SC Book One: Life's Bazaar; Chapter Twelve: Secrets in the Hold, Part Two
As they had thought, it opened onto another room, but it wasn’t small. A forty by forty square room lay before them. The ceiling rose higher than the room they were in, probably thirty feet or so. Great pairs of iron doors were set into the opposite facing walls, although only the pair to their right were sealed with a heavy iron bar. Each corner of the room held a two foot tall stone brazier carved in the likeness of a strange ovoid creature Zip had never seen the form of before; three stubby legs, three eyes, and three spindly arms spread equidistant around its pebbly body. Smoke issued from a gaping mouth atop what Zip could only assume was the creature’s “head”. A dark, pungent haze filled the room, but after the ogre’s room of refuse, it was almost sweet in comparison.
A nine foot tall gray stone statue of a dwarven warrior stood before the pair of doors to their left, facing the barred set of doors. That’s who probably built the Malachite Fortress - dwarves! The dwarf stared blankly forward, two glistening black gems embedded in his eyes, a spiked helmet resting atop his formidable brow. Zip had to yank his gaze away from the shiny gem eyes.
The dwarf’s armor bore graven glyphs, and a shield was slung over his back. The glyphs meant nothing to Zip and that annoyed him. The dwarf’s stony gauntlets rested on the handle of a stone great ax etched with fiery patterns. The head of the weapon was planted firmly on the floor. Draped over the statue was a mass of iron chains ending in nasty barbs, spikes, hooks and blades. Some of them were coiled around the statue’s arms and legs to keep them from sliding off.
Zip barely got an opportunity to scope out the room when figures began charging at them from either side of the room. “Uh oh,” Wrast said in Common before releasing the blade on his metal arm.
Four hobgoblins cried out in Goblinoid and advanced on them. “Surrender!” Shiore demanded. “We’ve killed an ogre!”
Either the hobgoblins didn’t understand Common, or they didn’t care. They continued charging, their weapons drawn and shouting words Zip did not understand. And wouldn’t, as this was not the time to cast comprehend languages.
Dip slipped into the room and shoot an arrow from his sithak then ran toward the hobgoblins to the right. As the twins usually worked as a team, Zip attempted to make it through the cluster of his friends in the doorway to help his brother, tumbling in such a way that would clear him of the tangle of legs. He misjudged his dive through Wrast’s legs and ended up catching a shoulder to the back of his knee, sending him sprawling to the side. Embarrassed, he peeked through partially closed eyes to see Wrast’s face peering down at him. The elf wore and expression that Zip could only classify as “Really?” Mortified, Zip wanted to melt into the black stone beneath him, become invisible. First, he finds a secret door that wasn’t there, now he barrels in to the man he found most attractive and whose attention he’d been seeking. Could anything else go wrong to make the elf think he was any more of an idiot?
Wrast said nothing, and a heartbeat later he was gone, wading into battle with a war cry of his own, clashing with one of the hobgoblins.
By the time Zip had gotten his bearings and righted himself, his friends had all joined the fray, Ayame once again in the air, the thirty foot ceiling giving her plenty of space to maneuver in. This time, her arrows hit their targets. Dip now fought alongside Shiore, the two of them grinning as they dove and spun around their opponents. The two hobgoblins were close enough that they would occasionally switch partners to confuse their enemies. It worked marvelously, as it gave Shiore the opportunity to cleave the one nearly in two while he was distracted with Dip. The joy on their faces was evident. Zip even though he heard laughter mixed in with the grunts of battle.
Meanwhile Wrast’s battle was of a much grimmer sort. The elf did not smile as he stabbed into the hobgoblins’ armor. Unlike the new couple, fighting was not a game for him, but a deadly serious business. Nardakk fought along with Wrast, his attacks not as brutal as the elf’s, but made up with for the fact that he was much bigger than their hobgoblin foes, and a fair bit stronger as well, his reach also farther with his short spear.
