The Spriggan:  Adventures of an Amazon Hobbit:  Part 8
By Zuiderzee  zuiderzee@yahoo.com www.geocities.com/Area51/Dungeon/4535
The ongoing yarn of an adventuresome she-halfling and her escalating woes with brigands, berserkers and her own shifting proportions.


Adjusting his faltering grip on the sharp, pointed stake, Crushfoot moved in
closer to RhohG.

She felt herself burgeoning as more and more weight pressed against her
resisting body. Voicing a grunt of exertion and then another of pure
frustration, she finished her count and flung herself forward, tackling
Crushfoot with arms spread wide, narrowly missing the jutting stake. The
colliding tangle of the two enemies, the sweeping lurch of the gates and the
filthy surge of water that burst through the yawning opening doused all
notions of combat. Nubs and Toadhands darted back, splashing muck in their
wake. Waspface wasn't so lucky and was knocked prone, disappearing into the
brownish wave with RhohG and Crushfoot. Having escaped only for a few seconds,
Nubs and Toadhhands a moment later, were caught up in the angry, roiling mess
of debris-filled water.

Tholyff yelled, keeping his place of relative safety on the wall.

The spriggan's head broke the surface of the muck and with her mouth barely
above the level of the stinking flood, she sucked in a quick, desperate
breath. The heads of the other submerged Crorgathalers popped up, in radically
different positions than they'd been in before the flood had swept them off
their feet. Driven by the onrushing water with greater force owing to their
proximity to the gates, RhohG and Crushfoot had travelled close to twenty
yards from that spot and into a collapsed section of railing. Both struggled
to free themselves from the tangle of broken wood and mesh that once held
Eldeyed's gaggle of gray geese.

Nubs and Toadhands tumbled along the ground, colliding with water-filled
crocks, cordwood, pumpkins and one another until the surge sent them slamming
into a stone paddock where they thrashed helplessly until the flow subsided.
They righted themselves and rose to their knees coughing and robbed of
strength.

Waspface barrelled past the paddock on the other side, neatly missing the wall
and cheated of a place to find purchase and get his head above water. The
current dragged him on, letting him snatch only the barest breath before
flushing him out of the yard through the opposite floodgate.

Tholyff watched the various heads pop to the surface, counting friend with foe
with equal anxiety. Seeing RhohG struggle, he slid down from his perch and
sloshed wildly through the muddy swirl, falling thrice, but able to pick
himself up as the depth of the water dropped rapidly to the level of his
skinny thighs.

RhohG ducked below the surface both to free her tangled left arm and legs, but
also to get some distance from Crushfoot who took the time from rescuing
himself to launch a clumsy kick at her. A nine foot floating log sailed in
between them, snagging the mesh and pulling them both along with it.
Freakishly empowered but wary of hurting herself with strength that didn't
confer invulnerability, the spriggan went for her belt knife and cut away at
the mesh binding her bent-up legs. With those free, she yanked her left arm
free of the now-loosened netting and climbed up on the rough surface of the
log, gloating as Crushfoot bungled another attempt to free himself. Her joy
ended as the log bumped violently into a barely submerged stone platform.

Crushfoot ducked, neatly avoided the leg as it collided against stone, rose up
a few inches and then dropped the same distance, pinning his already tangled
arm as the spriggan was pitched onto the rectangle of wet stone.

Wary of showing himself to an enemy in a clearly superior position, the
crippled guide tested his lungpower by staying under until the last of the
mesh was cleared away. Aching from the log's impact, his right arm was numb,
but not sprained. Paining for air, he continued to swim along the bottom out
of sight until he felt he was safe enough away. Nubs and Toadhands might fight
another day yet if they had half Crushfoot's luck. In the meantime, it was
every man for himself. Hearing the approach of Tholyff and taking him to be
another of RhohG's uncanny kind, Crushfoot delayed his plans for escape and
carefully draped his raised head with the sagging branch of a young tree. With
cover and a secure handhold on the drowned tree, he waited out the worst of
the current, regained his strength and waited for an ungaurded moment to
strike.

"What Gods do you pray to, RhohG?" Tholyff climbed up onto the stone platform
to join her. The old dirt on his body had been loosened and washed away only
to be replaced by new filth. The light rain worked fecklessly to clean away
the blotches of mud that only ran down his skin and clothes.

"I am permitted no Gods--but I have heroes whose names I swear by in battle,
and a patron."

"Two of Volmor's band survived--"

"For the moment. I'm not sure about that half-lame bastard who came at me with
the stake. Best get out of here and quick."

All around them, water flowed down into the lowest areas of the yard, once
again forming a mucky creek of flotsam that continued on in a curving path to
the other floodgate that had seen Waspface on his way.

