Episode 029: A Little Night Recon (Text)

When we last left our heroes…with the HORDE OF THE RED HAND bearing down on TANNER’S CROSSING, our heroes set about recruiting allies throughout the town – by hook and by crook. Having procured lamp oil from HARMEL, vague promises from ABERTHOL the DRUID, and potential firepower from SENDIVOGIUS the heartsick WIZARD, the makeshift militia now prepares for the DAY OF DOOM, while NUTMEG and GEL set about last-minute preparations…

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1 – In Which Five Days Remain
• Chapter 2 – In Which Four Days Remain
• Chapter 3 – In Which Three Days Remain
• Chapter 4 – In Which Two Days Remain

Chapter 1 – In Which Five Days Remain

The shop was empty. Slivers of moonlight traced through the cracks in the boards. Gel slid the crowbar back into his pack. Boards over the windows? Come on. Amateur hour. He’d once entered the manse of a rich councilor in the capital city with nothing more than a cobbler’s awl and fifty feet of hempen rope. This was a walk in the park. Really, it was practice. Had to keep his skills sharp. 

In that councilor’s house, the target had been a rare print of Gahaladon himself, the founder of the Hegemony, made during the founder’s lifetime. It was a truly priceless artifact, easily damaged, requiring a delicate touch to lift and relocate. The buyer – a halfling outfit, represented only by squirrelly little fucks in hooded cloaks – had shorted Gel on the payout, offering a measly thousand gold pieces. Gel had responded by dropping off little tattered pieces of the Gahaladon print at the dead drop spot until the halflings came to renegotiate. Not that Gel was up for renegotiation. You didn’t get a reputation like his by renegotiating. 

The shop was still stocked. Nothing too fancy. Some of Harmel’s lamp oil in little convenient flasks. Empty glass bottles, sacks, rope, some parchment and quills. He vaulted the counter in one quick, easy motion, crouching down to search for any strongboxes or cash safes left behind in the shopkeeper’s panic. Hm. None to be found, immediately. Unless – yes, as he suspected. Two bulging bags of copper pieces, stuffed down almost completely out of sight. Shopkeepers like this one always kept spare change around for breaking silver and gold, but it was a pain to lug along if you were traveling light.

Gel was just trying to figure out if it was worth stealing the copper when there came a crashing sound at one of the boarded-up windows. He froze. His first thought was “the horde’s here!” but he swiftly dismissed that notion when the interloper grunted “owch! Ah, nuts, I got a fuckin splinter.” 

Gel adjusted his facemask – and then had an idea. He lowered the mask, then stood. Suddenly. As he rose, he shouted aloud the mystic word of command. The now-familiar shimmer covered him, and then he was Mr. E, a bland-faced bureaucrat, glaring at the halfling who had vaulted through the window. 

“AHH!” screamed the halfling. 

“Gods, keep your voice down,” said Gel. “Although you already made enough noise breaking in here to alert the whole Vale.” 

“Who are – I was, hey, no, I wasn’t uh breaking in here, I was inspecting for…rats. You know. Pesticide never sleeps.” 

“That’s not even a believable alibi.” Gel sighed. “Listen. Let’s level here. You and me, we’re probably not so different.” He paused. “Well, I’m way cooler. But ignoring that: you and me, we saw the same thing. An easy score.” 

The halfling deflated. He was young, small even for a halfling. He’d pulled up some sort of hand-knit scarf over his face, but it had slipped away, revealing baby fat and peach fuzz. “Look, hey, okay, you were here first. My bad. It’s all you.” He looked around. “Hey, how’d you get in?”

Gel produced the crowbar. The halfling flinched. “Pried a board off, slid in, pulled the board back into place. Old trick.” 

“Wouldn’t prying the board up just make the wood groan? I feel like that would be loud.”

“Maybe for an amateur. You have to get it in there just right, and then ease up a little, a little, move to the other side, a little, a little. It’s an art form.” 

“Aw gee. I’ll never get to join the Daggers if I can’t get stuff like that down.” 

“The Daggers?” 

“You’re not with them?” The halfling seemed genuinely surprised. “Everyone knows about the Daggers. Greatest bandits in the Vale. Stole Lord Carlan Marth’s prized jade carving right off his night stand, never got caught. I heard a rumor down at the Dee Bee that the Queen of Daggers was in town. She’s kind of the leader.” 

