Snippet 1 - Garrond Cross

Harlea sat cramped in the small recess they’d found on the hillside. The constant kneeling and scuttle of sneaking had worn on his patience and left him impatient for them to storm the mine’s entrance. The peculiar stillness that occurred high up in the mountains hadn’t helped, chafing on him as he was forced to wait. Standing on high ledges created an eerie silence in his experience, where the birds didn’t bother calling out and the forests in the valleys far below abandoned them on the narrow trails clinging to the side of the cliffs. With nothing but the occasional gust of wind whistling past them, every sound he made drifted out over the sweeping emptiness that clung to the far edge of the trail, making sneaking, a skill he already sucked at, much harder.

Five out of the six of their little party had managed to sneak up the mountainside, making it around fifty metres before the mine’s entrance before they were forced to stop. So close. On the final bend before the mine, but there was nothing between them and the wooden palisade gate. So close but now, they had come to an impasse where there were no more places to hide and too much distance that needed closing to reach the gate.

Harlea stood back up and gently pressed his stomach flat against the cliff face for good measure. The small space they had against the cliff afforded them very little space to hide. Most of the trail up had afforded them some places to hide, between rocky outcroppings and hardy shrubs that had clawed their way up the cliffside. A hundred metres back, they’d left the last decent hiding spot to try and get as close as possible to the mine while they waited for Alwin’s belated distraction and he’d realised just how limited their hiding places were so far up the mountain path.

To make matters worse, Harlea couldn’t see the cliffside that the kid was meant to be on as well. He’d hoped to find a spot that was close enough and miraculously gave him a good view of the mine but his optimism had put them in a bind. Huddled up against a little inlet next to a bend in the road, Fiona’s judgement and the others’ quiet discomfort chafed and begged him to take action.

Harlea took another breath and avoided peeking around the corner to try and get another look. So long as they knew when Alwin created a distraction for them, everything would go fine. Waiting where they were was a good decision. Compared to Beatrice who had chosen to stay put near five hundred metres down the trail, they’d done well to get even this close. She was convinced that she would be able to catch up to them when Alwin gave the signal and Harlea didn’t have the energy to keep fighting folk who questioned his every decision.

Besides, having the green hand not be present for the fighting might be a blessing in disguise with how scared she was. Sure, Elayne, Terry, Fiona and Areli all looked tense and sullen, but he trusted that at least three of them would be able to hold their own against the gnolls.

Armour and weapons ready, they looked the real deal. Harlea always enjoyed seeing the crew in their battlegear. Fighting was stressful and desperate but the moment that he entered the fray, time would slow down and, most of the time, fighting felt like he was truly living. Living on the edge and no other pastime could compare. He didn’t enjoy killing, he wasn’t a psychopath or nothing, but the tension of proving he was stronger, smarter, more skilled, luckier when he fought was addictive.

They’d be fighting a dozen bloodthirsty gnolls. Vicious creatures who made normal folk wet down the side of their legs but Harlea trusted that he and his crew could handle them. They were that good. And Terry would be fine, he was pretty sure.

The hair on the back of Harlea’s neck vibrated with anticipation and Harlea checked the mine for any movement. Behind the wooden palisade, he could only see the stumpy watchtower that hugged the palisade to give the miners somewhere to keep watch from, “There’s definitely some gnolls on the watchtower but I can barely see them. But that means they probably can’t see much of us, either.”

“If there’s no cover up ahead, we can’t go forward.” Fiona interjected and pointed to the top of the cliff above them, “And last night, we sat up there and I told you there wasn’t anywhere to hide.”

Harlea leaned back slightly to look all the way up the giant granite cliff face to the small ledge jutting out into the sky above him. From below, it looked like any other ledge but Fiona trusted that if Fiona said it was the spot they’d sat the night before, it probably was, “Huh, well, I’ll be damned.”

The overhang looked tiny from where they stood. It was so small with nothing but empty space until they hit the ground below, whether that was the trail they were on or the valley far below. Either way, no one survived a fall from that high and they absolutely shouldn’t have been sitting there.

Another quick look around the corner and Harlea spotted the head of a gnoll on the watchtower. Snapping his head back around the corner, he shuffled everyone back for good measure, “So, this is as close as we are going to get before he sets the charges off. That’s fine.”

“That’s a long way to run, Harlea.” Fiona noted while the others looked anywhere but at either of them.

“We should get plenty of time to close the gap. The gnolls have no idea.” Harlea countered, “But maybe aim for the tower with a bijou when you think you can hit it. Give them something to think about.”

“I can’t reach the tower.” Fiona muttered angrily but went back to fussing with her bag.

Harlea ignored her and considered risking another look around the corner. There was no commotion from the mine and the gnoll hadn’t been looking his way. In the uncomfortable mountain silence, he'd be able to hear if the gnolls were suspicious. Surely.

His optimism dropped away as he paused mid-peek to spot the gnoll turning to look out over the valley below them. He kept perfectly still and willed the gnoll to not notice him. The gnoll gave no sign that they had seen anything and turned back to look at the mine, barking at something hidden below the wooden palisade.

Harlea poked his head back out and scanned the front of the palisade for anything new. Besides the mine’s compound, there was nothing else to mountain ledge. The Hifords had built the palisade around the entire ledge but there was only one gate and one road to get to the mine. The defences were simple but effective enough, even if they were manned by a something like the gnolls.

Getting through the door was going to be a bloodbath if they couldn’t figure out a better way. Even with a distraction, they’d need to figure out a way to get inside before the gnolls knew what happened. Areli had told him that scaling the palisade was fine and that he could open the gate from the inside but Harlea wasn’t convinced. The idea of him going in alone filled Harlea with all sorts of animosity.

Harlea’s eyes settled on the gate and he pursed his lips. He could leap over with Areli, he supposed. He could use his axes to try and get enough purchase to hop over the top if he was lucky.  Then, he and Areli could figure out how to open the gate before the gnolls got to them.

