The Last Satyr: The Two Paths Part 2

Shinayne walked over the battlefield, using her scissor sword on any man-orc that still moved. Two hundred other Black Dragons followed her example.

Sar stood mortified. The losses of the satyrs had been heavy. One out of every four was dead and as many others wounded.

Arnen Fang’s shoulders heaved as his cries echoed across the battlefield. His hands clenched tightly at the torn earth beneath him, as if seeking some anchor in the chaos. His eyes, once filled with hope, were now brimming with tears, Fang was sobbing; his only son had been killed on the field.

The dwarf Marroh had been wounded and would have died if not for his chain mail. He could not walk and had to be carried away.

By comparison, young Joe, protected only by his shield, had taken two arrows but none serious and was able to limp off the battlefield after being bandaged and tended to.

Only at the end had any of the surviving man-orcs finally broke and run in fear. Otherwise, they fought to the death and often took several blows and wounds to kill.

“Sar,” called Shinayne to Sar. “Have your satyrs rob these dead man-orcs of their armor. They shall have need of it.”

Their combined force was finally making its way slowly back towards Mills Breath in silence and carrying their wounded. It had been a bitter victory.

Amien walked alongside Graybeard, wondering about his thoughts. “The way ahead is clear,” he said.

“Yes. It is,” replied the keeper.

“Do we go on to the surface?”

“We have too many wounded,” answered Graybeard. “First, we must rest and bury our dead.”

“With another ten anthills of the enemy behind us, we cannot rest.”

“They have stopped for now,” Graybeard gazed ahead with conviction. “If not, they would have arrived today.”

“Then they will arrive tomorrow?”

“They might but you forget we control Thera Pass now,” The old keeper gave him a wise smile. “Lolth cannot attack it from all sides as we did. It would be folly for her to attack it in a frontal assault. I shall put Shinayne in charge of its defenses. She is a clever woman and her forces are at nearly full strength.”

“You realize,” said Amien, “that the dwarves expect us to add our numbers to the city’s defense? And that they believe that is the reason we came?”

“For a time, we shall let them believe it. Let us not disappoint them too quickly.”

“I should rather not disappoint them at all.”

“And neither would I,” Graybeard agreed. “But we did not come here to rescue Mills Breath and the dwarves are free to leave it at any time. We cannot concern ourselves with what is beyond our control. We will offer to take their women and children to safety with us if they refuse to leave and deliver word to the other dwarves on the surface of their situation, should they desire to send help. But staying here for us would be eventual suicide,” he added.

“What about the three of our company we left behind us?” Amien asked.

“I now feel the elf,” said Graybeard. “Somehow, Ronthiel is alive but somehow he's changed in a way I cannot describe. It’s that blackness again. I still do not know about the boy, but, if you’re curious about him, you can ask Sar. As his keeper, he would know.”

“Are you not curious enough to ask yourself?”

“No. I’m not his keeper. His and your lives are so short in my eyes that a few extra years don’t make any difference. I cannot let such things bother me. It is not my current concern,” said Graybeard. “Though I wish him well. I don’t mean to sound indifferent, but perhaps you do not realize that this war is not yet over, even if we reach the surface? The enemy does not give up this easily. They shall resort to other means. I must remain focused on that and nothing else.”

The curiosity about the fate of Ronthiel, Leradien, and the boy was satisfied the next day when the Black Dragons reported the arrival of all three of them at Thera Pass. They were all greeted warmly, including even Leradien.

Somewhat less so was their welcome at Mills Breath. The dwarves had no love for a drider and knew nothing of their having stopped Lolth’s army. Indeed, they did not even know Lolth’s army was even out there; this information never having reached them. They knew only that Vhaeraun's man-orcs were holding Thera Pass to prevent their rescuers from reaching them.

As for the boy’s own company; both Marroh and young Joe were in “sick bay” and being tended for their wounds. The only two to greet them and welcome their return were Amien and Graybeard.

These two made much ado over their success in stopping Lolth though and the dwarves quickly came to realize the three were somehow heroes. Yet the dwarves also just as quickly summoned Graybeard before them to find out why he had made no mention of Lolth’s army in the first place—and which was still out there. This occupied Graybeard for many hours before a doubting and accusing Arnen Fang, already regretting the loss of his son.