“Well this sounds very interesting,” said Gel. In fact, it really didn’t. If he had a toe for every podunk little bandit gang that called themselves The Blades or The Razors, well, he’d have way more toes than he had now. He looked the halfling up and down. “How old are you, kid?” 

“Twenty.” 

“Yeah, you looked young. Listen – what was your name again?”

“I’m -” the halfling paused. “Uh. I’m ‘nobody.’” 

“Now you’re thinking on your feet. Okay, Twenty: here’s the deal. You can have your pick of the place. All yours. Frankly, I was just doing this to stretch my muscles a little bit, keep the B&E instincts limber.” He paused. A thought had occurred to him. This halfling hadn’t evacuated yet, and he was bold enough at least to try his hand at burglary. Captain Anna Thornspur had been looking for more recruits to make the last stand on the banks of the Hestor. “Look, you gotta get the fuck out of town. They’re conscripting everyone who’s left. Here’s a little lesson for you: have an escape plan, and use it. Get out while the getting’s good.”

“Get out while the getting’s good.” The halfling repeated it like scripture. “Thanks, mister! You’re a really educational guy.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s not habitual.” Gel pulled up his mask. “Tell the Daggers…tell the Daggers that Greg sends his regards.” 

“Is that your name?”

“What do you think, dumbass?” 

“Well, why – I mean, do they know who Greg is?”

“No. I don’t know. Whatever. Doesn’t matter.” Gel vaulted back over the counter. “Farewell, Twenty. Happy burgling.”

It was only as he was returning to the Red Apple that a thought occurred to Gel. The Queen of Daggers. A legendary female bandit, here in town. Could it be…? No. Nah. Too much of a coincidence. And why would she bother stealing their twenty-five gold, anyway?

Chapter 2 – In Which Four Days Remain

George was out with the dogs when Nutmeg and Gel got to the end of his road, by the oak tree. The woodsman was whistling a jaunty tune, hanging something on a fishing line from the boughs of the tree. He stepped back to admire his handiwork. Literally: several pairs of hobgoblin hands hung from the line, a grisly message. 

“Yo! George!” 

“Boys!”

George’s dogs all began barking and yelping. Gel knelt to pet them; Nutmeg kept his distance. 

“What brings you out to my neck o the woods? Again?”

“Taking a trip up to Caer Karnak. A little reconnaissance. Wanna come?” 

“Oooeeee! You know it! I thought you boys would be to busy with Little Anna!” 

“We did some stuff. But other people can keep doing that stuff. No one else can do this. Simple as that.” 

It was true: they had done some stuff. Sendivogius was hard at work on the weapon. Caetano, Wiseman, and Darn were overseeing the evacuation. Morlain and Captain Anna had taken over the barricades, the recruits, the arming of an impromptu militia. Harmel had supplied the oil. Even Aberthol was marked down as a “maybe.” Sister D had busied herself with the business of the town: helping Brother Darn, yes, but also training some of the new recruits in the art of hitting people with a mace. That, and how to sling a stone. She was getting good with a sling, Sister D. 

But no one could recon like George, Gel, and Nutmeg. Besides, Nutmeg was feeling a little spooked about hanging around town too long. All it would take was one bad run-in with Sendivogius to really complicate matters. 

They traced the familiar path: up the dwarf road to old Caer Karnak track, across the swampy creek where the hydra named Morty dwelt in peace. They made better time today than they had the first go around, and reached Caer Karnak with the sun still high in the west. It looked about the same. Still a ruin. 

“So which one of you actually owns this place now?” asked George. 

“Technically, the Hob Gob Killing Mob owns it,” said Nutmeg. “Jointly. Are you familiar with the idea of a corporation, George?”

“Here we go.”

“What, Gel? It’s an important concept in legal ownership. I wasn’t sure if they existed out here.” 

“A whosey what?” George scratched his beard. 

“Okay, never mind. Look, I just didn’t want my name, or Gel’s name, or D’s name, on any official ownership documents out here. Technically we’re incognito.” 

“Spies?” asked George, in the same tone of voice he might use if someone told him his dogs had fleas. 

