GRUNSONN'S MARAUDERS
By Andy Jones


'GENTLEMEN, THE DEAL is done. Your honour, sorry, our honour is at stake!'
The young man stood defiantly in front of the rough wooden table, around which three travel-worn characters played cards and drank from battered tankards. Two tankards were full of frothy ale in which suspicious shapes surfaced now and then. The other held a liquid golden glitter, which the owner refilled from a delicate bottle every so often.
'Raise yer ten, and throw in me spare dagger of wotsit slaying.' The gruff voice was that of a dwarf of indeterminate age and very few teeth. His black beard was streaked with silver grey (and gravy stains), his face a mass of scars from old wounds, weather-beaten and rugged. His armour was dented and scratched, and two fingers were missing from his left hand. A huge, rune-encrusted axe leaned against the table next to him. Unlike everything else about the dwarf, the axe gleamed and shone, even in the fuggy gloom of Ye Broken Bones Inne. Grimcrag Grunsonn peered at his cards through beady black eyes.
'Ach, Grimcrak, ven to admit Defeat! Dat Kard is nozzink bot a Seven.' The heavily-accented growl came from the lips of a wolfish barbarian sitting opposite the dwarf. Heavily muscled, with a bearskin draped across his broad shoulders, the barbarian glanced at Johan Anstein and grinned, showing white teeth. 'I got 'im now, ja?'
Johan threw his eyes heavenwards and tapped an impatient foot on the worn floorboards. 'Look, we've been sitting around for weeks now. So I've sorted us a job out, and-'
'What sort of a job, lad? More wetnursing ladies on the way to court? You know what happened last time! Hah! Wetnurses!' Jiriki the elf laughed quietly, a knowing look shining in his eyes.
Keanu the Reaver, the fur-clad barbarian, emitted something halfway between a belch and a throaty guffaw. 'Vetnurse! Ha! Zome joke dat, eh, Grimcrak?'
The dwarf stared stony-faced at his cards. 'Weren't no fault of mine. Should've had good dwarf buckets 'stead of them shoddy things.'
Johan winced at the memory, but pressed on bravely. 'No, a proper job. You know, underground - with monsters and danger and stuff, a real quest.' The young would-be hero looked dreamily across the bar, already envisaging the many brave and daring deeds awaiting them.
The others ignored him. They'd heard it all before; Johan's pipe-dreams rarely came to anything.
'Okey-dokey, Grimcrak, da dagger it is.' The Reaver held his cards to his massive chest in a conspiratorial fashion.
'It's a wizard, see, lives here in town, wants us to find a long-lost magical item.'
'They all do, lad, they all do,' Grimcrag muttered. 'Let's see you, then.'
'Funf tenz!' proclaimed the barbarian.
'Damn!'
'Ja!' Keanu grinned viciously. 'I vin! I vin! Da dagger, if ya pleez...'
Johan drew in a deep breath and threw a sizeable bag down on the table. It clinked with an instantly recognisable metallic sound. 'He's given me a down-payment.'
Expecting a row for dubious tactics, Keanu was more than a little surprised when Grimcrag handed over the dagger, but the Barbarian did notice that a familiar glazed look had come over the dwarfs craggy features. Even as Grimcrag's left hand passed over the weapon, his right sidled of its own accord towards the bag, giving it a nudge. The bag jingled again.
'It's-' Johan began.
'Shush now, lad, I knows what this is.' Grimcrag's features had taken on a look of rapturous awe. 'Bretonnian gold, brought back from the new lands of Luscitara.'
'Lustria actually,' Jiriki corrected. 'And you only had to ask; we've known about the humid, swampy, jungle infested place for...'
'Never mind that. Their gold is second to none.' Grimcrag felt the bag again. After a few more investigative pokes, a secretive, greedy look came over the dwarf's craggy face, and he paused, before continuing in a disappointed tone.
'Actually, on second thoughts, I'm wrong y'know.' He dragged the bag towards him across the table.
'Vot meanink?' Keanu asked, his razor-sharp intuition picking up the change in the dwarf's manner.
'He's gone all goldsome on us. They all go like that,' the elf sighed. 'He'll be alright in a minute or two.'
'Can we get on with it? The wizard is waiting.' Johan was getting more exasperated by the second. 'You've got... sorry, we've got the gold. It's just a down-payment; we've got to meet him at his tower within the hour.'
Grimcrag shook his head, a sly look in his eye. Jiriki gave a short barking laugh and drew his dagger. From past experience, the elf knew what was about to happen.
'You've bin done, lad,' the dwarf said, peering inside the bag. 'Yup, just as I thought: brass and copper, brass and copper - just enough to pay back what you owes me for the sword and stuff I gave you.' Tutting disappointedly to himself, Grimcrag made to put the bag into his pack, moving with startling speed - but the elf and barbarian proved faster.
Keanu held Grimcrag's wrist while Jiriki split the bag open with one lightning-swift stroke of his dagger. Gold coins spilled across the table, glinting and gleaming in the light.
'Koppa?'
'Brass my-' Jiriki began.
'Sorcery!' exclaimed the dwarf, looking sheepish, 'It was all brass a moment ago, I swear.' Johan could have sworn that the dwarf was shaking, and had tears in his eyes, but he put it down to the smoke which filled the air of the gloomy inn.
