Post by Dead Greyhawk on Mar 19, 2008 8:39:47 GMT -5
The Company flees back down the corridor, Raven and Diego trailing the others in case the minotaurs give chase. The trap door still is jammed with spare weaponry, and the Company thunders across it. Al and Adrienne form up in the doorway, providing a fighting line, while Raven and Diego crowd behind them, prepared to fire over the fighting line down the corridor. All is ready for combat, but no combat comes. Again, nerve-wracking minutes go by without the appearance of an enemy, and the Company wonders what is happening in the spaces beyond where they cannot see.
The door to the left of the Company flexes and explodes open. Ten flying snake-creatures, each fifteen feet long and bearing a human woman's head, sail through the doorway, much to the Company's surprise. Their black and red scaled skin coiling and writhing, the horde of snake-creatures hiss and glare at the startled, assembled Company. "Windelngigantischengurtband!" shouts Winthrop at the snakes, summoning a huge mass of webbing in the air above the creatures. The webbing seems to miss the writhing mass of snake-creatures, collapsing in a great mess on the ground, trapping Perrin beneath it. The snake-creatures stare down at the Company in displeasure.
"Here they come!" shouts Al, as the sound of bovine hooves echo before him. Dell pulls forth a scroll brought to him long ago by Eig from the sacred grove in the Dreadwood. He reads from it and extends a piece of heavy, thick twine across the corridor. Very carefully, he steps over the twine and rejoins the others.
Minotaurs, two abreast and two deep, charge towards the Company. The first two slam into Adrienne and Al, attempting to break through the Company's fighting line, while the two behind them suddenly stumble and fall. They appear to have been snared by the piece of twine strung by Dell. The two minotaurs appear dazed, as if they have fallen to the ground hard enough to addle their wits. "Keep the snakes off of us, and we'll kill the cows!" urges Al.
Raven, for some reason, staggers to one side, and Dell steps forth into the space behind Al. Dell reaches forth his hands and arcs a bolt of electricity down the corridor, wide and short. The minotaurs dance as they are electrified, the smell of roasting beef filling the passageway, but this only enrages them more. Only after Al buries his axe in the groin of the minotaur before him does a minotaur fall.
Raven staggers back upright, one hand to his head, and then seems to regain his stride. He steps back into position behind Al, draws his longbow, and sends three shafts into Al's head. The powerful bow, designed for use with Raven's magically augmented strength, drives the heavy arrows through Al's skull. The tip of one protrudes through his eye socket, one through his nose, and one through his surprised, open mouth. Al falls to the ground, very dead.
"Trithereon's mighty spear, man! What are you doing?" gasps Hugh, shocked. Raven turns a snarling face, complete with dead eyes, on Hugh, and Hugh lunges at Raven, trying to tackle the archer. His efforts are for naught, as Raven shrugs aside his feeble grappling attempts.
"Hugh's been charmed!" shouts Raven. "He's attacking me as the minotaurs come in and throwing my shots off! Keep him away from the rest of the Company, or he will strike you down in retribution!" The rest of the Company, not seeing exactly what has transpired, tries to keep Hugh in sight, not wishing to let him flank them. The battle line becomes a disordered mess.
With Al dead, the minotaurs push through the Company's now-disarrayed battle line. Hugh and Adrienne are beset by three of them, while a fourth, that had lagged behind the other four, charges headfirst at Dell. Hugh's natural agility and the golden scale armor provides him with protection against the minotaurs' blows, but Adrienne is knocked about. She is a hale woman and not easily laid low, but the minotaur's blows are not trivial. Dell, on the other hand, is not as robust, and he nervously stares at the sharp horns and huge flail wielded by the charging minotaur. Winthrop extends his arm, his wand of steam tightly grasped, and fills the area before him and Dell with hot vapor. The charging minotaur bellows in agony as it runs full bore into the vicious steam. Diego shoots the flailing minotaur as well, knocking it off balance and to the ground, where its skin starts to boil off.
