The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1

“This is good rock,” noted Marroh of their underground surroundings. “ The dwarves were happy here. At one time this place would have been filled with working songs.”

“How long has it been since the dwarves worked here?” asked Amien, looking about.

“Quite a while,” answered the dwarf, “probably as many of your lifetimes as the number of fingers on your hands. All the mithril was mined out of these mountains long ago.”

Young Joe made an effort to count how many fingers that was but, after getting stuck a few times after three, he gave up. But the boy had been to school and could count to ten; the usual biggest number after ten being, to him, “more than ten”. So he knew it was a lot of years.

“I shall admit I do not like it in here,” said Ronthiel to Marroh, “but it lifts my heart that you do, for you know these things much better than me. For you to say it is good does ease my fear.”

“An elf that trusts a dwarf?” Graybeard smiled. “Now that is a thought more twisted than the tunnels we tread!”

He said it in jest, of course, for if there was any race the Light Elves got along with, it was the dwarves. It made them all want to smile for a moment, but “want” was all that happened for none of them did. Their torches cast gloomy shadows and there were no working songs sung her now.

They soon discovered the mine was very old, indeed. There were often cracks and fissures created over time they had to jump over to cross, some of them quite deep.

And they also soon found they were not alone. There was the distant familiar sound of rock falling down from behind them and being dragged out of the way. It repeated itself several times. It was the sound of claws on hard rock.

“I know that sound,” said the boy.

“I know it too,” said Marroh. “It is the same sound we heard that followed us into the other mine. It is the last thing Belam ever faced alive.”

"It sounds like its digging its way in," said Joe.

"It is. It's too big to fit in here otherwise."

“It still follows us,” said Graybeard. “It digs fast and can keep up with horses. Let’s move on for now. It is goblins ahead that I fear now, for we know their traps from before.”

The sound of the falling rock grew fainter. They were leaving it behind, though now another sound took its place—the slow, steady beat of a war drum.

“Goblins,” Ronthiel said, listening to it.

Amien came promptly to the rear and also listened.

“They are behind us,” he said. “Between us and that thing that follows us.”

“Let us move quickly then,” suggested Graybeard.

They hurried their pace, almost to a run, though they had to stop each time the tunnel branched off in separate directions to find the drow’s next mark. Each time they stopped; the pounding of the drum grew closer. Finally, it became too close.

“I shall defend our rear against them,” stated Amien. “The rest of you go on ahead.”

“I shall fight with you,” said Joe.

Amien looked at him uncertainly but suddenly nodded.

“Of course, my captain,” he agreed. “But allow me to at least give you a lesson in a defending a retreat first. Follow me!”

Amien headed back the way they had come towards the enemy, with Joe following.

“Shouldn’t we join them?” asked the boy, watching them both leave.

Graybeard shook his head.

“They do their duty,” he said. “It is up to us to do ours,” and then he led the way ahead.

Amien stopped when he reached one of the great fissures, but did not jump it. Rather, he went no further and waited to face the enemy.

“Why don’t we keep going?” asked young Joe. “They’re just across that chasm if you want to fight them.”

“No,” said Amien. “We make them jump across it and come to us. Watch and you shall see! A good warrior always chooses his own ground.”

In the cold, damp air in the mine, Amien and Joe stood side by side. listening to the echoes of approaching footsteps against the tunnel walls. They waited, swords drawn. They tightened their grips on their blades, exchanging wary glances before the impending goblin onslaught. They did not have to wait long. A storm of goblins came rushing at them from out of the dark, their frenzied charge propelled by madness and malice. Those in the front ranks tried to stop when they saw the deep fissure that separated them from their intended victims, but those behind them failed to see it and so pushed them in, causing their front ranks to tumble and fall into the bottomless crevasse. Many dozens disappeared into the fissure before the mad rush was halted.

But their attack was only temporarily stopped for goblins are insane and the drow routinely tortured them into suicidal attacks. Driven by their deranged fervor, they began to try to jump across the fissure, only to land on the waiting blades of young Joe and Amien which now came to life, cleaving through the air in a joint silver blur of ballet. The two killed the goblins as fast as they jumped and perhaps even faster. The goblins fell like wheat before the scythe. As the body count of the goblins steadily mounted, so too did their splattered blood around the two humans. The two seemed to be winning, for they successfully skewered the leapers through the heart or severed off their heads in midair.

But, as the scarlet blood of the goblins continued to fly, the cave floor became thick with it and the footing slippery. Young Joe took a swing to sever a leaper’s head and lost his footing, falling forward into the fissure.

Amien’s hand pulled him swiftly and safely back while, at the same time, he engaged the next two goblins to try to cross, meeting them both. He cleaved their heads off cleanly, but now it was he who was off balance and fell forward, tumbling into the crevice.

“No!” cried young Joe as he saw him silently fall and disappear into that deep, dark fissure.

But there was no time to see what happened to him, though dead he obviously was, the same fate as Belam. No one could survive that bottomless fall. Yet more goblins were leaping. An enraged Joe smote them down. His sword fairly flew as he avenged himself upon those depraved creatures, killing them by the droves until, finally, there were none left.

A gasping, panting young Joe stood amongst the masses of dead goblin bodies to desperately call into the fissure.

“Amien!”

There was no answer but an echo. He shoved a dead goblin body into the crevice and listened to its fall. There was a sound of something bouncing off the rocks and then the distant sound of a splash of it hitting water well below.

And then there was nothing.

Young Joe took Amien’s torch and dropped it down the crack as well. He watched it plummet down into the endless depths of the crevice until finally, the darkness greedily simply swallowed it up, consuming his last glimmer of hope with an insatiable hunger.

“Someone’s coming!” warned Ronthiel from behind them, raising his bow.

Graybeard forced him to lower his arrow back down.

“Rest easy,” he said. “Goblins don’t carry torches.”

It was young Joe who came, arriving breathless, exhausted, and crying a boatload of tears.

“Where is Amien?” asked Graybeard of him.

“Left behind,” pointed young Joe between sobs. “He didn’t make it. The goblins got him!”

Graybeard’s bushy eyebrows furrowed in concerned worry.

“That is unexpected news,” he said gravely.

“What do we do?” asked the boy in alarm.

“Do?” asked Graybeard in reply. “There is not much we can do but to move on.”

“We can’t just leave him!” said the boy.

“You are the leader,” said Graybeard. “We follow you.”

“It’s useless,” Joe told the satyr, stopping him. “We could never find him. He fell into some bottomless black hole. And, whatever it is that followed us in here from outside, it’s still back there. I heard it coming.”

The boy’s face fell. To lose Amien, whom he had so much faith in, was a bitter blow. He was crestfallen. First Belam and now Amien.

“Forward?” asked Graybeard.

The boy slowly and reluctantly nodded. They had no time to waste. They had to reach the drow’s guard outposts ahead before the attack was begun by the Rim Riders.

And that time was fast running out.