Artex put his foot up on the wooden planks to lean in and look through the hollow tube. Reflection upon reflection revealed the battle through the mirrortube. Better than getting your head spellsniped, he thought. Around him were footmen lacing up their breastplates and checking their shield straps. He stood up, towering a head above them, and looked over to the end of their line at the wizard’s den.
“You aren’t plating up?” One of the footmen asked. He was barely old enough to be a man, his armor still shining and without a single blemish.
“They won’t send us over,” Kirt spoke from a shadow along the dirt wall near Artex’s tree trunk legs. Her cat eyes peered out of a deep hood. The polished footman took a step back not expecting anyone there. “Besides, my friend here comes from the mountains, they don’t wear armor.” Artex leaned over peering through the mirrortube again.
“They’re pinned down out there,” he said. The peculiar site of a large triangle of fire caught his eye. “Looks like the wizards two sections over are having some fun.”
“How’s the battle going?” The polished footman stepped onto the wood plank to put his head over the dirt wall. Artex’s large, weathered hands pulled him down by the cloak.
“Don’t look that way unless you want to get spellsniped, pipsqueak” Kirt spoke up with a purr and contented in the warmth of her cloak.
“They’re that good”? The pipsqueak asked. His friends stood around more relaxed now that conversation replaced anticipation.
“They’re that good,” Artex answered. “Right now that muddy hell is a mess of flaming arrows.” A mud soaked footman slid over the edge and fell hard on his rear into the bottom of the trench. Some of his fellows picked him up by the arms and wiped mud off him, cheering at him. Fireballs flew overhead in what blue sky could still be seen.
“Mages?” One of Pipsqueak’s friends asked his group.
“Catapults,” Artex answered over his shoulder as he looked through the mirrortube, watching the jars of applejack explode into large conflagrations. Or maybe some jacked wine, he thought. The roar of the fire sounded like a rush of horses in a field.
“Where are you from, Pipsqueak?” Kirt asked. With her eyes closed, any presence of her at all disappeared into the mud stained cloak.
“My name’s not Pipsqueak,” he replied. “I come from the farmsteads near Dartney. They call me–”
“You’re Pipsqueak, isn’t that right,” She held out her paw to silence him and nudged Artex’s leg.
“I don’t care,” Artex said. “Hey kid, want to see?” He moved away from the mirrortube.
“Hey you, where are you from?” She pointed her paw to one of Pipsqueak’s friends.
“I come from Ber’tel–” he started.
“A foreigner.” She growled with glee. “What did you do to get sent to this pit?”
“Goblins.” A short, stocky, bearded face yelled. His chainmail clanked as he slammed into the far wall of dirt. He scrambled to find anything to grab and ended up with a cooking pot as he turned around to the hole in the wall whence he came. Kirt moved from her position to the opposite corner with barely a sound. Artex shoved Pipsqueak out of the way.
A short, ugly, yellow-green snout showed itself from the dark entryway, holding a crude wooden shield and a dull looking knife. It looked like it had picked up a kitchen tool somewhere and kept it long past its due. Artex’s axe split it right down the snout, his blade sinking into the timber lining the entryway. Its skull flew out of the scalp and paper thin face that it was wrapped in and the creature’s meager brains splattered in the foreigner’s face.
Another raised its shield and came out of the dark hole, swiping at the dwarf, cutting his tabard. The dwarf swung down the cooking pot striking the shield directly, splintering it. The wrought iron pot broke in half leaving him just a jagged arc. The goblin snarled and lunged at the dwarf, this time swiping for the beard.
“Not my beard,” he shouted out, dodging the rusty blade.
What sounded like an arrow struck the creature right below the jaw, a point poking out of its tuff of hair glinted in the morning sun cresting the dirt wall. It fell to its knees and flopped facedown into the mud. Artex pulled out the dagger and wiped its blade off with Pipsqueak’s cloak. Handing it back to Kirt, she barely touched the handle in her paw and found a rain fed wash bucket to dunk it in.
Artex picked up the still good shield and pressed it against the entryway, “Is that all of them?”
“The mine’s full of them,” the dwarf answered. “It’s a pitched battle in there.”
Artex looked over at Kirt and Pipsqueak, who, with his fellows, were frantically finishing lacing their armor.
“After you, big guy,” Kirt nodded to him.
Artex grunted and stepped into the hole. He filled most of the hole until he stepped down the stairs, the wood creaking under his weight, and once fully inside he could stand up, his head almost reaching the ceiling. His eyes had not quite adjusted, but he could see the passage way sloping down and to the left.