Raven surveys the battle. Deciding his course of action, he shoots Hugh, once in the chest and once in the stomach. Hugh collapses in a heap around the great wounds in his body, trying feverishly to hold his entrails inside his body and keep his lungs functioning at the same time. It is plain that Hugh's full attention is occupied by merely staying alive and that without help, he soon will not be.
"Raven's either charmed, or he's blown a fuse!" shouts Dell. "Watch out for him. Winthrop, go get help!" Dell waves his arms and tries to affect time surrounding the horde of snake-creatures. While he does so, one of the snake-creatures spits forth arcane words and lances a bolt of lightning through Diego! Diego flies across the room to the staircase and lands on the ground, sprawled and burnt, barely breathing. Dell refuses to be distracted, and his magics seem to take effect, as many of the snake-creatures begin to writhe more slowly.
Even better, Antonus thrusts forth his wand and shoots into the mass of snake-creatures. A purple beam lances out and suddenly five of the snake-creatures freeze in place and then careen to the ground, landing on the webbing. "Images of the mirror," cries Antonus. "They are fewer than they seem!" Raven turns towards Antonus, and Antonus quickly flees, putting the staircase between him and the archer. Winthrop sprints past him up the stairs going to get Otto.
Dell concentrates on summoning more of his magics under pressure. The minotaurs that had attacked Hugh turn and snort, lifting their flails and readying them. Raven turns to the mage and gives a bleak smile. Dell completes his enchantment and shrouds himself in flame. The minotaurs charge forward, swinging their flails and goring with their horns. Dell dodges from side to side but refuses to turn his attention from Raven. The minotaurs land heavy blows upon him, nearly knocking him to the ground, but his magics wreak horribly devastation on the minotaurs. Wet magical fire, clinging to their horns and flowing up their weapons, roils over them burning them to the bone. Both of the minotaurs fall to the ground, dead. Raven fires arrows at Dell, but Dell has not turned his attention from the fell archer. Each arrow shot is either plucked from the air Dell or batted aside. Dell's magical gloves prove their worth as they save him from the same shafts that have slain Al and laid Hugh low.
A narrow beam of light lances out from near the staircase, Antonus firing his wand at the snake-creature again. A flying snake-creature disappears, an image struck. The rest of the snake-creatures, all reacting and moving slowly, turn as one and flee back through the doorway, flying away from the battle. Raven appears especially vexed. Roaring with frustration, he charges at Dell, tossing his longbow aside and pulling forth Frostbrand. It ignites with a cold flame as Raven runs Dell through. As with the minotaurs, the fiery aura cloaking Dell climbs up Raven's sword and flows over his arms and chest. Raven screams in agony and falls to the ground.
Raven and Dell's cries of pain catch Adrienne's attention, taking it away from the minotaur that she is fighting with. Her inattention is near-fatal, as the minotaur whirls his flail and drives its ball into Adrienne's throat. Adrienne gags and chokes, dropping to the ground as she frantically tries to draw a breath through the ruin of her throat. The minotaur gloats over his victim before trotting towards Antonus.
Antonus flees up the stairs, beginning the long spiral upwards into the castle. As he begins to climb, another of the doors of the octagonal room bursts open, and a gargantuan man comes through the door. Carrying an eight-foot long sword, the dark-haired, pale-skinned man is dressed in a toga and wears sandals made of some leathery material. "Wait! I have come to your aid," booms the titanic giant. "We must join our forces to achieve victory over the evils before us!" The titan waves his great sword at Antonus and then begins to stride across the room towards the webbed Perrin and the paralyzed naga.
Antonus pauses on the stairs a moment, trying to understand the situation. From his perch far above, he can see downwards onto the titan's head. The rich dark hair curling in locks seems to have a paler underside growing out from the crown of the titan's head. Antonus realizes that the titan has dyed hair. His understanding of the image before him shifts from a titan about to aid him to a huge frost giant pretending to be a titan about to kill him. Antonus continues to labor up the stairs.
