The Paladins

Chapter 6

"Khelben was right when he said there was a great force of evil at work here," whispered Miltiades.

The group lurked down the hall from the gate chamber, listening to the riot of fiends within. Miltiades handed Khelben's map to Aleena, who tucked it into a pocket. "The gate to the Utter East is just ahead, and it sounds as if the fiends are massing there. They must be involved in the kidnapping plot. They've probably been stationed there to intercept us!"

"So much the better," hissed Kern, hefting his hammer and gazing toward the noise with a glint in his eye. "Save a princess and destroy fiends! Tyr blesses us this day!"

“For the last time, she's not a princess!" moaned Aleena, rolling her eyes and shaking her head in exasperation.

"Whatever."

"We can't simply rush in there and start swinging," protested Trandon. "We have no idea of how many fiends we're up against."

Kern frowned at the warrior. "We know they stand between us and our quest, and we know the longer we wait, the more of them there will be to destroy. What more does a champion of Tyr need to know?"

"Nothing," agreed Jacob.

"All right," said Miltiades, ending the discussion with the tone of his voice. "The enemy is before us and our course is clear. Prepare for battle."

"Wait!" Aleena cried in a hushed voice. "Trandon's got a point. That sounds like an army of fiends in there."

Kern and Jacob groaned impatiently. Miltiades looked at her with an expression that reminded her that he used to be undead.

"Stop!" she hissed. "Look here. I've got a spell that'll let me look in that room and see what we're up against."

"I don't want to know the odds," whispered Kern.

"But intelligence can help us win the battle, or at least win it more quickly, with less casualties! That helps secure our mission. Remember? To save the princess?" She spat the last word with scorn.

"Shh!" cautioned Miltiades. "We waste time. Aleena cast your spell quickly and conduct your espionage. The rest of you prepare for the charge."

"And," added Kern, "she's not a princess."

Aleena took a deep breath to quell her rising irritation. As she released the air from her lungs, she reached into a narrow pocket at her hip and withdrew a bit of bat fur, which she ripped in half and placed into each palm. She rolled back her eyes and shut them, clenched her fists and touched the knuckles of her thumbs together, then pressed them against her full lips. She bowed her head and whispered into her closed hands. They began to glow red from the inside, as though each held a brilliantly illuminated pearl.

Without opening her eyes, Aleena looked down the corridor, toward the gate chamber. She briefly glanced down at her companions, who gazed at her face intently, unaware that she now looked upon them from above, with an invisible magical eye. Her sight turned back toward the rough, slightly curving corridor ahead and moved that way.

Aleena's eye paused at the entrance of the room, as she mentally gasped. The area would be dark but for the kaleidoscopic glow of the gate itself, at the far end of the chamber, which threw eerie light upon a room filled to the corners with fiends. She looked over a stormy sea of mindless, murderous manes. They crowded within the confines of the chamber, pushing, shoving and biting. Curiously, the manes refused to spill into the corridor, though no door or gate stood between them and her party. Obviously, some greater fiend kept them from stampeding into every available space.

Aleena turned her attention toward the gate and spied dark figures atop the pyramid, beside glowing tusks. A pair of tall silhouettes stood over a third creature, who lay at their feet. Slowly, she drifted closer, over the heads of the turbulent manes, penetrating the gloom, focusing upon the creatures by the gate. Her magical eye drifted higher and closer to them. At last she could make out the oily feathers, the scaly heads, the cruel beaks.

"Vrocks!" her lips pronounced, back in the corridor. "True tanar'ri! Some of the most powerful of fiends!"

"You flatter us, human scum-wizard," boomed Rejik's voice in her head, and both of the vulturelike fiends looked directly at her magical eye! "Except you should've said, The most powerful of fiends!'"

"Tell the worms of Tyr to come out of hiding and face us, if they dare!" cried Shaakat. Across the room, the manes began to chatter and churn with escalating blood lust.

As Aleena looked past the vrocks, at the third figure on the floor of the pyramid's flat top, one of the vrocks extended its pair of shriveled humanoid arms and gestured toward her invisible eye. Her enchantment shattered and dissolved with a shimmering rain of sparks. Back in the corridor, she unclasped her fists and slapped her hands over eyes, throwing back her head in pain. Miltiades caught her as she reeled. She drew her hands from her eyes and blinked until she could see normally again.

