Meanwhile, Leslie, seeing what appears to be his death approaching, decides not to go alone. With a massive stroke, he sends the hairy head of the giant goblin flying into the air some yards to the south. The body drops to the ground, to a collective gasp from the yellowskins surrounding him. However, rather than making them flee, it appears to make them furious. Madly swarming, they plunge their swords through Leslie's chain mail, giving him near fatal wounds in the back. Feeling his strength give, Leslie's last sight is the blade of the swordsman smashing into his face. He falls in a growing pool of his own blood.
Rhune watches the battle, her deep purple eyes flashing like twin amethysts. She struggles against the spell that holds her immobilized, hoping that she can somehow over come the effects and be able to help. She groans as she sees Tag dropped. Mentally, she shouts with glee when the giant goblin drops.
Xania emerges first from the cloud of darkness, hard by eight goblins and both humans, who seem very surprised to see her briefly alone. Their surprise turns to dismay when another fan of color springs forth from her hands, sending five of the yellowskins keeling over.
As Ullar and Brother Augustus emerge from the cloud behind her, Xania ducks back behind them. Seeing the spell-caster within range at last, Auggie hurls his bola at him, spinning it above his head to gain momentum. It spins toward the mace wielder, but he steps aside easily before the weapon arrives.
The three remaining yellow-skinned goblins come charging at Ullar, though the swordsman and mace wielder interestingly hold back. Seeing Forte come charging down from the northeast rocky hills, their courage seems to break, and both rush to the horses, arriving well before Forte gets down the slippery slope. Interestingly enough, though, the horses yank back on their bridles when the humans arrive at them, though from their gear you suspect that the horses belong to the humans. Cursing loudly in some different language (which bears a resemblance to that spoken at Sukiskayn), both attempt to reign the horses in. However, the horses become even more unruly, and then Forte is upon them.
Ullar swings a low sweeping blow with his massive blade at the much smaller figures. The stroke impacts the rightmost one and cleaves deeply into his thigh, nearly severing his leg. The creature falls in agony, bleeding heavily. One stabs at Ullar, but he finds the magical barrier that Marika erected still protects him. The other seems to have become a bit intimidated, looking about in fright. Brother Augustus increases that fear when he whacks the fellow on the knee with his staff, to which it responds with a yelp.
Originally planning on freeing the slaves, Forte cannot help but attack the slavers, hoping for backup soon from Dakath. However, just as he gets close, he stumbles over a loose rock and falls to the ground before them. The men abandon their unruly steeds and attack Forte with relish. Rolling to get up, Forte feels the sting of the swordsman's blade poking his shoulder, though the wound is a minor one. He turns to face them, this time a bit more cautiously.
Ullar rears back with his greatsword once again and sends it crashing into a goblin's head. The creature falls with it's face bisected at the nose. Auggie and the remaining goblin trade cautious, and ineffective feints.
Xania, meanwhile, turns around just in time to see one of the silent humans emerging from the blackness, apparently having revived from the effects of Xania's magic. She dodges out of the man's way as he heads straight toward Brother Augustus.
Seeing that the horses are rebelling quite well on their own, Dakath switches strategies and attempts to position himself well enough to aid Forte. However, the rough terrain makes it tough for him to move quietly, and the mace wielder peels off from Forte, moving toward Dakath with his weapon raised high.
Forte, meanwhile, returns the wound the swordsman gave him almost exactly, poking him in the shoulder as well, an equally minor wound. The swordsman's response is much nastier, a direct thrust to the stomach that Forte does not have time to avoid. It plunges in and is withdrawn quick as a snake. Seeing his life's blood leaking out, Forte does not fall, however, but raises up his sword to die valiantly, as his partner Leslie did.
Alerted by Xania's cry, Ullar turns to face the incoming human. With a massive overhand slash, he crushes the man's head with his blade. He pulps like a melon and drops to the ground. However, two more of the humans come rushing out of the darkness hard on his heels.
Augustus, meanwhile, attempting to mimic Ullar's actions, overhands with his staff with much similar results. The goblin's head cracks loudly, and he falls to the ground.
