Page 2 - Garrond Cross Mines

After hours of fighting, Fiona was fucking exhausted. The morning had been a blur and since they’d begun their assent up the mine’s trail, everything had hung on a knife’s edge. Now, they were inside the cave, the fighting had only become more desperate.

Fiona pushed against the cumulative fatigue that weighed down her legs and forced herself to keep up with the others as they moved ahead of her.

“We’ll push Terry’s tunnel first. El, you guard the left tunnel.” Harlea barked out the orders and sprinted to catch up to Terry in the back of the chamber they’d just cleared.

Fiona ran up the slope to the high ground with Beatrice and Areli. The ledge they’d come onto gave Fiona enough of a position to see the tunnel Elayne stood at and perhaps enough space to fire magic into the tunnel Terry and Harlea were going towards if she could get higher or the two of them were forced backwards.

Areli had a similar idea to her it seemed and he sprinted onto the ledge and hopped up onto one of the mining scaffolds that was attached to the wall. He deftly leapt up onto the third floor of the scaffold and took out an arrow to notch on his bow.

“Beatrice, we’ll stay down here. I need you watching the tunnel behind us in case any of them come from behind.” Fiona ordered as she fiddled with her satchel’s pouches and cursed the fact that she’d not purchased a new bag or belt for her bijous.

She checked back down the tunnel they had come from and tried to recall just how they’d made their way through the mines.

She only had a vague idea of the way with the tunnels being incredibly complex and the fighting in each chamber being brutally consistent.

By her count, there had been nearly two dozen gnolls after they’d cleared out six chambers.

Nearly two dozen and however many there were in the compound above them that was.

Fiona wiped the grime from her forehead with the back of her hand and watched the side tunnel that Elayne was guarding.

Taking the compound had been an absolute disaster. As she had predicted.

Fioan pushed the compound from her mind and fiddled with the bijou in her hand.She wasn’t sure how many fire bijous she had but she knew she had one light, two cold and her new tar charm still somewhere in her bijou pouch. Fiona watched Elayne take up her position to guard the left tunnel while Harlea chased Terry into the right side.

The sounds of gnolls calling to one another reverberated off the walls around Fiona, with their barks and whining surrounded her from all sides. Fiona tried to keep an eye on all three of the tunnels, with her head constantly going back to Beatrice as she stood next to her and watched the tunnel behind them.

She looked back around to see Harlea and Terry fighting gnolls in the furthest tunnel. Fiona found one of her fire bijous but chose not to activate it. Harlea looked like he had the situation in hand and Terry was safely behind, providing Harlea light with the torch in his shield hand.

Between the six of them, they had two torches lit, one with Harlea and one with Beatrice. The light from both of them flickered in the suffocating darkness that constantly tried to close in from every nook and cranny in the stone chamber. Fiona busied herself with checking for any shifting shapes in the tunnel Elayne faced.

At the edge of the dim glow of Beatrice’s torch, Fiona caught a glint of brown moving at the edge of the tunnel. Fiona activated the bijou charm in her hand and shouted over to Elayne, “Elayne’s tunnel, incoming fire!”

Elayne nodded slightly and shifted to her left to give Fiona an angle. Fiona pooled the heat from the bijou in her palm for two seconds before unleashing it on the third count. A ball of fire flew well over Elayne’s head and into the tunnel that lay beyond. The fire exploded on contact with the side of the tunnel and lit the chamber beyond for half a second.

One gnoll was caught by her firebolt and the fire that caught it ate hungrily into its fur. The gnoll let out a bloodcurdling screamed and ran into a collection of other gnolls in the back of the chamber as it tried to escape the magical fire.

Fiona pushed the mental image of the burning gnoll desperately trying to escape its own impending death. She had bigger issues to worry about.

By Fiona’s count, there was something like another half of a dozen or more gnolls huddling together in the darkness, desperately trying to avoid the gnoll that had caught fire.

A horde of gnolls and Elayne was functionally by herself.

Poor Elayne. The intention was to have Beatrice partner with Elayne while Terry and Harlea pushed into the mines and Areli and Fiona took up supporting positions from the back.

What had eventuated was Areli taking up the back of the party while Fiona held Beatrice’s hand and Elayne protected them all by herself.

Fiona checked where Areli was and found him loosing another arrow towards Terry and Harlea as they continued to clear out gnolls coming from their tunnel.