“Nutmeg, I feel like we’re not supposed to advertise that.”

“Ah, whatever, George is cool. Yeah. We’re from the Hegemony, out east, sent specifically because the government there is worried about this Red Hand shit and wanted someone to keep an eye on it.” 

“Huh.” 

“That doesn’t seem to bother you, George.” 

“Well, no. No, doesn’t bother me. There’s some who might get bothered, but it ain’t me. I’m just more thinking about this here castle. Does this mean you won’t be stayin’ here long term?” 

“I don’t think we’ve decided yet,” said Nutmeg, quickly. “We’ll figure out this horde thing first. Property values go way up once you defeat the evil army of monsters on the doorstep.” 

“Speaking of which.” Gel gestured with the tip of his icy sword at the battlements of Caer Karnak. “Are we stopping here for the night?”

“Yeah, I think so. Tomorrow we can do a little scouting. It’s important to know when the horde will be here.” 

“Boys night!” 

“Sure, yeah. Boys night.” 

Their first night in the keep, Nutmeg had slept like a stone. The battle with the goblins, the ghost, the fucking manticore – it had left him a little sleepy. Then they’d set out early, making for Skull Gorge. But tonight? They had hours, and energy. 

He explored. He started at the gate tower, ruined as it was. It would take a crew of stonemasons half a month to get the place standing again. Or one very talented wizard an afternoon. The place was built on a good hill, but as a defensible stronghold it wasn’t that impressive anymore. Okay, so, that goes on the to-do list. 

There were two other towers, but only one still fully stood. The one that Dilkus the gnome had haunted. It was empty now, but in fairly good repair. Decent enough. It would stand for another decade before it needed serious update. The other tower, though…

It took Nutmeg a little while to even find it. The halls were half-blocked by rubble. But someone had carved out a path here, and not too long ago. A narrow path, better befitting goblin feet. But a path nonetheless. A path to something smelly. The stench of…something, something just on the safe side of rotten, wafted down to Nutmeg. That, plus damp wood. A pulpy smell. 

There. The second tower, or what was left of it. Nutmeg stepped through into a mostly-collapsed room, the roof at a wild caddywompus. The room was packed with barrels. Sturdy barrels, old ones, ones that had clearly been half-emptied and left to stand open, ones that were leaking some strange and viscous goo, an unpleasant putrefaction of whatever they had once held. The food stores of Caer Karnak, as looked-after by the occupying goblins. 

Okay. That would have to go, too. Get some contractors in here, maybe. Or a team of very hungry monstrous centipedes. 

He met back up with Gel and George in the courtyard, grateful for the fresh air of early evening. Gel had retrieved some more of the Wyrmlord’s books, and had them laid out in the grass of the courtyard, mulling over this and that. 

“Anything interesting in Rath’s diaries?”

“Oh, hey, Nutmeg. Eh. Nothing too wild. I was hoping for battle plans or something. Mostly logistics. Supplies, scouting reports. Looks like he sent word that they might need boats to cross the Hestor, so taking out the ferry might not slow them down that much.” 

“Yeah no that makes sense actually. Hey, does he say anything about food stores?” 

“Uh.” Gel flipped back a few pages. “Yeah, actually. Foraging and storing food in the second tower. To augment the horde’s own supply.”

“Ah-HA!” Nutmeg tried to snap his fingers, failed, and turned it into a little finger-pointing gesture. “I found the food stores.”

“Oh, neat.”

“We oughter poison em!” George had returned from whatever George had been doing. “An army marches on its stomach, they say!” 

“You know, that’s a good idea,” said Nutmeg. “Gel, you got any barrowelf’s poison left? Any other weird substances?”

“How many barrels are we talking?”

“There’s at least twenty worth poisoning. The rest look like they might have fallen victim to poor food safety protocol already.” 

“Yeah, if I dilute any of my poisons that much, they’ll be totally ineffective.” 

“Alright, well…George – you know the woods and shit. Any fucked up berries we could use? Weird mushrooms?”

“That might not work, even if we had time to forage all that,” mused George. “Goblins have different stomachs than you and me.” 

An idea was forming in Nutmeg’s mind. “You know, there’s one classic, time-tested method of poisoning that should make even a goblin grumble.”

