The Fallen Fortress - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,76
Druzil, and Cadderly did not believe that it was Dorigen, either. Who then? the young priest wondered. Who was so attuned to him that they might make telepathic contact without his knowledge or consent?
He opened his eyes, determined not to get sidetracked. "Keep going," he instructed his comrades, taking his place beside them.
But the call remained, fleeting and distant, and what bothered Cadderly more than anything else was that it somehow sounded so very familiar.
Dwarven Stealth
We must move quietly," Shayieigh pointedly instructed her dwarven companions, what seemed to her an obvious precaution. Still, Shayieigh soon came to understand that her definition of "moving quietly" was apparently very different from Ivan and Pikel's. The clomp of Ivan's boots echoed loudly off the stone walls, and Pikel's sandals double-slapped - once against the floor and once against his foot - with every pumping stride.
They rambled along several long, dark corridors, the only light coming from widely spaced torches hanging in iron sconces. Around a bend and through an archway, the three companions found the walls lined by fonts, filled with a clear, watery substance.
Ivan, needing a refreshing drink, paused and moved to scoop up some, but Pikel quickly slapped his hand away, waggling a finger in his startled brother's face.
"Uh-uhhh," the green-bearded dwarf implored, and he hopped up high and pulled a torch from its sconce. Still waggling the finger tucked under his arm, Pikel touched the fire to the liquid. The stuff hissed and sputtered, and a noxious gray cloud arose, making Ivan pinch his nose. Pikel hung his tongue out of his mouth and muttered, Tuck"
"How did he know?" Shayleigh asked Ivan when they had cleared the stinky area.
Ivan shrugged. "Must be something to this druid stuff."
"Doo-dad!" Pikel agreed.
"Yeah, doo-dad," muttered Ivan. "Or ye just knowed that this place is for Talona, and Talona's the goddess of poison."
Sly Pikel wasn't letting on. He just followed the other two, every so often chuckling, "Hee hee nee."
Around a sharp bend in the corridor, the friends found a group of enemies waiting for them.
Shayleigh fired her bow between the bobbing dwarven heads, catching the leading ore in the chest and dropping it dead.
"Frog!" Ivan called, a reference to a game he and his brother used to play. Pikel rushed in front and braced himself, squared to the next leading ore, and Ivan leaped up from behind and straddled Pikel's shoulders. Pikel fell forward, hooking Ivan's feet and his propelling his forward-flying brother into a downward arc.
The ore froze with surprise, stood there with no practical defenses, and Ivan's axe cleaved its skull, drove right down through the stupid creature's head so that it seemed as if it would literally be split in half.
The move left both dwarves sprawled on the floor, with several enemies still standing, unharmed (though after witnessing a comrade practically split down the middle, none of them seemed overly anxious to rush in). With the line of fire clear between them and Shayleigh, their hesitation was not a wise thing.
The elf maiden set her bow to furious work, hardly aiming, just firing for the mass of enemy bodies.
A few seconds, and a few arrows, later, what was left of the enemy band was in full flight
"Now move quietly," Shayleigh instructed through gritted teeth.
"Quietly:" Ivan balked incredulously. "Bring the whole damned bunch of them on, I say!"
"Oo oi!" Pikel cried. The agreeing brothers turned together toward Shayleigh, to find the elf maiden back against the inner wall of the last corner, her bow up as she looked behind them.
"You may get your wish," she explained. "Goblins, led by an ogre."
Ivan and Pikel rushed up to the corner beside her and nodded to each other, as if they already had come to a silent agreement on how to approach this next fight. Ivan stooped, and this time Pikel went up on his shoulders, leaning against the wall and putting one hand up high, fingers conspicuously wrapped around the edge of the wall, in plain sight of the approaching force.
Ivan nodded for Shayleigh to fall back a few steps.
The ogre came around the corner expecting, from Pikel's high-placed hand, to find a tall foe. Pikel fell away as the monster spun around the bend, its flying club smacking harmlessly off the empty stone wall.
Ivan's axe chop gashed into the thigh of its lead leg, severing muscles and tendons.
Unable to stop its momentum, the wounded ogre continued its turn, squaring its back to Shayleigh. Still backpedal-ing, it jerked twice in rapid succession as arrows