“They’re here to get us,” Caitlyn said from across the fire.

“I know,” Sienna told her.  “But Fawnlum won’t let up her campaign, just because of the odds.”

“Which is good,” Caitlyn agreed.  “But why was she so quick to trust the uzruul?  I know it’s better to judge one by their actions.  But still.  How can she ignore their reputation?  By their own words, the cautious ones are slow to trust.”

“That’s just Fawnlum.  They were judging her by her deeds; not by some place she was supposed to fill in life.  After all, the common response of a human to an uzruul is hostility.  She treated them the same.”

“Oh.”

Sienna looked the fire’s light flickering over the face of her friend.  Then she followed her eyes to the right.  The spirit-wolf was looking at them.

“The forest is pained, but still speaks.  They’re coming,” Caitlyn said, as the wolf bolted into the darkness.

“Nothing for it, eh?”

Caitlyn did not answer, but just looked into the fire.  Sienna could see the cold depth in her eyes.

“Something’s wrong,” she quietly said.  “They’re just gathering around.”

Sienna saw it through her own peripheral vision.  If their comrades attacked now, their entrance may expose the nests.  “Feh.  We needed a new strategy anyway.”

With that, and with deft hands, Caitlyn stealthily took a fire-gel torch from beside her.

As it flashed to life, she hurled it, and a few of the tri-cleorps in the ring yelled and jumped back.  Sienna was right behind the fire-stick, cutting into their line and drawing their attention to her.

Caitlyn joined her in a heartbeat, another torch in hand.

Fawnlum spotted a couple of tri-cleorps as she approached from the west.  She, Dreighton and Halrick cut them down quietly, then burst in, coming to Sienna’s side from outside the firelight.

But just as the fight started, the monsters pulled back.  The humans were left standing over a few bodies, their fires lighting the scene to the naked eye.  The main host backed away, gathering to the east, with a handful to the south and north.  To the west, where the humans had snuck through, the trees and shrooms formed a barrier that would slow any quick withdrawal.  Not fighting, but not retreating, the crowd held fast.

“I don’t think it’s the torches keeping them back,” Sienna ventured to say.

Fawnlum hissed a curse at having been lured out.  Now she sized up the enemy, and ran through scenarios in her mind.  Would they all charge at once, or try to simply contain them?  They still had the fire and their torches.  Maybe the coming day was so dim, the tri-cleorps did not fear the dawn.

Time was on the monsters’ side, as she faced the gang to the south.  Her own expertise demanded that she kill this smaller group, then concentrate on the main bunch.

 

Lucas peered out the window, amid all the silence.  He saw Fawnlum surrounded, with the crowd of tri-cleorps just standing there.

 

“Look,” Sienna said, nodding to the east.

The crowd parted, as another figure stepped through.  He was smaller, thinner; and covered with strange garb, speaking strange words in with his croaky voice, while his hands waved in front.

“Get him!” Fawnlum shouted, and she charged at the magic-user.

The tri-cleorps surged in.  Her saber bit deep.  The forward tri-cleorps suffered the cuts, but they were pushed by the ones behind.

Her advance stalled, and the barbarians were pushed back, to the western tree line of the little clearing.  The wrinkled cleric worked his magic at his leisure.

Fawnlum saw the small cloud of new darkness, like a dark vapor, rise up into the air, and come forward to settle over her and her comrades.  As it engulfed her, it snuffed the light of their torches, and her movements slowed to a crawl.

Her vision was fuzzy.  As if threads of smoke were obstructing her view, Fawnlum still saw the enemies in front, although the dark-fog slowed them down, too.  Painfully slow, her saber moved, as the tri-cleorps came on like a slow wave.

 

Caitlyn climbed up on Sienna’s shoulder, as she felt the tree behind her, and slowly pulled herself up.  Pulling as hard as she could on an overhead branch, she lifted herself out of the inky cloud’s grasp.

Free to move again, the scout saw the magic-user, a short distance away, and cursed at not having her bow.

She looked into the dark-fog beneath her feet, and the press of bodies barely moving.  The tri-cleorps’ movements were woefully slow, also; but the crowd was pushing inward.  And the dark-fog was all around her.  Quickly, she climbed higher.

 

The sword closed on Dreighton.  His own saber was too far away to block.

A brilliant flash of blue light suddenly flared to his left – the casting of Lucas’ lightning wand – blasting the tri-cleorps from life.

 

Hotchpik let out an insane yelp at the flash of brightness, and adjusted the spell.

 

The dark-fog washed over Lucas, grabbing him like an ocean wave.  He lost his breath, as vapor-like filaments of black ash obscured his vision, and flowed against his mouth.

He desperately grabbed at his lips, but his fingers found no purchase.  His movements slowed in the fog’s embrace, as his lungs fought for air.

 

Gambling the dark-fog would slow a falling body as much as a fighting one, Caitlyn took her leap.

The back edge of the darkness caught her, and she came down behind the tri-cleorps’ ranks.  Her feet found a tri-cleorps’ shoulder, and she pushed as she sank.  Clawing at the ground, she forced her way out of the vapor, and rushed the cleric.

The first bodyguard charged at her with a guttural snarl, and she ran to meet him, then switched her step at the last second, spinning right past him.

Keeping her momentum, she reached the second bodyguard, who spread his legs in a bracing stance, raising his truncheon.

She heard the magic-user shout something, and the big tri-cleorps jumped.

Caitlyn dove and rolled through his tall legs, and came up with a straight-line thrust, right into Hotchpik’s wrinkled neck.

