The Cleric Quintet: In Sylvan Shadows

 

Aiming High

"We can get past them a mile to the east," Danica explained when she rejoined the others in the small evergreen grove they had taken as shelter. "The enemy line is not deep there. We will be beyond them before they ever realize we have passed."

The plan met with approval from Cadderly, but Ivan and Pikel did not seem too pleased to learn that they had marched this far and might not even get the chance to crunch an orog's skull. The companions had journeyed several miles from Daoine Dun without incident, though signs of the enemy's passing hack marks and scorch marks on almost every tree were painfully obvious. At last the companions had found the enemy along a rushing river, in a line that seemed to span the forest's width. Elbereth's people had apparently made a stand at the river and were now encamped beyond its protective banks.

Elbereth did not immediately embrace Danica's plan.

He, too, had gone scouting, and while Danica had found a potential break to the east that might get them to the elven camp, the elf prince had found something that might alter the entire battle's course.

A short distance west of their position, on a high ridge above the river and overlooking the lands to the south, lay an enemy camp dotted with tents the only tents Elbereth had seen. "I have found their leader's camp," Elbereth explained to Danica. "Or so I believe."

"Well guarded, no doubt," Cadderly had to put in, especially when he saw a gleam in Danica's almond eyes.

"Perhaps," Elbereth answered, hardly paying any heed to the worried young scholar, "but no more than any other position in the enemy's lines."

"Except the break that Danica has found," Cadderly replied, his desire to be rejoined with the elven host without further combat sounding obvious in his almost-frantic tone.

"Not to fear," Ivan whispered to Cadderly. "Me brother and me can be making our own breaks."

"What say you, Danica?" Elbereth asked. Cadderly wasn't certain he liked that the elf prince, who always seemed to value nothing but his own opinions, had asked for Danica's approval.

"If we can get to the enemy leader, we may be able to change the course of the war," Elbereth added before the woman gave her answer.

Danica's wry smile told Cadderly the adventurous woman's answer before she opened her mouth to reply.

"It seems a desperate course," she began, but her tone reflected no fear. "A desperate course for a desperate situation."

"Oo oi!" Pikel heartily agreed. Cadderly gave the dwarf a frown that stole his widening smile.

Elbereth quickly knelt and cleared away some pine needles. He took up a stick and drew a map of the ridge area.

"There are only five of us," Cadderly reminded them, though no one was listening.

"I have heard the leader's name is Ragnor," Elbereth began, "a monstrous beast, half-breed, my scouts believe, marked by a tusk protruding over his upper lip."

"Wonderful," Cadderly muttered grimly. This time, Ivan paid enough attention to kick him in the shin.

"If Ragnor is at the camp, then we can expect he will separate himself from us by whatever monstrous guards he can muster."

"Wonderful," Cadderly said again. Danica elbowed him hard in the ribs. The young scholar began to get the feeling that he wouldn't even make it to the enemy camp if he kept commenting.

"And what monsters did ye see?" asked Ivan, leaning toward the crude map closer than anybody.

Elbereth seemed almost surprised at the dwarf's interest. "Bugbears, mostly," the elf answered. "Actually, I would have expected more obvious guards, ogres at least and perhaps a giant or two."

Cadderly winced but held his thoughts silent. The orogs, large and powerful, had come as a shock to him; the ogres' sheer size had nearly made him swoon. What would be his reaction, he wondered, if he found himself facing a true giant?

"Can you be certain, then, that this is the leader's camp?" Danica asked.

Elbereth thought for a moment, then shook his head. "It is an assumption," he admitted. "I saw no other tents anywhere along the line, just crude lean-tos of twigs. And this particular ridge is most favorable for the enemy leader to keep a watch on the action to the south."

"Maybe it is Dorigen's camp," Cadderly put in.

"Either way," Ivan boomed, slapping his great axe against his hand, "we'll give the scum a thing or two to think about!"

Again, Elbereth was surprised by the dwarf's interest.

"I do not know how we might best approach," the elf said honestly. "If we sneak in as close as we may, perhaps we will discern an appropriate attack route."

"In what order?" Ivan asked.

Elbereth looked at him blankly.

"As I thought," remarked the dwarf. "Ye're more for working on yer own than to leading a fight. Step aside, elf. I'll give ye a plan!"

Elbereth neither moved nor blinked.

"Listen, ye stubborn son of a willow tree," Ivan growled, poking a stubby finger Elbereth's way. "I know ye're doubting me friendship and ye should be, for I'm not calling ye friend. And when the fighting's done, yerself and me have a date. Don't ye hope for a moment that I'm forgetting that! And I'm not caring a thing for yer people or yer stinking wood, neither!"