With only Amien interested in their own adventures, the three of them (except Leradien, who could care less) ended up questioning the others of their company as to what had happened to them in their absence and were treated to amazing stories.

After hearing them, the boy decided to turn over a new leaf. It seemed every member of their company had killed more of the enemy than he had. Amien’s score was in the hundreds if not a thousand, Marroh, Ronthiel, and young Joe probably at least half that many, and Leradien’s simply went unmentioned lest she might shame them all. As for the boy’s score, it was perhaps the fingers of one hand and certainly did not include the nine he had last faced. Further, Ronthiel, young Joe, and Marroh all now carried what others called the ‘red badge badge of courage’. They had all three been wounded in a glorious battle with the bloody bandages to prove it and were heroes to all. Whereas the boy had only bumped his head on some rocks and so had no ‘red badge’. Even that glory had avoided him.

They still recognized him as a hero, of course, for his successful defense of their rearguard, where three had at least for the moment stopped an army of ten thousand, an incredible accomplishment. But it was hard to enjoy it when he could not remember it or answer the questions of those wanting to hear of it. His eager audience had to turn to Ronthiel for their answers, but, alas, he could not remember it, either. So, if they wanted their questions answered, they had to ask Leradien, and no one was going to ask a drider anything—even a girl drider. So the glory of his story went unsung.

Of course, he remembered being cornered by nine orcs and having to be rescued by Leradien without having killed a single one of them. That was hardly something to brag about. Thus, while every other member of the company was famous now in Mill’s Breath and put to song, his name went unmentioned as much as Leradien’s.

So the boy took an oath to himself that he should, from this day on, become like his hero, Amien. He promised to abstain from lying, cowardice, and laziness—all his former prized virtues—and become a gentle, honest, pillar of righteousness able to slay hundreds. Yet now he found out a new thing—namely, that promises, especially to one’s self, are easily broken. The boy soon found himself tormented by a desire to revert to his former ways and to lie, avoid acts of bravery, and avoid work. He managed only one virtue. He seduced no dwarf women when he heard most had beards, the same as their men. And even that required effort. Only his shame and envy of Amien kept him from withdrawing from his vow to be like him. So he volunteered for frontline service at defending Thera Pass, even if he was blind as a bat in the dark and had to take Leradien with him to see. He fixed all his hopes upon an enemy counter-attack by which to prove himself a hero while, at the same time, fearing the very same attack. For three days, there were reports of enemy patrols just beyond and the boy fearfully steadied himself for battle. But the enemy patrols always spotted the terrifyingly beautiful Leradien with him and refused to attack. The boy was disgusted; and felt a sense of injury, too. He handed in his resignation at once to Shinayne and returned to Mill’s Breath with his drider. Whereupon the enemy immediately attacked in his and Leradien’s absence, only to be soundly repelled by the Black Dragons. The boy resolved he would never trust the enemy to do the right thing again.

The honor paid to the Black Dragons afterward was a fine thing. They were paraded in a style calculated to kill the boy with envy for not being there for the fight. Yet the boy was also free from duty again, however, and there was something glorious to be found in that. He could make up lies about his accomplishments and skip weapons practice now—but found to his surprise that he did not want to. That he wished his lies were true took the desire to lie away, and the fun out of it.

He still remained envious of the wounded, especially the other satyrs who wore the “red badge”. He wondered why he couldn’t be so lucky as to get hit by an arrow. Everyone else had been and was now crowned in the glory of it. He considered volunteering for patrol again that he might take an enemy arrow too, but Leradien had been called before Graybeard and Arnen Fang after the attack and so could not go with him, making such volunteering a far more dangerous undertaking. Besides! There might not be any more orc arrows out there, in which case he was simply volunteering for work—and nothing dampened his enthusiasm more than that.

So he called upon his two wounded friends in recovery; young Joe and Marroh, the only means at hand by which he could copy Amien and his admirable character.

