MU2 Chapter 9:70 – Gnoll Way Around It

  Ugly laughter accompanied the twisting pain of the serrated bone polearm jutting from just below my sternum. I looked at it with an odd detachment; bits of skin and a loop of intestine were mixed with fibers from my poncho and a part of my shirt that had gotten pulled through. I grabbed the shaft, trying to prevent it from moving.

  How did I not notice one of them behind me? The edges of my vision were darkening and creeping inward. I knew I had to focus on getting free of this, but I couldn’t think. What was my next step?

  “Potion, Finn! Drink a potion! Don’t die, please don’t die!” the voice of an upset little girl filled my mind.

  Why was a little girl yelling at me? I wondered.

  I heard and felt a growl from my lap. “It’s me, Vessa! Just drink a potion!”

  Right! Vessa. I knew who that was. My hand flopped from the polearm sticking out of me. It was all I could see.

  “Potion!” Vessa screamed in my mind.

  It was enough to jolt me into action. I pulled a potion from my inventory, barely managing to pop the cork before drinking it. Pain flooded me as everything sharpened. I looked down at the carved bone attached to the wooden shaft. Serrated, and the teeth of it curved back towards the shaft. Like a fishing hook. “Oh, fuck,” I barked as the polearm was pulled back. I had just enough time to push Vessa onto the saddle before I was yanked out of the saddle.

  I landed on my side. The laughter of my assailant increased in pitch as they stepped over me, grabbing the barbed blade still sticking out from my abdomen. I grunted as they placed a foot on stomach and pulled the polearm through me, inch by fucking inch. I tried to scream, but the pain was too much for that. Looking up, I saw the ugliest fucking fur-covered son of a bitch I’d ever seen in my life.

  I could feel my insides repairing themselves because of the potion, even as the butt of the wooden length was leaving my body. Breathing fast, I curled up into a ball for a moment and closed my eyes. I can’t do this, it’s too much, I screamed inwardly. I let myself wallow in the fear, in the pain, and in the self-loathing.

  I blocked everything out, waiting for the next blow, the one that would end me. I could be free of this shitstorm.

  Then I heard the strange noise of Vessa scream-growling at something. I opened my eyes to look and the massive Gnoll was walking toward my horse… and toward a very pissed off baby dragon on its back.

  Uncurling, I got to my feet. “Hey asshole!” I screamed. “You forgot to kill me!”

  The gnoll, taller than any of the others I’d seen, stopped and turned around. Its mouth was open, a long black tongue lolling, as it laughed at me. The gnoll was wearing stitched-together animal skins with random pieces of rusted iron and painted bone armor that did not look ceremonial. I could see chips and gouges in the bone where it had protected the bastard.

  Suddenly, the massive gnoll was leaping toward me, polearm leveled at my head. I barely cast Phantom Wing in time to deflect the blow. Even deflecting it, the force behind it was enough to knock me off my feet. I rolled a couple of times and scrambled to get away and on my feet. There wasn’t enough mana to surge cast anything, and it was on me faster than I could pull out a potion.

  I dodged and blocked the best I could, but the gnoll was fast for his size and I was not a seasoned warrior by any means. Another blow was coming at my head, and I raised my magic buckler to block it, only for the gnoll to somehow reverse the blow and hook my ankle with the butt of the polearm.

  My breath exploded out of me as I landed on my back, stunned. The damn thing’s laughter was all I could hear.

  The massive creature raised its polearm as if to spear me through. I knew I was going to die.

  Wham!

  A charging horse knocked the gnoll off its feet. My horse.

  With what I could only imagine was a look of profound stupidity plastered on my face, I stared up at the horse only to see the head and wings of Vessa pop up over the neck of the mount.

  “Get up, Finn!” she thought at me.

  “How did… nevermind, thank you!” I said with a grin. I leaped to my feet and drank a mana potion. Now, with a full pool of magic juice, I felt ready to deal with the furry cockwomble. I couldn’t go toe-to-toe with it by any measure, but I’d be damned if I couldn’t break the gnoll with my magic.

  As the gnoll got to its feet, I looked at its name and level: Gnoll Warcaller Morcus, Level 35. This was going to take something special. I had to be smart about this, as I wouldn’t likely get another chance to down a mana potion. The Warcaller was too fast and too skilled for me to let it get within reach of me with its terrifying weapon.

  Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Harper killing a gnoll, while Arilyn was keeping the arrows, through spears, and spells off of us. Both too busy to help, so it was up to me to deal with this Morcus.