Harlea sucked in a breath and let out slowly as he thought. It felt like a pretty suicidal plan but it could work.

Harlea dropped back into a squat and adjusted his helmet. Going through the gate was another idea. He could try and force it open with Elayne and Terry and then burst in, all heroic-like. But he’d bet his last coin on the gate being reinforced if the Hifords went to enough trouble to put a watchtower on the wall but the gnolls might not know how to place the drawbar into place.

A full gate for a mine was ridiculous but likely in the south. The Hifords were paranoid little noblings. Most villages, mines, and lumbercamps in their province were walled and situated up on hills when possible to dissuade the bandits and raiders who frequented the roads in the Valleys. The walls were of little use with the handful of House guards that were left these days and they made situations like Harlea and his crew found themselves in much, much worse when they got contracted to charge the damned walls to take them back.

“Our last count for gnolls was around a dozen but we'll have no idea how many going in.” Harlea whispered to the others, “Elayne, Terry, and me go first.”

“And I.” Fiona responded immediately.

“No, you and Areli stay in the back.” Harlea did a double take at Fiona, “Once we clear the gate entrance, come in and use the space to shoot.”

Fiona sighed loudly in response but said nothing more.

Harlea shuffled around to bring his bag to his feet and pulled the main pocket open. There was something he needed before they rushed the gate, he just couldn’t remember exactly what it was. His brain buzzed with the promise of violence and for him to focus on anything but getting through the gate was difficult.

At the top of his bag was his spare shirt, then some rope, and his waterskin. He placed  them on the floor in a neat pile and looked for anything else he could do without. Looking into the bag, he decided to stop pulling his belongings out and resolved to leave the damned thing behind. He could always come back to his bag before they went into the proper mine.

With one final look in his bag, he pulled the compartment’s drawstring tight again, “Ok, we can drop our bags here then. Once Alwin’s distraction starts, we are going to need to move fast.”

“Good idea.” Elayne added, “And we can get prepared while we wait. I’ve got three torches and I’m fine to bring my bag into the mine to carry them.”

“I’ll be bringing my bag in as well. Just in case.” Fiona added, “And I’ve prepared two light bijous we can use for the bigger chambers.”

“Try and save one of the bijous just in case.” Harlea nagged despite knowing she knew well enough.

Fiona nodded and looked back out to the mine, “Have we seen Alrin yet?”

“Not yet. But he’s probably just biding his time.” Harlea answered anxiously.

Three hours after they departed was what they’d decided. Alrin was to wait three hours and then start scaling the mountain to plant the explosives.

Harlea had been watching his watch while they hiked and time had dragged in the first two hours. He’d been nervous they’d not get there in time when they’d left camp and kicked himself for saying four hours.

When they’d reached the trail, it felt like a weight lifted off of him with every step up the hillside. Even if Alrin set off the charges early, they could rush up the trail to take advantage of the surprise.

Now, as they huddled so close to the mine, he was the most stressed that he’d been the entire day. The fault on the cliff side that they’d planned was hidden from view and he’d only been able to spot it a few times as they snuck up the trail.

“It would be easier if we just knew whether he was on the cliff face or not. Then we could plan.” Harlea muttered to himself.

“It’s like that cat.” Areli suggested to the group unexpectedly.

“The cat?” Harlea asked, intrigued.

“Before the war in the Thenfeld lands, there was that cat in the bag that was in the creek all the way down that ravine. That cranky old man threw it off the bridge and you rushed down to the river’s edge to get it.” Areli replied non-chalantly, “We didn’t know if the cat was alive or dead until you opened the bag.”

“Final fucking of the ninth hell, Areli.” Harlea gasped and matched the horrified faces of Elayne and Terry, “That’s pretty fucking dark.”

“It’s a good analogy,” Areli replied defensively, “and the cat survived, remember?”

“Still though,” Fiona chided him soberly.

“Mm, anyway, moving on. Let’s plan what we will do if Alwin’s distraction doesn’t come through. If the explosive charges don’t work…” Harlea offered to the group, eager to move past Areli’s strange, off-putting comparison.

“The charges looked well-made. My bet is on Alrin has made some mess of it all.” Fiona interjected.

“He knows what to do.” Harlea disagreed, “But if something has happened and it all goes tits up, what do we do instead?”

The group went quiet and Harlea waited for one of them to give him an idea. He wasn’t sure what to do but he had time to wait for one of them to figure something out.

Their first plan hadn’t been so bad, he thought. Alrin would tie in on a large tree situated on the left side of the cliff face and scale down to the crack they wanted to explode. The fracture sat nicely on a small ledge on the cliff side, with enough space for the explosives to fit inside from what they had seen. Once he tied himself onto the tree, Alrin should have been able to walk out along the ridge to drop onto a rocky slope, which Fiona had called a scree, and scramble down to move along the small ledge. The ledge wasn’t much but Alrin told them he could do it.

Get up there, make rocks go bang. Easy.

Harlea could practically hear Alrin saying it while he laughed at all of their precautions and planning. Once he’d placed the explosives, he needed to get off the ledge and get back up the scree and he was home free.

At the thought of the kid on the cliff, a wave of anxiety hit Harlea hard enough to make his head spin. The first plan hadn’t been so bad, in theory, but the kid shouldn’t have been the one to set the explosives. Trusting their entire plan on a random villagefolk was foolhardy. Osexi had made leading so easy when she’d done it.

Harlea resisted the temptation to look around the corner again, “He’s going to be fine.”

“I’m sure we’ll hear him if he’s not.” Areli noted unhelpfully.

“Areli.” Harlea began but ran out of steam, “What plans do we have?”

Terry had decided to opt out of the conversation and chose to stare back at the forest. He, at least, had his sword and shield in hand and his bag at his feet.

“We could close the distance as quickly as we can.”  Fiona suggested, “But the gate is still an issue.”

“I can go over the wall and get it open fast.” Areli asked, “But only if we don’t get spotted. Or they have something else to focus on.”