Beatrice hovered under Fiona’s wing and watched nervously at the darkness behind them, the torch shaking slightly in her hand, no doubt from all of the adrenaline coursing through her body.

Fiona wasn’t upset at the girl. She couldn’t be, she reminded herself.

The heat of battle wasn’t something that came naturally to most and it could leave the stoutest of folk in wet puddles the first few times. Fiona had guessed two out of the three of the volunteers wouldn’t be able to perform when the time came, she’d just picked Alrin to be the one to let her down.

Terry screamed in pain and Fiona’s attention snapped back to the battle at hand. She watched a gnoll leap up on top of Terry as he fled back into the chamber and Harlea in close pursuit once more. Harlea’s axe came down on the gnoll as it snapped at Terry and its blade cleaved through the back of the gnoll’s head with a loud crack.

“Lots of gnolls back of left tunnel. Fiona to support.” Fiona called out loudly to her crew, then turned to Beatrice and tried to put on a reassuring smile.

“Beatrice, I am going to the left tunnel but no one will be watching the tunnel behind us, except you. If a gnoll comes, you have to block it from coming in. You put the shield up and you scream bloody murder. Areli will turn and he will kill it, ok? You don’t run, you don’t come over to help me, you don’t do anything but watch that tunnel and guard us from behind. You understand?” Fiona asked tensely.

Beatrice nodded resolutely and began to say something. Fiona left before she could.

Fiona leapt down from the ledge and directly onto what remained of a burnt gnoll’s corpse. Her right boot landed on its chest and cracked its ribcage with the impact. She half-hopped as she fell and she landed in a pile of its intestines that had spilled out from a large wound on the gnoll’s side. She cringed and jumped another few steps out into the chamber and tried to flick the remaining viscera off her boots’ soles. She’d worn her thick boots for the mines and was suddenly so grateful she’d chosen to bring them.

Elayne was about ten metres away from Fiona, but the distance wasn’t easy to traverse with a variety of objects that blocked her way, from carts, loose mining equipment, and several large tables to the remains of several more gnolls writhing on the floor at her feet.

Fiona broke to her left to move against the wall to reach the tunnel. She vaulted over a mining cart and kept an eye on two corpses that were close enough to her that they might have been able to make a final valiant attack. Both of them lay silent on the ground and had had their throats slit where they lay. Fiona couldn’t help but appreciate how thorough Elayne was. It seemed part of her personality. A personality trait that Fiona very much appreciated.

Fiona’s mind drifted back to an observation that Elayne had made two chambers ago while she sprinted. The gnolls were getting smaller and more desperate.

Fiona moved through the chamber and dropped the deteriorating bijou in her left hand. She double checked her glovegun on her right hand and fumbled for her bijou pouch in her satchel once more.

She was glad she’d managed to reload the wind bijous inside the glove in the last chamber as she closed the distance to Elayne. She’d not found many more of the wind bijous, less than she had created she was certain. It was a problem she’d have to remedy when she got the chance but with one wind bijou armed and ready, and at least ten nails by her estimation, she had enough to help Elayne in the interim.

“Around six to your front, El. I’m fine but unconfirmed how many are in there,” Fiona joined Elayne at the tunnel’s entrance and found Elayne already engaged with a gnoll caught on her shield.

“Fiona!” Elayne cried out as she shoved the gnoll’s face down and away from her by tilting her shield. Elayne stepped backwards and struggled with her right hand caught between her and her shield. The gnoll pressed hard onto her and snapped only inches from her face.

Fiona needed no more encouragement. She closed the distance from Elayne’s right side, drew back her sleeve for good measure, and activated her beloved glovegun. The bijou whirred into action and the glove clicked as a nail loaded into the glove’s chamber. The wind bijou shot a short powerful gust of wind that propelled the nail forwards and into the gnoll’s face.

Fiona carefully aimed the glove around Elayne and placed her right hand over the gnoll’s eye before the nail launched. With a whoosh of air, the gnoll’s head snapped back with a sickening crunch.

The nail hit its mark well, firmly lodging itself in the soft gooey centre of the gnoll’s eye. The gnoll went rigid and then kicked hard back towards the wall. Elayne reacted quickly and forced the shield into the gnoll and slammed it hard against the wall.

The gnoll’s leg scraped at the bottom of the shield and its hands pawed at the large nail sticking out from its ruined eye socket.