"They know we're here," she said. "There's a mass of manes just a few feet away, and two vrocks atop the pyramid, next to the gate."

"Then it's time for justice!" cried Jacob.

"Battle positions!" ordered Kern.

"Hold," countered Miltiades. He squinted down the hallway, toward the enemy, so close yet not coming any closer. "They're waiting for us, aren't they?"

"Yes," said Aleena. "And there's more."

The men turned and looked at her expectantly.

"Kastonoph's in there! They've got him tied up at the top of the pyramid, by the gate."

The men gasped. "I thought you said Noph was dead," said Miltiades, looking at Trandon.

"They're probably creating an illusion of him to fool us," suggested Jacob.

"Maybe I was wrong," sputtered Trandon. "Maybe they teleported him here to use against us." Miltiades stared hard at him. "Fiends teleport, don't they?"

"If Noph's in there, then there's no time to waste!" said Kern.

"Kern, if we launch a frontal assault, Noph won't live long," cautioned Aleena.

"If we don't destroy them immediately, Noph will die much too slowly," replied Miltiades evenly, turning to her. "But there's a trap awaiting us in there. I know fiends, and I know how they think. If they're just waiting for us when their hordes are only thirty feet away, with nothing physical to keep them from charging us, then it's obvious that they want us to enter and fight them there."

"What other choice do we have, Miltiades?" asked Kern. "The way is clear!"

"What about Noph?" asked Trandon.

"What about the ambush?" asked Aleena.

"Noph is their ambush," submitted Jacob. "They think we're vulnerable if they have a hostage, but Noph knew the risks when he came along. The quest is the only important thing."

Kern looked to Miltiades. "What'U we do?"

The elder paladin looked toward the gate chamber, teeming with fiends, then back toward the corridors from which they'd come. "One way or another, we've got to enter that chamber and take on those fiends. I think the only way to overcome the ambush, given the circumstances, is to charge straight through it."

"Yes!" cried Jacob. Kern moved to take the lead.

Miltiades reached out and caught his fellow paladin's muscular arm. "Not so fast…"

"Where are they?" whined Rejik. "I never met a Tyr-leech who could resist a challenge!"

"They're smart," answered Shaakat. "They're trying to come up with a plan to save our little human slave, here, but they'll soon realize the only option they have is to come in swinging. Just be ready with the warding circle."

Shaakat extended his wrinkled hands and whispered in his mind, "I call on ggatzshrHegk." Instantly, a shining obsidian javelin, covered from tip to tail with jagged scales, pierced the planar boundaries of the Abyss and flew to him, sizzling through the astral flow to the Prime Material, faster than time. With a black flash it appeared in his outstretched hands.

"The wizard is my first target," he thought, hefting the weapon for a throw. "The others will have to fight their way to us." The vrock mentally touched upon each of the bar-lgura, commanding them to wait upon his orders, while Rejik restrained the manes.

Another few minutes passed without the heroes' attack, and the fiendish troops again grew restless.

"Where are they?" repeated Rejik. "Why don't we just release the manes? Why don't we-"

At that moment, the resolute cry of human voices filled the cavern and three manes standing at the entrance squealed in agony, spinning violently from their feet as though struck by unseen fists. They tumbled limply to the ground with a spray of ichor and dissipated into thick black vapor. The fiends around them wailed in terror and began to crawl over each other in retreat. Four more screamed and split open with a vicious crush of invisible blows-they oozed upon the floor and began to smoke as well. Behind the advancing, invisible wall of slashing death, a bright flash briefly illuminated the shadowy profile of a humanoid before streaking like a comet to the center of the room and exploding in a massive ball of fire. The manes within the infernal blast shrieked horribly and collapsed into smoking puddles. Pandemonium erupted across the chamber. Acidic gases hung in the air where perhaps half or more of the manes had stood.

Shaakat cackled. "Excellent command of invisibility, to maintain it in battle."

Another tangle of sparks at the entrance to the room betrayed the transparent figure of the wizard, but this time the light was blue, and it crackled momentarily between the human's hands before shooting across the chamber in a jagged bolt of lightning. The vrocks tensed against the sting of magic and then thrust it off. The lightning passed through them and smote the wall behind with a thunderous eruption that shook the room. Their feathers stood up in the charged atmosphere around them, yet they took no hurt from the attack.

"Potent electrical assault. I almost felt it," sneered Shaakat. "Rejik, set the manes free and erect the ward. I’ll take care of the rest."

