Fland strode silently between the trees
as he surveyed the blighted clearing. The brown leather of his armor
and the deep green of his cloak let him blend into the forest so that
none of the goblin guards would spot him. That would not be the case
if he moved half a dozen paces forward though. The trees became
twisted caricatures, those that still lived anyway. Most were dead
and lifeless, rotted away husks. The ground of the clearing was not
the lush greens of spring, but a blighted waste of twisted weeds and
gray mud.
The goblins that Fland surveyed were
unbothered by the wasteland around them. Being creatures of corruption they took a perverse pleasure in the despoiled land. No, the only
thing that bothered them was light of the noon day sun that they
tried to hide from under pathetically crude shade tarps. They were the
unlucky dayguard, wishing nothing more than to climb back down into
the pit they stood guard over.
Fland took one of his light maces in
his left hand while he slowly drew a javalin with the right. With
honed skill, he crept to the edge of his forest cover, a nearly
invisible wraith. He liked that thought. He was an avenging wraith
summoned by the forest to strike back at the parasites knawing at its
heart. With a grim smile he burst into motion, exploding into the
clearing from the forest. Before the goblins even realized that what
had materialized before them was a man, Fland rainned death upon
them. He hurled the javalin as he charged, impaling one of the foul
creatures. His first strike was for the forest.
The cowardly and slow witted goblins
were caught off guard by the attack. Two tried to bolt towards
safety, tripping over their own feet. Three of the four that did not
immediately flee tried to find their weapons in a blind confussion.
They looked about expecting attack from all directions, waving their
weapons in the air so that they nearly hit the guards adjacent to
them. Only one had the where-with-all to draw its crude sword and
face towards the avenging forest wraith that was rushing towards
them.
Fland drew his other light mace without
missing a stride. He covered the ground in a rush while the goblins
became lost in panic. The one goblin that tried to meet his charge
died quick. One mace swatted away its weapon while the other cracked
its skull. Fland did not slow his momentum. Another stride brought
him into the midsts of the goblins. His twin maces drummed against
skulls and weapons in rapid succhession as he struck any that he
could reach.
CRA-CRACK. CRA-CRACK.
Each paired stroke was a drumb beat of
battle as he crushed bones and mangled flesh. He rolled the maces
with his wrists to strike rapid, repeated blows on the goblins. The
goblins that had found their weapons, and a little courage, thrust at
him. Unskilled attacks were ineffective against the whirling wall of
steel that his maces formed. He batted away their pitted blades then
caught the goblins in the face with twin strikes. In less than a
minute, he had decimated the small company of guards. They lay on the
ground battered and beaten.
All but one.
Fland spied the one goblin that he had
not yet reached. Its short legs were pumping rapidly to cary it to
the warning bell. A solid strike with its sword would be enough to
rouse more goblins from bellow, to warn them that a threat had
arrived. Fland could not reach the goblin even as he broke into a
sprint. He dropped his right mace, letting it thump to the ground so
he could draw a javalin, but even that would not do. The goblin was
paces away from bell, ready to strike it in hopes of salvation and
Fland could do nothing to stop it.
As the goblin rased its sword to sound
the alarm a streak of silvery light burst from the forest. It
zig-zagged like silver lightning until it struck the goblin in the
back. The goblin could not even manage a scream as it fell dead,
smoke belching from its mouth and nostrils, a deep burn obvious on
its back.
Fland slowed and turned to the forest
to watch the elf walk out of the forest. He called to his companion,
"Its about time you finally did something."
The elf's ebon hair flowed down past
his shoulders. He wore a long, flowing blue tunic with green trim.
Arcane sigils decorated the wrists and collar. The crystalin cane in
his hand caught the light, glimmering like an out of place star in
the corupt waste land around the hole. It was a straight, solid rod
cut to taper to a point. At the top it was carved into faceted sphere
that made a good hand hold, or on occasion club.
The elf frowned, a look he was quite
practiced at, as he said to Fland, "I told you to be more
careful. If it had rung that bell every one of the disgusting little
worms would have raced out of that hole and overran us. Well, you at
any length, I would have made good an escape while they gave you the
ignominus end you so rightly deserve."
"Bah," Fland waved off the
elf's castigations as though he were shooing away a bothersome fly,
"You're just mad that I took down half-a-dozen of the gobs while
you just got the one."
"Two," the elf said with a
haughty smirk. He pointed to another goblin laying among the massed
fray. The burn on his back undeniable proof of the mage's handywork.
"You never saw him. He was laying on the ground asleep before
you started your rash attack. When you dashed in and started swinging
about like a mad man he woke up and was about to put that crude sword
of his into your back."
"Well, good thing I have you along
then ain't it Pointy-ears?" Fland returned with a smirk.
The elf fummed, "Elarrolinas!
Elarr if you must. I use your name, I expect you to use mine."
Fland ignored Elarr as he moved to the
edge of the pit. The earth around it was dark, like a necrotic wound.
After examining it he called over his shoulder, "Time to find
out what's down there. I'll scout ahead," then jumped down the
the forboding shaft without giving his partner time to protest.
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