Another figure shoved his way between them.
'Grenda! Beware!' shouted Gragdin. Grenda's brother had no weapon, only his own body. 'Bewar—“
The skardyn eagerly chopped into Gragdln's chest.
Grenda let out a howl of pain that matched her brother's brief one. The female dwarf dropped the whip. She did not grab for Gragdin's blood-soaked body, but rather at the weapon that had done him in. Dwarven rage gave her the strength to tear it from the skardyn's hand, then immediately use it across his throat.
The skardyn's head went rolling away. His body collapsed atop Gragdin's.
With a berserker fury, Grenda cut down two more skardyn nearby. The other dwarves followed her lead, decimating what was left of the guards.
Vereesa, meanwhile, continued her combat against the dragonspawn. The giant swung high, nearly clipping her head. In the process, his weapon finally chopped the pike in two.
But Vereesa immediately leapt for an ax lost by a fallen enemy. Seizing it, the ranger ducked under the drakonid's guard and attacked not the torso, but one foot.
The ax bit through the scaled flesh, severing the toes and part of the front. Blood poured from the wound.
The dragonspawn hissed. It reached down to press the ranger into the rock floor, but again Vereesa wriggled free. She slipped past the guard, ending up near the entrance.
At that moment, a pair of skardyn came rushing into the chamber. They spotted Vereesa, let out hisses, and charged her.
The dragonspawn began to turn. In close quarters, the massive body was more ungainly, especially with the long, thick tall to consider.
Vereesa slapped the tall with the side of the ax.
Her adversary reacted instinctively. The tall swept back and forth, a deadly club to whatever was In Its range.
But the high elf had already made certain to avoid being near. The tail instead swatted both approaching skardyn, sending them flying in opposite directions. The savage dwarves crashed against the walls and lay still.
And as the dragonspawn continued to turn, Vereesa leapt onto the back just as Rom had done with an earlier one. The dragonspawn tried to twist its upper torso around enough to reach her, but she moved with it, keeping directly behind.
Jumping up, the ranger planted both arms over the dragonspawn's shoulders. She brought the ax around with one hand and, as best she could, gripped the top with the other.
Summoning as much strength as she could muster, Vereesa jammed the ax blade into the softer tissue of the throat.
The dragonspawn grabbed at her arms, pulling at them with such force that she thought that they would be torn free. The ranger struggled to press the ax deeper. She felt a moisture on the hand holding the top.
Then, the guard managed to tear her free. It threw the high elf over its head. Vereesa tried to guide herself as best she could, relying on her natural nimbleness and ranger training to keep her from breaking her neck or skull.
As she struck, she went into a roll. The roll ended abruptly as she collided with one of the dwarves.
Vereesa dared not take the time to check on the other prisoner, certain as she was that the dragonspawn was coming for her. She located the ax and turned to face her adversary.
Indeed, the guard was lumbering forward, but in a haphazard, almost random manner. Not only was the wound to the one foot causing it to sway, but the entire upper torso was bathed in blood from the wound the ax had made.
Dwarves with pikes suddenly surrounded the dragonspawn. Grenda thrust first, her pike reentering the wounded throat. The dragonspawn slapped the weapon away, only making the rip bigger.
The guard teetered, crashing to one side. A dwarf ran in for the kill.
With a titanic effort, the dragonspawn seized him. Before anyone could do anything, the guard used one thick fist to crush in the dwarf's chest.
Grenda screamed and thrust with the pike again. Her momentum was such that she burled the point deep enough that the tip thrust out of the scaled hide behind.
The dragonspawn waved one bloody hand... then died.
Of the guards, only a pair of beaten and bruised skardyn remained. Grenda had them bound and tossed into the cell. That she let them live was no act of charity, to hear her explain it.
'When they're found like that with all the others slain, you can be sure they'll pay for their failure,' she said grimly.
The female dwarf went back to the body of her brother. Her other brother, Griggarth, stood at her side, staring at his dead sibling as if not certain that he himself lay there instead.
Grenda touched the forehead and chest once, then her demeanor shifted. 'Let's move before more guards arrive....'
There remained one problem with that. Even Vereesa's trained senses could not identify which direction they should head. Grenda thought she knew—dwarves well versed with reading tunnels and judging their ultimate rise or fall—but could not swear in the case of Grim Batol.
'Rom told me that the tunnels here have no rhyme or reason that he could recall. Those that would've made sense one way often suddenly banked, then went the opposite. 'Tis as if a bunch of mad diggers randomly carved it out.'
'Probably a bunch o' Dark Irons,' snorted Griggarth.
'These tunnels are older than even those bastards,' his sister replied. She touched the corridor floor, studying it. 'If these trace read right, I'd say we go left.'
'What are you looking at?' the ranger asked, fascinated despite their situation by the dwarf's own tracking abilities.
'The striations, the patterns of the rock and stone, for one. They can sometimes tell you the right direction. There's also tiny bits of dirt and scrapings that these fiends've brought from outside.' She grunted. 'If there's anythin' we dwarves know, it's rock and dirt.' 'Then, we go as you say. Lead on.'
Nodding, Grenda guided the weary band. They were armed with everything that they had been able to take from the dead. Vereesa had not accepted any ax or other weapon, preferring those to go into the hands of the ones who best knew how to use them. The only defense she took was the small blade that Rhonin had forged for her.
As Grenda led her people on, Vereesa fell toward the back. She followed on, growing more confident in the female dwarf's sense of direction. Surely, with her at the forefront, the band would reach the outside safely.
And, with that thought in mind, the ranger slowed more. When it was clear that the dwarves were completely focused on the passage ahead, Vereesa suddenly turned. As silent as the night, the high elf vanished down the deeper end of the tunnel.
Somewhere down there, Vereesa was certain, she would find Zendarin....
'Surely, we must reenter Grim Batol this very moment!' Iridi urged the wizard. 'Each breath we delay, the others may suffer!'
'You think I don't know that?' Rhonin snapped. He sat with the draenei on an old log, his hands before him. A faintly lit blue glow arose from the ground before both, the wizard's version of a campfire that would not be seen from far away. 'My wife's in there, priestess. There are no more important people to me in the entire world than she and my sons. None.'
'Then, why do we not just materialize there as you did previous?'
He spat. 'I don't know how magic works with draenei in general or you in particular, but that sort of thing takes a lot out of a person, especially as it wasn't my first or even second attempt! I'd been in two other locations there, using this to hunt for her!'
Rhonin held up the talisman that Vereesa had been wearing. Iridi could not sense anything from it, but then, she was not its creator.
He was growing more upset. The priestess berated herself for adding to the pressures on the human. She was showing many failings as a priestess these past few days. The draenei wondered how she could have ever