Gel cocked his head. “Is there?” 

“Shit.”

“Shit?”

“Excrement. Feces. Dung. Number two. The accursed slime.” 

“Right so just to be clear Nutmeg: you are proposing we shit in the barrels.” 

In the end, it was both better and worse than Nutmeg expected. The shitting wasn’t the hard part. He could shit anywhere. He had shat in many places. The difficulty was having an audience. George and Gel tried very hard to not make eye contact, but the not-making-eye-contact proved even more awkward than just making eye contact. Nutmeg squinted through half-closed eyes at his companions. Blurry figures perched on the edge of food barrels, trousers around ankles, rendering the foodstuff feculent. 

Conversation was thin for the rest of the evening, and they each slept in separate wings of the castle. 

Chapter 3 – In Which Three Days Remain

Gel squinted down the crossbow. From his perch in the alder tree, he had a clear view of the northward path through the Hagwood. In the distance – far, far away still – he could hear the unceasing war-drums. The trio had awakened to the sound of drums that morning, drums echoing off the foothills of the mountains. It wouldn’t be long now before the outriders of the horde reached Caer Karnak. And it wouldn’t be long after that before the horde crossed the river and reached Tanner’s Crossing. 

Gel intended to bloody them first. 

“Do you see anything?” called Nutmeg, very loudly, from his position back down the path. 

“Please don’t shout while we’re on stakeout.”

“Whassat?” George popped up like a gopher from the undergrowth. 

“Guys. This is silly. Please keep it dow-”

“Wait, everyone quiet!” said Nutmeg. “I smell em. Gobbos.” He sniffed again. “And wargs. Ugh.”

“Why do we have to be quiet for you to smell them?”

“Shh, Gel, they’ll hear you.” 

Gel breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth a few times. 

Nutmeg’s nose was, of course, correct. Not ten minutes later, Gel spied the scouting party through the trees. Three goblins riding wargs, the lean and freakish bastard cousins of wolves. Gel watched them down the sights of the crossbow. A few hundred yards. A hard shot for anyone else. But not him. And not with this lovely, lovely crossbow. For the umpteenth time, he thanked all the gods for Yanna Goldtress, back in Dwarroway. She’d outfitted him well. 

Thrum. He pulled the trigger, and the bolt vanished into the leaves. Before it even reached the goblin, he was loading, cranking back, squinting again. A shriek sounded; he could just make out his first victim’s body rolling off the warg to the forest floor. Thrum. He shot again. Another shriek. 

The wargs began to bay and howl, galloping forward. Two wargs dragged their rider’s corpses behind them. The third goblin was not in control of his steed per se; Gel saw both terror and confusion framed just above the ironsight on the crossbow. Good. He could leave that one alive. Instead, he lowered the sights and put a bolt in the base of the warg’s neck. The black-furred beast crumpled, and the goblin cursed and shrieked as it was dragged to the ground with its mount.

He could’ve just kept pinging them off, ducks in a gallery, dropping the wargs one by one, but he sat back in the tree. Time to let the other boys have a turn. 

George feathered one of the wargs with arrows, giving a wordless yelp of joy with every arrow he sent home. Nutmeg leapt out of the underbrush and ran, howling, at the remaining warg, whirling his axe around him. 

It was quick work, in the end. Before long, Gel stood over the surviving goblin rider, his frosty shortsword at the gobbo’s neck. George was collecting arrows, whistling while he worked; Nutmeg squatted over the other corpses, breeches around his ankles. Gel averted his eyes. 

“Alright. You know the drill. Quick and easy death if you give us military intelligence. Hell, if it’s good, we might even let you get a running head start.” 

To his surprise, the goblin laughed. Its green skin was painted here and there with daubs of red warpaint, and bone earrings bedecked one long, pointed ear. 

“I tell you anything. Won’t help you.”

“Try me.” 

The goblin grinned, despite being pinned beneath the wretched corpse of the warg. “The horde comes. The Red Hand comes. Through the mountains we come. To castle. To town. To Day of Doom.” 

“Sure, but like, when? How many? What kind of scouts? Come on.”

“Red Ruin comes! Dragon and manting corns.”

“There’s a dragon coming?” That was technically news. 

“Agharagoth! Red Ruin! You’re fucked!”

