All That Glitters...47

Chapter Forty-Seven

Piking Heads (8.14). Piking heads has a long, though not particularly distinguished, history in warfare. By its nature, it falls under the category of weapons to be used on a static battlefield, as discussed in the Introduction and Chapter One. It is a crude weapon, but an effective one. In fact, it is one of the most effective in its category, which is attacks upon the enemy morale. For this reason, piking heads, just like all other tactics aimed at undermining enemy morale (see chapters 6 and 15 for additional detail) is almost exclusively a defensive tactic. The objective of undermining an enemy's morale is to convince the enemy to break off their attack, which is far easier if they are not fighting to defend their homes and families. Many attacking armies have defied their commanding officers to break off a seemingly hopeless attack; very few defensive forces have ever abandoned their posts to surrender. If they have a reason to fight to the death, it is often counterproductive to use this tactic, as it may stir resentment among the populace, presenting difficulties to pacifying them as outlined in Appendix A. In summary: not recommended for offensive operations. Defensively, use sparingly, but seize the opportunity when it presents itself.
-"The Red Wizard's Battle Manual"

---

Heads were atop pikes, lining the walls of the De'Arnise Hold. This was not, in and of itself, a bad sign. The fact that there were no besiegers, however...was.

Nalia gasped upon seeing the heads. "No! This can't be happening!" She stared at the heads, but only for a few seconds. She composed herself quickly. "The...the keep must have fallen. Then...well, if there were any survivors they'd have established a field fortification somewhere around here."

"And then what?" Anomen asked. "Do we storm the gates of the keep? That is madness, given that the entire besieging army now doubtlessly occupies it!"

"No...we can use the secret entrance I used to get out...to get back inside!"

"Young lady," Keldorn said, carefully keeping his tone kindly, "what do you expect that to accomplish? We came here to assist your estate's forces in lifting a siege...but now, most of your forces appear to have been killed. We may not have much of a chance against an army."

Nalia seemed about to say something, then cut herself off.

"This is not any ordinary army, is it?" Viconia asked.

"How did you guess?" Nalia blurted out before she could stop herself.

"The walls are not breached, yet the keep has fallen," Viconia pointed out.

"And you knew that those heads were those of your guards, though they sport no colours, and their features are not distinct," Yoshimo added.

Nalia sighed. "Well...no, it's not...not human. It's mostly trolls. But there are some odd, snake-like creatures as well."

"Trolls? I would have rather you told us before!" Kal said, in an exasperated tone. "Trolls need to be finished off with acid or fire. If you'd had told us, I would have made sure to get an extra torch or two from the Adventurer's Mart!"

"I'm sorry! I just thought that...that you'd refuse to help if I told you there were trolls! Every other party did!"

Kal shook his head. "No, no. I said we'd help and so we will. But we're not really prepared for it."

"But...fire?" Nalia said, gesturing at Cel.

"Eh, my fire's more of a ‘burning-flame-of-justice' thing," Cel said. "A purely visual effect. Trolls need real fire."

"Perhaps," Yoshimo said, "the surviving guards will be of some use. If their plan was to set up a fortification in close proximity...it should not be hard to find."

As it turned out, not only was the fortification (a rather sad-looking wooden palisade) easy to find, the guards inside did actually have torches, as well as fire arrows and vials of acid. There weren't many, but there were enough.

The remainder of the De'Arnise family guard were a group of sixteen dejected-looking soldiers, out of an original contingent of fifty.

"Now, Captain Arat," Nalia said, after the party had equipped itself, "what happened after I left? I heard that you expected to be able to hold the walls for over a week."

"Well, milady, we weren't wrong in that - it was just that they stopped going through the walls. A little while after you left - a day or thereabouts - your father discovered that they were coming in through the...ah...cellars. Great, insectlike, burrowing things...."

"Umber hulks...again," Cel said.

"Again?" Kal groaned. "Why umber hulks...again?" he asked the sky.

Nalia ignored him. "Go on, Captain."

Captain Arat cleared his throat. "Uh...well...yes, that was what Lord Arnise called them. And well...there wasn't much we could do. They came pouring in through the...cellars, and took us all by surprise, really. We gathered and fought them off best we could, but we weren't prepared - they pinned us up against our own walls. Then one of them opened the drawbridge, and the trolls came pouring in...we were lucky to escape, given our situation. Your father...he retreated upstairs with his bodyguards to gather the pieces to his flail, but never returned. We were forced out of the keep soon after."