Arnen Fang watched with dark, disapproving eyes the entry of Leradien the drider into his hall. No doubt she was the first such drider to ever enter and, just as likely, she would be the last. Four dwarves with axes marched along each side of her, each with instructions to chop away at her if she went mad.

If Arnen Fang looked unhappy, Graybeard before him looked depressed. The two leaders had obviously had an unhappy meeting.

The eight dwarves bowed to Arnen Fang, but Leradien refused. She bowed to no one and had no use for dwarves. Arnen Fang, in spite of his dislike for her, noticed her intensely commanding beauty, and that made him like her even less.

“You have been called,” Graybeard told her, “for us to learn more about your defense of our rear guard. We noticed that Lolth’s army waited for you to be gone from Thera Pass and then immediately attacked in your absence. Can you explain that?”

“I assume they fear me,” Leradien replied.

“Now why would orcs and drow fear a drider?” asked Arnen Fang curiously. “Despise one? Yes. Fear one? No.”

“Perhaps it is Lolth that fears me,” offered the drider.

“Why would Lolth fear you?” queried Arnen Fang in curious doubt.

“Perhaps because I am a black widow, the same as her.”

“Or perhaps there is another reason,” suggested Graybeard. “Did you drink Lolth’s blood?”

Leradien grew more defensive, her eyes suspicious and wary. She answered the question with a question.

“Why do you ask?”

“You look a bit bigger than I last saw you.”

Leradien went from defensive to defiant.

“And what if I am?!” she demanded.

There was silence, for they all three knew the answer to that question. If Leradien was bigger because she drank Lolth’s blood, then that meant she would develop a craving and a hunger for more of it. She had just taken one more step along the path of insanity.

Her question went unanswered. It was best left unsaid.

“What damage was done to Lolth?” asked Graybeard with a stern, attentive look.

“The boy stabbed her with that horrid knife you gave him. She screamed twice and lost the use of one of her legs,” said Leradien. “Ronthiel hit her in the neck twice with an arrow while I attacked her face. That is when she ran.”

“Did she say anything in leaving?”

Leradien shook back her gorgeous white hair proudly and answered with pride. “She thought I had destroyed her beauty.”

“Yes,” agreed Graybeard. “She would undoubtedly think that. After all, what you did to her has never been done before.”

Again, Leradien held her head high in pride.

“All for nothing!” said Arnen Fang to her in a low voice filled with disapproval.

Leradien’s eyes turned to the dwarf’s for an explanation.

“Not all for nothing,” interjected Graybeard, correcting the dwarf. “She put fear in Lolth twice over—fear for her face and fear for her life!”

“What does the dwarf mean?” demanded Leradien.

“He means by now Lolth has healed and most completely,” Graybeard told her. “Yet she would be afraid before that happened to let her followers see her ravaged by you. She undoubtedly delayed for enough time to heal before returning to her army. Where were you the next day?”

“We were in Ched Nasad.”

“Why were you there?”

“The boy thought we could delay them better from the concealment of the city than from out in the open.”

“I see. Then what happened?”

“When the enemy did not come forward on the second day, we left for Thera Pass.”

“Since then Lolth has rejoined her army,” the old keeper informed her. “She has now sent scouts ahead, probably to ascertain where you were. The scouts were obviously either afraid to attack you or under orders not to once they found you but to report back to her where you were. Once you left Thera Pass, they could attack there and did. But they were too few and failed.”

“But now?” asked the dwarf of him.

“Now that Lolth knows Leradien is here, she shall send her whole army against this place,” answered Graybeard.

“What does Lolth want with Mills Breath?” insisted Arnen Fang. “Those were her son’s man-orcs that attacked our city and not hers!”

“She must kill Leradien,” said Graybeard gravely. “And she will not stop at anything until she has.”

“Why all this over just one drider?” The dwarf scowled.

“Will you tell him or shall I?” Graybeard asked the drider.

“You know all the answers,” said Leradien irately. “You tell him.”

“She has tasted Lolth’s blood,” Graybeard informed Arnen Fang. “She will stop at nothing to taste it again. Lolth knows that. She will kill the drider at any price.”