“We’re fucked,” Gel called over to the others. “At least, according to little mister earrings here.” 

Nutmeg pulled up his breeches, having befouled both of the other corpses and cleaned himself on their leathers. “Oh yeah? That’s crazy. Wymlord Awrnwn got those tens of thousands he reported to Mazzirandus, then?”

The goblin squinted. “How you know. Names like that.”

“Because: I’m the man. Now come on. Tens of thousands, like Awrnwn promised?”

“Yeeees.” The goblin was clearly unnerved by Nutmeg’s depth of knowledge. And probably unnerved by the desecration of his companions’ corpses. Gel was a little unnerved by that too. Suddenly, the goblin’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Wait wait. You – you the ones broke the bridge?”

“We the ones broke the bridge,” Gel confirmed. “The Hob Gob Killin’ Mob.” 

The goblin thought about this for a moment. “I no hobgoblin. Just goblin goblin. So you not kill me?” This time, the goblin’s grin was plaintive, wheedling. 

“You know, he’s got a point,” said Nutmeg. 

“Yeah also I feel like I want them to know our name. Strike some fear.”

“I’m cool with that.” 

George sidled up. “Whooooee. Want me to put an arrow in ‘im, boys?”

“Nah, we’re leaving him alive.”

“Goin soft?”

“I’m about half-chub right now,” said Nutmeg. “But no. Sending a message.” He turned back to the pinned goblin. “Right! You hang out here. Tell your buddies the Hob Gob Killin’ Mob is going to send them all straight to the nine hells if they dare try to cross the Hestor River. Alright?” The goblin nodded frantically. “A verbal yes would be good.”

“Yes! Yes! Hob Gob Killin’ Mob send to nine hells if dare to cross Hestor!”

“Yeah, good enough.”

“We are probably fucked though,” said Gel, quietly, when they were out of earshot from the goblin. “Tens of thousands? Plus a dragon. And I assume ‘manting corns’ meant ‘manticores.’” 

“Yeah, flying foes are a problem for us. We’re going to need to work on that.”

They settled into a good routine for the rest of the day. More scouting parties ventured forth into the Hagwood; they killed all but one of the goblins in each party, leaving a shaken survivor to warn of the Hob Gob Killin’ Mob. By the time Gel nailed his twelfth warg of the day, some of the joy had worn off the killing. Not all of the joy – there was always some joy in killing. But as his bag of bolts grew lighter and lighter, he thought of the “tens of thousands” that remained. This was more than they could handle, of course. It was definitely more than Tanner’s Crossing could handle. It might be more than all the cities in the Vale could handle. And what of the Hegemony? 

Gel wasn’t particularly patriotic. He was on this job because Lucy asked him, not because he really cared about doing his civic duty. But it would really put a damper on his line of work if the lands of the Hegemony were sacked and devastated by a hobgoblin horde. He had to wonder: should they just turn tail and run home? Warn Mr. E and the Hegemony to get ready? Gird their loins? “You can’t gird your loins if you lose ‘em,” as the old saying went. 

That night at Caer Karnak, he slept uneasily.

Chapter 4 – In Which Two Days Remain

“We oughter be gone,” said George, again. 

They had spent another whole day picking off scouting parties in the Hagwood, but the game had grown more and more dangerous. The drums were louder, and there were shapes in the air to the north. Now that evening was approaching, George was getting squirrely. 

“It’ll be cool,” Nutmeg assured the woodsman. “We’re just going to hang around Caer Karnak long enough to see if we can pick off any officers. Then we’re hightailing for Tanner’s Crossing.” 

“It ain’t the shootin’ hobbos what bothers me. It’s the bein cooped up in Caer Karnak. Cornered like rats. Better if we were in the woods.”

The trio were posted up in the haunted tower, watching the woodlands. They could see the horde now, or at least see the smoke and shaken trees as the horde passed through the Hagwood. 

“I’m with George,” said Gel. “We should be gone.” 

Nutmeg sighed. “Come on. We’re awesome. We’ve killed like fifty scouts or something. If that horde isn’t shitting their pants about the Hob Gob Killin’ Mob, we’ll just have to shit them for them.” 

“What?”