In one swift movement, Elayne used her right hand to pick up the gnoll by the scruff of its neck and launched it back into the tunnel. With a skid and a thud, the gnoll spun out and smacked into the wall before collapsing into a ball with a harrowing screech.

Fiona stepped across to Elayne’s right and watched for any of the other gnolls to move out from the dark.

The only indication of the next gnoll was a flash of movement on Elayne’s left side. Elayne crouched her body down and propped her sword out in front of her shield to meet the gnoll head on.

The gnoll hadn’t expected Elayne to be fast. It hadn’t anticipated that Elayne would be watching  and ready and it hadn’t recognised that Elayne would read its movements like experienced soldiers do. Fiona watched in grim satisfaction as she watched Elayne’s plan unfold in front of her.

The gnoll realised Elayne was going to block its escape and tried to change directions. It had too much momentum so it did what was rational and leapt up to hit Elayne’s shield hard to put her on the backfoot. Fiona watched the gnoll not recognise the sword pointing out from the front of the shield, and grimaced as she saw it skewer on the tip of the sword. The sword slipped in under its ribcage and travelled through the gnoll’s body before it snapped the gnoll’s shoulder joint and burst back out into the open air. By the time the gnoll hit the front of Elayne’s shield, it was all over.

Elayne’s blade was still sharp and she ripped it back out of the gnoll as she shoved the gnoll back. The gnoll tried to jump backwards and tripped over as its arms collapsed.

Blood dribbled out of its mouth and the reality of its situation hit the gnoll hard.

Confusion ran across its face as its body began to signal that something was wrong.

Fiona couldn’t pull her eyes away and she watched in horror as the gnoll stumbled in vain around her. It kicked desperately at its side to try and run back to the other gnolls but couldn’t do much other than roll on the floor and hack up thick lumps of bloods.

Elayne deftly moved the shield out of the way and closed the distance. It reached out its arm to bat her away and she grabbed firmly onto its forearm. With a yank, she pulled the dying gnoll forward into her blade again. She forced the blade through the gnoll’s neck and ripped its oesophagus clean in two. She ripped her sword back and returned to her guard position next to Fiona. As she was trained to do.

Fiona focussed on the back of the chamber and used the time to find her next fire bijou. Her hand went into her bag and felt around the velvet inside of the charm pocket. Even if her count was way off, she had begun the day with fifteen fire bijous. She’d lost track but it seemed like a lot of bijous to use in what must have been an hour or two of fighting.

As she searched, she began to feel more nervous. She replayed the fights in her mind and she’d been using them liberally. They had been as effective as she’d hoped, with her seeing the gnoll’s fur catch fire giving her an awful sinister feeling of satisfaction but that had made her eager to see just how well she could use them.

She shuffled her hand through her bijou pocket, desperately feeling for the shape she needed. She could feel her emergency bandage, a triangular wind bijou, the spherical experimental tar bijou, and her box of nails but none of her oval fire bijous. The upper pocket of her bag had an annoying habit of creating hidden folds when she looked for something and bijous could sometimes make their way out into the main pocket of her bag. The experience of searching for her bijous was frustrating at the best of times.

She could feel her heart pounding in her ears but she forced herself not to look down at the bag. She trained her eyes on the tunnel, she’d have just moments if one of the gnolls decided to rush her.

The tunnel in front of her was wider than most others they’d seen in the mine. For the other tunnels, they’d only required one person to hold the line with a few of them being too small for Fiona and Harlea’s liking. It had been too good to be true.

Harlea had told her he thought they’d made it to the back of the mine a few chambers ago and he thought they must have been close to finished.

Fillienne’s Grace, Fiona prayed that they would be done soon. She was sore from head to toe and almost out of bijous.

A gnoll ran across the back of the tunnel and Fiona reacted quickly. Her left hand continued to search for a fire bijou, and her right shot a volley of nails out from her glovegun with the activation of her wind bijou. The nails were swallowed up by the void at the end of the tunnel and Fiona heard nothing to signify that she had hit anything but the stone floor. The gnoll hadn’t charged at them and the tunnel went quiet again.

Fiona focussed on what she could do. Somewhere in the darkness, the first gnoll was still screaming in pain as it slowly died from its burns. She rummaged through her bag and felt the oval shape she was looking for. She fought the temptation to activate it immediately and watched as the darkness somehow grew in strength in front of her.