  Usually it takes two to keep something away from a third, but in this case it was just me and I was the thing that needed to be kept away from the gnoll. I needed a partner in this fight, so I surge-cast Mage Hand. Normally, the spell summoned a spectral hand that was, well, hand-sized. What burst into being was much bigger, bigger than me, with a spiked-knuckle band crackling with energy.

  And just in time, too, as the gnoll was rushing at me. The larger-than-normal spectral hand slapped the Warcaller, the blow knocking it off its feet. I whooped and moved to put my back to my friends.

  “Puny human has fancy tricks! You can’t face Morcus in combat. Morcus will crush your head and gnaw on your bones!” the Warcaller snarled at me.

  I felt full of power and adrenaline, heady with it. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself, Morcus?” I replied, giving the gnoll the finger. The surged Mage Hand mirrored the gesture, making me laugh. “Because you aren’t getting close to me or my bones!”

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  One thing I had noticed about the gnolls was that they didn’t have footwear. Which made sense, as the claws on their toes would be impeded and useless in a fight. If they were anything like the hyenas they resembled, the pads on their feet would likely give them better traction than boots ever would. But it also meant their feet had less protection.

  At my words, the gnoll howled in rage, a deep, guttural thing that was too loud and went on longer than it should have. Three answering howls came from the forest, and somewhere between twelve and sixteen more gnolls burst out of the trees at a dead run.

  “Fuck me,” I said, my jaw dropping. All of them were heading for me, and I was barely ready to handle the Warcaller. This Morcus must be their leader. I had seconds before the charging gnolls were on me. From my point of view, I could either try to take out the large group with Chain Lightning, but I would have to surge it based on their levels to be safe, as they ranged from twelve to sixteen.

  Or I could go after the Warcaller with everything I had. Yet the gnoll leader wasn’t moving. Morcus had planted the polearm butt into the ground and was standing there laughing that maniacal, hyena-like giggle.

  No time.

  The fastest gnoll, a level 14 Skirmisher, already had these short, hooked swords in his hands as he raced toward me. With a wicked grin, the gnoll ate up the distance with his long legs. And unshod feet. That grin turned to a shriek when the Ice Shard I cast pierced his right foot, nailing it to the ground momentarily. The gnoll face-planted and slid nearly to where I stood.

  But I had no chance to enjoy my lucky shot as the rest of the gnolls came roaring up. Right into the optimum range for the surged Chain Lightning blast that I had waiting for them. The first gnoll hit took the brunt of the damage and fell charred and twitching. But the rest had mixed results.

  Most fell to their hands and knees but were able to stand shakily. Three dropped their weapons and sprinted for the trees. I wondered if they knew how lucky they were, as I smashed down on the rest with the closed fist of the massive spectral hand.

  Bam, Bam, splat! Bam!

  Each impact pounded the gnolls and grasses into the ground, creating multiple craters to get all of them. Rocks and clumps of root-filled soil rained down as screams and howls of pain and fear filled the air. Soon followed by the spray of blood and other fluids. I could almost feel the sensation of smashing them, as if my hand was doing it.

  I kept going until all of them were broken, limbs smashed. Bloody bones sticking out at weird angles. Not one breathing. Blood dripped from the massive spectral hand, followed by bits of bone, fur, and skin. I looked at the expression of my will with growing horror at what I had done.

  The gnoll at my feet chose that moment to attack me, only to take the Reactive Flare from the Phantom Wing buckler right in the face, blinding him. Stumbling back, crying out in fear, he stumbled into a crater filled with the bodies of his broken comrades. Slipping and falling in the blood and viscera, the sobbing gnoll struggled blindly to get away from me.

  “Finn!” exclaimed Arilyn as she rode up. She looked uncertainly at the massive hand hovering over the carnage of crushed and broken gnolls, and the blinded one crying in terror as he crawled through what could only have been a nightmare landscape.

  I smiled tightly at her, barely taking my eyes off the escaping gnoll. “Is everything okay?” I asked neutrally.

  “Finn, don’t. Let the poor thing go,” she asked. “The rest are pulling back into the trees with their wounded. We’ve won.”

  Nodding, I looked over to where the Warcaller had been, now nowhere in sight. I glanced past Arilyn and her horse to see Vessa sitting on my mount’s back, reins in her mouth. Harper was looting the dead gnolls and retrieving her thrown knives; a couple were even stuck in nearby trees.

