Contrary to Thurmond’s fondest wishes, neither Bart nor his men were hung. After the incident in the Blind Pig, they were hauled before the local baron for judgment. The baron, a light-minded individual, took one look at Bart’s white belt and decided in his favor. Why should he care what a fellow knight did to peasants?
Noble visitors were rare in these parts, and the baron was eager for worthy company. Bart was invited to his castle, where they feasted and hunted together in grand style. When the baron returned their horses, arms, and equipment, Bart and company rode north and therefore missed the great Battle of Gorgonholm.
Drax was not so fortunate. His fight with Thurmond left him with a fractured spine that deprived him the use of his legs. Lying in agony, he figured it would not be long before the Adventurers returned to finish him off. With a supreme effort he dragged himself from the bath house with his hands. He crossed a plowed field, and hid in a grove of trees.
In his pouch, he carried the final healing potion he had stolen from Sarah’s pannier. If it could heal his broken back, he might still have a chance. Lady Fortune, however, was not smiling on Drax that day, for that potion was the one Malachai had identified as a deadly poison. Within moments of consuming it, he was seized by sharp, wrenching cramps, as if a ferret was clawing its way from his stomach. He died in writhing agony just before dawn.
Many villages and farmsteads were devastated during the dark period known as The Troubles, the time of the Black Stone’s mephitic influence, but no group suffered such catastrophic losses as the Gray Friars. The monastic brothers were mostly annihilated. Many fell in the battle between the cellarer and the choir master, more were slain by the rabble that followed Lord Ubo.
The few Grays who had managed to run away and hide now came slinking back, hoping to rebuild their shattered monastery. Unfortunately, a new menace threatened their good intentions. Their powerful rival, the Blue Friars, always alert for opportunities to increase their wealth and influence, saw the weakness of the Grays and sought to claim the monastery with its lucrative grist mill for themselves.
Desperate, the Grays sent word of their plight to other Gray Friar monasteries, begging for reinforcement. They also began to recruit from among the many men left broken and wandering by the recent turmoil. Cob answered their call.
Roscoe was keen to have the Gascar archers remain at Grimsgard as his men-at-arms. Wat and Tuck were eager to do so, but Cob required a more spiritual environment. He found it at the monastery and insisted that his two companions join him there. Reluctantly, they tagged along.
The Grays were naturally eager to employ three stalwart archers to man their walls. In time, Cob realized that his true calling was among this clerical brotherhood. He took the required vows and donned the gray robe. Wat and Tuck remained as his side, but were never as driven by religious fervor and refused to take the cowl.
Fortunately, the dispute between the Blues and the Grays was settled without bloodshed when the earl declared that the latter would retain its property.
Sheriff Brandon survived the battle unscathed, though he did not kill seven Keltin chieftains nor eat seven eggs. He continued his efforts to re-establish order in the city of Gorgonholm. One of his early tasks was to rebuild his constabulary, many of whom had disappeared during the troubles or had been slain in the war. He was especially pleased to hire nine tough, weapon-trained men who had, until recently, served as Royal Road Guards.
The sheriff was, of course, legally obligated to arrest the Road Guards, who had, after all, deserted their posts. But he really needed men, so their transgressions were overlooked.
Pons and his followers were, in turn, delighted to swap the king’s badge for a surcoat emblazoned with the arms of the city. There would be no more long, painful days on horseback or nights on the cold, wet ground. There would be good food, strong drink, and the company of willing ladies.
Most importantly, there would be abundant opportunity to extort gold from vulnerable citizens.
The corner boy Cheese escaped the great deluge in the Catacombs that swept so many Shamblers to their deaths. He and his crew, at the moment of the flood, had been on the surface, seeking a hidden passage by which he might descend behind the ranks of the Small Folk. This tactic, the sudden attack from behind, had served him well in his previous battle between Greens and Blues. Indeed, it became his preferred method throughout his criminal career. Gaining a reputation as a deft murderer, he was initiated into the Brethren, who needed to restore a membership depleted by wartime losses. He rose rapidly through the ranks, becoming in short order one of their most dreaded assassins. His lustrous career was brought to an abrupt halt by someone even more vicious and conniving than himself.
Some of the Small Folk survived the flood as well. A few made their way to the surface, where they were chased down and killed by the citizenry. A larger group took shelter in an isolated air pocket and somehow escaped the cascading water. Lost and confused, they wandered deeper and deeper into the Catacombs’ inky depths, where they eventually established their own tiny kingdom. Creeping forth under cover of night, they stole food, tools, and needed supplies from the houses far above. They also abducted women to serve as their wives.
