Hells' Bells
Nestled as she was in the feathers of Raphane's Owlbear shape, Karlach might well have felt safe, were it not for the unmistakable sensation of freefall in her gut. They had been falling for too long, and Karlach worried that Raphane might not survive this fall, even wild shaped.
That was when the Owlbear shape uncurled around Karlach; being able to see where she was going was not reassuring. The chasm into which they were falling was deep, but not so deep that Karlach couldn't see the bottom, and it was fast hurtling toward her. Her stomach lurched at a sudden deceleration. Her wide eyes swept left and right; broad wings were outstretched on either side, buffeted by intense winds.
The giant eagle form that Raphane had shifted to was still flying fast when it completed its descent. Talons made contact with the ground first and then Karlach found herself thrown free when Raphane pitched forward and tumbled with the momentum of the landing.
Karlach looked for Raphane as she stood back up. The giant eagle shape stumbled a couple steps before resolving back into the shape of the green skinned tiefling, who stumbled dizzily for another step before half sitting and half falling on a nearby rock.
"Bit of a rough landing, darling," commented Karlach as she walked over to crouch down in front of Raphane. "Are you alright?"
"Bit dizzy, bit of a headache," Raphane admitted. She uncapped her waterskin and, with a mumbled cantrip, a bit of liquid snaked out to dampen a cloth which the druid then used to wipe orthon blood from around her mouth. She capped the waterskin before focusing on Karlach, "Are you okay?"
"All fired up with nothing to hit. Otherwise fantastic," said Karlach. Her eyes gleamed eagerly. Fire vented steadily from her shoulder vents and heat distorted her entire outline. Her engine hummed loudly enough that Raphane could hear it without even putting her ear to the red tieflings's chest. The druid didn't need to be told that the berserker had partaken of a soul coin.
A frown flickered across Raphane's face. This was perhaps the one aspect of Karlach that she had difficulty accepting; but even the druid would admit this wasn't the first time it had saved her life or the lives of others.
For her part, a deeper frown settled on Karlach's face as she caressed a hand along Raphane's broken left horn. "Gods, look what they did to you. Sorry I couldn't stop them."
"Don't fuss," said Raphane, clasping her fingers around Karlach's hand, "Children get hurt worse on playgrounds. Although I will grant that it was a rude way to wake up."
"Can you grow it back? Magically, I mean?"
Raphane shook her head, "If I could, I would have asked you if you wanted yours back." She tapped a finger against the broken end of Karlach's right horn.
"And spoil my look?" Karlach asked with a saucy toss of her hair, "Not likely."
Raphane grinned then sighed, "Before we get lost in the repartee," she looked around, "And end up a sweaty, moaning, naked, writhing mess on top of these rocks…"
"I do like a good mess," Karlach interjected.
"Maybe we should try to figure out just where in the hells we are this time," Raphane finished the thought.
"Spoilsport," Karlach teased. She looked up toward the hole at the top of the cavern through which they had fallen.
The red sky of Avernus was only dimly visible through it. The rock walls of the cavern itself were tall and arched high overhead toward the top. At one end were the weathered remnants of a towering stone edifice, preceded by a dozen columns in varying states of disrepair and what looked to be the remnants of a statue, long since crumbled. In the other direction the cave stretched beyond sight. The ground of the cavern was worn almost completely smooth in some places, indicating the former passages of molten rivers, broken and uneven in others with occasional rocky spurs, columns and outcroppings. Debris from the blast and subsequent collapse caused by the orthons' bombs had landed all about them, as had some chunks of metal and mystery meat from the dead orthon.
"I might be able to wild shape into something else that can fly up there to get our packs from the cave we camped in last night," suggested Raphane, "If it didn't collapse as well."
"Better not," said Karlach. "That orthon might be keeping watch up there. Or worse, bringing in the rest of her squad to make sure the job's done. She isn't getting paid without proof. That proof being us, whole or in pieces. I don't trust our luck enough to hope that she thinks we're," Karlach was distracted by a series of distant yipping sounds. First one, then several more, until building into a sustained chorus. "Dead," she finished the sentence. SL
Multitudes of glowing eyes emerged from holes in the cavern walls, spilling out dozens of tiny, scaled figures. Red light glinted off their arrowheads, spears, daggers and javelins.
"Kobolds," Karlach announced, looking around and drawing her sword.
Raphane smiled brightly, "And just when you were complaining about having nothing left to hit. Who says we aren't lucky?"
Karlach smirked down at Raphane and held out a hand for her, "Ready for the next dance, darling?"