The young man drew a deep breath and gave it one more try. He was one of the Marauders now, so they had to listen to him. Johan tried to look stern and authoritative, copying a look he'd seen Grimcrag use to good effect a number of times - usually when confronting ogres or trolls and addressing them as if they were naughty children who deserved spanking.
'Ahem!' Johan frowned for effect. 'AHEM!'
Keanu shot the ex-Imperial envoy a glance and involuntarily spat beer across the table. 'Vot's up, jung 'un? Konstipatid?'
Grimcrag was dabbing his eyes with a dirty cloth, whilst trying to regain his composure. Jiriki was putting the last coin away in his pack to be shared out later, but he looked up and grinned at Johan's posturing.
'Not bad, lad, not bad - now, what's the story again?'
Seizing his chance, Johan closed his eyes and took a very deep breath, before rattling off as many of the details as he could remember of his chance encounter with the cowled wizard with the twinkling eyes.
'Err... He wants us to rescue a magic item of some sort from the clutches of the monsters - that's undead and suchlike - from some caves under the Grey Mountains. He's been after it for years, and it's all he wants. He has lots of gold and treasure, and the bag is a down-payment. He lives in the big tower on the outskirts of town, and says that if we bring the artefact back, we can keep all the other loot from the dungeon - all he wants is the thing itself!' Panting, Johan finished his monologue and opened his eyes, proud of his powers of recall.
He was sitting on his own at the table. A few regulars stared at him as if he was mad, or had the plague perhaps.
Flushing a bright red, Johan picked up his pack and stumbled for the door, making his excuses as he fled. 'Damn them all to hell!' he muttered, buckling on his sword belt and setting off after his companions. He could just make out Grimcrag's stumpy figure running off at the end of the street.
'Wait for me, you callous bunch of thugs!'
Johan set off in hot pursuit. Well, he knew where they going. As he tore round the corner, he heard the unmistakable voice of an enraged innkeeper.
'Wretched Marauders! Who's payin' for all this beer?' Johan Anstein wasn't stopping. This was his quest, and he was going to be in on it whether the others liked it or not.

THE GREY-COWLED wizard had obviously been expecting them, since he was waiting by the door to his tower. It was a run-down building, perhaps a hundred feet high and little more than twenty feet in diameter. Weeds grew in thick clumps around its base, and ivy crawled up the lichen-encrusted brickwork. No windows looked out any lower than a good thirty feet up the walls, giving the tower obvious defensive capabilities.
From the top, Johan imagined, you could see for miles and miles, at least as far as the Grey Mountains, far off to the north. He also noticed that although the tower looked decrepit in places, the front door was very impressive indeed. Ten feet tall, five feet broad, its dark black timbers and heavy iron surround suggested indomitable strength and near indestructibility. It had so many locks and bolts that in places it was hard to see the wood at all.
'Spose that's magic-locked too?' Grimcrag had asked with grudging admiration.
'Not at all, not all,' the twinkly-eyed wizard beamed from deep inside his grey hood. 'You can't beat a good set of locks and a strong door. In my experience, ostentatious displays of magic just seem to make the wrong sort... inquisitive, if you know what I mean.' With that, and the jangling of a hefty bunch of keys, they were in.
The tower was gloomy and dusty inside, betraying the fact that it had not really been occupied for some time now. Most of the doors up to the fifth floor were boarded over and nailed shut, and Johan couldn't help being intrigued and curious. He'd never been in a wizard's den before, not a real one.
Keanu had stayed outside ''To be keeping Guard'' but Johan knew that, for all his muscles, the hulking barbarian didn't much trust the powers of magic, and stayed well clear unless he couldn't help it. If the stories were to be believed, the only way Keanu liked to deal with wizards was with a sharp blade. However, gold was gold, a job was a job, so the Reaver was ''Votchink for Troubles'' outside.
'A wizard's tower, eh, Grimcrag, Jiriki?' Johan's voice was a muted, awe-struck whisper.
'Poor decor, very dusty, not much of a colour scheme,' the elf muttered, mostly to himself.
'Badly built, needs repointing, I've knocked down better,' Grimcrag added from up ahead. 'Hold on a minute - how come Keanu had five tens anyway?'
'Yes, but still... oh, never mind!'
Eventually they had reached the top level and emerged breathless into the wizard's chamber. There, seated amidst the bubbling vats, stuffed animals, astrolabes, ancient books and all the other accoutrements of his trade, the wizard had explained the mission.
It seemed that he had spent his whole life searching for the Finger of Life, a powerful magical artefact, crafted when the world was young and death but a dream.
'Read that somewhere,' Grimcrag interjected at that point. 'Go on.'
The wizard explained that this item was a power to heal, to restore, and unspecified Dark Forces had conspired for years to keep it from his grasp. Now he had pinpointed where it rested, yet he was too old to go and wrest it from the powers of darkness. He needed heroes, mighty warriors of great renown, to go and retrieve the Finger of Life for him. He had heard of the great deeds of Grunsonn's Marauders, and knew that it was Fate which had brought them to this small backwater, south of the Grey Mountains.
'The way will be hard, but think of the greater good! Think of the children to be healed, the starving to be fed!'
'It's really that good, is it?' Jiriki inquired languidly as he peered out of the window in the tower. 'Hey, Grimcrag, I can see into young Miss Epstan's boudoir from here.'