Zip had to decide quickly who to help. As he felt his brother and Shiore could tackle their foes on their own, both much stronger and quicker than they seemed at first glance, he called upon the magical energies in his body and focused a spell on the hobgoblin Nardakk was fighting. Of the four melee attackers, the orc was the least of the fighters, regardless of his size and race. The kender’s spell practically shimmered around the hobgoblin’s head, small points of light bobbing before his vision. His eyes glazed over as he stared at this, his limbs going slack, although he held on to his broadsword. This gave the orc the chance he needed to slice open the hobgoblin’s chest, spilling out the creature’s guts as the point if the spear slid into his midsection. The spell lasted long enough for the being to die, possibly even without pain. Zip had no way of knowing what the hobgoblin could or couldn’t feel, having never been dazed himself.
Then a scream came from the two shorter fighters. Shiore clutched her stomach while Dip positioned himself between their hobgoblin and the elf girl. She stumbled back and nearly felt to her knee, but shear willpower kept her standing tall, even as Zip could see the pain written in the thin line of her lips and the tightening in her jaw.
A roar came from the other side of the room, and Wrast abandoned his foe to charge at Shiore’s attacker. Zip sucked in a breath; the elf warrior’s collar had begun to pulse again. The same look of murder and destruction filled those green eyes until they looked more fiendish than the orc’s naturally red-brown eyes.
Several calls of “Wrast!” sounded across the room, Zip’s voice being one of them. Ayame and Nardakk attempted to distract the hobgoblin from attacking Wrast as he retreated.
“Papa?” Nona cooed worriedly at Zip’s side. The elven cat girl watched her “Papa” with big, wide eyes, every bit as concerned as he for what was going on with the elf man.
Wrast never had the chance to avenge his sister. Dip spun the staff of his weapon, feigning one direction before plunging the tip of its blade into the hobgoblin’s now unprotected chest. The blade slid through his armor and embedded into his ribcage, stabbing into his heart. The hobgoblin fell limply to the floor, dead.
Even with the creature dead, Wrast’s thirst for vengeance, for blood, didn’t fade. Her eyes wide, Shiore quickly downed one of Jenya’s healing potions before rushing toward her brother. But even seeing his sister healed didn’t keep the light from his collar from pulsing or the destruction blazing in his eyes. Wrast turned on his heels, charging the last hobgoblin with a wordless cry of death.
Apparently this was more than the hobgoblin has signed up for and he broke free of his battle with Nardakk to make for the double doors on the left. Before anyone could catch up to him, or Zip could get off a spell, the hobgoblin slipped through the double doors and slammed them shut behind him. Still, this didn’t deter Wrast and he kept right on running.
Ayame reached the doors first. Barely did the hobgoblin slam them shut then the winged girl yanked them open again. Beyond was a large hall, and even from this distance, Zip could see more doors down its end, passed the curve of the hall, and at least a few more in small corridors that branched off from the main. Shit. Anything could be down that hall, and if they just barreled through without any caution they could end up surrounded. He could just barely make out more figures at the end of the hall, and who knew how more could be out of site, or within earshot? “Ayame, no!” he called out, wishing the girl hadn’t been so eager to help Wrast in his madness. Letting the enemy go free to call forth reinforcements was bad enough, but better to have them attack at a point where he and his friends could more defend - not their foe.
Thankfully he wasn’t the only one to think it was suicide to follow the hobgoblin. Nardakk made a break for the door, and from his expression, Zip could see his intent was not one of pursuit. “Shiore!” he called behind him. “If I bar the door, can you get your brother to revert, as I don’t think we should be blindly chasing after someone through possibly heavily hobgoblin guarded halls.”
“Yes!”
Nardakk had a lead on Wrast, and a longer gait. He called for Ayame to move out of the way and slammed the doors closed once she was free of their path. But Wrast was close behind, the madness engulfing him. His eyes, previously focused down the hall after the retreating hobgoblin, trained on Nardakk. He snarled and put on a greater burst of speed.
A soft mew alerted Zip to Nona’s presence once again and with a rather intuitive expression, dashed to her papa, cutting him off from his charge on the orc. She wrapped herself around his waist, her feet sliding across the stone as he attempted to continue forward. Although Zip noticed that even in his crazed state, Wrast did not handle Nona harshly, and in fact seemed to treat her gently even as he attempted to get passed her. Shiore, and even Dip approached the elf, Shiore calling out that she was okay while Dip, weapon down, kept his shoulders tense in case of trouble.