"Always, sweetheart," said Raphane, before taking Karlach's hand and being pulled promptly to her feet.
Karlach pointed toward the stone edifice, "Let's go that way. Looks like it was carved with something taller than kobolds in mind. Might even lead to a way out."
"Keep your eyes facing forward," said Raphane, readying her shield and staff, "Do not look back."
"Got it," said Karlach.
It didn't take the kobolds long to notice the two tieflings; Karlach and Raphane were soon ducking javelins, arrows and sling-thrown rocks as they made their dash for the edifice.
Broad slashes of Karlach's greatsword cleared the way forward of the few skirmishing kobolds bold enough to engage them directly, easily cleaving through two or three kobolds per swing owing to a combination of the magically enchanted blade, Karlach's own strength and the extra juice from the soul coin she had consumed earlier.
Although she was facing forward, Karlach nonetheless heard the discharge of electricity, the yips of charred and startled kobolds and the echo of thunder that followed. The lightning blast had bought the tieflings precious seconds, not only did having a number of their comrades reduced to charred remains give some of the kobolds a moment's pause but, more decisively, the bright flash blinded their darkness-adjusted eyes.
Firebolts shot from the windows of the stone edifice as Karlach and Raphane drew closer, briefly illuminating their casters as they issued forth, robed kobolds wearing hoods or ornamental head dresses.
The few firebolts to hit did practically nothing to the tieflings, owing to a combination of inherited resistance to fire and magically enchanted armor. By the time Karlach and Raphane made it to the columns in front of the edifice, the kobold spellcasters had recognized they weren't slowing the threat down and began to hurl proper fireballs and scorching rays instead, encouraging the two tieflings to take cover behind a pair of columns even as the kobolds behind them were getting closer, continuing to fling arrows and javelins. Raphane glared in their direction and shouted her next spell. Rather than the isolated lightning strikes the harassing kobolds had come to expect, they were instead surprised when the clouds that suddenly billowed above them imparted an icy chill utterly foreign to Avernus before pummeling them with bonebreaking hailstones or impaling them with shards of ice.
While the kobolds in the rear were reeling from the first ice storm of their afterlives, Raphane turned on the kobold spellcasters. A lightning bolt blasted one of the windows on the edifice from which the fire spells had been cast, electrocuting one of the spellcasters and giving the others something to think about.
Karlach didn't need to be told that this was her opportunity. The greatsword had been returned to its baldric and she instead held the Orphic hammer as she charged the edifice and delivered a thunderous strike that smashed the gates open.
There were ten kobolds armored in mail braced at the gate's threshold, not including the two who had been smashed against the walls when Karlach bashed the gate doors open, and maybe a dozen more coming down the stairs on either side of the hall with more still on a second level balcony nocking arrows and lining up their shots; not the easiest thing to do because, despite being a large target, Karlach's movements were wild and unpredictable as she crashed into the kobold defenders, sending them flying with hammer strikes while the kicks, stomps and other blows she delivered with her free fist and knees proved nearly as destructive.
Behind the rampaging berserker, Raphane summoned a gust of wind to blast back the yipping kobolds that were nearly on her and Karlach's collective tail before calling up a jagged eruption of rock to block the gates.
Karlach had already cleared out the first line of defenders and was fast going up the stairs on the left side of the hall by the time Raphane turned around. The druid raised her shield to block incoming arrows and murmured the words of the shillelagh cantrip, which sheathed her staff in glowing orange energies, while she made way for the stairs on the right.
The defenders on the second level, archers who suddenly found themselves the front line, fell even faster than those at the entrance, sandwiched unenviably between Karlach and Raphane, they were soon beaten down by hammer, staff or shield blow.
A door at the end of the room opened and a trio of robed kobolds stepped out, the same ones who had been flinging spells out the windows during the tieflings' advance on the edifice. Their eyes widened with surprise to see Karlach and Raphane still alive but they didn't have to be surprised for long. Karlach promptly kicked the first one into the second one, making them easy targets for Raphane to finish off. The third one raised its hands to unleash a torrent of flame on Karlach, which proved utterly ineffective in stopping the towering tiefling from grabbing him by the neck and flinging him bodily into the hall, where he collided into a column with a crunch before falling down to the first floor.
With the last Kobold fallen, a wickedly grinning Karlach grabbed a surprised Raphane off the floor with one arm for a quick snog before she threw her head back and laughed. "Gods, what a rush!" The berserker was breathing heavily and her eyes were wide with exhilaration.
