56. Dirty Druid Dozen

56. Dirty Druid Dozen

As Lance reared up, Safana slid off the back of his saddle, boots planting in the grass while her serrated shortswords slid off her hips into her hands. Inasmuch as horses were at the disposal of a wealthy Calishite girl, she had no skill in mounted combat, nor would her presence in the saddle have been favorable to her paladinic consort. Their party was surrounded by a ring of a dozen druids now, some brandishing staves or spears up at the eight adventurers atop six horses. Safana sprang around the side of Lance for Laskal, but the ground erupted in writhing vines that coiled up in spirals around her legs; she was pinned her reflexes barely kept her from falling on her face. All around the legs of the other horses they sprang forth, so much more thickly than from one of Jaheira’s spells, that Safana was sure several druids must be summoning them all up.

The four bought horses all panicked; their hooves and legs ensnared, only tangling worse when they tried to bolt forward or buck. Coran had already felled a druidic woman with an arrow through her throat, but then he and Garrick were nearly thrown from their mount, a bolt and a second arrow they shot flying hopelessly over the heads of their assailants and thunking into tree trunks, and it a strange benefit when their mount was held outright by another of the druids’ spells, stone still along with all the equines save Lance and Amalthea.

Dynaheir was casting atop her stilled mare, but a bolt of lightning raced down jaggedly between the trees, striking her bodily and sending her flying back off her horse and sprawled over the edge of the entangling carpet.

“Noooooooooo!!” Minsc bull-roared, leaping down from his held horse and ripping his legs through the vines as soon as they grasped, intercepting Faldorn, the lightning-caller who now raised her club high to bash in the head of his witch. She leapt back as the Berserkergang ripped through the air, yelling for her companion Takiyah and another wild man with a stave forth. Takiyah was slammed to the ground by Minsc’s sword as soon as he engaged the ranger, but his skin was now thick and barky, and left bloodless by the sharp blow.

Amalthea had sprung at the surrounding circle of druids as soon as the entanglements sprang forth; while Imoen drew her magical bow from her back, the unicorn lanced her alicorn at a spear-brandishing man, knocking his unbraced polearm aside and stabbing back, her neck twisting faster than the man could dodge, her frothy white mane whipping up like Montaron’s mohawk while the alicorn pierced his barkskin and gored him through the heart. With another twist of her neck the unicorn flung him off and to the ground, and charged a druidic woman who had narrowly avoided her mount’s arrow.

Viconia was outraged when her midnight mare, calm through the entangling, was held; she cast from its still back, a hold spell of her own upon the Archdruid, Amarande, who kept casting while Izefia froze.

To her right, Laskal withstood the holding, and once Safana had been entangled within spear’s-reach of the edge of the entangled circle he now thrust out at the entrapped pirate, but Onyx bellowed and Lance whipped his head sharp to the left, flat teeth chomping the spear shaft right out of the air, another twist of the muscular neck and it was almost wrested from Laskal’s grasp. The twist of the bonded mount brought the paladin’s sword-arm to bear toward Laskal; Onyx swept down to behead the druid, but he fell back and down, almost into a roll, pulling his spear with him, and brandishing it up to cover his prone position against a nascent trampling charge that Lance then drew back from, while another man with a crusted blonde beard spellcast and stared at the paladin.

Next around the circle Minsc was dueling the two men with staves, one smashing his ineffectually into the ankheg-husked abdomen of the ranger, who now brought his sword across at his attacker in a backslash from his first attack. The man ducked but the ranger cleft forward again and down after his blade passed over the druid’s head, striking him at the neck and shoulder and splitting open the barkskin, to a bright crimson arc that raked a wet line across Minsc’s face and sent him deeper into his berserker fury. He hacked down again, and split open the man’s head. “When mean men abuse nature’s power Boo gets upset,” he wailed, lifting his greatsword overhead as Takiyah rose from his last blow, and piked his stave into Minsc’s crotch, a smash through the armor which might have been painful, but his attacker was in no state to care now. “When Boo gets upset, Minsc gets angry!” the ranger roared, and hammered Berserkergang straight down at the head of the man, sweeping across as he rolled to dodge. “And when Minsc gets angry, MEAN PEOPLE GET HURT!” Minsc fell to a kneel, terminating his opponent’s limbo evasion with an instantaneous trapping of his stave and neck between sword edge and ground before both were severed; Minsc reared his sword up again with blood across the blade and a line of wet dirt and grass clinging to the lower edge.

