The Last Satyr: The Two Paths Part 2

“Marry me?” repeated the astonished Ronthiel. “Aren’t I supposed to ask you first?”

“You will,” she said. “I’m very good looking, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“You’re also a drider in case you haven’t noticed!”

She ignored the comment, asking. “So, what about you? You think you’ll ever get married?”

“Well! Sure! I suppose I will.”

“You'd better suppose you will! Because if you don’t get married, I don’t get married! It’s why I’m in this gang! Why, if you were to get married and I didn’t, that wouldn’t be fair at all. I’d be more lonesome than ever! All I’d have is the boy and he won’t live very long.”

“No. You won’t be alone. I’ll see to that. If I get married, you can come and live with me and my wife. I’ll dig you a cave out back.”

“Elf girls don’t let their husbands keep driders.”

“Mine will. I’m the boss.”

“You think that, do you? That she’ll let you keep a girl drider? My husband better not ever say that to me. I’m not going to be letting him keep any elf girls out back. And I don’t think yours will either.”

“Then I won’t marry. I won’t turn my back on you, Leradien. Not ever!”

“Really?”

She looked at him rather pleasantly. She seemed happy to hear it.

“I swear it!”

Leradien nodded, believing him, and then poked her head up again to check below. “Don't look now, but there’s a whole pack of man-orcs coming up the road, following the one. I guess they figure that since the first one made it through okay, it’s safe for the rest. They probably are safe from me. I'll bet those new man-orcs have black blood. Why, that tastes worse than dead people!”

“But you’ve got black blood too.”

“Well! See? You don’t see me biting myself, do you?”

“Shush! They'll be red blooded! I hear something below,” said the elf. “What is it? It sounds big.”

The drider girl looked for him. “It’s two steeders,” she said, “with drow riders.”

“A steeder?!” asked Ronthiel with alarm. “In that case, I’m glad I can’t see it! Those giant spiders are so ugly I’d be terrified just looking at one!”

“What’s so ugly about a spider? I’m one and you don’t call me ugly.”

“From the waist up, sure! But, from the waist down, don’t push your luck.”

“What do you mean? Don’t push my luck?” came her indignant reply. “I’ll have you know I’m one very beautiful spider!”

“Yeah!” replied Ronthiel, “to another spider.”

“You think I’m a monster?!”

“No, not you,” admitted the elf boy. “But I’ll bet that steeder is. Can you imagine what its head looks like?”

“I know what its head looks like from personal close up experience and, trust me, it’s ugly,” Leradien said and then poked him now for his attention. “So, if I am not a monster, am I not beautiful from the waist down, too?”

“You know, there’s never been a more beautiful spider than you.”

Hah! She knew it!

But there was no time to rub his nose in the victory of his admission. The enemy was bringing up their main heavy weapons. She placed one hand on his shoulder and pointed with the other, forgetting the elf could see them too by their glow.

“Here come the fire beetles.”

The two forgot all their fears and all their arguments in an instant. With wide eyes, they watched every movement below. Luck! Both glowing fire beetles were in a row coming up the roadway. The opportunity of it was beyond all imagination! Two giant fire beetles about to crawl in a line up the road right past beneath them! They nudged each other every moment—eloquent nudges and easily understood, for they simply meant, “Oh, we can hit them both easy!”

“Keep this line moving!” ordered a drow officer on the roadway, for voices carry a long way underground.

“You heard him! Keep moving!”

Yes! [Ravishing delight overhead.]

But then the second beetle stopped.

No! [Profound distress overhead.]

“Why has that beetle stopped?” demanded the officer.

“Can’t we get a rest?” complained a muffled drow voice from within.

The two were sick with disappointment in a moment. Both beetles had to pass below at nearly the same time for their planned rock slide to take them out.

But the first was already in a position to do so now when the second wasn’t and, if they waited any longer, the first would get by. Leradien made a hurried decision.

“You kick these rocks down on that lead beetle below and I’ll throw these on the one behind!”

Ronthiel could see the glowing form of the first fire beetle to time his planned rockslide. From a sitting position and with his legs and feet positioned to move them, he began to shove and dislodge the big rocks Leradien had placed there, starting with the highest rock and then next the two lowest. All three were dislodged.

He heard them first scrape, slide, and then roll off and fall down the steep slope. He could see the path of the reddish glowing beetle but not the paths of the big rocks bouncing towards it though he heard them. Meanwhile, Leradien had used her front forelegs to toss three of her own at the second. And could she ever throw them a long way!

