the battle ends

	Gillint looked in shock at the smoking ruin that used to be his balls, and then up at the charging Paladin.  Utter rage consumed the last scraps of his soul as he gave himself over entirely to his hate.

	He struggled to his feet and opened his mouth, and a column of black flames erupted from within.  Linus redirected his charge, springing up on the stone chair beside the table as the column passed through the space he had filled.  From there, he leaped to the table and lunged at Gillint, driving his blade up to the hilt in the Dance Lord’s chest.

	Gillint howled in agony as the pure, godly might of Linus’s weapon pierced his demonic hide.  To Linus’ unspoken horror, however, the Dance Lord was up in a flash.  He kicked hard, sending Linus flying away, and leaving his sword embedded in the satyr’s chest.

	The Dance Lord grabbed the sword and ripped it out, heedless of the shower of black-tainted blood that poured from the wound, and threw it.  Linus didn’t have time to react before it caught him in the stomach, sending him pitched back to the ground.  It didn’t penetrate his armor, by a miracle.  Linus’ fumbling fingers grabbed the hilt and managed to reassert control over the weapon as Gillint charged, wreathed in flames.

	Gillint suddenly stumbled as a missile zipped out of the fire-lit clearing and slammed into his sucking chest wound.  He groaned in pain as his injuries started overwhelming him, and looked around wildly for the attacker.  The holy water dart exploded, pouring into his wound and making him scream a sound Linus would take to the grave.

	Their sight settled on Vleria deKestral.  She stood beside the pile of dead Maw Demons she had been dealing with while Linus distracted the Dance Lord.  “Thus shall your pitiful life conclude, tainted creature,” she said softly.  “Broken and alone in a forest.”  She moved.

	Gillint didn’t even have time to raise his claws before she was on him.  Her staff lashed out again and again, slamming into his shoulders and legs, knocking him about.  Then Linus joined back in, wobbly-kneed but resolute.  GIllint lashed out with fiery claws and tore a ragged hole in deKestral’s robes and opened the skin underneath, but whatever divine touch the Seldarine had given her for the price of her soul kept her blood flowing clean and her focus clear.

	Linus grabbed his basket-hilted sword with both hands and drove it deep into Gillint’s lower back, impaling him through and through.  He invoked Torm with a whisper and poured the energy of two Smites into the blow, and Gillint blasted off of the sword to the ground on all fours, nearly rent in half.  Then six lightning fast stave strikes to the arms sent him tumbling flat, bleeding profusely.  He managed to look up and start to cast a spell when Linus’ armored boot slammed into the back of his skull, grinding his face into the dirt.  Linus brought his sword down through the back of Gillint’s neck, and finally cut Gillint’s head free of his body.

	deKestral’s lip twisted in disgust as the body tried to rise twice more before whatever Abyssal energy motivated it finally gave up.  With a crack of snapping bones, the satyr’s body suddenly shrank, spurting blood from a dozen holes, until there was little left of Gillint but a ragged pile of skin and sizzling black blood.

	Linus took a long, stabilizing breath and rested one hand on his own stomach.  He began pouring the pool of divine energy with which Torm had entrusted him into his own ravaged organs, knitting them closed.  However, he stopped almost at once as the Lady deKestral suddenly dropped to one knee, gasping roughly.

	“Here, let me help,” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder too.  “Be healed,” he said, and she was.

	deKestral slowly stood and watched in silence as Torm’s might closed her wounds and repaired her flesh.  “Thank you, Paladin,” she said.  She looked around at the carnage.  “What a disgusting place.”

	“We should see to the slaves,” Linus said.  He wiped blood off his face and grimaced.  “One second, though.”  He walked over to a water barrel at the outer edge of the camp while deKestral began untying the knots that held the slaves in the pen.  Linus cast Purify Food and Drink, and the water was suddenly sparkling clean.

	deKestral led the slaves over to the barrel one by one and let them drink, and when they had had their fill, Linus and the monk cleansed their own hands of the black blood of the Dance Lord.  Vleria dropped a few of her holy water bombs into the pit of hyenas to kill them quickly.  No sense in letting the gnoll taint spread.

	The slaves were a miserable lot.  They shuffled towards the barrel one at a time, their eyes blank and staring.  Linus felt his heart break at the sight of their bodies, all ravaged by assaults he didn’t even want to contemplate.  “What should we do with these poor wretches?” he asked deKestral under his breath.  “I don’t even think we can get them all back to the village alive.”

	deKestral looked them all over dispassionately.  “I agree.  Can you summon your mount and fly them there?”

	“One at a time, maybe,” Linus said doubtfully.  “But I can return with more men.”

