MoonBridge Raid - In the Hangman's Noose

At the first ominous sound of drumbeats, Hamish took command.

“Tai!” He turned to the small beast master first. “Get your bird in the air! We need an escape route!”

But the gnome was already ahead of him. Extending his arm toward a nearby tree he summoned the raven in it’s own language. The large bird launched into a glide that took it to it’s master side. Tai spoke a few words of command and sent the bird flapping skyward again.

Hamish continued to issue commands, but they were unnecessary. The team was well trained and moved quickly to prepare for travel. Though the clearing was far too obvious in this otherwise tangled wood, they made every effort to erase evidence of their camp. They all knew that they had to get as far away from the camp as possible if they hoped to escape detection, but any direction they traveled would leave a trail through the undergrowth like blood in snow. Besides that, they had no idea which way to go. The drums seemed to be coming from every direction; and there were so many of them!

It was obvious that their night attackers had reported their whereabouts and had a keen idea of where the camp was already! Hamish glanced upward questioningly at the sky hidden behind the canopy of trees. “OK, Lord.” he inquired silently, “You promised us protection last night and laid us all out to sleep our precious time away. Now what do we do?”

As if in direct answer to his unspoken question, Silverian spoke. The dwarf’s baritone voice lifted in quiet song and soothed his troubled mind with a passage from the Sacred Scrolls. “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.”

Then Rane picked up the psalm, singing out the verse in tenor. “For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.”

The psalmist voice was truly a gift from heaven at the darkest times.

Hamish took a deep breath and exhaled, feeling the reassurance of the Life-giving Spirit. How could he so soon question the Overlord after gazing into his Glorious face just hours before? Yet the question still remained. How were they going to escape this noose that was closing in about them? He moved around the clearing, desperately seeking a pathway through this deadly wood that would not leave a trail for their pursuers to follow. The others watched him, listening and praying for direction.

Seconds passed and Hamish was just about to throw his hands up in defeat when the raven returned. It landed on Tai’s arm and cawed excitedly at him. He returned it’s excited verbiage and listened again. Finally, he sent the bird back to the trees and gave the report.

“Shoah says we are equally surrounded on all sides by a ‘swarm’ of goblins, but that the group approaching from the north will reach us first!”

“We have no choice then, but to move southward, back up the trail we came by.” Hamish deducted.

Freedan spoke then. “That will only postpone the inevitable. I have a better idea.”

All eyes turned to the young elf. “I have the best chance of escaping unseen by the enemy. Let me act as a decoy! I’ll lead them away from the rest of you and hopefully open a hole in their circle that you can escape through.”

Seeing the doubt in their eyes, he hurried ahead. “Once you’ve slipped through, I’ll make myself disappear and rejoin you after they’ve given up the hunt.”

“Not by yourself, you won’t!” Caymen moved next to Freedan, drawing everyone’s attention with the determination of his stance. “You’re not the only scout in this party, you know!” the gnome declared fiercely, “If you go, I go! Besides, it’ll be more likely to draw their attention if they see more than one of us!”

“There is another way.” This time it was Ishmael, the elder dwarf of the team that spoke. “Have we so soon forgotten the words of the moonbridge?”

“Ishmael speaks rightly, Brothers.” Daniel agreed, “The moonbridge gave us a teamrune for just such a time as this and impressed upon us the importance of writing it upon our hearts! We have forgotten!”

Hamish lit up with the revelation!

“Aye, Ishmael, you’re a saint! Does everyone remember the rune?”

Hamish looked from face to face. There were several affirmative nods, but he stopped short as his eyes met Freedan’s. The young man had a shamed look on his face.

“Freedan, tell me you didn’t shy from this one.”

Seeing the disappointment in the Ranger’s eyes and determined not to let his teammates down, Freedan mustered up a show of confidence and fell back on his original idea. “I can still act as a decoy! Lead them away from the rest of you as I said before. I’ll be fine! Don’t worry about me.”

Caymen defended Freedan. “The young’un’s right about one thing, Hamish. We will still need a decoy. The rune’s invisibility is only good so long as we’re all completely still and completely quiet. What happens if one of those ‘squealers’ accidentally stumbles over one of us?”

Hamish considered this with apprehension as the drums grew alarmingly closer.

“I don’t like this at all. You may be an expert at camouflage, but you still have to have somewhere to hide, and that area’s getting smaller by the second. Unfortunately, I don’t see where we have much choice since you didn’t heed the warning we were given last night! Are you certain you can elude them?”

