"Put me down, old Fyren!" Danica called out. Cadderly's eyes popped wide, but the obedient dragon pulled up short beside a ridge, and both Danica and Vander hopped from their perches, running off before Cadderly could react
"Hey, we're missing all the fun!" Ivan realized as the wyrm set off once more, quickly gaining altitude. The dwarf started to call out to the dragon, but Pikel grabbed him by the beard and pulled him close, whispering*some-thing into his ear.
Ivan roared happily, and both dwarves scrambled from the dragon's back, one going for each wing.
"What are you doing?" Cadderly demanded.
"Just tell the damned wyrm to hold on tight!" Ivan cried back, and then he disappeared from view, crawling hand over hand down the scaly side. His head popped back up a moment later. "But not too tight!" he added, and then he was gone.
"What?" Cadderly replied incredulously, and it took him a few moments to catch on. "Fyrentennimar!" he cried desperately,
Danica and Vander sped off for the back and wider end of the valley, looking for any monsters that might have found their way through the stench and smoke. Only a few minutes after Fyrentennimar had put them down, with the dragon still flying wide, though now angled for his second pass, the two spotted several goblins and a single, lumbering giant coming down a barren, rocky slope, heading directly for them.
The firbolg and the monk nodded and split up, each seeking the cover of some of the many boulders in the region.
The goblins and the giant were looking back more than forward, too afraid of the dragon to even think that there might be other danger lurking ahead.
Danica came out in a rush from the side, hurling one dagger after another, dropping a pair of goblins, and then charged forward, diving into a roll before her surprised adversaries and coming up with a flurry of ferocious blows.
Facial bones were smashed apart, and knifing fingers crushed a windpipe. Before Danica had even played out her momentum, four of the nine goblins lay dead at her feet
The evil giant, on the far side of the band, turned to meet her charge, but noticed a movement back the other way and spun about, huge club at the ready. A goblin rushed by, eyeing Danica and shrieking in fear.
Vander cleaved it in halt
"Giant-kin," the club-wielding monster said to Vander in the rolling, thunderous language of the hill giants.
Vander snarled and rushed ahead, his great sword coming across in a blurring arc. The hill giant fell back, throwing its club up in a frantic defense. By sheer luck, the club fell in line with the rushing sword, Vander's blade diving many inches into the wood.
Vander tried to pull back on the sword, to retract it and slash again, but the club's hard wood held it fast
The hill giant, much larger and several times heavier than Vander's eight hundred pounds, rushed forward, letting go of its club and spreading its huge arms out wide to engulf its foe.
Vander twisted and punched out, connecting solidly but doing little to impede his enemy's momentum. The firbolg went down heavily, under two tons of hill giant flesh.
The four remaining goblins looked as much at each other as at Danica, each waiting for one of its companions to make the first move. They circled the apparently unarmed monk, one lifting a spear.
Now that the initial surprise was gone, Danica stayed down in a defensive crouch, preferring to let her enemies come to her. The goblins wisely spread out around her, but she remained confident, turning slowly so that no creature could remain behind her.
The spear wielder pumped its arm, and Danica started to dive to the right She stopped almost immediately, though, recognizing the goblin's move as a feint, and used the break to her advantage, coming back hard to the left, spinning low and straight-kicking one of the other goblins in the knee.
The creature jerked straight, then fell back, clutching its broken limb. *
Danica was already back to circling, now eyeing the spear wielder directly, taking its measure, using its body language to discern its every thought Cadderly saw the fight off to the side, noticed Vander buried beneath the flabby folds of the monstrous hill giant He tried to think of a way to help, but suddenly the valley walls were up around him again as Fyrentennimar began another breath-stealing approach.
Shayleigh nimbly moved about on the dragon's back, determined to play a role and firing her bow repeatedly. At first, her shots were random, nearly every one scoring a hit, but then she concentrated her fire on one hill giant By the time Fyrentennimar's flight took her beyond range of the beast its wide chest sported a half-dozen arrows.
"Get lower, ye damned fun-stealing wyrm!" came a cry from below, a cry informing Cadderly that Ivan and Pikel were in position. The young priest fell flat to his belly and peered over the front edge of the dragon's wing.
Hanging below him were the Bouldershoulder brothers, one in each of Fyrentennimar's clutching talons. The dragon did fly lower, and Pikel howled in glee as he put his tree-trunk club in line and used the dragon's momentum to splatter the head of a giant that was too slow in ducking.