'That good and better, young man!' exclaimed the kindly old wizard, ignoring the elf and concentrating on Johan. 'You see these boxes?' He threw a stout chest open, so that sunlight glinted on the contents within. Johan gasped: he'd never seen so much gold all in one place. The wizard noticed his shock and grinned. 'All as nothing compared to the Finger of Life, believe me.'
Grimcrag coughed and tried to maintain his composure, but when he spoke his voice shook a little. 'Take it off your hands if you like, I can see it's, erm, cluttering the place, and filling all your nice boxes too. If you like, that is...' His voice trailed off as the wizard flung open another chest containing a myriad assortment of gemstones. 'Gggn-ngh...'
'A pretty speech, Grimcrag, but motivated by gold-lust rather than concern for my storage facilities I fear, eh?' The old man laughed at the dwarf's obvious discomfort.
'Well, I just thought-'
The wizard swept his arm dismissively around the chamber. 'The Finger sits in such company as makes this little lot worthless, and you, my friends, may have it all. All I want is the Finger.'
'Lots of treasure then?' Grimcrag had that pensive look that usually preceded a new adventure. Johan crossed his fingers behind his back. It looked as if Grimcrag was on board at least. The wizard nodded.
'Plenty of orcs and other hellspawn to test the mettle of my Ulthuan-crafted blade?' Jiriki leant out of the window, looking straight downwards, his words a careless whisper. The wizard nodded. Johan exhaled with relief; he'd thought that the elf would be the hardest to convince. Jiriki looked over his shoulder, staring the wizard straight in the eye. The old man nodded again. After a moment, the elf shrugged and looked out of the window once more. This time he shouted: 'Hey, Keanu, can you hear me down there?'
'Ja! Vot's happenink?' The unmistakable voice drifted faintly upwards. 'Is jung Anstein turning into a Toad yet?'
'No, my friend. We just wondered if you fancied liberating a fortune in jewels and gold from some of the greenskins you hate so much?'
There was a brief pause.
'Ja! Of course! Vot schtupid Qvestion!'

THE MINOTAUR BELLOWED and roared as it charged down the narrow underground passageway. Johan backed away fast, holding his sword in front of him. During his years of schooling to be an Imperial Envoy, he'd obviously missed the ''Minotaurs: Etiquette and Handling Thereof lessons''. His sword looked ridiculously puny, even to himself. Still, if he was going to die, he might as well go down in a way worthy of one of Grunsonn's Marauders.
'Come on then, come on then!' he shouted, inwardly preparing for a painful demise.
The minotaur grunted and slowed to a stop. Its head swung slowly to and fro as it sniffed the air warily. Its teeth were still bared, but it obviously wasn't quite so keen to face Johan as a few seconds previously.
Anstein blinked, and regarded his sword with new respect. Perhaps Grimcrag had given him a magic one by mistake. He waved it at the minotaur again for good effect. 'You want some? YOU WANT SOME?'
The minotaur growled loudly and backed off towards the darkness from where it had emerged scant seconds earlier. To the young adventurer, it already seemed as if hours had passed since he'd first seen the beast. Time moved like glue.
'Urrr... you craven coward, come taste my blade!' Johan took a step forward, much emboldened.
This was obviously too much for the massive beast, as it turned tail and fled into the darkness. Johan heard its cloven hoofs beating a rapid tattoo on the rough stone floor. He was just sheathing his sword, in pride and relief, when Grimcrag, Jiriki and Keanu came hurtling around the corridor.
'Hey, did you see that, I just...' Johan's voice tailed off in terror.
The Marauders were looking at him with open horror and revulsion, and Johan could see what was coming - these were trained warriors who reacted first and regretted their actions later. Well, sometimes.
'No, it's all right. It's me - Johan!' he shrieked, wondering if somehow he had been enchanted to look like a fearsome creature. This was crazy. It was also much too late. As if in slow motion, Johan saw two arrows flash from Jiriki's bow, even as Keanu hurled a wickedly barbed spear, and Grimcrag's massive axe hurtled through the air. Even under the circumstances, Johan had to admire their reactions.
Still in slow motion, he backed away, dropping his sword in abject terror. The missiles crossed the short space between them. Johan mouthed silent curses. The axe glinted in the air.
Johan's improvised escape stopped abruptly as he backed into something big and hard. Something that growled. Something whose foetid breath touched him for a split second. Something whose beady red eyes regarded him balefully in the instant before it was simultaneously decapitated by a large axe, pinioned by a spear and spitted by two arrows to its black heart.
With a growling gurgle and a fountain of viscous black blood, the immense troll collapsed and died, one viciously clawed hand dragging Johan down with it. His desperately flailing arms caught a knobbly projection of rock, which came away in his hand. Hitting his head hard on the granite floor, the last thing Johan heard was a dull grating, rumbling sound. Even as he passed out it occurred to him that they may well all be about to die.

A BOOTED FOOT prodded Johan Anstein in the ribs. Callused fingers tugged roughly at his jerkin. Foul, caustic liquid was forced down his throat. A harsh voice shouted at him in a barely understandable tongue, as powerful and (from the smell) none-too-recently washed arms wrenched him moaning to his feet. Even in his groggy haze, and with his head smarting badly, Johan knew that something awful was about to happen. Maybe everyone else was dead. Maybe he was the last of the Marauders.
He blinked and tried to stand unaided, swaying dizzily but determined not to give his captors the satisfaction of seeing his weakness.
'Vot you think, Grimcrak, not holt his Liquor?'
