Somewhere down in the caverns below Steelhold...
"Keep it down, damn you!" A cloaked dwarf hisses at a woman, covering her mouth. She had been whining about her child, oh where was her poor child, had they seen her?
"She's probably with one of the other groups," Rhaken whispered. "Don't fuss about it. Just keep quiet and don't move."
"But-"
"Shut it."
"But my child-"
"Shut your fucking face, woman!"
Her eyes flared with the anger of the ignorant, but at least she was quiet now. Typical. Here they all were, trying to save her life, and she was risking getting them all killed.
Rhaken's men weren't exactly elite operatives, nor had they been able to properly prepare, but they did well enough. Firewood had been quickly gathered from cavern trees and pitched into small campfires, forming a small perimeter on an underground hill carpeted in fungus. They had followed their leader's instructions to the letter, having a dwarf set up watch between each pair of fires so the glare of the flames wouldn't impede their sight. The few not on watch duty were keeping the civilians in line. One sat by a fire, a brace of long, slender saplings by his side, a pilfered knife in one hand. One by one, he sharpened the tips of the shafts and held them over the blaze to harden. Makeshift spears. Complete crap if their foes came armored, but troglodytes had yet to learn the fundaments of tool-making. They just had their own leathery hides.
Some time went by in relative quiet. Just the crackling of the fires and the unsteady roil of cavern noises - a drip from a stalagtite high above, and endless, indistinct echoes from far away. If you were paranoid enough, you could make those echoes out to be anything. They could be cave spiders scuttling about. They could be the mating calls of crundles. Or they could be the cry of something else - some ancient creature, forgotten by dwarf and man and elf, fast approaching to claim their lives. Best not to think about it to much.
A sudden noise. The pattering of footsteps, coming from somewhere to Rhaken's left. From the fortress stairwell?
"Dwarf, I think," said one of his boys, an old army tracker and poacher. How he could tell, Rhaken would never know. He just wished the bastard had been quieter with the footfalls.
Sure enough, a dwarf was approaching. Some dumb civilian, who'd been holed up in the fortress, no doubt. Didn't seem particularly burned. He had probably huddled somewhere safe, like the garbage heap.
"I think it's clear, guys! The fires are going out and I think the baron's been dealt with!" The dwarf was a bit too happy about all this. A bit too loud, too.
Rhaken's boys gestured wildly to the other dwarf, trying to see if they could convey the message of "quiet, you fucking imbecile" before something heard him-
"Head's up! We got movement!" One of the perimeter guards, three fires away from Rhaken.
"How many?", demanded the boss.
"Three of 'em. Shit, it's trogs!"
Rhaken cursed under his breath. "Spears, boys! Look alive! Protect the civilians!" He ran to pick up a spear himself. Here's hoping they did the trick.
His boys, as well as any other former military among them, ran for the pile of spears. They formed up as best they could, forming a shabby spearwall that would make any drill sargeant throw a fit. Still better than nothing. Rhaken's remaining men went around the civilians, trying to cover them should any trogs get past the front line.
The brutish creatures were running toward them, foaming at the mouth, massive fists swinging wildly. Their wild eyes blazed. They were hungry, and keen to feast on delicious beardling. Not on my watch, Rhaken thought.
The first came barreling into the line. Too dumb to protect itself, it managed to ram three spears several inches deep into its chest. One seemed to have hit its heart, because the beast started to topple backwards, breaking the spears and taking the tips with it.
The second came. It grabbed the spear of the dwarf to Rhaken's right and swung it aside, throwing it and its wielder over and into the rest of the men. Rhaken was smart enough to duck it and thrust the spear into the creature's knee. It roared in pain and twisted, snapping off the tip. Rhaken cursed. Fortunately, his boys saw the opening and started stabbing the creature wherever they could. One got lucky and hit the windpipe, and the second troglodyte fell as well, lying beside its friend with a broken spear jutting out of its throat.
They didn't have time to reset the formation. The third of them came barreling in, throwing aside the feeble spears with a swing of its arms. Rhaken had discarded his spear shaft and taken up his shiv, but he could never get close enough without being pounded into beard pudding.
Ah, fuck it.
Rhaken threw the shiv.
It was a stupid idea. The thing wasn't properly balanced. nor was it particularly sharp. He'd be lucky if it even hit, much less did anything. A desperate effort. Foolish, even. And now he was completely unarmed, just like most of his men, and facing a creature several times their si-
Wait. He nailed it in the eye. It ran off screaming.
"Nice shot, boss!"
"Thanks," he replied. There goes a perfectly good shiv.
Rhaken advanced on the newcomer, calm as a cavy. Then he grabbed the blundering idiot by the collar and headbutted him in the nose.
"If you hadn't done this in ignorance, I'd tear off your beard with my bare damned hands and feed it to you," he seethed at the dwarf, now bleeding on the floor. "Take us up. And keep the fuck quiet, or I'll feed you to the trogs."
Rhaken's men started stamping out the fires and rounding up the civvies. Once back in the fort, they'd probably take it upon themselves to put out the remaining fires and coordinate the cleanup effort. As for himself, he was heading straight for the baron's quarters, hoping to find either the doctor or that psycho with the mask.
Rhaken sighed. He needed a drink. And a new shiv.
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Topic: Steelhold - A Penal Colony Succession Game (Read 57770 times)