“I lost the thread there a little. The point is: I want to make them hesitate! I want to make them go ‘oh, shit, maybe we underestimated the Vale, we gotta post up here for a while.’ Give us more time to plan in Tanner’s Crossing.” 

“I don’t think we scared them that bad.”

“I don’t know. You heard that guy from the second-to-last party today. Kept talking about how he’d heard of us, how the army was telling stories about us doing crazy death assassinations on them.” 

“That were just gobbos on dogs,” argued George. “I’d bet gold to goldfish they’ll send some of the finest uglies they have to the castle here.” 

“We’re mighty fine uglies ourselves.”

From the north, over the sound of the drums, came a long bellowing cry. Then the baying of many dogs. Nutmeg shivered. It sounded like hell-hounds. 

“Goldurn fuckin goblins ruinin my good forest.” George’s ire was at least directed at the horde now. “Beautiful wild place and they’re just stompin through and killin shit.”

“Channel that feeling into productive killing energy,” advised Nutmeg. 

An hour or so passed. Gel and Nutmeg played cards; George declined the offer to join. For a while, Nutmeg let Pierre out of his pocket, and the little blue lizard sunned on the parapet of the haunted tower. Pierre had inhabited Caer Karnak for them these past few days, taking care of a mice problem one electrocuted rodent at a time. After all, once all this horde business was done, Nutmeg intended to make this haunted shitty castle a home. 

The sun dipped below the Blacksmoke Mountains in the west. The long summer day was drawing to night at last, and the red-gold light of evening faded from the wood. A gray haze descended, the smoke from the horde’s fires blown ahead by southward winds. The night came with clouds, too; bleak slate clouds that followed the horde. When the sun faded, no moon or stars pierced the veil that hung over the Hagwood. Thunder grumbled and the clouds kept coming, lit from beneath now by the horde’s fires. Red light licked the northern sky, and a few fat raindrops plunked down. 

“Can’t see for shit,” grumbled George. 

“Yeah we do okay in the dark,” said Nutmeg. “Sorry, buddy.”

Lightning spiderwebbed through the northerly clouds. George pointed. “Holy hamhocks, you seein what I’m seein?”

It took Nutmeg a moment or two to see what George was seein. His stomach dropped. From the look on Gel’s face, the elf had seen it too. 

At least four dozen winged shapes – manticores, most likely, were bearing down on Caer Karnak. Among them was a greater silhouette, a bigger shape than the others. A shape Nutmeg recognized well. This dragon – presumably the Red Ruin of which they had been warned – was bigger than Saeverix. Bigger too than Mazzirandus. And maybe it was just the hell-light from below or the lightning from above, but this dragon appeared to be covered in scarlet scales, with great horns protruding from its head. 

“Okay,” he said. “Maybe we should’ve left earlier.”

“Not too late,” said George. “Come on, down and out, down and out.” 

They all slipped down from the haunted tower as quickly as they dared. By the time they were out of the courtyard, a quick glance up confirmed Nutmeg’s worst fears: the dragon and its manticore escort were directly overhead. He felt a moment of regret as they passed the decapitated head of the manticore he’d killed here in the courtyard; he’d mounted it on a spike to warn off the other beasts, but now it just seemed like a really bad dare. 

“Come on.” Gel was near-invisible, shimmering in and out of view in his black leathers. “Just down the hill, and then we can run.” 

And they were so close. So, so close. Gel was already in the trees; Nutmeg a few steps behind him, and George trailing just behind that. 

“INTERLOPERS,” boomed a voice from on high. “Strike! Attack them! Leave none ALIVE!” 

“Fuck,” said Nutmeg. “Come on, George! Let’s go!” 

The woodsman turned back to the castle. The dragon was swooping low, and yes it was scarlet and yes it had horns and yes that was fire brimming from its mouth like foam on the teeth of a rabid dog. 

“Run fer Morty,” said George. “Get to the stream. And tell Anna I say she better kill a hundred fer me.” 

Then, hell. 

George ran perpendicular, west, off into the woods, as the fire erupted all around them. Nutmeg cursed and dove after Gel, down the scree from Caer Karnak, tumbling through the undergrowth. The trees around burst into flame. The fire was hot, hotter than anything Nutmeg had ever felt before, and the woods went up around him. 

