C.T. Avis's Blog, page 2

A short update

I think I used to be a writer at some point. Yikes. It has not been the most productive summer. I'm behind on book four of the Damulis series, tentatively titled Blood Falls.

I hope the Chronicles of the Oddlot are keeping you entertained. A new episode will be out shortly.

I have an idea for an essay on being a writer kicking around in my head.

I'm also teaching over the summer, and getting ready to do a live performance of The Brass Lantern. https://lift-theater.org/the-brass-la...
If you're local, the live reading and performance will be Sunday July 22, at 2 PM.

So, I'm busy, but not that busy. Regardless, it's not an excuse. So what's keeping me from writing? Me. I haven't buckled down and made myself write. I've written four novels, three of which are published. (The unpublished follows a band of adventurers in the kingdom of Feal. I'll go back to it someday.) The only way I did this was to sit down every day and write five pages until the novel is done (somewhere around 75,000 words). I can turn out a first draft in a couple of months.

Keep in mind when I say I'll write five pages a day, I'm not saying they're five good pages every day. In order to write, I have to not worry about creating something "good" to start with. Rather, I just have to produce something. I don't worry about quality during the creation process. I trust myself and my editing friends to work out the rough spots after the draft is done.

The problem lately is I haven't been disciplined enough. That's what it really comes down to. I am having some motivational issues, too, to be honest. Writing a novel is work I enjoy, but it is work and I am looking for it to pay off. Thus, I'm contemplating how much further I want the series to go and in what form.

Book four might be delayed even after I buckle down and write it, as I contemplate shopping it around to agents (and then on to publishing houses). While I've eschewed the traditional route thus far, I might test the waters. Being independent has allowed me to call the shots and to turn out novels quickly, but man, there are a lot of shots to call. I’m trained as a writer, not as a small businessman, a social media guru, and marketing expert, which is what I also have to be if I stay independent.

If you enjoy the adventures of Damulis, more are forthcoming. Don't worry about that. If you would be so kind, stop by my Amazon page and leave a review of the novels if you liked them. As an independent writer, I live and die on digital word-of-mouth. More reviews will allow my book to be ranked higher. Also, I need a certain number of reviews to qualify for different programs that will help me advertise more and get on certain reading lists. If you can help me out, and enough others do, I can stay independent and turn out novels more quickly.

Anyway, I didn't mean to turn this post into an essay. Thank you for reading, and for your support.

My novels: amazon.com/author/ctavis

Chronicles of the Oddlot: 9: Banshee

9: Banshee

Dark tendrils of smoke shot up from the shattered gem. At first, it looked like mighty Mordo would resist them, but as we watched in helpless horror, they entered his nose, mouth and ears. Mordo levitated off the ground, eldritch winds bearing him aloft. His eyes turned completely black and his already big body seemed to swell with muscle. Hatred filled his face.

Then, magnificent Mordo fought it all back. His eyes cleared and the hate melted away. He fell back to earth as the dracolich retreated to some corner of the warrior’s psyche. It wouldn’t stay suppressed for long. I knew this as a fellow bearer of the evil soul.

“Oof. What in hells was that?” Mordo asked, panting.

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

“Mordo—”

“Don’t say it! Somethings in the world can’t just be crushed.”

“Mordo not like seeing bard in pain. Mordo break gem, release bard.”

I softened my tone. “I thank you for that. You’re a good friend, Mordo. But I would never have wanted you to put yourself at risk like that.”

“Mordo can handle it.”

“No,” Dalvin said. “I’m not sure you can. You didn’t just release Ander from the gem’s influence, you released the soul of the dracolich.”

“Undead dragon around?” Mordo said, picking his maul off the ground.

“No. Well, I hope to Silvanus it’s not,” Dalvin said. “We’re not close enough to its body. But it needed some vessel to hold it, with the gem gone.”

“It’s in you, Mordo,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“How Mordo get it out?”

We looked at each other in silence.

Mordo, for the first time since I’d known him, looked disgusted. He’d trampled foes and waded through gore, but this was a profanity too much for him. His goddess, the Raven Queen (if she really existed), hated the undead and demanded their destruction. Now, here was an entire dracolich soul within her chosen champion. Mordo looked a bit panicked, just a flash across his face.

“Raven Queen not like this. Raven Queen might turn back on Mordo.” As he spoke, his eyes darkened.

“Mordo, we’ll figure this out,” I said gently. “Hawken Bramblebraid is working on this whole situation, even as we speak. Surely his research will turn up a solution. What’s important now is that you don’t get upset. If you get emotional, the dracolich can take over.”

“Grixmax,” Mordo said. “Dracolich is called Grixmax.”

None of us were happy to know that piece of information. It meant that that the malevolent undead dragon’s presence has more purchase on Mordo than it had had on me. Mordo’s eyes cleared again.

“Are you sure you can continue?” Tyrael asked, his first words since being stunned by Mordo’s actions.

“Mordo sure. Mordo is Mordo now. Can control. Must save Leffe.” He smacked himself on the chest of his cuirass.

“Very well,” the tiefling Tyrael said, but something in his eyes indicated that he didn’t believe it.

With the crisis passed for the meantime, we released the horses, who’d know enough to wander back to the town of Ellry. We dared not leave them tied up, lest they become defenseless meals for some swamp monster. The horses would have done us no good in the swamp, which offered only the narrowest of pathways through the muck, if it offered any at all.

We’d walked single file for some time. I noticed Tyrael whispering with Dalvin. The tiefling’s words seemed to trouble the gnome. I gave a beckoning nod to Tyrael.

“What troubles you, sorcerer?” I asked, when he drew near.

He took a deep breath before beginning. “Understand that what I say won’t be easy to hear, but I feel I must say it anyway.”

The diplomatic Ander would have offered him reassurances, but all the trauma of the last few days had had soured my outlook. I stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

“It’s just that, well, if we’re really set on stopping this Grixmax’s return, now would be our best time to do so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mordo shattering the gem gave the dracolich’s soul some place immediate to go. The gem was not living, so the soul would have experienced little if any trauma. That’s why it could manifest itself directly into Mordo.”

“So what?”

“If Grixmax’s living host should die, that would cause trauma sufficient enough for it to flee to a new phylactery, delaying his emergence in the world.”

“You demon-spawned cur! I knew I couldn’t trust a tiefling. You’re saying we should kill my friend?” It was cruel, racist of me, but what he had proposed struck all the notes of outrage within me.

Tyrael looked down and away, hurt by my words. Then he looked me squarely in the eye, face resolute. He said nothing, but his stare down forced me to look away.

“Get away from me,” I growled, though my heart was sinking. “In this group, we don’t leave our companions to die. We damned sure don’t kill them.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re right and we’ll find a way to free Mordo. But if we can’t, more than just one man’s fate is at stake.” He fell back in line then.

I looked at Mordo ahead of us. Presently, he wasn’t showing any of Grixmax’s influence as he stoically stomped through the swamp. One heavy boot slipped a little and plunged into the stagnant water. He didn’t curse or complain as he worked to pull his foot out, just bent to the business of yanking it free of the muck. As he did so, he exposed a gap in his back plate.

No. I didn’t care what the risk. I’d not betray a friend.

Mordo finished with his foot, satisfied that the leather boot had kept him dry. He started walking forward again, only to stop cold a moment later. He held up his fist, telling us to stop, that danger lay ahead. He ducked down behind a fallen log. With Leffe gone, scouting duties had fallen to me. I scampered and slid silently next to him.

“What bard make of that?” he said, pointing. “Definitely undead, but what is it?”

Under the shade of sickly trees, twisting in a supernatural wind that flowed out its ragged clothes and wild hair was a thing that evoked both my terror and anger. It held a wicked beauty to it, a holdover from the beautiful elven maiden it had once been. I sunk behind the log and steadied myself from the fear I felt.

“Banshee,” I said.

“We should fear its scream,” Tyrael said, having appeared next to me while I’d been fascinated.

“Ander has something for that,” Dalvin said, crouching.

I nodded. “Get a good look at it now. The sight of it froze me, but passed. Get it out of your system now.”

They did so. Dalvin had to gather himself, but Tyrael, like Mordo, was unaffected.

“I think it knows we’re here,” Tyrael said. “It’s Mordo. It can sense the evil within him.”

I peeked over the log. “It’s not attacking, though. Perhaps it senses a kindred spirit.”

“That’s a good thought, Ander,” the tiefling said.

“Gee, thanks. Here’s how this will go. I’ll drop a song of silence on it. If it works, charge in and hit it hard. I know it looks like a beautiful woman, but it isn’t. Not any longer. It would gladly rip the flesh from all of our bodies.”

“How do you know so much about banshees?” Dalvin asked me.

“Mother.” The answer sort of slipped out of me, and it explained nothing. “We ready?”

All nodded. I began the seemingly contradictory process of singing a song of silence. It started much like my lullaby spell, but with subtle shifts and pitches, ending in a decrescendo that I targeted on the banshee.

“Now!”

Mordo exploded from behind the log, new sword gripped in both hands. The banshee saw him at the last minute, and ducked. The blade bit her, but did not kill her. Such was her nature; wounds that would topple a proud warrior merely scratched her.

Tyrael unleashed his magical arsenal. A cube filled the air around the banshee. Inside it, many spinning daggers spun, nipping and biting the banshee, whose silent screams still looked savage. Mordo had to duck out of the spell’s zone.

“Work with the warrior, tiefling!” I shouted. He paid me no mind, concentrating on the spell.

Dalvin moved in, which seemed like a poor choice at first. Then, I realized he was beneath the cube of the spell, the perfect height to hound the banshee’s lower half. Still, I doubted his quarterstaff would do much.

Much to my surprise, the diminutive druid snapped a leaf of sumac in his hand and from it sprang a blade of pure fire. He scorched the banshee with. The silence surrounding such violence cast an eerie light upon the scene. The banshee screamed silently again, but this time found her antagonizer. She kicked Dalvin so hard that the gnome when flying into Mordo. The warrior lost his balance and together, they tumbled into a deeper part of the water.

With my two friends down, I drew my rapier and sprang at the banshee, who was just now extricating herself from the magical spinning blades. I hit her with the flat of the blade, trying to keep her in the zone of silence I’d created. It worked, but she ripped a claw at my face. I stumbled and fell on my backside as I avoided the swipe.

She was on me then. I barely parried her next swipe, seated as I was. I flailed a bit as I did so, and with her other hand she grabbed my sword arm. I screamed silently in pain, my flesh icy with the intrusion of death. My hand when numb and the rapier fell to the muck.

Cradling my arm, I scooted backwards on three limbs, trying to escape the death-filled clutch of the banshee. It was no use, for she could move freely toward me, hovering about the sucking swamp. I grabbed my dead right arm with the left and swung it at her, trying not to lose another limb and to drive her back. She seemed to laugh at the feebleness of my attempt.

Then, from the water that had swallowed them, Mordo exploded above the surface. In the same motion, he hurdled Dalvin at the banshee. I could not believe my eyes. Had Grixmax gained control of the warrior? This would surely be Dalvin’s doom.

I should not have underestimated the gnome. As he sailed at the banshee, he reignited his fiery blade and drove the tip deep into her. The banshee writhed and jerked as Dalvin fell away. Something happened that I could only perceive as an impossible flash of darkness, as if the necrotic energy of the banshee momentarily lashed out. I wasn’t sure I’d actually seen it, as I fumbled to find my rapier with my left hand.

Something must have happened. Mordo stopped in mid charge toward the banshee. His eyes filled with darkness, and he levitated.

I backed away from the battle, reassessing my options. In doing so, I heard Tyrael yelling. He must have been at it for a moment, for I seemed to have come in during the middle of it. He said something about a giant. I scanned around and saw what he meant.

What appeared to be a small giant charged at us. Time slowed as the magnificent being sprang through the swamp, the sucking muck mattered nothing to him. A great shield covered most of his almost eight foot body. In his hand he held an axe above his bald head. His skin held symmetrical patches over it, almost like war paint. Not skin, I corrected myself, not like most people. It was gray and hard, like mountain stone that had wind-eroded over time. Adding to the rocky look was a thickly ridged forehead.

If he was an ally of the banshee, and with Mordo stunned, we were doomed.

Instead, he strode up to the silently screaming undead woman and dropped his axe on her like a practiced headsman.

Amazingly, the banshee did not drop dead, as wicked and filled with necrotic energy as she was.

“Do we help him?” Tyrael shouted to me.

I glanced at him, then at Dalvin.

“He’s a goliath,” the druid informed us. “They’re generally honorable. Generally.”

I shrugged. “The enemy of my enemy, and so-on.”

We three moved into melee distance and, with the help of the goliath, finally hacked the banshee down to true death.

With one enemy down, the goliath apparently sensed the other evil in the area. He snapped the ichor off his sword and strode toward the suspended Mordo, who still hung in midair in the torturous embrace of the dracolich.

“No!” I yelled, but of course the goliath couldn’t hear me. No one could. My companions saw the danger to Mordo. Dalvin wrapped his arms around the trunk-like left leg of the goliath and Tyrael jumped on his back, futilely trying to wrap his arms around a neck thicker than both his legs put together. I lunged in front of the goliath, dropped my rapier, and put up my one good hand in silent plea.

Up close, I could see he wore armor bearing the mark of the god Helm. A holy symbol hung from his neck. A goliath paladin? I glanced at Tyrael struggling on the goliath’s back, the goliath seemingly unconcerned. It made as much sense as a tiefling servant of Tyr.

The goliath pointed his sword at Mordo and spoke. Or tried to. He hadn’t quite figured out that I’d encased the area in silence. I held up my index finger, signaling him to wait a moment, then dispelled the silence blanket.

“Oh. Right. That would be why the banshee’s scream didn’t bother us none,” he said in a voice like mountain thunder. “This one needs a killin’ though. If you’d just step aside…”

“No! Please good goliath. Any servant of Helm is bound to protect the helpless, aye?”

“Aye. Wot’s your point? That one there ain’t helpless. He’s brimmin’ with evil power.”

“Listen, please. I know you must feel a need to smite the evil, but he is our friend only just recently possessed by evil. We still hold hope to retrieve him from the clutches of the dracolich that inhabits him.”

“Possessed, eh? Hrmm.” The goliath pushed past me, but sheathed his sword. He stood in front of the floating Mordo and placed his empty hand on Mordo’s face. He whispered a prayer and suddenly, Mordo fell limply to the ground.

I rushed to the fallen warrior and checked him. His pulse raced but his eye had returned to normal.

“Mordo thank big new friend,” he said, sitting up.

“Yer welcome. Try not to let it happen again.”

“That was bad one,” Mordo said, referring to the possession. “Soul hurts.” He rubbed his chest.

“Now. Wot brings you all to this swamp?” the goliath asked.

“First, do you have a name, friend goliath?” I asked.

“Enolo,” he said. I introduced myself and the others.

“We’re searching for our lost friend, a dwarf named Leffe,” Dalvin said, releasing his leg-hold.

“Bad idea to get lost in a swamp. Why’d he do that? Oh, and could you stop, please?” Enolo said, turning to speak to Tyrael, still clutching at his neck. The tiefling took quick stock of the situation and released himself to the ground.

“Sorry, was gritting my teeth so hard, I didn’t follow the action,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. I don’t think I’d ever seen a tiefling blush before.

“Work the forearm ‘cross the throat next time,” the goliath said. “Might have a better chance at doin’ somethin’.” He turned to me. “You were sayin’?”

“Leffe didn’t get lost here. Some hags took them.”

“Hags?”

“Aye. Well one, but we know she has others. She swooped down on a nightmare and plucked Leffe off of me, as he tried to protect me from them.”

“That’s noble of him,” Enolo said. “Why was the hag tryin’ to take you?”

“I held a gem containing the essence of a dracolich. I assume the hag was drawn to the evil of it.”

“Huh.” Enolo looked at us. “I don’t know about you lot. This one’s floating with evil, he’s so full of it,” he said pointing to Mordo. “You carryin’ ‘round an evil gem don’t seem right. And you’re a tiefling, though I don’t feel any evil comin’ off ya. What’s your deal, Dalvin? You turn into to a were-rabbit under a full moon?”

“No, but I can manage a pretty good weasel.”

“Thing is, I’m sworn to destroy evil. I could feel it pulsin’ from this nasty swamp. Saw you lot fightin’ the banshee, thought the banshee was its source. Now I’m thinkin’ it’s you.”

“No, no!” I said. “Mordo shattered the gem, trying to save me from the dracolich’s influence, but it got into him instead. Now, he goes bad every now and again.”

“I see,” he said, though he didn’t look fully convinced.

“Good paladin,” Dalvin said. “If you wish to smite evil and drive it from this land, join with us as we retrieve Leffe. Surely the hags are the evil you feel.”

“Yeah, most likely. Got my eye on this one, though,” Enolo said, looking at Mordo.

Mordo didn’t bristle at this, but a look rippled across his face. I couldn’t name it, for it seemed so out of place on the warrior. His shoulders slumped a bit. Perhaps he preferred to be dead than an instrument for the undead.

“Where to now?” Tyrael asked.

“Hawken Bramblebraid didn’t specify in his note,” I said. “He gave us this general area, only adding ‘we’d see where to go’.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look!” Dalvin said, pointing to the sky. A dark speck flew across the clouded sky.

“Nightmare,” Mordo said. Though the speck was too far away for us to make out, I didn’t ask how he knew. I had sensed the nightmare before it had attacked before, when I still held the dracolich’s gem.

“Onward! To Leffe!” Dalvin said and started off after the nightmare.

My novels: amazon.com/author/ctavis

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 8. Nightmare

8: A Waking Nightmare

Something dark was coming. I could feel it in the night air.

“At least the rain has stopped,” Leffe said. “Surely that’s a good sign that Hawken succeeded.”

I nodded. My companions had made special effort to buoy my spirits. I couldn’t shake the sense of impending dread though.

We were almost at the end of the forest and on to the road to Ellry when the night reached out and caught us.

The canopy of trees blasted apart. A winged horse, dark and terrible, flew down from the sky, kicking the offending limbs into splinters. On its back, laughing manically, was an impossibly wrinkled and bent old woman. Her hand reached out, and as it did so, it grew in size. Like a grappling hook seeking a perch, it lashed out. Toward me.

“No!” Leffe shouted. He lunged in front of me, knocking me down. The hag’s hand had grown long nails, and they pierced into the dwarf as he shielded me with his body. He screamed, but stabbed back with the dagger he clenched in his hand. The hag hissed. I tried to scramble to my feet, but the oily rain had slicked the ground here, and I could only crawl away.

Mordo entered my vision, his shiny new sword glowing with power.

The hag saw it and directed the black winged horse to kick him. Mordo flew backwards, knocked off his feet.

Dalvin looked at me. “Sorry about this!”

“What?”

Suddenly, roots shot up from the ground and wrapped around me. The hag, having dropped Leffe, clawed and scratched at them, but the roots protected me even as they trapped me.

Mordo recovered and launched a second assault, careful to avoid the horse, called a nightmare I later learned. His new sword bit into the hag, but despite her withered stature, she seemed to be made of ironwood. The bite of the blade was but a nibble.

The hag screamed and cursed, turning from me to deal with Mordo. Leffe crawled over to me. Somehow, he avoided the entangling roots.

