After a couple days to rest and resupply, Fawnlum led them out.

Exiting the same dwarf-built gate, they took the Garrior Trail northeast, then found the new trail running more northwest, as it had been described to them.  Camping was restful, as they found a very defensible position along a collection of giant, wall-like boulders, Jutte-rock as it was called, sticking out of the ground in a large, three-acre-long cluster, providing perfect protection from the east.

With no rest for Lucas, he stayed up, enchanting the headbands, while the Coastals stood guard.

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

Fawnlum awoke to a pebble hitting her head.

She carefully looked at Caitlyn, who, as she wore a magic headband, eyed the darkness while holding a sputtering torch.  In her own headband’s vision, Fawnlum saw quite clearly the approaching tri-cleorps farther back in the darkness.

The tension built, as Fawnlum waited for everyone else to awaken.  When Caitlyn walked over and roused Lucas, Fawnlum got up, and grabbed one of the treated logs from the pile, and held it toward the flames.

Too quickly for any of the hostiles to react, Caitlyn whipped her bow up, and took her first shot.  The arrow stuck a tri-cleorps in the top eye, as Fawnlum’s burning missile flew end-over-end, and hit the one beside.

The quiet night was shattered with their uproar, but they did not disintegrate into confusion.  The ones in front backed off, while the ones in the rear gathered closer.

They did not charge in, but surrounded her and her comrades, growling with bared weapons.

“Rush them?” Sienna asked, as they stood with their backs to the rocks.

They did not need the headbands, as their fires lit up the radius around them, and the lot gathered, squinting and slowly advancing.

Before Fawnlum could reply, she spotted movement to their right.  A tri-cleorps emerged from a shroom just 50 feet away.

“Torch!” she yelled, and Dreighton threw his burning stick at the new enemy, who jumped back and howled while swatting at the flames.

As the circle started to close, from another shroom a club started emerging out of the smooth surface, and then its owner, and then another tri-cleorps behind that.

Fawnlum gripped her saber.  “Lucas,” she whispered.

“Yes?” he asked, bearing a ring of fire-casting on his tightly-clenched fist.

“Don’t use any magic.  When we charge, grab the torches, and stay at the back.”

“Target and back!!” she shouted.

Every Coastal charged out right beside her, each hitting one target hard, breaking past clumsy defenses and dealing quick slashes.  Just as quickly, they all jumped back, snatching up their torches again in a defensive position.

“Ready to throw!” Fawnlum whispered to Lucas.

Standing on a short boulder, Lucas had a tight hold of his own burning torch, with three oil-dabbed torches ready at his feet.

New tri-cleorps emerged from other shrooms to the left and right.

With a roar, they came in.

The humans met them partway, as Fawnlum yelled, “Throw!”

The monsters hit, their viciousness made less effective by their primitive fighting style.  The humans slashed in with their skill, making short work of the brutes.

The crowd broke as a torch sailed through the air to hit some unlucky individual on the head.

“Keep them coming!”

She and the others dropped back a step, their defensive ring coming together again a couple feet in front of Lucas.  But instead of throwing another torch, he held two in each fist, waving them back and forth.

The tri-cleorps cursed and cringed at the brightness.

Then Fawnlum shouted “Break!”

The Coastals attacked harder than before, and hit the tri-cleorps in front, taking on the whole mass of enemies.

Fawnlum, Sienna and Caitlyn joined back to back in a rotating ring of whirling blades on one side, and Dreighton and Halrick did likewise on the other.  They had tri-cleorps all around them; they could not miss.

In their revolving technique, they rotated too fast for a tri-cleorps to get in a good blow.  A block by one Coastal was followed by a parry by another, then came a thrust, as the first blade came around again.

They cut into the numerically superior force by complimenting each other.

The surrounding tri-cleorps could not adjust to the tactic.  They stood, unable to connect, and took hit after hit.  Individuals fell back, bleeding, as others took their place.

With a nearly superstitious fear, the tri-cleorps avoided the torches on the ground, so intently did they hate the light.

The monsters buckled, and Fawnlum yelled, “Break and surround!”

They abandoned their back-to-back stance, rushing past their closest opponents, and toward the ones in the rear.  But they rushed past them as well, just to turn and get between the tri-cleorps and the wooded escape route.

Foes still came at them in twos and threes, and in twos and threes they fell.

Fawnlum watched the next roaring batch of enemies come on, her party cutting in skillfully and decisively, claiming more kills.

They came together again and split up again, taking down foes until finally, she saw the last ones standing, breaking for the trees.

Fawnlum put one straggler out of his misery, as a few others got away.

Lucas started grabbing and snuffing the torches.  “A couple went back into the shrooms,” he called out.

Fawnlum wiped off her saber, and rested it on her shoulder.

“Dear comrades,” she said, as Caitlyn was already slicing off the ears.  “Unless I miss my guess, this fight was different from the others.”

“Whatever makes you say that?” Sienna cheerfully snipped.

Halrick, holding an unneeded torch for appearances, did not take his eyes off their surroundings.

“They did find their courage, even going so far as to let us see them step out of the shrooms.”

Sienna quickly answered, as she was practically glowing at the number of corpses to add to their profit.  “They must have known we would be here,” she said.

“And someone told them where to find us,” Caitlyn coldly answered.

Fawnlum looked at her closely, noting her scout’s cold tone, and pleased manner of speech.

Her comrade was ready to kill someone on sight.

“Right after you met with the wonderful Council of the city,” Sienna observed dryly.

“Treachery,” Dreighton said.  “Ugly word.”

Halrick turned away from the trees.  “We made talk with a traitor in our midst.  At this moment we can’t trust anyone.”

“You’ve got more trouble,” Lucas said to Fawnlum.  “Your ‘mighty wizard’ has friends in the city.  It will make it harder to find him.”

“Ha!”  She waved a hand at the bodies.  “He found me.  If they’re going to this much trouble, I must be doing something right.”

“So what now?”

“Get the ears!  We’re going back to town.”

Only Sienna, who knew Fawnlum the closest, displayed a grin instead of a curious look.