Part 3 of Curse of the Warduke continued!

      Hank motioned to the others.  "Somebody's coming."
        "Sheila and Eric?" Bobby asked hopefully.
        "Not unless they've picked up a few companions," said Diana.
        A dozen men in tattered armor and stained surcoats climbed wearily down the
hillside.  Two were on stretchers and another three limped and leaned heavily
on companions.
        "Bearers," Scarlet hissed, reaching for her long knife.
        "Hold it!" Hank ordered, catching her wrist.
        The Bearer in the lead drew his sword as he approached, allowing Hank to see
the deep notches cut into it.  "You!" he growled as his eyes fell on the Young
Ones.
        "Us," said Presto with exaggerated innocence.  Diana hushed him.
        "You were at the Fair," Hank said slowly, studying the man.  Even with his
sword drawn, he didn't seem to be much of a threat--wounded, weary, and
overwrought--and even if he hadn't been, Hank could drop him with an energy
arrow long before he closed enough to use that battered sword.
        "Aye, witch's-spawn, and a pity we couldn't have rid ourselves of you then,"
the man spat back.
        "Should we take 'em now?" one of the men bearing the stretchers said without
much spirit.
        "Just try it!" Bobby snarled, brandishing his club threateningly.  Diana
grabbed him by one of the straps of his crude studded leather armor before he
could charge headlong into the Bearers.
        "You look like you've seen enough fighting for one day," Hank told the man,
who slowly lowered his sword.
        "Aye," he admitted.  "You have the right of it."
        "What happened?"
        "'Twas the work of the wi--of your ally, the one with the cursed helm," the
man answered sullenly.
        "Eric did all this?" Presto asked incredulously.
        "Aye."
        "We almost had him!" one of the men, showing a ghastly wound to his calf,
shouted defiantly.
        "Uh-huh," said Diana doubtfully.
        "Where are they now?" Hank asked.
        "Will you search for them yourselves?" the man asked.  "Try the Abyss first
then!"  He laughed, half-madly.
        His laughter cut short as Hank leveled an arrow at his heart.  "Where.  Are.
They.  Now?" the Ranger demanded, the threat of death in his eyes.
        "Straight up this trail," the man said hastily.  "Somewhere in the moor."
        "Thank you.  Let's go, guys."  Hank didn't lower the arrow until his friends
had all passed the Bearers.  He stopped when he was abreast of the leader.
"What is your name, Bearer?" he asked without looking at him.
        "Bran, Demonspawn.  Remember it."
        "I will."  He still didn't look directly at the man, only at the road ahead.
"You might consider, Bran, that if we were truly the evil sorcerers that you
think us, we would not be allowing you to pass unharmed now.  You might also
consider that if you cross my path again, it will be for the last time."  Bran
didn't answer, and Hank walked on in smoldering silence.
        Willing to kill.  Committed to death.  Already he was sick of it, sick of
himself.

