Dungeon Matters - Death of a King
Hear the words of Agnar, wandering barbarian — known for his sharp blade and piercing eye.
It is still too hot in this gods-forsaken cavern. I thought a trip underground might grant me a respite from the humid Warmland air, but the heat from a 1,000 years of the toil god’s infernal forge still resonates in the black granite walls. The air is cleaner, at least, since I drove the head of my axe through the Forge-Spurned’s accursed neck.
The point of the kobolds spear snaps through the air, barely missing my left hip. He screams as the glowing blade of the Glintaxe tears away a piece of his scaly thigh. Across the room, a crossbow bolt bounces harmlessly off the ceiling. The kobold eyes me angrily and resumes his stance.
I do not mean to say that I cannot fight in the heat. I was once cornered by three Saffron Guards of the Khoreini tribe inside a burning thatch hut. I thought my insides would cook like a nharbeast on a spit before I could finish killing them. I used the severed leg of the third guard to bash an escape route through the wall moments before the roof came down in a scorching cloud of cinder. I just mean to say that I hoped for something resembling the frigid mountain caverns of home. I am disappointed.
The kobold feints left rather expertly, blood flowing liberally from his wounded thigh. These little lizard men are getting stronger the further we go into the cavern. He lunges. The tip of his spear nicks my armor. The edge of my axe takes his head.
It is too hot in here. None of the others seem to notice. Warmlanders.
I survey the room. Carbunkle’s Lady is holding another kobold in her elongated claws, his little reptilian legs dangling inches above the stone floor. Fin is withdrawing one of his massive forearms from the fractured skull of a nearby slurk. Echo is flicking the last bits of stinking slime from her blue-skinned shoulders.
That was our second ambush in a manner of minutes, the first one coming at the hands of two dark talon hunters perched on ledges in a narrow hallway. They know we’re coming. Good.
Up a narrow hallway, we find a hatchery with several suckling kobolds and an old nursemaid, if kobolds even have a need to nurse. She gibbers away nervously in a language the gnome identifies as Draconic. I have never seen a dragon, but somehow I imagine they make a more impressive sound than this saggy-bellied kobold hag. There is no threat here, and nothing to be gained, so we proceed back through the ambush site and find another passageway leading further into the caverns.
In a slime-caked cavern that must have been the slurk stable back when there were still slurks, we find a strapping kobold in rather fine studded leather armor. He looks formidable. Sadly for him, he is also asleep. Fin restrains him while we question him regarding the whereabouts of the last missing child. He snarls and spits in arrogant red-scale fashion, and spins some tale about a Kobold King and a shaman in the back caverns of the lair. A dagger to the throat, and he is dispatched. A shame. He should have died with his spear in his hand, but such is the penalty for sleeping on watch.
For the first time, I notice that we all have wounds. Even the gnome’s fearsome Lady limps slightly as she walks along with her toes barely touching the cavern floor, and the Halfling, in particular, is in a poor way. He drags along behind us, pale and sweating.
We bypass a hallway full of shrieking fungus, double back, and slide through a narrow opening into a large gathering room. From the far side, I hear the droning echo of some distant chant. Listening expectantly are more kobolds than I have ever seen at one time. We have found the remainder of the kobold king’s army. They are many, indeed.
My revered father used to say, “If you find your enemy has greater numbers than you, kill his numbers until your numbers are the same.” He was not an eloquent man, but words do not make War Chiefs. He used to say that, as well. That one was better, I think. I raise the Glintaxe high and charge the two kobolds standing closest to the door.
We trade blows, but these kobolds refuse to die easily. They are protecting something, fighting like cornered dire wolves. Off to my left, The Lady tears into a hapless kobold while Fin punches wildly at the air near a talon hunter’s head. The dwarf is a fine warrior, but he seems somehow… off today. Perhaps he does not like the heat, either. He cries out angrily as a sling bolt rakes across his cheek.
I plant my axe into a kobold’s midsection and watch as he folds like brittle parchment. Another red one rushes to take his place, stepping on the head of his dead broodkin. I ready for another strike, but now there are too many, and I have too many flanks to defend from the snarling little wretches. I gasp as something sharp and hard drives deep into my left hip. Pressed against the wall, I have nowhere to withdraw and another spear from another kobold drives deep up under my ribcage. Something in my innards shifts sickeningly against the metal point, and the kobolds swarm me as I twist and stumble. They claw and bite and wrench the handles of the spears. Words abandon me, and I want only to rip their scaly heads from their wretched necks as the blood pounds in my ears. I try to lift my axe, but a crossbow bolt strikes my shoulder, burying itself to the fletching. I see the gnome holding a discharged crossbow, looking at me with shocked, apologetic eyes. I’m sure he meant well. My feet give way, and I drop to my knees. In desperation, I wrap my hands around the throat of a kobold and squeeze. He makes an odd whistling noise as I crush his windpipe, his friends still rending my flesh with their claws.
I try to gasp air, but only draw darkness that washes over my eyes and ears and everything.
