The Cleric Quintet: The Fallen Fortress

 

"Put me down, old Fyren!" Danica called out. Cadderly's eyes popped wide, but the obedient dragon pulled up short beside a ridge, and both Danica and Vander hopped from their perches, running off before Cadderly could react



"Hey, we're missing all the fun!" Ivan realized as the wyrm set off once more, quickly gaining altitude. The dwarf started to call out to the dragon, but Pikel grabbed him by the beard and pulled him close, whispering*some-thing into his ear.



Ivan roared happily, and both dwarves scrambled from the dragon's back, one going for each wing.



"What are you doing?" Cadderly demanded.



"Just tell the damned wyrm to hold on tight!" Ivan cried back, and then he disappeared from view, crawling hand over hand down the scaly side. His head popped back up a moment later. "But not too tight!" he added, and then he was gone.



"What?" Cadderly replied incredulously, and it took him a few moments to catch on. "Fyrentennimar!" he cried desperately,



Danica and Vander sped off for the back and wider end of the valley, looking for any monsters that might have found their way through the stench and smoke. Only a few minutes after Fyrentennimar had put them down, with the dragon still flying wide, though now angled for his second pass, the two spotted several goblins and a single, lumbering giant coming down a barren, rocky slope, heading directly for them.



The firbolg and the monk nodded and split up, each seeking the cover of some of the many boulders in the region.



The goblins and the giant were looking back more than forward, too afraid of the dragon to even think that there might be other danger lurking ahead.



Danica came out in a rush from the side, hurling one dagger after another, dropping a pair of goblins, and then charged forward, diving into a roll before her surprised adversaries and coming up with a flurry of ferocious blows.



Facial bones were smashed apart, and knifing fingers crushed a windpipe. Before Danica had even played out her momentum, four of the nine goblins lay dead at her feet



The evil giant, on the far side of the band, turned to meet her charge, but noticed a movement back the other way and spun about, huge club at the ready. A goblin rushed by, eyeing Danica and shrieking in fear.



Vander cleaved it in halt



"Giant-kin," the club-wielding monster said to Vander in the rolling, thunderous language of the hill giants.



Vander snarled and rushed ahead, his great sword coming across in a blurring arc. The hill giant fell back, throwing its club up in a frantic defense. By sheer luck, the club fell in line with the rushing sword, Vander's blade diving many inches into the wood.



Vander tried to pull back on the sword, to retract it and slash again, but the club's hard wood held it fast



The hill giant, much larger and several times heavier than Vander's eight hundred pounds, rushed forward, letting go of its club and spreading its huge arms out wide to engulf its foe.



Vander twisted and punched out, connecting solidly but doing little to impede his enemy's momentum. The firbolg went down heavily, under two tons of hill giant flesh.



The four remaining goblins looked as much at each other as at Danica, each waiting for one of its companions to make the first move. They circled the apparently unarmed monk, one lifting a spear.



Now that the initial surprise was gone, Danica stayed down in a defensive crouch, preferring to let her enemies come to her. The goblins wisely spread out around her, but she remained confident, turning slowly so that no creature could remain behind her.



The spear wielder pumped its arm, and Danica started to dive to the right She stopped almost immediately, though, recognizing the goblin's move as a feint, and used the break to her advantage, coming back hard to the left, spinning low and straight-kicking one of the other goblins in the knee.



The creature jerked straight, then fell back, clutching its broken limb. *



Danica was already back to circling, now eyeing the spear wielder directly, taking its measure, using its body language to discern its every thought Cadderly saw the fight off to the side, noticed Vander buried beneath the flabby folds of the monstrous hill giant He tried to think of a way to help, but suddenly the valley walls were up around him again as Fyrentennimar began another breath-stealing approach.



Shayleigh nimbly moved about on the dragon's back, determined to play a role and firing her bow repeatedly. At first, her shots were random, nearly every one scoring a hit, but then she concentrated her fire on one hill giant By the time Fyrentennimar's flight took her beyond range of the beast its wide chest sported a half-dozen arrows.



"Get lower, ye damned fun-stealing wyrm!" came a cry from below, a cry informing Cadderly that Ivan and Pikel were in position. The young priest fell flat to his belly and peered over the front edge of the dragon's wing.



