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This week's progress Moving on from where the sentries had been, the party emerged into another cave, empty, but with a path cleared through the stalacmites towards the far side.
To the west was an abandoned shaft filled with refuse and smelling appalling. To the north, the tunnel led onwards out of the cave, but a large boulder had been rolled into place, blocking the way. Enough had been chipped out of the side to allow a kobold-sized creature to pass through, but not one the size of an elf, or a dwarf.
Animir turned to Thorkil. "You still got the hammer you used for the spikes? Can you clear a bigger hole?" Thorkil looked dubious. "It'd make a lot of noise," he said, "and we'd have all his little mates" he jabbed a thumb at Akara, "down on us." Akara looked furious at being associated with the "wild" kobolds. This attracted the daring leader's attention to him.
"You'd fit through there," she said to him, "go through and scout." Akara's expression went from angry to alarmed. "Not alone," he said in his accented Common. "Might meet more kobolds!" Animir tried to persuade him; "Just a little way," she said. "No chance," was the response. Animir stared gloomily at the rock. "No way we can move that," she opined. Thorkil, however, being more familiar with stoneworking, thought they probably could, and indeed, between them, they did.
Cautiously moving down the passage beyond, they suddenly came face to face with four more kobolds, armed with the usual halfspears. There was a moment's pause. Then all four took to their heels, pelting around the corner and out of sight, yelling in Krultac which, unfortunately, none of the party understood. Shrugging, they carried on, only to be suddenly confronted by ten kobolds, six wielding halfspears, four with slings, and one, rather larger and better dressed, and armed with a well-made handaxe, at the back directing. Akara gulped.
"That
chief Ukri," he confided to Animir. She looked at him. "Who's
he?" she asked. "He chief," repeated the kobold unnecessarily.
"He hate me. Me brought up by dwarves to be chief of kobolds, make
kobolds be good, but me no good as leader. So kobolds exiled to lower
levels." He peered around with interest. "That where we are
I think."
It struck Animir, looking at him swinging his sling and gazing speculatively at the ranks of their foes, that this Akara was not the frightened refugee she'd first met outside Gonar town.
At that moment, Ukri bellowed something (sadly lost in the linguistic divide) and his warriors charged. Animir directed Akara to the back, where the fighters could keep the kobolds away from him, and all three backed a little into the cave entrance so as to prevent the kobolds flanking them. Then battle was joined!
With a crash, the first four fighting kobolds met the elf and dwarf. Standing side by side, long sword and short, Animir and Thorkil gave a good account of themselves, while from behind Akara's deadly slingstones took a wicked toll of the enemy missile rank. Ukri remained at the back, directing his forces, but as his kobolds fell, he began to look more and more worried and angry.
Finally, as the fourth spear-kobold fell, he charged forward, engaging Thorkil (probably due to his being a hated dwarf). The dwarvish warrior backed away, defending carefully against this potentially more dangerous foe as he assessed his strengths.
Meanwhile,
Animir had brought down her last opponent, and turned to slay the last
spear-kobold, who was threatening Thorkil's flank, before moving to attack
the last sling-kobold. This freed Thorkil to concentrate on Ukri, and
he pressed his advantage. The kobold leader was beaten back, and Thorkil
struck home to slay his foe.
The last slinger's morale failed at this point, and he turned to flee; too late - the elf warrior's sword sheared him almost in half to end the battle.