Pikel's growl slowed Ivan's budding momentum.

"Well, me brother likes yer wood," Ivan said to calm the savage would-be druid. He spun back on Elbereth. "For all yer suspicions, though, don't ye be doubting me friendship to Cadderly and Danica. If they're to go in, then me and me brother are fighting aside them, and I'm betting that me axe takes more heads than yer skinny sword!"

"We shall learn the truth of that boast," Elbereth said, his silver eyes narrowed. For all his pride, Elbereth had to admit that he was indeed more accustomed to working alone, and that Ivan might just be better suited to design the course of this attack. His grim expression did not relent, but he shifted away from the map, giving the dwarf full access.

Ivan bent low over the sketch, grunting and pulling at his still sooty beard. "How deep's the river beyond the ridge?" he asked.

"To my waist, perhaps," the elf replied.

"Hmmm," mumbled the dwarf. "And the drop's a bit high to take that course. We'll have to hit them hard and get quick to the east, to where yerself" he pointed to Danica - " saw a way through."

"Our lives are not important," said Elbereth. "If we can kill the enemy leader, whether or not we escape is of no concern."

Cadderly's mouth dropped open.

"Yer own life's not important," Ivan agreed, "but the rest of us would prefer to keep our skin, thank ye."

Cadderly's sigh sounded clearly like a note of gratitude to Ivan.

"But if we can hit them hard and fast enough, we'll get our way back out," Ivan went on. "We'd be better off if ye had yer bow, elf, to lead our way in, but I've got a hammer or two to spin into a bugbear's eye. Here's me thinking. Yerself, elf, and Danica will lead us in. The two of ye are the fastest and should get yer chance at the boss. Cadderly will come next, watching both sides to see where he's most needed."

Cadderly realized that Ivan had politely told him to keep out of the way not that he minded.

"Me and me brother'll take up the back end," Ivan went on. "That way ye won't need to be worrying that a bugbear will be crawling up yer backside."

Elbereth studied the drawing and found little to complain about concerning Ivan's plan. It seemed solid enough, though the elf was somewhat surprised that the dwarf had made allowances for him to personally battle Ragnor. Elbereth had presumed that Ivan would want that glory for himself.

"Suppose Dorigen is still there," Cadderly interjected, still not thrilled with the whole idea.

"Then we can do even more harm to our enemies," Elbereth replied.

"Many of my fighting styles are designed to deal with wizards," Danica added, offering Cadderly the consolation that he obviously needed. "As in my previous encounter with Dorigen, I believe the wizard will have little in her repertoire to harm me."

"Unless you are busy battling bugbears or some other monsters," Cadderly retorted. "Then you might prove an easy target for one of Dorigen's lightning blasts."

"It'll be up to yerself," Ivan decided. "Keep yer watch for the wizard. If ye see her, then knock her down with yer fancy bow."

"I do not have it," Cadderly said.

"Then use yer stick, or that toy ye dance at the string's end," said Ivan.

"Dorigen has my crossbow," Cadderly said, on the verge of panic. None of the others seemed to share his apprehension about that fact. In unison, they looked to Ivan to continue with his plotting.

"She has my crossbow and some of the magically loaded darts!" Cadderly said again, even more anxiously.

"If Dorigen is more concerned with that weapon than with her repertoire of spells, we'll be better off," Danica said, her calm tone mocking Cadderly's concern.

"We'll just hope she's not as good a shot with the thing as yerself, lad," Ivan added. Similarly unconcerned, he went back to his plan. "I'm thinking that twilight would be the best time to go, when the light's down a bit but before the darkness takes advantage from our human friends."

Elbereth looked to Danica, who nodded her accord.

"When ye're done with the brute boss, ye'll have me and Pikel to take ye back out again," Ivan explained to Elbereth. "We'll cut ye a path ye could ride yer horse through!"

"That we do not doubt," Danica said, and even Elbereth, so angry at the dwarf just a short while before, made no sarcastic comments.

"We're off then," Ivan said, taking up his great axe. He motioned with his arm for Elbereth to take up the lead.

The group moved quietly into position under the widespread boughs of a pine tree and waited while the last of the daylight faded. Cadderly sat on the western edge of the shadows, trying to get every last moment of light as he worked hard over an open book. At first, Danica thought he was still trying to translate the book of Dellanil Quil-

'quien, but then she saw that he held the Tome of Universal Harmony, the Deneir bible.

"There are spells that might be of use," Cadderly explained at her inquisitive glance.

