Send a spelling or grammar correction to: Tracy Johnson
This is a first draft of a story set in the world of Greyhawk.
It is based on a home campaign so some of the people, places and things
may be different. Any helpful comments or suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks
Jason Zavoda
The ground came up and hit him in the ass. One minute Dinet was
astride his horse, the next he was falling through the air. He landed
still sitting, the impact jarred him from the base of his spine through
his shoulder blades and made his jaw snap shut with a sharp clack of his
teeth. He missed snipping off the end of his tongue by the layer of spit
coating its tip.
"Hells, Kassar,.I almost broke my jaw." Dinet said, pushing
himself to his feet and rubbing at his posterior, "I know what else I
almost broke"
"Ya better find a blade boy. Look behind." the nomad laughed.
Dinet spun around. Above, along the rise of the road, a line of
wolves looked down on the camp.
"Those be wolves." Kassar nodded, smiling at the shocked
expression on Dinet's face. "Take this." He tossed the thief a sheathed
dagger.
"Thanks. This was my dagger you know." Dinet scowled.
"Then ya should know how ta use it." chuckled the nomad. "Ere they
come!" he yelled.
A crossbow fired and the lead wolf howled. The beast stumbled and
rolled, sending half a dozen other wolves tumbling down the incline of
the road.
"Good shot Gentian." Welf clapped his partner on the shoulder.
"Keep them off me, Welf!" she shouted. "I need to reload."
At least twenty wolves were charging into the camp. They'd been
slowed by the fall of the lead wolf, but it was only a moments respite.
Dinet's mount moved so that she was to the one side of Moroedd, while
Kassar sat his mare on the other. The old nomad drew out a long curved
sword whose edge twinkled in the camplight.
Welf stepped forward to meet the wolves. He swung his halberd in
a wide arc that brought some of the hairy beasts to a skittering stop.
The axehead of the polearm bashed against a furry chest, but the
edge slipped over the creature's back, skinning it as the sharp blade
passed. The wolf ducked beneath the blow and in a bound was within
an arms-reach of the mercenary.
A crossbow bolt struck it as the monster leapt and Welf brought up
a metal gauntlet to block the snapping jaws.
"Hah!" barked out Welf. Behind him Gentian began reloading her bow
for another shot.
There were a handful of tradesmen who'd come running to the
guardpost, leavened with some camp toughs who kept the drunken soldiers
from causing trouble. Some had knives, one had a shovel, but most had
wooden clubs or leather saps filled with lead shot. None were prepared for
an attack of huge wolves, red-eyed wargs with an evil intelligence to
guide them.
Six such toughs and merchants bore the brunt of the wolves attack.
The beasts went wide around the nomad, who ducked almost beneath his mount
to slash at them with his saber, and the three horses with their stamping
hooves.
The armored mercenary wrestled with one of their number, its jaws
clamped around his arm, breaking teeth on the steel of Welf's vambrace.
The other wargs bypassed the pair. Three attacked the smaller mercenary.
She threw her crossbow at them and drew a light blade that sparkled
silver.
"Te-La!" she shouted, and a net of sticky webbing sprang into
existence about the wolves.
* * *
(To Be Continued...)