Part IV
Citadel of Death

Three quick arrows to the body, and the demon fell twitching to the damp soil. Saucy nocked another arrow, rapidly scanning the field for more targets. Nothing moved save for Slicer, in his endless hunt for interesting totems; Sissy, wrapping a bandage around her bleeding right thigh; and Eddy, quietly moving his hands in some ritual prayer to the Light.

The joy of tactical success from their first few missions had turned into a grim satisfaction for simply surviving a day’s “scouting.” She began her usual post-combat ritual of gathering spent arrows. Reconnaissance-in-force my ass, thought Saucy. Kashya is hanging us out like grapes to be plucked, holding her rogue company back until we find the main body of demons. In the meantime, all the risks are undertaken by our little band. For this we get free beer and a sheltered place to sleep. Saucy shrugged. Fair enough, she thought, my new bow is worth a hundred battles. And this is a good team we have here.

Eddy had quietly assumed the role of leader with little objection. His quick thinking, and his ability to size up a situation and suggest a sound plan of attack made him the natural leader.
And had earned him a groupie, thought Saucy. That little witch is all over him. She looked for Sissy.
Sure enough, Sissy had raised her robe to an indecent height while asking Eddy to check out the wounds on her leg. Saucy shook her head, marveling at how Sissy could act the coy milk maid, oblivious to Slicer's attentions and the carnage littering the ground in front of the Monastery gate.

With a glance at Slicer, Eddy pointed toward the huge double doors and nodded. Slicer grunted, and picked up a vial filled with purple liquid that he had found on a shaman's corpse. Moving with quiet efficiency, the band approached in their standard formation. Eddy on the left, Slicer on the right, Sissy and Saucy two paces behind them. Slicer kicked the doors open with yet another powerful blow and bellowed out a thunderous challenge in the old mountain tongue.

Black rogues swarmed into the entryway. A running melee began that ended up in a pillared courtyard, decorated with a fountain topped by a statue of three rogues wielding bows. There, giant porcupines, shaggy Yeti, and deranged imps attacked the party from three sides. Backs to the fountain, their formation held, and the deadly effect of Saucy’s arrows and Sissy’s cold spells broke up the charge. Eddy and Slicer were a disciplined enough team that they attacked as a matched pair: Slicer’s devastating sword blows complemented by Eddy’s scepter and his seemingly impervious shield. In a few minutes, the courtyard was filled with dead and dying imps. Sissy leaned into the fountain to wash an ugly cut on her forehead caused by flying quills. Slicer sat quietly next to her, stanching the flow of blood from a deep gash in his right side. Saucy busied herself with retrieving arrows. Eddy knelt in prayer, and a soft blue glow suffused the Inner Cloister. Saucy never could figure out why, but whenever Eddy prayed, she felt the ache from her wounds subside, and her weariness recede.

In a few moments, the refreshed party stood before an iron bound double door. They entered the Barracks. But far from being the spartan quarters that Charsi had described, they entered a charnel maze of darkness. Chamber by bloody chamber they fought against nightmares come to life. Flame casting skeletons, goat demons, and corrupted rogues fell in a relentless slaughter until Eddy called the party to a halt. He pointed to a massive bronze door.

“This appears to match Charsi’s description of the forge entrance. We should find her hammer in there.”

Slicer kicked the door open with a great cry, and the four entered to stop short, amazed at what they saw.
Easily two dozen demonkin gave voice to gibbering war cries, while three shamans hurled balls of fire at the group. But it was the giant who drew the heroes’ gaze. “I will make weapons from your bones!” he roared.

Striding through the first wave of devilkin, the monster swung his hammer at Slicer, who ducked. The resulting blow to the door jamb cracked the very rock and brought stones raining down from the ceiling.
“Run!!” screamed Saucy, as Sissy let loose a glittering blue nova of frost that stopped the demons in their tracks, “We need room to fight this guy!”

She turned and fled, hearing the others close behind her. Through an archway, then another. A quick right, then a left. Down a dark hallway she ran, stopping to listen. Behind the door she heard the noise of imps chattering in their evil patois. Back down the hallway now. Pause. She heard nothing.