"Look there--" Tholyff whirled as Toadhands and Nubs slogged to the steading.
Nubs, lacking his bow and quiver, now brandished a stout billet. Without a
real weapon for the moment, Toadhands fished into the muck and rescued a
length of rope.

"A pair of misfits bent on scavenging...they won't trouble us I guess."

Crushfoot chose that moment to attack, having used the intervening moments of
discussion to get up behind the stone platform and get a foothold. He went for
Tholyff in a trice, bounding up--arms thrust forward to catch the youth around
the trunk. He bent up Tholyff's left arm behind his back and wrenched it with
all his strength, rewarded as the bone within the spindly limb broke audibly.
Shutting out the yell of surprise and then pain that followed, Crushfoot
shifted his grip to Tholyff's right hand, caught his small finger and ring
finger in his grip and bent them back, breaking them, leaving them angled
unnaturally across his knuckles.

RhohG rushed forward, throwing a punch at Tholyff's head which she correctly
figured would sag as he fainted. That fist whispered over his wet hair and
caught Crushfoot between his chest and belly, driving in the pendant cartilage
at the lower- most end of his breastbone. Crushfoot prepared for the blow, but
not enough. Still holding Tholyff, he fell backward off the platform into the
shallow water with the boy landing on him, keeping him down. He pushed the
weight away and rolled, narrowly avoiding the spriggan's feet as she stomped
down in the empty rut that a heartbeat prior had cradled his head. He
scrambled away with a speed that belied his absent toes.

He had heaved Tholyff off, but not completely away. Clutching the kennel boy
once more, he used the screaming child as a shield, defying RhohG's efforts to
land a punch or a kick on him without hurting Tholyff as well.

Defeated, but just for a moment, RhohG remembered the yards of tangling mesh
and turned away from Crushfoot and his hostage to gather up as much of the
netting as her arms could hold. Heaving enough to cover a small tent, the
spriggan had both of them ensnared in dirty net, held and near-blinded.

"Get this off me--" Crushfoot thrashed in the damnable tangle of thin cord,
falling to his side, still with Tholyff grappled and howling with the pain of
his broken fingers and arm. "--get it off!"

"I think it looks good on you--you'll wear it a while longer. But you'll wear
it alone." The spriggan jostled the netted pair, trying to work Tholyff loose.
A trio of fingers too thick and long to belong to boy stuck out through the
holes in the mesh, trying to tear it away. RhohG grabbed these and the wrist
behind them and bent them both awry with savage glee. Underneath the mesh,
Crushfoot anticipated the move and twisted with the force she applied, saving
his wrist and managing to connect with a kick that knocked her down and onto
his legs where he brought up his covered, but not trapped knee in a fierce
snap that caught her in the jaw.

"Ahhh! My eye--he has his thumb on my eye--" Tholyff yelled in a new voice
almost strangled with pain.

"So much for children always telling lies! I'll blind this slave one eye at a
time unless this net comes off me now."

"Oh, you will, will you?!" Taking hold of the two-body mass trapped in the
netting, RhohG rolled them over until Crushfoot was lying over his victim.
Crushfoot tried to roll again, but he was held in place and given a stunning
punch in the back and a kick in the buttock that nearly tore the muscle loose.

"He's blinding me!" Tholyff's muffled cries for help were further smothered in
the wet mud.

RhohG went to pull the net away, enraged when Crushfoot fought to keep it
wrapped around him and the boy. Having all the leverage he needed to blind
Tholyff and keep the monstrously strong dwarf-witch hesitant, Crushfoot lived
with the pain of his injuries and didn't let up.

"I'm taking the net off!" Guessing the promise would keep Crushfoot from
putting Tholyff's eye out, RhohG wrapped her arms around both trapped forms
and heaved them clear of the mud, holding them over her head. She staggered
toward the water then found herself walking evenly as new strength bustled
into her limbs in anticipation of some real mischief.

Afraid, but still with his grimy thumb pressed into Tholyff's eye as insurance
against getting permanently trapped or beaten to death in addition, Crushfoot
kept his balance as the boy screamed and thrashed against him in the confines
of the net.

"I don't feel any freer, dwarf-witch--"

RhohG didn't answer, but dropped them both into the water again.

Crushfoot's grip on Tholyff's face slipped. With the renewed terror of
drowning like a snared animal, the five-toed guide shot his head to the
surface, scraping his nose on the tough cords.

Fresh pain exploded to the side of his head as a huge fist landed a solid
punch to his ear, mashing the convoluted gristle, bursting blood vessels and
causing the agonized organ to ring loudly. Another punch, less accurate threw
his jaw out of joint. Crushfoot ducked, freeing both hands and trying to back
up--his only means of defense.