Everything had spiraled out of control so quickly. One moment they were nearly victorious and the next Wrast snapped. As Dip had said before, Wrast really didn’t seem to like people hurting his sister. But this was more than just wanting to protect a loved one. This was madness pure and simple. There was no other word for it. And it had something to do with the collar around his neck. Why else would its gems pulse whenever it happened?
But Shiore was not going to reach him before Wrast got to Nardakk and the door, even with Nona slowing him down. Everyone was doing their best to get through to him. Shiore called out to him, Ayame pleaded with him, Nardakk attempted to appeal his sense of duty, to go to Shiore and see that she was all right. Dip just told him to wake up, as if the elf were merely sleepwalking.
None of these pleas broke through the madness. Like before, Zip had a feeling that only Shiore’s physical contact would break the spell. How he knew this, he could not say, he only noticed it had worked before and her words simply did not seem to be enough.
Somehow he had to be slowed, and at the moment the only thing that seemed to reach Wrast was an enemy. First it was the hobgoblins, because they had been the ones to hurt Shiore. Now, it seemed to be Nardakk as it was the orc that kept Wrast from pursuing and killing his enemy. Perhaps Wrast just needed to redirect his anger somewhere else. He needed a new foe.
Conjuring up the magic, he didn’t dwell long on the feel of it as it prickled through his skin. He didn’t have the luxury to enjoy the heady tingle or the way it crackled between his digits. He focused all his energy into a single idea, a single thought. If Wrast wanted a hobgoblin, he’d give him a hobgoblin.
“Where are you going, coward?!” The growling voice of a hobgoblin echoed through the room. Unlike their previous opponents, this one spoke in perfect Elven. “Come over here and fight, you ugly disgusting elf! I’ll tear you apart! Yeah, you!” The hobgoblin continued as Wrast’s head whipped around, trying to find the source of the voice. “The elf with the metal arm. You! You want me? Come and get me you lily livered pathetic excuse for a fighter.”
The sound seemed to come from the back of the room at the start, but then it began moving, first to one side of the room, then shifting to the other.
Ayame lifted her bow to the ready, her eyes frantically scanning the room. “What the…?”
The hobgoblin continued to taunt Wrast, making comments about his personal hygiene and even the way he dressed and the cut of his hair. All of it with the same deep voice of the other hobgoblins and all of it in perfect Elven, even down to the correct accent on words, without a hint of the goblinoid accent. Wrast stood and stared into the room, his brow furrowed and his weapon raised. The more he listened, however, the less guarded he became as the confusion took over.
This gave Shiore the opportunity she needed to reach the elf warrior. She hugged him about the waist, the two elf girls circling him like a strange elf girl skirt. As Zip expected, once physical contact was made, the words she spoke were finally able to reach passed his madness. Slowly the lights in the collar faded and his eyes came back into focus. He was Wrast once again.
Not exactly how Zip had imagined his spell to go, he’d actually expected the elf to chase down the voice in an attempt to murder it, but he supposed that might have actually created more chaos than was necessary. This had probably been the better outcome. He sighed in relief and let himself relax against the stone wall. At least for now he could relax - depended if the hobgoblin brought back reinforcements or not.
While he waited for his heart and breathing to return to normal, the stress of the battle and its aftermath leaving his body exhausted from uncomfortable nerves, he watched Wrast as he gently pried himself away from the girl and stepped away from them. The look on his face that had only a moment before been relaxed had become dark and haunted. It wasn’t the same as the dark look of death; this one seemed to be directed at something internal.
He pushed himself up from his position and joined the others by Wrast. “Hey, you okay?” he asked, trying to catch the elf’s eye. Wrast ignored him, but pointedly refused to look him in the face. He shuffled off a little away from the others.
“I am sorry,” Nardakk apologized, although Zip was unsure if the apology was for Wrast or Shiore, or for the whole group. “I did not think it was a good idea to continue though the complex like that.” He eyed the double doors warily, Zip wondering if he, too, expected it to burst open from a hoard of hobgoblins at any moment.
Shiore shook her head. “No,” she agreed with a soft smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, “it was a smart thing.”
