The Cave Part 33

We had walked straight into a trap! The creatures were coming from all around, over a score of them at least. Slapping feet hit the ground in almost rhythmic timing, sounding the knell of doom with every heartbeat. My body felt cold as a wave of unreasonable fear surmounted my courage, cascading down on my last few nerves of restraint. I was truly terrified, and felt the creature we had come into these dark tunnels to hunt, would make its belated entrance now for the final stroke.

"Cair, stay with us!" ordered Tharkin, breaking through my paralysis. For just a moment, the spell of terror lifted and I had the resolve to lift my staff up and release its blue flame of light to the full. A sheet of azure brilliance raced for the shadows around us, and the walkers paused for a moment, revealed in their horror. It was enough to steal my resolve away again.

Imagine someone dying, being submerged in a swamp for twelve days, and then pulled back up for service. Extend all their limbs, add a years growth of nail onto each finger. Remove their normal eyes and put three purple glowing orbs into their forehead, generously splash them over with black wash, and you have a truly grim idea of what I was looking at now. If this could be worse, add a deep moaning chant, in words that felt meaningless yet filled with doom. This was what uncoiled from the their first flinching reaction to the light.

"Shadow Walkers," said Tharkin, "they fear flame and the light. Beware their poisonous claws."

"Don't turn you backs on the tower!" cried Bjardon, catching my attention with the sound of danger in his bellowing shout.

I turned back to the open doors of that formidable edifice, and could see two eyes shining in the darkness. They were large, the size of my own head if I am being specific in comparison. A white milky opalescence, each eye glittered as they twitched with furtive movements, noticing every move and detail of my companions. Eyes as baleful and expressionless as those of an insect, and thus more terrible because of the lack of understanding.

"For the fallen!" cried Glip, who up to now had kept his nerve better than I. He let loose one shaft from his bow into the darkness of the open tower doors, the arrow disappearing beyond into the creature I hoped. There was a roar, and the eyes disappeared. I hoped my friend had blinded one of those terrible eyes, but we were not allowed to pause long enough to see if there was a tangible result. The walkers were upon us from every direction then.

Instinctively, I lifted my sword blade to protect myself from the oncoming forms. Having never taken time to train with a long blade, this was laughably pointless. I would have been better off with a dagger. At least in my former life the smaller weapon would have been more useful. Still, I recalled that my blade could not be broken, and swung the sword in a wide arch hoping to hit something vital.

A large walker moaned out a cry that could only be my death note. Its large black mouth of sharp teeth would take me in the face, my sword blade being deflected by its slapping left arm. In terror, my own left hand moved up to stop the bite, the staff flaring as it hit the walker in the face. I expected to be thrown down even with this defensive move, but to my surprise, the walker reared back, its dank black hair alight with blue flames from the Staff of Aquinian. More terrible was the fact the creature did not scream, though it flailed wildly, only spreading the fire around its body.

"Keep moving Cair!" cried Tharkin, even as he reached out with flaming fingers to attack the walkers surrounding him. Nothing that came within his magically extended grasp could escape the sweeping purge.

Red and orange flames sprang up, turning the walkers into torches, and yet those not alight were still rushing in upon us. Shaking off the paralysis again, I found Glip was being overwhelmed, and it was enough to get my limbs into action again. The sight of those big black forms towering over the rapidly arrow firing goblin, was enough to fuel my anger, and something woke inside me again.

"Get off him!" I cried, my words doubtless meaningless to the foe even as I swung sword and staff together at the first of the three walkers. I was battering wildly now, the targets big enough to hit even if my aim was a little off. The blade cut and severed tissue where it made contact, but truly the best result was the flame of the staff which never failed to light afire. With more credit to his sense than my own, Glip moved behind me and fired off arrows until he had none left in his quiver. It was the safest place to be as my attacks were still clumsy in execution.

"Look to the tower!" called Bjardon, his axes swinging viciously left and right, finding marks with too much ease. He was cut in several places and bleeding freely. That was bad enough, but his reminder brought me around to face the creature that was sneaking up on us again.

The pale glowing eyes were coming forth again, and a huge grinning mouth leered from the darkness, row upon row of needle like teeth. The complete horror of the visage was still withheld from us, but not for long. This was the moment that the trap had been sprung for. Both Tharkin and Bjardon were fighting for their lives a little apart from us, and only Glip was at my back with two daggers in his hand. Here was the moment we fell under a rush from the tower, and as talented as my companions were, the roll of the dice had fallen against us.

Shouts rose in the great cavern, and horns blared from all around us. All combatants stopped, and only those burning shadow walkers continued to fight in vain against the flames. The creature in the tower doorway pulled back with a flinch, baring its teeth in a snarling growl. This was not what it had expected. Then the flaming arrows flew, many finding their walker marks. The heat from these rapidly burning enemies was overwhelming, and I found myself backing away. What was happening?

"Again, fire!" ordered a strong goblin voice, and I could see now beyond our burning foes that a host of the goblin folk of Dropdrip had come to our rescue, led by the lady Ipda. Elder Mona had sent us help! A fresh volley of flaming arrows sang out with twangs from bow strings, striking walkers, and some straight for the creature cowering back in the tower door darkness. The surge of hope kindled from this rescue was enough to renew our resolve. We hewed back and forth until all the ambushing shadows beings were thrown down into burning piles.

"Quickly, we must go after it!" cried Tharkin, grabbing my shoulder and leading me towards our target who had retreated with another defying roar.

"But Bjardon is wounded by the poisoned claws," I replied, looking for our companion.

"Go on," ordered a stern voice, and saw that it was lady Ipda who had spoken. She and several of her goblin healers were attending to the orc who lay wounded and bleeding, yet giving me a positive gesture when I met his stare.

"Stick the pig full of holes for me," said he with a gasp and grin, trying to hold onto his optimism through the pain.

Glip who had accepted a quiver full of arrows from one of the goblin archer, strapped it over his shoulder and followed behind us, as did several other goblin warriors. From a trap that should have finished us, we were again running headlong into danger to kill the shadow creature. I held forth my staff and lit the way with renewed blue flames blazing a path before us.