The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1

The boy’s mouth was suddenly stifled by a hand.

Ronthiel’s grip was unwavering, silencing him with his eyes turned upward. The boy looked up too, wondering what he saw.

He saw nothing but stars and then—suddenly—something on wings flew overhead. It startled him. And there were others that passed overhead as well. Lean, black and leathery, they beat the night air with wings of tight skin.

Everyone was still until the darting shapes left together, fled, and were gone.

“What were those things?” asked Belam when Ronthiel lifted his hand from the boy.

“Bats,” Graybeard replied, “the flying pets of the drow.”

“Pets of the drow?” the boy asked fearfully.

“There should be no bats here,” Amien said.

“There should be many,” Marroh corrected him, “for there are many caves ahead in the Mithril Mountains.”

“Caves—yes—but insects for them to eat? No,” answered Amien. “The smoke of our fire would have kept the insects the bats eat away from here. No bat should come near a fire. Those did.”

“Vampire bats?” guessed Belam.

“Spies,” Amien said.

“Is he right? Do you think they were sent to look for us?” asked Marroh of the old keeper.

“I think it would only be wise to conclude they were,” Graybeard said.

“But they should not know of our coming,” the dwarf protested.

“A bat flew over us the night we formed our gang,” the boy remembered.

“If they didn’t know then, they know we’re here now,” said Amien. “Those were drow scouts.”

“Amien is right,” Graybeard said. “If those bats are the pets of drow, they know we are here.”

“This is a bad sign.” Belam noted grimly. “Tomorrow, we should march by day, when the bats will still be in their caves.”

“And, if they find us again tomorrow night, we will know we have been discovered and that the drow are watching for us,” added Graybeard.

The boy felt fear to continue at first but the others all responded with determination and so soon the boy felt it also. He would press on.

The next day, with the goat boy leading, they struck a good path that made for the snowcapped mountains ahead. At one time it had been much traveled, possibly by an army, for they left much testimony to their passing; numerous rock campfires, broken pottery, and discarded garbage. But it had been a dozen years since they passed through here. Still, with so much evidence remaining, Ronthiel was soon pointing at old tracks in the ground that had survived even the rains since, they were so hardened and so many.

“Many horses passed this way long ago,” he said, “headed east.”

“Only the satyrs had horses,” said Graybeard.

“And there are the prints of many goats,” Ronthiel added.

“That would be the satyrs,” concluded Graybeard. “They came this way, headed towards the pass. What else do you see?”

“The prints of elves,” added Ronthiel.

“The elf prints are to the outside of the satyr hooves,” added Amien, noticing the prints too. “The satyrs were between them.”

“Very good for a human,” Ronthiel said to him with an approving nod and a smile.

“A few of us can track,” said Amien.

“The satyrs were being herded east on foot along with their horses,” concluded Belam, “with elves on each side of them.”

“Not just any elves,” added Ronthiel, “drow.”

“In which case they took the satyrs prisoners,” Graybeard concluded and, looking at the boy, added. “Your kin are still alive.”

They all nodded, and their spirits were lifted.

“Or at least they still were when they reached here,” finished Belam.

“Yes,” agreed Graybeard. “But the drow are not above making slaves of other races.”

The boy gasped in open-mouthed amazement. His kin were still alive! They even knew which way they had gone. What wondrous trackers he led! He forgot all about the bats.

But the trail they left so many years ago was now swept by winds and washed away by so many rains. They walked for leagues and found no more evidence of horses or satyrs until just before nightfall, and then the evidence was suddenly everywhere.

“A battle was fought here,” said Ronthiel.

They could all see it. There was no need to be told. There were broken swords, spears, and arrows lying everywhere to be found on the ground, even bones. Amongst the broken shields, Ronthiel lifted something unlike anything the boy had ever seen. It was absolutely hideous!

“A drow helmet,” announced Ronthiel.

That was a helmet? It looked to the boy like the head of a human-sized spider. What manner of a race would make helmets that look like the heads of spiders?

The drow helmet, with its spider-like appearance, sat on the ground like a sinister omen, casting shadows over their deliberations.

“The horses were split off here from the satyrs,” noted Amien of the battle. “They traveled east by the north side of the pass. The satyrs also went east but on the south side.”

“Who fought here against the drow?” Belam asked.

“Decide for yourself,” said Graybeard, tossing him a broken sword. “That is not a drow sword for the drow use the scissor bladed long sword.”

Belam examined the broken blade.

“This is the sword of a man,” he said.

“Specifically, the men of the east,” stated Graybeard. “They captured the horses from the drow and took them back east after a battle here.”