Rejik released his mental hold upon the lesser fiends and focused his mind upon a line of blood, smeared along the perimeter of the pyramid's platform. He spread his wings and arms outward and froze in that position, bending his will upon making and holding a barrier as powerful as the one he and Shaakat had encountered in the Utter East. This one, however, would prove deadly to creatures of goodness and order.

Throughout the chamber, the unbridled manes clamored wildly and turned upon the invisible menace, swarming toward it. Bellows of hatred blended with howls of pain as the monsters crashed upon the circle of Tyr warriors and splattered backward. The heroes' transparent weapons shimmered in deadly arcs through the air as they slew the clawing fiends all around them. The manes piled upon one another. The chamber grew thick with the haze of their smoking dead remains.

"Time to show yourselves, cowardly primes," thought

Shaakat. He reached out with his keen senses, found the magical aura surrounding the Tyr followers, and obliterated it with a stroke of his powerful mind. With a sizzling hiss, the four human men and one woman shimmered into view. The warrior males formed a crescent of swinging weapons, mowing down the squealing manes before them, while the female wizard gestured, calling up another spell.

Quickly, the vrock drew back his spindly arm and hurled his javelin with the strength of a giant. It buzzed like a furious wasp as it sliced through the air, and its scales stood up from its surface, making it spin like a streaking top as it homed in on its target. The spear's gleaming point drove into the throng, passing through two manes uninhibited, and bore into the chest of the wizard, knocking her from her feet with a cry of astonishment. "I call on ggatzshriiegk," thought Shaakat and the weapon twirled cruelly in the wizard's body, eliciting a delicious scream of agony from her, before ripping free and sailing back to him.

To Shaakat's delight, a mob of tanar'ri swarmed over the woman as quickly as she fell to the ground! Her arms and legs flailed beneath the sweeping host of scratching, gnawing manes, but she couldn't find her feet. One of the warriors turned and desperately slung his warhammer at the piling fiends, reaching into their midst with his free hand to seize hers, then snatching it back as they snapped greedily at him. He cried out "Aleena!" as he fought through the horde, and a second warrior turned to help, but it was too late.

Both vrocks cackled joyfully in the echo of the warriors' cries of anguish.

"Nooo!" wailed Noph from the ground behind them, his magical charm broken at the sight. "Aleena! You bastards!" he cursed and began to sob. The master fiends laughed harder.

"You wish to fight unseen?" asked Shaakat in the Tyr-lovers' minds as he sent forth utter darkness from his own mind, plunging the entire party of humans into blindness. At the same time, he cocked his arm to hurl his javelin at another one of them. Then he paused.

Amazing! The humans were fighting completely blind and slaughtering the manes while suffering little damage themselves! They shouted to each other and moved into a defensive circle, allowing themselves plenty of room to swing, then entered into a warrior's dance, thrashing the space around them in a graceful series of attacks that crushed and scattered the tanar'ri. One of them-a warrior completely sheathed in shining plates of finely wrought metal-spun about, holding his gleaming hammer at arm's length while he twirled and uttered sickening words of goodness and light-and the darkness fell.

"I want to attack, too!" complained Rejik in his head.

"Just keep that warding circle intact, leatherhead! They're still coming this way!"

Shaakat flung his deadly javelin again, aiming for the one who banished his arcane darkness, but the human anticipated his throw and swung his hammer to meet it. The flat of the paladin's mallet squarely met the point of the spear with a resounding crack, and the fiend's prized weapon splintered into black rubble that flew back to the pyramid and rattled against its surface like a hail storm.

The paladin with hair the color of fire and armor like the scales of a golden fish held up his hammer and cried, "In Tyr's name, be gone!" His voice echoed through the chamber like a titan's, and all around the warriors a dozen manes convulsed and ruptured into black smoke. The stinging residue of slaughtered manes grew dense, and the fighters choked and reeled. Shaakat leaped upon the opportunity.

"Now," thought the vrock to the bar-lgura, who rippled forth from the walls of the chamber and sprang at the paladins with fore- and hindclaws extended. The humans parried their savage slashing and biting attacks, yet the one wielding a staff rolled to the ground under the crush of a leaping bar-lgura. The tanar'ri seized the fighter by the throat and released its Abyssal aura of terror; the prime gagged with sudden fear. He dropped his weapon and struggled frantically to get free of the fiend, which leaned over to clamp its vicelike jaws upon his face. The remaining manes in the room converged upon the fallen man, climbing atop one another to get at him.

