54: Retreat

There was once a vintner, Shallya tells us in the Parable of the Vinegar and the Wine, who made some of the finest wines in the Reikland. Every year he would pour his many barrels of wine together, to make one large barrel that he would take to market to sell.

One day, when he was preparing for market, he noticed that one of the small barrels tasted slightly off. He wondered whether to throw the wine from that barrel away. But it was only one small barrel. And it was only slightly off. It wouldn’t matter if he added it to the other wine. The taste would be diluted, and no one would notice. So, the vintner poured that wine into the large barrel too, with all the other wine.

Then he drove to market. But when he had got to the market, and he opened the barrel to show all the prospective buyers his wares, the whole barrel, the vintner’s work for the entire year, had turned to vinegar.

And that is why all Shallyans should hunt down servants of the fly lord wherever they may fester.

Erhardt told us that the green magic we had followed to the crater, that had been converging on the icon, was dissipating. There were still loads of it about, but now it lacked focus. We could hear the creams and cries coming from the forest which we guessed might only be an hour or so away, and decided we needed to get out of there quickly. We had a quick look around the crater. I wasn’t sure what had happened here. The altar seemed to be made up of the rock of the crater itself, and had been crudely carved, and there were green specks within the black rock.

I wondered whether some sort of dark magic had fallen from the skies to cause the crater and had warped the land around it, over time. I had heard stories along those lines. I could see the fleshy icon I had stabbed was quickly rotting away on its iron spike. Erhardt suggested that Otto wasn’t strong enough to remove the spike from the altar, which made him want to try, but when he grabbed the spike, it didn’t shift, and it burned the flesh of his hands. That’s what Erhardt’s like, but he pretended he didn’t realise that would happen.

While Solvej went around making very sure that each of the marauders were dead (I think she enjoys that a bit too much) Ursula grabbed one of the helmets to take back to the witch hunters.

Kurtis didn’t seem very content. He had got revenge for his farm, but that hadn’t satisfied him. I tried to explain that he had done a great thing, without making it not about his farm, telling him he had killed the general responsible, but now he wanted to kill all the soldiers, too.

I inspected some of the bodies and the altar and the rotting icon and had a brief glimpse of what was going to happen, perhaps, or what might have happened had we not interceded. I saw the hordes of mutants invading Altdorf again, united under the icon, led by knights like the ones we had slain, and masses of mutants crammed around the crater honouring the glowing icon. Then I saw them turning their backs and disappearing into the forest.

Solvej decided that the forest would be full of stragglers and that we should search them out and destroy them. I know we had a duty to destroy them, too, but wondered whether this was the right time. The last thing we needed to do was blunder blindly around the forest looking for a fight. Kurtis seemed to think that we need to get more revenge for his farm, while I think Erhardt would have been content to go back to Altdorf and report this to his school chums, and Ursula was dying to get back to the witch hunters with her trophy and be readmitted into the order.

In the end we decided to head back towards Altdorf, the way we had come, knowing that we were likely to bump into the original band of marauders we had raced here. Of course, once Solvej had convinced us that we needed to go after the marauders, she changed her mind and decided it would be safer to head back a different way.

So, we set off aware that we could meet the marauders at any moment. I thought, therefore, that we should be careful and stealthy but was surprised to see Kurtis and Solvej leading the way chatting loudly. I’m not that interested in their idle gossip, but I got the impression that they were concerned about Ursula trying to take away their natural positions as leaders of the party. I was surprised to hear that Ursula would be capable of this, but even more surprised to learn that they were our leaders. I have heard Solvej talk about being the brains of the party, before now, though.

Anyway, some scheming went on. I think they agreed to give Ursula more responsibility to keep her onside, and to that end Solvej told Ursula that Kurtis fancied her. Then Kurtis suggested that Ursula should join the fight with her flail instead of hanging back with the crossbow she didn’t know how to reload. Ursula interpreted this as Kurtis losing his nerve and needing Ursula in the front line looking after him. In any case Kurtis was upset that Ursula fancied Erhardt and not him and so flashed her his private area, but she was not impressed at all by his, admittedly, handsome calves. Honestly, I just wanted to get back to the temple, away from this sort of nonsense.

But we had a job to do, I felt like this was a poor plan, I felt like we had defeated the general and we were all going to die fighting the fleeing soldiers. I understood the Shallyan enmity to the fly lord and that we were always obliged to oppose him whenever we found him, but surely there were better ways to do that. Of course, the Parable of the Vinegar and the Wine tells us otherwise. But even meat-headed thugs like Gulgad (may Morr watch over his journey) acknowledged there was a time and a place for violence.