"So be it!" shouts the titanic giant. With a snap of the wrist, the giant throws a huge rock, easily the size of Antonus's torso, up at Antonus. With no place to dodge to on the narrow staircase, Antonus is struck full on. Only the thinnest of margins keeps him from sailing off the edge of the staircase and plummeting to his doom. As it is, the force of the blow is enough to drive him into unconsciousness, the sight of the minotaur clopping up the stairs after him his last vision.
"Sssnakehhsth!" pants Winthrop, a deep red color and on the verge of apoplexy after climbing so many stairs. Winthrop is not a small man, and his heart beats like a great drum after his exertion. Jasper, at the top of the stairs, looks at Winthrop in some confusion. Jasper, while somewhat slow and childlike, has wisdom far beyond his apparent age. He looks at the red, panting mage, who tries to babble something incoherent at him and decides whatever is happening below, he should be there. At a run, Jasper heads down the staircase. Winthrop spins around, searching for Otto and Pfiffwin, but does not see them. "Where could they be?" frets Winthrop. Finally he decides. "On the roof, someone should be on the roof." Winthrop staggers into the barracks to climb up the ladder and through the trapdoor to the roof. "Otto! Otto! We need you!" he cries.
Jasper flies down the stairs, running as only he can do, and enters into the top of the large octagonal room. A hundred feet below him, he can see a giant interrogating Perrin next to a frozen gigantic woman-headed snake. "I knew they needed me," he thinks. Before him, several spirals of the staircase away, lies Antonus's body, a great bull-headed man looming over it with a flail. A cavorting miniature man, brown in garb and skin, waves and gestures from the stair below the fallen Antonus, capturing the attention of the bull-headed man. Jasper squints, trying to clear his vision, as he runs down towards the bull-headed man.
A piping voice comes from the miniature brown man,
"Dickery, dickery, dare,
The pig flew up in the air.
The man in brown
Soon brought him down!
Dickery, dickery, dare!"
The bull-headed man appears stunned and confused, but still smashes down at the miniature brown man with his flail, missing by scant inches and chipping stone from the stairs with the force of the blow. The bull-headed man then raises a large cloven hoof and kicks the miniature brown man, sending him flying backwards and into Antonus's body. As Jasper closes with Antonus's body, both the miniature brown man and Antonus disappear. The bull-headed man's confusion seems to have driven him into a state, and he lashes out at Jasper, goring him with his horns and hitting him with his flail. Jasper collapses, bleeding from the horns' punctures.
"How many of you are left? Where is your leader? Have you defeated Hanuman?" the giant bellows at Perrin question after question. Perrin attempts to answer, but the giant seems impatient and discontented with Perrin's somewhat equivocal, long-winded replies. Perrin stares up the staircase hoping for the reappearance of Winthrop and Otto, trying to draw out his interrogation as long as possible. The minotaur, having gored Jasper, now walks aimlessly up and down the staircase, sometimes talking to the air, other times lashing out at invisible foes. To Perrin's pleased eyes, Otto, running with his magical boots and risking flying off the staircase, appears at the top of the stairs. Perrin stops answering questions. He smiles at the giant, who turns to see the minotaur fall to the ground from the staircase, its left leg on one side of the stairs, the rest of its body on the other. "So that is how it will be," says the giant. He raises a massive fist over Perrin's trapped form and crushes him.
"Varlet!" cries Otto. "You'll taste my steel!" Otto continues his run down the stairs as the giant draws out his great sword. It is a clash of the titans as the giant, with his longer reach, swings his great sword and smites Otto. A long cut opens up across Otto's side, sorely wounding, but not felling, him. Otto returns the favor and swings Giantslayer in a great arc ending deep in the giant's belly. The giant staggers, having taken a grievous blow, but somehow does not fall. Otto gasps in surprise as the half-orc general's ring that normally provides vitality and healing in the course of combat does not seal Otto's wound. The giant's blow is especially deadly or his sword foully enchanted. The two opponents stare at each other from behind their guards, knowing that a successful strike will likely kill the other. Then the snake-creature stirs.