Hanging below him were the Bouldershoulder brothers, one in each of Fyrentennimar's clutching talons. The dragon did fly lower, and Pikel howled in glee as he put his tree-trunk club in line and used the dragon's momentum to splatter the head of a giant that was too slow in ducking.



Ivan took an axe swipe on the other side as they passed, but he mistimed the blow badly and caught nothing but air.



"Sandstone!" the frustrated dwarf bellowed.



Cadderly's orderly sensibilities could not accept the craziness about him. Helplessly shaking his head, he managed to sit back up and dropped a hand into a berry-filled pouch. He uttered the last words of the enchantment in resigned tones, then took out a handful of the berries and tossed them randomly into the air. The seeds exploded into tiny bursts of flame as they hit, startling and stinging giants, wounding and even killing a few goblins.



Fyrentennimar swerved up again, slightly, as the valley started to narrow, but the friends knew that he would not soar away, knew that he had not finished the run.



A swarm of creatures huddled about the back end of the valley, hemmed in by the sheer walls and Cadderly's biting enchantment Their frenzy multiplied many times over as the dragon reared near them. Giants stuffed goblins through the archway (one actually passed through without being hit, to run screaming down the rocky slope on the other side), and then many giants, in sheer terror of the great dragon, jumped in themselves.



The dragon's serpentine neck shot forward, and then came the flames. Fyrentennimar's maw waved from side to side, changing the fire's angle, immolating the whole mass of creatures.



On and on it went, interminably long for the stunned Cadderly.



Agonized cries came from creatures who were soon no more than crackling bones; all the monstrous swarm seemed to flow together in a singular bubbling mass.



"Oo," Pikel muttered admiringly, the dwarf having a fine view of the catastrophe from his low perch. Ivan, shaking his head in disbelief, couldn't find the words to reply.



*****



Danica saw the panic welling in the goblin, knew that it wanted to throw the spear and run off. She locked her gaze upon it fully, forced it to stare into her eyes, almost hypnotizing in their intensity.



She had to hold the goblin's shot a bit longer, until the anxious club wielder to her right made the first move.



Danica straightened and seemed to relax, though she kept her intimidating gaze steady. She dipped and turned suddenly, caught the club in both hands as it predictably came across, and slid down, hooking the surprised goblin's knees with her feet and pulling the creature around hqf.



The goblin jerked suddenly, its eyes popping wide, and Danica, though she couldn't see the spear sticking from the goblin's back, knew that her timing, and her understanding of her enemies, had been perfect



She came up in a spin, tearing the club from the dying creature's grasp and hurling it straight back, into the chest of the next charging goblin. The creature fumbled with the unexpected missile for a moment, getting it tangled with its sword, then finally tossing it aside. It managed to focus its attention on Danica just as her foot snapped into its throat.



Again Danica was spinning, leaping over the dead club wielder and tearing the spear from its back. Three running strides later, she let fly the crude weapon. The spear didn't hit the mark exactly, but it did get tangled up in its original owner's legs enough to drop the goblin hard to its face.



It lay on its belly for a moment, trying to shake away its dizziness.



Then Danica was upon it, and it was dead. The monk looked back to the one remaining goblin, the first of the four she had hit. It was floundering about, half-hopping, half-crawling, as it continued to grasp at its shattered kneecap. It struggled past two of its companions, two goblins that had died grasping at daggers. Thinking to arm itself, the struggling creature ambled for the daggers, but stopped and looked up, dismayed, for Danica had gotten there first.



Vander slapped futilely against the giant's bulk, thrashing about with all his strength, even biting the monster on the neck. But all the savagery the powerful firbolg could muster seemed puny beneath the sheer size of the hill giant



Vander found his breathing hard to come by and wondered how long he could hold out beneath the two-ton behemoth. His estimate lessened considerably when the hill giant began to bounce, pushing off the ground with its huge hands and free-falling back on top of poor Vander.



Vander's initial thoughts were to curi up in a ball. He realized, though, that his body could not take the pounding for long, whatever he might do - the first bounce had blasted out his breath, and he could only draw small amounts of air between each subsequent slam. Every time the hill giant came crushing back down, Vander expected his rib cage to collapse.