Ronthiel heard a loud “crack” of an insect shell splitting open from one of Leradien’s boulder throws and listened to his own three boulders bounce down the slope. He heard a scream of someone (the lead captain directing traffic) hit by one, but the rocks themselves kept on bouncing and crossed the roadway without striking the first fire beetle. He’d missed it!

He loosed two more with his feet and then Leradien picked up the last boulder left and tossed it after his. Compared to his, hers was airborne most of the way and he heard the rock take a single bounce and then came a sickening, soft sound of man-orc brains being splattered. Yet they could hear the same boulder hit and continue across the road harmlessly. How it possibly missed they didn’t know, but it did.

There were now just Ronthiel’s last two rocks already bouncing wildly on their way down, a rather forlorn hope after Leradien’s near-perfect hit. But then came two distinct cracking and crunching sounds. Both hit! The glowing beetle tipped towards the edge of the road and then fell off it. And the second smashed fire beetle was now blocking the road. For the moment, it stopped the enemy.

“Let’s go!” Leradien said, pulling him up on her back and scrambling away.

Orc arrows were already on their way after them, identifying where the rockslide came from. These man-orcs were not good shots with only half-night vision because they all missed. On eight legs, Leradien moved as fast as the wind over the cliff like surface, leaving the man-orc archers behind.

But, from behind them, something else was now chasing them. Ronthiel could hear sharp claws scurrying fast over hard rock. The elf knew that sound from being around Leradien. It was the two mounted steeders they had seen before and who were now coming up after them.

Worse, they were catching up.

“Stay low!” warned Leradien. “They will have crossbows!”

“Twang!” sounded a crossbow.

He ducked and the first dart missed, glancing off Leradien’s black spider’s abdomen behind him. No doubt the drow riding the steeder could see and hear the hit. Ronthiel knew the drow would already be fitting his next poisoned dart and would correct for the first miss by raising his dart’s aim a little higher.

And, like Leradien, the steeder he was riding would provide the drow a level shooting platform. The drow would not miss this second time and would either hit him or Leradien; him if he rode straight up, or her in the back if he ducked down low on her thorax, letting her armored abdomen protect him.

The elf was torn in the indecision of what to do. He couldn’t see well enough in the dark to launch his own arrows back. But he dared not let Leradien take any hits for him, not when she had come back for him to help him lay the trap.

“Twang!” announced the sound that a second dart was on its way.

A shot of reflex, like lightning, went through the elf. Ronthiel wasn’t going to let her get hit. He covered her back with his own body and took the dart meant for her, putting both his arms around her.

He winced against the pain but said nothing. The pain hardly compared to the unexpected firm tautness of Leradien’s female form beneath his hands. She had the most impressive woman’s body imaginable. It was so absolutely superb it took his mind completely off the hit in his back.

And Leradien was doing something now, casting light behind her. A light that he could see by!

“Twang!”

Another dart hit him. This one brought him back from the distraction of Leradien’s splendid shape. It hurt that much.

Ronthiel turned about and aimed his own bow and arrow back. Leradien provided him with the same perfect shooting platform as a steeder and, with her casting light for him to see by, the odds were now even—except, of course, that it was two to one. Figuring any steeder rider wore armor, he aimed for the throat of the nearest. Vaguely, he began to blink. Drow darts are poisoned. His eyelids felt heavy as he let his arrow fly at the same time the enemy let loose his own. Ronthiel took a third dart and slipped from Leradien’s thorax.

A hand grabbed him and righted him on her thorax again.

“Will you stay down?!” she demanded. “He can’t hurt me!”

Ronthiel refused the order and managed to lean up against her back. She might be lying and he was done for anyway, even if she wasn’t. He intercepted yet another fourth dart meant for her. That was it. He was finished. He began to topple over backward.

“Twang!”

With Ronthiel sagging out of the way, this time the dart hit Leradien square in the back and she gave out just the slightest sound. Knowing it was poisoned, his drunken fingers somehow found it and managed to yank it out.

“Twang!”

Ronthiel’s hand weaved and drooped against Leradien’s back like so much lead, expecting another dart to hit her. Yet none came.

Vaguely, he was aware that both steeders behind them had stopped. Ronthiel’s consciousness faded then like a dying ember, smoldering briefly before being snuffed out by the dark and toxic effect of the drow’s poisoned dart.