The Small Folk set out in their little boats at the same time the Painted Men were hammering at the city walls. They moved quickly across the underground stream, the splash of their tiny paddles hardly audible in the heavy, subterranean air. Their landing was as quiet as their crossing. Their unshod feet were silent in the Catacomb’s stone passageways.
This was their natural element, for the Small Folk made the abode in underground deeps and could see in the dark as readily as any dwarf or goblin.
Small Folk feared and hated the larger humans, who they referred to as erldogh-dbruh-aldkor, meaning giant-devil-freaks in their unpronounceable tongue. Such feelings were well-founded, for their once flourishing culture had been almost exterminated by their full-sized foes. The surviving Small Folk had been driven into the most remote stretches of the western wilderness where even the Keltin tribes had not penetrated.
The shattered remains of their ancient forts and roads could be found scattered throughout the land. These were best avoided, for anyone encountering the Small Folk was likely to meet an unfortunate end.
Very few giant-devil-freaks had actually seen one of the Small Folk, but all had been raised on tales of their mischief and duplicity. They were notorious as thieves and tricksters. Their particular delight was the kidnapping of human children. Occasionally, they left one of their own runtish offspring in exchange.
Yet compelled by the call of the Stone, they had left from their hidden homes to join their traditional enemies in their attack on Gorgonholm.
They wore no armor, only simple tunics the color of leaves. Nor did they carry metal weapons, associating iron and bronze with the hated giant-devil-freaks. Their knives and axes were fashioned from flint, for the Small Folk were superlative workers of stone.
Their main weapon was the bow, quite small by normal measure, yet deadly in their skillful hands. Each of their tiny arrows, no larger than a common river reed, was tipped by a flinthead that had been knapped to a fantastic sharpness and then dipped in a most lethal poison.
The Small Folk were few in number, so they relied on stealth rather than strength, on agility rather than size, on cunning instead of ferocity. They now came slinking through the Catacombs, ready to emerge from the shadows and strike a deadly blow from behind. That, at least, was the plan as envisioned by Fergis when he sent them across the underground lake in little boats.
What actually occurred was altogether different.
The defenders of Old Shambles were by and large a crew of criminals, ne’er-do-wells, and degenerate reprobates, but they were intensely loyal to their decrepit neighborhoods. Though they slew one another for control of this particular corner or that stretch of street, all such enmity was forgotten when their turf was threatened by an external foe.
With invasion imminent, the leaders had gathered at the infamous Drowned Rat tavern for a conference of war. Corner boys and whoremasters, cutpurses and counterfeiters, forgers, and chiselers crowded into a narrow upper room to lay their plans. Two masked stranglers represented The Brethren. That group’s mysterious leader, known only as The Patron, was not in attendance, though it was rumored he owned the Drowned Rat and was ensconced somewhere on the premises.
The most important attendees, however, were the smugglers, many of whom were intimately familiar with the secret windings of the Catacombs. Their smuggling route, they realized, was a weak point, an exposed rear entrance to the city—one of which their Keltin enemy was well aware.
It was agreed, therefore, that the Shamblers must take upon themselves the duty of guarding this open door. They had, in times of peace, been happy to supply the Keltins with weapons, but they would not allow those same weapons to be turned on their city. They had to protect their business interests.
Thus, as the Small Folk advanced though the dripping limestone passages, they found their way blocked by a stout barricade manned by corner boys and cutpurses. Superior archers, the Small Folk used their small, fast bows to shoot the Shamblers off this barrier. Within moments, they lay writhing on the floor, white froth bubbling from their slack mouths.
The Shamblers’ sacrifice, however, was not in vain. Before he died, their leader, a pock-marked rapscallion known as Duckie, blew a whistle, warning his confederates to the presence of the foe. Thieves and murderers now came pouring from branching passages and adjacent chambers to meet the Small Folk hand to hand, steel daggers against flint knives, crossbow bolts versus poisoned arrows.