Without even thinking of the movement, Vander used one moment of freedom to tuck his legs up near his belly. Fortune was with the firbolg, for when the hill giant came back down, its own weight drove Vander's knees hard into its abdomen. Back up went the hill giant, higher this time, fully extending its arms that it might come back with one final slam.



Up came Vander's feet, straight out in pursuit of the monster's belly, locking the giant up high before its fall could build momentum. The desperate firbolg strained with all his might; leg muscles flexed and ripped and stood out like iron cords. The giant, its girth hanging several feet off the ground, freed up one hand and punched Vander across the face, nearly knocking him senseless.



Vander accepted the blow, but kept his focus on his legs and groaned against the strain, compelling his massive legs to straighten.



The giant rose up a few more inches; Vander knew that he could not hold the weight. He kicked out a final time, trying to buy himself precious seconds and space, then curled his legs and rolled, securing the butt of his sword against the ground and angling the blade straight up.



The giant's eyes widened in horror as it flailed its arms and thrashed about for the instant of its descent, but it could not get to the side, could not get out of line. The sword entered it at the juncture between its belly and its chest, driving upward through the monster's diaphragm. The hill giant planted its quivering arms firmly, broke its fall so that it would not further impale itself.



Vander was free, now, but he did not immediately^roll out from under the giant. He grasped his blade in both arms and heaved it straight up, driving it deeper into the giant's flesh.



The quivering arms buckled altogether, and the giant slid down the blade, issuing a long, low groan as the tip of the sword came against its backbone and stopped its descent for a moment. Then the sword broke clear, and the behemoth lay very still, feeling no pain, feeling nothing at all.



Vander, pressed again under the enormous weight, jerked the sword a few times to make sure the monster was dead, then began the task of crawling out. Danica, finished with her own work, was soon crouched beside him.



*****



Eventually the dragon's fire ceased, leaving the entire horde of creatures at the narrow end of the valley lying together in a bulbous, smoldering mass.



Those monsters behind the dragon could have rushed in to strike at the low-flying beast's back, but they did not, for they were too terrified to even approach the deadly wyrm.



Ivan and Pikei waved weapons at them and taunted them, trying to draw them in.



"Aw, run off then, ye cowardly bunch!" a frustrated Ivan yelled.



A moment later, when the dragon's talons let go of the dwarves, Ivan yelled a singular note of surprise. He and Pikel dropped fifteen feet to the ground, bounced right back to their feet, and hopped about, dazed.



Fifty feet behind them, the fleeing giants and goblins turned and stared curiously, not knowing which way to run.



"Humble priest, get you down!" Fyrentennimar roared, shaking Cadderly from his daze. The young priest turned back to old Fyren, wondering if the ethics enchantment had ceased, wondering if he was about to die.



"Get you dotoni" Fyrentennimar cried again, and the force of his stone-splitting voice nearly knocked Cadderly from his perch. He and Shayleigh were moving in an instant, crawling down the spiked back and tail and dropping the last few feet to the ground to stand beside Ivan and Pikel.



"Playing with dragons," Ivan remarked sarcastically under his breath.



Shayleigh lifted her bow but had to close her eyes and look away as Fyrentennimar, wings beating fiercely, pivoted in the air, whipping the smoke and dust about. The dragon dipped into a short stoop, reared again, and then fell over the remaining group of monsters, tail thrashing, spiked foreclaws slashing, great hind legs kicking, and wings beating a hurricane of wind. A swoop of the dragon's tail sent four goblins soaring, splattering them against the valley wall with force enough to shatter most of the bones in their bodies, and then the tail itself connected on the wall, opening a huge crack in the stone and leaving crimson marks where the goblins had been. A giant, horrified beyond reason, lifted its club and charged.



Fyrentennimar's maw clamped over it, hoisting it easily into the air. Squealing like some barnyard animal at the slaughterhouse, the giant freed one arm from the side of the wyrm's maw and slapped its pitiful club against the armored head.



Fyrentennimar bit the giant in half, its legs dropping free to the stone.



Even sturdy Ivan was shaken by the spectacle of the dragon's wholehearted slaughter, by the mass of bubbling corpses and the flying and broken bodies of those enemies caught in close to the enraged wyrm.



"Glad he's on our side," Ivan said, his breathless voice barely a whisper.