'He'll be alright, had a nasty knock on the head. Go easy on the lad,' Jiriki said.
'Knock some sense into him perhaps.'
'Not now, Grimcrag, the lad's done fine by us so far, give him credit,' the elf chided. 'We'd not have found the concealed door otherwise.'
Waving away another slug of the noxious brew Grimcrag was toting, Anstein looked slowly about him. He quickly ran his hands over his bruised body, checking that nothing was missing. Apparently not. A thought trickled sluggishly through his battered brain. It eventually came to rest.
'What concealed door?'
As one, the Marauders stepped aside to reveal a large portal, where before there had been only a rock wall. Evidently the piece of stone Johan had grabbed as he fell had been some kind of hidden trigger mechanism.
'Are you sure it's the right one?' Anstein asked nervously. 'I've seen what happens when you lot go poking around for treasure behind secret doors.'
'You've got the map, young 'un,' Grimcrag grunted, still affronted that Johan didn't want any of his beer, 'and all the other stuff from the wizard too.'
'Let's just open da verdamten Door, ja?' Keanu enthused, drawing his sword.
Grimcrag began to smile, and a split-second later he had his savage axe firmly gripped in both hands. 'OK! Let's maraud!'
'Hold it, hold it!' The elven voice cut the air. 'Johan's right for once.' Jiriki was squinting at the inscriptions on the doorway. 'These are very old and powerful runes, and we don't want to break them without good reason.' He traced their shapes with a slender finger. 'Very good reason indeed.'
Grimcrag peered at the symbols, muttering under his breath. 'Good workmanship this. Old. Powerful.' The dwarf turned to Johan. 'OK, young 'un, get the stuff out, let's be 'aving you. Who knows what'll be along in a minute?'
'Ja, Monsters, Dragonz even!' the Reaver chipped in enthusiastically, looking at the dark recesses in the narrow passage, perhaps to spot any lurking behemoths they had missed earlier.
Johan reached into his backpack and pulled out a selection of objects given them by the wizard. One was an old map, which Johan rolled out on the stone floor and weighted down with some bits of troll. The warriors hunched over the map, illuminated by the flickering light of their torch.

JOHAN CAREFULLY PACKED the objects away again one at a time. He had a bag to hold the Finger of Life when they found it. There was also a simulacrum of the artefact, to be placed exactly in the spot where the Finger rested. Apparently it contained enough power to paralyse the guardians whilst the Marauders made their getaway. This bit had worried Johan a great deal, nervous as he was about powerful artefacts and cursed guardians, but he feared to say anything as the other warriors had taken the announcement in their stride.
Johan had also been given a magical talisman, which would re-seal the runes on the doorway - if the accompanying instructions were closely followed. That bit had worried him too, but the others had pointed out that if push came to shove even Grimcrag could run pretty fast. Finally, there was the agreement signed by the wizard that any other treasure they liberated was theirs to keep: all he wanted was the Finger.
'OK, this is definitely the place, I've got the gear. Let's do it.'
'Vot's da plan then?'
Grimcrag scratched his bearded chin thoughtfully. 'Well, in my experience, places with secret doors - ones which are magically locked by old and powerful runes, mind - spell two things.' He paused a moment and counted on his stubby fingers. 'The main one is treasure. Gold.' At the thought, his eyes closed wistfully for a few moments.
'And the second?' Johan prompted.
'Ah, the second...' Grimcrag scowled and looked fierce. 'That'll be all the hideous monsters defending the gold, all destined to die by my blade!'
'Und mine also!'
Jiriki looked heavenwards, arms folded. He tapped his foot impatiently. 'And the plan is?'
Grimcrag beamed. Jiriki began to grin. The Reaver's barking laugh cut the dank air.
'We all know the plan, don't we? It's the same one we've always used,' Grimcrag said politely, before lowering his voice to a rumbling, menacing rasp. 'We goes in, we kills 'em all, we takes the loot, we legs it. Gottit?'
'Clear as a bell, my friend.'
'Ja, Kunnink!'
Johan blanched in terror. 'Is that it? Shouldn't we at least-'
But it was too late. Grimcrag and Keanu rolled back the great stone doors, ready to rush the inevitable horde of monsters. Jiriki had an arrow nocked, the string on his fine elf bow pulled taut.
A moment later and they were all reeling back in shocked surprise. Rather than the expected flood of zombies, Chaos creatures, orcs or worse, they were completely blinded by a burst of pure white light. The brightness threw the tunnel into stark whiteness, and the Marauders fell to their knees, their hands covering their eyes. The torches they carried were dropped, to gutter and die on the floor, but no one noticed, such was the intensity of the light streaming from the long-sealed cavern.
Johan hurled himself to one side of the stone doorway, where he lay panting in terror. After a moment he found that he was, surprisingly, still alive.
Johan blinked. 'It's just light!' he called out, standing up warily and dusting himself down. Shielding his eyes and peering around the doorway, he saw the others walking into the light, black silhouettes against the brightness.
'Get in here, manling, sharpish!'
Johan staggered forwards, tentatively entering a chamber where the air was crisp and sweet, and the sound of soft breathing resonated peacefully. As his eyes grew accustomed to the glare, Johan gasped in astonishment. They were in a low roofed, circular chamber at least thirty feet in diameter. The walls were bright white, and radiated the light which had assailed them.