She never stopped moving, as the guard swung at her with a furious bellow.

The old creature wracked himself with a gurgling cry.  The failed protector raised his spiked club again, but hesitated as she shoved Hotchpik, and the fighter grabbed at him.  Caitlyn then thrust her scimitar over the old creature’s shoulder, into the guard’s eye.

She was spinning again, as the first bodyguard caught up.

 

Fawnlum felt the effect lessen, twisting to knock two tri-cleorps’ swords away from her.

Her concern of being cut was paled by her fury at this supreme insult, of having been held against her will.

Driving forward, nearly to her bones’ breaking point, she pushed against the dark-force, coming within reach of one set of arms, and grabbing a wrist.

 

Lucas’ head bobbed to the side, as his body was held by his shirt against a tree, and a slap landed on his face.

“To arms, boy!  Arise!  Awake!” Dreighton yelled.

His eyes flew open, and he sucked in a pained gasp of air.

 

Fawnlum pushed the opponent’s right arm high, taking the bone-jarring hit as the brute’s free fist connected with her face, and stabbed his weapon-hand through the wrist.  He dropped his blade as she gave a brutal twist, and bent his arm behind him in a modified arm-lock.

She lifted up as he screamed, and with all her strength pushed him forward, into his fellows.

The lot of them closed around her.  Drinking from a well of anger she had never tasted before, she ripped her saber free, and spun with savage sword-arcs, too fast for them to counter, making their blood fly.

 

Lucas took aim from inside the defensive circle of Coastal fighters, then yelled, “Break!” as Fawnlum had done.

The Coastals leaped out in individual combat; and Lucas spoke the incantation.  The fireball jettisoned out of the ring, and engulfed two tri-cleorps.

A third tri-cleorps, jumping away, screamed, “Wizard!”

“Left!” Sienna shouted, and she, Halrick and Dreighton came together in a rush, upon the closest survivors.

Another handful tried to move on them from the rear.  Lucas countered with a different wand, and the tri-cleorps’ lower legs turned from flesh, to a stiffer substance akin to wood.  The solidified muscles failed, and they stumbled and went down.

“Right!”

Sienna moved their trio again, attacking a different small group.

Lucas kept one ring up, staying in the Coastals’ wake.  The tri-cleorps kept their distance.

 

Standing on her own, Fawnlum had lopped off enough fingers and sliced enough arms.  She had no tree or shroom to guard her back, and could not keep up this speed any longer.

The 10 tri-cleorps surrounding her had the advantage, but she would wager they were not expecting her to jump so high, nor to use their shoulders for steps.

And then she was back to back with Dreighton.  Sienna was back to back with Halrick.  Lucas was between the spinning pairs.

Fawnlum forced her tired arms to cut and parry, denying her fatigue, as she noticed the tri-cleorps’ line falter to the east.  The ones in front did not notice, as Caitlyn, hamstringing as she went, dashed past and joined up.

“Lucas!” Fawnlum shouted.  Then she simply pointed at the crowd on the left.

He jumped in front of the warriors, ring extended in one hand and wand in the other.

Losing all stomach for the battle, the beasts broke and fled, leaving their dead and wounded.  The ones in back still fell to the next fireball.

As the field of battle was quickly deserted, the Coastals finished off the stragglers.

“Good thing Lucas hasn’t shown himself ‘til now, eh?” Dreighton said, in the enemies’ wake.

Fawnlum was on one knee, catching her breath.  Forcing herself up, she loomed over Lucas, with a look severe enough to crack stone.  “You disobeyed orders!”

“I saw a magical attack,” he stuttered.

“Yes,” she said, quickly calming, placing a hand on his shoulder.  “You acted when you were needed.  Good job.  Help collect the ears!  We’re moving out, to the north!”

<*>                                                          <*>                                                      <*>

The lava flowed slowly, but ever onward, among the goblin slaves working in the forging area, as Sye-nitch watched from an alcove, sheltered from the annoying red glow.

Croll carried Hotchpik’s blanket-wrapped body to the bank, and threw it into the crimson river.

Sye-nitch looked with greater concern upon Croll.  He had spared only one survivor of the raid, to lead him to Hotchpik’s fallen body.

Even with the destruction of the evidence, no calm came to the sinister regiment commander.

Sye-nitch saw the condemnation in every shadowy set of eyes.  Despite Hotchpik’s choice to join the fight, the death of their tribe’s cleric – the divine chosen of Umodt – was squarely upon Croll.

His fear was turning into madness.

The one thing keeping anyone from talking, was the fact that the Many-eye would punish them for eternity, if they did not avenge the death of his holy one.

To Sye-nitch’s observation, more of the mates were sinking into Croll’s desperation.

Silently, he did his part as Croll worked feverishly over the next couple of days, quietly sending the packs up in the dim daytime, to find those humans, led by that cursed woman.

Sye-nitch would tell him to wait for cover of night, when their greatest asset – their vision – was at its strongest, but he was not going to even look at Croll right now.

Extra lookouts were being brought in from the general tribe, with only a small commotion.

Imep had dared to counsel Croll, ‘Let us send the lookouts up in greater numbers, and find the humans first, then send up a greater force of warriors at once’.

It was the most anyone had done to stand up to the commander, and he had agreed, keeping more fighters in reserve, in Imep’s smaller shroom-rooms.

“You!” he pointed to Sye-nitch.  “You lead the extra lookouts right now, and help look!”

Without a word, Sye-nitch left the guard-barracks room where they had held their quiet meeting.

But he did not go to the secret shroom-chambers right away.  First he took a little detour.