The giant is momentarily distracted by the sudden movement of his ally behind Otto, and Otto wastes no time. He steps forward quickly and chops low, striking off the giant's foot, and then drives Giantslayer up into the falling giant's loin. Pierced and bleeding, the giant feebly tries to strike out, but fails, tumbling thunderously to the ground.
"Don't look at the naga's eyes!" shouts Winthrop from staircase above. In his travel up and down the staircase, Winthrop has discerned the creatures nature. Winthrop continues to bind the wan Jasper's wounds, staunching the flow of blood. Chasing down after Otto, Winthrop has found Antonus, his wounds neatly bound, mysteriously at the top of the stairs. Otto understands his warning and throws up his shield to cover his face. Swinging blindly at the huge naga, Otto feels his blade drive deep into the creature, which is still sluggish from the effects of Antonus's wand. Hearing a great thump, Otto looks over the shield edge to see the naga lying supine.
Otto runs over to Raven to bind his wounds but stops at Winthrop's panting cry. "He's being controlled by a naga! Bind someone else's wounds!" directs Winthrop, who has reached the bottom of the stairs and is feverishly working on restoring Diego to consciousness. Otto begins with the most heavily wounded, Hugh, who barely clings to life, thrusting rags and cloths into the gaping wounds caused by Raven's arrows. Adrienne appears to have survived her horrible wound but will need magical healing to be able to do anything besides focusing on breathing through the hole in her neck. Both Raven and Dell cling to the edge of life, Raven's burns and Dell's wounds being life threatening if untreated. Even Perrin, clobbered by the giant, will recover, though likely with a great headache. Only Al has been slain, but the magic of his ring will eventually, after days of healing, bring him back to life.
Diego staggers weakly to his feet, Winthrop's ministrations having been successful. "What do we do now?" he asks.
Winthrop directs Diego over to the door where the nagas erupted from. "Stand there and kill anything you see coming down the corridor," he says. "Otto, you carry the unconscious and dead to the base of the stairs. Once they are all there, we'll retreat in order, moving the pile of unconscious up the stairs as a group. No one gets left behind, and we stay within support range of each other." The plan is surprisingly tactically sound, and the warriors implement it. As Al is being carried over to the base of the staircase, the thrum of Diego's horsebow accompanies a long hissing sounds; the naga is back. Diego falls back away from the doorway, blindly firing down the passageway as he staggers across the bloody floor towards the staircase. "Don't look into its eyes!" urges Winthrop as he activates his wand of steam at the doorway.
The naga sails through the steam, apparently unscathed, but has several of Diego's arrows in its side. It glares at the Company and begins mouthing arcane syllables. Winthrop recognizes the beginning of the summoning of fire, a deadly spell against the remnants of the Company that are clustered at the base of the stairwell. Franticly, he searches for something to throw or do to disrupt the naga's summoning. The solution, the final solution, is Otto. Otto's magical boots allow him to charge the distance to the naga, standing at the edge of the burning cloud, and strike it. With two heavy blows from Giantslayer, the naga's body is severed. The woman's head tumbles towards the stairs while the snake body thrashes about in the steam spurting blood.
"We've got to get up and out of here," shouts a panicked Diego. "We can't do more of this!" The others agree and begin hauling the dead and wounded Company members up the stairs. "Where's Pfiffwin? We could use his help," asks Diego.
Pfiffwin whistles a little tune as he sits, hidden in the corner of the courtyard. It is a beautiful day, warm in the sunshine, cool in the shade. The castle is quiet and nothing stirs as far as he can see. "A little here, a little there, that's all it takes," he says to himself. "As my pappy said, 'Freely give what you can to others. Keep the good stuff for yourself.'" Pfiffwin pulls out a small pouch from inside his pants. The emerald gemstones that were hidden in the pile of bones glint greenly in the sunlight while the other semiprecious stones that the bugbears had left in their barracks rattle about beside them. The agates, red and banded, and jasper make a pleasing contrast to the stronger colors of the onyx and jades. The fine gems warm the cockles of his heart, and he puts them back in his hidden pouch. With a sigh, he goes back to work, peering over the crenellations at the countryside around him. No enemies are in sight. He slumps back down into a more comfortable position. "I wonder how it goes with the others?" he muses.