“Get you out of here,” he said, though his breath came in painful gasps.

“I’ll fight too!”

“No. Wants you. Must sense the gem on you.” He hacked at the roots as he talked.

A dagger is no tool for wood cutting, and a dwarf with a punctured lung is no lumberjack.

The hag turned suddenly from Mordo and without looking, shot her unnaturally long arm back at us. The claws found Leffe again and he arched in pain. This time, the hag didn’t let go. She took my friend up, up, until they had cleared the leafy canopy.

Rage filled me as I cursed at the departing nightmare and its wicked rider. I twisted terribly against the roots, not caring what damage they did to me. All I wanted was to slowly torture the hag before I killed her.

No, I said to myself. This isn’t you. It’s the gem. It’s the dracolich. I immediately regained myself, fighting back the righteous fury that the dracolich had corrupted. If we were to save Leffe, I’d need to manage this monster in the gem that clawed at my will in the weak moments.

“No,” Dalvin said. The word sobbed from his throat as he looked hopelessly up into the night sky through the break in the canopy. “No.”

We all wanted to go after Leffe. If we had had any idea where the hag had taken him, we would have walked through fire and ice to get him back. We just didn’t know, though. The canopy of leaves and the dark night had hidden its flight.

Bramblebraid would know where to find the hags. We considered backtracking, but we were closer to Ellry than the druid’s grove. He’d be on his way to us, anyway, after recovering his daughter. If he hadn’t fallen victim to the hags’ wickedness.

The deep blue-black of the pre-dawn sky revealed the lump of shadow that was Ellry. We had made it, but realized we’d find no rest. We could see many torches lit. Too many for this time of night. The watchman at the gate admitted us with a grunt, barely looking at us. His focus settled squarely on Waltr’s inn.

“You boys might want to get in on this. Seems we cornered ourselves a demon in there.”

“Demon?” Mordo said. His hand gripped the handle of his new sword.

“No doubt another curse sent on the town from that bastard kobold,” the watchman said. “It’s pretty, I’ll admit. Almost as pretty as the bard, but no doubt it’s a demon. Horns and everything.”

We walked toward the cabin, our feet carrying us forward, but our will for another fight gone.

“This must be the newcomer Hawken Bramblebraid mentioned,” Dalvin said. It was his first words since we’d lost Leffe.

“If so, then he’s the one who needs our help,” I said. “Mordo, I don’t think you’ll need your sword. We’re not going to cut down the townspeople we’ve been working so hard to save. Words will have to do this early morning.”

It was a typical and unfortunate small-town situation. I could almost not blame the townspeople, for surely they had not seen such a being before. Their “demon” though, turned out to be a tiefling.

“I’m called Tyrael,” he shouted through the closed and barred door of the inn. “Please, tell these people I mean them no harm. I’ve been sent here by Tyr himself to help!”

I felt my blood rise. I’d seen tieflings before. Often, they had a wicked beauty about them, something more than exotic, owing to their origin. They were not demonic, not anymore, but well back in their past, there had been a pact. Because of it, many tieflings bore horns on their heads. In cities where people had more exposure to them, they got along fairly well. Still, they were rare enough that in little Podunk places like Ellry, they often frightened the locals. They were not natively evil people, no more so than any human, dwarf, gnome, halfling or elf.

Still, to hear one proclaim Tyr as his god, and to have been sent by him, bordered on the blasphemous. Tyr was my god, and I could not envision him choosing a tiefling as a champion.

“You watch your forked tongue in there, Tyrael. Blaspheming isn’t going to get me on your side.”

“I tell only the truth, sir! I, well, this is hardly the time to discuss the particulars. Perhaps once you end this siege we can iron all of this out.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I calmed myself. Letting my emotions get the best of me would be offering an open door to the dark gem I carried.

“You there,” Dalvin said. He’d spied the town scholar and would-be wizard Westendorf amongst the townspeople. “What can you tell us?”

Westendorf eventually forced his way through the crowd to talk. We huddled up with him, between the door and the mob.

“I’ve tried to reassure these people,” he said. “I got a good reading on the tiefling in there. I take him at his word. He’s no threat.”

“They’ll not easily listen,” Dalvin said. “They’ve been scared too much, too often and too recently.”

“We’ll have to try,” I said.

“Mayhap music would help,” Mordo said.

In the fatigue of my brain, dealing with the call of the gem, the loss of my friend and the general wearing on my soul, I’d more-or-less forgotten I was a musician. I dug my lute out of my pack, adjusted some loose strings, and settled my mind on the right tune.

I didn’t sing as I played. Instead, I subtly infused the strings with a general feeling of good will as I talked. It wasn’t easy. The dracolich in the gem bucked and hissed in my head, hating my efforts to create peace when death and suffering were there for the taking. I fought through it somehow, but I couldn’t remember exactly what I said to put down in my journal afterwards. All I know is that when I was done, the mob had extinguished their torches and put their pitchforks back in the barn.

The inn’s door cracked open.

“All is well?” Tyrael asked.

“For now,” I said.

Tyrael recoiled from me. “Perhaps I’m not the one they should think a demon,” he said, eyes wide. “There’s a foulness about you.”

“Yeah? You don’t smell so good yourself. Is that brimstone?”

“The bard is fine,” Dalvin said, interjecting himself between us. “Perhaps you sense something dark upon him, but it doesn’t possess him.”

“That will take some explaining,” Tyrael said.

“Horned-man explain first. Mordo insist.” The warrior gave Tyrael his best glower. The tiefling put his hands up in mock surrender.

“Much of it is a fog in my head,” he said. “Like a dream, but so vivid and concrete, I know it is true. I was lost in my soul and had wandered to the top of a large hill in the dales. There, I fasted and looked within myself, pondering the dark pact that started my people. The shame of it hit me. It’s not something that we tieflings often dwell on. We, as many removed descendants, are blameless now, of course. But if you were to press one of my kind, you’d probably see some sort of inherited guilt within our psyche.”

“Fascinating,” I said. It actually sort of was, but I was in no mood to cut him any slack. “Get to the part where you hallucinated blasphemy.”

“I assure you, friend bard, that it was no hallucination, and no dream. As to blasphemy,” he said, pausing to fish something from inside his tunic. Connected to a chain around his neck was the Shield of Tyr. “Would I be able to bare this holy symbol if I was such a wicked charlatan?”

I admit, that shut me up.

“Can we take this discussion inside?” Dalvin asked. “They night has been long and sorrowful. I crave to ease the burden from my feet and for strong drink to drown the sting of loss.”

Tyrael, to his credit, looked sympathetic and concerned. He opened the door. After some time, we convinced Waltr to stop cowering behind his bar and serve us libations.

My mind wandered in and out of the conversation. Sleep tugged at me on one side, and the damned gem on the other. Later, after some rest, I was told that Mordo and Dalvin had accepted Tyrael at his word. The tiefling had offered to help us rescue Leffe. Unfortunately (I thought), despite his holy symbol, Tyrael was no paladin who could buoy our frontlines, nor was he a cleric to provide us with stronger healing than either Dalvin or I could provide. He could offer us more magic than we’d had on our side.

“I learned sorcery in my youth,” he explained as we rode out of town. Sick of walking, we had traded a few gems for horses. “My connection with the arcane arts started early. Naturally and easily, I evolved in my arts.”

We were riding northwest this time. While we had slept, the old druid Hawken Bramblebraid had arrived in town. He’d left a sealed message for us, apologizing for not remaining, but his daughter had been returned to him with a strange malady that he had to attend to promptly. Also in the note, he had disclosed the location of the hags’ coven.

“Great, swamps,” I’d said. The horses would only be able to take us so far. It was more than just my normal laziness fueling my complaint. I was fatiguing more quickly since I’d picked up the gem, and I feared that in a touchy emotional state, I’d fall prey to the dracolich’s influence.

“We’ll stop for lunch and rest a bit before moving on,” Dalvin said, understanding.

When we finally did so, it brought no ease or rest to any of us. As we supped, I felt a terrible pain in my head. Doubling over, I shouted a warning to the others.

“The nightmare returns!”

Soon enough, the dread beat of its wings assailed the air. This time, though, the hag did not dare come within range of us. The nightmare seemed sluggish in the bright noon sky. I fumbled with my crossbow, but couldn’t focus enough to aim it. Mordo snatched it from me and let fly a shot that grazed the hag. She hissed at us and threw a bag at our feet. Then, rearing up, she soared high into the air before darting down somewhere deep in the swamp.

None of us wanted to look in the bag. Our fear was not of a deadly trap. Dalvin finally steadied himself with a deep breath and opened it.

“Oh, gods. Oh, no.” The bag tumbled from his numb fingers. Out spilled two bloody feet, still shod in the fine boots of a master rogue.

Despite my need to stay calm, I felt the full fury of hate in that moment. I would rain acid down on the hags. They would crackle and pop, squealing in agony when I was done with them. I would blanket the earth in their blood. It wouldn’t stop there. I’d make Ellry pay for this too. The weak fools, so pitifully helpless, had caused this to happen to my friend. They’d learn what their weakness caused. Then…

Mordo’s big hand hit me hard in the back. I dropped to my knees.

“Enough of this,” he said, having witnessed the darkness pass over my face. “Mordo crush.”

Before I could stop him, Mordo’s had shot his hand into my pack. He whipped the sack containing the gem on to the ground. In one fluid movement, before I could finish screaming at him to stop, he smashed the gem with his maul.

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 7. Rain and Stone

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 7. Rain and Stone

The town welcomed us as returning heroes, as best as they could in the downpour. None of us, not even the resilient Mordo, could join in their soggy celebration. We took our turns visiting the Carla the healer, then sought the comfort of our beds. We did not stir until a day later. And still the rain poured down.

When we finally found our way to the common room of the inn, Gaerling and the bookish wizard we’d seen came to see us.

“This is Westendorf. He, like you, has come to call Ellry home.”

“Yes, noble warriors, let me offer my thanks for your help against the kobolds,” Westendorf said. He was a slight man in good robes and only slightly taller than Leffe.

“You’re a wizard, Wes, unless I miss my guess,” said Dalvin.

“Indeed, good druid, you are correct.”

“We could have used a magical hand out there, wizard,” I said.

“Ah, yes. Well, I…I’m afraid I haven’t progressed very much in my research of offensive spells. I’ve only recently finished my apprenticeship.”

“What kind of spells do you have?” I asked.

“Minor tricks, some illusions. I’m quite adept and making prestidigitation work in creative ways.”

“Oof. You were right to stay behind the wall,” Leffe said.

“My real strength,” Westendorf said, drawing himself up straight, “is in research. Especially when it comes to things supernatural.”

“This is leading somewhere, otherwise Gaerling wouldn’t have come with you,” I said. I wasn’t up to being my usual pleasant self. In truth, seeing the mayor before us yet again, and not with a chest of gold, set my perfect teeth grinding. I could sense yet another favor coming.

“It’s the rain, you see,” Gaerling said in his over-smiling, desperate manner. “It’s not natural.”

I walked to the window of the inn and looked out. The rain ran down the street in full streams now. Mud and debris completely covered the stone pavers of the road. Townsfolk labored to dig trenches or sandbag around buildings. One home’s roof had caved in. It had been weakened in the kobolds’ first attack on Ellry. In the lower parts of the town, near the gate, water pooled.

“It’s not just the amount of rain, you see,” Westendorf said. “It’s oily nature won’t be good for the crops, should any survive the deluge.”

“I was afraid of that,” Dalvin said. “Nothing about that rain felt natural to me.”

I stifled a grumble. The gnomish druid suddenly had a new cause, now that the undead had been put down. I glanced over at Mordo, who sat with a blank smile on his face. If he was listening or ten leagues away, lost in his own thoughts, I could not tell.

I turned from the window. “Let’s get to it. What do you need us to do?”

Westendorf looked to Gaerling. The mayor nodded and the small wizard cleared his throat. “Frankly, I don’t know.”

“You’re honest, I’ll give you that,” Leffe said.

“That is to say, I don’t know how to stop the rain. I do know someone who might.”

“Is there some reason a townsman can’t go and contact this someone?” I asked.

“The kobolds—they, well, are they truly gone?” Gaerling said.

I realized that I had no way of knowing. We hadn’t properly scouted their lair. Besides, with the shaman’s abilities to raise undead soldiers, they’d recover sooner or later. Still, the town’s general inability to even make an attempt at saving itself annoyed me. I don’t mind risking my dashingly handsome head for good people, but I expect them to be trying to save themselves, too.

I sighed. Dalvin, of course, eagerly anticipated another chance to make the natural world right. Mordo would probably go along with whatever we decided, as long as crushing was involved somewhere. Leffe surprised me the most. For whatever reason, he seemed to like the wizard Westendorf.

“Mayor, you still haven’t paid us for the last heroics exploits,” I said, trying to appeal to Leffe’s well-honed sense of greed. “Yet here you are asking another favor.”

“We give you shelter, food, ale and healing,” the mayor said.

“What’s this ‘we’ nonsense?” Waltr the barman yelled from his post at the kegs. “I expect to be paid for this!”

“Not now, Waltr! What good will pay do you if your inn washes away?”

“Be a good way to pay for building a new one, for starters,” Waltr said more quietly, before he returned to wiping the same spot on the bar.

“Be serious, Gaerling,” I said. “While we do wish to help you, you can’t expect that to come at no cost.”

“I see. I didn’t take you for mercenaries.”

I started to growl something back, but Dalvin leapt to his feet.

“What good Ander means, Mayor, is that we have expenses, too. We can’t properly work to save Ellry without being able to restock, you see.” Dalvin looked from the mayor to me. I bit back on my annoyance. Dalvin, sympathetic, added “And it is our time, effort and lives on the line. Surely a reasonable man such as yourself can see the need for appropriate compensation.”

The mayor thought it over. “It’ll take some time to get funds together. Many people have lost what little they had. I’ll tell you what. We are still waiting to hear back from King Vargas. They should be here by the time you get back from the druid’s grove. Surely they’ll have funds to compensate you.”

I had little faith in that scenario, but I gave up my objections. I was mostly sticking to principle anyway, wanting them to at least understand what we’d already been through to help them.

“What’s this druid’s grove?” Dalvin said. “I haven’t established one around here yet.”

“Not you, friend gnome,” said Westendorf. The town wizard unrolled a parchment that had suddenly come to his hand and laid out a map on the table. He pointed to a body of trees set a good distance from the main trail. “Hawken Bramblebraid. He’s a druid of some power, as I understand it. He’s a bit before my time.” He looked to Mayor Gaerling for confirmation.

The mayor nodded. “Aye. We used to trade with him, supplies for help with the crops, that sort of thing. We haven’t seen him much lately, though.”

“Probably because he wanted to be paid in actual money,” I grumbled under my breath. Leffe smirked from behind his hand. Dalvin held up his hand, imploring me. His interest had grown even more. I assumed he’d relish the chance to learn at the foot of a druid master.

“Actually,” Mayor Gaerling said to me, “No. Bramblebraid was fine with the arrangement. He seemed to disdain the money of civilization. No, he became increasingly, ah, eccentric, in his behavior.”

“How eccentric?” I asked, my brow lowering in suspicion.

“He tended to not wear clothing. At all.”

“That’s eccentric all right.”

“Yes, and word is that he may have laid many traps around this grove to deter guests. Not that experienced adventurers such as yourselves will have any problem, I’m sure.”

I rubbed my temples and walked over to Waltr at the bar. Tyr bless him, he set a full tankard out for me. I took a long pull on it.

“You coming with us, Westendorf?” I said.

“No, I’m afraid my talents would be put to better use here, diverting the water.”

“Does this mean you’ll do it?” Mayor Gaerling asked.

I looked at my companions and could easily read their faces. I rolled my eyes and returned to my beer.

“We’d be delighted to, Mayor,” Dalvin said.

* * *







“Leffe, you’re telling me that you’re all right with this? To keep helping out Ellry when they can’t pay?” I said as we trudged along the path through the western forest, toward the druid’s grove.

“No, not at all. Funny thing is, I’ve been trying to be a bit more like you,” the dwarf said. “You really stuck your neck out to help these people. I didn’t see the cold glint of coin in your eyes when you did so. Not like me.”

“And here I thought I could depend on your well-developed sense of greed.”

“Were you being greedy when you saved me from that poison?”

I grumbled something unintelligible, even to myself.

“I told you, not a lot of people have shown me kindness. Not a lot, but some. I guess what you did got through to me,” Leffe said.

“You’re saying you don’t want to make some coin off this?” I said, recovering my tongue.

“Of course I do, but I’m betting we can take it off the villains, when all is said and done. But you tell me, if they didn’t make that promise to pay us when the king gets here, would you have walked away from them?”

I clenched my jaw, then released it. I’m dashing when I’m stubborn, but he had a point.

Leffe spotted the druid’s first trap shortly after the conversation ended. It was a nasty thing, a spiked branch set waist high to a man. If Dalvin had wander into it, it would have impaled his face. Leffe disarmed it and we continued on, more wary. What Leffe missed I caught, and vice versa. The next was a pit with spikes in it. Last, we made it under some hanging logs, sharpened to point and suspended up in the canopy of trees.

“He sure likes his spikes,” Leffe said.

“Uh, you could say that again,” Dalvin said, nudging the rogue. Even Mordo was caught flat-footed by the sudden appearance of a man in front of us. His hair fell down to his waist, and his beard even farther than that, which was fortunate for our sensibilities; the man wore only a belt with a pouch on it.

“You must be Hawken,” I said.

“If he’s not, then there’s two naked guys running around the woods,” Dalvin said.

“Thanks for that thought.”

The old, naked fellow seemed to be chewing on the ends of his moustache as he cocked one eyebrow, then another, examining us. He hopped sideway around us until he’d done a full circle.

He stopped in front of Mordo and blew out the ends of the mustache he’d been working on. “You’re here from Ellry about the rain, ain’t ya?” he said.

“Mordo sent by village leader man, aye,” Mordo said.

“Whose Mordo?” Hawken said

“Mordo is Mordo!” Mordo said, smacking himself on the chest plate.

“Mordo refers to himself in the third person? And they say I’m crazy!”

Dalvin cleared his throat and stepped forward. He did some sort of motion with his hands, then bowed. I guessed it was a sign passed between druids, for Hawken did something similar.

“Master Bramblebraid, I am Dalvin Dahlgood, hero of Harlan’s Gate, and now also hero of Ellry. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

Hawken stared blankly.

“Eh, No matter. I have come here, with these fine companions, to seek your wisdom.”

“My wisdom, eh? Hehehe. You know, they say I’m crazy.”

“You did mention that already, Good Master.”

“Well, they are right. Probably been out here so long I don’t know the sane way of things. Not for civilized folks, I reckon. No great loss that.”

“Sir,” I began, “we seek your help—”

“About the rain, yes. I’ve already guessed that. Thought my traps would have dissuaded that notion. Probably would have to sensible men. But let’s get right to it. You want my help, I want your help.”

“You can stop the rain?” I asked.

“No, but I know who can.”

I groaned inwardly. “Who?”

“The hags that started it.”

“Hags?”

“Yep, three of ‘em. The usual number for a coven of hags.”

“I’m guessing you don’t just mean some old women,” Leffe said.