The fight quickly shifted into the network of smaller tunnels diverging from the main passageway. In such close confines, the Small Folk enjoyed a decided advantage over their larger opponents. The little men were tough, fast, and determined. They ran in close, slashing at throat, stomach, and groin, severing hamstrings, opening veins and arteries with nimble flicks of their wrists. Their small knives flensed meat from bone with remarkable ease. The slightest scratch of their diminutive arrows brought agonizing death.
The Small Folk pushed forward. One little warrior squared off with a huge Brethren enforcer. He ducked low and cut the tendon at the latter’s heel. As the big man toppled forward, he grasped his diminutive opponent by the neck and dragged him down as well. The flint knife plunged again and again while the Shambler smashed the small warrior’s skull on the tunnel’s hard stone floor. This continued until both lay dead.
Corner boys, many no larger than their foes, were eager to prove their reckless courage. Leaping forward, they tackled the invaders and carried them to the ground. In a lethal variation of a boyhood tussle, the interlocked enemies rolled on the floor, biting, scratching, gouging at eyes.
The fighting grew even more confused as the passages became strewn with dead and wounded. Both sides tripped over the bodies of their comrades, slipped in pools of blood. Stone-tipped spears were thrust into bearded faces, iron swords clove child-sized skulls. Big and small screamed and died.
The Small Folk were relentless adversaries. Despite their terrible losses, they drove forward, stepping heedlessly over their own dead in their lust to slay the living, their archers sending a torrent of envenomed shafts into the close-packed ranks of the cityfolk. A renowned captain of thieves died on his feet, an arrow protruding from his throat. A veteran smuggler, hit in the arm, struggled briefly against the poison that set his blood aflame. Then he slumped, froth rolling from his lips.
The Shamblers were, by degrees, driven back. Merciless killers though they were, the urban criminals were unused to combat with an armed and resisting foe. To their credit, they did not rout, but neither could they stand against the warriors of the Small Folk. One step at a time, they were forced to retreat.
High in the sky above Gorgonholm, the obedient demons of the city’s wizards did battle with the airy sprites of the Keltin shamans. The fighting was unwitnessed by human eyes, for it did not take place entirely on the mortal plane. If it had, the citizens would have seen a cascade of ungodly body parts falling from the heavens—torn fragments of leathery wings, arms sporting too many elbows, and a disturbing assortment of scales, talons, barbs, hooks, tentacles, and fangs.
The shamanistic spirits attacked in two separate formations. High above, the big, slow-moving elementals prepared to bombard the city with earthquake, hailstones, firestorm, and gale. Below them, the smaller, faster sprites swooped in—woodland nymphs, sloe-eyed sylphs, fire breathing salamanders, fairies, pixies, and nixies. These were to shield the vulnerable elementals from the counterattack of the city’s infernal legions.
The Demon Corps of Gorgonholm did not fail to respond. They rose from their roosts in the attic of the spell-casters’ guildhall, ready to intercept the attackers and send them spinning into the ethereal void. Count Borgo, an archfiend specializing in military science, led the mixed flock of chthonic entities. They spiraled upward, their wings pounding as they strove for altitude.
Borgo’s demons were still flapping skyward when the sprites, attacking from out of the moonlight, stuck with the speed and fury of a lightning bolt. They tore through the infernal formation, sending imps cartwheeling through space, tearing the wings from black-beaked lampads, rending the soft flesh of succubi.
Count Borgo waxed wroth at this effrontery, executed a perfect turning roll, and ripped the guts from an unsuspecting pixie. He banked hard, climbed, reversed direction. Below him a kelpie was angling for attack position above a small devilkin in the shape of a flying toad. The kelpie never saw him coming. Borgo sliced through its graceful equine form just as a knife would cleave soft bread.
The archfiend laughed as only a demon can laugh while the kelpie’s shredded remains fluttered earthward. His laughter ceased, however, when three sylphs suddenly appeared behind him. They were faster and more agile than the demon-lord, and their teeth were very sharp.
The Count dove hard and straight toward the ground, then pulled into a steep climb, using the momentum of the dive to bring himself to near vertical. He shot by the astonished sylphs, who were happy to pursue less formidable prey.