Two druidic women, much too hairy for the tastes of Coran and Garrick, spellcast at the archer and bard from just beyond the edge of the entangled ring. Coran released an arrow at the throat of one but it ricocheted dully of her barkskin, not even interrupting her verbal incantations; Garrick curled his hands manifesting a scarlet energy burst and shot three magic missiles at the other, knocking her off her feet midway through her cast and onto her back with a groan. Her sister’s spell finished with no visible effect, but Garrick blinked his eyes twice, and fouled Coran’s next shot by ramming his shoulder into that of his riding-mate, then bludgeoning him over the head with the stock of his crossbow. “Gullible human!” Coran spat, grabbing Garrick’s collar before he lost his balance, and yanking the man over the side of the horse with him. The elf shrieked in pain when he hit the ground, because one of his feet had still been in a stirrup and twisted unnaturally when Garrick landed atop him and proceeded to try and strangle.

The druid woman helped her sister back to her feet, but groaned as an arrow planted through her barkskin and into her ribcage, courtesy of Imoen who fired while Amalthea dueled the other druid’s woman, alicorn against a green-glowing magical cudgel. The woman slammed her weapon in at the jaw of the unicorn, who reared up above it, and kicked up her front hooves into the woman’s ribs, knocking her onto her back. Imoen whimpered as her next shot went astray at Amalthea’s lunge forth to stamp a hoof down and crush the woman’s face. Imoen twisted her mouth then and focused on the link with her familiar, anticipating and coordinating as she notched her next arrow.

Viconia cast again; Amarande called lightning down onto her with a stern grimace that became outraged shock when the electricity did absolutely nothing to his foe. The dark elf threw her head back and laughed as five brief puffs of sulfurous green smoke surrounded the Archdruid, leaving behind five grinning skeletons that all tore into his robes while he frantically smashed off one of the skulls from its vertebrae with his staff, then a second with the backstroke.

Onyx took the full brunt when Laskal’s bearded ally brought a lightning bolt down upon him. He slid his tongue back into his mouth before he bit it off; his jaw alternately chattered and locked up and he barely kept grip of his sword, able to do no more than ride out the pain while Lance backed away from Laskal to charge the man, who abandoned his next spellcasting to flee around a tree from the horse. Laskal got his feet again, and speared up at the shaking paladin, who forced his muscles back to action just in time to knock away the shaft of the spear with his sword’s edge, and then slash open Laskal’s cheek with its tip on the backstroke. Laskal sank his hips and piked up at the paladin again, and was caught unawares with Lance, facing the tree and seemingly unaware of him, suddenly reared up his back hooves, ramming his chest with a kick that sent Laskal off his feet, into the air and flipping over to land on his own crushed ribcage and black out. His spear, released at the moment of the kick, popped right up into the air, and as Lance set his hooves down again, Onyx reached out and snagged it in his free hand, flipping the sharpened pole under the armpit and tucking it just like a lance. His attention turned when Lance saw the bearded blonde druid race out from behind the tree and bolt. Onyx kicked his heels in, and charged.

After felling her fellows, Minsc glanced around a moment for the vanished Faldorn, and then charged around the circle the other way from Onyx, for the druidic women who spellcast again while Coran and Garrick wrestled on the vine-thick ground until the vegetation itself pinned them both. The woman who had fallen from the magic missiles lost her spell simply in fright at the charging berserker, the other cast another charm while Imoen’s arrow glanced off her chest. Unaltered in his enraged state, Minsc cut her down with one stroke, and while the blood whipped away from his blade he charged after the fleeing woman, reaching her in three long strides and cleaving his sword through her back, sending her back to the earth.

While Viconia, hammer in hand, was leisurely strolling to Amaranade, to punctuate the flesh-rending rakes of her undead minions before turning her unhasty attention on the held Izefia, Onyx charged away from the circle after the bearded man, who without casting again called down another bolt that ripped through his left side and burned within.. The druid darted around trees to break the horse’s speed, but could only stay a tree ahead, and without casting again, as his pursuer came up with the spear, he backed up against and skirted around a tree only to find his move anticipated; Onyx had pulled Lance to the other side, and he swung down with his longsword into the bearded neck of the man until the sword edge buried itself in bark. The head rolled over the blade and the body fell to its knees. Onyx jerked the sword back out, and Lance stepped away.

Looking down a long sightline between trees, he saw Faldorn, now astraddle a monstrous gray-black wolf, a scimitar of pure fire raised in her hand. The wolf, aside from being a beastly abomination, seemed wrong somehow, and after a moment he realized why. It wasn’t panting; nor even breathing at all. Onyx focused, and saw it radiating an evil halo of sickly, bloody red like Viconia’s summons had; the foul creature was undead, a dread wolf. He was confused for a moment, thinking the druids would have considered such unnatural, but then Faldorn charged. He sheathed his longsword, flipped the spear to tuck under his right arm, and charged, but his left hand fished under his armored collar before his body tucked still atop Lance.