        Sheila woke slowly.  She was aware first of the vague sensation of moving,
the slight jostling of wheels rolling over rough terrain.  She was lying on
something soft and furry, on her stomach.  Small, gentle hands laid a soothing
poultice on her bare back, easing away much of the pain.
        Sheila opened her eyes and turned her head.  A young woman, no more than a
few years older than herself, glanced down at the movement.  "Oh!  M'Lady!
I'm so sorry for disturbing you!  Please forgive me!" she said in a soft,
fearful voice.
        "It's okay," Sheila whispered.  She couldn't seem to muster the energy to
speak any louder.  "Could I have some water?"
        "Of course, m'Lady.  A moment."  The young woman turned away and there was
the sound of liquid pouring into a cup.  "Here, m'Lady, drink this:  A herbal
tea to lend you strength and help you heal."
        "Thank you."  Sheila sat up on her elbows to drink the cool, refreshing tea.
It was sweet, especially to her raw throat.  She sank down on the pallet when
she was finished.  "Where am I?"
        "In a wagon, m'Lady, traveling eastward.  With the Lord Warduke," she added
as Sheila's expression grew confused.
        "Warduke?" Sheila murmured.  Then:  "Oh!"
        "Yes, m'Lady."
        "Stop calling me that.  My name's Sheila, and I'm not any kind of noble,"
Sheila said.
        "You are the Warduke's consort," the young woman said, as if that explained
everything.
        "I'm what?"  Sheila felt her face heat.
        "His consort.  It was obvious that he favors you," the young woman said.
        "Now wait just a minute--what is your name, anyway?"
        "Meridith, m'Lady, but you may call me as you will."
        "Meridith is fine.  Look, Eric and I are friends, not--"  Sheila's voice
broke off in a hiss as her back protested her attempt to rise in indignation.
        "M'Lady!  You must rest, you have been bady hurt."  Gentle hands guided her
back to the furs.  Sheila gritted her teeth as Meridith settled the poultice
back into place.  "There, m'Lady.  Lie quietly for now.  Are you hungry?  Can
I bring you something to eat?"
        Sheila sighed.  It was obvious that she was going nowhere for now.  "A
little, yes."  More than a little, if her stomach had anything to say about
it.  "And tell Eric--the Warduke, whatever--that I need to talk to him."
        The girl blanched for some reason.  "Of course, m'Lady," she said, and left
the covered wagon.
        Eric entered only a moment later, still wearing the helm.  He must have been
waiting just outside.  "I'm glad to see you awake, Sheila," he said quietly,
in a voice like stone grating on stone.
        "What's going on, Eric?" she demanded.
        "Simple.  We are traveling eastward to avoid more pursuit by the Bearers."
        "No, not just that.  What do you think you're doing, pretending to be
Warduke?"
        "I am the Warduke."
        "No, you're not!  You're Eric, the Cavalier."  It was a struggle to keep her
voice reasonable.
        "No longer.  He who wears this helm is the Warduke."
        "Eric--"
        "Stop calling me that!  I am the Warduke!" he erupted.  Her words caught in
her throat at the sudden mad rage in his eyes.
        "Tagh Shiv," a deep voice rumbled from outside.  Eric turned away from her
with a final glare and stuck his head through the hide flaps of the wagon.  A
rumbling conversation ensued in the tongue of the hobgoblins.  A minute later,
Eric turned back to her.
        "It seems our first pursuers have entered the moor," he said.  If his voice
had been cold before, now it was pure ice.
        "Who?  The Bearers?" Sheila asked.
        "No.  Our former companions.  I will go to parlay with them--you rest here.
I will return soon."  And he vanished through the flaps.
        "Eric!" she cried out, starting to rise, but her wounds dug claws of pain
into her flayed back, causing her to drop back to the pallet in agony.  It was
too late, Eric was gone.  Lost.
        Forever.
        When Meridith returned, she found her lady weeping choking tears into the
expensive furs.

                                                *
*************************************************************************8
*
The Curse of Warduke, Part 4
by Michael D. Bugg
MdBugg@aol.com

Legal Blurb:  This story is based on the characters and concepts of the
Dungeons and Dragons cartoon of the mid 80s, owned by Marvel Productions, I
believe.  Feel free to copy and distribute this story all you want, just so
long as my name remains on the by line.

Author's Note:  By the time you get done reading this and Vic's story, you may
be wondering if she and I enjoy torturing the kids.  You might even wonder if
I'm copying her or something like that, since the previous part came out late.
No.  Great minds think alike, that's all.  :^)