“Can you hear anything?” He asked.
“Battle,” Kirt replied. She pulled down her hood revealing her furry face and big, cat eyes, which expanded like dark saucers in the dim light. Her ears flicked at angles down the tunnel. She pointed past Artex, to the right, indicating a passage he couldn’t see yet. Metal crashed down the stairs behind her and she hissed, her claws flashing from her paws. “Quiet you farking dweeb.” She swatted her paw at Pipsqueak who was getting himself up off the dirt floor.
“I must have slipped on the stairs, the mud.” He tried excusing himself. The dwarf pushed passed everyone, now armed with an axe in both hands.
“This way,” He said.
The tunnels seemed much longer than they probably were, Artex hated the closeness of the walls. The wood beams holding up the roof were not as shoddy as most of the woodwork in the trench. Dwarves take a lot of pride in their work, Artex thought. The passage to the right was a straight shot at a steeper slope, down to a ‘T’ intersection. The dwarf took them left and their eyes began to adjust to the dim lantern light. Pipsqueak cringed as he had to step through a mangled goblin corpse. It looked as if it was smashed to pieces by a setting maul.
“Stop that, Pip,” Kirt hissed back at him.
“Stop what?” He hadn’t noticed his shaking.
“All that clanging. You armor types are so noisy, I can hear you like temple bells.” Her ears flicked backward to focus on Pipsqueak. The dwarf stopped them at another intersection.
“I can’t tell if the sound is coming from the left, or right, or above us,” he said. It sounded like the rush of water at a distance, pierced occasionally by the loud roar of an orc muffled by feet of dirt. Kirt stepped forward and her ears turned down one of each of the passages.
“This way.”
They went left and the floor seemed to level out. A few lanterns down, from around a blind corner, a goblin rushed out, then quickly ducked back behind. Kirt ran ahead and stopped at the corner. It just bent again to the right leaving her no shot. She patted Artex against the wall with her paw and her ear flicked toward the next turn. After a moment she waved him on.
Artex put the shield around the corner first then stepping behind the shield he looked over and saw the tunnel became jagged and to get through they would have to squeeze through a roughhewn passageway that looked as if half the tunnel was moved off to the side of the other half.
“Here’s the countermine,” the dwarf spoke up.
“I don’t hear any more battle down this passage,” Kirt said, leaning up against the half wall at the entryway.
“No,” the dwarf breathed out a sigh, worrying for his friends.
Artex squeezed through and the passage was noticeably shorter, forcing him to hunch down. There were no more lanterns, instead there were crude torches that produced smoke and already had made the passages sooty and dim.
“It burns the nose,” Pip noted.
“Shield,” Kirt hissed. Artex flooded the passage with the wooden boards he had picked up off the goblin outside, he squinted as little bits of wood sprinkled his face and he felt the weight of the bolt sink into the planks. Quickly thinking after the first hit, he ducked down and felt another hitting the board as it aimed for his shins.
Kirt ducked behind his large frame and another bolt whistled past her ears striking Pip’s friend in the face. There wasn’t much room to fall down so he just crumpled over Pip’s shoulder and blood gushed from his skull onto Pip’s polished armor. He could feel its warmth ooze between the plate and his quilted armor.
“What the fark,” He screamed out and raised his shield to fill the space Artex’s left open. Another of the footmen pulled the crumpled soldier aside, took one look at him, and laid him down out of the way against the corner of the floor as best he could.
“Was that the foreigner?” Kirt shouted back as Artex began to duck walk forward behind his shield.
“I’m still here,” a shout came from behind. Good, she thought.
“Reloading,” Kirt alarmed, listening intently. Artex took his axe and slammed the top of it against one of the bolts piercing through the planks. It popped out and he peered through the hole seeing the Goblin turning a reel drawing back the crossbow. Its back was up against the corner of the end of the passage.
Holding his shield out front he made a crouched charge, keeping the axe high but close so as to not snag it on the poorly constructed and confined walls of the tunnel. He heard a click of the crossbow just as he got to the corner and with all his strength he sunk the axe right into the dirt. Like slicing a piece of ham the dirt peeled out from the corner and with it he cleaved the shoulder and ribs off from the goblin. The gruesome torso piled with the dirt into the corner of the tunnel. Most of a lung sat in a stinking cornucopia of ribs and what otherwise might be confused for a turkey leg if the shoulder bone wasn’t attached to a sickly arm, still clutching the crossbow.