“I’ll go with you if you do.” Harlea informed him firmly, “But any other plans?”

“We might be able to scale the watchtower if we can get to it?” Elayne suggested and looked around the group sanguinely.

Harlea’s reaction matched the others. The palisade didn’t technically run around the entire space of the ledge that the mine’s courtyard was on but it wasn’t far off. To get to the watchtower, they’d need to sneak up to and past the gate, then continue to not get spotted and creep along the very edge of the mine’s wall with nothing but the wall and a thirty metre drop to the forest to catch them.

“Ah,” Harlea began but paused as he struggled to think of a way to optimistically convey how much he dreaded her idea.

Fiona and Areli waited for Harlea to continue. He cleared his throat and flashed Elayne a brave smile, “We can’t get out on the ledge because we’ll have to go past the gate and then if they spot us, we’ll be kind of fucked.”

“Superbly fucked with nowhere to go but over the edge.” Areli added for clarity.

Elayne scrunched up her face, “Yeah, totally. That makes sense.”

“If there was more space on the ledge, then maybe.” Fiona followed up in the quiet, “It’s just too dangerous as it is.”

Harlea jumped at the chance to agree, eager for a second chance to be supportive, “Yeah, another situation and it could’ve worked.”

Harlea felt good about his follow up but, judging by the way Elayne looked physically ill, he might not have nailed it.

“It is definitely a stupid idea for now though.” Areli noted dourly.

“I bet if I go onto my belly, I can crawl out to get a better look. They’re not going to be looking for a human on the floor halfway up the trail. Then, I’d be able to see Alwin I bet.” Harlea put forward to the group.

“Harlea, that’s insane. For one, you’re in bright red clothing.” Fiona laughed haughtily, “Next time, you have to bring less conspicuous clothing.”

“Fair point.” Harlea offered weakly. He loved his travelling outfit but he could see how it had made being stealthy harder, “We can wait for the gnolls to get off the tow-”

The air shifted around Harlea as a reckoning arrived for the gnolls. Concern flashed across Fiona’s and Areli’s face as they drew closer in towards the group and looked at the cliff face above them.

A series of tremors grew beneath their feet before a wall of sound buffeting them where they hid. The vibrations shook Harlea loose from the cliff’s edge, forcing him to stumble several steps back to the centre of the road. As Harlea fought to balance himself once more, he caught sight of an entire section of the cliff falling in slow motion over the mine. The chunk of stone broke up as it tumbled down onto the side of the mine’s compound, crushing the left side of the palisade beneath its fury. High up on the side of the cliff swinging through the deadly hail of granite was Alrin laughing like a Wild man.

Alrin flew through the stones and smacked his side on the cliff, hard but well enough out of the deadly rock slide for Harlea to be content.

Harlea, on the other hand, was in far more danger. Debri fell along the entire cliff side, raining dirt and rocks along the trail around him and threatening to leave him as a stain on the road. Harlea steadied his feet and gave one more forlorn look as a large boulder crashed through the far edge of the palisade wall before tumbling down to the jungle below.

Harlea snatched his bag off the floor and moved back to the wall to join Fiona and the others. Holding the bag above her head, he shouted over the uproar, “Shields!”

Terry had already positioned his shield above Areli’s head to protect them on the backside of their group. Elayne followed suit quickly and forced her way behind Fiona to cover both Fiona’s and Harlea’s head.

The world crashed around them, with the shield shuddering under the sporadic rocks that managed to fall straight down the face of the cliff to assault them. Time slowly passed as the rockslide slowed and abated. Elayne tried to push Harlea under the centre of the shield but Harlea forced it back to cover her and Fiona instead. As recompense for his good deed, he felt a sharp pain shoot through the back of his head as a rock slipped through the defence and slammed against his helmet.

Harlea focussed on praying. While he hadn’t been to temple for a long time, he liked to think that the Good Gods were above caring about his truancy. Possibly even above caring that he offered a prayer to the Old Gods or even the Grand Soul sometimes. If they were still alive somewhere, the gods of Yore might even appreciate him reaching out for their help and the Good Gods had more than enough followers to see to them all at once.

The sounds of the rockslide lessened and faded away from the mountainside, leaving them in the hellish aftermath, largely unscathed. Harlea stepped away from Fiona and Elayne, carefully moving to the middle of the trail to get a better look again.

The path towards the mine was littered with a slew of rocks and chunks of broken tree that obstructed Harlea’s path to the mine but didn’t block it completely. Several parts of the cliff nearby still had several fonts of dirt cascading down onto the ledge but the majority of the cliff had settled.

The rockslide had created an immense amount of damage on the trail but it paled in comparison to the carnage it had wrought on the mine. The entire side of the palisade to the left of the gate had been ripped apart, with large boulders crashing down onto the  wooden palisades and leaving gaping holes amongst the piles of detritus. The majority of the rest of the wall had remained intact but Harlea could already hear the screams of shock and pain from the gnolls drift over to him.

“Through the gaps near the gate, let’s go!” Harlea yelled back to the others and forced his legs to propel him forwards. A spike of adrenaline mitigated the coming headache that radiated out from the back of his head and he focussed on racing through the destruction.

As he approached the gate, he watched the gaps for any movement. The space through was big enough for them to squeeze through, he was sure for at least the middle one of the three biggest holes. Just so long as the gnolls didn’t set up some form of line before he managed to get to the breaches, they’d be ok. There wasn’t any movement on the watchtower yet and Harlea felt confident that the gnolls would be far more intent on looking up than they would at the mountain path.

A streak of flame arced up into the air over Harlea’s head, sailing in the direction of the watchtower. The ball of fire kept together well but pitched down too early and broke apart as it smashed into the side of the ledge.

Harlea’s stomach dropped as he spotted a small head poking out from the watch tower’s parapet. He couldn’t see if they had a bow on them as they scurried to get high enough to see Harlea but he felt confident that the gnolls knew that there was some treachery afoot.  The panicked screeching and barking grew louder as Harlea reached the gate. He had struggled to reach a full sprint and slowed down before he committed to the middle gap. No-one was on the other side from what he could see and he wasn’t willing to wait to figure it out.