"Trandon's down!" shouted the warrior with a large blade, and the remaining three humans shifted smoothly to a triangle defense. Onward they pressed. The remaining manes burst into roiling puffs of toxic vapor, and their spirits fled back to the Abyss. The bar-lgura leapt in groups, hoping to overwhelm the paladins, only to be driven back on their heels until, one by one, they too fled for their native plane.

At last, bloody and weaving from their battles, the three warriors of Tyr reached the base of the pyramid and began to climb its steps. Side by side they ascended, grim-faced, readying their weapons for another bout. The two vrocks waited at the top.

"Paladins beware!" shouted Noph.

Shaakat wheeled and slapped the young man with the back of his emaciated hand. Noph cried out and lay still.

"Yes, beware paladins of Tyr," sneered Shaakat in their heads, returning his gaze to them. "We have your impudent whelp here. Surrender or we'll murder him right now!"

"Let them kill me!" mumbled Noph through bleeding, fattened lips.

"You shall be remembered with honor, Freeman Kastonoph!" cried the red-headed human.

The paladins continued their ascent without hesitation. Shaakat hissed and raised his arms as if to strike at them, but waited for them to reach the top.

As one, they stepped up to the top of the pyramid, sword and hammers raised high, but as their feet touched the warding line of blood, a bright flash erupted in front of each of them with a shrill crack, casting them back down the steps like rag dolls. They tumbled downward with a clatter of metal and groans of misery, coming to rest in a heap at the pyramid's base. Shaakat and Rejik roared with laughter.

"Kern!" cried one. "Kern, rise in the name of Tyr!" The paladin in golden scales shook his head and weakly rolled to his knees.

"Jacob?" called the elder warrior to the swordsman, who lay still and lifeless. "Jacob!" The human looked up at the vrocks with an expression of hatred to warm a tanar'ri's heart. "Damned fiends! Tyr, grant me the power to fight once more!"

The two paladins pulled themselves to their feet and began to climb once more. "This is it, Miltiades," said the one called Kern. "It's now or never!"

"That's it! Come a little closer," thought Rejik to them. He broke his concentration upon the ward and stepped closer to his partner, at the top of the steps, watching the humans stumble toward them. "Creatures of law," he sneered. "They never quit. It's their greatest weakness!"

The paladins fully regained their feet about halfway up the stairs and began to gain speed. Their hammers swooped down and around, then curved upward on their backswings, coming over the top with deadly force as the warriors gained the last few steps. They opened their mouths and bellowed with holy righteousness. The fiends spread their wings in response and spewed forth a swath of stringy, greenish fluid; then they blinked themselves to the side. The paladins' weapons caught only air, while they themselves were drenched in the tanar'ri's deadly, viscous juices.

The spores hatched with lightning speed, nourished by the wholesome flesh of the Tyr worshipers; vines wrapped them tightly, thrusting into their bodies.

The two men rolled down the steps and came to rest atop the third, who gave no protest as he received their full weight. The elder paladin twitched in his death throes for a few moments before the last glimmer of his life faded away.

Noph's stomach turned as he watched the vrocks caper in an obscene victory dance. They cawed in horrifying, otherworldly laughter as they circled each other. His eyes filled and spilled over, blurring the ghastly vision. Angrily he blinked away the tears and cast his gaze about the room, seeking the specter of death coming to claim his unworthy life.

His eyes went wide, then he looked up at his tormentors.

"You sickening pair of Abyssal garbage trolls!" he snarled at them. "I've seen some spineless, yellow-bellied, scum-sucking cowards in Faeriin, but I never knew it got that much worse in the Abyss!"

The vrocks stumbled to a standstill in the midst of their dance and stared down at the helpless human.

"You think you're so tough; just untie me and give me one of those hammers! One-on-one or both of you together, I'll kick you from here to Elminster's tower and back!"

"The little berk wants us to untie him. How sweet!" jeered Rejik. "Let's do it."

"Bah! There's no sport in squashing bugs," scoffed Shaakat.

"I'll squash your ugly pointy heads, birdbrain! If you've got guts, I'll spread 'em all over this room!"

Mow about a hunt.' suggested Rejik. Give him thirty seconds to run."