This was not what had caused Johan to gasp. In a circle around the walls of the cavern there was a ring of stone slabs, perhaps twenty in all. On each, bedecked in the finery of princes, was an elf warrior of such beauty and nobility that it was almost painful to look upon them. They slept, and theirs was the soft breathing which filled the air. Each was in full war gear, each held an elaborately styled sword to his chest. Each looked to be a king.
'Ancient elf lords, livery of Tiranoc, the sunken kingdom,' Jiriki spoke softly, his voice tinged with awe.
But even this was not what had caused Johan to gasp. At the centre of the chamber, surrounded by the sleeping elf lords, was a plain yet elegant plinth, elf and dwarf runes were inscribed in its surfaces, the spidery grandeur of the elven sigils contrasting with the powerful majesty of the dwarf work.
Atop the plinth sat a finger. A black, wizened finger. A wrinkled, mostly decayed, scabrous thing of great antiquity. Despite its obvious age, Johan was under no illusions that this was what these princely lords were here to protect.
Grimcrag looked over at Johan and laughed. 'Don't be taken in, boy, one false move and these charming lads will be revealed in their true shape. Vampires, I wouldn't wonder. Daemons even. Don't touch 'em.'
Johan paused; doubt assailed him. Then, with trembling steps, he made for the central dais. Jiriki was already there. The elf stood by the plinth, reading the inscriptions as best he could. 'These are beyond me, but they are probably powerful runes of protection akin to those on the doorway.'
'Vot Treasure?' Ever down to earth, the barbarian was scouting the chamber, looking for secret compartments where the great treasure trove might be found. 'Nothink here. Not vun think.'
The dwarf looked around and sniffed the air, shaking his head in evident disgust. 'Good point, meathead. We've been done!'
'Never mind that now,' whispered Johan. 'Let's get the Finger and get out of here - we can sort out payment later, when we get back.' Once more, he was sure that something awful was about to happen. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
They converged on the central dais. The Reaver's sword weaved, testing the air, and his eyes darted nervously about the chamber. Grimcrag stood close by, legs apart for balance, his axe held firmly in both hands. Jiriki reached out for the finger - as he touched it, the breathing of the sleepers faltered in its regular rhythm.
'Leave it, Jiriki!' Johan screeched. 'Remember the instmctions: the simulacrum!'
The elf recoiled from the finger as if struck. He nodded to Johan, eyes wide. Grimcrag guffawed, a nervous cough of a laugh.
Johan carefully unwrapped the simulacrum from his pack. It looked little like the blackened stump on the plinth, but the wizard had assured them that it held magic properties enough to contain the guardians for a while at least. Johan reached carefully with his left hand for the aged finger, his right simultaneously manoeuvring the simulacrum into place. As he grasped the finger, a shudder went through the sleepers. Quick though Johan was to remove the artefact, one of the lords abruptly awoke, sitting upright and reaching for his sword.
'WHO DARES-' he began, but his voice was cut short as Grimcrag's axe removed his noble head from his elegant body. Jiriki winced. Johan placed the simulacrum on the dais. The sleepers resumed their slumber, although now their breathing was disturbed, and they fidgeted restlessly in their sleep, as if in the throes of nightmares.
'Goddit, ja?' Keanu asked.
Johan nodded.
'Let's go,' growled Grimcrag.
They made for the door, half expecting a hideous trap to be sprung as they left. Jiriki paused by the defiled slab, his forehead furrowed by lines of uncertainty.
'Come on, Jiriki, it was him or us,' Grimcrag said softly from the doorway. 'If I'm wrong, at least it's not you 'as been kin-slaying, and I'll owe someone due reparation.'
Hesitantly Jiriki joined them outside the chamber. 'We're all in this together, my friend. Let's hope we're right.'
In the passageway, Keanu had a torch re-lit, and the warriors carefully closed the stone door behind them, shutting out the white light and plunging themselves into gloom once again. Johan handed the magical talisman to Jiriki, who passed it around the doorway, realigning the broken runes once more.
'There you are, see!' Grimcrag exclaimed. 'That wizard knows what he's up to all right - all bar the treasure, that is...' His gruff voice trailed off, and he spat on the floor.
'Somvun get da Treasure first?' Keanu suggested, striding off along the corridor with lantern held high.
'Mebbe so,' grunted the dwarf. 'And wait for us!' Johan and the grizzled dwarf followed the barbarian.
Jiriki joined them a moment later, a puzzled frown still on his face. 'The problem is, if we think for a moment, that the chamber had lain undisturbed for ages. We found it as it was sealed, runes unbroken. No one has been there before us.'
'And that means-' Johan added after the required moment's thought.
'No treasure!' Grimcrag scowled even more ferociously than usual. 'As I thought, that wizard has some explaining to do once he's got 'is precious Finger back!'
Dispirited, the adventurers made their way to the surface and the long trek back to civilisation. It seemed that the quest was, at least from their own point of view, a failure.
'At least ve're gettink da Finga,' Keanu commented, attempting a glimmer of cheer as they trudged out of the broken down cave entrance. 'Und ve can see da Daylicht vunce more.'
Grimcrag looked around the desolate hillside. It was starting to snow again. 'What good's that to us, eh? Daylight won't keep us warm, nor pay our expenses neither.'
Jiriki laughed. The situation had tickled his elvish humour. 'And all for a mummified bit of man-flesh that is worth nothing to anyone except our misguided patron. We can't even sell it to anyone else.'