He dove through the gap with only a quick look back to find the rest of his crew was about fifty metres behind him. Elayne had been closer and the others close enough that they were going to be with him soon enough. To Harlea’s surprise, even Beatrice had started running up the bottom of the path to join them eventually. When Harlea hit the gap, he bulled his way through, going axes first to bat at any of the wooden pieces that stuck out. He collected most of the pieces of wreckage as he raced through, but missed a jagged piece of wood that caught on the side of his leather gambeson and pulled him back slightly.

Inside the courtyard was a state of complete anarchy. Debri had flooded the entire floor, spraying dirt and rock over the mining equipment and underneath the two large platforms that dominated the courtyard’s centre. The worst hit building was a longhouse to Harlea’s left, with several boulders falling straight down to tear holes through the tiled roof and break down several parts of the walls.

The gnolls were all over the compound, eight visible from what Harlea could see between the rubble but, with several large pieces of granite near the gate blocking his view, there would be more around. Three of the ones he could see were near the mine’s entrance, tails between their legs and sprinting into the darkness. Four of the others were armed with two having oversized leather chestplates over their bodies and each of them busy running one way or another.

Harlea stepped out through the broken wall but struggled to move effectively between the difficult terrain of the large stones that were strewn in front of the entry. The small gaps available let him to shuffle through the boulders and he noticed several more gnolls standing up on the mining platforms with an old wagon sitting between them.

Only one gnoll had noticed Harlea so far. Only a few steps from Harlea as he rushed inside, they had frozen in place with their eyes locked on him as he approached. Being spotted wasn’t what Harlea had expected, with the gnoll crouched on all fours and their sword at their side.

Harlea moved first, diving over a slab of granite to kick the sword from their side as he landed. The toe of his boot found purchase on the sword’s guard and sent it spinning back half a metre behind the gnoll before they could snatch it back up. Swivelling to his right side, Harlea pushed off the slab and used the momentum to flick his right axe at the gnoll’s neck.

The gnoll dodged backwards and scrambled another step backwards towards their sword before Harlea’s left axe could catch him on the backside.

Taking the initiative, Harlea half-stepped towards the gnoll and watched for the telltale shift in momentum. As the gnoll grabbed their sword, they planted their feet and twisted in place and showed their hand. As they twisted to try and catch Harlea with their sword, Harlea’s right axe met their arm mid-swing and caught the gnoll’s forearm as he kept the distance close.

His right axe came back into guard as his left circled through to see if he could catch the gnoll one more time before they got their legs under them. The familiar echo of steel meeting steel rang in Harlea’s ear and he drew his left axe back. The gnoll had deflected well, far better than Harlea had expected but their technique was still soddy. Their guard was too far from their body and their grip not tight enough to convince Harlea that he couldn’t just pluck the sword from them when they next over-extended.

Face-to-face and ready to strike, the tension between Harlea and the gnoll grew. Striking a soft spot of the gnoll at the end of his axe’s range wasn’t impossible but it wasn’t easy. Nor risk-free.

He had very little time to waste but a little time wasn’t the same thing as no time. He kept his axes close and stayed limber, eyeing for even the slightest inclination of the gnoll’s movements. The opportunity didn’t take long to arise for Harlea. With the gnoll’s head turning to the side to check the watchtower, Harlea struck, fast and hard.

His left axe swung through on a reserved arc, hitting the sword hard and forcing it down between them. His right axe hit home, catching the gnoll in the chest and biting deep into its ribcage.

The pain didn’t strike the gnoll immediately, instead catching it unaware as they tried to back away from Harlea as he loomed. As the gnoll pulled back, Harlea deftly twisted his axe to dislodge it and considered just letting the gnoll run and bleed out somewhere in the wreckage.

As the gnoll increased the distance between them, Harlea risked a glance to his right. The watchtower was now on fire, and Harlea caught a glint of green scales halfway up a large boulder that dwarfed the palisade gate. With both archer and mage cover, relief seeped its way through the heady mixture of fear and furor inside him.

Harlea didn’t let the reprieve last, stepping in closer to the gnoll and deciding that he wanted to end it quick if the others had already arrived. In a large arc, his left axe swept across his body before rotating and gliding towards the gnoll’s left side. The gnoll flinched backwards and gave a feeble attempt at stabbing him in the groin.

The decision to try and stab him was music to Harlea’s ears. With a twist, Harlea’s right axe met the sword as he dodged to the side. Once he felt its blade thunk against the middle of the axe’s shaft, he pulled his axe across and locked the blade into the axe’s beard.

All it took was a nice little jerk and he forced the gnoll into a final, fatal mistake. The choice to either lose the sword or their balance wasn’t an easy one for the gnoll to make and they had no time to choose as Harlea beared down on them. They stumbled forward and Harlea’s left axe spun back around to smash into the top of their head in perfect synchronicity with the right axe’s movement.

The force from the left axe forced the gnoll’s head into its chest, bouncing as their neck struggled with the severe whiplash. They crumpled from the impact before Harlea could tear the axe out again and forced him to couch his knees to keep his hand on his axe and their corpse off the floor.

His right axe tossed the sword backwards into the rubble and his left finally relented, dislodging from the head with a squelching pop.

To his surprise, the gnoll kicked back away from him as their body hit the floor. The last dregs of life had a habit of fighting harder than they needed to and Harlea followed the gnoll as they stumbled backwards on their hands and knees.

It only took a few steps before they tripped into a larger rock. Blood sprayed out from the gaping wound in their caved-in skull as they fell to the ground, and they desperately tried to wipe the blood from their eyes.

Wasting time on formality did neither him nor the gnoll any favours and his right axe bit into their skull and he closed in on the gnoll to finish the job. His right axe crushed the gnoll’s compromised skull easily, spraying a mixture of blood and grey matter up as it came to a final, definitive stop.

