Ho... Hogger? Did I hear that right?
Jess swore in his native language and looked around for a weapon dropped by a gnoll or a soldier. All he could find was the bone cleaver the smaller gnoll had been carrying.
But it was too short to block or thrust with. The gnoll's axe looked orc-made, with a head bigger than Jess's own. One swing of that thing could cut him in half at the waist.
“Gred! Look over here, damn it!” Jess shouted. Something rustled behind him. Gred—or someone else—had already rushed up beside him.
Jess grabbed the newcomer's beard. “Look at that thing! How are we supposed to fight it? How?!”
Gred caught Jess by the collar and whispered, “We can't. How about running?”
“You think you can outrun a gnoll? What happened to your honor?!”
“To hell with honor if I'm dead! But you're right... We can't run away, either.”
Jess looked around. Many of the militiamen were already exhausted from fighting. Even the guards could barely stand. One man who had tried to flee into the forest had been pinned to a distant tree by a spear.
He gritted his teeth. The huge gnoll was coming toward them now, and the guard who'd been holding it off was lying motionless on the ground.
Gred lifted his axe and pulled off his eye patch, exposing the long scar that ran from his forehead down to his mouth.
“Maybe we can kill the bastard,” he said in a low voice.
“Not like we've got another choice,” Jess agreed.
“Wouldn't be so bad dying with you, pinkskin!”
“We might not die. Come on!”
The gnoll chief picked up speed, spinning his axe as he charged. The dwarf and human leaped to either side. Hogger's axe struck the wagon railing and shook the whole vehicle. With a clatter, one wheel came loose, and the wagon tipped sideways, spilling sacks of grain.
Hogger turned and swung at Jess. Jess grabbed a grain sack, which Hogger split cleanly down the middle. Wheat scattered everywhere. Even with the sack cushioning the blow, the impact left Jess's whole body numb. The monster was unbelievably stronger than a human!
Hogger was about to strike again when his body suddenly jerked. He turned, trying to claw at something, and spun in a circle. Gred was gripping his axe, its blade lodged in the armor on Hogger's back. Blood seeped out, bright as red ink in the torchlight.
“Can we actually kill him?”
Jess muttered to himself, picked up the cleaver from the ground, and staggered forward to stab Hogger hard in the lower back. But the cleaver's point wasn't sharp enough, and in his panic he hadn't put his full strength into it. After piercing the leather waist guard, the blade slipped on the creature's wet, coarse fur. It only sliced the skin without reaching the flesh!
Hogger reacted to the pain by turning and kicking Jess away. Then he shook his whole body, swinging Gred back and forth, and reached around with his free hand to seize the dwarf's braid.
“Yow!”
With a strange yell, Gred was yanked down, losing his axe in the process. Hogger moved oddly now with an axe buried in his back, but he was still fast and powerful enough.
He held Gred up in the air while reaching with his other hand for the axe he'd thrown aside. Gred bit down on his claw, making him growl in pain, but Hogger didn't let go.
Jess rubbed his kicked stomach, clenched his teeth, and slipped over to the two-handed logging axe. He picked it up, gripped it with both hands, took a running start, and screamed as he put all his remaining strength into a blow to Hogger's hind leg. The strike didn't sever the leg. It only hacked a bloody wound down to the bone.
Hogger grunted and fell. Gred finally broke free.
“Finish him while he's down!” Jess threw the axe to Gred. The dwarf shouted something in Dwarven, caught it in midair, and brought it down in a savage chop. But Hogger suddenly lifted his head and slammed it into Gred's chest, sending him flying onto the wagon. Gred landed squarely on it, muttered something incoherent, and seemed dazed. He tried several times to get up, only to slip on the rain and mud.
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Somehow, Hogger got up again, picked up the dwarf's weapon, and limped toward them with an axe in each hand, one large and one small.
All the heroic determination on Jess's face froze. So this was it. He was really going to die for a silver coin.
He grabbed a long staff from a nearby militiaman and tried to hold it in a blocking stance. Hogger moved his axes—and suddenly, in a puff of smoke and dust, turned into a sheep!
Polymorph?
Jess looked down the road. Through the pouring rain, a man in a purple robe was approaching on a white horse, his staff held high.
Gandalf... or An... Antonidas?
As the mage drew closer, Jess finally saw his face. It was Marin!
He shouted an incantation. The crystal at the tip of his staff began to shine with powerful arcane light as he chanted, lighting the road and the trees on both sides.
The gnolls still fighting looked toward the center and saw their leader turned into a sheep, grazing beside the road. Panic swept through them. Quite a few covered their eyes and fled into the forest.
“The polymorph won't last long, Mr. Jess Seso!” Marin called. “A few minutes, maybe only a few dozen seconds... That gnoll is highly resistant to my attack spells. Once the spell ends, I won't be able to handle him either.”