The door to the left of the Company flexes and explodes open. Ten flying snake-creatures, each fifteen feet long and bearing a human woman's head, sail through the doorway, much to the Company's surprise. Their black and red scaled skin coiling and writhing, the horde of snake-creatures hiss and glare at the startled, assembled Company. "Windelngigantischengurtband!" shouts Winthrop at the snakes, summoning a huge mass of webbing in the air above the creatures. The webbing seems to miss the writhing mass of snake-creatures, collapsing in a great mess on the ground, trapping Perrin beneath it. The snake-creatures stare down at the Company in displeasure.
"Here they come!" shouts Al, as the sound of bovine hooves echo before him. Dell pulls forth a scroll brought to him long ago by Eig from the sacred grove in the Dreadwood. He reads from it and extends a piece of heavy, thick twine across the corridor. Very carefully, he steps over the twine and rejoins the others.
Minotaurs, two abreast and two deep, charge towards the Company. The first two slam into Adrienne and Al, attempting to break through the Company's fighting line, while the two behind them suddenly stumble and fall. They appear to have been snared by the piece of twine strung by Dell. The two minotaurs appear dazed, as if they have fallen to the ground hard enough to addle their wits. "Keep the snakes off of us, and we'll kill the cows!" urges Al.
Raven, for some reason, staggers to one side, and Dell steps forth into the space behind Al. Dell reaches forth his hands and arcs a bolt of electricity down the corridor, wide and short. The minotaurs dance as they are electrified, the smell of roasting beef filling the passageway, but this only enrages them more. Only after Al buries his axe in the groin of the minotaur before him does a minotaur fall.
Raven staggers back upright, one hand to his head, and then seems to regain his stride. He steps back into position behind Al, draws his longbow, and sends three shafts into Al's head. The powerful bow, designed for use with Raven's magically augmented strength, drives the heavy arrows through Al's skull. The tip of one protrudes through his eye socket, one through his nose, and one through his surprised, open mouth. Al falls to the ground, very dead.
"Trithereon's mighty spear, man! What are you doing?" gasps Hugh, shocked. Raven turns a snarling face, complete with dead eyes, on Hugh, and Hugh lunges at Raven, trying to tackle the archer. His efforts are for naught, as Raven shrugs aside his feeble grappling attempts.
"Hugh's been charmed!" shouts Raven. "He's attacking me as the minotaurs come in and throwing my shots off! Keep him away from the rest of the Company, or he will strike you down in retribution!" The rest of the Company, not seeing exactly what has transpired, tries to keep Hugh in sight, not wishing to let him flank them. The battle line becomes a disordered mess.
With Al dead, the minotaurs push through the Company's now-disarrayed battle line. Hugh and Adrienne are beset by three of them, while a fourth, that had lagged behind the other four, charges headfirst at Dell. Hugh's natural agility and the golden scale armor provides him with protection against the minotaurs' blows, but Adrienne is knocked about. She is a hale woman and not easily laid low, but the minotaur's blows are not trivial. Dell, on the other hand, is not as robust, and he nervously stares at the sharp horns and huge flail wielded by the charging minotaur. Winthrop extends his arm, his wand of steam tightly grasped, and fills the area before him and Dell with hot vapor. The charging minotaur bellows in agony as it runs full bore into the vicious steam. Diego shoots the flailing minotaur as well, knocking it off balance and to the ground, where its skin starts to boil off.
Raven surveys the battle. Deciding his course of action, he shoots Hugh, once in the chest and once in the stomach. Hugh collapses in a heap around the great wounds in his body, trying feverishly to hold his entrails inside his body and keep his lungs functioning at the same time. It is plain that Hugh's full attention is occupied by merely staying alive and that without help, he soon will not be.