Wary of any magicks, Dakath's sword licks out at the cleric pricking him neatly in the chest. The fellow responds rather surprisingly by yelling in agony and turning to run away!
Forte's bravery weakens with his strength, and he falls to the ground in front of the swordsman, his blade clattering to the ground. Luck is with him, however, as the swordsman, seeing his partner heading for the hills, decides on the better part of valor himself, and follows him.
As Ullar and Augustus face the incoming men, Xania sees that one of the spell-struck goblins is rousing. She drops and cuts it's throat viciously. Hoping the others do not rouse immediately, she rushes to Leslie.
As Augustus wears no armor, he is easy prey to the thrusting sword of the archer. He attempts to dodge, and appears to make it until he feels a wetness in his hair and a pain in his left ear. He has no time to ascertain the nature of his injury however, as he swings his staff wildly at his opponent, catching him in the arm, but not hurting him badly.
Ullar is easily able to dodge the savage attack of his opponent, and continues his bloody swath on the battlefield by crashing his sword into the groin of the man, who falls to the ground, bleeding badly. Ullar then turns to help Auggie.
Seeing the swordsman approaching and not thinking himself a match, Dakath allows the men to run off to the west while he tends to Forte. Amazingly, he sees that Forte is still conscious, and rising to his feet slowly. Dakath eases him back down and stems his badly bleeding stomach.
Xania reaches Leslie, but sees that there is no hope of helping him. His wounds are grievous, any one of which would have killed a lesser man, and she counts no less than four upon him. Realizing there will be time to mourn later, she returns to finish off the goblins before they come to.
As Ullar looks at Auggie's opponent, yet another man comes out of the darkness, though he is sure he only remembers seeing three fall to Xania's spell. Nonetheless, he meets this fellows charge as he has all the others, sweeping low and chopping cleanly through one calf and well into the second. The man falls with a look of astonishing agony, shudders a few moments, and dies.
Augustus' opponent, meanwhile, appears to take no note of the heap of bodies now surrounding Ullar, stabbing at Auggie's face once again. This time, Auggie is not so fast, and takes a penetrating cut to his cheek. As he falls backward, he flails wildly with his staff, almost amazingly finding his target's face and smashing his cheekbone. The man falls silently to the ground amid his partners.
Both men look anxiously toward the sphere of darkness to see if any more enemies await them, but none appear. Looking north, they see Dakath holding Forte near the horses, Xania slitting the throat of a second goblin while a third begins to stir, and the two humans dashing down the western path, on foot.
Dakath helps Forte to his feet and they come walking toward the others and Leslie's body. Meanwhile, Xania continues her bloody work while Ullar lends a hand. The goblin that had roused itself gets a chance to see Ullar's massive blade descending before it returns to sleep, this time permanently. Only one stunned goblin remains alive in the camp, easily slain if you wish it.
Rhune and Asif, meanwhile, have finally come to their senses. Thinking as one, they turn their bows to the fleeing cleric, sending four speedy missiles his way. One hits him in the chest, the other his right shoulder, both close to each other, though you note that one was Rhune's shot and one was Asif's. However, the priest appears a doughty sort, and continues to run into the woods and through enough cover to protect them from any more arrows. The swordsman runs alongside him.
Seeing the arrows hit, Rhune yells out in elvish. Even to Asif the sound and expression on her face will probably lead him to believe that she is pleased that they at least wounded him. Turning to face Asif, "Thank you my friend for the timely arrows on the guard," she says her purple eyes bright with excitement, her small chest rising and lowering with her deep breaths. She reaches out briefly to touch him on the shoulder, "Now let's see what else we can do for our companions," she says to him as she turns to camp. Her eyes sweep over to Leslie and she sighs.