“Then we need to get out of here fast. There might be more gnolls on their way.” As Jess spoke, he remembered the guard the gnoll chief had knocked down. He pulled off the man's helmet. The guard was still breathing.
“Master Marin! Take him with us!”
Hearing Jess shout, Marin dismounted and examined the guard's bloodied face. He pointed east. “Put him on the horse. Head east as fast as you can. You'll reach a sentry post soon. I came from that direction.”
“Gred! We have to move!” Jess shouted to the still-dazed dwarf. He called over several men and the guards who could still move. Together, they took off the injured soldier's armor and lifted him onto the horse.
Everyone who could walk helped the wounded follow Marin's light spell away from the scene. With their chief turned into a sheep, the gnolls didn't dare pursue them in force. After walking quickly for more than ten minutes, the group saw the torches of the sentry post and finally slowed down.
The militiamen who couldn't walk any farther collapsed beside the fence. Jess tipped his head back, filled his chest with air, and took a long breath. Only then did he feel he could breathe properly again.
Raindrops pattered against his forehead, slowly helping him calm down.
The sentries came out to take Marin's white horse and called for help carrying and treating the wounded. With a moment to spare, Marin looked at Jess and the others. “I need to help these young men. You'd better get out of here too. There are wolves in the forest.”
“How did you know we were in danger?” Jess asked.
“I didn't. I was only looking for you. I asked the guards who were hiring workers about your name, and one of the laborers said you'd gone to Westfall. I thought you might be heading for Moonbrook to find a job, so I set out to persuade you to come back. I wasn't about to let a helper like you slip away. I never expected a gnoll attack, but it meant I happened to be there to help. Quite a coincidence.”
“I don't know how to thank you, Master. So... does that mean you're hiring me?”
Marin nodded. “Once you've recovered, come to the Mage Quarter and we'll discuss your pay. Same place as before, Mr. Seso. And about the red dragons, I still hope you won't hide what you think from me.”
“I understand.” Jess hadn't expected Marin to notice that he was holding something back. But he didn't intend to reveal everything about the Demon Soul so soon. He still needed to come up with a reasonable explanation.
The mage gradually disappeared into the rain. Gred lay sprawled on the ground and said quietly, “I can't hold my axe anymore, Jess.”
“We're safe now.” Jess looked toward the dark forest, still unable to lower his guard, though he was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open.
“I said I can't hold my axe anymore, damn it!” Gred shouted. Jess turned sharply at the outburst and saw that the dwarf's hands were still shaking.
Thinking back to the chaotic fight, Jess remembered Gred losing his axe several times, putting himself in danger each time.
But that didn't change his view that Gred was a fine warrior. Without the dwarf, neither Jess nor the rescued soldiers might have survived.
Gred spoke with a slur. “A human priest in Southshore told me those damned bats the trolls keep got poison into my brain. I might never be able to fly again. Gorsrum was right. I'll never ride a gryphon or throw a warhammer again. I'm useless now, Jess.”
Hearing this, Jess remembered the first time they'd met in Southshore. Gred had been floating motionless on the sea like a sack.
There had recently been a naval battle between the orcs and the Alliance off the Hillsbrad Foothills. All kinds of debris often washed toward the coast, so the people on the docks hadn't even realized that what they were seeing was a living person. They'd thought it was some waterlogged cargo.
Jess had been waiting near the docks for a ship carrying refugees to come ashore when he happened to see the bulging shape move and let out a cluster of bubbles. Only then had he realized that the tangled ropes were actually a dwarf's braids!
Jess had jumped straight into the water and dragged Gred ashore. To his surprise, the dwarf had punched and kicked him before bursting into uncontrollable tears.
Gred had later explained that he'd thought Jess was a shark, so he'd fought for his life, and that he'd cried because he'd thought he was going to die. Only now did Jess finally understand what had really happened that day.
The rain fell harder. Gred's messy hair clung to his scalp. He stared blankly at the distant firelight and stayed silent for a long time.
“That mage just agreed to take me as an apprentice,” Jess said. “A lot of scholars in the Mage Quarter know herbalism. Do you think any of them might be able to treat the poison?”
“Too late, brother.” Gred's voice was flat. “The poison's been gone for ages. What's made me useless now is the damage it left behind. It's permanent. There's no fixing it.”
“But thank you all the same, Jess. You've saved my life twice, and you're still thinking about how to heal me.”
“You saved my life too,” Jess said.
“A dwarf saving a human's hide is nothing unusual. The other way around? Now that's something.” Gred gave a short, amused snort. “Besides, a real Wildhammer warrior would never let himself and his brother die at the hands of some dog that walks on two legs.”
“A dog that chases people with an axe, no less.”
“Ha... cough! Cough!”