Despite appearances, Kal had been listening intently throughout the explanation. "All right. How many trolls do you estimate are left in the keep?"

"They started out with roughly forty trolls, and two of the snake-like things assisting them. They lost six assaulting the walls, then they lost another ten in the last attack. We brought some of them down, but we couldn't...we couldn't dose some of the ones we downed with fire or acid."

"So that leaves two of the snakes, and twenty-four trolls...assuming we catch them scattered, I think we can pull this off. Going in at night, half of them will be sleeping. They probably aren't expecting an attack from you. With enough silence magic, we might be able to pick them off."

"Some of the servants are still inside," Arat said. "I've seen them on top of the walls. I'm guessing the trolls kept them around to do the scut work. One of them might be able to tell you more about what's going on. I'd watch out for the leader of the trolls, though - he's a nasty one. Bigger, stronger, and meaner than any troll has a right to be."

"Right," Kal said.

"One last thing - if you can get the drawbridge open, the rest of us are willing to mount a big noisy attack on the front gate. It might distract some trolls, let you carry out your mission more quickly. If it helps you - we'll do it."

"That would be almost certain death," Keldorn said quietly.

"We knew the risks when we signed up," Captain Arat said. "And Lord Arnise deserves our best try."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Kal said. "We'll rest here for now. We need it after we've walked so far."

"And I need time to regain my spells," Nalia said.

Kal nodded in approval. "Right. We wait until nightfall, then."

---

It was close to midnight when Kal decided the time was right. The moon had just slipped behind an inky-black cloud, robbing the keep of even the faintest light. As close to invisible as they could be, the party left the palisade and hurried to the ivy-covered wall of the keep.

Nalia reached out to one of the branches, a dead length of ivy covered by the living ones. Or so it seemed: on further inspection, Kal saw it was an expertly crafted fake, made of thin but strong steel wires. Nalia yanked on it and a small section of the wall swung inward. It wasn't a large door - they'd have to go through crawling - but they'd fit. Yoshimo was first through, ready to pop out again at the first sign of trouble, but he whispered an all-clear and the party got moving as quickly as they could.

"We're behind the servants' quarters," Nalia said. "Hopefully, someone there can help us. The door's over here - it opens directly into the armoury. The trolls shouldn't have any reason to be there, but..."

"Be ready for anything," Kal finished. "Right. Cel, keep it down; I don't want them to catch sight of you from the hall." The blade he drew out was a dark, dull blue.

"How's that?" Cel whispered.

"Great," Kal whispered back. He started to draw Daystar, but the blade began to glow a bright yellow as soon as it came free of its sheath. "Never mind," Kal said, shoving Daystar back into its scabbard. He dropped his left gauntlet and glove into his pack, unsheathing inch-long claws from his left hand. "That'll have to do. Everyone else ready?"

The rest of the party had their weapons out, and with a slight push on Yoshimo's part, the door grated open. It was a soft sound, but seemed to boom like thunder in the dead-silent halls of the keep.

A servant scurried up to the door. "Who...?" he managed, before Yoshimo's hand clamped over his mouth from behind. He kept the servant restrained until he caught sight of Nalia.

"Mis...mistress Nalia! What...what are you doing here? The trolls are crawling all over the place - it's not safe here!"

"Daleson, we're here to make it safe," she told him with resolve. "Kal, this is Daleson, one of my family's most loyal servants."

"What can you tell us about what's going on in here?" Kal asked without preamble.

"I know a few things...not all of ‘em good news. The good part is that they only killed a few of us - three or four, but most of us servants are still around. The bad part is...well, a day or so ago, they dragged your father down to the, er, cellars."

Kal turned to Nalia. "Something we should know about those ‘cellars', Nalia? I've noticed everyone seems to stumble on that word every time we come around to mentioning it."

Nalia sighed. "Well, cellars is what my father resolutely insists on calling them. They're dungeons. Torture chambers. Embarrassing reminders of when my family ruled these lands with an iron fist instead of with an open hand. We're not proud of them, and we had them walled up, but from what Arat told me, the umber hulks took advantage of their existence." She frowned slightly. "But who would know they existed...? They're a secret to anyone who doesn't work in this keep...and secret from most people who work here, anyway." She shook her head. "Anyway, now isn't the time to be thinking about things like that. We need to get down there."

"Mistress Nalia, they collapsed the stairs. You're going to have to take the alternate route," Daleson advised.