“Here, Pip,” Kirt swiped off the hand of the goblin with a flash of her blade, handing the crossbow to him. “Use this, you’re no use to us back there.” Pip timidly sheathed his sword and grabbed it from her, fumbling with his shield to figure out how to remove the goblin’s hand as it dripped blood all over his boots and thigh.
“Do you think they tunneled into the trench?” The foreigner spoke up.
“Better farking hope not,” the dwarf scowled.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Kirt said, sensing desertion from the group. She kept the blade at the ready in her paw. She bumped into Artex’s firm buttocks. “What is it big guy?”
Artex crouched lower, tossing aside the wooden planks like a feeble table, he held his hand over his shoulder.
“Shield,” He grunted.
“Uh oh,” Kirt said, looking at the supports for the tunnel which amounted to little more than hand thick tree trunks shoved into random places. Pip looked at the foreigner and urged him to give up his shield.
“I got to cover the rear,” he said.
Pip, momentarily freed his other hand and disapprovingly unstrapped his shield from his arm. At least now he could fiddle with the crossbow. Artex took the shield and held both straps in his large hand like a buckler. His eyes could see in the dim light the steaming, green mass at the end of the tunnel. He didn’t need Kirt’s ears to hear the heavy breathing, and the snot and drool slobbering from the creature’s mouth. He wished he didn’t have a nose from the smell of the thing.
Artex breathed in deep and let out a bellow from his barrel chest, yelling as loud as he could. Pip flinched at the sudden bravado. The orc, seemingly unfazed by the barbarian’s war cry, defecated where it crouched, preparing for battle by evacuating its bowels.
Now I know why they wear loincloths, Pip thought, disgusted.
It snored through its wide flaring nostrils. The dwarf thought it might suck out all the air from the tunnel and it looked as if the torchlight danced toward its cavernous holes piercing its skull. If Pip thought Artex was loud, there was no contest against this thing. Its roar was deafening, and there was no mistaking the torchlight blew in its wind. Artex held up the shield to catch all the slobber and snot that effused from the creature’s throat. When the orcish hurricane was finished, Artex twisted his left arm behind him and calmly passed back the slime covered shield to Pip.
“Axe,” he said, holding out his empty hand toward the dwarf.
Next: Chapter 3 - In the next installment, find out the outcome of Artex's Duel.
Previously: Chapter 1 - The Heat of Battle - https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
Chapter 2 – Mines and Countermines
Artex put his foot up on the wooden planks to lean in and look through the hollow tube. Reflection upon reflection revealed the battle through the mirrortube. Better than getting your head spellsniped, he thought. Around him were footmen lacing up their breastplates and checking their shield straps. He stood up, towering a head above them, and looked over to the end of their line at the wizard’s den.
“You aren’t plating up?” One of the footmen asked. He was barely old enough to be a man, his armor still shining and without a single blemish.
“They won’t send us over,” Kirt spoke from a shadow along the dirt wall near Artex’s tree trunk legs. Her cat eyes peered out of a deep hood. The polished footman took a step back not expecting anyone there. “Besides, my friend here comes from the mountains, they don’t wear armor.” Artex leaned over peering through the mirrortube again.
“They’re pinned down out there,” he said. The peculiar site of a large triangle of fire caught his eye. “Looks like the wizards two sections over are having some fun.”
“How’s the battle going?” The polished footman stepped onto the wood plank to put his head over the dirt wall. Artex’s large, weathered hands pulled him down by the cloak.
“Don’t look that way unless you want to get spellsniped, pipsqueak” Kirt spoke up with a purr and contented in the warmth of her cloak.
“They’re that good”? The pipsqueak asked. His friends stood around more relaxed now that conversation replaced anticipation.
“They’re that good,” Artex answered. “Right now that muddy hell is a mess of flaming arrows.” A mud soaked footman slid over the edge and fell hard on his rear into the bottom of the trench. Some of his fellows picked him up by the arms and wiped mud off him, cheering at him. Fireballs flew overhead in what blue sky could still be seen.
“Mages?” One of Pipsqueak’s friends asked his group.
“Catapults,” Artex answered over his shoulder as he looked through the mirrortube, watching the jars of applejack explode into large conflagrations. Or maybe some jacked wine, he thought. The roar of the fire sounded like a rush of horses in a field.
“Where are you from, Pipsqueak?” Kirt asked. With her eyes closed, any presence of her at all disappeared into the mud stained cloak.
“My name’s not Pipsqueak,” he replied. “I come from the farmsteads near Dartney. They call me–”
“You’re Pipsqueak, isn’t that right,” She held out her paw to silence him and nudged Artex’s leg.