The axe returned to its guard with practised ease, smattered with viscera and flicking it onto the ground as it rotated. The violence and the killing didn’t feel good when it was like this. He wiped the axe’s blade on the gnoll’s fur and stepped back to guard the opening for the others. Whether he liked it or not, there was a lot more to come but hopefully there would be more competent gnolls for him to contest with.

To his side, a whimper called out from the rubble, tempting him to look back. With no gnolls in his immediate vicinity, he relented and checked the courtyard-side of the wall. So much of the internal supports had been compromised inside the compound, with many of the palisade’s bracers hidden beneath the huge volume of dirt and debri from the rockslide. The few that were still visible had been broken and leaving the wall tilting backwards from its own weight and the weight of the rockslide. Beneath a mound of rocks and wood, Harlea found a partially buried snout and little hand reaching out desperately towards him.

Seeing the buried gnoll made him hesitate.

Hesitating wasn’t like him. Doing so in a fight was fatal but neither fact stopped him from pausing to watch the trapped gnoll struggle to shift the wooden beam from their back. Harlea watched impotently as the image of his childhood dog, Scruff, flashed before his eyes and he felt the pain deep in his chest, telling him he was too old for all of this.

An arrow bouncing off of a nearby rock snapped Harlea back to attention. Three gnolls were on the right side of the compound, running towards the gate with their weapons drawn and snapping at each other.

Before he could react, one of the gnolls took an arrow to the chest, the force forcing it to go off-balance and trip. The other two continued towards the gate, snarling as their eyes drifted up to the sky above Harlea. Flying through the air, Elayne cleared the top of the gate as she somehow managed to fly up and over the wall. Her hand pushed off the top of the gate and she landed heavily on the courtyard floor.

Sliding half a metre before her feet got proper traction, Elayne floundered for only a moment before she composed herself again and raced headlong towards the gnolls.

Harlea turned his back to Elayne and the gnolls, confident she’d handle it. Both Fiona and Areli had found places on the large boulders around the gate, spraying fire and arrows respectively from the high ground and the two gnolls that were left wouldn’t stay standing for long. As Harlea checked the gate once more, he spotted Terry trying to force his way through one of the smaller gaps in the palisade. There were no gnolls nearby at least and he had bigger fish to fry than the old man getting stuck between in the gap.

Most of the gnolls had fled for cover, with the few that hadn’t run being killed by Areli on overwatch. Harlea watched the left side of the courtyard, his eyes scanning the wreckage of the longhouse for any signs of movement inside the ruins.

Not much had survived the rockslide on the left side of the courtyard. Those that had would’ve probably run to the safety of the mine’s entrance. Leaving Areli and Fiona at the gate felt irresponsible but Harlea struggled to sit back as Elayne clashed with the few gnolls that still put up a fight.

Once Elayne’s feet were under her, she reached the gnolls quickly, getting a few steps from the largest of the gnolls before she slowed down. The gnoll had bright orange fur, a leather helmet, but no weapon to speak of as they charged forwards.

Before they clashed, Elayne propped low on her knees and met them shield first. With a loud bang, the two of them met in a spectacular fashion. The gnoll’s momentum was blunted by the shield almost immediately and her sword flashed as it tore through the gnoll’s thigh before they could scramble backwards.

The gnoll let out a yip of surprise but stayed close to Elayne, choosing to grip onto the edge of her shield with both of their hands. Try as they might to bite or scratch her, Elayne’s shield positioning was textbook stuff, keeping the thin wooden barrier between the two of them while she waited for an opening.

With the way the gnoll clung to the shield, Harlea was surprised she’d not just smacked them right in the snout with the shield’s front. Grabbing onto someone’s shield like that often turned out very poorly for the aggressor, being a shieldbreaker’s wet dream to have their opponent willingly hand over their balance and control,

Harlea tutted as he cleaned his left axe on the side of his pants, the gnoll would need to be very confident they were a lot more powerful than Elayne to get away with something that stupid.

Not a moment later, Elayne pulled the shield in tight to her side, letting the gnoll wrestle with the shield enough to build tension between them. Once satisfied, she released the shield so it flew backwards to smack the gnoll in the face.

Smashing into the gnoll nose-first, the miserable orange gnoll crumpled to the ground in shock. They tried to drag themselves back out of instinct but didn’t notice as Elayne forced the engagement. Tucking in close to the gnoll, her sword jabbed again to strike deep into the gnoll’s stomach. At the angle she’d stabbed in, the backpedalling gnoll forced the sword’s blade up behind their own ribcage and staggered their movement as a consequence.

With another smack with the front of her shield, Elayne shoved the gnoll back on to the ground. Her attention turned to the last gnoll but they had decided that they were better off running for cover in the mines.

On the watchtower, another three gnolls struggled to organise themselves to respond to the onslaught; two with bows and one with a spear. They barked at one another as the archers searched for arrows and the gnoll with the spear pointed at the roof.

Harlea had no idea whether the two archers had realised that the top of the watchtower was on fire, but he was confident the third gnoll had. They held a spear in one of their hands and tried to decide between abandoning the tower and telling their friends. An arrow flew over the gnoll’s head, making the decision for them. With a look of terror towards Areli, the third gnoll tossed the spear onto the courtyard floor below and dashed towards the ladder.

Before they could climb down, three super heated rays shot over Harlea’s head from Fiona’s position and centred on three points of the watchtower. One hit one of the archers as they found an arrow, shining directly on their chest and the other two hit the top of the tower’s platform. The one ray that did hit a gnoll ignited them instantly, with the fire eating greedily at their fur. The gnoll dropped to the floor, screaming as they rolled along the floor. Panic overtook the two other gnolls and they rushed to help their friend from rolling further into the other spot fires that had started. Their attempt didn’t last long before they chose to abandon them to the flames. The gnoll that had dropped their spear hurried to reach the ladder, flipping around to put their feet on the top of the ladder while the other simply jumped off.