"Damn. Right, then...so we'll be going upstairs. That's fine, we can get on to the top of the walls from there, and open the drawbridge like Captain Arat asked us to. Anything else?"

"Yes. Those digging creatures that came up from below? There's ten of them, kept in the central room in the dungeons, just past the first torture chamber. They'd be sleeping right now. Just making sure you watch out for ‘em. Also, there are twenty trolls left, not counting TorGal - that's the big one's name - and his two giant-sized helpers. Those three took your father down to the basement. Of the remaining twenty, four are watching the walls outside, four are in the courtyard, two are watching the halls down here, and the other ten are sleeping in the guards' barracks on this floor."

Kal smiled grimly and patted the servant on the shoulder. "Excellent information. Thank you, Daleson. Now, can you quietly rouse the rest of the servants and get them out through the secret door? It's liable to get messy in here and I would rather you all be safely outside. Yoshimo, show them the way."

Fifteen minutes later, the servants' quarters and the armoury were deserted. Yoshimo made a quick scouting loop just outside the servants' quarters and gave a terse report. "Two trolls in the centre of the room - as reported. However, the door to the barracks is open, and any sounds of combat will likely awaken the ten remaining, who will then sound the alarm."

"Then we shall charge them and defeat them!" Anomen said, holding up his mace.

"No, we won't," Kal replied sharply. "Ever fought trolls before?"

"I have...I mean, it is not..."

"Have you ever fought a troll before?" Kal said slowly and carefully.

"Erm...no."

"It's all right to say you haven't, Anomen. What isn't is claiming you have when you haven't. Believe me, it doesn't make you look good." Anomen flushed slightly, but Kal ignored it and continued. "We can't fight ten trolls. Even if they're total incompetents with their own hands, something we certainly can't count on, we can't do that. A group needs someone to fight the troll and its detached arms and legs while another applies fire or acid to finish it, and that means we must outnumber the trolls to have any chance. All right?"

Anomen nodded. "I understand. So...we must prevent the ten in the room from waking up, and prevent the others from hearing us and coming to their rescue."

"Exactly," Kal said.

"I can solve at least part of that problem," Viconia said. "I can eliminate the sound - but they must be surrounded and unable to flee, or killed quickly."

"Hmm...Nalia, can you make us invisible?" Kal asked.

"I might...if I knew the invisibility spell, and had prepared it." At Kal's stare, she shrugged. "I'm not a magic lamp of wishes, you know. I need to know the spell before I can cast it."

Kal took off his backpack and rummaged around, coming up with several scroll cases. "I was saving these for Imoen, but I'm sure there's an invisibility spell in here somewhere."

Nalia took the cases and began quickly flipping through the scrolls. "This one," she said, pulling one out. She unrolled it quickly and studied it for about a minute. "Well. That's easier than I thought it would be." She brought out her spellbook, then cast a tiny cantrip, creating a pen that copied it directly to an open page while both the scroll and spellbook floated in midair.

"Will you not need eight hours of rest, now?" Yoshimo asked.

"I'm not preparing the spell, Yoshimo, I'm just casting it right off the scroll...with a little adjustment."

"But you're writing it in your spellbook," Kal said.

"And?"

"Does that not mean that the scroll will be used up?" Keldorn asked.

She looked at him strangely. "No."

"It does for other wizards," Kal informed her.

"Well, it doesn't for me."

"You might wish to tell us such details in advance," Viconia said. "I seem to recall having said such a thing before, in fact."

"How am I supposed to know what to tell you, Viconia? I've never been a ‘normal' wizard. What extended contact I had with a normal wizard involved three four-hour lessons, some fire, and blowing up half of her home's third floor. Not exactly a prime learning environment on the subject of what ‘normal' wizards are like. Anyway...should I cast the spell now?"

Kal held a hand up. "Not yet. See, I have a plan."

Kal's plan was quite simple. Yoshimo would have a silence spell cast on him, so that all sound within fifteen feet would be suppressed entirely. Nalia would then make everyone invisible, a small adaptation of the invisibility spell. Everyone would enter the room, and Yoshimo would head directly for the trolls, bringing his sphere of silence with him. As soon as no one could hear the attack, everyone but Nalia would attack the trolls; at five-to-two odds, the battle should not take long. Nalia would stand clear and send a signal through some flashes of light if anyone should happen to come down the stairs.