Part 4:  Eric's War
        "Somebody's coming," Scarlet said, a hand tightening claw-like around Hank's
arm.
        "I know," said Hank, prying it loose.  He tilted one ear to the air as he
gestured for the others to be ready.  "A single man on horseback, I'd say."
        "Another Bearer?" asked Presto.  Bobby snarled, hefting his club with a wild
look in his eye.
        "We'll find out in a moment," Hank told them.
        It wasn't long before the rider topped a low rise, riding his horse towards
them, his path straight as an arrow.  Hank readied an arrow, but then gasped
and lowered it as he recognized that scarlet cape and golden sheild.  And that
black helm.
        Eric reined in his horse and dismounted and strode towards them, moving with
a fluid, deadly grace that he had not had a week ago.  He stopped a dozen
steps away, too far for the gold-hilted sword at his waist to be any threat.
Even so, Hank could not bring himself to drop his arrow completely.  Something
in those shadowed eyes, almost vanished into the darkness of the helmet,
wouldn't let him.
        "Ranger," Eric greeted him in a voice that was so cold as to shiver Hank's
spine from where he stood.
        "Eric," Hank answered, gratified that his voice held no tremor.  The silence
that followed seemed to need something to fill it.  "You look . . . well."
        Eric smiled.  It was a frightening thing, comming from beneath that cursed
helm.  "Oh, I am.  Better than I ever was, before."
        "Where's my sister?" Bobby burst out.  "Is she all right?"  Hank couldn't see
him--he didn't dare take his eyes off Eric, any more than he would take them
off Tiamat--but the young boy's voice sounded . . . strange . . . almost as if
he was ready to burst into tears.  It was a shock, after so many days of
barely restrained rage.
        "She is alive," Eric said, his voice altering slightly for the first
time--almost as if Bobby's rage had entered him.  "She was . . . mistreated .
. . but she is being tended to in my camp.  You needn't fear for her any
longer."
        "Your camp?" asked Presto in a confused tone.  Hank thought that his own face
must match it.
        "My army," Eric explained cooly.  "The soldiers are almost all hobgoblins,
but there are human slaves there to tend to Sheila.  She is safe, but unable
to travel until she recovers."
        "And when she is, you'll both come back to us, right?" asked Hank, though
another twisting in his guts told him what the answer would be.
        "Perhaps I will let Sheila come back to you, if she wants," said Eric.  "But
not until I have finished my war with the Archbishop."
        "Your war?" demanded Diana.  "Eric, don't be stupid!  You don't know how to
run a war!"
        "I do now," he answered cooly, almost disdainfully.  "I have the knowledge,
and the troops.  I can crush him!"
        "Why?  Why would you want to?" Diana demanded again.
        Hank took an involuntary step back.  Eric's eyes seemed to glow from within.
"Why?  You don't know what they did to Sheila, do you?  What they've done to
countless others!  All on HIS orders!  When I took up this crown and this
sword, I swore on my life to see the Archbishop dead, and the Keep of the
Bearers and all within destroyed.  I will NOT turn from my course now!"
        "So why are you holding Sheila now?  Why not let her come back to us?" asked
Hank.  First things first.  That was all.
        Eric smiled again.  "To hold her hostage.  To make sure that none of you try
to stop me."
        Silence fell like a shroud.  Finally, Bobby spoke up.  "You wouldn't hurt
her!  You wouldn't dare!"
        "No?"  Eric shrugged as if the question wasn't important.  "Even if I won't,
what makes you think that the hobgoblins would let her take another twenty
breaths without the Warduke's protection?  As long as she remains in my camp,
you won't dare to strike against me, because even if you win, you'll lose!"
        He was right.  A perfect trap.
        "Will you really?"  Scarlet's voice startled all of them.  "Do you really
have the strength to carry this war to its end?  Will you truly kill the
Archbishop, without hesitation, without remorse?"
        "I have sworn it," Eric growled, almost as if she had insulted him.  He drew
his sword, glittering coldly in the light of the suns, like an icicle on a
cloudless winter day.  "The Archbishop's life will be the first I steal with
this," he said.
        "Scarlet, what are you doing?" Presto hissed.
        She ignored him, stepping forward to kneel before Eric.  "Then I would swear
fealty to you."
        "You traitor!" Bobby snarled, at the same time Hank shouted, "Scarlet, no!"
        Both Scarlet and Eric ignored them.  "Why?" was the only question Eric asked,
sword still in hand.
        "Because of this," she said, removing her cowl.  Hank wished that he could
see what it hid, but her back was turned, and all he saw were the platinum-
blonde curls that cascaded from her head.  "Because it was the Archbishop that
did this to me.  I want my revenge."  Her voice could have matched Eric's for
its chill.
        Eric nodded slowly.  "Very well."  He touched her shoulder with his sword
like a king, and Hank could see her shiver as he did.  "Rise then, Scarlet.
You shall make a fine Bard to me."
        She rose and settled her mask back around her face and head.  Only then did
she turn.  "I am sorry, Ranger.  All of you.  To see the Archbishop brought
down was always my wish."  She smiled.  "It seems that I have found my path,
and you brought me to it.  If I can, I will see that you get what you wish, as
well."
        "Come," said Eric, already mounted, holding a hand out to her.  She took it
and mounted behind him.  "Until swords part," Eric said to them.  It had the
sound of a ritual farewell.
        Bobby took another step forward, into Hank's peripheal vision.  "If you hurt
my sister . . ." he started, clutching his club as if about to leap forth into
battle.
        "Fear not for that, so long as you don't interfere," Eric said before turning
his horse and riding away.  Hank lowered his bow before Eric cleared the
ridge.  Even if he wasn't protected by his shield just then, Hank didn't dare,
and Eric knew it.