“Sissy, you back there?” No reply.
“Eddy? Slicer? Hey, where are you guys?” Her voice rebounded from the damp stone walls. Saucy glanced around and realized with a sinking feeling that she was alone, save for the glow emanating from her magic bow.

She ran back down the passage, ducking through a doorway. She turned left and instinctively ducked as an enormous hammer swung at her head. Her teeth felt the vibration as the hammer hit the wall, stone chips flying from the impact. The giant roared in frustration while Saucy dodged to her left and sprinted past him toward a glowing blue light. She bypassed the blue portal, hoping to divert the giant from an open invitation to rampage through the Rogue Encampment. Through the doorway she ran, the pounding of the giant’s feet close behind her. An imp slashed her left arm as she turned a corner, but she kept running.

“Eddy, where in the seven Hells are you?!” she shouted.
From far to her left, she heard Slicer’s thunderous cry, so she paused, put an arrow into the imp as it rounded the corner in pursuit, and ran back the way she had come. The Smith strode toward her, but she shouldered her way through a door standing ajar to her left and ran toward the sound of Slicer’s voice. The impact of the door shattering under the giant’s hammer led urgency to her flight.

Dashing through another door, she found herself back in the open courtyard with the fountain. Slicer and Eddy stood by the doorway, weapons poised. Sissy stood next to the fountain, her fingers delicately juggling a bright blue ball of sparkling energy. Devilkin lay strewn in grotesque postures all over the ground.

The giant burst through the door, and turned blue when Sissy’s magical bolt caught him in the chest. Eddy and Slicer rained down furious blows. Saucy knelt, and loosed arrows so quickly her bow hummed.
The giant got in a blow that shattered Eddy’s shield and drove him to his knees. It was the last blow he ever struck. Slicer’s backhanded slash ripped a fountain of gore from the giant’s throat, and he fell heavily to the paving stones. The imps behind him fled back into the darkened hallway.

Eddy picked up a cracked shield and shouted: “Counter attack, now, while they are still disorganized!”
He and Slicer leapt through the door, a deafening war cry on the barbarian’s lips, and a song to the Light booming from Eddy’s throat. Sissy hustled after them, with Saucy in close pursuit.

It was all over quickly, demon corpses littering the hallways where Saucy had fled mere minutes ago.
At last they entered the forge and dispatched one last Shaman. Slicer picked up a hammer and nodded to Eddy. “This is what Charsi needs,” he said, pointing to the runes on the handle.

“Saucy,” Eddy said as she summoned a blue portal from a scroll, “running off on your own is going to get you killed. Stay close to us, and keep your head on a swivel when we do a fighting withdrawal. Of course,” he continued with a wry grin, “if the giant hadn’t run after you, we would not have had the opportunity to set an ambush in the courtyard for those imps, nor been able to hit him with the old "high-low" move when you came running out. Guess it is sometimes better to be lucky than good.” Eddy grimaced as he rubbed his left shoulder. “That blow seems to have knocked something loose in here. I will need Akara’s help to heal this wound.” With that, he led them through portal, and back to the encampment.

It seemed almost instantly that they were back in the barracks, descending into the jail Akara had described as she healed Eddy’s shoulder. They sought the Inner Cloister. Deep into the darkness they fought. More than once, Saucy got lost, running through doorways and halls like a rat in a maze, while Slicer’s voice echoed against the walls, calling for her. All this running about under ground stinks, thought Saucy as they descended into the Jail’s third level. Better to fight under the stars, where the lords of lightning paint the sky with righteous fire.

