30: Showdown

It was soon apparent that Rita wouldn’t be able to make the journey back to the woods. I imagined she might gallop along on her cloven feet, but she was still old and frail and so Kurtis and I carried her. I used Erhardt’s old, bloody bandages as a gag.

It was approaching midnight by the time we reached the edge of the wood. We decided to tie her up under the antlers and wait for the beasts to come and claim their own. We made no effort to hide ourselves, just waiting at the edge of the forest, torches lit, expecting the beasts to come to us. We could still hear the faint call of ‘Rita’ on the wind. Gulgad and Erhardt hung back a bit waiting to ambush the beasts, while Kurtis, Otto and I dealt with Rita.

The beasts didn’t arrive, so we ungagged her. She said that by doing this we had doomed the commune. I didn’t believe this, but in any case, if sacrificing children to the beasts of the wood is what is required to keep the commune going, then it plainly doesn’t deserve to survive. Kurtis got his knife out and said he was going to stab her to make her scream and attract her beastly brethren, but she simply laughed and spat in his face.

Neither Otto or I tried to stop him and although this sounds terrible, I have thought about it, and I feel like I am on sound theological footing, here. The nature of the beasts and their apparent veneration of the dark god N_____ makes me think this was fairly in the service of Shallya. Kurtis wavered, though, and Otto grabbed the knife from him and stabbed Rita in the thigh and she screamed loudly.

Otto told the woman that it showed her who was boss, and that he resented that Rita had made fun of his intelligence, which made me and Kurtis quickly step back a bit from the knife-wielding Otto. Still there was no sign of the beasts, not even after Otto had thrown his last rat into the forest and set up some rat traps.

This whole time, I think, Kurtis was getting increasingly wound up and angry at Rita, and he suddenly exploded and threatened to cut off her fingers. Rita insisted that Kurtis didn’t understand, and that the children had given themselves willingly, which was plainly untrue, and this angered Kurtis so much that he grabbed her hand and lopped off several fingers and threw them into the forest. I tried to stop him, but may Shallya forgive me, perhaps I could have tried harder. In any case I said a prayer to Shallya asking her to stem the bleeding from Rita’s hand, and I think the prayer was answered.

Still the beasts did not come and so we decided to venture into the forest. Otto led us in, and I led Rita by a rope in the middle of the group and gagged her again so she wouldn’t give us a way, but we were probably making enough racket that we wouldn’t go unnoticed, in any case. After a while Otto stopped suddenly, finding a pit trap, and directed us to walk around it. (Who needs Solvej?) So we knew we were now in the beasts’ territory, and soon he spotted a fire with a couple of figures sitting around it.

Erhardt made his way to one side to try to magic the creatures and Gulgad went the other way. Erhardt cast his magic thing and hit them with his strange wispy grey flames, or whatever it was. And Gulgad was charged by a much larger beast galloping out of the woods trying to impale him on its horns, but he was able to side-step it, easily enough.

And so the battle was joined, with Gulgad hitting his cow-sized opponent with his axe, Otto slinging one of the smaller ones, Kurtis charging in, and Erhardt using his magic. All these creatures were ridden with disease and surrounded by clouds of flies, and so I suspect they are worshippers of the dark god N_____. This made them harder to fight, but still we did well, and I was struck by how far we had come, in the few months we had been together, but also, sadly, by how readily now everyone seemed to embrace this violence as a way of life. Even Otto was getting into it and fighting like an old soldier.

I wanted this fight to be justified, and I’m sure it was, but still, I pulled down Rita’s gag, and asked her for honesty about in whose name she had been acting. I wanted to hear her name one of the dark gods, but still she was adamant, ‘Taal.’

Erhardt told me that if we were getting overrun then I should kill Rita, but it seemed to me that the fight was going our way and soon there was only one beast left. And so I got my knife out and cut Rita’s bonds and told her to run. I wasn’t sure whether I was being cruel or kind to her, but it felt right that she might end her days in this forest. But instead, she merely collapsed at my feet.

And then we heard a mighty roar coming through the trees and a huge figure strode into the clearing, and this was flanked by three more of the larger beasts. And yet another figure joined them, a tall, long-horned beastlike creature that was wearing robes, like it was some sort of beast-wizard.

Kurtis had already been wounded by one of the smaller beasts and now faced with these new larger ones, I feared for him, plus he was whining about it, so I prayed to Shallya that I might take his wounds upon myself. I’m such a martyr.