        "How can one boy do this?" the Archbishop snarled at his captains.  "Are you
all so incompetant that you cannot outmanuver the petty forces of a child?"
His face was livid with rage as he glared at them over the stone table.  He
leaned over it, hands placed squarely on the parchment maps and reports that
had inspired his ire.
        "Young or not, the boy knows war," said Captain Anders, his left arm in a
sling.
        "Either that, or he has an excellent general," muttered Vors sardonicly,
almost amused.  The young captain bristled with an arrogance that would never
acknowledge another as his superior at war.  He had been called in from Garald
with his warband to assist in the war and had only arrived yesterday.
        "He leads," growled Bran.  "It's that accursed helm.  He made a deal with the
Shadows for his power."
        "And now he will destroy us for them," said the Archbishop, sitting in his
ornate chair, almost a throne.  Above his head, the dark wood was carved in
the shape of a twisting flame.  If it had been real, it could not have
outshone the blazing of his eyes, set deep into his gaunt face.  "I knew this
day would come," he said.  Though his voice remained booming, he seemed almost
to speak to himself.  "Surely, the dark powers would not watch us bring the
light of the Flame to the Realm forever without attacking.  Well, it is here
and we must deal with it."
        "He will arrive here within the week, Lord Bishop," said Anders.  "We cannot
stop him from attacking the Keep now, but with the reinforcements that we will
have called in by then, we will, the Fire willing, end this here."
        "The Fire is willing," was all the Archbishop would say.

        Sheila entered Eric's command tent, accompanied by Meridith.  She wore a
purple velvet robe, a gift from "the Lord Warduke," belted at her slender
waist by a chain of gold disks.  The dark fabric made her fair skin seem even
lighter than usual.  She moved without any hint of stiffness now--three weeks
had seen her wounds heal, and Meridith's poulices had been almost magical in
eliminating scarring, only the faintest of lines remaining to mark her.
        Meridith stood a little behind Sheila, dressed in a simple white shift and
eyes downcast.  It was difficult enough to get the girl to look Sheila in the
eyes when they were alone, even when talking.  She would never dare so much in
front of others.
        Eric stood over a wide table strewn with maps and reports, surrounded by the
highest of his officers.  Scarlet sat on a cushion behind him, playing a dark
and moody tune on her harp.  She smiled at Sheila as she entered, not a nice
smile.  Sheila ignored her.  She was here for Eric.
        As soon as he noticed her, Eric dismissed the hobgoblins.  He always did when
she was around, a concession to her discomfort.  "Lady Sheila," he
acknowledged her.  "Wine?"  He motioned to a slave, a lovely girl with locks
almost as red as Sheila's own, who jumped from the cushion on which she knelt
and nearly ran to gather a bottle and some goblets.
        "Thank you, no."  Sheila glanced at her cloak, lying across the arm of a
throne of bones from some beast, possibly a young dragon.  She didn't know if
the previous wearer of the Black Helm had slain it, or if--as rumor around the
camp suggested--Eric had, nor did she care.  If she could only get to her
cloak, she could escape and find the others.  Surely Hank could figure out a
way to get that helm away from Eric, or maybe Presto would be able to work a
spell . . .
        Even if they couldn't, their presence would be far more comforting than the
leashed violence of the hobgoblins or Meridith's broken submission.
        "What may I do for you then, my lady," Eric asked formally.  "You have only
to ask.  Do you wish more jewels?  I will give you a chest-full.  Finer
clothes?  The finest silks in the world will be yours.  A throne?  You shall
have it in less than a fortnight.  Only ask."  He smiled at her, and yet again
she felt her heart freeze.
        "I wish for you to let me go and stop this madness, Eric," she said softly.
        His smile faded.  "Anything but that."  He turned to the slave girl and
snatched the goblet of wine from her, tossing it back.  Slamming the goblet
down on the table.  "I will make you a queen, a queen of a land greater and
vaster than Kadish, but I will NOT let you go!  Ever!"
        "Why?" she demanded.
        "For what the Archbishop has done, to you and to this land.  I will free the
people, I will protect them, and they will serve me.  As it was meant to be."
        "Free them?  Protect them?  Like YOUR hobgoblins did when they burned that
village."
        "For which I had those involved drawn and quartered," he answered coldly.
"At your behest."
        Sheila swallowed, remembering their screams as they died.  She had only
wanted Eric to stop them, to stop this whole campaign, when she had told him
what the slaves had told her.  She had not known that his temper would flare
like that, or what orders he would give.  Yet, she wasn't so sure that he had
been wrong to do so.  She remembered the haunted looks that the children
carried still.
        Eric went on, in such a tone that she could not tell if he was speaking to
her or himself.  "In another day, we will attack the Keep.  I will tear it
down so that not a stone remains upon a stone and not a person within
survives.  My sword shall drink the blood of the Archbishop, the first it has
drunk since the day I took it up--for you.  I will use those stones to build
the foundation of my own palace.  It's gardens will be more beautiful than
those of Zinn and its walls stronger than those of Tardos Keep!  All the Realm
shall fall and be united beneath my banner!  And then, when the time has come,
I will kill Venger in his very castle!"
        Sheila listened to him rant, gritting her teeth.  She had heard it all
before.  "No matter how many people will die because of it."
        "Yes."  He looked at her a long time with those eyes, like fiery coals set in
darkness.  "No matter how many."
        "We arrive tomorrow?" she asked.
        "And attack the next night," he affirmed, sitting on his chair of bones.  The
Avatar of Death.  He raised his voice.  "Targos!  Mishak!"  Two hobgoblins,
even bigger than most, entered the tent.  Sheila shied away from them.  Eric
gestured to her.  "You will see that she remains safe in her tent tomorrow,
and the day after, until the battle is over.  Tie her hand and foot if you
have to, but keep her safe, or I will flay you alive."
        "Shiv Warduke," the hobgoblins answered as one, fists to chest, bowing at the
waist.  Sheila let them escort her from the tent without protest.