Hamish noticed only the slightest hesitation before the young man nodded. He had to give the elf credit for having an impressive reputation in his former profession, but things were different now. He was a child of the light now, not the shadows, and it bothered Hamish greatly that he still seemed to rely on his own skills more than the Overlord’s power far too often.

“Go then.” he said at last. “We’ll be moving straight north once we’re passed the enemy line. Try to follow us once your clear.”

“I’m going with him!” Caymen declared again. “We can guard each other’s backs.”

Hamish frowned at the intractable gnome, but knew it was useless to argue with him. Caymen always seemed to have something to prove, and Hamish hoped it wouldn’t cause his premature death someday. Besides, he did feel better knowing that Freedan would have someone to watch his back.

Saying nothing more he waved them on and turned to the rest of the team.

“Godspeed to you, Brothers!” Silverian called after them as they slipped into the snarl of foliage that comprised the forest floor.

Then they were gone.



* * *


Freedan and Caymen moved north as quickly as they could, hoping to engage their hunters as far from the others as possible. Caymen would have slowed Freedan’s progress were they in any other terrain, but the density of the forest impeded the elf enough to put them on even terms. The nature of their current activity did not lend itself to conversation and so Caymen was left to his own thoughts as they progressed.

He was ashamed.

Hamish had reprimanded Freedan for failing to study the rune that had been provided for them by the moonbridge. The elf was young and resilient, always seeming unscathed by the frequent chastisements that came his way. Caymen could not say the same. He was too proud to be rebuked. All his life he had been on top. His natural talent and strong personality had always enabled him to get what he wanted and earned him respect among his people.

All that had changed when he left the gnome homeland and ventured forth into this world of giants. Suddenly he felt inadequate for everything. He could feel the scoffing eyes of those around him as they looked down to him because of his size. Nothing he did in the physical seemed to match the superior strength of his larger opponents. Soon he found himself drawn to the behavior of another small race: goblins.

Caymen hated that part of his life, but it came back to him now as he recalled how he began to mistreat his own people, bullying and persecuting those smaller than himself. It had given him a sense of power that he had lost. Unfortunately, that sense of power was like a drug to him and did not end with the punishment that he inflicted on the weak. He craved to have power over those bigger than himself, to make them eat their sneering, condescending looks.

He found that power in the dark arts.

Caymen had been a sorceror before the Overlord changed his life and delivered him from the slavery of the Dragons; a cruel sorceror. It was only through the self-sacrificing love of a stranger that he had seen through the darkness that had him engulfed in it’s lies. Yet, here he was a Twiceborn, and still he found himself struggling with his pride and arrogance. Not only did he still struggle with bad habits of rudeness and anger, but he failed in the areas that Lightraiders were supposed to excel!

Oh, he could hold his own in battle with the best of them thrice his size, but when it came to scroll study and relying on the power of the Overlord, he fell miserably short. The truth was that he, too, had not committed the teamrune to memory, but was too proud to admit that he hadn’t, instead using Freedan’s failure as a cover for his own. He felt like a coward, and his self-loathing was further exasperated by his past.

When he had served darkness as an enchanter, his lust for power drove him to study spells and curses for hours and hours a day. Now that he was a child of the Mighty God, he couldn’t even drum up enough motivation to memorize one short wordrune. There was no excuse for that! He knew the Overlord would forgive him, but he could not forgive himself.

Now, here he was, outside God’s protection because of his failure to obey. He only hoped that his failures would not bring down the rest of the team starting with Freedan. They deserved better.

He resolved to make the most of the situation. Who knew what good the Creator could bring out of this? Maybe Freedan was right when he told Hamish that a decoy was still a good idea. If Freedan and he had to die to see the others escape and fulfill their mission to destroy the works of Anamos, then it was worth it and he determined he would face it head on. There was nothing he could do about the past. There was only the present. He silently offered up a prayer of repentance just as Freedan signaled for him to take cover.

Walking straight toward them was a troop of thirty goblins! The lumpy, green-skinned beings walked about 3 meters apart, spread out across the forest, clearing their paths with machetes which would also serve to flush out hiding lightraiders from the underbrush.

Caymen felt his heart sink at the sight. These goblins weren’t playing around. They were looking for somebody and were determined not to pass them by in the hunt, even if they had to chop down the entire forest to find them. Freedan turned to him.

“This is not going to be as easy as I thought.”

“No, it appears not, so we might as well get on with the decoy and trust our fates to the Overlord’s mercy.”

Freedan set his jaw with determination. “Right. Let’s do it!”

Caymen found a fallen log and jumped up on it so that he was standing shoulder level with Freedan, then shouted over his shoulder as if he were talking to others behind him, “Goblins over here! They’ve found us!”

