The next chapter in the adventure. Unfortunately I wasn't in on this session but managed to cobble this together with help from blogger McBeth and a great summary from blogger Pooch, with some contributions from other adventurers. Thanks chaps - check out Nevyn's Panther pic, so cool.
The Woman in the Yellow Dress
For a while, the most urgent enemies were the doors.
Hadig regarded the remains of the front entrance with the expression of a man who felt that timber ought to have shown more determination. One hinge hung crookedly from the frame; the other had gone somewhere beneath the dead wolf. The latch was beyond saving.
He dragged a heavy table across the hall, turned it onto its side and shoved it against the opening.
“There.”
Cecelia looked at the gaps around it.
“That will slow them.”
Hadig gave the table another push.
“It’ll slow them considerably.”
Nearby, Xosh knelt beside a damaged door, fitting broken pieces into place. Her wounds troubled her whenever she moved, but she worked patiently, murmuring a prayer as the splintered wood began to mend beneath her hands. Nevyn and Cecelia went out into the rain towards the southern pens, where they set about prising timber posts from the fence. The posts were firmly bedded, and working them loose proved a slow, tiring business; by the time they had gathered enough to brace the farmhouse doors, an hour and a half had passed.
By the time they had finished, crossing the kitchen required stepping over a bench, ducking beneath a diagonal timber and avoiding a loose board that Nevyn assured everyone was essential to the arrangement.
Eek inspected it from the doorway.
“If we survive, we may still never get out.”
“That,” Cecelia said, “is rather the intention.”
Pytor supplied tools, nails and anything else they asked for, accepting the steady dismantling of his furniture with only an occasional pained glance. His family remained close to the central room, emerging cautiously now that the sounds of battle had given way to hammering.
Outside, the barn burned lower. The rain hissed upon its blackening beams, and smoke drifted across the yard in long, ragged sheets.
Above them, the tower watch resumed. Before returning to the tower, Robin sought out Kuzma, who tended his wounds with her wizened hands and quiet, knowing ways. Her healing eased the worst of the damage he had suffered in the fighting, though a lingering ache remained as he climbed the stairs and settled behind the parapet, still careful of his injured shoulder.
Sarki took the opposite side, thin and still beneath his rain-darkened cloak, while Alfana and Stallios watched the approaches. Eek found a position from which he could see a reasonable amount of the yard while exposing very little of himself.
Aldren took the southern side of the farmhouse. Someone had to watch it. The goblins had already proved willing to come through more than one opening, and he had no wish to discover that they had spent the next attack staring north while an enemy climbed through a kitchen window behind them. Bruce perched beneath the eaves nearby, feathers fluffed against the damp.
“We shall have the quiet side,” Aldren told him.
The owl blinked.
“For once, I should like that to be a prediction.”
The next two hours passed with a slowness that felt almost generous. There were no axes at the doors, no claws scraping wood, no sudden cries from the yard. The defenders took turns sitting, drinking water and tending what wounds they could. Weapons were cleaned. Arrows were counted again, although counting did nothing to improve their number.
Hadig sat with his back against the wall and his weapon across his knees. For several minutes he appeared to be examining it. Then he snored. Cecelia looked over.
“He’s resting,” Nevyn said.
“I can hear that.”
Xosh closed her eyes nearby. Robin remained in the tower, but even there the quiet allowed his breathing to ease and the worst of his trembling to pass.
Aldren found that a little strength returned once he stopped expecting to die within the next few moments. He remained at his watch, staff in hand, studying the dark spaces between the southern buildings. Rainwater ran from the roof into a barrel beneath his window. Occasionally something shifted beyond the palisade, but when he looked more closely it resolved into a branch, a fold of smoke or a movement of shadow. He began to suspect that the night had found a way to make him tired in every possible manner. Then a woman screamed!
The sound came from the north. It cut through the rain so sharply that Robin was on his feet before the others had turned.
“There!”
Beyond the yard, near the darker ground towards the trees, a figure in a yellow dress struggled between several goblins. One had hold of an arm; another seemed to be hauling at the bright fabric. The figure twisted, stumbled and cried out again. Robin drew an arrow.
“They’ve got someone.”
Alfana leaned forward, searching the darkness.
“Who?”
“I can't tell,” replied Robin. “A woman perhaps. Wearing a yellow summer dress.”
Alfana thought for a moment before exclaiming with a start.
“Katarina! A girl Irina’s age from Illyanka. She got a new dress like that for her birthday recently!”