He’d had precious little actual jousting experience, save against rotating targets, and the speed at which the wolf loped and he careened at his opponent on horseback was unnerving, almost sickening. He had the longer, jousting weapon but the dread wolf gnashed its teeth hungrily, perhaps it meant to chomp the spear with unnatural reflexes, and Faldorn’s fearless fervor made him think she must know something he did not. He kept the end of his weapon always aimed true at Faldorn’s solar plexus while she hollered, and just before they closed, he threw his left arm up, his golden holy symbol flailing down from its chain and glinting with more sunlight that fed through the Cloakwood canopy. The dread wolf howled, squinting and turning its maw away, and Faldorn shrieked before the spear impaled her, cracking in half while Onyx felt a searing in his deltoid. As he flew by, the druid woman dragged her flame blade right through his body as she fell off her mount and to the ground. Onyx dropped the broken half of the spear and clutched his side, feeling the flesh burn within the armor, the flame blade having passed right through. Groaning injuriously, he turned about on Lance to see the dread wolf loping past its fallen mistress. Lance neighed angrily, and charged while Onyx drew out the longsword again. The beast gnashed with its maw, and as they closed Lance veered left abruptly, and before the undead lupine’s jaw flew up and bit air, Onyx whipped the longsword out under the snap and decapitated it.

“The natural order indeed!” he roared, dismounting, marching to the rolling, groaning Faldorn; his face flushed and angry, throat hoarse as one feeling embittered and wronged, not triumphant. “You are hypocrites with nothing to sway to your twisted beliefs save threats and fear!”

Faldorn rolled prostrate, spreading her arms and legs out like a crocodile’s, and twisting her neck back to growl up at the paladin. She drooled blood as she gurgled, “That is the way of ‘civilized’ law, boy.”

Standing before her, he lowered his sword, and tightened his face. “The way of evil law. Not good.”

Faldorn grimaced, “The sanctity of these woods must be preserved. All means are justified. You are blight upon nature!”

Now the holy symbol fell to his side, and his thumb stroked the sunrise emblem. “I’m a part it.”

“We ought to die!” Faldorn’s hiss was arachnidan, and at once her form wavered; each limb became furry and spindly and split into two, her back bloated into a round chitinous green ball, her eyes stretched into manyfaceted orbs and mandibles protruded from her mouth, and as she rose up on eight legs they solidified into sharp, bladed weapons;

Onyx recognized a sword spider like that which had fallen upon and poisoned him. He leapt back, throwing his longsword down at the face of the creature to stall it while he ripped Spiderbane off his back, and sneered, “Bad choice.” He plunged the blade down at the scuttling-forth shapeshifter. The tip chiseled into the abdomen and slid through like a fork through fish, pinning the shrieking spider against the ground. Onyx screamed and pushed until the curved spikes of the guard pierced the abdomen, and twisted the blade before yanking it back and flinging disgusting gray-green ichor. Faldorn shifted to her human form, and rolled over, a fist-sized hole in her belly below the puncture of the spear.

Onyx flipped Spiderbane up in his grip, and raised it overhead to deliver the coup de grace, but stopped and yelped, “Ow!” when a rock smacked the back of his head. He turned, taking his left arm from the sword handle to protect his face, just in time to block the next rock Tiber threw. “Ge’ away from my Ma!!” he screamed, face red and tearing. “Ge’ away from Ma!” he threw another rock that glanced off the hip of the ankheg armor, and Onyx backed away from him and Faldorn, lowering his sword and protecting his face. Tiber lowered a hand that clutched a rock, rather than throwing, but he stood between his downed mother and the retriever of Spiderbane, looking up at Onyx and his sword. Something about the envious way he focused on the weapon now disturbed the paladin deeply.

He wiped the blade off upon a tree, and sheathed it over his back again, and raised empty gauntlets, gaze locking onto the sniveling Tiber’s. “I’ll heal her,” he whispered, “It doesn’t have to end this way.”

“We don’t need you!!!” Tiber screamed. “Ma can heal herself!”

Behind her son, Faldorn croaked, “Death is a natural end, that everyone must face."

Tiber turned around, and for a moment looked as if he might throw his rock point-blank at her. “No….no ma…” he whimpered. He turned back to Onyx, and his lip trembled as he stepped back. Onyx knelt, and Faldorn reached up to grip his wrist, but had no such strength. His fingers trailed over her, not quite touching the sundered armor and flesh, but when Tiber next looked, patches of rended flesh were seen through the holes in her armor. His mother was wounded, but it no longer seemed deep and mortal.

Onyx rose and picked up his longsword, and as Lance trotted up he mounted. He looked down at Faldorn, and spoke coldly. “This ends it.”

Faldorn sat up, and hissed, “You will pay for your transgressions. Wherever you go, I’ll see to nature’s reckoning.”

Onyx and Lance snorted, and galloped away.