They entered yet another dark chamber, and were confronted by a platoon of skeleton archers shooting icy arrows at them. Eddy and Slicer cut a path through the archers and turned to the right. Saucy called “Ware archers to the left” as behind her a door opened and more deadly bolts flew at the party. She returned fire, but heard a door bang open behind her and the grotesque bellowing of bovine demons fill the small chamber. Sissy sent forth waves of cold energy, trying to cover Eddy, who had been bowled over by the demons’ charge. Slicer, unaware that Eddy was no longer at his left, charged into the pack, sword flashing green ichor as it hit the leading monster. Sissy screamed a frantic warning.
“Slicer, get back, I’ll slow them down!! Eddy’s boxed in over there!”
Saucy felled the last archer and turned to attack the demons across the chamber.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Her right hand let the bright blue cold arrow fly. Its lazy progress toward the demon leader highlighted the tableau that unfolded before her. Eddy was beset by three demons on her left, Slicer by four directly in front of her as they emerged through a doorway. One demon left Eddy to the other two, and leapt at Slicer’s back, head lowered in a bull’s charge. The head flew from a demon in the doorway as Slicer’s sword flashed left to right, while three balls of lightning slammed into the his burly chest. His next sword stroke missed, shattering the blade on the door jamb. The blue arrow hit the demon leader between the eyes, shattering his skull. Then the charging demon buried his horns deep in Slicer's back.

The barbarian let out a howl of primal rage. With superhuman strength, he reached back with his shield arm, gripped the demon’s neck in an armlock, and then twisted his body rapidly to the right while pulling his other blade, which he had never before touched, from its sheath on his back. The sound of the demon’s neck snapping echoed through the chamber, its legs leaving the ground to knock the dying leader back through the doorway. Saucy let loose another arrow as the other two demons bit down on Slicer, one sinking his teeth into the barbarian’s left shoulder, the other his right leg. Eddy slammed one of the demons assailing him into the wall with his shield, and cracked the other’s knee as Saucy’s arrow buried itself in its back. Sissy screamed in wordless rage as she cast yet another wave of frost at the demons. Slicer, bellowing thunderous defiance in the Barbarian tongue, brought the curved, glowing blade down to cleave the skull of the demon chewing on his leg as he fell into a growing pool of his own blood.

Too late Eddy’s scepter crushed the skull of the demon worrying Slicer's shoulder.
Too late Saucy’s next arrow sank into the demon who had ripped Slicer’s leg open from knee to thigh, its horns now buried in the swordsman’s gut, its feet kicking impotently in the air behind it.
Too late Sissy’s last chilling bolt hit the demon’s skull, which exploded in a shower of ice.

Too late.

Slicer rolled from the demon’s corpse, blood pouring from his back and pumping from his thigh, and sat up against the chamber’s wall while Eddy knelt next to him, trying vainly to stem the flow.
“Eddy,” he whispered, blood bubbling from his mouth, “you are the finest warrior I have ever fought beside. Please sing for me.” He paused, as a spasm of pain wracked his body. “I go to cook in the king's banquet hall, high in the Great Mountains.” Another tremor shook him body. Slicer put his left hand on his stomach, trying to stop the crimson seepage there. “Tell my father I died with a song in my heart and a sword in my hand. Tell,-‘” he choked on the fountain of blood in his throat, “my brother . . . to,-‘”

Then he spoke no more as his body went limp.

Saucy fell to her knees in disbelief. The great man mountain lay still, his broad shoulders leaning against the damp stone wall, his clear blue eyes glazed over, his right hand still holding onto the sword embedded in the demon's skull. Sissy stood with staff in hand, mindlessly slamming it into the skull of a slain demon, profanity streaming from between her lips. Through tear misted eyes, Saucy saw Eddy calmly lay Slicer down and fold his arms across his chest. Head bowed, his low, rich voice began a low dirge in the ancient Khanduran tongue, the Hymn to The Righteous Warrior; the song that the Paladins of Westmarch sing in funeral marches for knights slain in battle.

Saucy crawled forward and put her hand on Slicer’s great chest. She kissed his brow as the soft glow from Eddy’s strange magic bathed Slicer in a pale blue aura; rage and disbelief mixed with her tears. The sound of Eddy’s voice calmed Sissy, who walked over to stand next to Saucy and quietly let spill the tears that anger could not banish.

Forward to Part V >>