The second archer dropped from the tower and hit the ground hard. With a loud crack, their left leg snapped from the impact and their body slammed on the floor. Their scream managed to break through the rest of the cacophonous racket of the courtyard for a moment before they passed out.

The gnoll on the ladder had made it halfway down the ladder before Fiona had redirected her rays of fire onto them. When they coalesced onto the gnoll’s back, they ignited into a vortex of yellow and blue flames and swallowed the gnoll up before they could hit the dirt floor below them. Their death had at least been swift as they went limp upon hitting the ground with a dull thump.

“Harlea! On your left!” Areli yelled from above and an arrow sped past across Harlea’s periphery. Shifting to the left, he found two gnolls approaching from between the rubble.

Neither of the two had been game enough to cross the larger boulders between them and Harlea, choosing to instead hover behind the partial cover they could find amongst the rocks.

“On it!” Harlea yelled back as he stepped towards the gnolls. The larger of the two growled and rushed towards Harlea with an oversized human shield and a small hatchet in hand. Their size was comparable to the orange-furred gnoll across the courtyard and they eagerly rushed through the gaps in the rubble.

Harlea loved the enthusiasm, rushing to meet them. The second gnoll was only half the other one’s size and had stayed back with a makeshift spear in hand.

Harlea decided on stopping between a larger boulder and the broken half-buried palisade wall. Taking a calculated step back, he positioned the small gap a step and a half in front and readied his axes.

The larger gnoll charged to meet him shield-first through the gap, a move that Harlea happily greeted with a heavy strike from his right axe. The shield’s edge splintered from the impact but held as the small shrank between them. Harlea shoved the shield back with the hilt of the axe and, to his surprise, the gnoll staggered backwards, put off from their forward charge far quicker than Harlea had anticipated.

Harlea wrenched back his right axe and watched for the opening to exploit. No opening appeared between the tight sides of the gap and the overly large shield and the gnoll backed away as they watched for Harlea’s next attack.

Harlea had lost sight of the second gnoll behind the shield and he reached a tentative poke with his left axe to see if he could goad the big gnoll into overcommitting again.

They refused and instead tried to find a place for their feet to set amongst the smaller rocks that covered the ground. A large tunic they’d put over their salt and pepper fur hindered their legs further, catching their tail and forcing them to work hard to find their balance. The tunic looked like it was reasonably made but both it and the shield were far too large for the smaller species like the gnolls.

Watching the gnoll struggle to keep their feet gave Harlea a terribly stupid idea. A grin spread across his face and he recalled the fact that he was certain the shield hadn’t felt very secure when he’d ripped a chunk off the shield. More than likely, the gnoll was holding onto the shield’s straps rather than using the cumbersome loops that were made for humans. The little goblin that inhabited the stupid part of his brain begged him to do dumb shit. The dumb shit would be so worth it if it worked is what they promised Harlea.

As the gnoll shifted back and banged the shield on the side of the palisade’s bracer, Harlea leapt into action. Wrapping his left hand around the top lip of the shield, he prepared his right axe to capitalise on his ingenious plan.

The gnoll reacted as he’d planned, pulling back on the shield as they retreated further back and tugging against Harlea’s grip. With far more power than the gnoll, Harlea yanked the top of the shield down and watched as the gnoll’s head appeared in the shield’s absence.

Harlea doubled down and grabbed the side of the shield with his right hand. With both of his hands, he shoved the gnoll hard into the palisade wall and felt their back smack against its solid wood.

The gnoll dropped onto the ground, fear dictating their movements as the fight got away from them. When they tried to back off again, Harlea managed to grab the scruff on the back of their neck and got a bite on his arm for his overreach. He pulled his hand back and checked his red padded vanbrace to find it still very much intact. He was relieved, telling Fiona that a gnoll had bitten him in the same place as the wolf several days before would have been worse than any pain the bite could’ve caused.

The gnoll didn’t waste time as they relinquished their shield and ran back to the second gnoll to regroup. Harlea’s left axe swept past the gnoll’s side by less than an inch and he followed behind closely to keep the distance. In contrast, his right sat close to his centre and batted the smaller gnoll’s spear aside as they made a feeble attempt to strike at him.

Trying to weave their spear between Harlea’s and the large gnoll’s body was a brave decision. With the gnoll’s frantic back-pedalling, the spear’s sharpened tip whizzed past the gnoll’s face and forced them to dodge by tripping head-first into the boulder.

Harlea bode his time, eyeing the smaller gnoll as the spear tip wobbled between the three of them. The little gnoll had no armour over their speckled grey fur and whimpered as they lurched forward half-confidently to cover their fallen friend.

Half-confident was still a bit too confident from Harlea’s perspective. Their hands were at the very back of the spear and they had taken an obvious left step forward as they prepared to stab once again. The spear went backwards in a long sweeping motion before shooting to Harlea’s right side in a very predictable manner.

He happily dodged past the spear tip and entered the dead space where the spear shaft lived. Looping his left arm over the middle of the spear, he clamped down on the pole with his armpit. His right axe slashed in a back hand swing along the spear shaft to catch the gnoll in the face before they could try to pull the spear back.

The axe tore through the side of the gnoll’s jaw and broke several teeth as it twisted back around to catch the gnoll on its right clavicle with a meaty thud.

The force shook the gnoll enough that their conviction dissipated immediately, as they dropped the spear to try and run from Harlea. Their turning arc was too cumbersome and they were hampered by their friend on the floor, making escaping Harlea’s wrath no longer an option. His right axe landed heavily on the smaller gnoll’s spine before they could get so much as a step away from him and ended any slim hope for either of the gnolls.

With so many nerve endings in the spine, the gnoll spasmed as their body revolted against their wish to flee. However, the axe hadn’t cut deeply to completely sever the nerves, bouncing off one of their vertebrae as the blade met solid bone. Harlea tried to stay close and he swatted away the gnoll’s final attempts at swiping at him as their instinct to fight or flight battling inside of the poor doomed creature.

