I reached out to my avatar to see if she was almost here, and was dismayed when all I received were impressions of combat, pain and frustration. The dire badger queen was not going down without a fight, it seemed. How is that thing still alive? It was on its last legs when I left, surely!
I recalled the massive creature. True, it had been gravely injured, but it had also seemed uncowed. And things fight most fiercely when they’re closest to death. When they have nothing to lose.
Well, we could fight just as fiercely.
As I well knew by now, gnomes were a primarily defensive race. Unless specifically ordered to, they would not seek to cause harm—even to enemies—until their lives or the lives of those under their protection were threatened.
But when they were threatened…
The pair of badgers that had breached our barricade hesitated at the sight of the bristling spears and line of interlocking shields. Pride washed over me as the gnomes stood their ground in the face of the enemy, cloistered behind their trusty wall of redcaps. Teeth bared, the dire badgers threw back their heads and growled their distress, pacing in tiny circles as though they wanted to retreat but were unable to. Behind the shield-wielding gnomes, Bruce growled back.
I was deliberating whether to interfere when a familiar large figure emerged from the trees.
“You’re back! Where have you been? Where are the others? What’s going on?” I yelled.
Coll pointed at the camp, mouth falling open in shock. “Badgers!” he shouted.
“Yes, I see them. Thanks. Where’s Ket?”
Something sparkled on his shoulder and then zipped into the air.
“Corey!”
“Ket!” I never thought I’d be so relieved to hear her voice. “Where were you? Did you… did you leave the Sphere?!”
“I’ll explain later! What’s with all the badgers?”
“I think the tracks we found were a trick,” I explained hastily. “When we caught up with the one that made them, we found more tracks leading back to the camp. Then Ris’kin and the scouts were attacked by the badgers’ queen.”
“Their queen? Wait, what? The badgers tricked us?”
Ket sounded incredulous. I couldn’t blame her. It sounded insane. Coll, however, was nodding slowly, as though it all made sense.
“It’s a classic deception tactic. Aleksandre the Almighty used it to defeat The Bonetaker at the Battle of Carsten Keep.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what inspired them.”
“Well, at least they seem to have calmed down somewhat. The ones inside definitely don’t like the look of that shieldwall.”
“Don’t jinx it—”
Too late.
Eyes rolling in panic, the two badgers inside the barricade threw themselves upon the shieldwall. This time it was obvious there was something strange going on. They were not doing this of their own volition. No animal would, no matter how territorial.
Despite their obvious unwillingness, the raging creatures still vastly outbulked the gnomes, and their shield line bowed alarmingly before the first charge. The badgers recoiled from the waiting spears as they pricked their faces and jabbed their chests, before turning to charge again, eyes rolling in an unholy mixture of fury and terror.
A third badger appeared in the wreckage made by the first two. Its chest was singed, the skin beneath its blackened fur pink and bubbling. But it was no longer slowed; the stuff that had encumbered it had dissipated, and now it was preparing to join the next attack on the shieldwall.
Not so fast.
Binky’s next Spit missile arced down to splash the dire badger, this time splattering across its back. The tendrils caught one of its legs; it stumbled and veered off to the side.
Coll was just standing there with his hammer out, looking helpless. From where he was standing he couldn’t see the other two badgers on the far side of the circle, and was clearly at a loss for how he could intervene without risking friendly fire.
“Coll, go and find Ris’kin and the scouts! They were fighting about half a mile to the north-east.”
“You’re sure you don’t need me here?”
I was sure I didn’t want him stomping around and accidentally smashing his hammer into friend and foe alike.
“We’ll be okay,” I said. “Just go. Hurry!”
His armor jangled as he ran off into the trees.
Inside the barricade circle, the shield wall suddenly parted. Bruce burst out to intercept the two charging enemies. The big badger rammed the left-most creature in the flank, driving it sideways and away from the shieldwall, but its momentum sent it crashing into the chariot instead.
No!
Thankfully, the chariot was as solidly built as the strongest wagon, and though it rocked slightly with the impact, it did not break or tip. The acolytes atop it held the ark steady, and Gneil even managed to jab the enemy badger below with his spear. But my high cleric’s triumphant shout died in his throat when he saw one of the hoot-hoots—which had hopped from its nest over to the chariot’s edge to see what was going on—had been knocked to the ground.
It hooted indignantly as it landed in a pile of leaf mulch, rolling in a fluffy ball before coming to a halt. It swayed a little as it rose to its spindly feet, shaking bits of leaves from its feathers and clacking its beak. It turned to look back up at the horrified acolytes on the chariot and raised its wings pathetically, as though asking to be picked up.
Gneil thrust his weapon into the hands of the nearest acolyte. Then my high cleric vaulted over the chariot’s side.
He stumbled a little as he landed, performing his own equally graceless version of the owlet’s roll. He rose to his feet, pink-faced, tugged his toga straight, then bent to lift the baby owl into his arms—just as a fourth dire badger burst through the breach in the barricade.
Its trajectory was already taking it straight past my high cleric,