I have so missed the frosted bite of mountain air. I am a child now, nestled in my sleeping furs in the Claw-mother’s lodge. I am almost asleep from a long day of blunted swordplay, when I see the familiar shape of the dark-eyed servant woman slip past the curtain into the room, her gentle frame silhouetted against the glow of the dying cook-fires. She comes to me often at night; I know not why, but I never send her away. Often she reads to me from a book bound with leather much finer than any Northern hide, or she’ll bring some small toy she has made. Other times, as tonight, she brings only her words. She gently kisses my brow and strokes my cheek. Her raven-colored hair, so exotic in the north, hangs down around my face as she looks at me kindly with tired, brown eyes. She whispers of old stories from her home, of her strange goddess with the name so difficult for Northmen to pronounce. She speaks stories of mercy and compassion and other such words that will get a young warrior scourged for weakness. I am frightened— for her and for me— of what the Claw-mother will do if she hears such talk. But I do not send her way. She says she is proud of me for the man I am becoming, that she understands why I had to leave. I do not understand; I have left nowhere. She says she is proud that I have risked myself for the sake of the lost children and my new companions, she is proud that I sundered the dark chain and set free the spirits trapped therein. I am confused. I am only a child, and know nothing of missing children or a dark chain of souls. I want to ask what she is talking about, but she silences me with a calloused fingertip to my lips. She whispers again:
“No time for questions now, Agnar, Son of Two Lands, jewel of Sarenrae.” She smiles sadly. “My sweet boy. You have so many miles left to walk.”
My lungs draw clean breath again. Now it is Echo’s hands that are cupped gently around my face. They are warmer than I would have imagined. I feel a familiar, soothing glow from the ground beneath me, and for a brief moment, I have the strangest sensation that she and I are lounging peacefully in some early-summer meadow atop a sun-bathed hill.
“You’ll be fine, ogre-boy.” She takes her hands from my face and walks back to the others. I am back on the moist stone floor of the kobold lair. My wounds have closed, and the fiery pain has faded to a dull ache. I get to my feet without a word, and we proceed.
In the next chamber, we find a well-muscled kobold with a bronze, skull-shaped headdress. He looks as regal as a snarling, scaly beastman can look. He asks if we are there for the honor of the sacrifice. Carbunkle approaches him kindly, trying to look less spry than he actually is, his vicious Lady drifting along behind him. The crowned fool seems pleased by the gnome’s false supplication. He has no idea that Carbunkle is not one to bend the knee to anyone, or that Beautiful Death slinks silently at the gnome’s right shoulder. In a flash, the Lady in on one of the king’s armored guards, all claws and fangs and elongated limbs. Carbunkle fires a bolt into the other guard. “Let them have their fun with the footmen,” I say to myself as I charge the throne. “This king is nothing but another dead kobold.”
He is more nimble than I expected, side-stepping my blow and placing one of his own against my chest. An unnatural wave of sizzling pain pours forth from the blade of his axe. More blasted magic, no doubt. I will not fall twice in one day, kobold king. And my blades bring pain, too. The swing of the Glintaxe opens a two-foot gash across his chest as a bolt of fire from Echo’s fingertips sears along his back. He screeches, mutters some nonsense word, and waves his hand in my direction.
My eyes open to the ceiling of the royal chamber. Why am I on my back? Have… have I been asleep?! Is childish trickery the best a king can muster, kobold filth? I stumble to my feet. Still groggy, I grab the Glintaxe. Seeing me lunge forward, the Kobold King turns to retreat. He chooses a poor route of egress. The dwarf’s massive fist whips the air like an arrow and lands at the hinge of the King’s jaw. His head turns all the way around with a satisfying crack, his bulbous eyes giving one last surprised look before rolling back into their sockets. He drops dead.
“Man-feller” he has etched into his axe in crude common script. Hm. A fair name. The gash on my chest radiates pain.
We arrive in the next chamber just in time to see a kobold in shaman’s garb cut the heart from an ill-fated elf with some fell dagger. Both heart and blade burst into flames as the shaman screams in triumph. He announces himself as Jekkajak, but I do not care as I feel my feet begin to move beneath me. I have known enough twisted darkness for one day; I will tolerate no more. His right arm looks sinister, bathed in the light of the flaming dagger, so I take it from him at the shoulder. His surprised scream is squelched by the Lady’s razor-sharp teeth digging into his skinny throat. You lived the darkness, Jekkajak. Now embrace it in death.
We find the last boy huddled against the wall. He is terrified beyond word and response, but should come around. We make our way back through the carnage of the gathering hall, back through the crack in the ceiling, into the room where we left the children and the true-scales. The true-scales are scattered about as if they fell asleep where they stood, and the children are gone. Kimi’s shortsword is in pieces, neatly sundered by something more refined than a smith’s hammer. A panicked Kibbo can offer no explanation, but a small, parchment note of gratitude is pinned to his tattered rags. It claims responsibility for the children’s disappearance, and is signed by an “I. T.” I know no such man, but the others become visibly angry. If this I. T. bears the children home safely, so be it. If he does not, I will find him, and he will die screaming.
We limp our way out of the crucible, through the monastery, and back to our old campsite. I want for nothing but sleep. I find a clear spot for my bedroll, and as I drift into dreamless sleep, I hear the elf murmur something to the gnome about a ship. I hope they are not expecting me to accompany them on some voyage. I have never had much stomach for sea travel.