"Curse you, dwarf-witch! Stunted outsider--misbegotten ape! Mocker to the laws
of men!" Almost free now, Crushfoot bungled his retreat on a half-buried clay
pot, breaking it under his weight and causing him to drop down suddenly and
slip in the slimy sludge to his knees.

Revived by the cold, Tholyff writhed free of the net, assited by the spriggan
as Crushfoot raised his arms to his head to fend off any more blows though he
was still blanketed by the mesh.

Not needing to, but too boiling with anger to leave bad enough alone, RhohG
pursued him with dreadful patience, not using her fists, but striking him
repeatedly with back-handed slaps that echoed in the cold air.

Dazed, Crushfoot dropped his hands to his sides, feeling desperately for the
edges of the net, feeling down, down, down as more slaps knocked his head from
one side and then to the other.

Through the mist of pain and confusion, he whirled, facing away from the blows
as they continued to land on his skull with merciless rhythm. He sank again,
but managed to lift the net's edge to the level of his neck as behind him he
heard a shout of bitter anger precede the next impact.

He cringed.

He felt a mighty blow above his nape, saw stars and then sagged down, seeing
nothing but blackness as bubbles blew from his nose and mouth in senseless
abundance.

"That ought to ease your worry for the moment--" RhohG shoved Crushfoot's head
under the water and drew the net away from him.

Knowing she could have done worse to him and hoping she would get to later,
the spriggan looked at her fists is muted awe as she saw how thick the bones
had grown. It was a marvel she had not splintered the man's skull.

Forgetting the treacherous guide for the nonce, RhohG pulled Tholyff to
freedom as the current dragged Crushfoot's unconscious form across the yard
and into a tree with multiple trunks rising up through the current.

Unconscious now as well, the kennel boy had his broken arm bent under his back
and his skewed fingers resting against his side.

Crushfoot had done worse than kill the child; with his multiple broken bones
and Gigurd's steading deserted except for the most hostile, Tholyff now needed
RhohG with him every moment to survive. His injuries would slow her down to a
crawl.

"No one ever...would have helped me like that before...." Tholyff rose up from
his transport of pain to remark and roll his eyes in search of light.

"I once tried to help a boy like you. Many years ago. And against a worse
fate. I did everything I knew how to help him. But in the end, all my effort
was wasted. Whatever power I have...it isn't meant for anyone's welfare but my
own. I only wish someone was here who could help you."

"I'm...so...cold...."

"There's a fire burning at the mews. I can take you there to keep warm. It's
all I know how to do for you. You have to try to survive the night."

"The Reckoner...never spoke such a law--"

"I've learned over the years to take advantage of gaps in the system."

Lifting the feather-weight boy in her arms, RhohG padded through the muddy
yard to the glow of the burning sheds.

They weren't alone when they got there.

"Curse that dwarf-witch anyhow--" Toadhands warmed his aching fingers in a
scorched rectangle of cloth.

"There's still plenty of swag here for the taking," Nubs used a wet board to
knock down another section of the burning shed's roof to keep the fire burning
on the ground where at least he could manage it better. "If Eldeyed had fired
the hall itself, I'd turn around and go. That's where the treasure is. In the
hall or right underneath it. Didn't you say the foundation was hewn from solid
rock?"

"No. Mason's work. Big stones mortared into place. It ought to be dry. -
"Water wouldn't have harmed gemstones or silver in any case. We'll need
torches. Gather up some of those dry dowels and bits of cloth--"

"Did you hear that?"

"Quiet!" Nubs ducked down. "If those stinking berserks are anywhere near,
they'll make for a fire first, I reckon. Gather up those dowels and things and
let's clear out!"

Paces from the leaping shadows and radiating heat from the burning shed, RhohG
pressed up against the side of the steading wall, slipping into shadow with
Tholyff carried in both arms.

Someone, or rather a bunch of somethings were racing toward Gigurd's flooded
stronghold.

Frenzied whoops and war-calls sounded through the tree-lined slopes as in the
deep, protracted dusk, a disorganized band of carnage-lusting berserks
blundered and crashed through the underbrush and then into the muddy mess of
the outskirts of the steading;pouring through the wide-open gates and into the
yard with screams and howls and weapons gleaming in upraised arms, a dozen men
with wild hair, filthy clothes--some actually naked--and reeking of years of
blood and filth burst in, hot for the kill.

Heedless of any danger, in actuality starved for hazard and jeopardy more than
air, water, food or light, the berserks started at once for the smoking arches
of the torched mews, sending up fans of wet mud with every hasty footfall.

It was rumoured they could see in the dark, sniff out objects with doglike
accuracy and hear the slightest whiff of breath.

They could stand pain and injury like nothing human, battling and murdering on
with anything less than a caved-in skull or a broken spine.

RhohG had to choose and choose quickly.