As his understanding of both the ward and Milkeila’s apparent answer to it crystallized, Bransen joined in the effort, channeling his chi to tease out pieces of the warding magic. Now the jamb was sweating all about so profusely that a steady drip fell from the overhead ice beam like a moderate rain.
“Yach, but ye’re to drop the whole thing!” Mcwigik grumbled.
“Exactly what the trap was designed to do,” Bransen explained. “But Milkeila and I have diffused it enough so that…” With a grin back at the dwarf, the Highwayman darted ahead past Milkeila through the opening.
Flames burst forth all around him, a sudden and sharp release of energy, but nowhere near what it would have been initially.
“The explosion would have taken down the front wall,” Milkeila explained, leading the others through the puddles and the portal to join Bransen. And not a moment too soon, for they found their friend already engaged with another contingent of the stubborn and pesky trolls.
The first spear thrown his way had become Bransen’s weapon as he sprinted right into the midst of the creatures, who quickly formed a semicircle about him. Holding the light spear in his left hand only, Bransen thrust it out to the left, and as he did, he hooked its back end behind his hip. Using that leverage, he swept the spear across in front of him, catching it in a reverse grip with his right hand. He kept the spear head moving left to right, as if he meant to put the thing right around his back, but instead rolled it in his fingers, deftly flipping it to a forehand grip with his right before stabbing it out that way. The troll on that flank, taking the bait that the spear would fast disappear behind the man, had just lifted its club and begun its charge when the thrusting spear pierced its chest.
Bransen bent his arm at the elbow powerfully, sending his hand straight up, and he flipped the spear back across his shoulders. He caught it with an underhand grip with his left and subtly altered the angle of momentum, rolling it completely around to stab out in front of him, again left to right. He loosened his grip, letting the spear slide forth as if in a throw, but caught it firmly lower on the handle with his left and grasped it at midpoint with his right, then stabbed diagonally out to his right more powerfully, retracted, reangled and stabbed straight ahead, then again, turning his hips to put it out right of his position in three short and devastating thrusts.
Three trolls fell away. The others of the group fell back on their heels, confused and frightened, and just as Bransen’s friends rushed past him, overwhelming the lot of the trolls. Only an unlucky turn, a broken spear hooking at a bad angle, caused a wound on any of the companions, catching Pergwick painfully in the hip.
The dwarf shrugged off any attention, though, and matched the pace of the others as they charged across the courtyard to the castle’s inner door. Again Bransen took the lead, and again he thought to filter out his sensitivity to magic to seek out wards. But the door slid aside and out jumped a man dressed in Samhaist robes and holding a short bronze sword. For a brief instant, Bransen thought it to be Ancient Badden, and he instinctively pulled up.
That proved a fortunate delay, as the Samhaist sent a gout of flames out through his hand to engulf his sword blade and came forward with a series of mighty sweeps, extending those flames out before him.
Mcwigik ambled by Bransen and nearly right into them, before finally stopping with a shout of surprise. He shouted again when Bransen leaped atop him, then sprang from the dwarf’s sturdy frame, soaring high and far, lifting his chi as he went to carry him far above the expected mortal boundaries. He threw his spear at the man as he went, but the Samhaist was appropriately warded against such missiles and it did not penetrate.
It was no more than a diversion, anyway, and Bransen soared up and over. The surprised Samhaist turned his blade upward to try to intercept, but Bransen was too high. He landed behind the Samhaist, turning as he descended, and as the man tried to turn, Bransen shot his arm through the gap in the man’s bended elbow, then knifed his hand up behind the Samhaist’s neck, catching a firm grip. He turned with the Samhaist, staying right behind him and up against him, and as soon as the man tried to reverse back the other way, throwing back his shoulder and arm instinctively to break his momentum, Bransen similarly knifed his other arm in the same manner as the first. Now with both of his hands clamped behind the Samhaist’s neck, “chicken-winging” his opponent’s arms out behind him in the process, Bransen easily turned the man and tripped him up.
They fell together, the Samhaist facedown and with no way to free up his arms to break his fall. Bransen added to the impact by shoving out with his hands just before the Samhaist’s face hit the ice.
Bransen sprang up, running right over the man to grab the fallen sword. He was content to leave it at that, but of course, the powries were not. They came in stabbing and slicing, pounding the poor fool back to the ice in short order, so they could dip their berets in his spilling blood.
Through the open door went Bransen. Milkeila came in right behind. “We need to find Badden’s place of power,” she said. “There must be one greater than all the others.”
Before Bransen could agree, Cormack rushed past and shouted, “Brother!” Both Bransen and Milkeila turned his way. The pair then followed Cormack’s gaze to the side where a group of miserable prisoners huddled, most prominent among them a man wearing Abellican robes.
“Jond,” Bransen breathed, and he thought again of his hesitation back on the ledge, and his serious considerations of just turning around and going south to find Cadayle and Callen.
The Highwayman’s face flushed with shame, and even more when Brother Jond called out, “Bransen Garibond, have you come to save us, friend?”
Friend. The word bounced around Bransen’s mind, an indictment made all the more damning because Brother Jond didn’t even understand that it was one. Cormack had reached him by then, working the ropes to free the man and the others around him.
“Not one will be able to aid us in this battle,” Milkeila was saying when Bransen finally joined the couple at the prisoners’ side.
“Well found, friend,” Bransen said to Jond, and he couldn’t suppress his horror at seeing the man’s maimed face, scarred slits where his eyeballs once were.
The blind monk followed the voice perfectly and fell over Bransen, wrapping him in a hug, sobbing with joy and appreciation.
“No time,” Milkeila said. “That beast is outside, killing my people! I am certain that his power is concentrated in here through some conduit to the magical emanations beneath this glacier.”
“A dragon is he!” one of the other miserable prisoners proclaimed.
“Horror of horrors!” another chimed in.
“Whenever Ancient Badden appears to us, he comes down the ramp across the foyer,” Brother Jond blurted, shaking his head and pushing Bransen back to arm’s length, as if trying to sort it all out.
Bransen recognized the desperation on his face, the need to help here, to try to repay Badden for the injustice that had taken his sight.
“Please! Help me!” came a cry from behind, and all turned to see the Samhaist Bransen had clobbered, crawling on his elbows toward them, the four powries close behind. “Help me!” he said again, reaching plaintively toward the human intruders. As he spoke, Bikelbrin came up beside him, spat in both his hands, and took up a heavy club, lifting it for what was sure to be a killing blow.