All right," said Lidda. She took a few steps back so as to be in full view of those inside.
Tordek sidestepped to avoid the opening door, wincing as he heard the faint creaking and clatter of his armor. "Bother!" he muttered as his presence became obvious, stomping over to join Lidda in plain sight.
The door opened a few inches, and a pair of bright blue eyes peered out at Lidda. The halfling returned the gaze with a winning smile. She said, "It's all right to come out now. There are only two of us here. Our friends have gone to scout around the village."
The doors swung fully open, first one and the other. Standing between them was a one-legged human woman holding a bow, the arrow pointing at the ground between Lidda and Tordek. A girl of no more than twelve years stood beside her, bracing the old woman on the side of her missing leg. In the shadows behind them crouched a pretty, older girl with her arms around two smudge-faced boys no taller than Lidda. One of the boys had the broad features and deep skull of a dwarf.
The woman chewed her cheeks as she apprised the armed and armored strangers. Her face was tough as an oak knot, and the arms that bent her bow were strong for a woman half her age. Tordek wondered whether any of his companions could have held it so long without wavering. The woman's gaze flicked over the swords at Lidda's hips, the shortbow on her back. It lingered even longer on Tordek's huge axe and the mighty longbow slung upon his back.
"What brings you to Croaker Norge?" she demanded.
"We were passing through on the way to Andaron's Delve," said Lidda. "We saw the smoke and thought we might help the survivors."
Again, the woman looked suspiciously at their weapons.
"There's a healer with us," Lidda offered.
The woman's untrusting demeanor softened slightly, but her expression hardened once again as she raised her bow to point the arrow at a spot just past Tordek's shoulder. Tordek whirled to face the danger, unslinging his axe and raising it to guard in a fluid motion.
Devis approached, raising his empty hands in the universal gesture of surrender. He seemed less concerned by Tordek's axe than by the direction of the old woman's arrow. He winked at her and smiled. The gesture was lost on Tordek and Lidda, but it made the old woman lower her aim to the ground once more.
"My name is Devis, fair lady," the bard bowed low with a courtly flourish. He walked to the cellar and offered the woman his arm. "If you would permit me the honor…"
Tordek and Lidda stared as the old woman relinquished her weapon to the girl at her side. She looped her hand through the crook of the bard's arm and allowed him to help her up out of the cellar.
"It's got to be a spell," said Lidda out of the side of her mouth.
"Hmm," agreed Tordek.
"I would never fall for that folderol."
Tordek grunted another affirmative then wished he had kept his silence as the halfling's face brightened in remembrance.
"You found him fetching when you thought he was a woman," said Lidda. "Didn't you?"
Tordek frowned. He returned his axe to its sling and ushered the rest of the children out of the cellar.
"Seriously, how does he do it?" persisted Lidda. "I mean, what was the first thing that attracted you to him in the tavern?"
"Drop it," warned Tordek.
"Oh, come on. It's funny."
"Not in front of the children."
"I bet they'd think it was funny, too."
"Lidda."
She laughed, and her delight infected the children, brightening their fearful faces for the first time since they emerged from the cellar. She gave Tordek one last, mischievous look before giving up. "Killjoy," she said.
The old woman's name was Kerel, and she was no relation to the children who had survived with her in the cellar. Except for a brief sortie to fetch food from the kitchen, they had remained hidden after the assault, fearing that the raiders would return to finish looting the remaining buildings.
"The attack began two and a half hours before dawn," she reported. Tordek liked Kerel's precise description. She spoke as if reporting to a commanding officer, and in fact she told them she had once served in the New Koratian army. "At first there were cries of fire. By the time I came outside, half the houses were burning. There were at least thirty goblins, many of them with torches, but the fire came so fast that something else must have started it."
"Drink this," said Devis, handing her a steaming cup. Kerel looked around to see that all the children had hot drinks before she gratefully sipped hers.
"Vadania should have returned by now," noted Tordek.
"She took wing to survey the surrounding area," said Devis. "We found a dead ox with some nasty bites in it. She says to burn them before we leave."
"More of those spider-eaters?" Tordek asked.
Devis nodded.
Tordek turned back to Kerel. "Did you see any unusually large insects with the goblins?"
"Aye," she said. "Mostly we heard them buzzing around above the firelight, but I saw some of the goblins riding the things. They looked hard to control, especially around the fires, and they left after most of the men were captured. They took only the strongest men and boys and killed the rest, but it was obvious that the one they wanted most was Kurdag, our smith. They captured him and his two elder boys first, beating them down and shackling them hand and foot. They stuffed them into a cage carried off by most of those giant bugs all together. This is Kurdag's youngest son, Bandar."
The dwarf boy squared his jaw and stared stoically ahead. Tordek knew how he must feel, torn between the desire for revenge and the shame of having escaped his kin's fate.
"Did you see their commander?" asked Tordek.
Kerel considered the question. "No, not a commander as such. Mayla saw something else among the goblins. Tell them, lass."
"It was horrible," said the elder of the girls. She had freckles on her nose and shy eyes the color of cornflowers. "It was riding one of the monstrous bugs. At first I could only hear its voice, cackling at the slaughter as it flew its mount closer and closer to the flames. That's when I saw the rider appear out of nowhere. It was smaller than a child, but horrible, with oozing green skin and these wretched horns."
"There, there," said Devis, taking Mayla's hand and sitting close by her side.
Tordek wanted to kick the bard in the seat of his tight pants, and from the look on her face he surmised that Lidda was entertaining similar thoughts. Tordek said, "Let her finish."
The girl seemed brave enough despite the recent trauma, but she welcomed the consoling shoulder Devis offered. She gave him a sad, grateful smile and continued. "It clung to the saddle with its feet and beat the insect with a little stick, driving it down closer to the flames until its wings caught fire. It had its own wings and hovered there in the flames after the bug fell. It was hooting and cheering, telling the goblins what to do, ordering them to…kill everyone."
"I gathered those that I could," said Kerel, putting her arm around the young girl who had supported her earlier. "Jaylee was helping me get them down to the cellar when we saw Mayla staring at the monster in the flames. When it looked at her, we could almost see the hairs standing up all over her body. There was something of the abyss in that thing's eyes."
"I don't know what happened to me then," said Mayla. "I was so frightened that I ran. I think I must have screamed."
"That you did, my dear," said Kerel, "but so did every last, living soul within thirty paces of the wicked little creature, even the goblins. Luckily, you ran right past us, and we were able to bring you down into the cellar before it thought to come looking for you."