“I don’t care,” Artex said. “Hey kid, want to see?” He moved away from the mirrortube.
“Hey you, where are you from?” She pointed her paw to one of Pipsqueak’s friends.
“I come from Ber’tel–” he started.
“A foreigner.” She growled with glee. “What did you do to get sent to this pit?”
“Goblins.” A short, stocky, bearded face yelled. His chainmail clanked as he slammed into the far wall of dirt. He scrambled to find anything to grab and ended up with a cooking pot as he turned around to the hole in the wall whence he came. Kirt moved from her position to the opposite corner with barely a sound. Artex shoved Pipsqueak out of the way.
A short, ugly, yellow-green snout showed itself from the dark entryway, holding a crude wooden shield and a dull looking knife. It looked like it had picked up a kitchen tool somewhere and kept it long past its due. Artex’s axe split it right down the snout, his blade sinking into the timber lining the entryway. Its skull flew out of the scalp and paper thin face that it was wrapped in and the creature’s meager brains splattered in the foreigner’s face.
Another raised its shield and came out of the dark hole, swiping at the dwarf, cutting his tabard. The dwarf swung down the cooking pot striking the shield directly, splintering it. The wrought iron pot broke in half leaving him just a jagged arc. The goblin snarled and lunged at the dwarf, this time swiping for the beard.
“Not my beard,” he shouted out, dodging the rusty blade.
What sounded like an arrow struck the creature right below the jaw, a point poking out of its tuff of hair glinted in the morning sun cresting the dirt wall. It fell to its knees and flopped facedown into the mud. Artex pulled out the dagger and wiped its blade off with Pipsqueak’s cloak. Handing it back to Kirt, she barely touched the handle in her paw and found a rain fed wash bucket to dunk it in.
Artex picked up the still good shield and pressed it against the entryway, “Is that all of them?”
“The mine’s full of them,” the dwarf answered. “It’s a pitched battle in there.”
Artex looked over at Kirt and Pipsqueak, who, with his fellows, were frantically finishing lacing their armor.
“After you, big guy,” Kirt nodded to him.
Artex grunted and stepped into the hole. He filled most of the hole until he stepped down the stairs, the wood creaking under his weight, and once fully inside he could stand up, his head almost reaching the ceiling. His eyes had not quite adjusted, but he could see the passage way sloping down and to the left.
“Can you hear anything?” He asked.
“Battle,” Kirt replied. She pulled down her hood revealing her furry face and big, cat eyes, which expanded like dark saucers in the dim light. Her ears flicked at angles down the tunnel. She pointed past Artex, to the right, indicating a passage he couldn’t see yet. Metal crashed down the stairs behind her and she hissed, her claws flashing from her paws. “Quiet you farking dweeb.” She swatted her paw at Pipsqueak who was getting himself up off the dirt floor.
“I must have slipped on the stairs, the mud.” He tried excusing himself. The dwarf pushed passed everyone, now armed with an axe in both hands.
“This way,” He said.
The tunnels seemed much longer than they probably were, Artex hated the closeness of the walls. The wood beams holding up the roof were not as shoddy as most of the woodwork in the trench. Dwarves take a lot of pride in their work, Artex thought. The passage to the right was a straight shot at a steeper slope, down to a ‘T’ intersection. The dwarf took them left and their eyes began to adjust to the dim lantern light. Pipsqueak cringed as he had to step through a mangled goblin corpse. It looked as if it was smashed to pieces by a setting maul.
“Stop that, Pip,” Kirt hissed back at him.
“Stop what?” He hadn’t noticed his shaking.
“All that clanging. You armor types are so noisy, I can hear you like temple bells.” Her ears flicked backward to focus on Pipsqueak. The dwarf stopped them at another intersection.
“I can’t tell if the sound is coming from the left, or right, or above us,” he said. It sounded like the rush of water at a distance, pierced occasionally by the loud roar of an orc muffled by feet of dirt. Kirt stepped forward and her ears turned down one of each of the passages.
“This way.”
They went left and the floor seemed to level out. A few lanterns down, from around a blind corner, a goblin rushed out, then quickly ducked back behind. Kirt ran ahead and stopped at the corner. It just bent again to the right leaving her no shot. She patted Artex against the wall with her paw and her ear flicked toward the next turn. After a moment she waved him on.
Artex put the shield around the corner first then stepping behind the shield he looked over and saw the tunnel became jagged and to get through they would have to squeeze through a roughhewn passageway that looked as if half the tunnel was moved off to the side of the other half.