“They might look like shriveled up old prunes of a woman, but they ain’t. No, they wear humanity like a mask, an ill fittin’ one that does nothing to hide their rotten hearts.”

“How do you know it was these hags that sent the rain?” I asked

“Oh, it’s just like them. They do like to mess with the natural order, just to get under my skin.”

“Can you not stop them?”

“Up till now, I put up with their nonsense. They never transgressed this badly. But the rain is an evil that’ll destroy the plants, the animals, even the ground itself. For that, they gotta be stopped.”

“I suppose this is where our help comes in?” I asked.

“Yep, but not like you’re thinking. The hags want somethin’, and if they get it, they’ll turn off this damnable rain.”

“What do they want?”

“The blood and egg of a basilisk.”

Dalvin laughed. “I’m sorry, I thought you said basilisk there for a moment.”

“I did.”

“Oh.”

“It’s like this. You get me that egg and some of its blood, they’ll give me, well, that’s my business. But I’ll also get them to turn off the rain.” Bramblebraid’s crazy eyes looked into each of our own in turn.

“Why don’t you do it, or at least come with us?” I asked.

“Need more than one fella to go after a basilisk, what with its petrifying gaze and all. And I can’t go with you now because, in case the hags back out on this deal, I hafta prepare a little counter magic.”

“Why not lead with countermagic? Why deal with these hags at all, if they’re so evil?”

“Again, pretty boy, that’s my business.”

I closed my mouth then. I’m not comfortable with being called pretty by a naked and crazy old man in the woods. Leffe and Mordo saw my distress and tried to stifle their giggles.

“Well then, Master Bramblebraid,” Dalvin said. “Where do we find this basilisk?”



* * *



The basilisk lived in the ruins of an old elven temple, now profaned and destroyed by some old evil. Bramblebraid told us that large trees grew right up to the cave, so we might be able to lure out the basilisk and stay above it, thus avoiding its petrifying gaze. Dalvin added to the plan. He would take the shape of a small animal and sneak into the cave to secure the egg, whilst we distracted it.

“Creatures come smaller than you?” Mordo said.

Dalvin stuck out his tongue. We continued to plan. We might be able to sneak out an egg, but we didn’t reckon on getting blood from the basilisk without it knowing.

“We don’t need to kill it necessarily,” Leffe said. “I mean, I’m not saying I care about it, just that we don’t have to get into a fight to the death if we don’t have to.”

“Mordo think it be easier to get blood if basilisk dead. Basilisk not sit still while we poke it.”

I agreed, but added that if we could get it and run, we should. There was no sense risking petrification or death if we didn’t have to. Agreed, we set the plan into action.

The thing about plans is that they can sound really good, right up to the point where a monster is snacking on your liver.

The first signs of our target were small statues of woodland creatures. Some appeared to have bite marks, but others were pristine. Since not even Bramblebraid was crazy enough to make such things, we took these to be the basilisk’s prey. Using some climbing gear, we scaled up trees and made our way limb to limb, moving carefully. At times, Dalvin clung to Mordo when a gap between limbs was too wide.

“Fellows,” Leffe said. A shiver ran up my spine. Leffe pointed to a figure, a wizard by the look of his robes. One arm wrapped around the trunk of a tree. He held his other mid gesture, forever summoning a spell that would never be cast. The wizard was solid rock.

“We have to keep it from looking up,” Leffe said.

“I have an idea,” I said.

Finally, the ruined temple came into view. It was not a large building, only slightly more than a roadside altar. Centuries and a monstrous inhabitant had it looking more like a cave than something build by elven hands.

At first, Dalvin had no problem getting into the ruins. Amusingly, he took the form of a weasel, and slithered in undetected. He waited for us to lure out the basilisk, hiding himself, including his view, among some rubble. I knew a spell song that would let me conjure a static image. I cast it on the ground, next to the trees we were in. The idea was that Mordo would smash the beast from above, while we poured on all the firepower we had. We’d borrowed extra crossbows from Bramblebraid, weapons he had collected over the years. Some were quite old, but we had tested them to make sure they worked. We cocked them and positioned them on the trees around us, ready to be loaded with a bolt.

We threw rocks at the temple ruin while Leffe attempted to sound like a wounded goat. The beast came out all right, eyes locked on the image I’d cast. Eight thick legs pounded the ground, though it moved in no hurry. Its long, thick body was reptilian and scaly, and a hard comb of scale stood up the length of its spine to the top of its head. The body was all white, as if it had just been cast from marble. I dared not look toward its face.

Then it roared. In spite of myself, I cringed away, inadvertently moving the goat illusion to the base of Mordo’s tree. The basilisk charged headlong at, perhaps frustrated that its gaze had not frozen its prey. Unfortunately, the basilisk struck Mordo’s tree so hard, the warrior was dislodged from his branch. Mordo, always trying to be epic, turned his fall into an attack, leading with his maul.

Mordo missed entirely. He smacked off the ground and bounced to a sitting position, propped against another tree. The basilisk gazed at him, but Mordo’s eyes were shut from knocking himself out. The beast then roared again, even more enraged at a second failure of its power, and perhaps from the blow it had dealt itself. The earth churned under its eight-legged charge of the fallen warrior.

Just as the basilisk was about to crush him, Mordo slumped down to flop on his face. The basilisk slammed headfirst into the massive tree. It grunted once, and then lay still.

“I think it knocked itself out,” I said to Leffe.

“So did Mordo.”

We climbed down from our perches and landed on the ground at about the same time Mordo revived.

“Mordo crush?”

“Yourself, mostly. The beast lies senseless but alive, yonder.”

“Mordo get blood.” He hefted his maul and charged.

“Fellows?” said a squeaky voice from inside the ruins. He transformed back into his gnomish form.

“Dalvin, we’ll be right in,” Leffe said.

“Oh, no hurry,” the druid said as he walked after Mordo. “My but that basilisk was a majestic beast,” he said, following Mordo. He pulled a sharp stone knife from as sheath. “You know, I’ve always fancied a basilisk skin for armor.”

Leaving them to their grim work, Leffe and I enter the beast’s lair. The interior of the ruin looked a bit more temple-like. In some spots, pictograms had survived the years and weather. In others, an old form or dialect of elven had been carved, but I had difficulty understanding it.

“Egg is here,” Leffe said. He gently picked up the egg and slid it into a cushioned box Bramblebraid had prepared for the occasion. “And that’s not all that’s here!” he exclaimed, looking down. “Gems!”

He was right. A pearl caught my eye. I plucked it from the mess of a nest and instantly felt a zip of something magical. Leffe collected the gems and a few coins.

“Mordo and gnome got blood,” I heard from behind. I turned and looked at the warrior and druid.

“You sure did, but did you manage to collect any of it in the vial, and not just wear it?”

Dalvin held up the full vial. Something scaly hung over his shoulder.

“Ooh!” the gnome exclaimed. “That looks interesting!” Dalvin selected a rust colored bag I’d discounted out of hand.

“Anything good inside?” Leffe asked, for the bag now looked full.

“I can’t see anything definite…” Dalvin trailed off before sticking his hand in it. “Something fuzzy and warm is in here.”

“Something alive?”

“No, not in the natural sense. I think I know what this is, but I’ll save it for when I have time to look it over.”

“Something for you, Mordo,” Leffe said. He hefted the weight of a sword, one big even by Mordo’s standards. The warrior’s eyes lit up as he accepted it. He banged the flat of it against an old stone altar, and the caked-on crud fell away to reveal a magnificent blade.

“Thanks Leffe,” Mordo said. He seemed in awe of blade.

“Maybe we’ll get an occasional ‘Mordo slice’ now, for variety,” I said.

“No, Mordo still prefers maul. But sword is good, aye.”

Something else caught my eye. When Mordo had brought the sword against the altar the second time, dirt had fallen away from it, too. A magnificent black gem, the type of which I’d never seen or even read about before, beckoned me to it. I took a dagger and got to work loosening it.

Dalvin and Leffe came over to look at what I’d found.

“There’s a pictograph here,” Dalvin said. I didn’t stop to look at it. I had to have that ebony beauty before Leffe got any ideas. It had to be mine. The thought reverberated in my head. My vision tunneled until all I saw was the black gem and the tip of my blade working to free it. I wanted it so bad, I had trouble keeping the blade from shaking.

Distantly I heard Leffe ask if I wanted help.

“No!” I remember saying. They told me later I sounded more like a vicious creature snarling.

“Ander! Ander! Stop!” Alvin said. I could tell he was shouting, but his voice sounded muffled, as if he shouted to me while I was underwater. “The pictogram! The thing on it is the same one we saw—”

The black gem popped free before he finished. Time froze as I tried to catch it. My shaking hand bobbled it, but I dropped the dagger from my other and clutched the thing to my chest.

My head spun as a tunnel of black and blue swirled around me. My stomach lurched as if I would be sick. I felt like I was flying, then weightless. I couldn’t control myself or even breathe. Bony claws held my neck and I drenched myself in the cold sweat of fear. A malevolence looked into me, sizing me up, judging my worth.

When I came back into the real world, my friends had dragged me clear of the temple. Try as they might, they couldn’t pry the black gem from my hands. As my faculties returned to me, I jerked fully upright and dropped the gem.

“Evil. Hatred. A will of sole crushing violence,” I said through parched lips.

My companions surrounded me and the gem.

“Leave it here,” Leffe said.

“Someone else may find it,” Dalvin said.

“Kick back into the temple then.”

“I don’t think that will do any good,” I said. “It will call to its minions.” How I knew this, I cannot explain.

“The kobolds, you mean,” said Dalvin. I looked at him. “The carvings on the altar. They were newer than the old elven ones. And though they were done by a far more skilled hand, I have no doubt that they were the same ones we saw in the kobolds’ lair.”

A shot of hot blood brought me to my feet.

“The dracholich!”



* * *



We stood for a time debating what to do. Leaving it here didn’t seem an option, for we all could feel a certain pull of the gem calling to us. Weaker minded beings would come for it, and somehow it would find its way to the kobold shaman. Finally, we decided to take it to Hawken Bramblebraid. These were his woods, after all. No one would know the lore better than he, and perhaps a way to destroy this thing before it fell into the wrong hands. Careful to not touch it with my hands again, I scooped it into a sack and tied it shut.

“What did you do?” the stunned Bramblebraid asked in a tone that revealed his absolute horror. His joy at having the blood and egg of the basilisk had fled. “What did you do?”

“It’s evil, I understand that now,” I said. “It’s not like I meant to unearth the soul of an ancient dracolich.”

Bramblebraid continued to stare agog at me.

“Come on, man! Snap out of it. How do we destroy this thing?”

Finally, the old druid’s mouth snapped shut. He looked away and started to pace, running his hand repeatedly through his hair and beard. We stood underneath his treehouse home.

“Think Hawken, think,” he muttered to himself, over and over again.

When he stopped, he did so abruptly.

“You have an answer?” I said, hope pitching my voice an octave.

“No.”

“What?”

“You’re doomed, I’m sorry to say.”

“What?!”

“I mean, it will be bad for all of us when the dracolich gets back to its bones and this shaman you mentioned performs the ceremony. But for you especially, it will be bad. It won’t just kill you, but devour your soul.”

“Tyr’s bloody stump, man!”

Dalvin patted me on the back, trying to calm me.

“Your bedside manner could use some work, Hawken,” the gnome said to the old man.

“I mean, you can fight its will,” Bramblebraid added.

Dalvin patted me again. “See that, Ander, there’s hope—”

“For a time, anyway. I can’t see you holding out forever. It’s a dracolich, by the gods! You’re too pretty to be strong-willed.”

“First, I prefer ‘dashingly fetching’ and second, that’s an awful stereotype to purport.”

Leffe snorted from the boulder he rested on. “You’re in danger of being possessed by pure evil, and that’s what you focus on?”

Mordo rose from his seat on a fallen tree branch. “Creepy old man help bard. Now.”

“You can scowl at me all you want, big fella, but it ain’t gonna change the facts,” Bramblebraid said, waggling finger at Mordo. “I don’t have magic to fix this, and I’m old and wise.”

“Who might?” Dalvin asked.

Bramblebraid stroked his beard, pausing to remove a bit of thistle that had stuck there. “I suppose a cleric of sufficient power might be able to do something, like you’d find in a big city. Oh! But don’t bring the gem thing near a city. All the hells would break loose if that was near a large population.”

My legs felt weak and I abruptly sat on the ground beneath me.

“Look, let me make the exchange with the hags,” the old druid said. “That will stop the rain, at least. Once I’m done, I’ll think on your problem.”

“What could be of greater concern to you than this?” Leffe asked.

“My daughter,” Bramblebraid stated flatly.

“You have a daughter?” asked Leffe.

“The hags have her?” asked Dalvin

“You’re not too old to reproduce?” I accidentally blurted. Everyone turned to look at me. I blushed.

“No, I’m not too old, or at least I wasn’t ten years ago when I met her mother.”

“When did the hags grab her?” asked Dalvin. “What did they want?”

“They grabbed her last week. I wanna believe they were just using her to make me gather the basilik’s egg for them.”

“I sense a ‘but’,” Leffe said.

“The but is, and it’s a big one, that they may be tryin’ to turn her into one of their own.”

“Wait,” I said. “I thought hags were their own kind of creature or race.”

“They are, in a manner of speakin’. They can’t breed by bumpin’ uglies, though, so the only way they can create more of their kind is to corrupt an innocent girl.”

“God’s man, I’m sorry,” I said. Despite my own predicament, I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with Bramblebraid. I didn’t want to go through that again. Clara had been just twelve when my troupe had lost her in the crown city. We’d never found her, despite all of our best efforts and nefarious connections. The not knowing and dark thoughts were maybe worse than whatever fate really had held for her.

“Do you want us to accompany you during the exchange?” Dalvin asked.

“No!” Bramblebraid shouted. “No. They said to come alone. I will, and I can handle ‘em if they get outta line. Just gotta get Jessa back. Let me do that, then I’ll think on how to help you. I can’t think of nothin’ else right now.”

“If crazy old man can handle hags, let Mordo and friends come with. We keep egg from hags and rescue Jessa-girl.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. But I won’t risk my Jessa like that. And killin’ them might not turn off this wicked rain. They had to work a humdinger of a ceremony to make this happen.”

“All right, then,” I said, feeling a little more like myself. “We’ll wait here for you to return.”

Bramblebraid shook his shaggy head. “No. They need you back in Ellry.”

“How do you know that?” Leffe asked. The dwarf’s prodigious brow dropped with suspicion.

“Despite my estrangement, I still care about that place. Jessa’s mom came from there. I keep tabs through the birds. They bring me tidbits. Harder to get at the moment. Damned oily rain makes it harder for them to fly. But they got a message through. There’s a stranger in town, and he scares them. He looks sinister, but his heart is pure. You must go to him, help him and settle the town down.

“Why?”

Bramblebraid shrugged. “Sometimes the animals just sense things. Not like I laid my own eyes on him though.”

“And you?”

“Go. Once I have my Jessa back, I’ll consult an oracle I know. After that, I’ll come to you. I’ve let Ellry go too long.”

Dalvin nodded. “Thank you and may nature favor you Master Druid.”

“One thing,” Leffe said. “Put on some pants before you stroll down Main Street.”

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Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 6. The Second Battle of Ellry

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 6. The Second Battle of Ellry
C.T. Avis

The horns were well behind us, and I could see the gate to Ellry, but it might as well have been a star in the sky. The survivors only had so much fear left in them to push them onward. Several looked like they might just drop on the road and wait for the inevitable.

I sang then. This had been the moment I had saved my voice for, though I hadn’t know it. I drank the rest of my waterskin, cleared my throat and sang. Even as tired as they and I were, the survivors listened. They perked up and their aching, tired feet stepped with a bit more vigor. Even my companions, weary and battle worn, perked up. All, that is, except Leffe. I caught no sign of the rogue.

My meager efforts were almost immediately doused, though, as the oily ran broke down on us in earnest.

Mordo took the lead. He handed off the litter he was dragging to the one strong survivor, Thom. Then, gathering as many people in his arms as he could, he ran for the gates of Ellry. I couldn’t sing and carry anyone at the point, so I stayed with the others. I watched Mordo disappear behind the crest of the road. Perhaps Leffe had spoken similar words to him about saving who you could.

“My dear Tyr, I’m and idiot,” I said. I dropped my inspirational song and charged after Mordo. Despite his tremendous vigor and head start, I had no problem catching up to the warrior and his burden. I’d forgotten the one spell-song I had left. I sang it then to Mordo. The weariness in his stride fell away, and he charged on ahead at double speed. By the time I had staggered back to Dalvin and the survivors, he’d caught up to me. He gathered another load of four and rushed away.

“That’s eight who will live, anyway,” Dalvin said. “But listen.”

The horns sounded again and this time I could hear the march of feet and the rattle of bones.

“Maybe we can save some more,” I said.

“You damned tall races are always getting little folk like me in over our heads.”

“You don’t have to stay, Dalvin. Help someone back to town.”

Dalvin looked back over his shoulder, then shook his head. “Nah. I think I can save more than one if I stay here.”

I nodded my appreciation and hoped that Mordo would return in time.

A different noise caught our ears then, this one from the road to the town.

“What’s that?” I asked Dalvin.

“Hooves! Horses!”

“And wagons!”

We turned to see two wagons charging toward us, Leffe riding abreast of a rugged old codger driving the lead wagon. As the drover pulled the reins to a halt, Leffe bounded from the seat, summersaulted and landed next to us.

“You have a way with words, bard,” he said.

“Good to hear. At least I can die tonight knowing I could have made it in my profession.” I smiled at Leffe. He didn’t exactly smile back, but his face changed from dour to something else.

“Nobody has to die right now. Room for all of us on those wagons.”

He was right, but I stayed planted in the road anyway. Mordo, his magically enhanced speed finally dissipating, skidded to a stop beside me. We stayed ready until the last survivor had been loaded up and the wagons turned for town. Then, we broke and ran, each climbing up the back of a wagon. I crashed on the floor of the wagon and lay there, thankful to be off my feet for the first time in hours, thankful to realize I didn’t have to save everyone myself.

Still, even as the town’s gates slammed shut after admitting us, I had little call to relax. The kobolds were enraged and had brought their undead minions with them. The minutes stretched into an hour. I used the time to gobble down some food, fully intending on manning the walls. I leaned back from my meal to run through the events of the longest day I’d lived in a while. As I did so, I must have nodded off.

A hand shook me awake. Leffe was making a habit of being my wake-up call.

“How long have I been asleep?” I asked.

“All morning, a little bit of the afternoon.”

“Gods! Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I was asleep, too. We all had a busy day.”

“But the kobolds…?”

“They’re out there, aye, just beyond our sight from the walls.”

“They’re waiting for night time,” I said.

“Maybe, maybe not. Come have a look.”

The oil rain had not stopped. In fact, it had grown only heavier. Outside, the ground had been turned into marsh and rivulets rushed down the sloped parts of town. Already water had pooled in several places.

“They’re connected to this rain somehow,” I realized aloud.

“That’s what Dalvin says.”

“They mean to drown us out.”

“They’re going to need to,” Leffe said. “I got up and took a quick look beyond the wall.”

“You should have woke me for that. But what did you see?”