Cadderly grimaced at the words, remembering again the tone Fyrentennimar had used when ordering him down. He studied the dragon's lusty, hungry movements as old Fyren reveled in the blood and carnage,



"Is he?" the young priest muttered under his breath.



Chaos



A giant's broken form came flying up over the wall of the valley, landing hard and bouncing down the rocky slope past Vander and Danica. They heard the chaos within the valley, heard the dragon's primal roars and the horrified screams of the doomed monsters. Neither Danica nor Vander held much pity for the evil goblins and giants, but they looked to each other with honest fear, simply overwhelmed by the awakening storm within those entrapping walls. Danica motioned for Vander to move around to the valley entrance, while she took a more direct course up the slope. Before she even got to the top, she saw monsters, and pieces of monsters, flipping into the air, tumbling about and dropping back into the frenzy. Her nerves on end, Danica could not hold back a chuckle, thinking that the scene reminded her of Pikel's work in the Edificant Library's kitchen, the druidic-minded dwarf stubbornly (and clumsily) tossing a salad of woodland flora despite



Ivan's roaring protests.



The dragon's tail must have hit the stone wall then, for Danica, though she was separated from the blow by forty feet of solid stone, suddenly found herself siding down.



*****



Cadderly slipped into the dreamstate, into the song of Deneir, and reached his mental perceptions out to Fyren-tennimar.



A wall of red blocked his entry.



"What do you know?" Shayleigh asked, recognizing the concern, even dread, in the young priest's expression.



Cadderly did not answer. Again he fell into the song, reached out to the dragon. But Fyrentennimar's savage rage blocked him and held any real communication far away.



Cadderly knew in his heart that old Fyren would no longer consider him an ally, that in the bloodlust, the dragon had reverted to its true, wicked nature. He moved the notes of the song toward the sphere of chaos, thinking to delve there again and attempt to tame the wyrm once more.



He opened his eyes for just a minute, regarded the complete slaughter of the few remaining monsters, and sensed that no such spell could get through the outraged dragon's instinctual mental defenses.



"Get back to the far end of the valley," he said as calmly as he could to Shayleigh. "Ready your bow."



The elf maiden eyed him gravely, considering the implications of his grim tone. The enchantment is no more?" she asked.



"Ready your bow," Cadderly repeated.



There wasn't much left of the monstrous column; Fyren-tennimar would be finished in mere minutes. Cadderly called up his protective magics, drew a line of dragoqpane across the valley floor, and brought a magical fire shield around him and the two confused dwarves at his side.



"What are ye doing?" Ivan demanded, always suspicious of magic and especially on edge with an enraged dragon barely a hundred yards away.



"It is a spell of the elements," Cadderly tried to quickly explain. "On me, it will stop the dragon fire."



"Uh-oh," Pikel mumbled, figuring out the implications of Cadderly's precautions.



"On you it will diminish the fire, but not completely," the young priest finished. "Get to the wall and find a rock to hide behind."



The dwarves didn't have to be asked twice. Normally, they would have remained boldly at their ally's side, ready for battle. But this was a dragon, after all.



So Cadderly stood alone in the center of the valley, surrounded by carnage, by torn reminders of the dragon's wrath. He stooped low and grabbed a handful of dirt from one of Fyrentennimar's footprints, then stood straight and resolute, reminding himself that he had done as the tenets of Deneir demanded. He had destroyed the Gkearufu.



Still, he thought of Danica, his love, and the new life they had begun in Carradoon, and he did not want to die.



Fyrentennimar swallowed whole the last cowering goblin and turned about. Reptilian eyes narrowed, shooting glaring beams even under the light of day. Almost immediately, those beams focused directly on Cadderly.



"Well done, mighty wyrm!" Cadderly cried out, hoping that his guess might be wrong, that the dragon might still be caught within a goodly moral code.



"Humble priest..." Fyrentennimar replied, and Cadderly thought the booming voice would surely destroy his hearing. Since he had leveled the enchantment at the dragon, Cadderly had only heard that voice twice, both times when the dragon had suspected that enemies were about. Crouched low like a hunting dog, walking on all fours with his leathery wings tucked in tight to his back, the dragon quickly halved the hundred-yard distance to Cadderly.



"You have done us a great service," Cadderly began.



"Humble priestl" Fyrentennimar interrupted.