Danica's expression revealed her surprise; she had never seen Cadderly attempt any clerical magic beyond simple spells of healing, had never really considered him that manner of priest.

"I have spent my life in the order of Deneir!" Cadderly protested, drawing a slap from nearby Ivan and a profound "Sssshhh!" from Pikel.

Cadderly turned back to the book. "There is a spell of silence," he whispered, "which might hinder Dorigen if she appears in the battle and attempts her magic."

He saw that Danica didn't appear convinced, and he couldn't honestly find the words to argue against that look. Cadderly had performed minor ceremonies before, had once created a font of holy water (in which he had immersed the bottle containing the dreaded chaos curse), but in truth, he had never put much store in clerical magic. He was a disciple of Deneir, the god of art and literature, primarily because he had been raised among that sect at the Edificant Library and because Deneir's edicts so befit Cadderly's intelligent and kind nature. Cadderly had spent nearly as much time with the priests of Oghma, god of knowledge, and secretly considered himself a true priest of neither to Headmaster Avery Schell's ultimate frustration.

"Time to go," Ivan whispered. Cadderly quickly perused the spell of silence one last time, hoping that if the need arose, he would find the strength to use it. Full of trepidation should he have tried to study spells of healing instead? he slipped the tome back into his pack beside Dellanil's book.

They started off cautiously for the sloping, grassy incline that led to the tent-covered ridge. Danica stopped them a short distance out and disappeared into the brush, returning a few moments later.

"Sentry," she explained when she came back to them.

"Bugbear?" Elbereth asked.

"Goblin."

"Dead goblin," Ivan muttered, giving Danica an appreciative wink, and Pikel added a happy, "Hee hee."

They came to a halt crouched in a line of thick brush just below the enemy camp. The grassy slope was teasingly quiet. A couple of bugbears wandered along no apparent course, and, through the open flaps of one of the side tents, the companions could see others milling about. It was the topmost tent, on the crest of the ridge, that held the companions' attention. Somewhat smaller than the other two tents, it was by far the finest and left little doubt where the enemy leader, if this was indeed Ragnor's camp, would be located.

"Now or not at all," Ivan whispered to Elbereth. The elf turned to the dwarf and gave a determined nod. Then Elbereth looked to Danica and they burst from the brush and began their wild charge up the hill.

Head low, arms and legs pumping in perfect harmony, Danica quickly outdistanced the elf. She hit the first two bugbears before they could guess that they were under attack. Knees and elbows flew wildly, then so did the bugbears, which tumbled to the grass with little desire to return to battle the frenzied woman.

Elbereth charged past Danica as the second bugbear flew away, the elf bearing down on a third monster, similarly surprised but with time enough to ready a long spear with which to meet the attackers.

The elf prince's focus went beyond the creature, to the flap of the fine tent he knew was Ragnor's. He hardly noticed the spear thrust his way.

His fine sword whipped across, snapping the bugbear's crude weapon before it got near its mark. Elbereth ran right by the stunned bugbear, sticking his sword into its knee as he passed so that it could not follow him up the hill.

The unfortunate creature, clutching at its wound, unwittingly remained in Danica's path as she followed the elf. Hardly slowing, she launched a perfectly synchronized kick with her running strides, catching the bending monster in the chin and laying it straight out on the ground.

The felled beast noticed another human running past a second later, then it felt the heavy stomps of dwarven boots. The last thing the bugbear saw was the swift descent of a huge axe.

Alarms rang out all through the encampment; the two side tents opened up, with many bugbears and several goblins spilling out onto the grassy hill.

"More than we thought!" Ivan bellowed.

Cadderly held his spindle-disks and his walking stick close, hoping he would not be forced to use them. He looked about frantically, expecting and fearing that Dorigen would make her appearance, and tried to keep the spell of silence in his thoughts through the growing tumult around him.

Danica and Elbereth widened the gap ahead of Cadderly, and suddenly Ivan and Pikel were fully engaged in combat right behind him. He turned about, then turned back, and looked all around as the bugbears even more were pouring from the tents began to surround the small group.

Elbereth and Danica paid no heed to the events behind them. Their goal was in plain sight, and their strides quickened when a burly, brutish monster stepped from the fine tent. Both knew at once that it was Ragnor come to meet them, huge and terrible and with that telltale single tusk sticking up over his lip.

Standing at the very top of the ridge, the ogrillon grinned evilly and beckoned them on.

Danica realized that they would not get to him, though. A group of three bugbears closed from the side, and the monsters' angle would put them between their leader and the attackers. Danica was confident that she could outdistance them if she ran full stride, but Elbereth would have no chance of getting to Ragnor.