“That’s the good news. No more than twenty of them scaly bastards are around.”

“How many undead?”

“More than twenty, aye. I know what you’re thinking. But I talked it over with Mordo and Dalvin, and they agreed with me.”

“Agreed about what?”

“We think if we take out that shaman, the undead will either drop or not be particularly beholden to the kobolds anymore.”

“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “The walls of this town won’t last long against a horde of the undead.

“That’s part two of the plan.”

“We have a plan? There’s a first time for everything, I suppose.”

“You, me, Dalvin and Mordo will sneak out and ambush the ambushers, strike right at the shaman and the kobolds. We break their hold on the undead, and maybe stop this unnatural rain.”

“When did you get so bold? Wouldn’t you prefer the enemy to come here and you could pick them off?”

“Just smart planning, is all. We fight them on our terms, rather than let them dictate the battle.”

“Huh,” I said. That made a lot of sense. “You involved in some ship-to-ship battles, back when you were a sailor?”

“Brother, I’ve been involved in just about everything.”

We moved to ready ourselves for the upcoming sortie. I had rested enough to recover the full essence of my magic, as had Dalvin. The town had one wizard of its own, if he could be called that. He was a slight fellow, not much taller than Leffe, and he wore the insignia of a scholar on his simple robe.

“Dalvin talk to that one?” I asked Mordo when I saw him.

“Aye. Didn’t catch his name.”

“Dalvin think he’d help?”

“No, probably not. Gnome say that wizard is mostly researcher.”

“So no fireball artillery to help us then.”

“No. All us. Quick and from behind. Kill shaman. Then crush undead.”

“Or slice undead. It doesn’t have to always be crushing.”

Mordo hefted his maul. “Yes, it does.”

We reassembled. Before we left, the dwarf looked at me hard.

“What magic was in that song you sang on the road, Ander?” Leffe asked.

“The one I sang for Mordo?”

“No, the one you sang to the survivors, just before the rain hit us hard.”

“None,” I admitted. “It’s just that sometimes people respond well to music.”

“If singer any good,” Mordo said. “Some good singer,” he said patting me on the chest.

Leffe led the three of us out a side passage. The rain fell hard, and the kobolds would not have any special advantage seeing in it, so we were reasonably certain we’d gone unnoticed by the enemy. We wound around the forest enough that if they had seen us, they could have attacked. Eventually, we belly- crawled up a small hill to peer down at the kobolds.

Around the shaman, the kobolds held an unusual amount of discipline. Probably their fear and reverence for this master of the undead kept them orderly, less they become the newest member of the undead ranks. The kobolds, unfortunately for our plans, had spread out behind the ranks of the undead. The zombies and skeletons lay motionless on the ground. Perhaps the shaman was preserving his necrotic power until he needed them. We had no doubt that he’d move to animate them once we attacked.

The plan had been to blanket the kobolds in another sleep spell, this one targeted especially on the shaman so that the undead wouldn’t rise up against us. However, only three kobolds attended their leader while the rest were out of range of the spell. Still, three plus the shaman was fine, if the shaman would fall. He’d resisted my lullaby the last time.

“If this doesn’t work, they’ll realize what’s happening,” I said. “What’s the follow up? And don’t just say Mordo crush.”

Mordo’s mouth snapped shut.

“I’ve got all my spells ready,” Dalvin said.

“Watch vine-grabby spell,” Mordo said. “Nearly got Mordo before.”

“He’s right. Try to use that away from us.”

“You’re going down there, Ander?” Leffe asked.

I nodded. “Mordo’s a force of nature and all, but he’s going to need help.”

Leffe looked dark for a moment. I could tell his part in the plan had been to fire his crossbow from a distance. Now, with me ready to enter the fray, he’d have to join in, too. I understood his apprehension.

“I’m no frontline fighter, Ander,” Leffe said.

“I’m not one either, really. I suppose I’m a bit better suited for it than you.”

“You’ve trained in that, too?”

“Aye. Mix a little of this, and a little of that, put it in a beautiful vessel, and tah-dah! You have a bard.”

“Jack of all trades, master of none?”

“I like to think I’ve got the singing down pat by now, but yes.”

“This fascinating,” Mordo said. “But enemies need crushing.”

Mordo, the voice of reason.

We eventually settled on the plan. If my sleep spell worked, Dalvin would stay and watch for the other kobolds to be alerted. Mordo, Leffe, and I would slink in and kill the sleepers, making sure to get the shaman first. Not only was he the leader and vessel of eldritch power, I wanted a look at the staff he wielded. It had an ornate shaft and a large, multicolored orb on top.

If my spell didn’t work, Dalvin would use his wave of thunder spell to try and knock the enemy prone. Mordo would charge the shaman while we tried to keep the other kobolds down. After that, we’d only have twenty or fewer kobolds to fight, Tyr preserve us.

Surviving this battle was a longshot that banked on getting the shaman down quickly and the other kobolds losing their morale and fleeing. If they stayed and fought, I wasn’t sure that even Mordo’s maul would save us. The townspeople had armed themselves behind the wall, but their spirits were as waterlogged as everything else around us. I didn’t count on them to join the fight, even if they could follow our action from behind the enemy lines.

Thinking about it too much seemed pointless, suddenly. “We ready?” I asked. The others nodded. I began the magic lullaby, letting my voice rise up slowly to the hearing of the shaman and his kobolds. The attending kobolds slumped down. The shaman waivered for a moment, then grasped his staff harder and shook the sleep from his eyes. He’d been ready for the spell a second time. He stamped down on the ground with the staff, and the kobold warriors outside the ring of my spell immediately turned to attend their master. The undead stirred, but did not spring right up.

“Dalvin!” I said. The gnome had his druid magic ready. We covered our ears and he let the thunderous wave of noise blast the kobolds. It worked, but not as we planned. Dalvin had switched targets to the kobold warriors and the nearest skeletons. Many warriors blew backwards and the bones of the undead scattered.

Still, the shaman remained unharmed and started to retreat to behind the kobolds who had managed to keep their feet. Mordo jumped up and charged, this time bellowing his intent. Two kobolds closest to him froze in fear, and Mordo sent them to their doom.

Dalvin prepared his entangling root spell.

“Target the zombies, skeletons and kobolds not near the shaman. We need to move to kill him,” I said. Dalvin nodded, but otherwise concentrated on his next spell. Leffe glanced at me and I nodded. We sprang forth, our focus on getting to the shaman as quickly as possible.

We never got there. The kobolds proved hardier that last time, springing up in front of us. It was all we could do to keep them from getting behind us. Leffe and I found ourselves fighting back-to-back, ringed by the scaly little monsters. I scored hits and a couple fell, only to be replaced by their brethren. Leffe grunted behind me, and I risked a glance at him. Though he’d dropped two of his own, he’d taken minors wounds. Then, so had I. One spear avoided my rapier’s parry, then another, scoring flesh wounds of little damage. Still, a death of thousand bites is still a death.

I heard Dalvin cry out. The gnome danced and ducked away from pursuing kobolds. He’d unleashed his spell; writhing tendrils held down the undead. Dalvin himself could really only flee for the moment, his quarterstaff and cloth robe no match for the kobolds’ spears.

I took another wound, this one staggering me, a painful reminder to keep my eyes on my own opponents. The kobold pressed his advantage and lunged. I parried and riposted, driving my rapier through the underside of his jaw. I tried to do quick math as I parried its fellows’ attacks. Mordo had killed two; I’d dropped three; Leffe at least two; if the three kobolds around the shaman were still unconscious, we’d taken ten out of the fight. Not a bad improvement.

I swatted away a spear thrust and punched a kobold with the handguard of my weapon. As I did so, I became more painfully aware of the wound I’d received. I checked it with my off hand and felt hot wet blood seeping from the hole in my armor. I switched back to a fully defensive posture, but suddenly I could not find Leffe’s back. The dwarf had fallen and was kicking and poking to keep the kobolds off him.

I roared away my pain and pivoted from my opponents to slash wildly at Leffe’s attackers. The kobolds fell back off him, giving Leffe the time he needed to get up. However, as he did so, my right leg buckled from the painful wound on my hip, and I fell into him. A spear punched through my back right to the rib, and I fell to the dirt. Leffe alone stood against the mob.

I tried to shut out the pain, for I knew that only death would come from staying down. Gaining my knees ripped a scream from within me. I managed to protect Leffe’s back from two more attacks, but I knew my doom loomed closer. Blood oozed from my hip and back.

Then, something ripped away the kobolds attention. They turned and ran, Leffe felling one as it did so. The dwarf and I sagged together and watched.

The scattered bones and rotting bodies of the undead lay around Mordo’s feet. Apparently, he had not gotten to the shaman in time, but the warrior had gleefully taken to bludgeoning the dead back to hell. Now, unfettered by the icy grasps of the undead, Mordo stalked the shaman.

The shaman didn’t turn to flee, as he had before. The orb of his staff crackled with energy. He pointed it at Mordo and a bolt of lightning ripped the air between the two. Mordo had seen it coming and had dodged, but the lightning couldn’t be fully denied. It lanced into his metal armor and the warrior shook and convulsed. His mighty maul fell to the dirt.

The shaman cackled gleefully in his own language. I could not understand his words, but understood his haughty tone. He stalked Mordo, staff in one hand and a crude dagger in the other. He plunged the blade at the warrior’s exposed throat.

Mordo caught his wrist. The lightning strike had not incapacitated the warrior as the shaman had planned. Mordo twisted cruelly on the dagger hand of the kobold leader. An audible crack resulted in a screaming shaman. The spear wielding minions of the shaman had almost caught up to Mordo now, but he paid them no mind. He switched his terrible grip to the small shaman’s throat, seeking to silence his wickedness forever.

The shaman had one more trick. I could not see what he did, and he was surely incapable of uttering a spell, but in a flash of light, he vanished. Mordo cast about, trying to find his victim, but the shaman was properly gone.

The effects were immediate. The undead not yet destroyed, still entangled by Dalvin’s spell, fell lifeless to the ground. The kobolds charging mighty Mordo suddenly thought better of it, now that their leader had disappeared again. Unsure of which way to go, they ran in all directions away from the gore stained warrior, his seething grimace a terrifying sight.

I used the distraction to recite my poem of healing, and the blood flowing from my wounds stopped. I still hurt, but could bare the pain now that I could function again. Leffe gasped on the ground, holding his side. I recited the poem for him as well. He did not thank me, but groaned to his feet, staggering away.

Dalvin! I’d completely lost track of the gnome. I stumbled along after Leffe. At some point, Mordo saw our plight and caught up to us.

“Kobolds ran,” he said.

“Dalvin,” was all that Leffe could manage. Mordo understood.

A trail of blood set our nerves on edge. It led to a trampled path in the undergrowth. Leffe groaned when he saw Dalvin’s cap caught in some bramble. Hurt though he was, he still outpaced Mordo and me as he searched for his friend.

We found the gnome a moment later, as we rounded a tree. He sat on a limb, bruised and bleeding some, but smiling. Two kobolds lay dead beneath him.

“How?” Leffe managed.

“Never mess with a druid in the woods,” Dalvin said.



* * *



Mordo led the clean-up, back on the battlefield. He smashed the prone undead while we kept careful watch. Or, in all truth, tended to our wounds. Our victory on that day had been painful, but well fought. And it came with some reward. The shaman had left behind a chest and satchel, containing some coin, potions and scrolls. In all, it wasn’t a bad haul.

Yet still, the oily rain poured down.

“Must not be the shaman’s work,” Dalvin said as we trudged back to town.

“This is no natural rain, though,” I said.

“Tis true.”

“Then what is it?” Leffe asked.

“I fear some other evil is at play, some secret conspirator of the shaman.”

I didn’t want to say it, but did. “The dracolich?”

Dalvin raised his hands, palms up. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of a dragon, living or dead, to cause rain.”

Leffe grunted loudly. “I don’t care, not tonight anyway. As long as this rain won’t wash away the town tonight, the only thing I care about is a healer, a mug, and a bed.”

He was right. With the immediate threat to the town of Ellry ended, we could take a moment to recover, if not exactly celebrate. I smiled in relief as the gate of the town swung open for us.

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Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 5. Captives of the Kobolds

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 5. Captives of the Kobolds
C.T. Avis

Bones littered the tunnel, the crawler’s victims. I wondered if the kobolds had managed to somehow deal with the crawler, collecting the bones for their undead army. It seemed a task beyond the simple-minded creatures, but I also wouldn’t have thought they could raise an undead army. Their shaman or chieftain, whatever he was, had power far beyond his reach.

“Pictures on wall,” Mordo said pointing. I looked. At first, I took it to be depictions of the kobolds’ skeletal army. I saw a lot of white streaks and crude stick figure drawings. As we made our way down the tunnel, the stick figures assembled together into one figure. Ice ran down my spine.

“Fellows,” I said. My throat had gone dry and I couldn’t finish what I wanted to say. I pointed.

“What is that?” Leffe asked.

“Looks like some sort of dragon, but all bone,” Dalvin said. “What an unusual thing for kobolds to draw.”

Mordo, again proving he understood things beyond his language barrier, shook his head. “It is boss of kobolds. Must be where head kobold gets power from.”

“A bunch of dragon bones?”

“Maybe just bones for now,” I said, finally finding my voice. “But look carefully at the drawing. Those bones are drawn moving.”

The color drained from Dalvin’s face. “Dr-dracolich?”

“A what-now?” Leffe said.

Mordo waved us back to the pit chamber to discuss it.

“Undead dragon. Very bad. Evil. Mordo want to crush, but…” the warrior shrugged his metal pauldrons. “Mordo not sure can crush.”

Strangely, Mordo using himself as a unit of measure worked for Leffe. His eyes widened. If even brash Mordo didn’t think he could face it, Leffe realized what that meant for us.

“Is it worse than a living dragon?” Leffe asked.

“Depends on what dragon was like in life,” Mordo said. “If powerful in life, even more powerful in death.”

“And we can assume it would be powerful,” I said. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t have had the power to transcend death.”

“Listen, be calm, friends,” Dalvin said, though his shaky behavior showed anything but calm. “This dracolich is just a thing of worship. Mayhap they draw some power from it for their undead, but if this evil existed, the kobolds surely would have unleashed it upon the town already.”

“Could they bring it back somehow?” Leffe asked.

“Yes,” I said, recalling the wisps of a story I’d hear long ago.

Mordo nodded. “Mordo know undead. Dracolich not dead, even if killed.”

Leffe cocked an eyebrow. “You’re going to need more syllables than that to explain what you mean.”

“I learned about this when my old master trained me,” Dalvin said. “One can destroy a dracolich’s physical form, but if one doesn’t destroy its phylactery, the spirit will return to it and wait until it can manifest again.”

“What in the nine hells is a phylactery?” Leffe growled.

“Something that can hold its spirit.”

“I understood that part, Dalvin! What does a phylactery look like? So that we know to avoid it.”

“Or crush it,” Mordo said.

“That might be a bad idea,” Dalvin said. “Or it might not. I really don’t know. Nor do I know what this dracolich’s phylactery looks like. They come in many forms, the most common being a sealed metal box. Those are especially heinous, a mockery of religious practice.”

“What other forms could it take?” I asked.

“Rings, jewels, maybe some other things. I’d have to consult with other druids to find out more.”

I released a deep breath. “All right, let us proceed under the assumption that the dracolich is not back, for the reason Dalvin mentioned. If the kobolds had brought it back, they would have unleashed it by now.”

Dalvin nodded in agreement, but Leffe looked less convinced.

“If we kill the kobolds now,” the druid said, “we might be able to prevent their nefarious plan.”

“Might need to find the lair of this dracolich anyway,” Leffe said.

“That’s, ah, brave of you,” I said, my eyes wide. The little I knew about Leffe said that such risk was not part of his normal behavior.

“It might be undead, but it’s still a dragon,” Leffe said. “Dragons have lots of gold. Might be worth it.”

“Plus, make for epic song, bard,” Mordo added.

“Great, but who’ll tell it when we’re all dead?”

We made our way back to where we had paused. The tunnel split. Leffe, in the lead, motioned us to be quiet. Though I was looking right at him, he seemed to disappear into the shadows. We waited. I wished he had indicated which tunnel he’d gone down, so that I could scout the other. I might not have Leffe’s mastery, but I could get around unseen.

We waited. Every rustle of Mordo’s armor set me on edge, with visions of a kobold horde sneaking up on us from the shadows. Where was Leffe? Had the monsters captured him? Were they now torturing our location out of him?

“There’s chanting down the right tunnel,” the dwarf said, suddenly back in our midst. I jumped and clamped a hand over my mouth to muffle my shout of surprise. “Down the left I heard whimpering, moaning. There’s people in cages in there.”

“Blast,” Dalvin said. “This complicates things.”

“We have to save the people,” I said, trying to keep my voice low.

Dalvin looked at Mordo, then at me before speaking. “Normally, of course you’d be right,” he whispered. “There’s a bigger picture here. We have this one chance to sneak in here and kill these kobolds before they complete whatever ritual they have to bring back the dracolich.”

“We’ll come back and kill them,” I said.

“Won’t be easy. The chanting Leffe heard was probably some sort of unholy ceremony,” Dalvin said.

“Gods! You don’t think they’re bringing the dracolich back now, do you?”

Mordo shook his head. “No. Mordo could sense that much undead evil. Some undead here, maybe zombies and skeletons, but no great evil.”

“Even so,” Dalvin continued, “We are extremely lucky they are occupied and didn’t hear the ruckus from the crawler fight. They’ll be more attentive next time, after they find their victims have been rescued. You made this point yourself in in tavern.”

“Look, I don’t know if it’s because you spend more time in the woods than with people, Dalvin, and I don’t mean any insult by that, but to me those people are someone’s family. They’re doomed unless we help them.”

“We help them by killing all the kobolds. We help them and everyone else.”

“And if we fail? They die too. And no one would survive to warn the town.”

My words hung in the air. Dalvin looked troubled. He believed in his course of action, but didn’t want to doom anyone. Leffe showed no expression, looking from one to the other of us for a decision. My stomach sank as I realized Mordo had the deciding vote, and I feared his fanatical obsession with the undead had already decided it for him.

“Half-elf right,” Mordo said looking at me. The resignation in his voice made his words breathy. “We save people first. Then crush undead and kobolds.”

When my surprise turned to appreciation, I nodded to Leffe. As the two quietest members of the party, we’d sneak down to open the cages. Dalvin would be halfway, ready to relay our needs to Mordo, who’d station himself near the crossroad, to head off any kobolds and to warn us if their ceremony ended.

The roughhewn chamber of the captives was as filthy as one could imagine. The kobolds had little concept of sanitation for themselves, and none whatsoever for the people they expected to sacrifice to their evil master. Accordingly, most of the captives were frail and sickly, barely registering our presence. One man, though, looked hearty enough.

“Help us!” he pleaded through iron bars.

“Quiet!” Leffe hissed. He unlocked the man’s cage first. Despite the hideous conditions, he still looked healthy and strong in his broad shoulders. He turned to help his cellmates to their feet.

“What’s your name, man?” I asked him.

“Thom. I was on my way to Ellry when these bastards took us. I killed many, but one must have smashed me from behind. I woke up here. There’s only my wife and daughter left from the people we traveled with. Have you seen them elsewhere?”