She knew Harlea and Terry would clear the tunnels if given enough time and then they could push in together. The best Fiona could do was hold the line and wait.

“Thanks for the assist,” Elayne thanked her without taking her eyes off the tunnel.

“Anytime.” Fiona replied cooly.

“Hey, Fi?” Elayne began anxiously, “You ever feel bad for what we do on contracts? For the gnolls?”

“I did. A long time ago.” Fiona admitted, “Before I saw my first crewmate die.”

“Mmmm.” Elayne blinked hard and realigned her shield, “They’re monsters.”

“They’ve killed sixteen townsfolk from Garrond Cross.” Fiona offered to her, “Good folk. The debt must be paid.”

“It’s not easy.” Elayne stated. “It’s getting darker.”

Fiona started at the idea. She watched the fire peter out from the burnt gnoll in front of her but she hadn’t realised that the light behind was weaker as well.  Fiona had to strain to see much of anything in front of her but hadn’t realised it was because the tunnel itself was darker now.

When they’d had her light bijou and two torches, the tunnels had been incredibly bright. Seeing the gnolls had been easy. Now, Fiona looked back and found that only Beatrice’s torch was still alight. Fiona tried to remember just how many torches they would have left and her mind went blank.

Beatrice stood dutifully watching the back tunnel with no idea that she was the only light left.

Harlea’s torch was now Baraneen only knew where. He and Terry were fighting in the near pitch black darkness at the far end of the tunnel.

“Beatrice!” Fiona called out to her from where she stood but had little luck in getting the girl’s attention. Fiona shook her head and looked up to Areli to find him pointing madly at Harlea.

If Beatrice’s torch went out, it would be the end of them. The cave had no glowing flora like the natural caves of the mountains. Fiona looked back at Areli and pointed into the cave that she and Elayne were guarding, “Gnolls!”

With the barking and screeching of the gnolls in the mines around them, Fiona couldn’t hear what Areli said back to her. Instead, she saw Beatrice turn back to her pale as a ghost and say something to Areli.

“Elayne, I’ve got to get a torch. I will be back.” Fiona stepped back but then had an idea that could help Elayne, “This’ll give you some time though.”

She passed the oval bijou to her right hand and her left hand shot into the bag to find the spherical bijou once more. She found it in the top pocket quickly and she pooled enough energy into both of her palms to open both of the access gates at once. She forced the magic against the bijou’s gate to override the timer in her left hand and pointed her index and middle finger down to the floor a metre in front of Elayne.

A dark sludge shot out along her fingers and Fiona was relieved to see its consistency looked good even after a month or so of containment. She’d packed the mixture of lamp oil and sap from the Yellow Box tree branches into the rune for too many hours for it to fail in the bijou’s reapparition process.

The inky sludge splatter onto the floor in front of them and then solidified in place. She tracked her fingers up the walls of the tunnel and sprayed a healthy amount into the centre until the magic eventually ran out.

With her right hand, she opened the fire bijou and eked out four small sparks that rotated in the centre of her palm. Her hand glowed with the magic fire and she tossed the sparks out one by one into even spaced sections of the sludge. She cut the magic off quickly from the bijou and tried to force the gate to reclose before the bijou could deteriorate any further.

Two of the sparks ignited on the mixture immediately and the heat hit her like a hammer. She’d only tested the mixture in her workshop prior to the rune filling but the mixture had ignited surprisingly well after containment. Better than what Fiona had expected, certainly. She took a step back and watched the flames leap up into the air and thick, black smoke spew forth past her face.

“Holy Three, Fiona! What in the hells!” Elayne shouted in surprise.

“Watch the tunnel! We’ve only got one torch left.” Fiona responded. The chamber sprang back into life as the light filtered through the smoke and illuminated her crew.

Fiona sprinted for the bags near the other tunnel. She could see two of their bags several steps behind Harlea. She darted along the wall of the chamber and jumped up onto a platform set against the mine’s wall.

It was easier to see as Fiona moved with her back to the bright fire she’d set. She kept a close eye on her footing as she bounded along the platform.

She’d used two out of her three light bijous and all of the torches she and Beatrice had were now gone. That left them with very few options left, by Fiona’s count.

Fiona slid off the platform and landed heavily next to Terry. Terry stood with his shield to the front and watched as Harlea was hacking away at a gnoll’s lifeless body and laughing maniacally.