"Mmm," Raphane answered, "You'd better put me down unless you want to carry me out of here. I'm starting to get a little too comfortable."
"As you wish, darling," said Karlach before setting the druid down.
"Well, I didn't say I'd mind."
"You know," Karlach continued, "if they don't start putting up more of a fight, I'm going to start feeling guilty for the thrashing we're giving them."
Raphane looked around at the twenty or so bodies in the room, "I suppose it's a little late to open a dialog, isn't it?"
"Best not to waste too much thought on it," said Karlach, "nearly everyone and everything down here was and is some sort of rotten bastard, which is how it got here in the first place. With some exceptions of course," said Karlach, smiling as she caressed Raphane's chin but then suddenly stopping when she heard voices that seemed to be coming from the walls.
Raphane tried to concentrate but couldn't make out any words. "Is that, singing?" she asked.
Karlach nodded. "Yup. And I know enough Draconian to tell you that they are going to do horrible things to our nethers if they catch us and they're not afraid to drown us in their own blood to do it." Karlach grinned, "So there goes any guilt I might have felt for what we're about to do to these fuckers. Let's go!"
In the space of a blink, Karlach had kicked open the door at the end of the entry hall and charged through. There was a smaller hallway on the other side, its walls were lined with doors and the empty frames of paintings long rotted away. A group of kobolds at the far end of the hall were brandishing spears and shouting jeering yips. Raphane nearly shouted out a warning to Karlach when she saw the multitude of traps between the door and the end of the hall but Karlach was already adroitly hopscotching between them.
One of the kobolds shouted something that sounded dismayed and pulled his spear back to throw it. Raphane lashed out with a conjured vine whip, which wrapped around the kobold, before giving it a yank, pulling the kobold facefirst onto one of the traps he had hoped to catch Karlach in, which promptly snapped shut around his neck. Karlach jumped over the screaming kobold on her way to bash the other kobolds, who were momentarily distracted by the fate of their fellow.
Karlach threw a look over her shoulder toward Raphane down the trapped corridor. "Coming, darling?"
Raphane smirked, "Just get out of the way, toastytoes. I'll handle the traps my way."
"Lumberfoot," Karlach teased Raphane before disappearing around the corner, followed almost immediately by the sounds of more kobold bashing.
Karlach took in the new room she had found herself in once the kobolds in front of her were dealt with. The door she had arrived through had let out onto a second level gallery overlooking an audience chamber. The construction of the place, much like the previous rooms, still consisted of old and weathered stone. There were a number of statues. Judging by the horns and wings, they were probably carved to be statues of devils but they had either been toppled over or vandalized by the kobolds over the years. The kobolds had added other decorative touches as well: brightly colored banners, skull-crowned pikes and a number of holes in the walls.
At more or less that moment, the yipping kobolds began coursing through the holes in the walls and Karlach's moment of taking in the sights was replaced with another round of bashing, kicking and stomping. She did get a good laugh when a wind gust from Raphane's direction blew the iron traps filling the corridor onto the gallery, bruising and knocking over a good number of kobolds before the druid entered the scene, slamming into the kobolds that were still upright with staff and shield before summoning a thunderclap that sent even more of them breaking through the gallery railing to crash down into the audience chamber below.
When Raphane saw that the kobolds were pouring in freely from multiple holes in the walls, she shouted the words to a spell. The room shook and the holes collapsed, with the screams of crushed and trapped kobolds drowning out the sounds of quaking rock.
Despite Karlach's assurances, Raphane still found herself feeling sorry for the diminutive creatures. Of course, the multitude of kobolds still in the room weren't about to give her the opportunity to process those emotions and Raphane immediately found herself back in the melee.
Soon, the horde had thinned out enough that the tieflings were able to push through to the next door at the end of the gallery, where Karlach held the remaining kobolds off while Raphane summoned thorny vines to hold the pursuers in place before Karlach slammed the door in their tiny faces.
Before the tieflings could get their bearings, a catapult stone smashed into the wall over their heads, breaking through the edifice and showering them with debris.
"Gods, we've really agitated them now, haven't we?" asked Karlach, shielding her face against the debris with one of her arms before she and Raphane both turned around.
"I don't think we were the target," Raphane mused.
The door from the gallery had opened onto a long battlement held by hundreds of kobolds who hadn't yet noticed the two tieflings. Beyond the battlements was a cave even larger than the one the tieflings had first fallen into and it was filled into the distance with an army that was clearly invading the kobold stronghold. Arrows were flying to and from the battlements while catapult stones issued from the siege engines of the invaders battered the kobold's defences.