"Raven's either charmed, or he's blown a fuse!" shouts Dell. "Watch out for him. Winthrop, go get help!" Dell waves his arms and tries to affect time surrounding the horde of snake-creatures. While he does so, one of the snake-creatures spits forth arcane words and lances a bolt of lightning through Diego! Diego flies across the room to the staircase and lands on the ground, sprawled and burnt, barely breathing. Dell refuses to be distracted, and his magics seem to take effect, as many of the snake-creatures begin to writhe more slowly.
Even better, Antonus thrusts forth his wand and shoots into the mass of snake-creatures. A purple beam lances out and suddenly five of the snake-creatures freeze in place and then careen to the ground, landing on the webbing. "Images of the mirror," cries Antonus. "They are fewer than they seem!" Raven turns towards Antonus, and Antonus quickly flees, putting the staircase between him and the archer. Winthrop sprints past him up the stairs going to get Otto.
Dell concentrates on summoning more of his magics under pressure. The minotaurs that had attacked Hugh turn and snort, lifting their flails and readying them. Raven turns to the mage and gives a bleak smile. Dell completes his enchantment and shrouds himself in flame. The minotaurs charge forward, swinging their flails and goring with their horns. Dell dodges from side to side but refuses to turn his attention from Raven. The minotaurs land heavy blows upon him, nearly knocking him to the ground, but his magics wreak horribly devastation on the minotaurs. Wet magical fire, clinging to their horns and flowing up their weapons, roils over them burning them to the bone. Both of the minotaurs fall to the ground, dead. Raven fires arrows at Dell, but Dell has not turned his attention from the fell archer. Each arrow shot is either plucked from the air Dell or batted aside. Dell's magical gloves prove their worth as they save him from the same shafts that have slain Al and laid Hugh low.
A narrow beam of light lances out from near the staircase, Antonus firing his wand at the snake-creature again. A flying snake-creature disappears, an image struck. The rest of the snake-creatures, all reacting and moving slowly, turn as one and flee back through the doorway, flying away from the battle. Raven appears especially vexed. Roaring with frustration, he charges at Dell, tossing his longbow aside and pulling forth Frostbrand. It ignites with a cold flame as Raven runs Dell through. As with the minotaurs, the fiery aura cloaking Dell climbs up Raven's sword and flows over his arms and chest. Raven screams in agony and falls to the ground.
Raven and Dell's cries of pain catch Adrienne's attention, taking it away from the minotaur that she is fighting with. Her inattention is near-fatal, as the minotaur whirls his flail and drives its ball into Adrienne's throat. Adrienne gags and chokes, dropping to the ground as she frantically tries to draw a breath through the ruin of her throat. The minotaur gloats over his victim before trotting towards Antonus.
Antonus flees up the stairs, beginning the long spiral upwards into the castle. As he begins to climb, another of the doors of the octagonal room bursts open, and a gargantuan man comes through the door. Carrying an eight-foot long sword, the dark-haired, pale-skinned man is dressed in a toga and wears sandals made of some leathery material. "Wait! I have come to your aid," booms the titanic giant. "We must join our forces to achieve victory over the evils before us!" The titan waves his great sword at Antonus and then begins to stride across the room towards the webbed Perrin and the paralyzed naga.
Antonus pauses on the stairs a moment, trying to understand the situation. From his perch far above, he can see downwards onto the titan's head. The rich dark hair curling in locks seems to have a paler underside growing out from the crown of the titan's head. Antonus realizes that the titan has dyed hair. His understanding of the image before him shifts from a titan about to aid him to a huge frost giant pretending to be a titan about to kill him. Antonus continues to labor up the stairs.
"So be it!" shouts the titanic giant. With a snap of the wrist, the giant throws a huge rock, easily the size of Antonus's torso, up at Antonus. With no place to dodge to on the narrow staircase, Antonus is struck full on. Only the thinnest of margins keeps him from sailing off the edge of the staircase and plummeting to his doom. As it is, the force of the blow is enough to drive him into unconsciousness, the sight of the minotaur clopping up the stairs after him his last vision.
