From what he'd seen thus far, all Galathans seemed to be in a very great hurry to get themselyes killed.
The great cleaver had hewn through boar and oxen many a time, but boar and oxen seldom wore armor.
So when the furious cook swinging that cleaver puffed his way around a corner, snarling out obscenities as fast as he could breathe, and came face to face with a trio of chuckling Dark Helms, the hard-swung cleaver rebounded from the black breastplate of the foremost warrior, ringing in protest and trailing sparks.
Boar and oxen seldom thrust swords at a cook, either.
The head cook of Deldragon's keep would then have perished swiftly indeed if a second wave of Dark Helms hadn't charged out of a side-passage beyond the grinning trio, roaring triumphal roars, and thrust forth a forest of gleaming blades that forced the incongruously bosomed Garfist Gulkoon to desperately windmill his arms into a wild, skidding stop.
Spitting out fervent curses of his own, Garfist tried to turn and flee back the way he'd come and blundered right into the backs of the trio of Dark Helms menacing the cook, sending them toppling and sprawling helplessly.
They shouted in fear. So did the cook whose cries doubled in volume and fervency a moment later, when his seven undercooks and scullions ran right into his backside, hurling him helplessly forward atop the three Dark Helms.
Whom Garfist shed like a cloak of tumbling men as he burst out and upwards from beneath all the wallowing, flailing bodies, to lumber away down a thankfully empty passage, gaining speed as he went. The boar carcass, looking a little more ragged and worn, still trailed behind his large and hairy left hand.
No sooner had he vanished into the distant darkness than Iskarra 'Vipersides' burst into view out of the passage he'd turned back from, running hard and panting harder.
'Old blundering ox,' she gasped, 'you'll be the glorking death of me yet!'
The wave of Dark Helms who'd set Garfist to flight were butchering their way enthusiastically through the kitchen staff and the trio of their fellow Dark Helms alike, gleefully hewing a clear path forward. They promptly tried to make Iskarra's breathless observation true, reaching for her with their blades.
She leaped forward into a somersault under those swords, yanking a hairpin out of her hair in mid-tumble, and sprinted off down the passage after Garfist.
The few surviving cooks and scullions, shrieking for all they were worth, pelted after her. A flood of Dark Helms ran after them, slashing and stabbing at the air, and as they caught up to each kitchen, worker in turn, they butchered screaming, sweating flesh, too.
As cook after cook was loudly murdered behind her, Iskarra ran on, hoping the Dark Helms now pursuing her weren't spellguarded against skaekur. If fair fortune was with her for once, she'd not have to find out, but fair fortune so seldom rode escort with her these days that…
Her pessimism was promptly proved well founded. She came to a passage-moot at last, and had to stop to peer wildly, trying to see which of the three diverging ways Garfist had taken.
He'd turned down the last passage she shot a glare along, of course. Looking took just enough time that the foremost Dark Helms pounced before she could get started down that passage, roaring hloodthirstily and hacking at her like woodcutters impatient to split kindling.
Iskarra flung herself at their ankles, tripping one into his fellows. That took two black-armored warriors to the floor and left a third clawing his way free of them, off balance and with sword swinging wildly to try to regain his footing.
Iskarra sprang up from the floor like a leaping frog to crash into his chest with both bony knees and stab his face repeatedly with her hairpin. The Dark Helm went down hard on his back, shouting, and she bounced up from his chest to her feet and sprinted hard down the passage after Garfist with the Helm's shouting dying into slurred gurgles in her wake.
Three or more Dark Helms, by the sounds of running boots, were right on her heels, after her like hounds.
'Gar!' she shouted. 'Gar?'
There was a lantern somewhere around a corner to the left, ahead in the passage; its light was spilling out along the walls and ceiling in the distance. Iskarra ran toward it as hard as she could, almost winded now, panting raggedly, wondering if she'd tire enough that they'd catch up to her in the open passage and hack her down from behind, too.
She could hear a lot more boots, running behind her closest pursuers, now. Great. How many Dark Helms does it take to kill one ragged, slightly tipsy, seen-brighter-days woman?
'Gar… fist,' she gasped angrily, reeling around a corner. 'I sure hope you… went this… way.'
Garfist reached one shovel-like hand out of the darkness of a side-passage and swept her past him. Then he put his shoulder against a tall stack of wooden crates where it had been before and waited.
'Stay. Catch yer breath,' he muttered. Iskarra reeled against the wall and bent over to gasp in earnest, nodding thankfully. She just needed a moment or two.
Dark Helms came thundering up, not slowing. They were headed for the next side-passage, where the lantern light was coming from.
With a grim smile on his face, Garfist Gulkoon leaned forward, grotesque false breasts bouncing and bobbing, and toppled the crates.
They crashed down on the shoulder of the nearest Dark Helm, smashing him to the floor instantly. The Dark Helm right behind him ran into them with his upper body, lost his racing feet forward out from under himself, fell hard, and got the rest of the crates crashing down on him just as the next Dark Helm ran into him, and the one behind in turn crashed into them all.
Broken-bodied and senseless, the four Dark Helms said nothing at all, and by then, no one was paying them the slightest attention, because the crates had been full of ball bearings that were now flooding out into the passage with a thunder of their own, as a small, sprinting army of Dark Helms ploughed into them, shouted wildly, raising up arms and swords in a vain attempt to keep from falling, and skidded helplessly… everywhere.
'Come on!' Garfist snarled to Iskarra, turning and peeling her off the wall with one great sweep of his arm. 'I can scarcely see down here, but there're crates all along both walls, full of all sorts of-'
With a wild shout, a skidding Dark Helm made it around the corner into the passage, fetching up against one wall with a crash. A second Dark Helm struck the wall right beside the first, narrowly missing impaling himself on the first Helm's sword.
Garfist spun around, caught hold of a tall stack of crates, and heaved.
The stack crashed down across the passage with a roar mingled with shrieks of splitting wood as the crates burst open, spilling forth a clanging metallic chaos of hasps and handles and hooks, dark and smelling strongly of oil. The Dark Helms fought for balance among this slithering metal, and the foremost caught hold of the next stack of crates and tried to swing his legs over and past the ironmongery.
He got halfway through his swing before the crate he was clinging to came free of its stack and pulled the stack over in his wake; helplessly he slithered feet-first into the darker passage beyond, that crate slamming into his head.
Garfist was already stepping forward, to almost delicately drive his dagger up under the warrior's helmet, into his foe's throat and up behind the jaw. Ignoring the fountaining blood, the fat ex-procurer grimly twisted his knife in deep before wrenching it forth again.
Iskarra shoved another stack of crates over the already-fallen ones, in a flood of debris that filled the passage chest-high. 'We should go,' she hissed. ''Twould be a pity if that next passage ran down and cross- connected with this one up yonder, and the Dark Helms just ran around and came at us that way.'
'Indeed, Viper,' Garfist growled with mock flourishes of dignity. 'The same thought had occurred to me.'
He hefted the boar carcass in his hand to make sure none of it had torn free in all the tumult, then nodded, bent to wipe his dagger clean on the leather war-harness of the Helm he'd just slain, and started off down the passage. 'Isk, are ye… unharmed?'
'Only my pride, Gar. To think these young louts almost ran me down, in all that armor, too. Let's go. And before you ask: somewhere deep, cold, dark and deserted in these cellars, where we can hide for a bit and let
