lurking behind the query.
'With the situation as it is,' Gord replied, eyeing the foppish Maheal and the ehjure sulking along beside each other, 'I'm not certain that this so-called test is anything other than retribution,' he admitted grudgingly to the hulking barbarian. 'Nonetheless, I am determined to turn the tables and get both our just compensation and revenge!'
'Compensation?' the young nobleman echoed.
'Revenge?' Pinkus growled as he glared at the three humans.
'Curdling curds of catoblepas crap!' Chert expostulated as he turned away and rode off to scout ahead for possible trouble. Gord, suffering from boredom and tired of the company he and his barbarian friend were currently compelled to keep, fervently wished he could go with him, but the young thief knew that it would be most ill-advised to leave Pinkus and Maheal alone together. Hunching his shoulders, Gord resigned himself to a long trek with the ogre and the whiner. It seemed like days before the hillman returned, although he was gone but a few hours.
When a small company of bandits attacked them from the rear the next day, everyone but Maheal welcomed the encounter as a pleasant diversion. The outlaws evidently had a minor spell-weaver in tow, for their assault was preceded by a streak of sizzling fire that impacted squarely upon the ogre-magus. Whatever differences he and his less-civilized kin who dwelled on Oerth had, resistance to magic was certainly one no one in the party would find objectionable. The spell was most likely meant to create a fiery globe to incinerate the group, but when it came in contact with Pinkus, the flames fizzled and went out. The magic-user who cast the spell had no opportunity to attempt further harm.
Where a hot, glowing streak had been a split second before, there now existed a line of pale blue. Icicles appeared along it and fell tinkling to earth in the same moment. A muffled shriek came from a clump of flash-frozen brush, and Gord could see crystalline flakes of snow gently descending on the area. Although the spell-slinger was thereby put out of commission, his associates pressed the attack. As Gord, Chert, and the ogre-magus turned to stand their ground against the outlaws, Maheal spurred his horse on ahead, leaving his traveling companions for behind.
'Mind the arrows!' the barbarian shouted as a dozen barbed missiles buzzed near.
Gord screamed a wild oath as if in reply. One shaft grazed his horse, and several others had come close enough to hear, but the young thief was unscathed. 'Surrender or die!' he shouted as he struck right and left at the startled bandits crouching amidst the newly frozen brush.
Chert and the ogre-magus were likewise laying about them with vigor. In fact, as soon as Pinkus was among the outlaws, he threw his huge body from the back of his destrier, sweeping up a trio of brigands as he crashed to the ground. While the hulking hillman whirled his axe, Brool, in bloody arcs, Pinkus discarded outlaws' broken bodies left, up, right, and down as if a cyclone had struck in the midst of these hapless ambushers. It was all over in a few minutes.
'Who is your captain?' Gord demanded of the dozen prisoners.
'Cob the Crazed — but he lies dead there,' one wounded outlaw managed to reply.
Chert, meanwhile, was chipping the ice from the frozen corpse of the spell-caster who had foolishly. sent his dweomer at the ogre-magus. It seemed that a backlash had occurred when the spell struck Pinkus, and an opposite effect had been inflicted upon the sender, who was caught off guard and did not act fast enough to avoid it. The fellow's surprised gaze looked blankly forth from a globe of slowly melting ice several feet thick. The barbarian, who thought that the dead Cob might be carrying something worth salvaging, was using his axe to whittle the stuff away to speed the natural process.
'Don't eat those bodies, Pinkus!' Gord called to the ogre-magus. The ogreling growled and grumbled but left off his prodding of the dead bandits and smacking of his lips. Gord wasn't certain if he had been doing this to further intimidate their captives, or whether the ehjure had actually been planning to eat one or more of their fallen attackers. Whatever the case, the effect upon the survivors was amazing.
'Please keep him away from us,' the spokesman for the prisoners pleaded to Gord. 'We'll tell you anything you want — just keep him from us!'
'Gather up all the valuables, then,' Gord ordered, 'and be certain that your own wealth is in the pile. If I find so much as an iron drab has been held back. I'll give the offender to Pinkus for his next meal!'