"Run on!" she cried to the elf, and she veered to the side to meet the interceptors.

She started in high, forcing the monsters to raise their spears, then dove to the grass and slid sideways, clipping their feet and sending all three tumbling down about her.

Elbereth's first instincts were to go to her, caught in the middle of such powerful enemies, but the elf continued his course, realizing that Danica had made the move for his benefit and reminding himself that their lives were not important when weighed against the potential gains of destroying Ragnor.

If the ogrillon was afraid, he did not show it. Elbereth came fast and hard, his sword weaving and thrusting, using his momentum to get in strikes too quickly for Ragnor to defend.

Blood oozed from the monster's shoulder. Another gash lined one cheek. Still Ragnor grinned, and Elbereth's charging advantage quickly played itself out.

It was the ogrillon's turn.

*****

Cadderly had never seen such brilliant teamwork before. The dwarven brothers held the higher ground, but that still didn't bring them close to eye level with gigantic bugbears, and they were outnumbered two to one.

That hardly seemed to matter.

Ivan cut a crossing swipe with his axe, not close to hitting the mark. A bugbear waded in behind, then Cadderly understood the dwarf's attack to be no more than a feint, drawing the monster in. For Pikel suddenly broke from his own fight and followed up his brother's swing with a low thrust from his tree-trunk club.

The lunging bugbear's knee snapped backward Cadderly thought that it resembled the gait of an exotic bird he had once read about and the monster fell away, writhing in agony.

Ivan, meanwhile, had not been idle. He went with the momentum of his powerful cut, stepping right beside his dipping brother and taking Pikel's place with the other two monsters. The surprised bugbears hardly seemed to comprehend what had happened he dwarves' movements were so in harmony and they did not immediately understand the difference in this dwarfs fighting style.

They kept their arms extended, a proper style for defending against Pikel's wide-armed club swings, but thoroughly useless against Ivan's sheer ferocity. The dwarf charged inside their long reach, butting with his antlered head, biting, kicking with his heavy boots, and waggling his double-bladed axe through a series of short chops.

One of them was down, the other running away, before Cadderly had even remembered to draw breath.

"Oo!" Pikel howled appreciatively, seeing his brother make such quick work of the two, and purposely turning his back on his remaining bugbear in the process.

"Behind you!" Cadderly cried, not knowing that the dwarf was in complete control.

The bugbear raised its spear over its head and leaped, but Pikel dipped low and rushed backward, slamming his back into the monster's knees. The bugbear barely caught its balance and didn't go headlong over the dwarf, but it would have been better off if it had. Pikel dropped down to one knee, held his club on its narrow end, and drove it straight up between the bugbear's legs, heaving the creature from the ground.

By the time the bugbear came back down, still standing but quite winded, Pikel was behind the monster and had realigned his grip on the club. The dwarf stepped into his swing with all his bulky weight, slamming the bugbear in the lower back.

The breathless monster tried to howl, and when that didn't work, it settled instead for slumping to its knees, clutching its blasted back and watching the world spin.

"Wish we had the time to finish a few of these," Ivan grumbled as he and Pikel moved higher up the hill. Many more bugbears came at them from both sides, and cries of alarm sounded all about the area now, not just on the grassy slope.

Cadderly clutched his weapons and continued his scan for Dorigen, though he was beginning to understand that the missing wizard was the least of their problems.

*****

Every bugbear strike seemed to be just an inch behind the scrambling woman, and whatever contorted position Danica had to put herself into to avoid the attacks, she seemed quite able to launch her own. One bugbear yelped in glee, thinking it had finally caught up to its prey, only to catch Danica's foot squarely in the face.

Danica sprang to her feet, a bugbear kneeling before her. She envisioned it immediately as a block of stone and slammed her head into the monster's chest. Ribs a dozen, perhaps snapped apart, but they did so with a single sickening crack.

Then there were two.

*****

"One more elf head for my trophy wall!" Ragnor laughed. Elbereth got his shield up to block the ogrillon's heavy sword, but his arm went numb under the sheer weight of that incredibly powerful blow.

"You'll look fine next to your kinfolk!" Ragnor boasted, wiggling his elf-ear necklace for his adversary to see. Thinking Elbereth distracted by the gruesome sight, Ragnor stepped in. Elbereth, horrified indeed, managed to skip back from the ogrillon's strike, though he slipped on the thick grass and nearly went to one knee. He came up fast instead, stepping within Ragnor's follow-up attack and driving his sword into the ogrillon's thigh. A fine counter, except that Ragnor's free hand grabbed the elf as he passed and, with tremendous strength, hurled Elbereth backward and to the ground.