His left axe caught the gnoll’s right forearm as they swung at him, propelling them into the nearby rock and making a promising snap as the rock and the axe met with the forearm caught in between.

The gnoll let out a yelp and gave one final attempt to bite Harlea but found his knee catching them in the mouth as they twisted. With his weight propped on his left leg, Harlea drove his right knee up into the gnoll’s jaw and felt more teeth break with the impact.

The larger gnoll jumped back into the fray as Harlea stepped away to let the smaller gnoll collapse on their own. With an axe still in their hand, the orange furred gnoll tried to hit Harlea with a haymaker-esque overhand swing. Parrying the overzealous attack was simple enough, with Harlea stepping in and catching the hand midswing with his left axe. The gnoll’s wrist convulsed as the axe head cut into the gnoll’s thumb and they flinched backwards, terrified of Harlea getting too close.

Harlea stayed close to the left side as they tried to back away. As they turned their head, Harlea struck with his right hand and drove them into the floor with his punch hitting solidly into their temple.

The left axe came down quickly before the gnoll could attempt to run again, as much for his own piece of mind as the gnoll’s. The axe’s edge cut into the back of the gnoll’s neck and sliced deep enough into the spine that the gnoll passed quickly beneath him.

With another disappointing clash with the gnolls, Harlea felt what little thread of adrenaline and rage slip away from him. It was a fact that the gnoll wanted to kill him. In a different reality, where the gnoll was more capable, they would have happily ripped him apart and cooked him for dinner. Just like they’d doubtless done to the unfortunate miners who were captured weeks ago. But the reality they were living in, they’d need the mines to be far more dangerous before the fight to become anything more than a bloody chore.

Harlea checked for the other gnoll before he moved any further. Knowing when danger was near him was a sixth sense of his, he was sure of it. A few steps away, the smaller gnoll had stood back up and swayed from side to side as they clutched at their broken forearm with a look of determination in their eyes. Harlea sighed and checked that the larger gnoll wasn’t getting back up before he stepped forwards.

An arrow flew in from above them and finished the gnoll for him. Sticking fast in the base of the gnoll’s neck, the arrow forced the gnoll backwards with its force. The gnoll wrapped around the arrow shaft that poked out from their throat, blood pumping out of the wound as they coughed and gasped for breath.

Harlea looked back to see Areli scowling above him. Content with leaving him with the gnoll’s dying breath, the grumpy old lizard turned his attention to other gnolls and notched another arrow.

The other side of the courtyard was resolving itself quickly as well. Terry had gone to join Elayne as she finished off her group of gnolls and Fiona and Areli were waiting for any more signs of movement.  A bolt of fire came from Fiona’s hand towards the mine to catch a gnoll in the chest as they emerged. The fire flared as it ignited the gnoll’s fur and left them scurrying back into the gloomy darkness of the mine.

Harlea could see at least ten gnoll corpses dotted around the courtyard. While Areli and Fiona had caught some of the gnolls that had tried to escape, there would be at least a handful that were a Future Harlea problem when they started going into the mine.

Worrying about the mine was a waste of his energy, he’d focus on dealing with the issues at hand. Like the sad little gnoll in front of him. The poor bastard had stopped trying to get rid of the arrow and settled on trying to crawl back to the safety of the mine. A trail of blood followed them and when Harlea came in close, they turned back and held their left hand up to try and feebly push Harlea away.

Harlea sheathed his right axe and stepped in close. He kicked the gnoll backwards and watched as their ruined right hand went to break their fall instinctively. The broken sections of their right arm crumpled as soon as their hand hit the ground and the gnoll let out a pained gurgle as they tried to scream.

Harlea swooped in close and ripped the arrow shaft out of their neck before stepping back to let the blood drain.  Despite his caution, the blood sprayed out from the gnoll’s throat, with several drops flicking onto his face as he pulled back.

Wiping his face on the back of his sleeve, he tossed the arrow to the side and watched the poor gnoll pass to the other side. As futile as praying for them was, Harlea couldn’t help himself. He hoped the Good Gods would keep an eye on all of Coia's creations as they stepped through the final veil.

With no more time to waste, Harlea dropped his left axe down onto the remainder of the gnoll’s neck and watched their eyes lose focus.

Fury fully replaced with sadness, Harlea felt what little rage left slip away and leave him feeling numb. Fiona had dropped down to join them in the courtyard and Harlea gestured for her to keep sentry on the mine.

She gave him the ok signal back while she talked to Beatrice who had finally joined them to pepper Fiona with a thousand questions about what had happened. Harlea met Fiona’s eyes, shared a bemused smile, and then turned his attention back to the other side of the courtyard. He could only see one last gnoll still moving through the courtyard, but with two arrows sticking out of their back, they weren’t going far.

The fact they had handled so many gnolls so quickly filled Harlea was something to be proud of, he supposed. The whole ordeal was classic Red Damnables’ heroics, just like the old days. Admittedly, the amount of collateral damage was also very on-brand in a way he had hoped that they’d outgrown but there was progress at least.

And It was hard to gauge just how bad the destruction was. When he first looked around the destroyed mine with the large boulders that’d wrought on the narrow ledge, he’d thought they’d majorly fucked up. But as he took stock of the mine’s loading platforms still being functional and one house on the far side of the compound looking like it was untouched by the rockslide, he wanted to level his assessment down to their plan being just a considerable fuck up.

Harlea stepped around the rubble at the front of the gate and inspected the platforms some more. Only three of the platforms’ structural beams were broken in total and the actual crates of goods on top of the platform had taken very little damage. Why, as soon as the Hiford’s fixed the gates and cleared the mine’s railtrack, they could get back to nearly business as usual. Mining whatever they were mining.

The situation looked all rather promising until Harlea turned to see just how much of the watchtower was on fire. Most of the watchtower was already gone but, more concerningly, the sparks were landing on the nearby palisade, threatening a far larger problem for them to deal with. Beatrice had been quick to rush over to the watchtower and had joined Terry as they paced anxiously nearby.

