"What was it?" asked Lidda, her eyes wide in thrilling horror. "A demon?"
Kerel shrugged. "Don't know what else, if not that. Anyway, we saw no more of it that night, though we heard far more than we'd have wished. We barred the door and tried covering our ears while we prayed for deliverance. Eventually, Pholtus sent us the dawn."
"Then you came," said Mayla, looking up at Devis. He smiled back at her.
Lidda coughed violently.
"You say they used most of the spider-eaters to carry the cage with the smiths?" said Tordek.
"That's how it looked to me," said Kerel. "The rest of the goblins were preparing to drive the captives out of town on foot."
Overhead, a hawk screamed as it wheeled over the village, slowly descending toward them.
"She's back," said Tordek.
The villagers looked on in wonder as the hawk glided to a graceful landing atop a nearby fence. The creature folded its vast wings then ruffled them briefly as if shaking off a wet rain cloak. Afterward, the bird appeared strangely altered, with longer legs and a much bigger body. Its feathers shrank and turned to a long, white mane along its head and neck. It shook its wings again, and man who jilted her for another. Sends the fellow a poisoned mince pie, supposedly from his intended. The man dies horribly. Gurg. Gah. The whole town knows it's Sandrine to blame, so they chase her out into the fens. It's winter, so she freezes to death, but just before she dies, she prays to Nerull the Reaper for revenge on the villagers. Nerull grants her life after death so she can prey on fickle men by luring them into the swamp and drinking their blood.
"There," he concluded with a disgusted glance at Tordek and Vadania. "Short enough for you?"
"Perhaps a little too short," suggested Vadania. "What manner of creature is she? A vampire?"
Devis shrugged, adopting an offended air. "I thought you didn't want to be troubled with such trivial-"
"He doesn't know," said Tordek. "Do you?"
"Sounds like a vampire to me," said Devis. His indignant expression crumbled underTordek's glare, and he added, "but no one knows."
"She is deathless," said Kerel. "That much is sure. Whether by sorcery or some unholy bargain, no one knows. Those who might have learned did not return to tell their tales, thank Pelor." She drew the circle of the sun god over her heart to ward off evil.
Tordek turned to the old woman. "This Sandrine-whatever foul thing she has become-she lives in this swamp?"
Kerel nodded. "I knew her sister. She was an old woman when I was Jaylee's age."
"Then it's true about the luring and the drinking?" asked Lidda.
Kerel shrugged. "Every few years, hunters find the bloodless body of a young man out near Sandrine's cottage. There are warning totems, for even the trogs know how dangerous she is. Despite the warning, some young fools from the village still go there on dares and stories of buried treasure."
"Not anymore," said Bandar, gazing out at the smoking ruins and the black remains of the pyres.
The young dwarf's words cast a pall over the gathering, and no one had anything more to say before Tordek and his companions gathered their packs to set off once more.
TERRITORIES
Tordek swept his war axe completely through the first defender and let the powerful momentum carry the blade past to cut off another of the wretches at the thigh. Four big, bloody pieces of goblin splashed to the marshy ground.
Tordek glanced up to see Lidda's green-fletched arrows fairly streaming at the main body of guards. The goblins screamed impotently as the swamp grass clutched their legs and held them to the ground. Her spell completed, Vadania joined the halfling in picking off the trapped goblins one by one with keen sling bullets that wounded where they did not cripple and crippled where they did not slay.
Behind the fierce women, the captives from Croaker Norge scrambled for cover. Most of them were still bound with leather shackles and collars, but they wasted no time getting away from their entangled captors.
Devis felled one foe with a shot from his crossbow then darted past Tordek to stand between the village captives and the goblins that weren't entangled by Vadania's spell. Tordek grunted his approval. Initially he had feared that the bard might do little more than cheer the attack with a song or stand back and fling a few spells with his lute, but it was good to see that Devis did not quail at the prospect of toe-to-toe combat.
The goblins recovered quickly from their initial surprise at the ambush, and the survivors formed a rough wedge as they advanced on Tordek and Devis. The leader tumbled backward with the shaft of one of Lidda's arrows protruding from his eye, but the remaining goblins charged the attackers that stood between them and their captives.
The half-elf's slender blade dipped in and out of his foe's guard, plucking splashes of blood from the goblin's unarmored face and arms. Devis barely seemed to move, but wherever he leaned or turned, the goblin spears missed him by a coin's width. A few that might have grazed the bard glanced aside, and for an instant the pale blue outline of his mage armor shimmered brightly.
Tordek fought much more directly. He caught the enemy blades on his shield and shoved them aside to form an opening for his axe. Wherever the heavy blade fell, it left ruined armor and gore in its wake. He split the skull of his first foe with an overhand thrust and shoved hard with his shield as a pair of goblins strove to pull it away and give their fellows an opening. Even in twos and threes, the goblins were too weak to withstand Tordek's battle-hardened strength. He bellowed with blood-glee when a fallen goblin's skull cracked under his boots, and he advanced into the fray.
After the initial clash, Devis stepped back and let Tordek lead. The dwarf welcomed the doubled odds, feinting an overhand chop but instead kicking his nearest enemy in the chest. As that one fell, Tordek redirected his balked swing, breaking another goblin's boiled-leather helmet and smashing the skull within. As from a distance, he heard Lidda's joyous shout, the thrup of her bow, Vadania's sweet voice turned savage in chant, and Gulo's terrifying roar. The din was but a murmur beneath the triumphant pounding of Tordek's heartbeat. His blood surged hot and rhythmic through his warrior's frame. He felt the beat of war-drums in his belly.
Before he could give himself up to the rapture of combat, the fight was over. All the war-heat drained from Tordek's body as he gazed over the battleground.
Everything was gloom and shadow under the cloud-veiled sky, through which the sun was little more than a silver coin above the swamp. Although the trees were never so dense as to bar the way, the mist was so thick that they could see no farther than a few dozen yards in any direction.
Tordek trudged across the field, watching for pretenders among the fallen foes. Every second step was a gray puddle or a patch of the smelly mud that was already oozing into Tordek's boots.
A quick tally told him they had slain fourteen goblins, but more might have lain trampled beneath the muck. Tordek had a small cut on the bridge of his nose. A goblin arrow hung from Vadania's cloak, though it seemed to have missed her body. From her shield jutted a few more arrows, and the sight reminded Tordek to look down at his own. It bristled like an angry porcupine. The others appeared completely uninjured.
Tordek spied a movement in the grass to the east-a motion contrary to the breeze. Before he could call out a warning, Lidda sent an arrow toward the disturbance. The first shot evoked a frightened yelp, but the second stilled the movement.
"Gulo!" called Vadania, standing tall atop a clump of grassy earth. She pointed at the spot where the arrow fell, and the gigantic wolverine surged forward, a mountainous wave of flesh. When its jaws found the wounded goblin beneath the grass, even Tordek had to turn away from the creature's quick, brutal demise.