Ch 02: Semi-random Violence

Previous Ch 01: Poot's Angels

The five made their way from Red Rock into the northern hills on foot. A businessman named Poot had promised them five-hundred gold for recovering a mysterious statue from a gang of goblins.

It had been determined that Schlobrock, an ork shaman, was the party’s wilderness survival expert, and she led the way forward with the map Poot had provided. The five marched in a lose single-file. Mez, the goblin rogue, followed Schlobrock with his eyes and ears open. Fisk, the dwarf warlock, was next, and behind him, Mairrethid the human wizard. Gherota, the human fighter, guarded the rear. They maintained silence for the most part, though the clanking of both Schlobrock and Gherota’s armor would keep them from sneaking up on anyone.

Their first encounter didn’t come from the road ahead, however, but from Red Rock behind them. After two hours of hiking, a band of eleven riders advanced on the five, following the same road but at a much faster pace, mounted on horses.

“Not farmers,” Gherota said, shielding her eyes from the sun and peering at the riders in the distance. “I make out weapons and armor.”

“Adventurers, like us?” Mairrethid suggested.

“Hillz are bull ob dombs and bords and ruinz bor people like uz,” Schlobrock added.

“Dooms and boards?” Fisk asked, sarcastically.

Mairrethid said something to the ork in her own language, asking for clarification. Schlobrock snorted back, using meaningful syllables that were much easier for her porcine palate to pronounce.

“Tombs and forts,” Mairrethid translated, “is what she meant.”

Schlobrock nodded to the wizard in appreciation.

“They’re getting closer,” Mez interrupted, impatiently.

“We give them the road, let them ride on, and if their intentions are peaceful, that will be the end of the matter,” Fisk said. “If they stop, we take them down.”

“If they stop, that doesn’t mean they are hostile,” Mairrethid protested.

“And they outnumber us,” Mez added, agreeing. “Not that it settles anything, but it might be better to avoid a fight.”

“I have nothing to say them,” Gherota snorted. “I’ll listen, if they have something to say, and if they want violence, I’ll start cutting heads off with my sword.”

“My kind of woman,” Fisk chuckled.

“Actually,” Mez said, peering at the coming riders with a glimmer of recognition. “I think I cut that man’s purse last night. Payment for an insult.”

“Wait a minute,” Mairrethid added, coming to a similar realization, “I had a game of Stones with one of them last night. He cheated and I called him out for a fair duel, but the fool dawdled until the constable intervened. I’d like a word with him.”

“The skinny one on the left?” Fisk asked.

“Yeah, why?” Mairrethid replied.

“Oh, I’m gonna kill that guy,” Fisk replied.

“Why?” Mairrethid was amused.

“My own reasons,” Fisk said, stroking his beard and grinning with anticipation.

“That your guy, too?” Mairrethid asked Mez.

“Nah, mine is the fat one in the center,” Mez answered, moving to the side of the road and slipping off his pack.

“You girls got a bone to pick with them, too?” Mairrethid asked Schlobrock and Gherota.

“Dhe fad one,” Schlobrock answered, dropping her own pack to the side of the road too, “he god a big moudh.”

“The big one on the right,” Gherota answered. “An arm wrestling contest gone bad.”

The five exchanged glances of disbelief over the circumstances, and then started getting ready for the coming fight. The terrain was slightly hilly, and they were able to move off the road into a steeper terrain that would give them the high ground and make it harder for riders to charge them.

The five dropped their packs and prepared attacks. Gherota strapped her shield to her left arm and cleared the draw on her longsword, but left it in its sheath. Schlobrock unslung the axe on her back and let it hang idle in her left hand, and prepared a javelin to throw with her right. Mez loaded his small crossbow. Mairrethid choked up the grip on his staff and flexed his fingers.

“Thank you, Burglemeister,” Fisk chanted quietly to himself, hefting his warhammer over his left shoulder, “for these gifts that we are about to receive.”

The riders trotted to within a few hundred yards before dismounting. The men tied their horses together and to the scrub off the road, and then advanced.

“Fighting from foot?” Mez asked. “I thought humans preferred fighting from horseback.”

“They probably can’t,” Gherota said. “It is a difficult skill to master.”

