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Five minutes later
Limul.
Limul.
Limul!
The noise ceased and Limul sat up. The faint cries just on the edged of hearing had been occurring for five whole minutes, but were too weak to do anything but sooth Limul in his slumber. The sudden silence achieved what Navi’s voice could not and Limul sat up at the loss of a familiar noise. It was a trait he had inherited from his father, who once woke up and had saved his mother after she had vomited in the night, her sudden lack of breathing alerting him.
“What?” he said, sleepily. Suddenly, with mental acknowledgement, the link was re-established.
Thank the Gods! Limul!
“What? Navi, what time is it… Gods…” he muttered.
Limul, we’re in danger, insisted Navi. That sobered Limul, drunk on tiredness and drunk from drink itself. They had had a traditional dwarven send off for Raptor, which meant that all the human members of the camp were happily unconscious within fifteen minutes, sacred, extra strength, home-brewed (that night, actually) Strongrock burial rum still in hand, a must for every dwarven funeral. The whole experience, the stoic way they had to behave and the rites that were preformed with no body to receive them had drained him to the point of exhaustion. But now he was instantly alert, some power flowing from the gem into him.
“What is it?” he asked.
There’s a magical block on the campsite. Area effect. I almost lost my link with you. Someone or something wants to get into the camp without being observed.
“I… let’s go.” He picked up his axe and straightened up. He thought of raising the alarm and dismissed the idea. He wasn’t totally comfortable with revealing Navi, not yet.
Sneaking forward, he paused. He wasn’t good at sneaking.
Which way? He asked
That way. He headed in the direction as quietly as possible and almost tripped over the prone body of Urist. He rolled him over quickly.
Magical trap. I can smell it. It was the assailants. It seems to be weaved to not conflict with the block. The block has, however, evaporated.
He straightened up and began to head back into camp before a snap of twigs and the soft noise of someone trying to swear quietly and failing reached his ears. Turning round, he headed towards the noise. Waiting behind the tree, silently as possible, he breathed in deeply and manoeuvred round the tree, roaring. His axe came into contact with another one and he and his would-be prey were flung backwards. Sitting up, he and Workerdrone bemusedly surveyed each other.
Wow! He’s connected to “something magical and sentient via a link.”
They glared at each other.
“Later.” They both said at the same time. Standing up, Limul looked around.
“Assailants. Think they’re still here?” he asked.
“Doubt it,” said Workerdrone.
“Why not?”
“Because Walter’s missing.”
Two hours later
Plans had been suggested. Plans had been made. Plans had been discarded and plans had been made again. Kogan was a wreck, deeply wounded by the death of Raptor and now the abduction of Walter, who he considered a good friend and was staring into the fire. Forrest had announced that for all the enemies magical trickery (Urist was still unconscious but was now snoring. Evidently he wasn’t going to die any time soon.) they had been inexperienced and he could easily track them. Several people wanted a frontal assault, but something had prevented any real decision from being made yet. The abductors had dropped a dagger. Goblin make.
“We’ve been ignoring the problem long enough!” insisted Vilien. “We need to find a way of ridding the goblin menace. I know they outnumber us many times over, but we can’t just sit idly!”
“Calm down,” said Humaan. “This could simply be something picked up by slaving ships.”
“We can’t be sure of that! We can’t make assumptions that may lead to us being shanked by a goblin fuck with a knife!” shouted Vilien, drawing his sword to illustrate the point.
“Nor should we be doing anything rash!” interjected Tamunshin, angrily. He had been in a bad mood ever since they had killed the dragon. He was having visions of the lich. The lich never spoke, but simply mouthed the words ‘soon’. How he did this when his face was simply a skull did not seem to matter. Tamunshin could feel, instinctively, that whatever was happening would be happening soon.
“Rash? Armok damn it, we’re past the stage for rashness!” said Vilien. “A member of our company has been abducted! What do you expect us to do, wait for a ransom note?”
“Perhaps.” muttered Limul Thak.
“Perhaps?” spat Bardbeard. “Perhaps? Whatever course of action we take is to be decided but we cannot simply sit on our haunches and wait for an ultimatum. We need to –”
“Find out what we’re dealing with,” muttered Barbarossa, cutting over Bardbead. Everyone looked at him. “Whoever did this may not be experienced but they had access to offensive magic and wielded goblin weaponry. Whoever these people are, rushing in blindly is not going to help.”
“It’s never failed before.” said Workerdrone.
“Yes,” said Barbarossa quietly. His eyes glazed over and suddenly he was back in the northern mountains again, fleeing from the man shaped flames and the meaty monstrosities. He still woke up sweating occasionally, after falling just short of the entrance in his dreams, just short, not far enough, the smell of burning… “It has.”
Workerdrone quietened down. He knew what had happened. It had catapulted Barbarossa to the status of ‘war hero’ almost instantly during the war and everyone knew the story. The other's, however, continued to argue. After several seconds of meaningless shouting, a severed thumb was slammed onto the tree stump serving as a conference table. The chatter stopped instantly.
“Whatever the case,” said Bardbeard, removing his hand from the goblin thumb lying on the stump that had served as a good luck charm over the past half a dozen months. “If there are goblins, however we go about doing it, we need to exterminate them.” This was greeted with a round of nodding.
“Well,” said Barbarossa, leaning forward. “We have a will. Now we need to find a way. First off, we need to find out more about our foe.”
“I’ll do it,” said Kogan, still staring into the fire.
“No.” said Barbarossa. Kogan looked up in surprise. “You can lead the… whatever we decide to do, but I have to send Forrest for this.” He looked Kogan in the eye. “I’m not losing any more people to avoidable circumstances.”
Kogan stared at him for a long time, then grinned.
“Aye,” he said. “Aye. No more. No more.”
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Topic: To venture north, into Hell: Othtar Noloc, world at war (Read 106557 times)