All the group are momentarily surprised by a great cheer rising up from the chained humans, around a score of them. No such cheer follows from the chained goblins, about fifteen of them, who you know can see have reddish skin and are dressed all in red, clearly of the same tribe that attacked Sukiskayn a week earlier. The seven (or eight, if you wish) dead goblins in the camp are not of any of the three tribes you saw involved in that attack. Their skin is yellowish and they wear heavy iron collars and armbands. The dead humans (seven you can count) seem familiar, as they have whip scars and the marks of manacles on both wrists and ankles, shaved heads, and many have their tongues slit or removed.
The headless giant goblin carries only a battleaxe and a pouch with some gold coins within it, along with a heavy golden necklace that it wears, or wore when it had a head. The men and the goblins have assorted coins in pouches they wear as well.
Looking about at the prisoners, you note that there is no large red-haired man among them, though all do appear to be of the same ethnicity as those from the woods settlements you have seen so far. There are even two of the rowers from Kalanos' riverboat present, though no one else you recognize.
Ullar's heavy breathing brings the warrior back to reality. All of the combat has passed in some sort of trance, as if the ex-gladiator was back in the Arena. His muscles are still vibrating from the slashes with his might sword.
Puffing he says, to no one in particular: "Finally I've had the chance to show you what I'm capable of."
However, he notices Leslie his dead body and rushes over. With a tear in his eye he picks up the body and starts walking away with it, unsure where to put it.
"I am sorry, Ullar. I was too late to help him," Xania murmurs, looking to see if they had lost anyone else.
Softly he speaks to the now dead Leslie. "You once aided us, while we were surely outnumbered. You gave your strength to us, aided our group without any assurance of some benefit and now you died, while we tried to help others. How can life be so cruel? You did not deserve a death like this Leslie, you did not..." Ullar says, another tear dropping on Leslie's body.
It's for sure Ullar has no idea what to do with the warrior's body.
Xania walks back to where they left the horses, rather numbly. She begins to groom Noir.
Asif stirs his body into action, the thin tendrils of magic cast upon him taking time to dissipate. As if in a trance he finds himself standing by the side of Ullar.
"A brave man, Efendi. Very brave was he. I shall mourn for him although the time we spent upon the path of fate together was short. I pray that upon his departure he found the peace he was unable to find in life. Alas my knowledge of your peoples burial customs is unknown, but I shall help you in this sad task."
Dakath moves over to the others, helping Forte along the way. "Tag is over there behind the rock, I did what I could for him but he'll need more help than I can give him. As do you my friend," he says turning to Forte.
Forte opens his eyes and looks around. He can't make out what Ullar is saying, but he has heard the warrior carrying something... large. Forte turns his head, until he spots Ullar with Leslie's body. Momentarily forgetting his pain, Forte's eyes grow wide with disbelief. He tries to stand up, but suddenly grimaces in pain, clutches his stomach and falls back down to the ground. His eyes remain closed, his face in a grimace of pain; his lips move but no sounds come out. The others can't tell if the drops squeezing out of his tightly closed eyelids are tears of pain or tears of sadness.
Dakath looks at the others and appraises the situation. "We took quite a beating," he sees the others looking at him and it's then that he realizes that he's covered in quite a lot of blood. "It's not mine, Tag's and Forte's I think."
Dakath helps Forte into a comfortable position before moving to the place the Cleric was hit by Rhune's and Asif's arrows. He checks the ground for a trail of blood. Noting it for later.
Dakath sees some blood from where the arrows must have wounded the cleric, but just a few feet beyond, there is no such trail, and he cannot see a footprint in the hard rocky ground.
After Dakath helps him to a sitting position, Forte looks at his hands, which are holding his stomach. "Eew...yuck," he mutters to himself, before deciding to lie down on the ground. His closes his eyes to concentrate on mentally blocking out the pain, but his wet sticky hands remain a constant, tactile reminder of his massive injury.
Rhune walks over to Leslie very slowly. Once she gets there she kneels down next to him and sighing lays a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes brim once again with tears. She closes them for a moment and appears to be uttering something in elvish. She then stands and crosses over to the prisoners. Looking at the goblins with set face Rhune looks up at her companions, "What do we do with them?" she says nodding towards the goblins. She crosses over to one of the humans and takes a look at their shackles. "Do you know which one had the key?" she asks her.