It was a short battle, but quite a surreal one. Kal had fought a few battles under silence before, but it still felt strange. In silence, all the combatants had to keep close eyes on where everyone was, for fear that something might sneak up behind their backs. Cel's strike into a troll's arm brought a bolt of silent lightning out of the air. Keldorn sliced an arm off the other troll. Yoshimo and Viconia darted in and out, pressing burning torches to the trolls' wounds. Anomen's mace crushed in one's skull, deforming it, green ichor bleeding out of its nose and ears. It was almost more gruesome by the fact that there wasn't a crunching sound accompanying it.

Before long, the two trolls were nothing more than a mass of charred lumps on the floor. Viconia then dropped the silence spell. "There is still the problem of the sleeping trolls to overcome," she pointed out. "It would not do for them to awaken at the wrong time."

"I've got a plan for that, too," Kal said. He explained it.

"You're not serious," Nalia said.

"I'm quite serious."

"You could be killed!" Viconia protested, not even trying to hide her concern.

"I won't be killed any more than I would be if those trolls woke up and attacked. It's as safe as any other option."

Keldorn snorted. "Safe! That is the last thing I would ever consider ‘safe'. It's a thoroughly unworkable plan."

"I agree with Sir Keldorn!" Anomen said.

"Someone else have a better idea?" Kal challenged. "We can't lock the door, they'll break it down. Success hinges on us being able to get rid of those ten as quickly as we can."

In the end, they were forced to agree. As quickly as they could, the party raided the kitchen, taking large barrels of cooking oil and armloads of firewood. Yoshimo placed them carefully inside the barracks, dousing the wood with oil (as well as many of the sleeping trolls, who didn't notice). More barrels from the storage room - lantern oil and naphtha - added to the mix inside the room. The door was then thoroughly soaked with water, and enchanted with a silence spell. Then Kal stood just inside the room, blades drawn, blocking the door, and while the party stood well clear, Nalia hurled a fireball into the room from across the hall. As soon as the fireball entered the room, Kal kicked the door closed.

As might be expected, the entire barracks burst instantly into flame - except for the door. The ten trolls suffered a rather abrupt - and brief - awakening as the stacks of wood, the beds, and the linens in the room all ignited, assisted by the oil. Many of them, confused and disoriented, never managed to get anywhere - stumbling to their feet, but then being brought down by the sheer amount of flame blasting through the room. Three or four did try to make an escape, and Kal held them back, not aiming to attack but merely to pin them in the room long enough for the flames to do their work. Unlike him, the trolls were not immune to fire.

If the previous battle had been surreal, this one was positively eerie. Again, there was no sound, even as the entire room caught fire. The spell muffled the roaring of the fire, the screams of the trolls' agony, and the clatter of the trolls' claws on Kal's armour and blades. However, this battle did not last long. The trolls, disoriented from having been woken up, deafened, and burned, died quickly.

A massive cloud of smoke billowed out of the room as Kal opened the door and stepped out. "Scratch ten trolls," he said in a casual, offhand manner. Then, "Uh...anyone have a cloth?"

While Kal's immunity to fire ensured that he was not harmed by heat, and had no trouble breathing smoke, a fine cloud of ash and soot had settled over his equipment. He was blackened from head to toe.

"I can deal with that," Nalia said. Whispering a few words, she waved her hand towards him and a sudden burst of wind blew the soot off in a black puff that drifted back into the burnt-out room.

"That was a cantrip, right?" Kal asked. "One of those things you don't run out of?"

"Yeah," Nalia confirmed. "And you want to know because...?"

"Because," Kal said, we may need your magic to deal with the umber hulks, which are a handful, especially if they confuse one or two of us, and with TorGal, who does seem to be a pretty fearsome opponent, and I don't want you running yourself dry too soon. How many more spells do you estimate you have left?"

Nalia shrugged. "It's not exact. I don't have a list, or numbers that tell me how much I can do or what. I prepared about fourteen spells before we came in. Whenever I make a change to a spell, I lose one, two or even three of those, so I can probably generate about five or so decent effects before I run out. Four, now."

Kal winced. Ouch. Nalia had just told him that despite all of her improvisations, she could still only do between one third and one quarter of what a ‘normal' wizard of her power level would be able to accomplish. No one ever said that power didn't have its price, but if this didn't change...well, it did no good to have a party mage who regularly ran out of spells by noontime.

But this is absolutely not the time to be thinking about this, Kal thought firmly. He turned and led the party towards the stairs. There was a lot left to do.