"You mean the kobolds were dealing with this the whole bloody time and they still sent dozens of themselves to attack us?" Karlach asked Raphane.
"Quiet," said Raphane as softly as she could while still speaking loud enough for Karlach to hear her over the noise of the battle. "Maybe we can use this chaos to slip past."
"Ah, right," said Karlach, "Quiet as a halfling cutpurse."
It worked almost perfectly, at first. The tieflings kept to the inside edge of the battlement, creeping behind crates and weapon racks while the kobold defenders were otherwise preoccupied. Although spotted a few times, they always managed to kill the spotter before any alarms were raised.
Their first good look at the invaders came when a ramshackle siege tower rattled up to the parapet and disgorged a troop of goblins, who were promptly perforated by arrows before a kobold sorcerer set the tower ablaze.
The tieflings' luck took a turn when they came upon a broad section of the battlement that jutted outward into the cavern. Its design was probably intended to be more decorative than military, one could even still see pits of dirt that had once housed gardens, but the kobolds were now paying for the indefensible design in blood as the goblins took full advantage of its exposure.
Karlach and Raphane were about halfway from one side to the other when the wall they had been sticking to began to rise upward as it turned out, in fact, to be a very large door, and they could smell the hot breath of something large and nasty coming up from the gap. Neither needed to tell the other to hurry as they hastened to a run toward the other side.
They didn't make it in time.
The door had lifted up to about the level of Raphane's waist when a large saurian forelimb reached through the opening and seized her by the shin.
"Shit!" yelled the druid as she tripped, fell and was dragged toward the still-rising door. As she was being pulled, Raphane got a good look at the thing that had taken hold of her: a drake. The draconic beast was about the size of a horse, and a vicious-eyed yipping kobold, jumping up and down excitedly on his saddle, held the reins. The drake was eyeing Raphane hungrily as it pulled her in.
Karlach delivered a hacking chop at the limb holding Raphane with her greatsword. There was a howl of pain on the other side as the drake released the druid, who scrambled back and accepted Karlach's help getting back on her feet.
"Drake," Raphane told the berserker, but needn't have bothered. The drake bounded from beneath the rising door, utterly unconcerned at having just clotheslined off its kobold rider with the stone door.
It lunged toward the two tieflings. Karlach took a swing at the drake, intending to hack her blade into its neck, but the drake proved to be surprisingly agile. Its long neck pulled back to avoid the attack before springing forward to clamp its jaws around Karlach's shoulder. Those same jaws couldn't quite snap shut, impeded by the broad mithril pauldron protecting Karlach's shoulder. The drake tried to thrash Karlach about but found her denser than its usual prey.
"My turn, fucker!" Karlach said with a snarl as she took a hand axe from her belt and buried it into the drake's right eye.
The drake howled as it recoiled from Karlach and lashed out with its left forelimb. The impact sent Karlach tumbling, but she kept her grip on her sword.
Karlach rounded on drake, still with her axe embedded in its eye, as it was leaping toward her. Her greatsword met the leaping drake in a rising slash, carving open its belly and spilling its innards before it crashed down on top of Karlach.
Infuriated, the dying drake continued to try to snap its jaws at Karlach and claw her with its limbs as she shoved its bulk off her so she could stand.
Where the fuck was Raphane? Looking back toward the door from which the first drake had emerged, Karlach saw her. The druid had taken her owlbear shape once more, her preferred form for fighting against heavyweights. Four more drakes had followed the first. Raphane was squared off against two of them and a third lay dead, its throat torn open. The last drake was circling around the two living ones and was much larger than either, standing shoulders over even Raphane's owlbear shape.
One of the kobold drake riders threw a javelin that stuck in Raphane's side. Standing up on her hind legs, the owlbear slashed at both drake and rider with her claws, tearing deep gashes in the drake's side, while the rider avoided the claws by hanging off a saddle strap on the drake's other side, and proceeded to jeer at Raphane with a litany of draconic profanity.
The wounded drake circled Raphane and bit into her back leg before tearing away flesh and feathers, drawing a screech of pain from the owlbear. On Raphane's other side, the second of the smaller drakes exhaled a torrent of fiery breath, scorching feathers and burning hide. And finally, a trio of dagger-wielding kobolds jumped from the larger drake onto Raphane's back and began to viciously stab into it.