“It was more of a raid,” Amien decided. “They freed the horses but not the satyrs. They were only after the horses.”

“Which the drow, probably all too easily surrendered to them,” said Graybeard, “as horses are of no use in drow underground cities other than as food for their steeders. The humans ran off the horses, leaving the drow with their satyr prisoners, who wisely chose to take the south side of the pass after the humans took the north side.”

The boy was simply amazed that they could tell so much from so little and from something that happened some thirteen years ago.

“So, which do we follow?” Marroh asked. “The horse tracks of the north side? Or the satyr tracks to the south?”

“Both tracks head east,” offered young Joe.

“That is for the boy to decide,” Graybeard said. “He commands us.”

They all looked at the goat boy for his decision.

“I shall think on it tonight,” the boy answered uncertainly, “and let you know in the morning.”

“Then we shall camp here now,” Graybeard said, “and maintain a night watch for bats.”

“Gather extra firewood to take with us tomorrow,” Belam advised. “There shall be nothing to burn when we get higher up in the mountains tomorrow and sudden storms can come upon these passes. If each one of us carries a walking staff of dry wood, we shall be able to make a fire tomorrow of them where the trees don’t grow if necessary. If we work together, we can do it!”

Young Joe took the first watch that night and reported a bat. Belam took the second and also reported a bat as did Marroh on the watch after him. Nothing further happened that night but, by breakfast the next morning, it was agreed. The drow knew they were here.

“We shall follow the path of the horses,” said the boy.

“Follow the path of the horses?” blurted out Belam in disagreement. “Are we not here to free the satyrs? Of what good does it do to follow the horses? That way will not lead to the satyrs! It will only lead the way to the Riders of the Rim who stole them!”

“Let the boy finish,” Graybeard told him and turned his old eyes on the boy. “Why do you wish to follow the path of the horses?”

“If we follow the path of the satyrs,” said the boy, “the drow bats will report us. They already know we are coming and will lay a trap for us. We are too few to win such a frontal battle. So we will take the north trail. When the bats report our route, the drow shall believe we are headed to the men of the east to trade.”

“Of course, they’ll believe it,” said Belam, “for that is exactly where that route shall take us! But of what use is it to go there?”

“They have horses,” the boy said. “If we had horses too, we could travel farther in a day than the bats would expect. We can return and get past their outer guards by day.”

“Now wait just a moment there!” cried Marroh. “No self-respecting dwarf will ride a horse!”

“You will,” the boy said.

“And what if the Riders of the Rim choose to kill us?” asked Belam. “What then?”

“I doubt they will. They are obviously the enemy of the drow as the two fought. The enemy of our enemy is our friend,” answered the boy. “Besides! They are men like you.”

“And why should they give us horses?” insisted Belam.

“They may not,” said the boy. “But, if they won’t, we shall obtain them the same way the men of the east got them. We shall steal them.”

There was a long pause to that in which Belam had no answer.

“I think this thief boy makes good sense,” Amien said to Belam. “I agree with his plan. You will too unless you intend to walk on foot right into a drow trap with them knowing we’re coming.”

“The other path may not be so easy either,” Belam warned in reply. “The pass is still white with snow ahead. That means the snow has not melted as we had expected. How are we to cross in the snow? We have no snowshoes and no furs. We have wood enough to take with us for one night’s fire. It will take at least two days to go over that mountain pass—two days in which our feet will freeze. Or are we to simply camp here and wait for it to melt?”

“That could take weeks,” Graybeard said.

The dwarf failed to see the problem.

“Why bother to hike over the pass when you can go under it?” he asked. “The Mithril Mountains are filled with the mines of dwarves. There should be several that we can pass through. There’s no snow in a mine.”

“I’ll no more go into a mine,” said Ronthiel, “than you’ll ride a horse!”

“You’re just afraid!” scorned Marroh.

“And you’re just afraid to ride a horse!”

“Silence, Ronthiel!” Graybeard warned, turning to Marroh. “But the elf is right. We know nothing about mines. We neither know which mine to enter or where it goes.”

“Every mine goes somewhere,” Marroh pointed out. “And any mine that you can feel the wind blowing through means it comes out somewhere else.”

“But on which side does it come out?” Belam asked for them all.

“It’s not as difficult as you think,” explained the dwarf. “We dwarves leave signs in our mines for other dwarves to follow. I can easily take you through any mine.”

The others nodded in agreement to hear this.

“It saves cold feet or weeks of waiting,” Amien stated of the idea.

“I agree,” said the boy. “We take the mines.”

But the boy did not really know what a mine was. He’d never been in one. He thought it was an underground city hollowed out by dwarves.

On that, he would be proved greatly mistaken as they headed out.