The Small Folk quickly adapted to life in their subterranean world, consuming mushrooms, molds, tiny white lizards, and blind fish, so that after a while, they no longer required the resources of the erldogh-dbruh-aldkor, the giant-devil-freaks, and stopped coming to the surface altogether. Their eyes grew dim, and their skin became almost translucent. They stopped wearing clothes, and, after many generations, lost the use of tools. Some took to the many underground lakes and rivers and became fish-like in shape and appearence.
Zeb the Prophet and his followers were slaughtered when the Small Folk stormed into their subterraean hideout. Unarmed and panic-stricken, the starving Shamblers could do nothing but huddle together and die. Those few surviving the poisoned arrows and flint knives were carried into oblivion by the great flood of water that came surging down from the streets above.
The woman called Ellen and her two children were the only surviviors of the horrendous onslaught. Having climbed on a rocky shelf above the eye-level of the little men, they remained unseen while their comrades were butchered. They were also slightly above the water level of the flood.
Her health shattered by both starvation and shock, poor Ellen did not live long after her ordeal. Her children, however, displaying the resiliance of youth, survived. Thoroughly inculcated with Zeb’s teachings, they returned to the surface where they proclaimed his beliefs to whomever would listen.
Zeb’s philosophies proved remarkably popular with the city’s poor, and siblings soon found themselves the leaders of a devoted following. The older of the two, a boy named Glitch, succumbed within the year, following a dinner of rancid eels. His sister Warla continued to lead an ever increasing group of true believers until she was arrested by the church, convicted of heresy, and hanged on the gallows at City Keep.
Fergis mac Brude, High King of the Keltins, made good on his resolution to do away with his brother Oengus, and lucky for him he did, for Oengus had a plot of his own. Fergis beat him to it by only one day.
Following the defeat of the Keltin host, Fergis’s tenure as Ard Righ had become extremely tenuous. The clans had suffered terrible losses, and the lesser kings were looking for someone to blame. It was not difficult for Oengus to draw several of them into a compact to remove his troublesome younger brother and appoint himself High King. Hamish Wolf-Eye, the notoriously treacherous chief of the Quiet Belly clan, had been especially willing.
Hamish had a shaman with unparalleled skill in bone magic. He could blast someone’s luck by playing a flute made from the shin bone of a twelve-year-old virgin. He could render a warrior invulnerable to injury by beating him senseless with the rib bone of a gigantic cave bear. Most dramatically, he could send inevitable and irreversible death by merely pointing at his victim with a long, narrow bone, the exact origin of which was a closely guarded secret.
Fergis, of course, had his own personal shamans. Those who had predicted a great victory over the laigi were sewn into the skins of cows and flung into a lake. The more reliable ones were allowed to live. These now informed him of his brother’s plot, though their information came mostly from human rather than occult sources.
The Ard Righ wasted no time. Hamish Wolf-Eye was slain by Fergis’s spearmen early in the morning as he squatted in a privy. Oengus was caught asleep and dragged from his bed. Forced to kneel before his brother, he refused to beg for his life. This suited Fergis, who had him beheaded on the spot.
The deaths of these enemies did not, however, solve Fergis’s problems. Many clan chiefs remained hostile. More pressing, Oengus’s bone-shooter was still at large, eager to avenge the murder of his clan chief.
Malachai fully intended to wreak vengeance on the hapless Adventurers for the burning of his workshop, but he became so involved with the enjoyment of his newly enhanced powers that it kept slipping his mind. Even the best among us, alas, can be given to procrastination.
With the power of the Black Stone checked, Asmodeus was once again able to devote himself to his favorite pastime—enjoying himself. He decided on a whole new wardrobe, so skeletal fingers were kept busy measuring, cutting, and sewing. His demonic minions were sent to scour ethereal worlds for new and exotic shades of purple. He also spent time wandering in his garden, exploring the subtle flavors of the fruits and pungent fragrances of the flowers.
One of his chief pleasures was spending time with his new pet. The troll hand proved to be quite affectionate, rubbing against his legs as they strolled among the flowers, climbing into his lap for a cuddle. At other times it could be quite a rascal, climbing the curtains and jumping out to grab the bony ankles of the servants. It spent its days romping about the mansion and its nights curled upon a velvet cushion.