So, after an hour or so, despite all the gossip, we managed to hear the marauders approaching. Erhardt crept on ahead, again, and soon returned with the news. This was indeed the band he had spotted earlier, the one with the large, mutated leader with the peg leg, whose outriders we had killed. He had fifteen minions, five of which were heavily armed. This felt like a fight we couldn’t win. But Shallya insists, and my colleagues were mostly inclined to fight, too, despite them having no interest in following her word.

We decided to hide along their route and as they were passing, I was to cause a distraction and try to lure some of them away into the forest. I don’t think I would be much use in a fight, and I think Kurtis was a bit concerned because in our last two encounters with the marauders I had been knocked down and hurt both times, so this was a way of getting me away from the fight. Or it was a way to get me alone in the middle of a forest with no one to help me.

So, I hid, and as the marauders passed me, I got to my feet and made a spectacle of trying to cure one of the mutant’s diseases. This caused him to cry out in pain, and they all turned to look at me. The plan was for me to leg it there and then, and not look back. Unfortunately, Otto did not get to hear the plan, or possibly, didn’t understand it, and so he ran towards me and tried to defend me. I called him a moron and ran away anyway. About five of the marauders did follow me, so that was something.

Obviously, I wasn’t there to see the rest of it. I was running for my life, as fast as I could, through the forest, concentrating on not falling over, or going round in circles, or getting lost, and going as fast as I could. I knew if the marauders caught up with me, I would be as good as dead.

But from what I understand, Otto had ended up right in front of their leader, and although Solvej shot at him before he could reach Otto, he shrugged off the hit and went for Otto. Then Kurtis stepped in to defend the rat catcher. And the big guy smacked him with his sword, sending him to the ground, injured. The fight had not started as well as it might have.

Everyone decided to concentrate on their leader, and Erhardt hit him with one of his magical bolts. Some of the mutants threw their javelins at us but didn’t mange to hit anyone. Otto managed to stab the leader with his dagger, but it barely hurt him.

Some of the other knights closed ranks around their leader and went for Otto. One hit him, hurting him badly but he stayed on his feet and fought back. Erhardt cast another spell at the leader, trying to make him drop his sword, but he managed to hold on to it and swung at Otto again.

Otto was heavily outnumbered, but Kurtis managed to drag himself to his feet, once more, and re-join the fight and defend him. Meanwhile Ursula and Solvej were peppering the marauders with their missiles, but they were too heavily armoured.

Otto stood toe to toe with the marauder leader still, but it looked like only a matter of time before he would be pulverised. Then Schnitzel jumped to his master’s defence, growling fiercely at the knight of N_____. I think the dog could probably have just been swept aside with a swipe of the knight’s sword, but Schnitzel’s growling did have an effect, and the mutated creature stepped back, away from the dog, and away from Otto. And, we noticed, when he stepped back from Schnitzel, the rest of the foul warband seemed to hesitate, too. Then we knew that killing their leader would be key to this fight. So, everyone did all they could to damage the leader. Otto shouted ‘suck my Shallyan moonbeams’ at the knight, which although not strictly theologically sound, made the point.

The leader finally got a telling blow on Otto, and he fell to the ground bleeding and nearly unconscious. The massed attacks had worn the leader down, however, and one of Erhardt’s spells finally killed him. And then the entire warband stopped, and with cries of anguish, ran off into the forest.

I had spent the entire fight running away, and the mutants had been gradually gaining on me, and I was close to exhaustion. But then suddenly, after what I later learned was the death of their leader, the mutants gave up the pursuit and disappeared into the forest. I made my way slowly back towards the group, trying to retrace my steps so as not to get lost, and taking it easy because I was out of breath. Little did I know that Otto was bleeding to death. He had saved me the day before, but I was not there to save him, now.

Anyway, by the time I got back, Otto was up and about, recovered from his serious injury. I’m not sure if he was just very lucky or had been making a big fuss about nothing. He even picked up the marauder leader’s axe to see how it felt, but dropped it pretty quickly, feeling some sort of magical energy passing through his fingers.

Kurtis had had a close shave as well, and while I was patching him up, he told me that this had really affected him and he was determined to try to turn his life around and be a better person from now on. I agreed with him that that was a good thing but didn’t believe it for a moment. I knew that in a few days he would forget all about this and be back to the selfish, hedonistic person he always has been.