“Here’s the countermine,” the dwarf spoke up.
“I don’t hear any more battle down this passage,” Kirt said, leaning up against the half wall at the entryway.
“No,” the dwarf breathed out a sigh, worrying for his friends.
Artex squeezed through and the passage was noticeably shorter, forcing him to hunch down. There were no more lanterns, instead there were crude torches that produced smoke and already had made the passages sooty and dim.
“It burns the nose,” Pip noted.
“Shield,” Kirt hissed. Artex flooded the passage with the wooden boards he had picked up off the goblin outside, he squinted as little bits of wood sprinkled his face and he felt the weight of the bolt sink into the planks. Quickly thinking after the first hit, he ducked down and felt another hitting the board as it aimed for his shins.
Kirt ducked behind his large frame and another bolt whistled past her ears striking Pip’s friend in the face. There wasn’t much room to fall down so he just crumpled over Pip’s shoulder and blood gushed from his skull onto Pip’s polished armor. He could feel its warmth ooze between the plate and his quilted armor.
“What the fark,” He screamed out and raised his shield to fill the space Artex’s left open. Another of the footmen pulled the crumpled soldier aside, took one look at him, and laid him down out of the way against the corner of the floor as best he could.
“Was that the foreigner?” Kirt shouted back as Artex began to duck walk forward behind his shield.
“I’m still here,” a shout came from behind. Good, she thought.
“Reloading,” Kirt alarmed, listening intently. Artex took his axe and slammed the top of it against one of the bolts piercing through the planks. It popped out and he peered through the hole seeing the Goblin turning a reel drawing back the crossbow. Its back was up against the corner of the end of the passage.
Holding his shield out front he made a crouched charge, keeping the axe high but close so as to not snag it on the poorly constructed and confined walls of the tunnel. He heard a click of the crossbow just as he got to the corner and with all his strength he sunk the axe right into the dirt. Like slicing a piece of ham the dirt peeled out from the corner and with it he cleaved the shoulder and ribs off from the goblin. The gruesome torso piled with the dirt into the corner of the tunnel. Most of a lung sat in a stinking cornucopia of ribs and what otherwise might be confused for a turkey leg if the shoulder bone wasn’t attached to a sickly arm, still clutching the crossbow.
“Here, Pip,” Kirt swiped off the hand of the goblin with a flash of her blade, handing the crossbow to him. “Use this, you’re no use to us back there.” Pip timidly sheathed his sword and grabbed it from her, fumbling with his shield to figure out how to remove the goblin’s hand as it dripped blood all over his boots and thigh.
“Do you think they tunneled into the trench?” The foreigner spoke up.
“Better farking hope not,” the dwarf scowled.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Kirt said, sensing desertion from the group. She kept the blade at the ready in her paw. She bumped into Artex’s firm buttocks. “What is it big guy?”
Artex crouched lower, tossing aside the wooden planks like a feeble table, he held his hand over his shoulder.
“Shield,” He grunted.
“Uh oh,” Kirt said, looking at the supports for the tunnel which amounted to little more than hand thick tree trunks shoved into random places. Pip looked at the foreigner and urged him to give up his shield.
“I got to cover the rear,” he said.
Pip, momentarily freed his other hand and disapprovingly unstrapped his shield from his arm. At least now he could fiddle with the crossbow. Artex took the shield and held both straps in his large hand like a buckler. His eyes could see in the dim light the steaming, green mass at the end of the tunnel. He didn’t need Kirt’s ears to hear the heavy breathing, and the snot and drool slobbering from the creature’s mouth. He wished he didn’t have a nose from the smell of the thing.
Artex breathed in deep and let out a bellow from his barrel chest, yelling as loud as he could. Pip flinched at the sudden bravado. The orc, seemingly unfazed by the barbarian’s war cry, defecated where it crouched, preparing for battle by evacuating its bowels.
Now I know why they wear loincloths, Pip thought, disgusted.
It snored through its wide flaring nostrils. The dwarf thought it might suck out all the air from the tunnel and it looked as if the torchlight danced toward its cavernous holes piercing its skull. If Pip thought Artex was loud, there was no contest against this thing. Its roar was deafening, and there was no mistaking the torchlight blew in its wind. Artex held up the shield to catch all the slobber and snot that effused from the creature’s throat. When the orcish hurricane was finished, Artex twisted his left arm behind him and calmly passed back the slime covered shield to Pip.
“Axe,” he said, holding out his empty hand toward the dwarf.
Next: Chapter 3 - In the next installment, find out the outcome of Artex's Duel.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1