The ogre-magus clicked his fangs fiercely and rolled his goggling eyes. There was a mad scramble to comply, each outlaw attempting to be the first to divest himself of his money and valuables.
'Get the stuff from the bodies too!' Chert shouted, and another rush ensued. Meanwhile, the barbarian had whittled the ice down to where the sun would soon complete the work, so he rested on his axe and watched the captives with a flinty gaze. It took little urging for them to complete the task and meekly return to a huddled group near the two humans.
'What a pitiful treasure!'' Gord said with disgust. There, on a worn and dirty cloak, was the sum of the wealth the brigands had possessed. No more than a hundred coins, and nothing larger than a copper common in the lot. There were a few pieces of cheap jewelry and one silver-studied belt. 'No wonder they sought to rob wayfarers. Even a Medeglan pilgrim would be likely to enrich such a poor lot as this!'
'Now can we eat?' Pinkus asked hopefully.
'Cut it out now, pal. If we eat them, we won't be able to enlist them on our quest I think that would be putting them to much better use, don't you? After all. you don't want to have to deal with indigestion in addition to whatever else we might encounter, now do you?' Gord asked condescendingly. Pinkus looked disappointed, but he nodded agreement. Gord turned to the dozen or so survivors of Crazed Cob's corps. 'Bury your comrades, and leave a place for the magic-user, too.' Meanwhile Chert had finally broken the ice, so to speak, and the body of the sorcerer could now be searched.
'What's he got?' Gord asked, peering over the crouching barbarian's shoulders.
'A fat purse and a gold brooch, I think,' Chert called back. 'Just a second, and we'll see!'
It turned out that the 'gold' was only washed brass, and the purse was a leather pouch filled with the various packets and stuffs of dweomercraefting. So much for that. The now-enlarged band of questers set out for the bandits' encampment, which, as luck would have it, was on the same route the dweomer compelled the quartet to tread. Along the way the group encountered the grazing steed of Lord Maheal, and nearby was that worthy's prone form, asleep in a patch of warm sunlight.
'Boo!' Pinkus barked in the nobleman's ear, and grinned to show his huge teeth as the startled fellow's eyes popped open.
'Yeow!' Maheal shrieked, trying to jump up and run away at the same time. This resulted in a comical heap, with the ogreling and Maheal in a tangle, for all the Szek of Dohou-Yohpe had managed to do was to bound upright and then flop upon the ogre-magus. Pinkus attempted to throw the offending form from his person, and Maheal struggled desperately to get free. The problem was that these efforts seemed to make the two more inextricably entangled than ever. Screams, growls, and other less identifiable sounds emerged from the pile. The captive bandits sniggered and jeered, until Gord ordered them into the frey to assist. Although he was enjoying the spectacle, he feared that the fainthearted Maheal would suffer bodily harm soon unless the pair was untangled.
When they finally managed to straighten things out, Maheal's plum-colored doublet was shredded, and his particolored hose of citrine and puce were ruined. Calling down terrible curses upon everyone in general and Pinkus in particular, the nobleman trudged off with the group. Gord had determined that Lord Maheal would go afoot hereafter, for when horsed, he was always riding away.
There was nothing of value at the outlaw hideout, although they found a fair amount of cold game to eat and enough horses to provide mounts for all of the prisoners. Gord located the slim tomes that contained the writings of the now-deceased spell-user. These books he had tucked away without informing anyone, for he knew that such works had considerable value to certain persons. They didn't linger at the camp, because the effects of the enthrallment made the quartet restless and irritable.
To assure the cooperation of the outlaws, Gord made the twelve of them swear a blood-curdling oath of fealty to their captors as Pinkus looked on with a leering expression of awful sort on his ugly visage. Having Chert nearby with his huge axe was definitely a big plus, and it didn't hurt when the young rogue proclaimed that all of the loot taken from the group would be divided among the survivors who were faithful to their new leaders until the end of their quest.
The former bandits eagerly vowed to serve as men-at-arms for their new masters, casting doubtful looks at both the ogre-magus and Lord Maheal as they did so. Gord made it clear that these new henchmen were to seek