“Thom, I’m sorry, but if these other people in the cages aren’t your friends, I hold no hope for them being alive elsewhere.”

Pain rippled across the young man’s fair face. He shook it away. “Then let’s leave this place.”

“I agree,” I said. Leffe had already started picking open other cages. I joined him, while Thom lugged his unconscious wife and daughter over his shoulder. That a family could survive this horror was a minor miracle. The other folks here I wasn’t sure would survive the escape. Many would have to be carried. I signaled down to Dalvin to get Mordo.

We all loaded up with who we could carry. I carried a woman and smaller man, one for each shoulder. Leffe carried a smaller woman, but Dalvin had neither the size nor strength to lift the humans. Instead, he offered himself as a living crutch to a man. Mordo was the most impressive. He draped a captive on each shoulder and two cradled in his arms. Between us and those who could move on their own, we emptied the cages.

Needless to say, the going was slow. Leffe motioned us to silence again when he got back to the crossroads and indicated with a jerk of his head for Dalvin to have a listen. The gnome worked his lip.

“We must hurry. I’m not familiar with kobold rituals, but that has all the sounds of a final litany.”

Hurrying seemed an impossible task. The walking survivors could barely shuffle, and though I’m no weakling, carrying two fully grown adults taxes my limits. Somehow, though, we got back through the crawler’s tunnel and into the bottom of the pit.

“Now what?” I said, looking up the slick ramp. I had doubts about ascending it myself, let alone getting the feeble and frail up it.

“Ropes,” Mordo said as he, with surprising gentleness, lowered his burden of people to the ground. “Mordo get up top, pull weak people up with ropes.”

“I’ll pull, too,” I said. I could manage the weight of the lighter survivors. We quickly arranged it so that Leffe and Dalvin would help the people into loops in the rope, a sort of harness, and Mordo and I would bring them up. It was the best plan we could think of, though we were all apprehensive about leaving our two smallest companion in the pit of evil.

Pulling up the frail was no easy feat. Many groaned badly in the ropes. I felt awful, but could see no other way to bring them up. Thom, the able-bodied man we released, armed himself with a shield and sword from the debris of the pit bottom. He covered Dalvin and Leffe, but I didn’t count on him to hold of a horde of kobolds and undead, should we be discovered.

When we had about ten of the survivors up, we pulled Dalvin up, too. The rope ride had been too taxing on some of them, and the druid needed to see to them. I, too, could heal the wounded, a song of healing having been one of the first I’d learned. The survivors in the pit were more in need of my brawn, such as it was, to get them to salvation.

In the pit, Leffe shot up straight like a deer, ear cocked to the tunnel. He darted away and disappeared from view. I didn’t wait for him to confirm my fears, but pulled harder on the robe with arms that burned with fatigue. Mordo had been bring up three to my every one, and the warrior seemed tireless. Still, he increased his already incredible pace, much to the discomfort of those on his line. He couldn’t slow now, though. Leffe reappeared. He looked up at us and shook his head, mouthing “they’re coming. Hurry.”

I was at my limits, as were the survivors. A song came to me then, one laced with the light of inspiration. Making noise was a bad idea, but I knew we wouldn’t beat the kobolds otherwise. Softly I began, trying to infuse the words with my magic even as I labored under the weight of the rope.

Inspiration, even a renewed vigor washed over us, even me. Usually, my songs only work for others, and maybe it wasn’t the magic but the simple act of doing something familiar in this place of evil that cleared my mind. I noticed a tree not far from the pit. I wrapped my end of the rope over it to use it as a simple pulley, and found I could bring up the survivors faster.

Mordo found even more strength. Between the two of us, we emptied the pit until only Leffe and Thom were left.

They were still there, just fastening the rope around Thom, when the first of the kobolds entered the pit from the crawler’s tunnel.

Four of the little lizard-headed monsters hissed and charged the two. Thom didn’t know if he should climb or fight, and almost decided to late until Mordo decided for him. With a mighty roar, he snapped Thom off the ground and a good halfway up the ramp. Having just relieved myself of my last survivor, I sprang to help him. Dalvin, alerted, pulled out a sling and some stones.

Leffe, on the bottom, wheeled and dodged the kobolds, but took two minor wounds from their spears. He stumbled back, rapier in hand, parrying desperately.

“Take rope,” Mordo said. Before it had really registered, he released his grip and I suddenly had to bear the full weight of Thom on my own. I almost got dragged over the lip of the pit, but managed to dig in my heels.

Mordo pulled his hammer from its harness on his back, smiled to me, then jumped into the pit.

For twenty feet, gravity worked on the heavy, armored man. He did not yell as he fell, so his sudden impact upon the kobolds below was as silent as it was deadly. Mordo himself looked pained from the fall, but gained his feet instantly next to Leffe. I wanted to help, but still had Thom’s rope in my hands.

The initial kobolds died quickly. Those that Mordo hadn’t crushed had been flattened enough for Leffe to dispatch with quick knife work to their throats. Still, I could see my companions ready themselves as they looked down the corridor of the crawler.

Next to me, Dalvin spun his sling, readying the only attack he could provide from this far. “I have one spell I can try, if it gets desperate down there,” he told me, just as I brought Thom the rest of the way up. “But it’s liable to hurt our friends as much as our foes.”

“I have my sleep spell, too, but it’s not selective,” I replied. “If many kobolds come, I won’t be able to get them all, and our companions would be defenseless.”

“Have you a bow?”

“Aye,” I said. I pulled my hand crossbow out. I had carried it with the bow part detached from the stock, and needed a moment to assemble it. It was no easy task with hands that shook with fatigue.

Leffe and Mordo moved toward the tunnel.

“No!” Dalvin called.

“It’s good strategy, Dalvin. They’re using the confines of the tunnel and the crawler’s corpse to bottle up our enemy.” I could see Mordo’s back as he heaved and pushed against the enemy. The little monsters who slipped through did so unbalanced. Leffe darted in to pierce their scales with rapier and dagger. The two moved with surprising synchronicity, having never actually fought together.

Dalvin and I stood ready with our projectiles, though I didn’t trust my shaky arms.

Our companions sagged back, but no enemy immediately followed. Mordo took the time to push the crawler’s corpse. At first, I thought he’d lost his mind. He screamed and grunted with the effort. Then, with a final growl, pushed the bulk to seal shut the tunnel. It wasn’t a perfect seal, but the slow-witted kobolds would need time to find their way around.

I dropped my bow and grabbed one of the ropes, but I needn’t have bothered. Fleet-footed Leffe scampered up the slippery ramp without issue. Mordo, though more lumbering, used hands and feet to project himself up the ramp by grabbing the rocky sides. Topside, sweat lathered the big man’s skin, but he wasn’t finished. Moving to the side of the pit opening above the tunnel, he smashed the ground around it with his maul.

Dalvin caught on more quickly than I did. “Move aside, Mordo! Magic can do this faster.” The big man did so and Dalvin waggled and contorted, channeling nature’s energy through himself and into the ground. A wave of sound issued forth, ripping the earth asunder. It fell into the pit, clogging the tunnel entrance.

We all took a minute to catch our breath. The kobolds would have another way out, but we had to hope that it would take them a while to catch up. I said as much to Leffe.

The dwarf eyed the survivors. “No way will it be enough time. This lot will move slower than a becalmed ship.”

“What choice do we have?” I said. “Thom, get these people moving. We will guard your retreat and delay the kobolds as long as we can.” I looked at my companions. Leffe looked grim. He glanced at the overgrowth around the path as if pondering a solo escape, but shook his head in dismissal.

“Aye,” he said.

“I can slow them with the entanglement spell once, maybe twice more,” Dalvin said.

“And Mordo crush,” Mordo said, though he did it through puffs of breath.

“And I,” I said. “I…” I could what? Die valiantly? I looked at the bedraggled survivors. A surprising thought came to me. If I must, I will.

“Sing, bard,” Mordo said. “Sing like you did at ropes. Give people energy to move.”

He was right. I hung my crossbow on my belt and retrieved my lute. I had no real magic to invigorate so many, but maybe I could play well enough to move them along.

The early evening descended into full darkness as we trudged along. Dalvin, able to see in the dark, guided the survivors, as we dared not light a torch. Still, the kobolds did not come. The waiting seemed more terrible than the unavoidable battle, for it was edged by the false promise of hope. Maybe the kobolds wouldn’t come. Maybe they had lost our trail, or really had only the one way out of their lair.

These thoughts are poison in the desperate blackness of night. They whisper to the fatigue in a man, tempting him to relax his pace, to put away the weapon he carries, to maybe camp for the night and have mercy on the poor souls he guarded. These thoughts are death.

And still, the kobolds did not come.

“It’ll rain soon,” Dalvin said. He’d looped back to me, letting Leffe lead for a while. “It will be a big storm, I can feel it.”

I said nothing, saving what remained of my voice for when I’d need it most. I swallowed back against a fit of despair. Rain was the last thing these people needed. In their rags and weakened state, with the pace we’d been pushing them, they die of pneumonia. A few had fallen already. Mordo and Thom took turns dragging them on a make-shift litter. Dalvin and I had expended our meager healing magic as best as we could, making more people ambulatory, but no one had been restored to full health. Of the twelve people we’d pulled out of the pit, Thom excluded, six moved solely under their own power. Mordo dragged three in the litter. Three more leaned on their fellow survivors for support. The pace was not blazing.

When the skies opened up, it was an unholy rain. The drops had an oily consistency to them. I couldn’t tell for sure in the low light, but they might have been black. I estimated that we were halfway back to Ellry, and we’d been walking for hours.

“These people are going to die out here tonight,” Leffe whispered, slinking up from the shadows.

“No kobolds yet,” I said.

“Yet being the key word.”

“We can’t abandon them.”

“Not saying we should. Just, keep a realistic perspective on this, Ander. You’re a good soul and you want to help everyone, but that might end up helping no one.”

“What are you saying?”

“Should it come to it, we grab who we can and run out of here.”

“Leffe!”

“Think about it, Ander. Saving some of them is better than saving none of them.”

I was quiet a moment, and so was the dwarf. For a moment, I wasn’t sure he was still there.

“Promise me something, Leffe.”

“What?”

“You have to promise that you won’t cut and run. Not unless we absolutely have to. You owe us this much for saving you from the poison.”

“I know that,” the dwarf said. “I haven’t forgotten. And despite how I may sound, I’m no coward. I’m no blackguard who will willingly leave defenseless people to their doom. But I’ve been around, halfie, and I’ve learned to check the reality for would-be heroes.” With that, he slipped back into the night.

I did not ponder his words as I walked. Instead, I strained my senses into the environment, trying to catch the faintest sign of our pursuers. Still, none came. Unbelievably, as dawn burgeoned just below the horizon, turning the black to blue, the lights of Ellry came into view.

Then we heard the hunting horns behind us.


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Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 4. Cave of Blood

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 4. Cave of Blood
C.T. Avis

The flight through the forest eventually regained a sense of normalcy, though I was so shaken, I jumped at every broken twig sound.

“I don’t like spiders. Or bats,” I said when a concerned Mordo placed a hand on my shoulder in comfort.

“Much worse than those in the world, bard,” he said. “You see. Mordo bring you great glory to sing about.”

“Wonderful.”

The return journey was even slower than the leaving, as we had to sort the underbrush at night. Though Dalvin and I could see relatively well, finding the trail markers still slowed us down. Eventually, though, we made it back to Ellry. I had no intentions of camping in the forest that night.

Dalvin couldn’t rouse Carla, the old healer having fallen into a deep sleep from her exhaustion two days before. He checked on Leffe and, assured that he was stabilized, caught some sleep of his own so that he’d be fresh and reloaded with spell power the next day, to make Leffe’s cure. I fell into my bed, my armor off this time, and slept deeply, my dreams blessedly free of spiders and bats.

I awoke to Leffe staring at me. He looked a little more gaunt than usual, having sweated out a good deal of water weight as the poison had fevered him. The color had returned to his skin and the dark circles had left his eyes. Still, waking up under the considerable weight of a dwarf’s stare caused me to utter a noise a lot like “eep!”

“Just me, halfie,” Leffe said. While I wasn’t accustomed to dwarven bedfellows, I had grown use to their casual racism via exposure. Most dwarves didn’t mean anything by it. “No need to get your knickers in a knot.”

“That’s nicely alliterative for so early in the morning, if a bit presumptive. Can I do something for you, Leffe?”

The lithe dwarf, so unusual from his kin in many ways, still had prodigious eyebrows of his people. He lowered them into a scowl. I tried to imagine what I’d done to earn his ire.

“You saved me, you and the walking land mass in armor. I’d expect Dalvin to help, but you and Mordo don’t know me from Dumathoin.”

“Well, I…”

“Let me finish. You had no reason to risk your pretty little head for me, yet you did.” His face softened. “I came to ask why. Not many have showed this sea dog and rogue much kindness over the years.”

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. A quick stroke of my hair revealed that it was in pretty decent shape, for having just awoken. I used the motion to gather my thoughts. From what I could tell about Leffe, he’d feel obligated in a way that would make him feel uncomfortable if I told him I helped just out of the kindness of my heart.

“Well, first of all, I prefer dashingly handsome to ‘pretty’. Second, you needed help and no one else could help you. What should I have done, left you to your agony? I can’t make up a properly heroic tale with that backstory. Thirdly, I reckon we’re going to need whatever you can give us, if we’re walking into that kobold den.”

Leffe rocked back on the stool he was sitting on and thought about it for a minute. He gave two nods of his head, having accepted that my motives weren’t overly kind.

“Thanks, then, I guess.”

“You’re welcome. Now, are you ready to throw away the gift of life I’ve bought you, and head into the monsters’ lair?”

“If I had my way, no. Seeing as you’re all counting on me, what can I say?”

“Say you’ll give me a minute to bathe and dress, and meet me in the inn for breakfast.”

He chuckled softly and stood.

“Leffe,” I said as he turned to go. “Tell me one thing. Are we going to have to look over our shoulders for more assassins?”

The dwarf’s eyes rolled back and forth as he did some mental calculations. “Nay. I highly doubt it, anyway. What they were after me for wasn’t worth the high priced assassin you fellows killed. They’ll have trouble hiring another group of assassins to come this far after me, and it would just add to the overall cost. Nay, I can put this behind me.”

I wanted to ask him who “they” were, but felt it was a tale for a different time. He had a right to his secrets, as I had a right to mine.

After he’d left, I rang a chime and order up warm water for a bath. It had been two days and despite my best cantrips, I desperately needed a freshening. So did my armor, so I set a cantrip upon it, to knock off the mud, blood and any pests that may have gained purchase in the leather. I doubted I’d need to look my very best to walk into the filthy home of some kobolds, but one never knew.

Breakfast was on the table and a bit cold by the time I got there. Leffe, Dalvin and Mordo looked impatient. I shrugged and gobbled down the cold food anyway.

“Trying to smell nice for the filthy kobolds?” Leffe said.

“I wouldn’t wish to offend my companions with the three days of sweat that had built up on me,” I said. “I wish others were as considerate.”

Leffe and Mordo gave their pits a good sniff. Dalvin seemed to have missed the cue.

“So while you all were waiting for me so patiently,” I said. “Did you hatch a plan for dispatching the kobolds?”

“There’s a passage through a mountain north of here,” Dalvin said. “The lizardy little bastards and their undead minions are thought to have laired in the area.”

“So close to a travel route?”

“Aye. Not good sign,” Mordo said. “Means they not fear being found.”

“The worse news is that many people in town have expected travelers to arrive in town, coming from that passage,” Dalvin said. He’d helped himself to one of the hardboiled eggs on the table, though his own plate showed the remnants of his breakfast. He shook the egg for emphasis and spoke before taking a hardy bite. “I fear that they’ve run afoul of the kobolds.”

I straightened in my seat. “That complicates things. Do we rescue them, or kill the kobolds? We probably can’t do both.”

“Hells, we can’t probably do either,” Leffe said.

“Mordo crush.”

“I’ll take that as one vote for killing the kobolds, and not the missing people.”

Mordo nodded to me. “Mordo sense undead foulness. Raven Queen demand undead be cleansed.”

“Silvanus does too,” Dalvin said. “In fact, as a druid I’m sworn to rid the land of the unnatural, the perversion of death.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’.”

“We can cleanse later if we need to. I’d vote for rescuing any people first, as I did when I saved that town from the flood. Did I ever tell you about that? I’m told I’m a bit of a folk hero.”

“So that’s a vote for rescuing. Leffe?”

The dwarf stroked his short beard. “Might be more in the way of reward if we save the people first, then come back and loot the kobolds after we kill them.”

“That’s two for rescuing. Actually, three. I agree, we should save people over killing the monsters.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “The problem is, we won’t catch them off-guard a second time. If we focus on getting any hostages free, we aren’t likely to catch the kobolds with their pants down a second time.”

“Kobolds not wear pants,” Mordo said. “More like armored skirts.”

“I—yes, Mordo. Thanks for pointing that out.”

The twinkle in Mordo’s eye let me know I’d fallen for his dumb act again.

“Mordo relent. Must save people first,” he said rising. “After, Mordo crush!” he said, banging his fist down on the table. The two remaining hardboiled eggs went flying. I caught one but the other smashed on the ground.

“Aw, I would have eaten that,” Dalvin said.



* * *

Our trip northward was uneventful, though in the shadow of the mountain, it grew colder as we ascended the pathway. Dalvin confirmed our fears as he inspected the road. Footprints and some wagon ruts indicated travelers moving north, but no one had been southbound on the road.

That was not say we saw no signs of southern travel. In the overgrowth on either side of the path, we saw many signs of panicked retreat. Bits of clothing snagged on bramble; snapped twigs and branches as if someone had crashed recklessly through the vegetation; discarded personal effects…and blood. A not so subtle trail of it led toward the mountain passage.

“Ye gods!” Leffe said. “This blood is not that fresh, but it’s still so obvious. It could mean only that a great deal had been spilled here.”

“Those poor people,” I uttered. The enormity of the evil started to sink in then. Silently, our tone shifted and we resolved our vengeance like a shot of iron to our will.

“Mordo. Crush,” the warrior said very quietly. It had more weight than any of his boasts.

I nodded. Any reservations I had held about being sent here on an extermination mission evaporated.

Reservations about our survival persisted, however. It wasn’t long before we’d followed the path of blood off the road and to its awful terminus. A sinkhole had opened in the ground, dirt having given away to be ringed by the mountain stone underneath. At least that’s what I assumed. It was hard to tell. Dismembered bodies scattered the area around the opening, so many that not even the carrion eaters of the wilds had had time to clean the bones. Gore and bones, rendered clothing, and terrible viscera assaulted our eyes. Then, the wind came down off the mountain and blew the awful air into our noses. I am not ashamed to say I wretched. Perhaps we all did except for stout Mordo, who alone had seen the horrors of the battlefield.

This had been no battle, though. The kobolds must have set upon travelers in a swarm, or sent their zombies and skeletons on their prey. Judging by the turned earth, they had had sufficient numbers to swarm a small town, as we well knew from Ellry.

“What is that?” cried Leffe. I hesitated to look where he pointed. What new horror could he have spied?

