Then...Rask stuck his scaly snout into the chamber. He located the second drakonid and growled, "Come!"

The two vanished a moment later, leaving the anxious dragonspawn back in command. The bulky creature obviously wanted to follow Rask, but had been given no order. It clearly chafed at being kept from something that had to be more exciting than guarding a bunch of prisoners safely secured.

That worked to Vereesa's advantage. She slipped toward Grenda.

Another drakonid entered. The same drakonid responsible for Udin's fate.

"You," he rasped, pointing at the ranger. Doing her best to keep the tiny blade secreted, she faced the creature.

"The door," the drakonid commanded of the skardyn. Several of the squat fiends rushed up to fend away any heroic dwarves while another unlocked the cell. As the skardyn swung the door open, the drakonid approached. In his other hand, he held a long rope, which he began unwinding.

"Come—"

The tiny blade burled itself in his eye.

The ranger charged into the skardyn before her, bowling them over by sheer surprise more than anything else. Striking their bodies was like striking rock, but she used leverage in her favor.

And behind her poured out the other prisoners.

The first two dwarves perished quickly, pikes in their guts. Their sacrifice helped those behind them, for Grenda and others seized on the pikes and tore them from the grips of their foes. That created a further opening that allowed the rest of the prisoners to flee the cell.

Vereesa paid no mind to the skardyn, the drakonid still her greatest concern. Even as he pulled the blade free of the ruined eye, the ranger fell upon him. With no weapon of her own, she grabbed for the rope.

Still dealing with his awful wound, the drakonid let his grip on the rope slacken. He belatedly tried to grab the high elf by the throat, but Vereesa had already darted to his side.

The dragonspawn came lumbering at the pair. Vereesa looped the rope and before the drakonid could turn to face her, tossed the loop around his throat. She pulled tight.

With a savage croak, the drakonid tried to free himself from the makeshift noose. The ranger tightened her grip on it as she turned to face the dragonspawn.

The four-legged behemoth swung hard at her, its ax chipping away at the ground as it just missed. The ranger used her weight to kick at the guard while at the same time also adding it to the force she was expending on the rope.

There was a terrible cracking sound. Vereesa felt the drakonid grow limp, its neck broken.

But being caught between the two foes now left her at the mercy of the dragonspawn. The bestial warrior snagged her leg and dragged her in closer for the kill.

Still clutching the rope, the high elf tried to use the dead drakonid's weight to keep her from the dragonspawn. Unfortunately, the strength of the latter was so great that both she and the corpse easily slid toward her eager adversary.

Vereesa released her hold. The sudden change in resistance caused the dragonspawn to go stumbling back. The ranger went sliding under the heavy feet as the dragonspawn collided with one of the walls.

She twisted out of what remained of the creature's hold, then rolled under and to the side. The ax came down, but the dragonspawn, still off-balance, missed by a wide margin.

Scrambling away from the behemoth. Vereesa came up behind a skardyn with a pike. Moving with the swiftness of which her race was famed, the ranger ripped the pike from the creature's claws before it knew what was happening, then kicked it into the waiting hands of a pair of dwarves. She spun around just as the dragonspawn closed on her.

The pike thrust into his shoulder, but, thanks to the scale hide, did nothing more than leave a small scar. The dragonspawn tried to chop her weapon into pieces and only by rapid maneuvering did Vereesa keep that from happening. She wished for her bow, certain that she could have planted arrows in both eyes and the throat if given only a few seconds. As it was, the pike was an unfamiliar weapon, one at the moment more suited for humans or sturdy fighters like the dwarves or skardyn.

Around her, the dwarves were pressing their savage cousins. The skardyn had more of the weapons, but they did not have the numbers. Grenda had seized a whip from one fallen foe and used itnow to good effect on those wielding pikes. She would let the whip lash around the weapon's long pole, then use a skilled flick of the wrist to wrench the pikes forward.

However, one skardyn managed to slip behind Grenda. The scaly dwarf raised an ax at her back....

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.