Karlach channeled the magic within Balduran's Sword as she joined the fray, doubling her size so that she stood tall enough to look the horse-sized drake in the eye when she came upon it. The draconic beast has only begun to look in the direction of the formerly large, now colossal, tiefling before her greatsword cleaved it in two. The rider, who had hung from the strap saddle in order to avoid Raphane's claws, now found himself trapped under the dead drake's bulk.
Karlach jumped to the side as Raphane entered a death roll to crush the three kobolds who had been stabbing her back, which put the last remaining smaller drake in Karlach's eyeline, and it unleashed its fiery breath on her as she charged.
Even with her natural resistance to fire, Karlach could still feel her skin crisping and smell her hair burning. It didn't slow her down. But the larger drake seizing her between its jaws did. Karlach let out a gasp as the massive drake's long teeth penetrated her breast and back plates and drove into her flesh. Raphane was shaking off crushed kobolds from her feathers as she emerged from the death roll when she saw Karlach's predicament. Charging with an earsplitting shriek, Raphane's owlbear shape rammed one of the giant drake's hind legs with enough impact to knock it off balance.
There was a rumble of agitation as the large drake dropped Karlach. She landed on top of the smaller drake, which collapsed under her increased size and weight with a groan. The berserker didn't give the smaller drake time to recover. With her weapon in a half sword grip, she impaled the drake from the back of its neck through the front and cleaved upward until the blade erupted through the gurgling drake's skull.
Meanwhile, the large drake whipped Raphane's owlbear shape with a lash of its heavy tail, staggering her before it followed up with a swing of one of its forelimbs, opening great gashes across her back and down her side. The bleeding owlbear attempted to lunge only to be swatted down and held. She clawed at the limb that held her, and could feel her slashing claws draw hot blood from the drake, but the beast had plenty of blood to spare and remained unmoved as its enormous head snaked down toward Raphane, jaws wide open.
Karlach knew well that the owlbear shape was resilient but could only survive so much, and reverting to her tiefling shape whilst under the drake's claw or, worse still, between its jaws, would be no good for Raphane.
The berserker charged the drake and cut her sword deep into its hind leg, causing the beast to tumble as the hind leg could no longer support its weight. The drake flailed with its remaining limbs to keep itself from falling, and, as a result, let go of Raphane. Bloodied and battered, she summoned her remaining strength and launched herself at the forelimb that the off-balance drake was using to keep itself upright. The limb collapsed at the impact and consequently so did the drake, but the impact also made Raphane's owlbear wild shape lose coherence.
Karlach pressed the advantage, climbing onto the drake's back and driving her sword down into it. The moment she felt the sword meet bone, the gigantifying enchantment of Balduran's sword wore off, and Karlach shrunk down to her normal size. She fought to remain upright as the drake shifted underneath her then stabbed down into the beast's back once more but it continued to move. Karlach fell as her feet slipped but she kept her grip on her sword, buried still in the drake's back. Just then, Karlach heard the sounds of shaking ground before roots and vines erupted upward on both sides of the drake, hanging menacingly for a breath before swinging downward to bind the struggling beast in place.
Almost immediately, the roots made popping and cracking noises as they splintered and threatened to break. Karlach knew she had only seconds. She pulled her sword from the drake's back and hurried toward the front of the straining beast until she stood on its brow. Baleful eyes rolled back in the drake's head to glare at the berserker in the moment before she plunged her sword hilt-deep between them. The grand drake finally lay still. The roots and vines that had constricted it withered and crumbled as Raphane let go of the spell.
Karlach grinned at Raphane as she clambered down off the drake's snout. "All in a day's work."
"Come here, you," said Raphane with a bemused smile and wrapped her arms around Karlach. There was a soft blue glow that faded after a second.
"Was that healing?" Karlach asked.
"You didn't even know you were bleeding did you?"
"Aww. Those could have been some good scars."
"Maybe I'll let you keep the next ones. But for now, I think we ought to have a word with them." Raphane motioned with her head in the direction of the mass of goblins surrounding them in a semicircle opposite the fallen drake's corpse. It seemed that those goblins had been triumphant in taking the battlement from the kobolds while the two tieflings had been distracted dealing with the drakes.
"I'm still really fired up and ready to hit something," said Karlach, a grin on her face as she swept her eyes across the goblins, "Maybe you'd better be the one to talk to them."
"Mmm. Maybe so," said Raphane, and patted Karlach's arm. She raised her voice to address the goblins, "Hello, can we help you?"
Some of the goblins looked defiant but most of them shifted nervously, holding weapons tightly. Those who held bows had arrows nocked but not drawn.