I did look, though. One side of the pit sloped down, the only one gentle enough for us to descend unaided by climbing gear. It had been coated with fresh blood.

My senses revolted as I realized the obvious way down, and that Mordo was already attempting the descent. Leffe, to my surprise, followed him, leaving Dalvin and I to stare at them and then each other.

“This is awful,” I said.

“Aye. But—and I mean no offense to you, Ander—if we’re going to be hanging around here, I’d rather keep close to Mordo.”

He had a point. We moved toward the opening.

“Want me to lower you down a bit?” I asked him.

“No, I can manage it,” Dalvin said. A moment later, his small foot could not find the same hold of the larger men, and it slipped on the blood slide. He slid and tumbled down the ramp, bowling over Leffe before smacking wetly to a halt against Mordo’s thick legs.

I could see the scream of disgust welling up from within the gnome even from where I stood at the rim. Before he could let it loose, though, Mordo clamped a hand over Dalvin’s mouth. His eyes held fast on a space in front of him. I could not tell what he saw from my angle, but I could see Leffe dart to his feet and into the shadows, drawing his daggers. Mordo snapped his hand from Dalvin’s face and clasped his maul in two hands.

“Crawler!” Mordo bellowed. I had no idea what he meant, but I could tell by his tone that it concerned him. The next moment he swung his hammer at the foe I could not see, and Dalvin rolled to his feet and made for the edge of the pit.

With nothing for it, I balanced myself as well as I could, setting my feet to slide down the bloody ramp. I’d seen an elf do something similar in a staged play of an epic poem once, and I was pretty sure I could manage it. My foot caught a rock halfway down, and my arms swung crazily as I tried to keep my footing. Tyr be praised, I made it down without falling, but immediately wished I’d stayed at the top.

I could see why Mordo had called it a crawler. It’s long, segmented body had many legs, a centipede grown enormous. The mouth of the thing bristled with pointed teeth, but perhaps worse was the ring of tentacles around its face.

Having recoiled from Mordo’s attack, it started to launch its mouth right at him. From Dalvin’s corner, though, came a fist-sized rock that caught the crawler in one soulless black eye. The crawler missed its lunge at Mordo, and the warrior countered with a blow hard enough to crack the creature’s exoskeleton. It made no noise, aside from the clatter of its many feet as it recoiled again, but clearly Mordo’s attack had pained it. It turned to bite him again, but this time a bolt from Leffe’s crossbow found a gap exposed between its segments. The crawler thrashed again, this time flailing wildly with its tentacles. One smacked Dalvin, and the gnome went rigid instantly, dropping like a felled sapling. Another caught Mordo square in the chest, but his armored cuirass repelled the venom of the slap.

I leapt over the tendril that came at me. I directed my flight, my sense of self-preservation screaming at me, headlong at the crawler. My rapier sank into it, but I couldn’t maintain my footing on the rocks and corpse pieces on the ground. I fell but manage to clutch my rapier handle.

Mordo saw my predicament and kept the crawler’s attention on himself, slamming it again with the maul. Another hit, and another crack, but the crawler’s mass made it hard to judge how badly it had been hurt. The thwap of Leffe’s crossbow sounded. This time the bolt hit exoskeleton, but still penetrated. I wished I’d thought to use my own, as I scrambled to my feet. I jabbed my rapier forward, but it skittered harmlessly against the thing’s hard outer layer. A tentacle flailed my way and caught me hard enough to knock me next to Dalvin, but the paralyzing venom ran harmlessly off my leather armor.

I shook the gnome. We’d need some magical assistance, and I didn’t think my sleep spell would work on it.

“Dalvin! Come on, man! Fight it!”

At first the gnome remained rigid. I heard the thwap of Leffe’s crossbow again, and crackling as Mordo scored another hit. I shook Dalvin harder. He blinked, but his body remained rigid. He’d have to recover on his own. I ducked under a tentacle and drove back in at the crawler. This time, my rapier found a space between the segments of exoskeleton.

The strike’s timing landed perfectly, the crawler had just tripped up Mordo. I could see the burly man fight to stand, so at least the venom hadn’t gotten him, but without my stab, the crawler’s bite would have sunk into his shoulder. Unfortunately, the crawler’s attention fell squarely on me. It reared up as high as it could in the cavern, its jagged teeth glistening with drool.

Then, tentacles sprung up around it, and not its own. Roots from the earth shot up and wrapped themselves around the long body of the crawler. Dumbfounded, I looked around for the source. Dalvin, head raised and hands outstretched, seemed to be controlling the roots. Perhaps controlling it claimed too much. He had summoned them forth, but the roots sought to ensnare anyone near them, including me. This time, the blessings of my mother’s side of the family failed me, and I couldn’t quite dodge away. Locked next to a writhing crawler seemed like a poor way to go, so I slashed at the roots to release me.

Leffe scored a hit to the crawler’s eye. It jerked its head up in pain. Mordo smashed it with a vicious uppercut from his maul, cracking away the protective plating. I saw a chance. Hoping that I could strike before the roots caught me complete, I lunged up. The crawler brought its head down at the same time, and my rapier pierced all the way through the top of its head.

The crawler’s body continued to quiver for some time after that, so Dalvin kept the spell of entanglement going until Mordo had thoroughly smashed the monster dead. Finally freed of the roots, I dropped to my knees and sucked in big gulps of air that I normally would have found beyond foul. Leffe appeared from the shadow of the pit and Mordo came over to help me up.

“See? Much worse things in world than bats and spiders. This make epic tale, yes!”

“Aye, epic.” I thought about telling the story next to a crackling fire in a clean tavern with a tankard on one side anything but dead monster and gore on the other. The thought calmed me a bit.

“Tunnel’s this way,” Leffe said, having helped Dalvin up. The dwarf looked surprisingly eager to get going, and the gnome looked no worse the wear from the venom. I looked down the tunnel Leffe had discovered, one where the crawler’s body still lay.

“These things don’t run in packs, right?” I asked.

“No, they are quite solitary,” Dalvin said. “Usually.”

“Usually?”

“It is fine,” Mordo said. “Mordo—”

“Mordo crush,” the rest of us said in unison. “We know.”

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Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 3. Race for the Cure

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 3. Race for the Cure
C.T. Avis

Dalvin looked over the vial. He was no wizard, but did have a druid’s sense of the different herbs and other flora that could be corrupted to do the secret work of murder, such as the assassin had used.

“It’s not good news,” he said. “There’s a cure, but it’s so rare, I wouldn’t have a clue as to where.”

“How is Leffe?” I asked.

“He’s stable, for now. The local healer is with him. Between us, we’ve kept the poison neutralized, but it won’t last. Neither of us is powerful enough to counteract it permanently.”

“And then what?” Mordo asked.

“Then, my large friend, Leffe will be in agony. He may die, but will almost assuredly be maimed. If I hadn’t awoken and interrupted the blighter, he may have administered a dose potent enough to have killed our friend outright.”

We were sitting in the common room of the tavern. The gnome looked exhausted, his full energies having been thrown into saving the dwarf’s life. This was on top of an evening of deadly combat. In fact, none of us, even the indomitable Mordo, looked fresh from the fight.

“Could this have something to do with the kobolds?” I asked. I had assumed it had at first, having followed so closely on the scaly monsters’ attack. Now, I didn’t see the connection. Leffe had remained in the shadows, so it seemed unlikely that they would have singled him out. Also, the assassin had been a human cultist of Zehir, a group not likely to befoul themselves with kobolds.

“I don’t think so,” Dalvin said. “When I first met Leffe, I had the sense he was running. He’s never said from whom or why, but he did admit he’d maybe stolen from the wrong being before.”

“Something precious, then, to hire assassin,” Mordo said.

The tavern door opened to admit gray-bearded Gaerling and a human woman of middle years who looked the most tired of anyone in the room. I took her to be the healer, fatigued by the mending after the battle, and now this.

Gaerling made his concerns known instantly, a lack of sleep making him tactless. He repeated my earlier question. Patiently, Dalvin restated that he believed the attack was a personal matter. Gaerling’s posture softened, and he bid us good night once more.

“I’m not sure I like that man,” I said to Dalvin. “He seems a bit careless with us.”

“He has a town to look after. You can’t blame him.”

I could, but I kept that to myself.

“Carla,” Dalvin said to the woman, “I’ve determined the cure. Coarsle mushrooms.”

The woman groaned. “Only one place I know about that has it, but the gettin’ the cure is gonna be worse than the poison for you lot.”

“How so?” I asked.

She explained, though I wished she hadn’t. The mushrooms grew deep in a cavern she hadn’t been to since her girlhood, when she was just learning a healer’s ways. She hadn’t been back, she said, because all manner of nasty snakes had taken residence.

“And not some little pests, mind ya,” she said. “Big buggers, some larger than you.” She pointed at Dalvin. “At least that big. Last time I got close, it wasn’t just the snakes that gave me the creeps. Something else was in there too, something just flitting about the corners of my vision.” She hugged herself and shivered.

I thought about Leffe. I had known him only a night. He’d seemed rather mercenary in his behaviors. Still, I felt a bond with the dwarf, one forged by the fighting together. I couldn’t abandon him to the poison.

“How much time do we have?”

“Best get ya some sleep,” the healer said. “I can keep that poison at bay a wee bit longer. Two days at most. Then, it’ll start to eat at ‘im. Wait too long and the damage will be permanent, maybe even deadly.”

I was grateful to return to sleep. Though Leffe needed us, we’d have done him no good in our haggard state.

We left at noon the next day, setting off into the forest to the south of the town. Gaerling had told us that this was away from the kobold lair to the north, which was good for us. Gaerling had looked apprehensive, but I said if the four of us had been a long shot before, three of us wouldn’t be better. We needed our dwarven friend alive and kicking, if we were going to slay his monsters for him.

“Nobody in town ever heard of Zehir,” Mordo said out of nowhere, as we cut through a dense patch of undergrowth in the woods. “Mordo not think Zehir and kobolds working together.”

“You were up earlier than us?” Dalvin asked. Mordo hadn’t been in the room when I’d awoken and I’d assumed that he’d gone to guard Leffe and Dalvin.

“Mordo recover fast from fight. Got up before sleepyheads, asked around.”

I wondered how that went. Mordo didn’t strike me as the smoothest of talkers.

“Good to know,” Dalvin said. “Leffe regained some of his senses this morning, briefly. He confirmed that it was a personal matter.”

“Hmmph,” Mordo grunted. It was profound, as grunts go and seemed to echo my earlier concerns about why we were helping the dwarf. “Dwarf good person?” he added.

Dalvin sighed. “He’s my friend. We’ve been through a scrape or two already, and I’ve grown fond of him. He’s also a thief, but I’ve never known him to steal from a goodly person.”

We meditated on it, even as we slashed further through the undergrowth.

“Zehir definitely evil,” Mordo said later.

“No one decent would hire an assassin,” Dalvin said. “Especially not the Zehir.”

Mordo stopped so suddenly to ponder this, Dalvin banged off the warrior’s backside.

“Mordo help,” he said with a firm nod of his head.

Davlin peeked at me, eyes wide with question. Just because someone evil tried to kill a dwarf, didn’t make the dwarf a good person. Evil killed evil a lot more than good, if you read into the histories. Yet, Leffe had agreed to help the town. For money, of course. But facing down an entire tribe of goblins for whatever meager reward the town offered wasn’t the sign of a completely mercenary person.

I returned Davlin’s gaze. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Dalvin bobbed his head, agreeing with the fact, but his eyes held the question.

“Ye gods, gnome! Aye! I’ll help Leffe. There’s something about him I like, though only Tyr knows what.” Dalvin smiled then and we marched forward again.

The undergrowth thickened as we went. We’d left the southward trail at a rock pile marker, as told to us by the town healer, Carla. She had claimed that a side trail ran through this way, but it had been so long since she’d visited the cave, the forest had started to reclaim it. Still, Dalvin and I could see well enough in the shadow formed by leafy canopy high above to make out faint traces. Other stone pile markers let us know we were on the right path.

“How many markers is that?” Dalvin asked as we passed another.

“Only three,” I said, checking the notes I kept in a small hardcover book. “Four more to go.”

Dalvin sighed and Mordo groaned. We’d been told that the cave wasn’t that far from town, but that had been as the crow flies. Crows didn’t often have to bushwhack. We soldiered on.

The sun was low as we cleared the final marker. I pointed this out to my companions.

Mordo shrugged. “Mordo not care. We go in cave. No sun in there anyways.”

He had a point, though I wondered what might be in the woods at night. I’d have to lead the way home at night. Both Dalvin and I could see in the dark due to hour ancestry, but Dalvin had steadfastly maintained a position between Mordo and me. It was a smart position for him, as we’d be better in melee than he. Truth be told, it was a position I preferred to be in. As I said, I’m a fair hand with a rapier, but I tend to let larger fellows like Mordo take on the physical threats.

“Quiet now, friends,” Mordo said without a trace of irony in his loud, deep voice. “Cave is close now.”

“This would be a perfect spot for Leffe to scout ahead,” Dalvin said. “He is like a shadow in the night.” As a professional wordsmith, that prose sounded rather purple to me. Dwarves, even rogues, weren’t known for their traceless passing. Still, his light step in the tavern had bespoke a certain grace unlike most of his kin.

With a start, I realized I’d been scribbling these ideas into my journal. Mordo and Dalvin looked at me like I’d sprouted an extra head. And, while that head would no doubt be as handsome as the first, I got a sense they wanted something more out of me than group clerk.

“What?”

“Ander bard,” Mordo said.

“Aye?”

“You sing here?”

“Of course not.”

“Why you writing then?”

“I just…” I waved my journal and lead piece uselessly. “I just feel there should be a record.”

Mordo nodded like a father trying to hold his patience. “Is good, aye. Just not right time. We need scout now.”

“Oh. Right.”

Mordo, in his iron clothing, would be too bulky and loud to scout. In good conscience, we couldn’t send the diminutive gnome ahead, who would need time to cast a spell to protect himself, should he run into danger. That left the task to me. Luckily, I had some experience in moving quietly. The same theater owners who didn’t pay up to my old troupe also employed mean-spirited guards and traps. I’d gotten by both in my time. Most of the time.

I took a moment to stash my writing implements and to secure my belongings. I jumped up and down a few times to check for jingling or other noises coming from my person. Satisfied, I crept away from my companions and into the gloom ahead. The trees gave way shortly before a cliff. A rope bridge spanned the hundred foot gap to the other side. I examined it. In the great stories of adventure, such things were usually rickety, with rotten boards and threadbare ropes. This bridge had every right to be the same way, yet I found it surprisingly solid. The old hempen rope had held up well, and a different kind of fiber, one that was still slightly sticky to the touch, had reinforced it. The same material girded the boards, and the bridge felt strong. I slunk back to my companions and reported my findings.

“That doesn’t reassure me,” Dalvin said. “That bridge should be dilapidated, without a person to maintain it.”

“Do you have other options for crossing?” I asked.

“Mordo could pole vault across,” the big warrior said.

“Tyr’s stump, Mordo!” I exclaimed, slightly louder than I had intended. “It’s a good hundred feet to the other cliff.”

This mattered little to Mordo.

“No, you’re not going to pole vault across,” Dalvin said. “You’re going to lead the way for us. There’s nowhere to hide on a rope bridge, so we might as well put our biggest in front.”

If Dalvin sounded callous to volunteer Mordo to be up front, keep in mind that we’d all been adventuring before. We knew the prevailing wisdom on how to enter an unknown, possibly dangerous place. Lead with your biggest, toughest companion. Put the frailer ones, usually the spell casters, in the middle. Place your second line fighters (me), at the back to hold off as sneak attack. Casters seldom wore armor. They often had to contort themselves to cast a spell, or had to summon forth energy. Armor could interfere with both. That, and they needed a moment to cast a spell, a spell that might be far more devastating to an opponent than even Mordo’s mighty maul.

Although, looking at Dalvin, I had my doubts about the devastating part.

Mordo led us to the bridge. He stomped heavily on the first few planks, grip firm on the rope handrail. Satisfied, he started across. Dalvin ran his hand up and along the handrail.

“There’s something familiar about this,” he said, pulling his hand free with light effort. “I know I’ve seen this somewhere before.”

“Let’s keep our eyes about us, Dalvin,” I whispered. “I worry more about what’s ahead than what the bridge is made off, as long as it’s strong.”

As it turned out, I should have worried about both.

“What’s that?” Dalvin said suddenly. We jerked to a halt to listen.

“Mordo not hear…”

“Shh!”

We were maybe three quarters of the way across the bridge when I heard it, too. The leathery flap of wings. Mordo didn’t see them coming. He’d opted to try his weak human eyes in the long shadows cast by the hill on the other side of the ravine. Dalvin and I could see well in such light. We saw the attackers descend.

“Bats!” Dalvin yelled. He spun his staff to wield them off as I made naked the blade of my rapier. Mordo lifted his maul, but could not really see what to strike.

The bats, huge and dark, dove upon us. Dalvin shrieked. The bats were large enough to carry him off, should the get their claws in him. I slashed as he whirled his staff, driving off their attacks. Mordo suffered a wicked slash to the top of his head.

“Charge across, Mordo!” Dalvin yelled. It was to no effect. The feel of his own blood hot on his neck enraged the warrior. As the next bat swooped in. Mordo jumped high into the air and grabbed it with two hands. The bat screeched awfully as the warrior came down with it, crushing the life out of it with his calloused hands even as it beat its wings and scratched at him. A loud crack ended its resistance, and Mordo flung its lifeless body over the bridge.

The attack had cost us. More bats were swarming, and Dalvin and I suffered minor wounds as we wobbled on the bridge, even as we wheeled and ducked.

“Forward, Mordo! Forward!” I bellowed.

The warrior came to his senses. Snatching up his maul, he lowered his head and charged across the bridge. We followed, badly, as his heavy run set the bridge wobbling harder. Dalvin went down, but I caught him before he slid off the side of the bridge. Mordo, realizing that we hadn’t followed, started hooting and throwing rocks at the bats. The bats broke off their attack to spin in the air away from the projectiles, giving me time to tuck Dalvin under my left arm and stride to Mordo.

“Inside!” Mordo yelled, pointing to a narrow opening in rocks. This side of the ravine formed a stony hill. A landslide must have taken out the majority of the cave opening, for what was left open was barely man-sized. I set Dalvin down and squeezed through, the gnome hot on my heels. Plate metal screeched on the rock as Mordo pushed his big body through. He shot forward and fell down. As he did so, the jaws of a bat snapped through the crevice. I punctured its eye with the tip of my rapier and it screamed and recoiled. I looked around for a boulder to jam in the opening, knowing that though the bats looked to be too big, they could squeeze through surprisingly small spaces.

To my great surprise, the opening sealed. The rock momentarily gained a liquid state, then reformed to fill the gap. I looked back at Dalvin, and the gnome had just finished the gestures of an incantation.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can dispel it when we need to leave.”

“That’s good, though the bats will still be there.”

We all took a moment to catch our breath and bandage the minor wounds we’d received. Mordo had caught the worst of it, but it wasn’t bad. Dalvin, the most educated in mundane healing arts, cleaned it to make sure no foul bat disease infected Mordo. It looked painful, but the stoic warrior showed no signs of pain.

“What now?” he said.