From the tower, the scene was a confusion of moving shapes, rain and drifting smoke, but the yellow dress stood out with terrible clarity. Someone was being dragged towards the woods. There seemed little time to decide anything beyond that. Sarki’s bow bent. Robin loosed beside him. Their arrows swept across the yard, and Eek raised a hand, sending a streak of crackling magic after them. Alfana joined the shooting, forcing the goblins around the struggling figure to duck and scatter. Below, the household jolted into motion. Hadig woke with his weapon already in his hand.
“What?”
“Some woman,” Eek shouted down from the tower - the stairwell amplifying his words. “Goblins have her!”
Nevyn peered through a window, saw the yellow dress and turned towards the door. For a heartbeat, he stood quite still. Then his expression changed.
“Oh.”
Hadig was hauling a brace aside.
“What?”
“I can do something.”
Nevyn dropped forward. His hands struck the floor as broad, padded paws. His body lengthened, his clothing disappearing beneath sleek black fur, and where the young druid had stood, a panther gathered itself with its tail lashing once behind it. Hadig stared. The panther 
sprang through the opening. Hadig grinned and followed.
Nevyn crossed the yard like a patch of darkness that had slipped free of the buildings. He ran low, placing his paws lightly even at speed. Rain shone on his black coat, but there was little sound beyond the soft impact of his feet and the steady hiss of water around him. Within moments he had passed beyond the strongest light from the farmhouse. Hadig came after him. Hadig was many useful things. He was strong, brave, difficult to discourage and extraordinarily willing to hit whatever needed hitting. He was also running through puddles in armour. The goblins waiting near the trees could hear him coming. The panther reached the edge of the ambush almost unseen. Hadig reached it very visibly. Bowstrings sounded from the darkness.
The first arrow struck him before he understood where the shot had come from. He stumbled, brought his weapon up and tried to turn towards the trees. More arrows followed. One struck his side. Another drove into him from farther along the woodline. He lurched onwards for two unsteady steps, suddenly surrounded by the small, vicious sounds of missiles passing close or striking home.
From the tower, Robin saw him falter.
“Hadig!”
The fighter tried to raise his shield. His knees gave way. He fell heavily into the wet ground and did not get up.
Nevyn heard the fall behind him. He turned, black ears flattening, and the darkness around him came alive. Goblins rose from hollows and low cover. Others darted from behind trees, their blades already drawn. The panther sprang at the nearest, forcing it backwards, but another came in from the side, and then another beyond that. His strength and speed had brought him directly into the middle of them. He twisted away from a blade, lashed out and felt his claws catch leather. A goblin yelped. Something looped across his body, tightened and dragged him sideways before he could complete the turn. More hands seized whatever they could reach. Nevyn snarled and fought, claws tearing through mud as the goblins hauled at him. He could see Hadig beyond them, lying still in the rain, but every attempt to reach him brought another attacker into his path.
The yellow dress moved nearby. For an instant, the figure wearing it turned towards him. It was much too broad across the shoulders.
On the tower, Robin stopped looking at Hadig long enough to look properly at the supposed captive. The figure had ceased struggling. One of the goblins released the yellow sleeve. The wearer straightened, revealing a height and build that distance, darkness and urgency had concealed. Beneath the sodden fabric were heavy boots. Above it was a hard, ugly face watching the farmhouse with considerable satisfaction.
Robin stared. “Oh, you—”
“What?” Sarki demanded.
“The woman.”
Eek risked another look. The figure in the dress raised an arm and pointed towards the fallen fighter.
“That,” Eek said, “is a hobgoblin.”
“Yes.”
“In a dress.”
“Yes.”
There was a brief silence. Then Sarki loosed another arrow.
“We should shoot it.”
Cecelia reached the opening just as Hadig disappeared beneath a shifting knot of small figures. Xosh came beside her, fastening her grip around her mace. For a moment, both women saw enough to understand the shape of the disaster. Hadig was down. Nevyn was surrounded. The goblins had drawn them away from the house, and now they were trying to take them. Cecelia called back towards the central room.
“Pytor! Keep everyone inside!”
Then she stepped out into the rain. Xosh followed. Above them, the tower defenders kept firing. Robin chose a goblin approaching Hadig and released, then reached for another arrow before the first had struck. Sarki worked beside him with a grim economy, drawing, aiming and loosing into the figures gathering around their companions. Eek’s magic flashed over the yard. Alfana held her positions, sending arrows towards any goblin who rose to shoot at the rescuers.