The chained woman, barely more than a girl, though her pretty face and long blond hair give some idea as to what she might have had in her future, responds, waving at the giant goblin, "He carries the keys, which the goblins used to lock and unlock us," she seems very eager to help.
Dakath then moves over to the captured prisoners and assists Rhune in freeing them, as she finds the key ring hanging on the giant goblin's belt.
Once everyone as has been freed, except for the goblins, Rhune sighs. "Where is Stephan?" She is also apparently deep in thought about something else. Finally she looks at her companions, "It would seem that those who attacked us when we left the city have gotten more slaves to do their dirty work," she says pointing to the humans that are dead. She then crosses over to one of the rowers from the boat, "Do you know what happened to Stephan?" she asks him kneeling down next to him.
The rower, a nearly middle-aged bald fellow, nods, "They took him south, with the other big goblin. They crossed at the ferry and then we moved north to this place," he gestures expansively at the camp.
Once done Dakath moves closer to Rhune and quietly talks to her, "Listen we can't let those two get away, you know how to keep silent, they may be going for more forces, we need to ensure they don't live another day. I could use your bowmanship in case I can't get close enough to kill them."
"I agree. We can not allow him to escape. I am with you," she says as she slips her sword back into its sheath and takes her bow out again. She leaves with Dakath to look for the ones that got away.
As the two sneakier members make their way down the sparse eastern path, the humans begin to arm themselves from among the dead goblins and shaven-headed archers. With the group mourning Leslie, they do not initially realize why the slaves are doing this. All is revealed quickly, however, as they plunge upon the red-skinned goblins with reckless abandon, attacking the helpless little monsters without mercy.
Dakath does nothing to stop the deaths of the goblins, after all they dealt in death at Sukiskayn and the villagers have a right to revenge those who perished.
Spitting, a human man, old and bald but still hale, swears at the dead, "Revenge for our families and homes, filth!" No regret lies in his voice as the thick blood drips from his thrusting sword, nor does it lie in the faces of any of the other attackers.
Suddenly, the centaur reappears in the midst of the clearing, and this time you are certain that you should have seen him ride up. His three mates are quick to join him, charging up from the southern opening. "You have done well, as your kind always does when involved in death." He looks with some sadness, not at the dead and dying, but at the whipped horses, "And now you will free my kind to run with me, as they were born to. Those whom you burden by riding on their backs will remain with you, for now, as they have not complained of their treatment. But be cautious. I will be keeping an eye on you." His expression is a stern one. The horses in chains pull on them, clearly joyed to see the centaur approach.
Asif bows respectively to the centaur.
"Great Prince of horses, may this son of Aten thank you for the honor of doing such a small service to your kind. I am far from home, and I expected not to be honored to serve one we revere as the Kharrt Ses Stenu. Your brothers and sisters are now free. I hope this small service we have performed wipes away a little of the shame committed by these foul lice ridden goats who bleed at our feet. May Aten strike many more of them down, so that they do not again shame our kind. Fear not honorable one, the Ses (horses) who travel with us are in no such danger of mistreatment. In my land a man and his horse are like brothers not like master and slave."
The centaur nods his head, "In no land should my kind be mistreated, but cousins from your land have long told of the bond there between human and equine. Would that were the case here in this land, rather than my kind being enslaved, whipped, and chained for the prosperity of another race." He stands patiently, obviously awaiting something, most likely the horses being loosed of their chains.
Asif moves forward to look at the chains upon the horses. He prepares to remove them as he says: "Such things noble one are a sad reflection of the times. May the gods smile more beneficially upon your equine brothers in the years to come. I hope that the way of your cousins and mine shall take root here, and equine and man become more closer."
Dakath and Rhune return some minutes later. Dakath looks annoyed. "There's no trace of the two men who escaped."
Rhune returns with Dakath with a puzzled look on her face. She makes note of the dead goblins. Looking over at her friends, "What happened to the goblins?" she asks. "We couldn't find out where the other two went. I don't particularly like not knowing where they went," she says in an exasperated voice.