Grimcrag snorted and stomped off into the snow, followed by the barbarian, now wrapped tightly in his bearskin. The dwarfs gruff voice floated back towards the elf, who was stowing his bow to avoid the string being ruined by the damp air. 'Not funny. Not funny at all!'
Bursting into a bright and spirit-raising melody, the elf ran lightly after his companions, leaving Johan shivering in the entrance. A plan was growing in Anstein's mind, a plan so devious that it might just work.
'Hold on you lot! Hold on!' he shouted, rushing off down the hillside after the vanishing figures. In a few minutes he caught them, waiting for him in the lee of a large boulder which offered a little shelter from the elements.
'Make it quick, lad,' Grimcrag said through gritted teeth.
'Yes, yes, but listen to this idea,' Johan began, hopping from foot to foot.
'Ideas, pah!' spat Keanu, his breath steaming in the cold. He stabbed Johan in the chest with an iron hard finger. 'Dis hole grosses Dizazta ist 'coz of your verdamten Planen.' Johan had noticed before that the barbarian's accent thickened to near-incomprehensibility when he got angry.
Even Jiriki shook his head wearily. 'I think you've got us in enough of a mess already with your pipe-dreams, lad. Leave it alone, eh?'
As the three Marauders turned to go, Johan jumped in front of them, eyes gleaming.
'Listen, you miserable beggars. We've got the Finger, right?'
'Ja, so vot?'
'The Vizard, sorry, the wizard wants it, right?'
'Yeses, go on...' Grimcrag was interested. He could see the glimmerings of a plan happening, a plan which might involve some gold.
Johan seized his chance and blurted out the whole scheme. 'We get old Gerry the butcher to make us a finger just like the real one. After all, the wizard has never seen it.' Johan counted the points off on his fingers. 'Then we take the real finger and bury it somewhere secret nearby.' Jiriki was nodding in approval. Johan held up another finger. 'We take the fake finger to the wizard and try and get an explanation from him. He won't let us in the tower if we don't have something to wave at him.'
'Klewa lad. Be Kontinuing.'
'Well, as I see it, once we're in the tower, he'll either spin us a yarn, or offer us some gold by way of apology. If we get some treasure, we go back and get the real finger for him. Otherwise, we tell him he's got a fake and sell him the real one. Simple! We can't lose!' Pleased with himself, Johan swelled up with pride.
The others, standing by the boulder on the desolate hillside, assessed the plan.
'Butcher, ja?'
'A simulacrum of a simulacrum, I like that.'
'Treasure and gold after all!'
'Well?' enquired Johan after a minute or so. 'What do you think?'
Grimcrag grabbed him by the shoulders, staring sternly into Johan's eyes. The dwarf's black eyes gleamed ferociously. Johan thought perhaps now something awful was going to happen after all. The others crowded round, looking over Grimcrag's shoulders to see what was going on. Johan felt his back meet the cold stone of the boulder. He gulped.
'Manling,' Grimcrag began, speaking slowly and with deliberation. 'Of all your harebrained schemes...' He stopped, and Johan cringed inwardly at what was to follow. 'This... is the best so far!' With a whoop of joy, Grimcrag threw his helmet into the air, caught it again and set off down the hillside at the nearest he was ever going to get to a sprightly jog.
Jiriki grinned. 'This is going to work, lad - he's even singing his favourite song!' Punching Johan cheerfully in the chest, the elf set off after the dwarf.
'What song?' Johan shouted, wincing from the blow.
'Komst, lad, let's go.' The Barbarian sprang catlike down the hillside.
Still smirking with satisfaction, Johan began picking his way down the treacherous slope. Even though he was concentrating hard on not falling over, his ears caught the unmistakable sound of the Marauders in full song as they descended the hill. After a moment's hesitation, Johan threw caution to the wind. Well, no one from the Empire was around to hear him.
'Gold gold gold gold!
Gold gold gold gold!
Wonderful gold!
Delectable gold...'
It was all going to be all right after all. Probably.

THE WIZARD WAS pleased to see them, skipping excitedly as he undid the myriad locks and bolts to his tower.
'You have it, you have it?' he fussed, leading them by torch light up the steps. 'Of course you have, I saw it from the window.' The wizard turned around on the steps and reached out a bony hand. Johan thought he saw a rather greedy glint in the eyes which peered out from the shadows of the heavy cowl. 'I'll carry it from here on now, shall I?'
His eyes were mesmerising, and Johan felt his hand reaching unintentionally into his back pack. 'You can carry it now,' he intoned dully. Johan was barged aside by a sturdy armoured figure, who broke the spell with a characteristically gruff outburst.
'Not till the tower, that was the deal. We deliver it to the top of the tower. Always does things to the letter, we does. We've got honour!' Grimcrag's voice was laden with sarcasm, but if the wizard noticed he did a good job of not showing it, running off cheerfully up the steps.
'Very well, my friends. Hurry along, hurry along, I have a kettle on for a nice hot drink.'
'Hrrumph!' Grimcrag added, but they followed the excited sorcerer up to his den nonetheless. Five minutes later and they were sitting around his table, glasses of a hot, mead-like drink steaming before them. None of them touched a drop.
'Come along now,' the wizard chided, rubbing his hands together gleefully. 'Drink up, we have much to celebrate!'
Johan smiled glassily and made to take up his glass, but the Reaver stopped him with an iron hard forearm. 'Njet drinking!'