“Quick, back the other way!” Freedan added.

Several goblin heads shot upward at that moment, locking on them like ravenous wolves. The nearest one gave a squeeling cry and the chase was on! Freedan and Caymen lingered one more second so as not to lose them too soon, and retreated, blazing a new trail east of the way they had come!

Their plan worked exactly as planned. Every goblin in the northern line seemed to be breathing down their necks, and it appeared were even gaining on them somewhat, but now there was a huge gap in the circle of hunters to the northwest. The two scouts could only hope their companions were taking advantage of it.

As they ran, they noticed the drums to the east were now getting closer and even to the south they could here the beat increasing in tempo as though they too were in on the pursuit. Caymen realized that the drums were communicating somehow and their position was being zeroed in on. It wouldn’t be long now before they ran out of room to run!

Suddenly, Freedan dropped to the ground right in front of him and Caymen tripped over his leg landing next to him in the brambles of the forest floor. Heaving for air with the exertion of keeping up, he glanced at Freedan. The ex-assassin held a finger to his lips and simply stared cat-like through the brush. Caymen turned his head to follow the other’s gaze and saw the other line of goblins in the distance directly in front of them cutting off their escape!

“It appears we’ve run out of places to run.” he commented dryly in a whisper.

Freedan only nodded and silently pulled his sword from it’s sheath. Caymen glanced back over his shoulder and saw the advancing line of goblins that had pursued them from the north. They were only about twenty yards back now, completely cutting off their escape. They were trapped between two lines of advancing killers.

But as Caymen turned back to his companion and saw the flat, grey eyes unblinking behind a cold expressionless face, he found himself wondering which side was outnumbered. He hadn’t known Freedan as long as some of the others had, but he was sure that something long buried inside of him had returned. Caymen could see in every muscle and sinew of the long elven body, that the trap was about to be sprung on the trappers.

He pulled out his own gnomish battle-axe and waited for Freedan’s lead. He would do his share. But there were so many.

At last the nearest goblin was practically on top of them. Freedan sprang upon it and dispatched it without even slowing. Before it’s body had hit the ground another was already following.

Caymen tore his attention from the elf and took advantage of the confusion created by the ambush. He struck the nearest goblin as it turned away from him, severing it’s achilles tendon and collapsing it to the ground with a shriek! Unfortunately, the next closest adversary was several paces away and the gnome was unable to utilize the advantage of surprise. The goblin, hearing it’s nearest comrade fall, turned to face the attack and swung it’s curved blade at the gnome’s head. Caymen ducked the swing and struck low again, this time shattering the wretched creature’s knee-cap!

It fell as well, but was replaced by another goblin which leaped over it’s companion, oblivious to the other’s suffering, intent only on the diminutive attacker. Caymen saw it leaping and dodged under it’s legs. Kicking the downed goblin in the face for good measure, he wheeled about with all his strength and struck down the second, nearly cleaving it in two.

Two more rushed in for the attack and now he could see that the line to the south was charging in as well. Goblins were adversaries that Caymen knew well, and he was confident that he could take any one of them down in a fair fight, but he was hopelessly outnumbered and he began to fear this might be the end of his work for the Overlord.

Off to his left, he saw Freedan engaging three of the nasty creatures, and more were charging in behind. It was only a matter of time!

He charged the first of the new attackers as if to grapple with it. The goblin was so surprised by this maneuver that it actually pulled back, giving Caymen the split-second he needed to shift his swing and strike the second when it wasn’t expecting it. The blow was not a killing blow, but the goblin dropped it’s sword. It was too little too late! The first goblin recovered from it’s shock quicker than he had expected. Dropping it’s weapon, the filthy beast fell on the gnome, blindsiding him and knocking him to the ground. Realizing he had only a second to react before the larger being pinned him, Caymen reached for one of the dropped swords. The goblin locked it’s hands around his throat with it’s meaty hands and began to squeeze, but it was too late. It’s own blade had already ended it’s life. Caymen shoved the carcass off and rolled opposite of the other goblin that was still standing, brandishing the goblin sword he had just picked up.

He never got to use it.

At that moment, a huge, overbearing shadow fell across his vision and he sprawled to the ground yet again. His face struck the ground this time and everything went black for a moment. When his vision cleared, he turned his head just enough to see the net that encompassed him and the several green bodies that were holding it down.

He thought he heard an embittered cry of rage from Freedan several yards away and then silence following a sickening thud. He tried to shout defiantly as well, hatred for these blasphemies of nature welling up within his chest, but suddenly he too was struck and all went black....



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