“Carla said there’d be snakes,” Dalvin said.

“And something else,” I said with a shiver. “Like snakes aren’t bad enough.”

“Snakes, bah,” Mordo said. He pulled torches out his backpack and gave one to each of us.

“No thanks, Mordo,” Dalvin said. “I can see in the dark.”

“Not for seeing. For snakes.” Mordo ignited his torch in one expert stroke of flint and steel. It took me a few strikes to get mine lit. “Snakes hate fire. We hold them off while gnome finds mushrooms. Don’t fight unless we have to. Get out quick.”

“And the bats?” I said.

“Bats like fire any better than snakes?” Mordo said. He seemed confident, but I wasn’t as sure.

“Hold on a minute, my good fellow. Why am I nominated to find the mushrooms?” Dalvin asked.

“Gnome is druid. Druid knows nature things. Dalvin best one to find mushrooms.”

That was surprisingly well thought out, to the point that Dalvin couldn’t mount to legitimate protest. Mordo, despite his outlander speech pattern and tendency to plow ahead, had a brain in there after all.

“Druid no worry. Mordo protect,” the warrior said, smacking himself on the breast of his armor with a clenched fist. In spite of myself, I didn’t doubt him.

We crept through the entrance tunnel, this time with myself in the lead. Dalvin held my torch for me and I ranged ahead, relying on my darkvision and stealth for the time being. The elven side of my ancestry had blessed me with fine ears, and I knew well the faint slither of a snake from my time with the performing troupe. One of our rank, Kendrick, had done a snake-handler act, and I’d been his assistant when I was a lad. The difference between these unknown snakes and Kendrick’s was that Kendrick’s had been magically charmed into docility.

The rough stone passage eventually opened into a large cavern, and one didn’t need elven sight to spot the mushrooms. The glowed a peaceful blue.

“Where are all the snakes?” Dalvin said.

I looked around the cavern. I saw them, or what was left of them. Maybe a hundred snakes lay dead on the ground.

“Odd,” Dalvin said. He started to walk toward the mushrooms. I put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“Look,” I said, pointing to the floor of the cave. Cords crisscrossed the floor. Dalvin bent to examine a cord.

“It’s like the material on the bridge, but far stickier,” he said.

“I think I know what killed the snakes,” I said. I used my torch to highlight the path of the cords. The walls and ceiling had been lined with the crisscrossing cords. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Dalvin noticed it too. “Light!” he called and a ball burst from his hands to soar into the cavern. The entirety of the cave was a huge web. The creature that had made it hissed and recoiled from the light, disappearing so fast that I doubted I’d seen it.

“Giant spider?” Mordo said, looking about for it with his maul grasped in his hand.

I watched for where I’d seen the spider. There was no crevice or hold for it to have disappeared into. Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw it again, now on the other side of the ceiling.

“There!” I said, pointing with my drawn rapier.

“How’d it move so fast?” Mordo said. The creature was too high above to hit. Maybe it wouldn’t come after such large prey, in such light. It certainly looked big enough to.

“More than one of them?” Dalvin said, looking around.

I studied the one to the left. Suddenly, it just wasn’t there anymore.

“Dalvin, it just disappeared!” I said. “What could it be?”

“Oh, nothing good. We have to be quick if we’re going to get those mushrooms.” He closed his eyes in meditation.

“What do you mean, ‘nothing good’? I can tell that myself. You’re the druid. What is it?”

Dalvin opened his eyes. They seemed oddly serene for a moment. “It’s a phase spider. It can blink in and out of existence.” The matter-of-fact tone of voice he used didn’t actually reassure me. “You boys keep it busy for a moment, will you?” Then, the druid’s eyes turned from serene to beady. In a blink of his own, the gnome got even smaller, his shape changing to that of a rat.

“He can do that? How’d he do that? Did you know he could do that?” I asked Mordo. He shrugged, and resumed casting his gaze to the ceiling, looking for the phase spider.

Ice on my neck, like a tendril of death. The phase spider’s leg sent me leaping away. I tripped in my terror, but held onto my weapon. Mordo roared and lunged his maul at it, but the creature blinked away. I’d lost all track of Rat-Dalvin. He’d probably be all right.

The phase spider had bigger meals on its menu, bigger, extremely attractive meals. Sometimes my beauty is a curse, like when it makes me look delicious in a quite literal way. Something moved behind me, and I rolled away. Mandibles clacked shut on the space I’d just been in. I stabbed at it, scoring a scratch on the spider. Mordo’s maul entered my peripheral vision, but the phase spider went out of phase again, shifting into a different dimension as the maul swung by harmlessly.

Mordo and I hopped about. The spider would appear, snap at me, and then blink away just as Mordo got near me. I wondered why he didn’t come closer if he wanted to hit it, but then realized the warrior had been smarter than me. The spider hadn’t just been trying to bite me; it had left a trail of web around. If Mordo had been closer, he would have been inside it, too. Fear gave me extra oomph, and I leapt clear of the webbing, back toward the door.

“Come on!” Dalvin yelled. He was back in gnome form and standing far up the tunnel we’d entered through. He held the glowing blue mushrooms in his hand.

“Mordo! We’re leaving!” I yelled. The warrior hated to disengage, but his sense took over and he backpedaled toward us.

“Go! Mordo stall it.” He swung his maul in serpentine arch, backward and forward, warding off any sudden attack by the phase spider. He continued his withdraw, though, not intending this to be his last stand.

I turned to follow Dalvin. The crafty druid already had shifted the stone to re-open the entrance. He hesitated, fearing the bats outside as much as the spider within.

The spider, though, had still set its sights on me. Despite Mordo’s whirling defense, it appeared between me and the entrance. I yelled and slashed at it, just as it jutted its mandibles my way. My rapier blade skidded harmlessly off its thick body, but my lunge had carried it just away from its mouth. Mordo’s hammer connected, but if it bothered the phase spider any, it didn’t show it.

“Get down!” Dalvin screamed. I did so, counting on some sort of lightning spell to save us. Instead, like a huge dart, a bat shot through the opening and collided with the phase spider. The two monstrous creatures suddenly found themselves at each other’s throats, such as they were. We stayed down as more bats shot through the gap, attacking the spider.

Mordo grabbed my shoulder and rushed me to the exit, snapping me out of my observations. I turned one last time at the entrance. The spider had finally managed to blink away and was filling the air with webbing as bats darted in and out. Then, it was a sprint across the rope bridge, wobbliness be damned, and into the relative safety of the forest.

My novels: amazon.com/author/ctavis

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 2. Contracted

Chronicles of the Oddlot I: 2. Contracted
C.T. Avis

The barkeep seemed to appreciate what little I’d done, and my cup wasn’t empty during the time I wrote. As I finished the final flourish of my quill, Leffe, Dalvin and Mordo entered the tavern and approached my table. They weren’t alone. A human man with hair and beard more salt than pepper walked with them. He talked with his hands as he spoke quickly, swinging his head between the dwarf, gnome and man. His grandiose hand gestures, gently raised and curved eyebrows, and shining eyes bespoke a man grateful for salvation—and one with a favor to ask. I wrapped up my writing supplies as they came to the table. The three I’d fought alongside sat down, but the greybeard stood hopefully at the head of the table.

“Ah! You must be Ellry’s fourth savior!” he said, clasping his hands together and wringing them together. He couldn’t reach me to shake my hand, so he shook his own.

“I don’t know about savior, but I did what I could. I’m called Ander.”

“Yes, Ander! Your name was already getting around town before the attack. You played quite a performance on Waltr’s stage. I am Gaerling, the mayor of Ellry.”

I bowed my head and gave my best humble smile. While I appreciate a compliment, I know when I’m being buttered up. I’d let him. I drained my cup and set it down firmly, and my most recent companions eyed it with interest.

“Aye, of course! Waltr,” he said, turning to the barkeep. “Another round for the saviors of Ellry.”

“You payin’, Gaerling?” Waltr said in a low rumble.

“Waltr! These fellows saved Ellry tonight. Where’s your appreciation?”

“A lot of folks besides these four helped tonight. Am I gonna give them all free drinks? I already gave the pretty one with the elf ears a few free. Still got a business to run.”

The High Elder blushed crimson behind his thick beard and let his bushy eyebrows scowl at Waltr. “Fine, Waltr. Put it on my tab.”

Waltr snorted and rolled his eyes. I suspected that Gaerling, as mayor, didn’t feel the need to pay his tab often. Still, Waltr lined up some tankards for us. I shared an amused look with my companions.

After the beer finally arrived, with Gaerling looking perturbed that he hadn’t also received a tankard, we got down to the sales pitch.

“A terrible ordeal, tonight,” Gaerling said. “If you boys hadn’t been here, I’m not sure we’d have a tavern to drink in.”

“Mordo crush,” Mordo said quietly. It was a statement of a fact for the warrior, not a brag. “New friends help too,” he said, nodding and smiling at us with approval.

“You have problems with the kobolds before?” Dalvin asked, before taking a long pull from his tankard.

“Not like that, of course, but aye, we have. Or at least we think so now.”

“You think so?” Leffe said, setting his tankard down hard. “What does that mean?”

“Some townsfolk have gone missing lately, and we haven’t been able to find them. We know the kobolds have a lair around here, but well, we’re simple farmers and craftsmen. Even if we could find it, we couldn’t do much about it.”

“Missing people?” I said. “Have you contacted, uh, whoever rules this land? Sorry, but I’m not entirely sure which domain I’m in. This placed didn’t even show on my map.”

“We are in the kingdom of Flushen,” he said, pronouncing it Flu-shen with a long u. “King Vargas is our ruler, but…”

“But the crown city is four days ride from here,” I said.

“Aye. Ellry isn’t high on the Crown’s list of priorities, sadly.”

“Surely you can send messengers to the city and get troops out here.”

“We’ll try, but I fear we don’t have the time to wait for a Royal response. The kobolds could reorganize and attack again.”

I doubted that the four of us could handle a horde of kobolds. However, Mordo and Dalvin seemed eager for the opportunity.

“Mordo and new friends be happy to crush evil lizard heads. Strong undead foulness amongst them. Raven Queen demands such vileness be destroyed.”

“Silvanus does too,” Dalvin said, though he was less eager. I strongly suspected that the druid was regretting coming in from the wilds and mixing in the affairs of civilization, such as it was in Ellry.

“I’m game,” Leffe said, surprising me. Then, “If we’re getting paid, that is.”

Four heads turned to me.

“What do you have in mind,” I said to Gaerling, barely getting the words out.

“I wouldn’t begin to tell such experienced adventurers as yourselves what to do,” Gaerling said. “I leave it in your hands to end the threat to the town in whatever way you see fit.”

Leffe resumed his taciturn posture. “This town ain’t really something the four of us can defend.”

I nodded. “We were lucky earlier. They hadn’t counted on anyone besides a strong farm boy to be in the town. Now that they know we’re here, even kobolds can plan accordingly.”

Gaerling looked grave and nodded sagely. “We lost some strong men who could have helped you, too.” He stroked his gray beard. “I don’t think we could survive another fight in town.”

“We kill kobolds in kobold lair,” Mordo said, arriving at the end of the path Gaerling was leading us down. “Kobolds not worry Mordo. No problem.”

I should have protested immediately. I know Leffe would have supported me, but neither one of us wanted to look scared. Not that I was scared. Mordo’s declaration didn’t strike me as the soundest strategies, is all.

Mordo seemed to sense our apprehension, for he clapped a strong hand on my back. “Is good! Bard look for heroic ballad to sing. This be epic!” He patted my shoulder. “For starters, anyway.”

If walking into a lair of kobolds and their undead minions wasn’t epic enough for Mordo, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was.

The exertion, and perhaps beer, of the night caught up to me all at once and I slumped down. The others, aside from Mordo, looked tired too.

“It will wait until tomorrow, boys, of course,” Gaerling said, sounding much like the father I’d always imagined. “Get a good night’s sleep.” He turned to Waltr. “In private rooms, I should say.”

Waltr’s mouth twisted to the side like he’d had a bite of lime, but he produced two keys and dropped them on the table before he stalked back to the bar.

“That’s all well and good,” Leffe said. “But we still haven’t discussed payment.”

Gaerling, having started to stand up, sat back down. “We’re a simple town, not on a major trade route.” The plea was bright in his eyes. “We don’t have riches hidden in a secret vault or wealthy merchants we can lean on.”

Leffe crossed his arms over his chest. “You realize you’re asking us to risk dying and coming back ourselves as zombies for you, and you can’t offer us something?”

While I agreed in principle with Leffe, I thought his approach a little rough considering the traumatizing evening. Later, I’d come to appreciate the dwarf’s perspective.

“Leffe, I’m sure they’ll take up a collection and give what they can,” I said. I glanced at Gaerling and he nodded vigorously. “I’m sure when the king’s troops get here, they can arrange something more. We don’t want to save the town from monsters, only to leave them to starve this winter.”

Leffe softened and nodded lightly. Gaerling looked like he’d just released a gas bubble that had been paining him. He took a deep breath and the rigidity in his shoulders eased away. He stood and ushered us to the stairs.

“Well, my new friends. We are in your debt. Please know that you are helping the good and hardworking people of Ellry. You are our light in the darkness that has descended. Bards will sing of your heroics in times long from now.”

“Only if they pay me a royalty,” I said.

Upstairs, we divided up. Leffe and Dalvin had been traveling and bunking together for a while now, so they paired off to one room. That left me with Mordo. He had the look of a snorer to me, and certainly could have done with a bath after the sweat he’d worked up on the killing field. The weariness in my bones didn’t care, though, and I flopped on a bed.

When I awoke in the dark, I reckoned I’d been asleep a good four hours, for I felt no grogginess of mind, but I still wanted to cling to my bed. The cacophony and cries for help from Leffe and Dalvin’s room sent me the other way, shooting from my bed and baring naked the blade of my rapier. Mordo beat me to the door and damn near ripped it from its hinges. He didn’t even bother opening our partners’ door, but kicked it open with his thick boot. Had he slept in them? With a start, I realized I’d fallen asleep in my leather armor.

Inside, Dalvin swung his staff desperately at a darkly attired assailant. The new comer was wiry and appeared to be human by the height of him, though the hood and mask obscured him. He darted around Dalvin’s staff, looking for a place to plunge his ornate dagger.

Leffe lay slumped half out of his bed, half on the ground. I saw no wound on him, but the slim dwarf was definitely out of the fight. I feared he might be out of more than that.

The assailant snapped himself backward as Mordo plowed forth. Even in the shadows of his cowl, I could see the white of his eyes widen as the bulky warrior screamed and charged. The shadowy man didn’t pause any longer and leapt headlong out the window. Mordo jumped after him. I paused to check on Dalvin.

“I’m fine,” he said around heavy breathing. “But poor Leffe! Is he…?”

I dropped by my knees and felt for a pulse on the dwarf. He had one, but it was faint. I did find a puncture mark on his neck.

“Poison,” I said. “I have no magic for poison.”

“I do, a little something, anyway,” Dalvin said. He hopped down from on top of his bed and lay hands on the dwarf. “Go after Mordo. I’ll do what I can.”

Using a bit more care than Mordo, I climbed out the window and lowered myself to the ground. We were on the backside of the tavern and lights were lit in response to the commotion. Angry and scared shouts questioned what was going on, or if the kobolds had returned. I answered none of them as I searched around for muscly human and his prey.

I found them in short succession. Mordo had taken cover behind a wagon. The shadowy assailant had him pinned down from the open window of a barn, through which he fired arrows. The assassin must have been incredibly fast to outpace Mordo like that. He’d confounded the warrior with the arrows. Mordo was bare chested, his formidable armor back in the room. As he favored the two-handed maul, he had no shield to cover himself with.

Mordo seemed to be growling to himself in frustration. Fearing he’d attempt something foolish, like a straight ahead charge, I acted. The assassin hadn’t seen me yet. I kept to the shadows and worked my way along the other side of the street until I’d snuck directly under the window. The assassin had pulled up the ladder to his loft, and I saw no quick way up. I did spy a rope with pulley still attached to it, a fallen piece of a block and tackle system. I picked it up.

Mordo saw my movements and crouched ready to act. I waved my hand for him to stand up and duck back down, to draw the assassin’s aim. He understood and popped up. I saw the assassin push forward in the window, arrow notched. I swung the rope and pulley up. I’d meant only to knock his weapon from his hand. Instead, I tangled the rope around his aiming arm. The bow dropped all right. Then, so did he, as I pulled him out of the window.

With a nearly supernatural dexterity, the assassin landed on his feet. He had the ornate dagger out, and I could see now that it dripped with some slimy liquid, no doubt a poison. I whipped my end of the rope at him to defeat his thrust. He moved left and I moved back, forcing him to follow me into the barn.

It was all the distraction we needed. Mordo barreled into him from behind, flattening and pinning the assassin under him. I stomped hard on the hand that held the poisoned dagger, driving my heel until I felt a pop. The assassin squealed and I kicked the weapon aside. Mordo, mercilessly, grabbed the broken hand and twisted backward, where he used the rope to bind the assassin’s hands. I helpfully placed my foot down on the villain’s neck, lest he produced some hidden evil on my friend. A quick pat down revealed nothing more than a few coins, and a vial of the same slimy liquid found on his dagger.

Mordo flipped him over to his back, then roughly sat him up. Townspeople had come out, but I waved them back.

“He’s a cultist,” I said, pointing to the dagger. It had been worked to look like a serpent. “That’s the Zehir cultist dagger.”

“Assassins, yes?” Mordo said. He looked like he was about to spit.

“Aye. The question is, what does he want with Leffe?”

The assassin’s sullen eyes, ringed with the pain of his broken hand, revealed nothing.

“Not much worse than a failed assassin, friend,” I said to him. “From what I know of the Zehir, there’s only one final punishment for failure.”

“Death,” he said. He smiled. A white foam seeped through his teeth, bubbling. The assassin gurgled and choked for a second, before slumping over dead.

“Well, hells,” I said, kicking him in the leg in frustration.

“How? I had hands whole time,” Mordo said.

“A false tooth, mayhap? Took him a moment to wiggle it loose, then one bite and…” I indicated the fresh corpse in front of us. “Drag him back to the tavern. Maybe Dalvin can use the poison to create an antidote.”

“If it is not too late.”

I looked at Mordo. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Leffe might actually die. “Damn!” I sprinted back to our lodgings with the vial and dagger, Mordo dragging the corpse behind him.

My novels: amazon.com/author/ctavis

Chronicle of the Oddlot I: The Dracolich 1. A Beginning

Story adaption by C.T. Avis
Based off the D&D 5th Edition campaign created by Matthew Powers, with original characterization from Blake Pitcher (Leffe), Dan Thompsune (Mordo), Matt Trombley (Dalvin), and C. T. Avis (Ander). Later characterization by Tucker Lester (Tyrael), Josh Parkinson (Enolo), Mike Vittiglio (Westendorf), Calvin Nemo (2zard), and Alix Stoltzer (Nedwyn).

Author’s Note:
If you want to get right into the story, skip to Tl;dr, below.

The following is a high fantasy story based on the traditional element of the subgenre. It contains swords and sorcery, gods and religions that do not exist, beings that are in their hearts malevolent, and general feats of daring-do. I’ve also tried to infuse a bit of the humor that came from the source material. It is being released in more-or-less self-contained episodes that build an overall story arc. Be forewarned, though; you may encounter an occasional two-part cliffhanger.