'We always keep clear heads when concluding business. Nothing personal, you understand.' Jiriki's silky steel voice decided the issue.
'Of course. You are... professionals.'
Shaking his head to clear what felt like a thick fog, Johan thought he caught the edge of a snarl in the wizard's voice. The Marauders made no move. There was a heavy silence.
'Well?' the wizard exclaimed after a moment, and there was no mistaking the impatience in his tone now. 'Where is it?'
Grimcrag turned to Johan and winked. He was enjoying this immensely, although the canny dwarf had noticed that there were no treasure chests lying around this time. 'Where's all the treasure then?' he enquired of the wizard, as politely as a hard bitten dwarf who has been dragged to the perilous ends of the world for absolutely nothing could manage. 'Where's the gold?'
The wizard waved a hand dismissively and smiled. 'I took your advice and moved it. It was a lot of worthless clutter. All locked away safely downstairs, never fear.' He patted the large ring of keys under his cloak. They jangled comfortingly. 'Now, if I might insist, the Finger of Life, power of goodness, please, as agreed. I have waited long enough, and we do have a deal!'
'Ahem!' The dwarf cleared his throat after a moment's thought. 'Johan, the Finger if you please!'
All eyes were on the table as Johan Anstein, ex-Imperial envoy and latest accidental addition to Grunsonn's Marauders, unwrapped the prize for which they had fought so hard.
The wizard gasped. Johan thought that they'd been tumbled. But no, the wizard was enraptured by the burned and charred chicken leg that sat before him. 'May I take it?' he whispered, reaching out a scrawny hand. 'Oh, it's a beauty!'
Privately doubting his aesthetic judgement, the Marauders nevertheless nodded in concert. The wizard was almost in their trap. So far so good.
Then, with a speedy move which they would not have dreamed of witnessing from one so apparently old, the ancient wizard swept aloft the ''Finger'' and simultaneously gave a loud and triumphantly sinister laugh.
'Mine, it is mine at last!' he roared, holding the chicken leg above his head. As the Marauders looked on in shocked disbelief, the old sorcerer leapt onto the table, scattering maps, charts and wizardly tomes onto the floor of the tower. Discarding his grey robe with a dramatic flourish, the wizard was revealed in a jet black gown, covered in unmistakably necromantic symbols.
'Vot?' Keanu began, backing away. It had taken enough beer to get the Barbarian into the wizard's tower in the first place, and seeing their patron revealed as a foul necromancer did nothing for his nerves.
Fully aware that the evil wizard was wielding anything but a potent magical item, Grimcrag and Jiriki remained seated, grinning to themselves. Johan, a little unnerved, tried to follow their example, and managed an idiotic teeth-clamping grimace.
With a face like thunder, the dark wizard looked down at them. He regarded them balefully. 'Idiots!' he hissed. 'Now you see the truth!' Glancing at the Finger, the sorcerer grinned wickedly. Snake-like eyes glittered in his long, bony face.
'This,' he continued, 'this is one of the long-lost fingers of the Dread King, foul lieutenant of Nagash himself.' He capered in delight on the tabletop. Johan recognised insanity when he saw it, and by anyone's book this was a whole chapter to itself.
'You doubt me?' shrieked the sorcerer, regarding their placid expressions. 'Why should I lie? I have searched for this for ages. I am old beyond my mortal span, and now, with this, I gain ultimate power and immortality!' Spittle flew from his foam-flecked lips as he ranted.
'Why didn't you retrieve it yourself, old man?' Jiriki asked quietly. 'You've obviously known about it for years.'
The sorcerer threw back his head and cackled maniacally. 'That's the joke, you see, that's the joke.' Doubled up in laughter, tears rolled down his hollow cheeks. Suddenly his squawking laughter stopped, and he stood straight, regarding the warriors with a baleful glare. Pointing at Jiriki, he laughed derisively. 'Your kin, ages past, locked the claw away beyond my reach. Sealed it so that none like me could enter the chamber. Guarded it with twelve mighty elf lords for all eternity.' He spat on the floor to mark his disgust. 'But I waited. Oh yes, I was patient. I tracked the resting place of the Finger and I plotted and planned. Many tried and failed whilst I brooded long in my tower. Then you arrived and all was clear. I needed you as pawns to do my bidding, just as my great undead armies will do!'
He studied the warriors as if they were mindless vermin, all but unworthy of his gaze. 'I needed you to go, unwitting, where I could not. You would unknowingly breach the defences set up by your own kind, and retrieve that which was rightfully mine.' The sorcerer laughed. 'Your lot ever was to be lured by greed and avarice.'
'And now?' Grimcrag asked, nodding for the others to stand up. 'What happens now?'
The sorcerer paused for a moment, head cocked to one side. 'Ah yes, what happens now...' He coughed to clear his throat, and solemnly adjusted his robe about his scrawny body.
'Now I must kill you all. You have been a great help, and it is a great shame of course, but really you have to die!' The wizard chuckled ruefully, and brought the claw down to point at the Marauders. 'Doubtless you will later join my hordes of undeath which will march across the world, but now YOU - MUST - DIE!'
As he finished his speech, he closed his eyes, and portentously threw out his arms, waving the claw at Grimcrag and the Marauders.
Despite knowing the impotence of the device, Johan found himself flinching. He need not have worried.
