Silvereye grumbled quietly to himself as he trudged down the corridor after Astesh. He knew it was a great honor to have been chosen by Tosid for this duty, and that it meant that Tosid trusted his skills. But then Workerdrone had assigned him to be goblin bait. Didn't he know that the marksdwarf's place was behind the fortifications, not out taunting things?
He took comfort in Tosid's unspoken approval, though. Tosid always seemed to have vast, far-reaching plans that took everything into account, and that he was part of them meant that he was part of the plans of the future of Lanternwebs. He had reached the bottom of the great spiral now, and stepped into the central staircase to begin the long climb to the forest gate. His crossbow bumped gently into his back with each step upward, the oak stock swinging on its cotton shoulder strap. Flint had had the recruits run exercises on these steps, five hundred stair steps to the top and a long corkscrew back to the bottom. Now, he wished that he had spent longer training on the stairs rather than jumping at the chance to move immediately to crossbow training, his legs aching as the weight of the armor seemed to grow with each step. At last, he reached the top of the stairway, passed Tosid's stockpile of carefully stacked dolomite blocks, and stepped out into the sunlight of the Forest of Funerals.
Drawing and loading his crossbow, Silvereye joined Astesh on the bridge. She had been a serious child, and had grown up into a serious dwarf. Even now, she stood with her sword drawn and her shield up as she stared at the base of the mountains.
"There they are." She said, pointing next to the chasm at a dull iron cap just visible over an outcropping of rock. "Just sitting out there, waiting for something."
"Hah!" replied Silvereye. "Scared is more like it. I'll bet I can put my bolt through his helmet from here."
"No." cautioned Astesh. "Workerdrone said that we are to be bait, and bait does not bite back until the trap is sprung. We have to wait to draw them into the fortress."
"They'd come running for us if I fired a shot at them, I'm sure." Said Silvereye, but he lowered his crossbow.
Below them, they heard Workerdrone shout for a charge, and the sounds of battle drifted up towards them.
"We should be down there, helping them." Silvereye said. "What if they can't fight off the goblins, and they all die because we're sitting up here?"
"We are helping." Astesh responded. "What would happen if these goblins followed us down, to join the ones already in the valley? If sixteen can defeat four, surely thirty-two can defeat six."
A soft sound of shifting rock behind him made Silvereye turn, and he looked up the slope behind him to see the third squad of goblins stealthily edging their way down towards the two of them on the bridge. He quickly nudged Ashtesh and fired, the steel bolt lodging itself firmly in the arm of one of the goblins. Silvereye reached into his quiver for a second bolt, but his grasping fingers discovered only that the quiver was empty. The single bolt that he had brought was now bounding towards him, attached to a goblin arm holding a sword.
The world was unfair, thought Silvereye. Ashtesh never had to worry about reloading her weapon. Flint didn't have to make sure he had grabbed a steel axe rather than a bone or wooden one. Their weapons and training didn't become useless at crucial moments in battle, when they needed them the most. He could feel his anger building inside him, bursting through his normal tension to replace nervous jitters with white-hot rage, rage that he focused on the first goblin wrestler to reach him as he drove the butt of his crossbow through the goblin's face with both hands.
This! This is what they must feel like! Silvereye thought to himself as he bellowed an echoing dwarven warcry, lashing out with a gauntleted hand to knock a swordsgoblin to the ground before bringing his crossbow overhead to crush its chest. Full of anger, full of adrenaline, without fear, without pain. Nothing but a weapon and invaders to use it on, each blow bringing a crunch of shattered bone and a spray of spilled blood, satisfaction rising with each enemy slain or sent fleeing before him. Looking up from the mangled goblin below him, he could already see them fleeing into the forests, Ashtesh in pursuit. His rage drove him forward, his crossbow swinging to snap the neck of a fleeing wrestler as his vision cleared and the anger left him, trembling slightly as he caught his breath and watched the remaining goblins flee into the deep forest, the corpses of their comrades littering the ground behind them.
---------------
Silvereye really needs to learn to carry more than one bolt at a time. I keep designating all of the single bolts for melting, but he seems to be able to find the one that I've missed.
Movie up later tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning.
Author
Topic: Lanternwebs (The End!) (Read 80104 times)