This is a narrative reconstruction of a collaborative effort. The individuals involved have brought life, energy, humor and meaning to each other through their playing and role playing. I have tried to recreate the spirit of their characters faithfully, though sometimes that’s filtered through the imperfect thoughts of my narrator and character, Ander. In some cases, Ander’s thoughts about his companions will come through. Bear in mind, that this is done in character about other characters, and does not represent the way I, the player, look at my other players. For instance, Ander (not me) has a bit of a problem with another character later on, a tiefling named Tyrael. Ander’s issues with Tyrael are his alone, as I quite like Tyrael’s player Tucker.

In some cases, where either memory/notes have failed me, or as necessary to create a somewhat coherent narrative, I’ve invented things that may not have actually happened in the game. Some artistic license is necessary to craft a narrative. Other times, I struggled to capture exactly the personality that a player intended for a character. I apologize for this failing of mine. I took perhaps the greatest liberties with Leffe, whose player Blake dropped out after a few sessions. I also am guilty of the sin of omission, as much of the humor and in-jokes we generate at the table cannot be fit into the narrative without creating Deadpool like narrative breaks and anachronisms.

I’ve also had to change some character names to follow the unofficial rule about giving two characters names that start with the same letter. Supposedly, doing so leads readers to mix up who is who. We had a lot of characters’ names start with “A”. Accordingly, Enolo’s original name is Anolo; Dalvin is originally Alvin; Hawken is originally Aucken. To avoid a similar problem, Tyrael kept his starting letter, but Twozard became 2zard, which I liked better anyway, because it emphasized his mechanical nature.

I performed most of the writing of this novella in the week of Spring Break 2018. As such, it has a relatively short turn-around time. While I have given it a once over for proofreading, I suspect it has some typos. I hope you can forgive and read around these to enjoy a story that bristles with great characters, humor and excitement.

Tl;dr: This is a fantasy story based on a D&D campaign.


1. A Beginning
I am just a humble ballad singer, with a penchant for magic here and there. Some choose the life, and for others, the life chooses them. I’m in the latter group, but I like it well enough. I’ve lived on my wits, looks and talent for a while, but nothing really got going for me until I joined the Oddlot. The original members seemed like they might have some good stories to tell, stories I could turn into songs to earn my bread. It’s been a little more than I bargained for. I’ve seen hags and nightmares, freed my friend from possession by an evil entity, and fought an undead dragon.

Honestly, I just wanted to tell the stories, not live them.

We started innocently enough, in a tavern in a backwater town called Ellry. The weird name alone should have kept me going down the road that night, maybe risking camping by myself in the wilds. That’s all that was around Ellry, for leagues. I pondered how a town so isolated could survive. I wasn’t even sure which kingdom’s domain it fell under.

I stood and looked a while at it, then out into the forest surrounding it. The town didn’t look like much, but I suspected it held two advantages over the wilds. One, a tavern. Two, buxom lasses. Either of which would provide me with a bed more comfortable that the forest floor. Another strike against staying on the road was the large brute of a man I’d spotted coming my way, but a mile back. I can handle myself fine in a fight against an overgrown farm boy or a surly drunk, but the hulk stomping my way wore heavy armor and had what appeared to be a tree strapped to his back as a weapon.

I turned from the open road and walked through the meager gates to find a large tavern. Even in a little place like Ellry would have one, where the farmers would congregate to complain loudly about the weather, the king, the price of grain, or all of the above. Tavern folk varied very little in such towns.

“Sir Barkeep,” I said after I’d entered inn. “I see you have a stage. Might I earn a room for myself for the night by entertaining your customers?”

“We don’t need—” the words caught in his throat and his mouth dropped open as he looked up from rubbing the same spot on the bar and finally saw me.

“Take a moment,” I said. “I understand.” This wasn’t the first time someone had been struck mute by my appearance.

“Cor, you’re so…pretty.”

“Ahem. I prefer strikingly or ruggedly handsome.”

After I sang him a couple of bars, he gave me the stage that night. He didn’t even charge me for the space, figuring I’d pack the lasses into the place, and therefore draw in the menfolk.

It’s not easy taking the stage alone in an unknown town. More than once I longed for my old troupe of performers and the family feel of it all. But I couldn’t go back to them now. Maybe not ever. Still, I had my lute and a well-used repertoire of songs. My nerves abated and the crowd grew through the night. They even threw me a few coins. Not a lot, but I suspected they didn’t have much. No matter. I’d earned a bed for myself from the barkeep.

During a break between sets, a weird gnome in dusty robes sat tipping tankards and talking loudly. I’d fully intended to introduce myself to the lasses, though perhaps they weren’t as buxom as I’d hoped, but something about the gnome drew me over. He sat next to a short-bearded dwarf who still had the salt of the sea on him, though the nearest port was a week’s ride.

“Dalvin Dahlgood, friend,” the gnome said, noticing my gaze. “C’mon over and listen to my tale. It might just be the stuff of your next song.”

I’d heard such claims before, and they were never correct. Still, I wanted a closer look at a gnome who could drain tankards almost as tall as himself. Next to the gnome leaned his quarterstaff, barely more than a snapped-off tree branch. Pouches lined his belt and a big pointed and brimmed hat sat on the table.

“You a wizard, Dalvin?” I asked.

“Nay, friend! I was never one to while away Silvanus’s good day with my nose in a book, learning a spell. Silvanus speaks to me in the trees, the grasses, the streams. Nature itself grants me my magic, and it chose rightly.”

“You’re a druid then?” I said.

“If such a label is necessary by your society’s standards, then aye. I’m a druid.” Dalvin forced his eyes to focus on me, lingering on my ears. “Ah, you’re an elf. That’s why you’re so pretty,” he said.

“I prefer handsome, and you’re half right,” I said. “My father was a human monk who met my mother on sabbatical to the Silver Forest. My name’s Ander.”

“Seems like we see fewer elves around these days.”

I nodded, not that I agreed, exactly. I didn’t have much trouble finding elves. Or at least, I hadn’t before I’d left the troupe.

“And you?” I asked the dwarf.

“Leffe,” he said. “Formerly of the good ship Topaz, gods rest its crew.”

“The sea is a week’s ride on a good horse. How’d you end up in this bit of nowhere?”

“Oh, that’s a long story.”

“I may want to hear it, and how you survived the shipwreck.”

“In good time, friend,” Dalvin interrupted. “First, listen to my tale of the village I saved from the worst flood since the Year of Storms!”

The Year of Storms had only been two years ago, so he wasn’t claiming much. Thinking him rude, I looked at the dwarf.

“Oh, by all means,” Leffe said, making an offering gesture with his upturned palms. “Dalvin’s story is far more interesting. And I was there to see it.”

“You two have traveled here together?”

“Aye, friend. But say, why the questions?” Dalvin asked.

“I’m a storyteller. I ask questions and then know things.”

“Of course, of course! Well, let me tell you some things, then. It all started when the dam upstream from a village broke during the heavy rains last month…”

Dalvin’s story did turn out to be fairly interesting, though I bet he’d exaggerate his part in it. Still, I took some notes, which pleased him enough to order me a couple of tankards.

Our conversation about Dalvin’s exploits attracted attention. My throat tightened when I saw by whom. The armored warrior from the road had followed me in. Proximity clarified just how muscular he really was, despite the armor plates encasing him.

“Ah!” he roared. “Little man is hero! Mordo like! Mordo great hero someday, too.” The warrior’s accent and grammar marked him as an outlander.

“Who is Mordo?” Dalvin said. The gnome sat eyes wide and mouth agape, tankard held in mid tilt toward his lips. The newcomer’s volume and energy had taken us all aback.

“Mordo is Mordo!” Mordo said, smacking himself on the breastplate with the palm of his strong hand. When we didn’t react—for really, how does one react to such an introduction?—he pulled up a chair and joined us.

Leffe eyed the large man from under a furrowed brow. The dwarf was thin for his race. As he excused himself to grab another round, he carried himself with a bounce in his step where the usual dwarf stomped. I saw only light weapons upon his person and my knowing eye recognized the small kit of picks on his belt. One like it resided in the pocket inside my leather vest. Unless I missed my guess, Leffe had come to a crossroads in his career, and decided on taking the shadowy alleyway of a rogue.

That didn’t bother me any, as long as he kept his hands off my meager coin pouch. I’d resorted to a little shadow work in my day, too. Sometimes venue owners hadn’t felt like paying my old troupe what was promised for a performance. We’d learned to take for ourselves from such blighters.

The locals were getting restless, so I excused myself, gladly, to resume my performance. I’d only strum three cords before a commotion outside the tavern had the audience standing and looking toward the door and windows. Soon after, the screams cut through my supple tones. The townsfolk changed from puzzled to panicked. A few rushed for the door, but it burst open. A woman of middle years streaked into the tavern, unintelligible ravings spilling from her mouth as she clasped the shreds of her blouse to her.

Her pursuers followed.

Ranging from three and half to about four feet in height, the scaly lizard-headed fiends charged blindly into the room. They skidded to a stop on their two feet, tails twitching nervously.

“Kobolds!” Dalvin hissed. Somehow, I’d found my way off stage and next to him and Mordo. Leffe had disappeared. Dalvin would know a kobold when he saw one. The hatred between gnomes and the lizardy little monsters had raged for ages. It took me a moment longer to reach the determination myself, as the three before us had caked white paint and dust over their rusty red scales, and each wore a skull as a helmet upon its crocodile-like head.

The townsmen in the room quickly put two and two together, looking from the accosted, terrified woman to the three kobolds. A burly fellow picked up a stool and smashed it into the closest little monster, flattening it. This snapped the other two from their rigid fear and they scrambled back to the open door. The enraged patrons surged after them, and we found ourselves swept with them. It became clear, however, that the kobolds weren’t looking to just escape. They were looking for backup.

The acrid smell of burning buildings hit our noses almost at the same time that the enemy assaulted our eyes. Dozens upon dozens of skeletons and zombies ravaged the town as kobolds cavorted about them, chasing women and flinging torches at buildings. All the kobolds wore bizarre white paint and skulls.

Our mob faltered. Some pushed to get back into the tavern, the last safe place they had known. Others charged foolishly toward their homes, only to be brought low by the swarm of evil. Others looked ready to fight, but weaponless, could do little against the spear tips, boney claws and gnashing teeth of the invaders.

Dalvin ducked behind me, but it was not in cowardice. I recognized his tone and the nature of his words, if not the words themselves. Perhaps the little druid had some true magic for the situation, and wasn’t the typical braggart I encountered in taverns. Something hardened in the center of me and I found that I’d replaced the lute in my hand for my rapier. I’m a fair duelist, one-on-one, but the blade felt thin and weak in my hand against such numbers. I swallowed away my fears, determined to die fighting, if that’s what Tyr or whatever gods watching demanded of me.

“Yes! Good! Mordo fight now!” Having just announced himself, I didn’t need to turn to see who said it. The mob parted as the warrior burst forth, swinging the tree-like maul from his back and into the faces of the five nearest undead.

Mordo’s attack scored heavily on the scale of epic attacks I’d seen for myself. Dalvin was not as impressed. Almost at the same time that Mordo had moved, the druid had moved, too. He jerked a bit, hopped to the right of Mordo as he redirected his spell, and then unleashed a thunderous noise that blasted away the kobolds unlucky enough to be in the spell’s path.

I moved back in front of Dalvin, knowing well that he’d need time to prepare another spell. From the sickening and repeated wet thunk of his hammer, I trusted Mordo to look out for himself for the time being. My own first victims were the prone kobolds nearest me, hardly a heroic strike, I’ll admit. I might sing about feats of daring-do in the tavern, but real fighting didn’t have time for fair play when life and death balanced on a knife’s edge. To prove my point, a kobold I’d taken for dead sprang up behind me. I spun on my heel in a desperate attempt to intercept his stout spear with my thin blade. Instead of the kobold’s spear point lunging toward me, it toppled over. I saw a crossbow bolt sticking in the base of its skull. From the roof of the inn I saw Leffe beckoning me with his right hand. In his left, he held a crossbow.

“Come up,” he whispered. “Bring Dalvin.”

I glanced back at Mordo. He didn’t seem to be tiring, but with so many enemies around, I didn’t trust just the townspeople to support the lunatic warrior. The pocket around me wouldn’t stay open forever. I grabbed the gnome and heaved him up to Leffe’s outstretched hand. Dalvin, proving that even copious amount of beer hadn’t dulled him, reacted quickly enough to understand what was going on. Soon, Leffe had him safely next to him, where I would have preferred to be. But something in my head or heart wouldn’t let me leave Mordo to fight by himself.

What followed is a confusing mix of blood, pain and terror. Not all of it was my own. A confused malaise seemed to saturate the air and, though I am usually good about remembering the details of even the most hectic battles, for the life of me I cannot remember all of the details of the night. Mostly, the image of Mordo’s hammer sticks with me, as it rose above the masses to come thundering down again and again. A sick stream of blood and viscera stained my boots, and my arm felt heavy as I stabbed, parried, riposte, and repeated until exhaustion made me almost wish for the horde to swarm me.

Small hands did lay upon me, but instead of dragging me down to my doom, I was lifted up. Leffe scowled at me. With Dalvin, he’d pulled me out of the fray. Though we were well down the lane from the tavern now, the dwarf and gnome had shadowed me.

“I said ‘come up’,’” Leffe said. “I could see things a little better up here and had an idea.”

“Couldn’t…leave…the warrior,” I said, gasping for air.

“He looks like he can take care of himself,” Dalvin said, pointing at Mordo. Except for a thick coating of blood on his armor, Mordo looked as fresh as he had at the start of the battle. The stouter and braver townsmen had formed a rough formation behind him. They’d pushed the horde back.

“Hells, guess he didn’t need me,” I said.

“He does, though he doesn’t know it,” Leffe said. “Direct your attention to yon town square.”

For the first time, I noticed that the kobolds had been funneling their fallen back to the square. In my experience, and in all legends, this was unheard of. A living kobold wouldn’t risk himself to protect his living comrade, let alone retrieve the dead from an active battlefield.

“That makes no sense,” I said. Dalvin passed me a water pouch, from which I drank gratefully.

“Check the bigger kobold in the middle. The one with the robes and staff.”

I did so. He seemed to be performing some sort of ceremony on the fallen.

“A funeral rite? That’s unheard of for kobolds.”

“Guess again,” Dalvin said. For the first time, he looked shaken. “He’s a shaman. He’s bringing them back.”

For a sweet moment, I didn’t know what he meant. Then, my stomach fell as I swallowed the realization. The dead at the feet of the shaman stirred.

“We’ve got to stop him,” I said.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Leffe corrected.

“What? We can’t leave these people to fend for themselves.”

“We won’t do much good by dying amongst them,” Leffe said. “You seem like the handy type. Come with us.”

“Now wait a minute, Leffe,” Dalvin said. “I quite agree with our new friend Ander. We can’t just leave the town to the undead!”

Druids had a particular hatred for the undead. Zombies and their like are complete corruption of nature.

“You got any spells for this, Dal?” Leffe asked.

“I…no. It’s the end of the day and I’m ashamed to say I wasted the word of Silvanus on frivolities earlier.”

“Well then, come on, lest you want to go down there and swing that toothpick of yours around before you die.”

“I do,” I said. “Not the toothpick and dying part. The other. Spells. I’ve got something I can try.”

“Try?” Leffe said, unconvinced. He didn’t want to bank on mere effort.

“This will work, trust me,” I said with more confidence that I felt.

I scampered along the roof until I could get no closer to the kobold shaman. He was wiping into a real frenzy now, getting ready to complete his twisted ritual. I cleared my throat, knowing I had to sing each note perfectly for the spell to work. I started low, but built volume as my lullaby unfurled its aura on the contingent around the shaman.

For a moment, the fear in my gut almost choked me. The shaman remained unaffected by the restful charm of my spell. Then, en masse, the cadre around him slumped to the ground. I amplified my voice and the power behind the magic, and more of the kobolds fell, including the back ranks of the fighting force. Though the shaman was unaffected, the clatter of so many of his warriors falling alerted him to the situation. His ritual sputtered to a frustrated shriek and the dead at his feet stopped quivering.

“By the gods, bard,” Leffe said to me. “That’s one humdinger of a lullaby.”

“Works well on the weak and weak minded,” I said. “But that shaman’s too tough. He’ll have them all awake again if we don’t stop him.”

Dalvin, familiar with magical arts nodded. He shouted down to the street below.

“Mordo, my friend! The kobold ranks thin at the back! Act now! Push through and strike at their leader!”

The mighty warrior heard the gnome, and roared with a renewed sense of purpose. He blasted away the undead in front of him with two swipes of his maul and charged for the shaman at the center of town. The shaman shrieked again when he saw Mordo bearing down on him, dropped the kobold warrior he’d been trying to shake awake, and tapped his staff on the ground. A split moment before Mordo’s maul came crashing down on him, the shaman disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Undead dropped without the shaman present. The remaining and awake kobolds panicked. While never working in a tight formation with military precision, they went completely wild and ran into each other or the pitchforks, cudgels and rusty swords of the townsmen. Few got away, paying the ultimate price for their wicked intentions.

I climbed down from the roof and helped down Dalvin and Leffe. Mordo stomped toward us. I expected him to be happy, having performed the heroics he’d so yearned for earlier. Instead, he looked mad and a bit disappointed.

“Why the long face, Mordo?” Dalvin asked. “Surely you gave our bard friend an epic tale to sing your praises with.”

“Is good, aye,” Mordo said, surveying his corridor of carnage. “But not good enough. Mordo sense more undead. The Raven Queen demands all undead be cleansed from the ground.”

“Raven Queen?” I asked, looking at Dalvin and Leffe. Dalvin shrugged and shook his head. Leffe looked more interested in searching the fallen for valuables.

“My goddess,” Mordo said.

“I’ve never heard of the Raven Queen,” Dalvin said. “And I’m well-versed in the religions of the lands.”

“Aye, me too, though perhaps not on your level, Dalvin,” I said.

“You never heard of Raven Queen?” Mordo said, incredulousness pitching his deep voice up a couple of octaves.

“No, sorry.”

“Huh.” Mordo shook some gore off his maul the looped it into place behind him. “That’s okay. Raven Queen probably never heard of Ander either.”

I saw a gleam of something in Mordo’s eye then, my first hint that maybe he wasn’t all muscle and violence.

I didn’t look on while the villagers cleaned up the sleeping kobolds. And by cleaned up, I mean murdered. It’s a tough thing to fathom. The kobolds were monsters and no amount of imprisonment would rehabilitate them, not that Ellry had anything more than a single cell to spare the town drunk. Still, slaying defenseless foes didn’t sit quite right with me. Well, at that point in my career, anyway. Some of the villagers were a bit too enthusiastic about the coup de grace for my tastes, too. I understood to an extent. Buildings had been burnt, friends and loved ones had been hurt or killed, and their sense of innocence shattered. Plunging a knife into a sleeping kobold over and over, though, still nauseated me. I excused myself to the tavern and set down the night’s events in my journal.

Episode 2, next week!
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