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Back to Empire on the HPe3000
... and ...
"Derue! Harold!" Gytha called but heard no reply.
The old ranger called out as well. "Harold!" then grabbed the rope
and began climbing up.
"Wait, wait!" Talberth yelled to him. the ranger had barely
reached the ceiling when a small bag flashed by his head. Talberth ran
over and picked it up, the ranger didn't stop but instead climbed as
quick as he could, up the rope.
"What is it?" asked Ivo.
"A note from our thief. 'scouts run off. help!'" Talberth read.
"Quick and to the point." said Telenstil. "There is little else we
can do."
"I can climb at least." Gytha said. She did not hesitate, but
followed the ranger.
"Gytha no!" Talberth cried.
"Have Harald pull us up, we will get the packs." Telenstil called.
Gytha paused and yelled back. "I will." then turned her attention
to the rope.
"Where is that priest?" Ivo asked looking around the room. Henri
was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
Derue skidded on the bloody stairs, Edouard had been here,
had fought on these steps, but now was gone. The scout hopped down from
stair to stair and ran into a huge room. A babble of voices struck him,
he had been hearing it all along but had not given it thought as he jumped
down the stairs.
Rows of orcs filled the room with bugbears beating them into
line. There were scores of the skinny, filthy, beasts and at least a dozen
of the tall hairy monsters, the bugbears had a brick red fur and an
unsavory insectoid cast to their features. They faced the entrance to the
stairs and a surprised silence spread over the room as they caught sight
of Derue rushing in.
"Oh damn." Derue swore. From far off he heard the screaming of
a human voice in pain. "Edouard!" These monsters had his brother, "
Edouard!" he screamed. His hand went to the hilt of his sword and he heard
the call of another voice. "Ardare." he spoke with calm, with joy, and
drew the blade from its sheath. "Ardare! Ardare! Burn them! Burn Them!"
A bright flame burst forth and played along the blade, the metal
glowed white and the air shimmered in waves around it. Derue was filled
with a warm glow, it made him smile, then laugh aloud. He charged the
orcs and bugbears, two quick slashes sent one of the tall guards back into
the ranks of orcs, its hair singed black and wide bleeding cuts across its
arms and chest. It stumbled and fell, the orcs, an unruly bunch, their
more passive brethren already taken up the stairs to fight the blaze
above, looked down at the stunned and wounded guard. The bugbears were a
sadistic bunch, they delighted in the torture of the hapless orcs, but
seeing the tables turned, the bugbear lying at their feet, they snapped,
with teeth and skinny fists and clawlike fingers, a dozen orcs set upon
their tormentor.
The rebellion spread, as Derue fought another bugbear guard the
room turned into a frenzied melee. Orcs fell beneath the swords and spears
of the bugbear guards, but they bore them down and picked up the weapons
of the ones they killed.
Derue had cut a bugbears hand from its arm, an orc jumped on the
sword that fell, still clutched in the severed hand. Three others threw
themselves upon the wounded guard, another sunk its teeth into its
leg and the monster fell.
A door in the northern wall was flung open, two huge and hairy
men ran out, Derue had never seen their like before. Behind them came
a giant but with a twisted back and a huge hump rising above his
mishappen head. The giant was armored in a vast shirt of chain and held
a monstrous axe with a blade big enough to split a castles gate or chop
down an old thick-boled tree with a single stroke.
The orcs were mad with blood, the bugbears that had guarded them
were dead. They turned upon the giant and the hairy men, some with weapons
in their hands, the first that they had held in months or for a hearty
few, in years. One giant beast, an ape as it was called, roared and beat
at its chest, the other, its mate, looked toward their giant keeper,
waiting for his command.
"What's this!" the hunchbacked giant yelled. "Kill them my pets!
Kill them all!"
Both apes launched themselves into the crowd of orcs, the male,
slightly bigger than his mate, grabbed a pair of orcs, one in each hand
and smashed their heads together. The skulls exploded in a bloody mess and
the ape let the bodies fall to the floor, still shaking headless on the
ground, dead but dancing out their last moments on the oerth.
The other ape sunk her teeth into the face of a hapless orc, she bit
through bone and flesh, clear to the greygreen brain.
Unarmed orcs threw themselves upon the pair. An orc armed with a
bastard sword got in two hacks that left bleeding cuts along the male
apes back, but a sweeping blow broke its arm and then the ape turned
and grabbed the orc with both hands. It lifted the screaming body high
above its head and threw it twenty feet into a wall. A spear went flying
and struck the male in its gut while its arms were raised, it plucked out
the hurtful thing and as it did five orc jumped upon its back and sides.
* * *
(To be continued)