“Let me take the skinny one, Mairrethid,” Fisk said.

“Fine,” Mairrethid replied, “My priority was on the minions anyway.”

The skinny one was a fair-complexioned human, wearing loose-fitting blue robes. At about a hundred feet out, just beyond the effective range of most of the five’s attacks, he signaled to four of the minions and together they stopped advancing and started spreading out. The skinny one drew a wand.

The minions who stayed with the skinny one were wearing heavy leather armor, plain wool cloaks, and had maces hanging from their belts. Each took a light crossbow that had been slung on their backs down and started loading them.

The others continued advancing, the fat one, the big one, and four more minions who were dressed like the crossbowmen but were carrying spears.

The fat one started talking as they advanced. “So my friend Louie here,” he jerked a thumb toward the big one, “said he saw a chick swordsman leaving town who he needed to catch up with. And then he described this chick’s comrades, and me and Stew realized we wanted to catch up with you, too.” He was dressed in opulent velvet robes with a heavy, fur coat thrown over his shoulders, but appeared to be wearing chain mail underneath it all. A brassy medallion hung from his neck on a long, silver chain, and he kept a heavy mace hanging at his belt.

“How about the big one and I sort this out between ourselves,” Gherota answered, sword still in its sheath, “unless you’re cowards--"

She was interrupted as Mairrethid quickly waved his staff and launched a nearly invisible blast of energy from his hand. Mairrethid had been waiting for his target to come within the fifty-foot range of his spell, and once he did, he wasted no time.

It caught the fat one dead center, doubling him over with a high-pitched, meat-crunching pop. The shockwave blasted everyone around him, knocking one of the spearmen to the ground and hammering the big one badly. The fat one coughed, producing a mouthful of blood, before straightening himself up.

Mez acted almost as quickly, dropping his weight low and dashing forward, quickly but surely, towards the cluster of advancing meleers. He fired his crossbow, missing one of the spearmen, before tossing his weapon away and drawing a knife.

Fisk advanced too, jogging around and away from the cluster of meleers and towards the crossbowmen who had been spreading out at range. Two of the crossbowmen fired on him as he came, with one hitting. The dwarf gritted against the pain, but kept coming, undeterred.

The skinny one pointed his wand and fired a blue ray at Fisk, catching him dead center with a debilitating blast of icy energy. “If you think you need to be closer to me to use your attack, then I think you’ve come far enough,” he cackled.

The big one had a small nosebleed from the concussion of Mairrethid’s spell, but looked largely unfazed. He was wearing a heavy suit of scale mail, much like Gherota’s, and advanced about half the way towards the Mairrethid, grinning like a wolf. He unslung an oversized warhammer from his back and raised his guard. “I’ll pop your head like a melon, wizard, once I’ve dealt with your girlie meatshield here.”

“Silence, fool,” Gherota said, drawing her own sword as she advanced to meet him.

The big one brought his hammer down as soon as she was in range, but she easily redirected his strike with the angle of her shield, the weight of his weapon forcing him to overextend as it packed into the dirt. Taking advantage of the situation, she made a quick spinning move, buckling his knee out from under him with a side kick and bringing her sword around to crack deep through the armor under his side, knocking him to the ground.

The big one was clumsy, but skilled, and rolled with the attack halfway into a crouching position as he prepared to launch his weight back towards her. She had followed him through the roll, though, and as soon as his head popped up, her sword was there to meet it with a clean decapitation.

“Louie!” the skinny one screamed with surprise.

“Crap!” the fat one exclaimed, blowing a bloody spit-bubble.

The color dropped simultaneously from the faces of all seven minions who were still on their feet.

“Excellent,” Mairrethid smirked.

“Run or die,” Gherota barked at the spearmen who were closing rank around the fat one.

Schlobrock had her own oversized axe out and was preparing to charge. With the big one out of the way, she took her chance, jogging and then running, howling with orkish glee, as she barreled into one of the spearmen nearest to the fat one. Her axe attack missed, and she seemed completely undeterred.

The fat one shifted away from the charging ork, eying Gherota with an even greater sense of concern. He drew his mace and grasped his medallion, praying to himself. Sucking hard on a lump that gathered in his throat, he assembled a cancerous ball of fluids and magic in his mouth and then spat it in the direction of Mairrethid.