They could see the trap now, but seeing it did not make it easy to break. The goblins had chosen their ground well. They moved between cover, ducked behind trunks and used the struggling panther and fallen fighter to complicate every shot. Cecelia ran towards Hadig. Xosh angled towards the goblins dragging Nevyn. And, on the southern side of the farmhouse, Aldren was still trying to discover why everyone had begun shouting.
He heard the scream, but the building stood between him and its source. Then came the bows from the tower, hurried footsteps and a crash somewhere inside. He turned from his window, expecting someone to call an explanation. No one did.
“Bruce?”
The owl lifted his head. Another shout reached them, this time unmistakably Robin’s. Hadig’s name. Aldren was moving before he had decided what that meant. He hurried through the southern passage, staff striking the floor, and reached the hall to find the barricade partly shifted and rain blowing through the opening. Beyond it, the northern yard flashed with magic.
“Oh, for pity’s sake.”
He stepped outside. At first, the scene refused to arrange itself into anything comprehensible. Cecelia was running towards a body in the mud. Xosh was farther ahead. A black panther thrashed among goblins near the trees, and something in a yellow dress appeared to be directing proceedings.
Aldren stared at the panther.
Then at the dress.
Then he recognised Hadig.
The cold that went through him had nothing to do with the rain.
He was too far back. The others had already crossed most of the ground between the house and the ambush, while he was only now leaving the doorstep. Every stride seemed painfully short. His cloak caught against the displaced barricade, and he dragged it free with an irritation so fierce that for a moment he could barely form words.
A goblin rose near Cecelia. A second moved towards Hadig. A third was hauling at whatever bound the struggling panther. Aldren stopped. He planted his staff and lifted his free hand. The spell came readily, despite the weariness behind it. Three points of light gathered around his fingers, bright enough to throw sharp shadows across his face. He chose his targets. One dart for each. The missiles curved through the rain. The first goblin fell before it reached Cecelia. The second pitched sideways beside Hadig. The third jerked away from the panther and collapsed, its grip broken. Three shots. Three bodies. Aldren lowered his hand and started forwards again.
“Leave them alone!” he shouted.
No one close enough to hear would have mistaken it for a request.
Cecelia dropped beside Hadig.
Up close, he looked worse.
Arrows stood from his armour and clothing. His face had lost its colour, and the rain running across it made him seem terribly still. She pressed a hand against him, searching for signs of life while her shield covered as much of them both as it could.
A faint breath.
Another, weaker.
“Hadig.”
He did not answer.
Nearby, Xosh struck at a goblin trying to close on them, driving it back and taking its place between Cecelia and the trees. From the tower, an arrow passed over her shoulder and caught another attacker before it could join the first.
Nevyn was still fighting. Nevyn had taken more punishment than his panther form could endure, and the black fur fell away as he reverted to his human shape. With goblin hands still clutching his arms and clothing, he unleashed a thunderclap that cracked through the rain. The creatures flinched and cried out, hurt by the blast, but their grips held. Each time he struggled free of one, another seized him, and slowly, horribly, they dragged him farther from the house.
Aldren saw the movement and pushed harder. His breath rasped. Mud clung to his boots. Above him, the tower continued its desperate work, arrows and magic streaking towards the woodline. The hobgoblin in yellow had moved farther back. Aldren caught a glimpse of the dress between the trees and understood, with belated disgust, what had brought them all out here. There would be time to be angry about that later.
If there was later.
Sarki saw the movement first. Beyond the immediate struggle, farther along the northern approach, shapes were gathering in the rain. They were larger than the goblins on foot, moving with a rolling, restless purpose. He narrowed his eyes. A wolf stepped into a patch of thin light. A rider crouched upon its back. Another appeared beside it. Then more. Sarki counted until he wished he had stopped.
“Robin.”
Something in his voice made the elf turn. Together they watched the line emerge from the dark. Twenty goblins. With riders behind them
Below them, Cecelia knelt over Hadig while Xosh guarded her. Nevyn remained surrounded, fighting the goblins who were dragging him towards the trees. Aldren was still crossing the open ground behind the others, his green cloak dark with rain.
Eek followed the direction of the rangers’ gaze. For once, he had nothing to say. Robin drew an arrow, feeling the pain in his shoulder as he brought the string back.
“Keep shooting.”
Beyond the yard, the wolves began to advance.
No comments:
Post a Comment