braced herself for the attack. Her greatsword pierced the abdomen, and she thrust as hard as she could, feeling the blade part sinew and muscle and then grate against the creature’s backbone. It froze for a second, the hairy, bloody head almost lying on her shoulder. Then, without a sound, it collapsed to the ground, sliding off her blade.
A freshening wind came from the mountaintop, blowing away the smell of sulfur and leaving the iron tang of blood behind.
Lakini limped to the edge of the chasm to make sure the other barghest was dead. Half-wolf and half-goblin, the white-blazed body sprawled broken over a root that jutted out of the cliffside. She shivered at the sight of the monstrous hybrid, neither one species nor the other.
Lusk called her away, examined her wound, and wrapped it tightly. “It’s not as bad as it might have been,” he remarked. “Make sure it’s cleaned out well and it’ll heal quickly.”
She nodded, forbearing to point out to him that after centuries in this incarnation, she was well aware of the necessary care of battlefield wounds.
Together they hiked through the trees to recover Lusk’s dagger, stuck firmly between the ribs of the third barghest, a smaller goblinoid sprawled next to a pile of deer bones picked clean.
“Where did they come from?” she said. “How did we not know they were here?”
Lusk, meticulously wiping the barghest’s black, sticky blood from his dagger, shrugged. “We’re in the wilderness,
Cserhelm
. We can’t control every handbreadth of the mountain.” He sighed. “I suppose I should get my arrow back, but I don’t want to crawl down after that thing.”
She stared at the beast’s body and at the remains of the deer. There must have been fifteen or twenty. “We should have been aware of this kind of predation. And I didn’t expect there to be three.” She still heard the big male barghest’s last scream, before it impaled itself on her sword, full of rage but also a kind of despair. It was the same kind of despair a barghest could inflict upon its prey, but heartfelt within itself. Why? Was the skunk-striped barghest its mate?
“Perhaps the chasm does extend to the Underdark,” remarked Lusk, giving the blade a final polish and sheathing it, “where the eldritch spawn of Rophile roam. Listen!” He put his hand to his ear. “Can’t you hear them?”
On the breeze came the faint bleating of sheep, probably from a herd grazing in the meadows below. Lakini laughed, ignoring the pain in her side. At least the lycanthropes wouldn’t be preying on the crofter’s flocks.
Lakini knew the gouge in her side would heal quickly, but she suspected it would be a long time before the baffled roar of the barghest faded from her mind.
“Come home,” she said, laying her hand briefly on Lusk’s arm. “You’ve not even paid respects to Shadrun yet, and the Vashtun will want to see you.”
The Vashtun had not always been the Vashtun, of course. His birthname had been discarded and forgotten long before. The sanctuary keeper of Shadrun-of-the-Snows was always called the Vashtun; the name of the first keeper had become a title over the length of years.
Years before, in the Year of Azuth’s Woe, that first Vashtun, a quiet, unassuming city scribe, had laid aside his transcription of the bloated history of a rich merchant’s ancestors, tied his ink pot and quills at his side, and walked away from the busy streets and commerce of his native place, walked into the heart of the country, down a road teeming with market folk, private guards, and weary would-be adventurers in search of coin to be made honestly or not. He passed dwarves bound for town to negotiate trade treaties, halflings in search of a day’s labor and mischief afterward, and farmers taking their town goods home. At night he would sleep by the side of the road in the travelers’ shelters raised by local lordlings or town councils for the public good, drinking from public wells
A freshening wind came from the mountaintop, blowing away the smell of sulfur and leaving the iron tang of blood behind.
Lakini limped to the edge of the chasm to make sure the other barghest was dead. Half-wolf and half-goblin, the white-blazed body sprawled broken over a root that jutted out of the cliffside. She shivered at the sight of the monstrous hybrid, neither one species nor the other.
Lusk called her away, examined her wound, and wrapped it tightly. “It’s not as bad as it might have been,” he remarked. “Make sure it’s cleaned out well and it’ll heal quickly.”
She nodded, forbearing to point out to him that after centuries in this incarnation, she was well aware of the necessary care of battlefield wounds.
Together they hiked through the trees to recover Lusk’s dagger, stuck firmly between the ribs of the third barghest, a smaller goblinoid sprawled next to a pile of deer bones picked clean.
“Where did they come from?” she said. “How did we not know they were here?”
Lusk, meticulously wiping the barghest’s black, sticky blood from his dagger, shrugged. “We’re in the wilderness,
Cserhelm
. We can’t control every handbreadth of the mountain.” He sighed. “I suppose I should get my arrow back, but I don’t want to crawl down after that thing.”
She stared at the beast’s body and at the remains of the deer. There must have been fifteen or twenty. “We should have been aware of this kind of predation. And I didn’t expect there to be three.” She still heard the big male barghest’s last scream, before it impaled itself on her sword, full of rage but also a kind of despair. It was the same kind of despair a barghest could inflict upon its prey, but heartfelt within itself. Why? Was the skunk-striped barghest its mate?
“Perhaps the chasm does extend to the Underdark,” remarked Lusk, giving the blade a final polish and sheathing it, “where the eldritch spawn of Rophile roam. Listen!” He put his hand to his ear. “Can’t you hear them?”
On the breeze came the faint bleating of sheep, probably from a herd grazing in the meadows below. Lakini laughed, ignoring the pain in her side. At least the lycanthropes wouldn’t be preying on the crofter’s flocks.
Lakini knew the gouge in her side would heal quickly, but she suspected it would be a long time before the baffled roar of the barghest faded from her mind.
“Come home,” she said, laying her hand briefly on Lusk’s arm. “You’ve not even paid respects to Shadrun yet, and the Vashtun will want to see you.”
The Vashtun had not always been the Vashtun, of course. His birthname had been discarded and forgotten long before. The sanctuary keeper of Shadrun-of-the-Snows was always called the Vashtun; the name of the first keeper had become a title over the length of years.
Years before, in the Year of Azuth’s Woe, that first Vashtun, a quiet, unassuming city scribe, had laid aside his transcription of the bloated history of a rich merchant’s ancestors, tied his ink pot and quills at his side, and walked away from the busy streets and commerce of his native place, walked into the heart of the country, down a road teeming with market folk, private guards, and weary would-be adventurers in search of coin to be made honestly or not. He passed dwarves bound for town to negotiate trade treaties, halflings in search of a day’s labor and mischief afterward, and farmers taking their town goods home. At night he would sleep by the side of the road in the travelers’ shelters raised by local lordlings or town councils for the public good, drinking from public wells
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