	“Fine.”  deKestral began rooting around in the tempt’s food supply for something that wasn’t corrupted.  Some of the slaves were just skin and bones.


	Viri looked up sharply as the door swung open.  Linus walked in, smiling tiredly at his faun friend.  “Hello, Viri,” he said.

	“Linus!  What… what happened?” Viri exclaimed.  Linus was covered in mud, blood, and some noxious black substance from head to toe.  Pieces of his dreadlocks were missing, and his armor was cracked in places.

	“We followed Lumira,” Linus said.  He leaned on the door frame and yawned as the battle caught up with him.  “She led us to Gillint, who killed her, and tried to kill us, so we killed him and his entire tempt,” he said.  That was something of an oversimplification, but he wanted to spare her the details.  “He had taken some slaves… we freed them.  I’m just stopping in to make sure you’re all right before I go get help from the village.”

	Viri gaped.  “I… I feel cold inside,” she finally said.  “And you?  What happened to you?”

	Linus held up his washed, gauntleted hands.  “I’ll live.  Gillint’s minions nearly got me.”  He sighed and turned to go.  “I promise, Viri, when I’m done helping the slaves, I’ll come find you and we can catch up.  Until then, I’m afraid I have to go.”

	“Well… can I do anything?” Viri asked unhappily.

	Linus closed his eyes.  “I don’t want you to see what happened over there.  It’s not a sight for sane minds.”

	Viri slumped into a chair.  “And Lumira’s dead?”  She choked on tears for a moment.  “I should never have come back,” she cried.  “I ruined everything.”

	Linus turned and was kneeling before her in an instant, heedless of his damaged condition.  “No, no,” he said sternly.  “This is not your fault.  A demon from the Abyss is attacking this area.  This was inevitable, and it could have been worse.  You and Lumira were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

	“But I brought her here in the first place!” Viri sniffled.  “She’d be alive if I had just stayed home!  And she wouldn’t have started the revel in the town!”

	“True, but starting that revel and talking to Slicce were her choices, you didn’t make them for her,” Linus said.  He stood.  “I have to go rescue the slaves.  I promise, I’ll be back.”


	The Lady deKestral stood outside the slave pen, silently watching over the exhausted mortals on the ground.  All but two were human, and the other two were elves she didn’t recognize.  Those had the rags of trader uniforms and merchant clothes on.  No wonder the satyrs had run them ragged.  They were probably the wine merchants the satyrs had been robbing for the drink.

	Most just sat there, dead-eyed or crying.  A few seemed to be recovering, and were trying to organize the clean food and drink that Linus and Vleria had found.  All had scars of their imprisonments, some restrained to lashes and welts, others with cruel cuts and savaged genitals.  One had had her mouth sewn shut, crudely, with sinew cord.

	It was pure Abyss.  Cruelty and pain in every deliberate act.  Vleria privately marveled at how fast the Abyssal taint had manifested in the satyrs.  They were already a chaotic and hedonistic people, so the actual shift of their culture to evil wasn’t such a huge jump, but the speed of it would have chilled her had she still owned her own soul.

	When Linus returned, more horses in tow, she helped him get the slaves situated as the riders from the village sorted saddles and bridles.  After another ten minutes of getting the wounded ready to go and passing out blankets, they were off.


	Crocutter watched from his scrying orb in annoyed silence.  Another batch of anchors destroyed.  He was running out.

	He sighed in frustration and rose from the orb.  He could recalibrate, but it could take months.  He hardened his resolve and descended into the spawning pits.  Time to adopt less subtle methods, it seemed.


	By the time the party had returned to the village, the sun had fallen in earnest.  While the town watchmen took in the slaves and hurriedly cleared space for them in the garrison, deKestral and Linus retreated to her tower.  The two of them entered to see Viri pacing sullenly around the main room, and she looked up instantly when the pair of them walked in.

	She took one look at the two of them and quailed.  She had thought Linus’ injuries were bad.  deKestral’s whole body had scrapes and cuts and burns, and claws had shredded her robe.

	Both adventurers immediately began removing their armor and equipment, even as Viri barraged them with questions.  “So Gillint is dead?  And the whole tempt is gone?” Viri demanded.

	“Yes.”  Linus was so tired that he felt his vision swim as he managed to detach the last of his magic plate and put it in a pile by the door.  “For what it’s worth, my friend, I am very sorry it had to end this way.”

	“Did it?” Viri asked pointedly.

	Both Primes looked at her at once.  “Yes,” Linus said, dead-voiced, while deKestral simply nodded slowly.  “Yes, it really did.”  He stifled a yawn of stress and exhaustion.