The Sword of Retribution

Danger in the Dark - Part 4

     Another noise came, this time from somewhere up ahead. It was the sound of sliding gravel, and this time they all began to grow nervous. In the total darkness that surrounded them, it was easy to imagine a creeping horde of unimaginably hideous monsters slowly moving up on them, getting closer, closer... Thomas’s heart thumped madly in his chest, and he fingered his holy ring of courage. Why aren’t you doing your job? he thought accusingly. I’m supposed to be in control of my fear so long as I wear you!

     The ring was still doing its job very well, though, keeping the mindless fear that kept trying to well up inside him to a manageable level, so that when the dart suddenly came flying out of the darkness to bounce off Shaun’s steel breastplate his mind was calm and clear enough to cast a shield spell straight away, just in time to deflect another dart aimed at him. More darts followed, most of them from the same direction so that Jerry and Diana were able to huddle up to Thomas and shelter behind his magical shield, but a few came in from behind, one hitting the wizard just below the kidney. He cried out in pain and almost lost the shield, but with a heroic effort he was able to prevent the spell from collapsing until the cleric pulled out the barb and healed him.

     The two trogs cried out in anger and, shouting incomprehensible battle cries in their own language, drew their hammeraxes and charged forward to attack the humanoids. Their attackers were cold blooded, as they’d suspected, and so almost invisible to infravision at a distance, but this close they were visible as their bodies obstructed their view of rocks and boulders behind them that were warmer or cooler than average. Soon, the humans heard sounds of fierce fighting coming from somewhere in the darkness, accompanied by the occasional curse and high pitched cry of pain, and the number of darts coming from that direction dropped sharply.

     Matthew drew his sword, and Shaun was holding his bow with an arrow nocked and ready to shoot, but neither of them could see anything to attack. “Tom!” shouted Shaun as a dart whistled past his ear and another hit Matthew in the thigh, bringing him to his knees. “Use the glowbottle, the bright one! Quick!”

     Thomas had already thought of that and was reaching a hand over his shoulder to try to get it out of his backpack. He couldn’t quite reach, though, and didn’t want to take his backpack off if he could help it, since it was protecting his upper back. Diana saw his dilemma and, pulling his hand out of the way, reached in herself to pull out his glowbottle and his bottle of activating fluid. She unclipped their tops to transfer a tiny drop from one bottle to the other, and soon its bright green radiance was pushing back the darkness.

     For the first time, they had a real look at the cavern they were in. The ceiling was about twenty feet above them and very irregular, with great holes where boulders had fallen and great lumps of stone almost completely separated from their settings and seemingly hanging by a thread, the sight of which sent a shiver down Thomas’s neck. They also got their first sight of the humanoids, a great crowd of whom were gathered around the two trogs and pressing in close in an attempt to overwhelm them by sheer weight of numbers. Many lay dead at the trogs’ feet, some with their heads almost cut through by the razor edges of the hammeraxes, others with their heads crushed and pulped, but the trogs were in trouble and didn’t look as though they were going to last much longer. There were simply too many humanoids.

     They squealed and covered their huge, pale eyes as the glowbottle reached its full brilliance, though, and many turned and fled into the darkness, but the ones with tiny, foot long bows sent a hail of darts at the wizard who’d conjured up the terrible light. Most of them bounced off his magical shield, but one hit the back of his leg just above the knee and another hit Diana in the arm. She stared at it in horror for a moment, seemingly transfixed by the trickle of blood that ran towards her elbow, before closing her eyes, whispering a prayer and pulling it out.