"Sssnakehhsth!" pants Winthrop, a deep red color and on the verge of apoplexy after climbing so many stairs. Winthrop is not a small man, and his heart beats like a great drum after his exertion. Jasper, at the top of the stairs, looks at Winthrop in some confusion. Jasper, while somewhat slow and childlike, has wisdom far beyond his apparent age. He looks at the red, panting mage, who tries to babble something incoherent at him and decides whatever is happening below, he should be there. At a run, Jasper heads down the staircase. Winthrop spins around, searching for Otto and Pfiffwin, but does not see them. "Where could they be?" frets Winthrop. Finally he decides. "On the roof, someone should be on the roof." Winthrop staggers into the barracks to climb up the ladder and through the trapdoor to the roof. "Otto! Otto! We need you!" he cries.
Jasper flies down the stairs, running as only he can do, and enters into the top of the large octagonal room. A hundred feet below him, he can see a giant interrogating Perrin next to a frozen gigantic woman-headed snake. "I knew they needed me," he thinks. Before him, several spirals of the staircase away, lies Antonus's body, a great bull-headed man looming over it with a flail. A cavorting miniature man, brown in garb and skin, waves and gestures from the stair below the fallen Antonus, capturing the attention of the bull-headed man. Jasper squints, trying to clear his vision, as he runs down towards the bull-headed man.
A piping voice comes from the miniature brown man,
"Dickery, dickery, dare,
The pig flew up in the air.
The man in brown
Soon brought him down!
Dickery, dickery, dare!"
The bull-headed man appears stunned and confused, but still smashes down at the miniature brown man with his flail, missing by scant inches and chipping stone from the stairs with the force of the blow. The bull-headed man then raises a large cloven hoof and kicks the miniature brown man, sending him flying backwards and into Antonus's body. As Jasper closes with Antonus's body, both the miniature brown man and Antonus disappear. The bull-headed man's confusion seems to have driven him into a state, and he lashes out at Jasper, goring him with his horns and hitting him with his flail. Jasper collapses, bleeding from the horns' punctures.
"How many of you are left? Where is your leader? Have you defeated Hanuman?" the giant bellows at Perrin question after question. Perrin attempts to answer, but the giant seems impatient and discontented with Perrin's somewhat equivocal, long-winded replies. Perrin stares up the staircase hoping for the reappearance of Winthrop and Otto, trying to draw out his interrogation as long as possible. The minotaur, having gored Jasper, now walks aimlessly up and down the staircase, sometimes talking to the air, other times lashing out at invisible foes. To Perrin's pleased eyes, Otto, running with his magical boots and risking flying off the staircase, appears at the top of the stairs. Perrin stops answering questions. He smiles at the giant, who turns to see the minotaur fall to the ground from the staircase, its left leg on one side of the stairs, the rest of its body on the other. "So that is how it will be," says the giant. He raises a massive fist over Perrin's trapped form and crushes him.
"Varlet!" cries Otto. "You'll taste my steel!" Otto continues his run down the stairs as the giant draws out his great sword. It is a clash of the titans as the giant, with his longer reach, swings his great sword and smites Otto. A long cut opens up across Otto's side, sorely wounding, but not felling, him. Otto returns the favor and swings Giantslayer in a great arc ending deep in the giant's belly. The giant staggers, having taken a grievous blow, but somehow does not fall. Otto gasps in surprise as the half-orc general's ring that normally provides vitality and healing in the course of combat does not seal Otto's wound. The giant's blow is especially deadly or his sword foully enchanted. The two opponents stare at each other from behind their guards, knowing that a successful strike will likely kill the other. Then the snake-creature stirs.
The giant is momentarily distracted by the sudden movement of his ally behind Otto, and Otto wastes no time. He steps forward quickly and chops low, striking off the giant's foot, and then drives Giantslayer up into the falling giant's loin. Pierced and bleeding, the giant feebly tries to strike out, but fails, tumbling thunderously to the ground.