“Elayne!” Harlea called over to Elayne and the two volunteers and pointed to the entrance, “You three watch the mine and don’t let anything get out here while we sort the fire.”

“Yep!” Elayne gave him a thumbs up and then worked to corral Terry and Beatrice away to the gate.

Harlea checked on Fiona and found her striding confidently up to the front of the mine, “Fi! Can you sort the watchtower actually? Whole thing’s gone up.”

Fiona stopped in her tracks, noticed Elayne and Terry moving to the mine and fiddled with the bijous in her pockets, “I’ve only got one water rune. You sure you want me to use it now?”

He’d rather she didn’t set everything ablaze when they went on contracts. Harlea watched the blaze continue to grow for a moment before he responded, “Yeah, we can’t have the wall go up. See what you can do.”

Fiona took his order well and changed tack. She jogged past him with her rune quickly finding its place in her left palm as she pulled the mana into her body. As she left his hearing, she left him with a final grumble, “We’ve still got a whole damned mine but sure, I’ll use my resources.”

“Could’ve not used fire then!” Harlea responded foolishly. It would be like pissing in the wind arguing with her but he refused to let her pass uncontested.

He got no response as she got to work, shooting a fountain of water up into the sky to rain down on the watchtower. A swathe of water vapour rose up from the flames as they wavered in the presence of her rain. As Fiona pulled the jet of water down to hit directly onto the centre of the fire, the flames flicked and disappeared against the water’s might.

Harlea turned his attention to other matters that he needed to address. His mind whirred with his to-do jobs trying to form themselves into a neat list in his head. He needed the whole compound clear, which meant checking the two houses and the platforms. He needed the fire to be put out and they needed a guard for the mine to make sure they weren’t surprised while they worked. He also needed to get his bag.

Probably Areli could watch the mine, with his darkvision and his bow. So, Elayne could check the platforms with the volunteers. And then once Fiona was back, the two of them could sort the rest of the compound. And then, they’d need to go into the mine.

Harlea checked the cliff above him for the kid again, remembering he had one more volunteer that was unaccounted for. The ledge Alrin had found for himself was now empty and the giant cavity he’d blown in the side of the cliff had finally stopped shifting. Chances were good that the kid got out, if he wasn’t up on the mountain, nor down in the compound.

The quiet murmurs of the dying gnolls began to fill the air around Harlea as the heavy quiet of the mountains returned once more. A quiet whimper or a cry bounced around the boulders, haunting Harlea’s steps as he checked around the base of the loading platforms. If the gnolls were trapped beneath the wreckage, then they were a future problem to clean. Moving fast was important and he wanted the mine cleared before they worked on any sort of clean up. The houses stood as a question mark for him and he’d need to give it a quick look to placate that little voice in his head.

Through the broken window of the ruined house, Harlea caught a flicker of movement. So much of the house was caved in, but there was a little space inside near one of the windows potentially. It looked like a small pocket existed within the back corner of the house where someone or something could theoretically hide if they had survived. Harlea took out his right axe from its sheath and kept his eyes focussed on the gaps torn open in the remaining wall, “Areli.”

As soon as he spoke, a gnoll dashed out from the wreckage, sprinting full-pelt towards the mine. Harlea heard the familiar twang of Areli’s bow and caught the slight blur in the air.

The arrow caught the gnoll in the lower back and they tripped less than five metres from where Harlea stood.

Jogging to catch up to them, Harlea slowed back down once it became clear just how poorly the gnoll was faring.

They struggled to pick themselves up from the floor, faltering as they tried to force themselves back onto their feet. One of their feet was practically mush, with a shattered heel that no longer offered any stability. Their shoulder had been crushed badly enough that their right arm hung limply from their side. Blood poured out of their body so much that the arrow was just a small drop in the ocean compared to their other injuries.

Harlea knelt down a few steps from them and battled an unexpected wave of nausea. The gnoll was a light grey fur with dye and beads adjourning much of their face and down to their chest. They were more likely a priest or broodmother than a soldier if Harlea was to guess.

Through bloodsoaked eyes, she watched Harlea with the same sense of acceptance that Harlea had seen many times. He took another step closer and she flinched backwards and fell to the floor unceremoniously. Harlea dropped his axes and pulled out his knife from the back of his belt, “I’m sorry, little one.”

He made the last two steps fast, lunging in and grabbing the gnoll by the back of the head. She closed her eyes and barely fought him as he slit her throat.

She was gone and Harlea dropped her limp body so he could check on his crew. The fire had been quenched and Fiona held a new bijou in her hand, ready for action again.

Fiona approached and gave him a sympathetic smile, “You doing ok?”

“Yeah.” Harlea let the pain swell and then drift away. He had more to do before he could be sad, “Some ugly work this time.”

“It is. It’s not easy.” Fiona responded and then pointed her dagger out to the mine’s entrance, “But more to go. You’ll need to go grab your pack before we head into the mine, Har.”

“Yeah, shit. Right, I’ll run back and grab it once we get the all clear. Maybe I’ll bring Beatrice with me to grab the other bags too.” Harlea responded and stood back up. He’d give the girl one final chance to leave before they went into the mines, after that, she was locked in.

“Sounds good. Someone will need to check the house at the back too. Can’t have anything surprising us from the back.” Fiona noted as she started walking towards Terry and Elayne at the front of the mine.

“I’ll go.” Areli noted, standing right next to Harlea.

Harlea flinched and turned to find a bemused Areli standing directly behind him with Beatrice only a few metres away, “Good idea, go with Elayne and shout out if you need any help.”

Harlea moved towards the gate again and pointed at Beatrice, “Hey, Beatrice, come and join me to grab the bags, yeah?”

“Coming!” She replied with a quick glance over to Terry.

“Right, meet you back here in a few minutes and we head down the mine.” Harlea confirmed as he reevaluated his to-do list, “Only way to get shit done is to do it, hey?”