Gulgad squared up to the huge minotaur-like beast, and you could see he relished the prospect, unlike the rest of us who were a bit more reticent to face the other beasts. The minotaur charged him but Gulgad was remarkably spritely for a big Dwarf and got out the way. One of the beasts charged Kurtis but he deflected it away with his shield and Otto and Erhardt fought from range. Otto even sent Schnitzel in to fight by Kurtis’ side, although to be fair, he wasn’t much use.

Gulgad smashed the minotaur with all his strength and the great creature was already reeling. Meanwhile Kurtis hit his opponent, killing the last of the smaller beasts. One of the creatures hit Otto hard, hurting him severely, but Otto replied by ripping at its throat with his dagger, and killing it in a blood curdling scream (I wasn’t sure which of them was screaming).

I could see that Otto was badly wounded, too, and so I prayed to Shallya to take his wounds upon myself, also. I felt like perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew. But at that moment, some sort of power exploded from the robed beast shaman thing and hit Rita’s body next to me. Immediately an horrific creature welled up inside her body and erupted through her skin and attacked me. I immediately regretted cutting her bonds, as her claws ripped into me.

Erhardt could see this happening and attempted to save me from the abomination, casting his magic bolt at it, but once again he got a nosebleed. It was nowhere near as bad as the one that had nearly killed him earlier, but it seems clear to me that he does not have control of this particular spell and should never cast it again. It seems that he is incapable of learning this sort of lesson. In any case the Rita-monster was still alive and determined to kill me. I did my best to keep out of its way, but elsewhere in the clearing Otto had been hit by one of the beasts, and those wounds, thanks to my selfless prayers, had come to me instead. And it was all I could do was wait for the seemingly inevitable killer blow from the Rita-monster.

Meanwhile Otto managed to kill his new opponent and seemed to be relishing the fight. This seemed out of character for the mild mannered and easy going fellow we knew, but as he said later, ‘they’re just big rats, aren’t they.’

Kurtis recognised that the robed creature might be the key to the battle and tried to get to it, trying to barge his opponent out the way as he struck it, but the brute remained in his path, protecting its shaman. And then inevitably, Gulgad made the killer blow on the minotaur. He let out a shout of triumph and faced the shaman beast. But the shaman was unmoved. It fired more magic at Kurtis which, miraculously, seemed to bounce off his shield.

And that was the last I saw of the battle. I understand that the beasts were soon dealt with, and everyone had eventually piled on to the shaman with Otto getting in the killer blow, again. I had been attacked by the Rita-creature and the creature had gored me and I lost consciousness. Erhardt had dealt with the creature soon afterwards and Gulgad had seen to my wounds. I gained consciousness in terrible pain and found it difficult even to get to my feet.

The mercy of Shallya is for everyone, and within the cult it is taught that we must use our position to help others and not to help ourselves. But even so, I prayed to her to rid me of the serious injury to my back, and she did answer me, and in a matter of moments I was fit to walk again. This is my testament to the power and benevolence of Shallya and I feel like my faith in her is once more burning brightly.

I surveyed the scene of our battle, and there was terrible devastation. I could see countless bodies in the flickering firelight. Otto was ripping one of the antlers from the shaman in order to make another dagger.

We had been in close contact with the diseased beasts, and it would not surprise me if some of us had caught Packer’s Pox. Kurtis was already scratching his whatever. And schnitzel was busily licking his, although, to be fair, that wasn’t unusual. Kurtis had that look in his eye that I had seen before in Solvej and Otto, and Otto, filled with bloodlust, perhaps, after killing so many of the beasts, had that look again. I tried to lead them in some prayers and songs to Shallya, but Kurtis did not want to know. Otto was receptive however, and I promised to get him enrolled in the Temple of Shallya in Nuln as soon as I could. He didn’t really thank me for it, though.

We had utterly destroyed the beast tribe, and according to Rita, doomed the commune. Although, I think, we had actually saved it. I looked at Kurtis and he nodded, agreeing with me that this had been our most heroic moment. There had been no politics, or scheming, just right against wrong and a fight to the death. We wouldn’t be going back to the commune, just sleeping under the stars. They wouldn’t know we had saved them, and they wouldn’t thank us for it. But I think we all did the right thing, we had all risked our lives, and come through victorious, and the Empire was a slightly better place that night.