"Don't look at the naga's eyes!" shouts Winthrop from staircase above. In his travel up and down the staircase, Winthrop has discerned the creatures nature. Winthrop continues to bind the wan Jasper's wounds, staunching the flow of blood. Chasing down after Otto, Winthrop has found Antonus, his wounds neatly bound, mysteriously at the top of the stairs. Otto understands his warning and throws up his shield to cover his face. Swinging blindly at the huge naga, Otto feels his blade drive deep into the creature, which is still sluggish from the effects of Antonus's wand. Hearing a great thump, Otto looks over the shield edge to see the naga lying supine.
Otto runs over to Raven to bind his wounds but stops at Winthrop's panting cry. "He's being controlled by a naga! Bind someone else's wounds!" directs Winthrop, who has reached the bottom of the stairs and is feverishly working on restoring Diego to consciousness. Otto begins with the most heavily wounded, Hugh, who barely clings to life, thrusting rags and cloths into the gaping wounds caused by Raven's arrows. Adrienne appears to have survived her horrible wound but will need magical healing to be able to do anything besides focusing on breathing through the hole in her neck. Both Raven and Dell cling to the edge of life, Raven's burns and Dell's wounds being life threatening if untreated. Even Perrin, clobbered by the giant, will recover, though likely with a great headache. Only Al has been slain, but the magic of his ring will eventually, after days of healing, bring him back to life.
Diego staggers weakly to his feet, Winthrop's ministrations having been successful. "What do we do now?" he asks.
Winthrop directs Diego over to the door where the nagas erupted from. "Stand there and kill anything you see coming down the corridor," he says. "Otto, you carry the unconscious and dead to the base of the stairs. Once they are all there, we'll retreat in order, moving the pile of unconscious up the stairs as a group. No one gets left behind, and we stay within support range of each other." The plan is surprisingly tactically sound, and the warriors implement it. As Al is being carried over to the base of the staircase, the thrum of Diego's horsebow accompanies a long hissing sounds; the naga is back. Diego falls back away from the doorway, blindly firing down the passageway as he staggers across the bloody floor towards the staircase. "Don't look into its eyes!" urges Winthrop as he activates his wand of steam at the doorway.
The naga sails through the steam, apparently unscathed, but has several of Diego's arrows in its side. It glares at the Company and begins mouthing arcane syllables. Winthrop recognizes the beginning of the summoning of fire, a deadly spell against the remnants of the Company that are clustered at the base of the stairwell. Franticly, he searches for something to throw or do to disrupt the naga's summoning. The solution, the final solution, is Otto. Otto's magical boots allow him to charge the distance to the naga, standing at the edge of the burning cloud, and strike it. With two heavy blows from Giantslayer, the naga's body is severed. The woman's head tumbles towards the stairs while the snake body thrashes about in the steam spurting blood.
"We've got to get up and out of here," shouts a panicked Diego. "We can't do more of this!" The others agree and begin hauling the dead and wounded Company members up the stairs. "Where's Pfiffwin? We could use his help," asks Diego.
Pfiffwin whistles a little tune as he sits, hidden in the corner of the courtyard. It is a beautiful day, warm in the sunshine, cool in the shade. The castle is quiet and nothing stirs as far as he can see. "A little here, a little there, that's all it takes," he says to himself. "As my pappy said, 'Freely give what you can to others. Keep the good stuff for yourself.'" Pfiffwin pulls out a small pouch from inside his pants. The emerald gemstones that were hidden in the pile of bones glint greenly in the sunlight while the other semiprecious stones that the bugbears had left in their barracks rattle about beside them. The agates, red and banded, and jasper make a pleasing contrast to the stronger colors of the onyx and jades. The fine gems warm the cockles of his heart, and he puts them back in his hidden pouch. With a sigh, he goes back to work, peering over the crenellations at the countryside around him. No enemies are in sight. He slumps back down into a more comfortable position. "I wonder how it goes with the others?" he muses.