The higher altitude gave Borgo a better look at the battle. Below him, sprites and demons twisted, zig-zagged, and jinked. He saw a witch’s familiar, a black rabbit named Sacke-and-Sugar, burned to ash by a pair of thori—tiny salamanders no doubt spawned by one of the huge fire elementals. A cacodemon pulled the legs from a nixie as if plucking fruit from a tree. An incubus, spinning out of control on one wing, smashed headlong into a brick chimney.
In fact, none of the sprites or demons destroyed in the fighting was actually dead, since such creatures were not exactly alive, at least not in the normal meaning of the word. Slain demons were returned to the bleak ethereal wasteland from which they had been summoned. Sprites might find themselves reborn as newly sprouted seeds, fledgling chickadees, or fingerling trout.
Borgo felt a familiar tingling in the row of long spikes projecting from his backbone—danger was approaching. He was aghast to discover, high above him, the heavy, slow-moving elementals silhouetted against the moonlit clouds. This was a distressing development, for Borgo and his minions were obligated by infernal pact to defend the city. The punishment would be agonizing if they failed to uphold their commitment.
Yet, there was nothing he could do. The battle had carried the demon host down to house-top level. There was no way to stop the attack.
The elementals reached their assigned targets and released the full fury of their powers. Cyclonic winds buffeted the tall towers so that they swayed like trees in a heavy breeze. The river rose from its banks as if intending to swallow the city’s entire western wall. The ground began to shake so that the ancient houses and strong stone gates must crumble to dust. The cathedral was wrapped in a shroud of fire.
Certainly, this would have been the end of Gorgonholm had its wizards not employed all their skills to guard it against occult attack. Knowing they must face the earth magic of Keltin shamans, they had put in place the most astounding psychic shields to foil the elemental magic. Even sorcerers sometimes get it right.
So, the river lashed at the western wall, sweeping away most of the boats and docks, but the quayside buildings remained untouched. Winds howled like the souls of the damned, but no towers fell. The earth juddered, but the houses and gates, though hard shaken, were not destroyed. The cathedral was indeed wrapped in fire, yet it did not burn.
Count Borgo took stock. He was pleased with what he saw. His demons were fighting well, and the tide of battle was turning in his favor. He watched a pair of pit-fiends chase down and consume a hapless maenad. A nighthag clutched a wood nymph in her deadly embrace.
Borgo chortled as he watched an eight-legged bog-demon chase a swarm of fays through the buttresses of the cathedral. It seemed for a moment that they must escape, but then an ill-advised turn caused them to smash headlong into a stained-glass window, reducing the whole swarm to a smear of greasy goo.
The sprites were being driven from the sky.
But then, the demon-lord was once again filled with dread, for a second flight of elementals followed close behind the first. The power of the Gorgonholm’s magicians, he knew, had its limits. Though they had successfully foiled the attack of the first flight, their magical shields must now be exhausted. The city lay completely open to this second wave.
Just as destruction seemed inevitable, a squadron of red-crested furies, flying in wedge formation, tore into the lumbering elementals from below. Armed with large, hooked beaks and flesh-rending talons, furies were among the most determined of non-corporeal entities. Once a fury latched on, it did not let go.
Yet the elementals were far from defenseless. Even as a trio of furies was ripping at its face, a great fire spirit spat an incandescent cloud that set their feathers aflame. A wind spirit puffed its flabby cheeks and sent more furies tumbling helplessly across the sky.
Count Borgo saw all this, and the anger grew huge within him. He summoned the surviving imps and night-hags, familiars and cacodemons, and sped to the attack. The slow-witted elementals, their attention focused on the furies, were taken unawares. Gashed and punctured, they deflated like ruptured wineskins and sank to the ground.
Mighty though he was, Borgo’s powers were by now fully depleted. His fangs were blunt and his talons were dull. His tail-spike had snapped off in the body of a dyad. He would do no more fighting this day.
His force of infernal minions was woefully reduced and exhausted, but they had fulfilled their part of the bargain. The city had survived.
Great, then, was his distress when he saw a third flight of elementals approaching from the west.