The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1

Yet Ronthiel and Graybeard held the boy back.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Graybeard regretfully told the boy. “Do not make it harder for him by having to defend you as well.”

Amien now left the fighting to check on Belam while young Joe, and Marroh took over the defense.

“Is this what you want?” Amien asked the other man.

Belam nodded. He did. “I am done. There is no help for me. I have failed you all in my vow but I shall not fail young Joe... I shall see him safely out of here. Take him... with you. Save yourselves!”

“Buy us all time,” Amien said to him, putting his hand on his shoulder as the others now passed them to escape.

“You shall have it,” answered Belam, taking up his sword one more time in final defiance.

For a brief moment, the goblins ceased their attack, seeing only one wounded human left guarding the entrance to the tunnel with four daggers already in him and barely able to hold up his sword, let alone swing it, while the other six retreated behind him.

“None of you shall pass,” vowed Belam, bravely facing them. “I swear by my father’s name, not one of you shall pass!”

The goblins wavered at the threat but only long enough to let him finish it and then charged wildly forward and onto Belam’s blade.

This time, with only himself to defend, his shield turned away all daggers, and he fought with renewed strength, once again killing four with each swing of his blade, cleanly cleaving their heads off at the neck with unmatched skill. Again and again, he swung, driving them back. Yet finally, eventually; he began to weaken and slowly sank to his knees, blinking his eyes as his sword grew too heavy to weld from loss of blood, and he finally dropped it from numbed hands, head sagging, breath gasping with two more daggers in him now. The goblins stared at him from where he'd driven them, amazed he was still alive yet seeing the end was near, and prepared themselves for the final attack.

And then there came that awful sound again of a pointed iron claw on cold, hard rock.

The goblins heard it too, for suddenly their heads all turned as one to look back. They gave a whispered cry of fear and dismay. In absolute terror, the ranks of the goblins now instantly parted to run and crowd the exits to wildly escape and get away, their frenzied retreat resembling rats fleeing a sinking ship. It was every goblin for itself.

Something else was coming up behind them as they scattered before it, exiting every tunnel at hand they could find, until not a single living goblin remained. Indeed! They had emptied the chamber in little more time than it took Belam to draw his knife as he now lay dying on his knees, his sword, even his head, too heavy to lift, ready to make his last stand.

What approached was beyond the light of his fallen torch. It could but only vaguely be seen, but it was huge in that it cast a great shadow with gazing eyes of glowing red. The madness of those eyes was so dreadful, his knife simply fell from his unfeeling fingers, his eyes wide in dismay. Against this thing, all was useless.

“Lolth!” he whispered in dismay.

“Listen!” said Ronthiel, stopping.

They all stopped then in the tunnel leading away from the chamber to try and hear it, yet they heard nothing.

“What is it?” asked Graybeard.

“The fighting,” said the elf. “It’s stopped. And I heard Belam cry out.”

It was true. All was silent.

“Then Belam must be dead,” concluded Amien, “and we must hurry, as the goblins shall soon catch up with us for, while small, they’re fast.”

“I do not hear them coming,” stated the elf. “They too have stopped.”

Graybeard listened long and hard and nodded. “They have, indeed, stopped.”

“But why?” asked Amien. “What would stop them? Belam could not possibly have killed them all!”

“They’re not dead,” said Ronthiel, still listening. “They’ve run.”

“Run? Run from what?”

“Unless I miss my guess,” said Graybeard. “That something that followed us in is still back there. I sense it—a sort of tainted blackness—a darkness I have never felt before. And yet I know it somehow. Why is that?”

“I heard Belam called out the name of Lolth,” Ronthiel said.

“Lolth?” repeated Graybeard with raised eyebrows and serious eyes. “Yes. I would feel her and we are in dire trouble if she is here. That would explain the rocks we heard being broken for she is huge. Too huge to fit in these tunnels for she has grown fat on the blood of her endless victims. So she would have to break her way in. And if she brings an army with her, it won’t be of goblins. Quickly! We must get out of here and we haven’t a moment to lose!”

“But what if Belam is still alive?” asked the boy of him, Ronthiel having heard him call out.

The old keeper gave a slight shrug of not knowing. “I am not his keeper to know. But if he is alive, then he won’t be for long. What’s back there will make short work of him. His wounds were too serious.” Graybeard assured him as he moved on. “And he is facing the wrong opponent now to have any chance. The same for all of us if we don’t move on. I am afraid we have lost him.”

“What could silence an entire army of goblins?” young Joe wanted to know.

“You haven’t heard of Lolth?” answered Amien. “Everything flees and cowers before her. Even the light fears her. Trust me. You are better off not knowing what’s back there.”

“You said you could feel it,” asked Ronthiel of Graybeard. “What is it you feel?”

“Chaos—utter chaos. Black yet not black. Tainted.”

“Black?” repeated the elf. “Then it is of the Fell.”

Graybeard said nothing but seemed to think about it and to agree. “It has black blood all right. Yet...”

“The way out is just ahead.” Marroh interrupted them all.

That was enough incentive to get them all moving again. They followed after the dwarf at a run in fear of what lay behind. Yet they soon smelled fresh air and felt a breeze ahead of an exit. And then there was light at the end of the passage and the blue sky of day as they spilled out of the mine into the open sunlight on a rocky mountain slope above a treed forest.

They fell on their hands and knees, gasping, thankful to still be alive and to be able to feel, and see, the sun on their faces while breathing fresh air.

Looking up, Amien judged their position by the sun and their surroundings.

“The sun is rising and we are on the east side of the Mithril Mountains,” he said. “We have made it!”

“I have survived!” gasped a grateful Ronthiel in relief and kissed the ground outside in gratitude. “I shall never go underground again!”

Marroh was looking about for anything familiar. “But what is the way from here?” he asked. “For I know not this place.”

There were a few trees, rocks on the slope beneath blue skies and white clouds. They were still fairly high up with nothing in sight save a great forest of more trees below.

“It does not matter!” Ronthiel insisted. “We’re out is all that matters!”

“You can never be too sure,” warned the dwarf, looking about. "And there's always what's behind us."