The ball flew straight and fast, exploding with a sticky splash against his chest. Venomous fumes wafted over Mairrethid instantly, dropping him to his knees with waves of sickness and nausea.

Dancing just outside of Schlobrock’s range, the fat one grasped at his medallion and invoked another spell, this one a searing beam of light from the sky that blasted Schlobrock and made her glow.

Schlobrock grunted in pain, momentary distracted from the fight.

“Now, Pokey!” the fat one cackled, “stab her!”

The spearman, Pokey, did as ordered, surging towards Schlobrock and attacking with his spear. Aided by the fat one’s magic, he hit, leaving Schlobrock badly injured.

Pokey had brought himself under Schlobrock’s axe in the process, however, and she returned the attack. Connecting, Schlobrock brought the spearman to his knees and cleaved most of his chest in two, taking a deep and invigorating orkish pride in her grizzly power.

The other crossbowmen had taken their shots, with one hitting the temporarily incapacitated Mairrethid and the other missing widely. With the big one down, the spearmen fell back into defensive postures around the fat one and waited for a cue. They didn’t press any attacks, but were ready to strike at anyone who got close enough.

“These guys are jerks,” Mairrethid mumbled between wretches.

“Bree dhe wizard brom your zpell, priezd,” Schlobrock howled at the fat one, “or I’ll make you!”

Fisk frowned, shuffling forward awkwardly, his legs stiff from the skinny one’s spell. “I will destroy you, you elf-kissing sissy,” he sneered.

Almost as an after thought, Fisk threw two quick spells on the nearest crossbowman, the first a curse and the second a gout of flames that erupted from the earth under the crossbowman’s own feet. The crossbowman screamed and collapsed into death, Fisk’s curse drawing wisps of vital energy from the corpse and into his grasping hand.

“Guys,” Fisk called to his allies, “these mercenaries are pathetic. Save your best attacks for their bosses.”

Mez somersaulted towards the nearest spearman, dodging his strike, and followed Fisk’s advice, ignoring opportunities for more-effective attacks in order to slip his dagger between the man’s greaves, scoring a nasty flesh wound.

The spearman dropped his spear and collapsed, fainting from the pain.

Schlobrock glanced over her shoulders at Fisk and Mairrethid, judging which one was poorer off, and decided to cast a quick heal on the half-frozen dwarf with the crossbow bolt wound rather than the sickened wizard, even though the dwarf seemed a bit better off. The wounds she had taken herself, from the fat one’s spell and then the spear, were bad but not bothering her much since successfully destroying the offending spearman. She pressed forward, stepping over the downed spearman and into melee range with the fat one again.

Gherota advanced on the fat one as well, moving more slowly and deliberately as she issued a warning to the intervening spearman--the only one left standing. “I’m going to run your boss through in a few seconds and if you’re still standing between me and him, I’ll get the both of you with the same sword-stroke.”

“If you betray me, Gus,” the fat one said, countering her attempt at intimidation, “my friends will see you tortured to death, whether or not I’m around to watch them do it.”

The spearman stood his ground.

“Tron,” the skinny one yelled to the fat one, “fall back, you’re about to be flanked!”

Ignoring Fisk for a moment, the skinny one pointed his wand at Gherota and launched another icy-blast, catching the female warrior and freezing up the joints in her armor.

Gherota grimaced against the pain and pushed forward, defiantly, though considerably slowed.

Fisk grinned bitterly, seeing an opening when the skinny one decided to ignore him. The icy spell had worn off, and Fisk was able to move more quickly, again. He darted forward towards the skinny one and threw his curse at him.

Working another spell, Fisk summoned his own life energy and cast it forward at the rival mage, scoring a hit and forming a conduit of black, sticky plasma. Pulling back now on the strand, he reversed the flow of energy. The skinny one got weaker, drained of vitality and essence, while Fisk grew stronger.

“Feel that?” Fisk taunted. “That’s me inside of you, taking exactly what I want. Taking what’s mine.”

The skinny one groaned, trying to maintain his composure to summon power for another spell.