        Noon the following day revealed Eric's army, numbering two thousand hobgoblin
warriors, emerging from the forest and onto the field.  Almost immediately,
they began setting up camp, raising tents and digging latrines and starting
cookfires.  The men in the Keep saw, but no envoy was sent under a grey flag.
None was needed.
        From a wooded hill, Hank watched the preparations of both forces.  Behind
him, three hundred men waited in their own secret camp, unlit by any fire and
unmarked by any tent or banner.  The Ranger had not been idle these past three
weeks.
        Hank sighed.  One way or another, tomorrow was not going to be a good day.
Beside him, old, stout Reian nodded and clasped him gently on the shoulder.
"Not easy, is it lad?" he asked.
        "It'd be harder without you guys," Hank answered.
        "That wasn't what I meant, but you're welcome anyway."  Reian smiled with a
hint of grimness.  The old warrior had been forced from easy retirement by the
Bearers and attacked on the road more than once by the hobgoblins.  It was
more through his work than Hank's that they had gathered the relatively few
men that they had.  He shrugged.  "Besides, what could be better?  We wait for
them to dull their teeth on each other and then bite them on the--"
        "Hey, Hank!" Bobby suddenly shouted from his perch in a tree.  "I don't see
any catapults or anything like that.  How're they going to get in the Keep?"
        Hank frowned, realizing what had been bothering him.  "Good question, Bobby."
        "Do you think he has a wizard, or something?" asked Diana.  Reian looked to
Presto as if for an answer.
        The young magician shrugged and spread his hands.  "I can't tell from here."
Not that he could tell up close either, really.  "We'll have to wait and see."
        Reian nodded.  "If he does, no doubt you can protect us, right?"
        "I'll try," Presto answered uncertainly.  Since his light show on the road
two weeks before, when they had first encountered Reian and the sixty men that
followed him then, they had all assumed that he hid even greater powers behind
a facade of youth.  He wondered if they would turn on him and the others when
his magic went screwy.
        Reian shrugged, unconcerned.  "Well, I'd best go make my rounds, or
someone'll do something stupid and get us all caught."  He rose and left, long
sword banging on his hip.
        "We'll find out tomorrow," Hank said bleakly, clutching his bow like a snake.

        But Eric didn't wait until the next day.  When the moons were high, the
Warduke sounded the charge.