  Satisfied that everyone was okay, I continued to consider the pitiful creature making its way back to the trees. The fingers of the Mage Hand twitched, but I did nothing. The gnoll wasn’t a threat anymore. I’m not a monster, I thought.

  The craters in front of me said otherwise.

  Arilyn dismounted and walked over to me and shyly grasped my hand, saying nothing as we gazed over the field of death I had wrought.

  “Am I a monster, Arilyn?”

  “Not in my eyes, Finn. A monster would have killed that last gnoll skirmisher and called it necessary.” She squeezed my hand and leaned her head on my shoulder.

  “I’m not looking forward to looting those bodies.”

  Arilyn sighed. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “But I can help if you want, love.”

  It was messy work, and I kept stopping to eye the forest and check my map. Not that there was any sign that the Warband was coming back, but it was an ugly fight. We picked up as many of the strange short swords as we could find, and a total of 3 gold, 12 silver, and 90 copper coins. Not to mention three enchanted items of negligible value. I wouldn’t know whether they were worth the trouble until I identified them when we stopped for the night.

  My surged Mage Hand winked out before we were done, and I felt relief at its disappearance. I felt as though I had committed a war crime with it.

  “Ready to go, Finn? Heals?” shouted Harper from the horses.

  “Yep! I think so!” I yelled back. As we walked back to the horses, I pulled out a couple of clean rags, handing one to Arilyn.

  “That inventory you and the other Earthborn get is pretty useful,” she muttered, taking the cloth.

  I rubbed as much of the gore I had gotten on my hands off with the rag and gave her a curious look. “You’re the second person from here that’s mentioned that. Is that just an Earthborn thing?”

  “Not particularly,” she said with a shrug, wiping her own hands clean. “It’s just a constant, like it is with the Earthborn. Everyone born here can gain a class through hard work—and sometimes by accident—but getting a massive inventory based on strength? That is not the norm.”

  “Huh?” I said. “That sucks. It makes carrying around all the crap…. Oh, son of a bitch.” We had almost reached the horses when I looked at the saddlebags.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just realized that I really don’t need to be using the saddlebags. And there was a lot of stuff I had on GB that I could have been carrying.”

  Annoyed, I mounted Rocks and took the reins from Vessa.

  “Do you know what he’s talking about?” Arilyn asked Harper once she was in the saddle.

  Harper looked at me, eyes widening, before breaking out in laughter. “Oh, God, yes! Finn just figured out that all the stuff he left on his old horse, Gonna Bite It, or GB for short, could have been in his inventory! He suffered so much more than he needed to! Like, he was sooo hungover when we were walking down the mountain!”

  We rode for an hour before we came upon an odd sight in the road. Three gnolls waited for us, one being the Warcaller. Only the Warcaller was kneeling on the road, stripped of his armor and weapons. The color of his fur and his size—and the name and title that popped up when I examined him—were the only indications of who he was. One of the other gnolls was a Bone Shaman, and the other popped up as a Fang Captain.

  We were immediately alert, Harper scanning the forest for more gnolls. Arilyn started chanting something while checking behind us. We had stopped fifty feet away from the trio, and I stepped my horse forward a few steps.

  “What do you want?” I exclaimed loudly. “We’ve had enough fighting today.”

  “Crave pardon!”

  Surprisingly, it was Morcus, the Warcaller, who answered.

  “For what, attacking?” I asked. If that was it, maybe this could be a peaceful interaction.

  “No. For losing.,” replied the gnoll. “I must die or win my life. Pardon. You defeated me, so I must defeat you. No weapons, no magic. For the honor of my tribe.”

  “Finn,” Harper hissed. “We are surrounded by over fifty gnolls. Half that number are women and pups.”

  “So we can get away, right? The women and children aren’t fighters.”

  “Female gnolls are bigger, stronger, and more deadly than the males,” Arilyn interjected. “They are also the ones that enforce the laws of the tribe. We run, and they’ll kill us. The Warcaller will be killed, too.”

  The weight of all the eyes on us was almost too much for me. I couldn’t beat the gnoll in hand-to-hand combat, and everyone knew it. “If I lose, will they let you all go?”

  “I don’t know,” Arilyn said worriedly. “And it bothers me that I don’t know.”

  There was a clearing of throats as a massive gnoll woman in a dress with fine embroidery stepped out of the woods. “You must choose, Mage. Else you and your friends will die,” she growled.

  “How did you know my class?” I asked. “And is there a chance we could discuss this?”

  The gnoll shook her head. “Choose or die, Mage.”