The heavy sword sliced at him but buried itself halfway to the hilt into the soft ground as Elbereth frantically rolled aside.

The elf climbed back to his feet as Ragnor withdrew his sword. Elbereth took a quick glance around and saw that all sides seemed to be caving in on his companions. If he was to gain any semblance of a victory, he would have to strike Ragnor quickly. When he took a quick survey of the ogrillon, though, that didn't seem likely. Speed and agility were on Elbereth's side, but Ragnor could take anything Elbereth could throw his way. Defeating this brute would require time, plenty of time, to wear the heavier monster down, nicking and jabbing until Ragnor's blood ran from a hundred grazing wounds.

"Damn you," Elbereth muttered, and with all his world at stake, the valiant elf launched himself at Ragnor. He hacked once with his sword, then, when he was too close to use the long blade, punched fiercely with the weapon's gem-encrusted hilt.

*****

"No time!" Ivan bellowed, seeing that his plan could not succeed with so many bugbears, goblins, and now a host of orogs, appearing from all about the base of the ridge. He turned to Pikel and winked. "Second choice!"

"Oo oi!" Pikel heartily agreed.

Cadderly was about to ask what "second choice" might mean, when Pikel rushed right up to him, and right through him, barreling along up the hill with the stunned young scholar firmly in tow.

*****

Ragnor and Elbereth held their deadly embrace. The elf's punches had bent the ogrillon's piglike snout every which way and lines of thick blood covered the monster's face. Still Ragnor maintained his fiendish grin.

Finally, one huge hand clamped onto the back of the elf's neck, and Elbereth was hauled out to arm's length. They were still too close for any effective sword strikes, but Ragnor's sword arm, held at the wrist by Elbereth's shield hand, hovered dangerously above the elf's head. Elbereth feared that the ogrillon would overpower him and drive his sword hilt down onto Elbereth's head.

Elbereth's fears trebled as Ragnor pushed a secret button on his weapon's crosspiece and a second blade, a gleaming stiletto, protruded from the bottom of his sword, its wicked tip just an inch from Elbereth's head.

Elbereth struggled wildly, kicked Ragnor repeatedly about the knees and groin. The ogrillon only grinned and forced his huge arm down.

Something slammed into Elbereth's side. He saw the sudden confusion on Ragnor's face, then the world went flying about him. He hit the waist-deep river hard, twisting an ankle and a knee in the process, then he understood, for he heard Ivan griping and water gurgling.

"You pulled me from my battle!" Elbereth roared as he grabbed his sword. "I could have - "

"Died," Ivan finished evenly, though that wasn't exactly what the elf had in mind. "Stop yer whining, elf," said the dwarf with a derisive chuckle. "And get me helmet, would ye?"

Elbereth blustered and growled, looking for a retort. To Ivan's surprise, the elf reached over and scooped the half-floating helmet from the water, even hopping a few steps downstream to recover one of the antlers, which had come loose.

Cadderly flew over the precipice next, backpedaling, his scrambling feet barely able to keep up at the end of Pikel's thick club. Both man and dwarf hit the river just a few feet from their companions. Cadderly came up spitting a stream of water and sputtering in shock. He kept enough wits about him to pull his precious pack above the water and fish out his short and stunned companion's head.

Pikel tried to squeak his thanks but wound up sending a stream of water into Cadderly's eye instead. The dwarf shrugged meekly and smiled.

"There she is!" they heard Ivan cry, and they looked up to the ledge to see Danica spinning over. The incredible monk half-ran, half-fell down the bank, grabbing for root-holds with one hand but holding her other arm, her wounded arm, tight against her body. Somewhere in the fight, Danica had reopened the arrow wound, and the sleeve and side of her tunic were deeply stained.

She managed her controlled descent, though, coming lightly into the water at the river's edge and easily outdistancing the two bugbears that pursued her. The monsters came on stubbornly, gingerly searching for handholds as they made their way down.

A hail of arrows whistled out of the trees beyond the far bank, every shot scoring a direct hit on the vulnerable monsters. Danica had to duck aside as the two hairy forms came crashing down.

There would be no cheers from the companions, though, for another arrow whistled from the trees, burying itself into Ivan's leg and sending the startled dwarf spinning to the ground. Before Ivan could begin to recover, fine swords landed heavily on his shoulders, one against either side of his thick, but quite vulnerable, neck.

"Uh-oh," muttered Pikel, who understood the misperceptions enough to slip behind the cover of Cadderly's body.