Scouting

	Linus crept slowly towards the decorative stone archway at the top of the north stair.  He was hardly a cat burglar, but he was moving methodically and in the shadows.  He stayed alert for any sign of movement nearby.  Jackalweres were more intelligent than normal jackals, but their vision was no better than his in the daylight.

	He paused in the shade of an abandoned house, and listened to the wind.  The gusts died down for a moment, and he strained his ears.

	His hand tightened on the grip of his sword.  There.  Movement.  On the other side of the abandoned building.  He very slowly drew the blade, using his finger to keep the metal from scraping on the sheathe on the way out.  The sound came back, louder now.  Linus sank into a fighting stance and waited.

	Once more, he heard the movement on the other side of the wall, then a scream.  It sounded human.

	Linus’ tactical instinct kicked in.  The noise could have been a lure, to draw him in.  It could have been an echo, from somewhere else in the village.  It could have been a magic spell, cast on him to disorient him.

	Or it could have been a person in pain, and that was all he needed to know, in the end.

	Linus charged around the edge of the building.  He saw a human child there, perhaps nine years of age, male, tanned and weather beaten.  The boy bled on the ground as he scrabbled away from a leering monster.  The monster looked up at the charging Paladin and snarled.  It was an ugly thing, four and a half feet tall and covered in matted red fur.  It had a dagger in one hand, and a bag of loot in the other.

	That made Linus’ task easier.  He reached out with his blade and stabbed the creature in the chest, and it dropped without a sound.

	Linus blinked in surprise.  That was a jackalwere?  He hadn’t known they were so fragile.  He knelt beside the boy and rested a hand on his shoulder.  “Hey, child, I can help,” he said soothingly.

	The kid slumped back on the ground, holding his stomach, and Linus quickly spent some of his divine reserve on the child.  The boy gasped as life flowed back into his body.  As he did, though, he threw one hand up to point down the road beside the house.  “Look out!” he shouted.

	Linus whipped around and felt his throat tighten.  There were more jackalweres charging in, over twenty.  It looked like a mudslide, rolling down the street towards him.

	Linus grabbed the boy’s shoulder and hefted him up.  “On your feet!  Move!” he snapped.  The boy scrambled for the bag and took off at a run for the temple.  Linus jogged backwards from the crowd until the boy was clear, then turned and ran after him.

	The boy ran, panting in the desert heat.  Linus jogged in his wake, casting a look over his shoulder every few feet.  The pack of jackalweres howled and gave chase.

	Linus cursed and turned.  He kept backing up slowly, and trying not to be encircled.  The first ones reached him and juked in and out of his range to lure him out of his guard.  Linus hefted his shield high and slashed at the first to come too close, slicing it in half.

	“Fragile beasts,” he muttered.  The others slowed, keeping their distance.  Suddenly, they all recoiled as a strange light emerged from the joints of Linus’ armor.  Linus gasped as he felt the power of a Haste spell surge through him.  He quickly looked around, but whomever had cast it was nowhere near.

	Still, he wasn’t going to question it.  He lashed out with three quick cuts, and three more jackalweres collapsed.

	The rest scattered, and Linus sprinted up to the boy.  He snatched the child up and hauled for the temple as fast as his enhanced muscle could take him.  A javelin impacted his back plate, and he nearly fell.  He kept his feet, put on a burst of speed to round a corner, and cut off his pursuit.  The metal sound of his armored boots slapping the flagstones sounded like an avalanche, but haste outweighed stealth now.

	A blast of light arced over his shoulder.  He snapped his head up and saw two of the adventurers from the temple firing bolts of energy over his shoulder from behind a toppled column.  He set the boy down, and they ran side by side to the barricade.

	“Linus Vorth,” he panted as soon as they were in range.

	“Harold Kinneman, this is Melisander,” the male adventurer said.  He tapped his smoking wand on the column and sent a chuck of rock flying off into the distance.  “I’m a war mage, she’s a conjuror.  Who’s the kid?”

	“Refugee,” Linus said.  He wiped sweat off of his brow and crouched behind the column.  “What’s your name, little man?”

	The boy was shaking, from shock or adrenaline.  “A-Alem,” he managed.

	“Can you run to the temple from here?” Linus asked.

	“Yes, s-sir,” he said.

	Linus patted his shoulder.  “Then go.  We’ll hold them.”  Alem took off at a stumbling run.  Linus turned back to the enemy Jackalweres, but they were running.  Linus slowly lowered his arms and listened, but there was no noise save the wind.

	“Not how a reconnoiter is supposed to go, Knight,” Harold remarked.  He spun his weapons and sheathed them in a leather wand holder on his belt.  “The hell happened out there?”

	“I was trying to get close to the edge and the damn things jumped the boy,” Linus reported.  He grabbed a few of his fallen javelins and shoved them in his Bag of Holding.  “We need to move.  Back to the temple or towards the edge, thin their numbers some more.”

	“What, you’re holding a vote?” Harold asked drily.

	“Do you have a better plan?” Linus snapped.

	Melisander hefted a Flametongue sword.  “Hell no, let’s hunt jackals.”

	“Good.”  Linus drew his bow and strung it again.  “It’ll buy the others some time.”  He sighed to himself as they took off walking.  “And to think, I just came out to take a look around.”


	Crocutter looked up from the laboratory table in mild surprise.  His essence clung to his anchors like oil; when one was destroyed, he grew stronger but his experiment backslid.  Something had just destroyed his anchor in the Spider’s Web base.  He felt his demonic connection to the Abyss grow.  For any demon other than him, it would have been pleasant.  For him, it was an unexpected displeasure.  Why were his anchors loosening?

	He walked over to his scrying orb and ran his hands over it.  One by one, pictures of his anchors swam and shifted before his eyes.  There was the dead drow that had served him unknowingly.  There was the small army of slavers that lived in that strange underground building.  Ah… there was the problem.  There was a team of men in black masks and uniforms, rubbing some amber-colored solution on his anchor in the slavers’ base.  He had wondered what was taking them so long.

	As it was, then.  The satyr was enough.  Crocutter brought up the image of Gillint ravishing one of his tempt-mates and enjoyed the view for a moment.  Then, his curiosity sated, he withdrew his hand, and let the image fade.  Back to work.  Making new anchors was his second priority now, after re-tuning his ritual.  He turned and stomped on his asymmetrical legs over to the sunken stone disk on the floor.  A few hundred human teeth lay scattered across the stone.  Crocutter lit a few more candles and set them at precise locations around the rim of the disk, throwing tiny shadows from the teeth.

	Crocutter slowly straightened up, noting where the shadows peaked.  He reached out and tapped a stick of chalk on the sites where the shadows reached, calculating a few things in his mind.  Crocutter was a truly unique demon, one who valued plotting and collecting allies and pawns, rather than the mindless brutality of most Abyssal beings.  Of the incalculable billions of demons, only a handful had such a mind, and they were almost all Lords.  Crocutter was no Demon Lord, but only for lack of interest in trying.

	The towering monster slowly rose, squinting at the candlelight.  He was so close.  The first ritual had worked perfectly, ripping a hole right through the veil of the planes!  It was his aim that had failed.  He had struck the Feywild, and done so beneath the dirt of the Prime.

	His next attempt would be more accurate.  The divinatory magic of the candles bled through the flickering lights, slowly shifting the shadows of the teeth.  The pattern emerged.  Crocutter memorized it for the next casting.  His work was inching towards completion.  Soon, Yeenoghu would feast, and Crocutter would ascend.