Several goblins parted in order to make room for one of them to come forward, a pot bellied goblin borne on a litter by six other goblins. He was rather more decorated than the others, wearing a hellsboar hide mantle and an elaborate headdress. He let out a friendly-sounding laugh, which seemed to put some of the other goblins at ease. "Bemellow yourselves, kin," he said. "These tieflings have slain Urtzakk's dread menagerie. It may indeed be that Bargrivyek smiles on us. Tell us, tieflings. Who are you?"
Bargrivyek, Raphane recognized the name, goblin god of cooperation. Mostly cooperation between goblins but maybe there was an opportunity to get out of this without fighting through a second army.
"I'm Synne," answered Raphane, before putting a hand on Karlach's shoulder, "And my partner is called Feltzpott." Karlach cut her eyes at Raphane. "We were simply passing through when the locals took offense to our existence and," she shrugged and motioned toward the massive dead drake, "You can well see the result."
"And what a result indeed," the goblin remarked, "I was ready to lose a hundred warriors to defeat these beasts."
"You what?" protested one of the goblins before the one next to her elbowed her sharply.
"Yet you destroyed them all with nary a scratch on you," the goblin in charge continued, "I have a proposal for you and your partner, Synne. In the spirit of Bargrivyek. Step closer. The rest of you, give us some space," he looked down at his litter bearers, "All of you."
The litter bearers set down their boss and joined the rest of the goblins in stepping away and making space as the tieflings came forward. The goblin boss leaned forward on his litter toward Raphane and Karlach and lowered his voice to speak, "I know you're lying about who you are."
Karlach bristled and narrowed her eyes at the goblin. Raphane saw the movement in Karlach's right shoulder, the prologue to an overhand slash, and put a steadying hand on her arm. Karlach grit her teeth but stayed her sword arm.
The goblin didn't miss it. "I can see your partner is short on patience so I'll come to the point quickly: I can't be arsed with Infernal politics. I don't care who you really are or why you're hiding down here."
"Who's hiding?" asked Karlach with a sneer.
The goblin smirked, "Only one thing matters to me: taking this holdfast from Urtzakk. That runty kobold's been lording it over me far too long."
"Oh. How long's that?" asked Karlach brightly.
"Five months," answered the goblin.
"My, my. What a rich tapestry of history you two have between you."
"Karlach," said Raphane. "Let him say his piece so we can get this over with." Karlach rolled her eyes. Raphane addressed the goblin again, "You said you had a proposal. Let's hear it."
"Simple," said the goblin, "I want this holdfast. Help my army finish taking it, and you will be guests at my victory banquet."
"And if we don't?" asked Raphane.
"I have hundreds of warriors at my back," the goblin answered with a snicker. "Need I say more?"
"But none between us and you," said Karlach. "I could fell you with one swing. What makes you so confident?"
"Life's cheap," the goblin shrugged, "My own life included. Besides, Kill me and you'll have to fight my warriors. How many of them do you think you could fell before succumbing yourself? How many could your partner?"
Karlach looked at Raphane. The druid was playing it cool with the goblin when there was little Karlach wanted more than to just slice the cocky prick open. Raphane's eyelids were hanging lower than usual though. Several times she had wild shaped and she had been flinging spells through the entire battle against the kobolds. She must be exhausted but couldn't dare show it. And what if the goblin boss's warriors did prove loyal to him in death? The goblins surrounding herself and Raphane still held their weapons twitchily. They were terrified of the tieflings. But their fear seemed more apt to compel them to attack than to lay down their weapons.
"Most of the kobolds are already dead," the goblin assured the tieflings. "And these drakes were the biggest weapons Urtzakk had. Just help my warriors finish the fight. After that, you'll be celebrated and you'll have safe passage through my territory."
"We need a word," Raphane told the goblin. Putting a hand on Karlach's shoulder, she took a few steps from the goblin boss and lowered her voice, "What do you think?" she asked.
"What do you think, darling?" asked Karlach.
"I don't think he's lying," said Raphane. "But I've been wrong before."
"Well," Karlach took in a breath, "Those kobolds are pricks anyway. Can't say I'll lose any sleep over ending a few more of them. Besides, a goblin party could be a bit of fun. Still. I say we get ourselves gone first chance we get."
"Agreed," said Raphane. She looked back toward the goblin boss. "We'll help you bring your battle to an end. But we're not fighting the whole bloody thing for you and we're not leading any charges. Clear?"