“Har!” Fiona called over to Harlea but stayed behind Terry’s shield to be safe.

Harlea grabbed the gnoll by its tail and hurled it into the side of the tunnel, “Fucking get back in there, ya mongrel!”

Fiona scowled and called out just out of the range of his axe, “Har, throw a torch to your left.”

“At your feet,” he answered back without looking. “Took you a moment,” He laughed again.

Fiona looked down to find one of their last remaining torches laying on the ground inches away from a pool of thick crimson blood.

The mad bastard.

“How many more torches, Har?” She asked, kicking herself for not forcing him to let her keep the torches.

“That’s my last one, had the gnolls take one out early on and lost another somewhere, how many do you have in the back?” He called back.

“Maybe one, maybe none. Time to wrap up and get the hell out of Kar.” Fiona advised nervously.

“Face front, Telly” Harlea growled and then moved back to Fiona. His face was covered in blood and had an insane look in his eye. “How fucked are we?”

“My guess? Mildly, but we need to get out of here. We’ve one dirty torch and a hypothetical other one and then the emergency light. But with no torches and if that bijou’s bindings failed…” she trailed off without finishing.

“It would be bad.” Harlea’s eyes went past her and across to Elayne. “and we’ve got a smoke problem too.” He commented offhandedly.

Confused, Fiona looked over her shoulder and found an inferno that she’d created next to Elayne. Elayne had  fallen back away from the fire and joined Beatrice up on the scaffolding at the back of the chamber. Areli had stayed at the top of the scaffolding with an arrow notched and drawn in his bow. The chamber had already started to become hazy with the smoke and Fiona couldn’t quite figure out what the three of them were doing behind them.

“Son of a bastard.” Fiona coughed.

Harlea dove and pushed her out of the way just as Areli’s arrow whizzed past them.

“Out, now.” Harlea ordered her, “Terry, you good?” Harlea shoved Fiona back towards the others.

Fiona staggered back but watched Terry tumble to the floor with a dead gnoll laying on top of him.

Areli’s arrow had pierced right through the gnoll’s ear and sunk deep into its skull, seemingly killing it instantly. Fiona stepped back and watched as Harlea forced Terry to let go of his shield so Harlea could pick him up.

Terry released his face and his nose slid and fell into two pieces. One piece flapped against the side of his cheek with a large amount of blood flowing out from the wound. The gnoll had taken a huge chunk of Terry’s nose and almost ripped it completely off in the two seconds that Fiona had looked away. Terry relented and collapsed on Harlea’s shoulder as Harlea forced him to move back towards the others.

Fiona looked back to Areli who was scrambling back down the scaffolding. His shot had been from twenty metres and he’d hit the gnoll right in the ear. Fiona gestured to Areli to go back the way they’d come but he didn’t notice. Elayne gave her a thumbs up instead and picked up several of the bags in one swooping motion.

Harlea moved next to Fiona with Terry and she ducked under his other arm to help carry him. She felt the old man’s weight rest on her shoulder and she dragged him forwards. He was lighter than she would have assumed.

“I got him. You sort the others.” Fiona told Harlea.

Harlea grunted and took Terry’s arm off his shoulder. He paused and held out his hand and Fiona knew immediately. She passed him the torch in her hand and focussed on supporting the old man as they fled.

Harlea leapt up onto the wooden structure in front of them and the second torch sprung to life. Dark shapes sprung out of the smoke and passed by Fiona before disappearing up the tunnel to the surface.

Fiona ignored them and focussed on balancing Terry’s weight on her shoulder. His blood made her hands slick and he kept sliding across her body and threatening to unbalance them both. Beatrice leapt down next to Fiona as they passed and looped herself under Terry’s other shoulder to help. Beatrice said nothing as she balanced his weight and forced them into a quick march to meet the other three waiting for them near the tunnel they’d come through.

Acrid smoke chased them from the chamber and Fiona concentrated on the shape of Harlea through the haze. She hacked and coughed as the smoke swirled aroudn them and forced its way through her nostrils and between the gaps in her teeth.

Terry gasped desperately and vomited onto his shirt as he stumbled forward with them. He looked over at Fiona and gave her a pitiful stare as his eyes came in and out of focus, “Sorry.”

Fiona shuffled him higher up her shoulder and kept her eyes on the blurry torch light ahead, “Not long now, Terry. It’s all going to be just fine.” Fiona lied.