Mez was on the move, somersaulting again to roll under the fat one’s guard and pop up behind him. He feinted with his knife, but neglected the chance to attack. “Help me get a clear shot at this guy’s back, Schlob,” Mez called to the ork.

Schlobrock had a clear path to the fat one, now, with three spearmen dead and the fourth timidly interjecting himself between Gherota and his master.

“I can do bedder dhan dhad!” the ork howled, stepping into the fat one with axe raised. As he began to bring the weapon down, he chanted an orkish prayer and the axeblade erupted with a blue inner glow. The weapon connected, and the blue light transferred into the fat one, along with a massive concussive force.

The fat one began to glow with a dazzling blue light as he slumped from the damage.

Mez was there to take advantage of the situation, guided by divine orkish magic, slipping his dagger between patches of chain mail, severing the fat one’s spine two inches below the base of his neck.

The one didn’t make a sound as his body went limp, falling face-first into the dirt.

The three crossbowmen glanced at each other, their dead comrades, and at the skinny one locked in Fisk’s vampiric embrace, and reached a mutual decision not the fire their loaded crossbows. They turned and ran after their horses.

“Come on Gus!” one of them yelled at the only spearman who still lived.

Gus glanced about the situation, unsure of what to do.

Gherota winked at him.

He dropped his spear and took off after the others.

“Cowards,” the skinny one said, raising his wand with pained action to cast another spell at Fisk. This one was a more potent version of his ice spell, based on acid, and as the blast smashed into Fisk’s chest it exploded, splashing the surrounding ground with a burning acid.

Fisk did not burn, however.

“Feel that?” Fisk said, releasing the black plasma conduit and raising his fist. “I’m using a fragment of your soul as armor. You can’t hurt me, but I can hurt you.”

He released a blast of energy from his fist, and it collided with the skinny one’s chest with blistering, rending energy. The skinny one was knocked off his feet and into the ground, where he lay, smoking slightly, unmoving.

Another wisp of vital energy flowed into Fisk as he reaped a dark reward for felling another opponent.

“Leave the horses, or we chase you can kill you,” Gherota yelled at the retreating minions, who were starting to untie their animals.

The four men paused, barked a few frantic words at one another.

“That you keep your lives is one mercy,” Gherota boomed, “but don’t push it!”

They backed off, leaving the animals, and started jogging back towards town.

“That’s a bad idea,” Mez said. “Remember what the fat one said to ole Gus, there? These guys have friends, and some of those minions are going to tell the friends what happened.”

“They failed,” Gherota answered. “Our enemies’ friends will kill them if they can find them. They won’t be found.”

“At least one of them is going to start drinking as soon as they get back to Red Rock, and when they do they’ll get picked up by the fat man’s friends,” Mez said. “And then they will talk.”

“So what if they do?” Fisk asked, dousing the acid with his canteen to neutralize it. “The Legend of Gurnlocke Fisk is still being written, but it is one that dissuades others from becoming my enemy. We dealt with these men, and we will deal with their friends when the time comes. We will take their lives, we will take what they own, and fear will be heaped upon our names.”

“Dark,” Mairrethid said, stifling a cough. He had retreated to a sitting position but was starting to recover. “Dark, but I like it.”

“Just to be clear,” Gherota said, “this wasn’t about settling a score for me. I assumed they were here to attack and everything this fat one said seemed to confirm them. I don’t entirely approve of hitting them first,” she eyed Mairrethid unhappily, “but it was self defense.”

“Right,” Mez said. “I’m going to loot their corpses for the same reason, because they have friends and I want to buy some better armor and maybe hire eight guys to back me up next time.” He stressed the word “me.”

“Zame goez bor dhe guyz widh dhem,” Schlobrock said, nodding. “Zelb debenze.”

“Probably just as big a bunch of jerks as the guys leading them,” Mez snorted, his frown turning into a bit of a grin.

“Dying is pretty much what mercenaries get paid for,” Gherota added.

“Well,” Mez said, sighing in mock-fatigue, “let’s go through their pockets and see what the short-term upside of this fight was. The fear that will be heaped upon my name isn’t jingling in my pocket yet.”

“And dhen we can ged on whid our mizzion,” Schlobrock added.

Next Ch 03: Burning Things Builds Friendships