"Wait!" cried Shaakat. He hopped closer to Noph and glared into his eyes. "He's not thinking of fighting or running." The vrock leaned into the boy's face, making him wince and shut his eyes tight. "He's thinking… distraction!"

The vrocks spun about with a rush of feathers. Miltiades, Kern, Jacob, Trandon, and Aleena were standing inside the warding circle. They were completely unharmed and grinning ever so slightly.

In unison, Shaakat and Rejik emitted a paralyzing screech. The humans cringed in pain and leaped to the defensive, and the vrocks took advantage of the moment. They disappeared with a pop and fled for the Abyss with all the speed they could muster.

"Victory!" shouted Aleena.

"Justice!" cheered the followers of Tyr.

"You used the magical mirror, didn't you?" said Noph.

"Smart boy!" answered Kern, kneeling down to release him. "Well done, Freeman Kastonoph!" said the younger paladin, imitating Miltiades' rolling burr and tone of voice.

"Well done, indeed," echoed the elder paladin, himself, taking no note of the jest. "You risked your life to draw the fiends' attention so we could cross the warding line without delay. That took a paladin's courage and wisdom."

"It would've been worth it," said Noph while Kern and Aleena massaged the feeling back into his extremities. "For the quest," he declared, looking at Aleena. She smiled softly and ruffled his hair. Noph sighed in contentment.

"You were in little danger, actually," said Trandon. "Seeing what our reflections went through allowed us to prepare for a lightning strike of our own. Those tanar'ri would've been bad-smelling gas before they could lay a claw on you."

"That's right," agreed Kern, and his face grew serious. "We couldn't lose you."

Noph stared up at the youthful paladin. "C-couldn't lose me?" he asked, perplexed. "But-I've been the fifth wheel, the 'chaos child,' the 'foolish youngling.'"

"You accepted the quest, in spite of your weaknesses," replied Miltiades. "You are a member of the rescue team." He patted Noph's head. "You are one of us."

The ancient knight looked at the group around him and pointed toward the enchanted arch of mammoth tusks. "There lies the next stage of our quest. Thanks to our noble reflections, who died for us, we are fresh and ready to continue. If Freeman Kastonoph is ready, let us activate the gate and proceed!"

"Gentlemen, there's a damsel in need of rescuing out there," cried Kern with a wink at Aleena. "May Tyr guide us!"

"Tyr!" shouted the other warriors. Noph merely stared at the portal and gulped.

"Open in the name of the past and present lords of Waterdeep!" called Miltiades in his deep, rolling voice. The flowing veins of magic within the tusks dimmed and disappeared while a thin ripple of yellow light spread across the plane of the portal. The wall of the gate chamber no longer appeared beyond the archway; within, all was darkness.

One by one they cautiously stepped through, weapons drawn and readied-first Miltiades, then Kern, Jacob, and Trandon. Noph stood at the threshold, squinting into the void. He turned and looked back at Aleena.

"I don't know if I should go on," he said in a small voice. "I'm tired. I'm so, so tired-and I'm scared, Aleena. I don't think I'm cut out to be a hero anymore."

The wizardess put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed warmly. "I don't blame you, but they need you."

"They need me?"

"I'm not going on, Noph."

Noph stared at the beautiful enchantress, open-mouthed. "But why?"

"I have several reasons, but I can't explain them here and now. The important thing is you're the only Waterd-havian left in the party. You're Khelben's eyes and ears, now. You're my father's sole remaining champion." She looked deeply into his eyes. "Please, Kastonoph. I won't force you to go, but I will beg."

"No! Don't beg! I can't stand putting you in that position. Til go."

"Thank you, Noph. Thank you from me, from the Nine Lords of Waterdeep, from all of the Western Heartlands!"

Kastonoph turned back to the portal, pulled his knife from its boot sheath, and took a deep breath. "I had no idea how quickly the gods give you what you ask for," he mumbled as he stepped through and disappeared into the Utter East.

"Close in the name of the past and present lords of Waterdeep," Aleena bade the gate. She moved to the corridor leading out of the chamber. Then, summoning her most potent magic, she hurled a lightning bolt at the gate and the roof of the chamber over it. The ceiling buckled and collapsed, and tons of stone thundered down into the corridor, throwing up a haze of dust and rubble. Aleena looked critically at her work for a moment. Then she murmured, "Well, that's done," and turned back the way the party had come.

Somewhere in Undermountain, Halaster laughed.