“Where’s George?” Gel was running too, and they sprinted side-by-side to the south and east, away from the castle, away from the fire.

“Fucking crazy old coot took off on his own.” 

“That’s – what the fuck?”

“I dunno. Come on. He said ‘run fer Morty.’”

From behind came another bellow: “AFTER THEM! Hounds, after them!” And then the terrible baying of the hellhounds. And the thunder of dozens, maybe hundreds of paws on the forest floor. 

A hot wind blew around them as the dragon swooped overhead. The trees provided some cover. But not much. And less with every burst of flame from the Red Ruin. An inferno blanketed them, and the very air felt spare and dry, burned away by dragonflame. 

Another chance look back. The hellhounds were on the scent. Their eyes blazed red, more fires in the night, and they panted flame as they ran. Nutmeg set his jaw and kept running. They were being outpaced. Easily. If this went on much longer, they were toast. 

Gel pointed, wordless. Through the trees, Nutmeg saw the flat, stagnant creek they’d crossed to get to the castle. Good. Close to the road. “The water!” he coughed out, and then immediately regretted speaking. The air burned around him. 

They didn’t break stride when they reached the edge of the water. They crashed through the bullrushes and let the boggy water seep in over their boots, then up to their waists, and still kept going, ducking into the marshy creek. It was deeper than it looked. Much deeper. 

And something slithered in front of them. 

“Morty,” said Gel, his mouth just above the water. 

The bog hydra. George had warned them. And here they were. In Morty’s house. 

The hounds came barreling down the banks toward the creek, although they at least slowed their approach at the sight of the water. The dragon still wheeled overhead, although now he seemed more interested in indiscriminate burning than in hunting his prey. Maybe he thought the hounds were guaranteed to succeed. 

Something big slithered through the creek right in front of them again. A head poked above the water. Bulbous and warty, a pimply eel the size of a horse. Then another head, its twin. Both heads evaluated Nutmeg and Gel. Nutmeg was sure he could see a few more heads bobbing just under the surface. The eyes of the bog hydra were filmy, hidden behind multi-layered eyelids, and the jagged teeth bespoke a diet that involved a lot of struggling prey. 

“Hey, Morty,” said Nutmeg. “I don’t know if you can understand me. But George biffed off into the woods and told us to run to you. And maybe you don’t care. But these hot dogs are part of an army that’s totally fucking up your ecosystem, and you could definitely snack on these little fuckers if you want. They’re way tastier than we are.” 

Gel nodded furiously, saying nothing, his mouth just below the surface of the water. Morty’s two heads regarded Nutmeg, regarded Gel, regarded each other. The heads seemed to have a sort of wordless argument – there were some remarkably human expressions on those bulbous faces, and Nutmeg swore he saw one set of yellowy eyes roll in what could only be exasperation. 

Then they dipped back beneath the surface. For a moment, there was stillness – relative stillness. The crackling and roaring of the forest fire, the snarling and baying of the hellhounds, the rumble of thunder in the distance and the drums, the ever-present drums of the horde, drawing ever-nearer. But the waters at least were still. 

Then an eruption. Morty sprang from the boggy creek and bore down on the hellhounds like a freight wagon. The bog hydra was enormous, its body elephantine. No fewer than seven heads thrashed on log-thick sinuous necks. The whole of the creature was bedecked in slime and moss, festooned with so many waterplants that it looked almost as if the creekbed itself had risen up to attack the hellhounds. 

“How deep is this creek?” asked Gel. 

“I don’t want to know. Let’s swim it.”

They hurried across. Adrenaline fueled Nutmeg’s kicks, and the creek wasn’t too wide – twenty feet at most. It had to be like a crevasse down there, depths at which Morty could lurk. 

Once on the south bank, they paused in the bullrushes to take in the scene. The bog hydra had killed a dozen hounds already, their bodies strewn about the bank. Three of the heads were on fire, and screamed with a gatoroid hiss, although the soggy plants smoked and fizzled more than actually burned. 

Nutmeg and Gel slipped away little by little, working their way south from the creek, fleeing for the crossing. They could no longer see Morty, but they could hear the bellows of the dragon, and see the flare of great fireballs against the clouds. Agharagoth the Red Ruin had joined the fray. The Red Hand had come at last.