The sorcerer opened his eyes and frowned, puzzled. The Marauders watched him, transfixed by his performance. The wizard drew in a deep breath and tried the ending again: 'MUST... DIEEEEE!'
When this didn't work, and he noticed the grins on the warriors' faces, he began to suspect that all was not well. Tapping the claw on the palm of his other hand, he jumped off the table and quickly found himself backed up against the turret wall. 'Die...?' he whimpered feebly.
'We weren't born yesterday, mate!' Grimcrag grunted. 'Eh, Johan?' The Marauders closed in on the pathetic, misguided and evil old man.

THE WHITE RADIANCE faded and vanished as the great stone door slid into place once more. This time around, the Marauders had taken the precaution of bringing two other long-standing sorcerous acquaintances to supervise the resealing of the runes protecting the vault, and to work out how the secret door could be brought back into place. Then, and only then, could they really forget about the whole affair.
There wasn't much Johan could do except stand by with a torch and a sword. Keanu was doing the same: torch to illuminate the others' work, sword to deter any would-be intruders. Johan was mightily relieved that no monsters of any description had turned up yet. In contrast, the barbarian was staring intently down the rough hewn passageway, and Johan was sure that the Reaver did not share his sentiments.
The two wizards - one bald and portly with fiery red gown and ruddy cheeks, the other tall and gaunt with flowing and sombre purple robes - stood back from the doors to admire their handiwork. After a few minor runic readjustments, they proclaimed their task completed.
Jiriki had already declared that the elf sigils were largely unbroken, and should stand the test of another few thousand years without any strain.
Grimcrag had enquired, checking over the dwarf runes on the portal, if that was really the best that could be expected from shoddy elf work? 'Aha!' he declared, stubby fingers probing the recesses around the stone-wrought door frame. 'I've found the catch to young Anstein's secret portal.' As far as his stout build would allow, Grimcrag pressed himself flat to the surface of the door, and reached his hand into a dark crack at one side. His eyes were closed to mere slits and his tongue protruded from between his compressed lips in concentration.
'Votch for Skorpion, Grimcrak!' Keanu whispered, all too familiar with the sorts of creatures to be found simply by probing one's fingers into the myriad small nooks and crannies to be found in any hostile dungeon.
'Thanks, musclehead, that's just what I don't need to hear!' grunted Grimcrag. 'This thing was built by dwarfs, so it must be set up to... ahhh, that'll do it!'
With a muted grating sound, a sheet of roughly surfaced rock began to slide slowly down over the rune-encrusted doorway. In a few minutes the secret chamber would be invisible to all but the keenest search. As they stood and watched the monumental slab descend, they all heard the unmistakable sound of scrabbling coming from within.
'Ee's Voken up then,' the barbarian stated impassionately. 'Looks that way,' Grimcrag added.
A barely discernible voice reached them through the stone door, which was already at least halfway covered by the descending slab. Grimcrag strode forward and listened to catch the words.
'Don't leave me here... The light it pains me so... My powers are nothing in here... Please, I implore you!'
Grimcrag rapped on the stone door. 'Hush now, you'll wake 'em up - and I'll wager you don't want that!'
The scrabbling redoubled, but was soon blocked out as the massive slab slotted into its final resting place with a solid booming thud and a cloud of dust.
When the air cleared, they were standing in a nondescript and gloomy passage once more.
Grimcrag rubbed his hands together. 'There now, a job well done.'
'Many thanks to you, Marius, Hollochi,' Jiriki added gracefully, bowing to the two wizards.
'Least we could do after that nasty business with the Crown of Implacable Woe,' replied the Bright wizard cheerily, whilst the Amethyst mage simply gave a single, sombre inclination of his head.
'Ja, tanks a lot!' the Reaver added. 'Now ve're getting to da Alehaus.'
Without further ado, the party of adventurers set off towards daylight and a well-earned tankard or two.
Grimcrag hung behind and walked alongside Johan, filling the latest addition to the Marauders with pride. 'Well, lad, it could've turned out worse,' the dwarf stated. 'At least we've done a good service to folk hereabouts.'
'Oh yes, Grimcrag, all-told a jolly successful quest, eh?' Johan agreed happily.
'Well, I wouldn't go that far. We're not dead, and he-' Grimcrag cocked a grubby thumb over his shoulder. 'He's locked up for good'n'all, but...' The dwarf sighed sadly. 'Not even a snifter of any gold.' His shoulders sagged as far as his battered armour would allow.
Johan grinned and reached into his pack, retrieving a large bundle of keys. They jangled comfortably.
'Oh I don't know about that, Grimcrag. Whilst you lot were busy bundling him up, I took the liberty of borrowing these.'
Recognising the keys, the dwarf's jaw dropped in surprise. 'I'll be blowed!' he exclaimed. Further up the passageway, heads turned to see what the commotion was about.
Johan lifted up the keys and jangled them merrily above his head. 'It's a big tower, I know, but somewhere there's a heck of a lot of gold going begging - and the way I see it, he still owes us for the job!'
Relieved and uproarious laughter filled the dingy tunnel. In a moment the buoyant adventurers burst into song, Grimcrag leading and the others taking up the refrain:
'Gold gold gold gold!
Gold gold gold gold!
Wonderful gold!
Delectable gold...'
As they marched along, Grimcrag patted Johan paternally on the shoulder. 'Yer one of us now, lad,' he said between verses. 'Ain't it grand when a brilliant plan of mine comes together!'