With Wrast out of danger and currently without anyone attacking them, they discussed their next course of action. Zip only half listened, watching the blond elf as he stood apart from everyone, staring at nothing, his gaze inward. His heart pounded against his chest for a few beats. It hurt watching this beautiful man berate himself for something that had obviously not been within his control. Whatever it was that was happening to him, Wrast had not been able to help the madness that had consumed him. Zip could see the guilt and shame that the elf clumsily attempted to hide by separating himself from his friends and that just proved to him that this had been a force done to him. And whether the collar caused it or only indicated the presence of the madness he couldn’t be certain, but the one thing that was certain was that Zip wanted to do everything within his power to help him. There was more to this man than any one of them - with the exception of Shiore - had known.
What was it about broken men that seemed to attract Zip? Maybe because I’m broken myself. I understand their pain.
“Shouldn’t we follow after the hobgoblin?” Ayame was saying.
Shiore shook her head. “He might get reinforcements.”
“Exactly. Don’t we need to stop him before then? He could alert the whole fortress!”
“I think it might be too late for that. I’m fairly sure at least some of the inhabitants here know there are intruders. Whether they’ll come for us and take us out pr whether they’ll sit and defend, waiting and expecting us to come to them, I don’t know.” She sighed heavily. “We can only hope they at least don’t alert their boss, Kazmojen. If he thinks we’re here to save the prisoners, he might do something to them just to keep us from getting to them. Or he could send his whole compliment of guards at us if he thinks we’re big enough of a threat.” She chewed on her lower lip. “We need a different plan of action.”
“Should we try the secret passage of Nardakk’s?” Dip suggested. “Maybe if we come around behind them we can catch them unawares. Or we could end up closer to the abductees, missing the guards all together if they congregate in this next hall waiting for us.”
Ayame nodded, rather impressed by his idea. “That’s actually pretty smart. But what about the other set of doors. Shouldn’t we see what’s through that as well?”
Shiore pondered each of these suggestions, quite as she thought them through. “Our first priority,” she reminded them, “should be the children. And the other prisoners, of course, if we can find them. And these doors are barred for a reason.”
Ayame eyed the doors, frowning. “But are they barred to keep something in, or keep something out?”
“My guess would be out,” Zip spoke up, adding to the conversation. His heart just hurt too much staring at Wrast’s beautiful but dejected face. “Anyone inside would be able to lift the bar and get out. All they would need would be strength enough, it’s not like it’s a lock.”
“But some of those prisoners probably don’t have the strength,” Dip said. “Some of them are just shopkeepers and stuff.”
Zip shrugged. “But if there’s a prison break… even several shopkeepers working together could lift something like that.”
Dip frowned. “But not four children.”
“No,” he conceded. “But I still think it keeps something out.”
“Makes sense,” Shiore said. She crossed her arms and gazed up at the dwarf statue. Zip saw the thoughts behind her eyes, even if he couldn’t determine what they were. “Since he’s facing that direction, I guess it’s as good a place as any to start. Although,” she added with a wry smile, “I don’t think he’s half a dwarf. More like three dwarves at that size.” Dip laughed at that and agreed with her. Even Zip found he could smile at her joke.
“Half a dwarf?” Ayame asked, perplexed.
“From the riddle? Half a dwarf binds them…”
“...but not for long. Right, I almost forgot. And you’d reminded us of it yesterday.”
“It’s almost all come true now, hasn’t it?” Zip said.
Shiore nodded. “The locks, the curtain, the doors. Now the hold.”
“And the prisoners are being bought with gold,” Ayame added.
“It’s just this half a dwarf thing.” Shiore gazed up at the dwarf statue and sighed, obviously frustrated by that part of the riddle.
In the end they decided to check out the barred pair of doors after all. As they passed the dwarf statue, Dip gazed up into the dwarf’s face. “I wonder what those are,” Zip heard his brother mutter to himself.
“Come on, Dip. Those kids are waiting for us.” While he understood his brother’s curiosity - indeed the black shiny gems had been calling to him as well - there were more important things to think about.
“Right. Right. Coming.”
With a little muscle power, they unbarred the door and left the room behind.