So he scrunched up against the trunk of the tree in which he had been sleeping, putting the thickest portion of the branch he was on between himself and the campsite. A quick look around revealed a branch of similar thickness on the opposite side of the tree, so he darted onto it, quiet as a squirrel. His speed was rewarded—at just that moment a blazing light burst from TJ’s upstretched hand. Had Chuck still been sitting on his original branch, anyone looking up would have seen him with no trouble.
Peering around the trunk, he surveyed the scene. If any part of him envisioned playing the savior and jumping from the tree to the aid of his comrades, what he saw put the kibosh on that immediately. Within the ring of trees where his friends had camped were perhaps twenty or so of the behemoth creatures. The kobolds. He knew they were called kobolds. But that in and of itself wasn’t so bad. He had memories of Jimmy and TJ taking on similar odds and coming out unscathed. What caused him the most worry were the rows of the creatures lurking just outside the tree line. The twenty beasts in the ring were easily outnumbered by the ones waiting in backup, and it was only a matter of time—and not a very long time at that—before all of his friends went down. He knew that joining the combat would have no effect on the outcome whatsoever.
And so he watched. And waited. When Stu’s bow shattered across the kobold’s head, Chuck cringed, but Allison seemed to be holding her own, particularly when combined with the magical blasts that TJ shot from his fingers. When TJ threw the ball of flame at the second row, Chuck allowed himself to become slightly hopeful. He had seen the effect of those attacks in the past, most recently at the brigand camp, where he’d been peering from behind a corner. His heart sank, however, when he saw that it hadn’t done any good. He knew it was over.
The battle wrapped up quickly, with Jimmy dropping almost immediately after Allison and TJ had been knocked down. Chuck wanted to look away, fearing that his friends were going to become dinner right before his eyes. He forced himself to continue watching, though, as a silent testament to their bravery. One of the beasts bent down to where TJ had fallen on top of Allison and began sniffing. Experimentally, it stuck out a tongue and slid it across Allison’s face. It licked its chops, then opened its mouth to take a bite.
Another kobold bounded forward with a howl and cuffed it in the head, sending the hungry one tumbling. It jumped back to its feet and lunged forward, but was cuffed again, harder. The one that Chuck assumed to be the leader growled a challenge, standing over the bodies of the companions and swinging his club menacingly. The growl was returned, though with a more submissive sound, and the loser left the fire ring with a backward glance.
Much to Chuck’s surprise, he was not forced to watch his friends be devoured. The leader growled another order, and several of the brutes took out ropes and tightly bound the arms and legs of the adventurers. Each was then thrown over a beast’s shoulder, and the attackers melted back into the woods. In less than a minute the normal noises of the forest returned. All that remained of the fight were the monsters that had died in the assault. It appeared that they weren’t really interested in burials.
His instincts honed on the rough-and-tumble streets, Chuck counted slowly to one hundred, breathing lightly and remaining stock-still. Only then did he unharness himself from the tree, sling his satchel over his shoulder, and shinny down the trunk. When he reached the bottom, he stood still for another one hundred count, his ears straining for any indication that he was not, in fact, alone. He then stole silently among the bodies of the creatures, slitting each one’s throat just to be sure. The last thing he wanted was to be surprised by one of the “corpses” sitting up and smacking him with one of those enormous clubs. The boiled-leather cuirass he wore would provide no protection. The smell of their blood burned his nose, and he wondered what sort of foul sorcery had wrought such creatures.
“Whoa. Did I just think that? What foul sorcery had wrought such creatures?” he mumbled to himself. “I need to get the heck out of here.” A crow—was it the same one from the night before?—cawed at him in laughter. “Bah,” he grunted at it.
He stopped and took a deep breath to clear his head, then surveyed the surroundings. The fire had burned to embers, so he took a few moments to place new wood on top of the coals and coax a flame back to life. With his dagger, he cut one of the bedrolls—he wasn’t sure whose—into strips and wound them around a stout tree branch. He placed that end into the fire and used it as a torch to help him see past the glow of the campfire.
Stu’s bow lay in pieces on the ground, the ends still connected by the string. Allison’s mace lay trampled in the dirt, and one of the horns from her ridiculous helmet had snapped off. He didn’t see it anywhere and hoped that it had gotten lodged in one of the creatures’ feet. Their packs and bedrolls were all on the ground, and most important, Jimmy’s gigantic two-hander had been left behind as well. Whatever plans the creatures had for his friends didn’t involve their possessions. Chuck didn’t think those plans included eating them, at least not in the short term. They could have done the eating here if they’d wanted to, and they didn’t look the type to care if their food was raw or cooked.
“What to do, what to do?” he said, followed immediately by, “First, stop talking to yourself.” He picked up Jimmy’s sword to see how heavy it was and was surprised to discover that it didn’t feel nearly as hefty as it looked. In fact, as he held it, the blade seemed to shrink into itself until it become a dagger, just the right size for his hand. He gave a low whistle of appreciation, and part of his mind began to figure how much he could sell it for to a fence. He grinned involuntarily. Enough to retire and live a nice long life, surrounded by servants and the finest things money could buy. That much.
He shook his head to clear the thought. “Focus,” he said. “Focus. Your friends are in trouble—what are you going to do about it?” The part of him that had begun to surface when they crossed into this fantasy world had already decided: he was willing to say farewell to his friends and go live a life of luxury. That part was, however, overruled with a stern “No!” and sent to sulk in the back of his mind.
The sword’s weight had been his biggest concern, and now that that problem had been solved, he collected Allison’s mace and helmet, as well as the short sword that Stu had been using to ward off the club blows. Unfortunately, there was nothing worth salvaging from the bow. Any spells placed on it would have been destroyed when the bow itself was broken. It was now nothing more than a bunch of sticks. If Stu was still alive, and he was somehow able to be rescued, he would have to find a new one.
A flash of color caught Chuck’s eye, and he went to investigate. Lying in a loose pile were a small number of arrows, which must have fallen out of the quiver attached to Stu’s belt as he was manhandled from the campsite. He picked them up and examined them closely, smelling one, placing another against his tongue. “Huh. Yeah, I bet he’ll want these,” he said, and carefully bundled them in the middle of his bedroll. At the very least they were extraordinarily well made. More likely, they had been imbued with some magic spell that perhaps made them fly farther, or truer, or do more damage, or who knows what.
He gave the campsite one last look to make sure he hadn’t missed anything of value. Allison’s ring was nowhere to be found, which wasn’t particularly surprising. There was no reason for it to have fallen off her finger. TJ’s reagent pouch was also absent, and Chuck hoped that it hadn’t come loose or been forcibly removed by their attackers. He wasn’t sure how many of TJ’s spells relied on those focus elements and how many he could cast without them. He shrugged, remembering TJ’s lesson from the James Bond books: the pouch wasn’t here, so Chuck had to assume that it was still with him. If it wasn’t, there was nothing he could do about it.