Ivan took an axe swipe on the other side as they passed, but he mistimed the blow badly and caught nothing but air.
"Sandstone!" the frustrated dwarf bellowed.
Cadderly's orderly sensibilities could not accept the craziness about him. Helplessly shaking his head, he managed to sit back up and dropped a hand into a berry-filled pouch. He uttered the last words of the enchantment in resigned tones, then took out a handful of the berries and tossed them randomly into the air. The seeds exploded into tiny bursts of flame as they hit, startling and stinging giants, wounding and even killing a few goblins.
Fyrentennimar swerved up again, slightly, as the valley started to narrow, but the friends knew that he would not soar away, knew that he had not finished the run.
A swarm of creatures huddled about the back end of the valley, hemmed in by the sheer walls and Cadderly's biting enchantment Their frenzy multiplied many times over as the dragon reared near them. Giants stuffed goblins through the archway (one actually passed through without being hit, to run screaming down the rocky slope on the other side), and then many giants, in sheer terror of the great dragon, jumped in themselves.
The dragon's serpentine neck shot forward, and then came the flames. Fyrentennimar's maw waved from side to side, changing the fire's angle, immolating the whole mass of creatures.
On and on it went, interminably long for the stunned Cadderly.
Agonized cries came from creatures who were soon no more than crackling bones; all the monstrous swarm seemed to flow together in a singular bubbling mass.
"Oo," Pikel muttered admiringly, the dwarf having a fine view of the catastrophe from his low perch. Ivan, shaking his head in disbelief, couldn't find the words to reply.
*****
Danica saw the panic welling in the goblin, knew that it wanted to throw the spear and run off. She locked her gaze upon it fully, forced it to stare into her eyes, almost hypnotizing in their intensity.
She had to hold the goblin's shot a bit longer, until the anxious club wielder to her right made the first move.
Danica straightened and seemed to relax, though she kept her intimidating gaze steady. She dipped and turned suddenly, caught the club in both hands as it predictably came across, and slid down, hooking the surprised goblin's knees with her feet and pulling the creature around hqf.
The goblin jerked suddenly, its eyes popping wide, and Danica, though she couldn't see the spear sticking from the goblin's back, knew that her timing, and her understanding of her enemies, had been perfect
She came up in a spin, tearing the club from the dying creature's grasp and hurling it straight back, into the chest of the next charging goblin. The creature fumbled with the unexpected missile for a moment, getting it tangled with its sword, then finally tossing it aside. It managed to focus its attention on Danica just as her foot snapped into its throat.
Again Danica was spinning, leaping over the dead club wielder and tearing the spear from its back. Three running strides later, she let fly the crude weapon. The spear didn't hit the mark exactly, but it did get tangled up in its original owner's legs enough to drop the goblin hard to its face.
It lay on its belly for a moment, trying to shake away its dizziness.
Then Danica was upon it, and it was dead. The monk looked back to the one remaining goblin, the first of the four she had hit. It was floundering about, half-hopping, half-crawling, as it continued to grasp at its shattered kneecap. It struggled past two of its companions, two goblins that had died grasping at daggers. Thinking to arm itself, the struggling creature ambled for the daggers, but stopped and looked up, dismayed, for Danica had gotten there first.
Vander slapped futilely against the giant's bulk, thrashing about with all his strength, even biting the monster on the neck. But all the savagery the powerful firbolg could muster seemed puny beneath the sheer size of the hill giant
Vander found his breathing hard to come by and wondered how long he could hold out beneath the two-ton behemoth. His estimate lessened considerably when the hill giant began to bounce, pushing off the ground with its huge hands and free-falling back on top of poor Vander.
Vander's initial thoughts were to curi up in a ball. He realized, though, that his body could not take the pounding for long, whatever he might do - the first bounce had blasted out his breath, and he could only draw small amounts of air between each subsequent slam. Every time the hill giant came crushing back down, Vander expected his rib cage to collapse.
Without even thinking of the movement, Vander used one moment of freedom to tuck his legs up near his belly. Fortune was with the firbolg, for when the hill giant came back down, its own weight drove Vander's knees hard into its abdomen. Back up went the hill giant, higher this time, fully extending its arms that it might come back with one final slam.