Venzik wanted to argue. I could see it in his eyes. I held up a hand to cut him off. “We can’t have drants running through the city. However they managed to sneak by Thilos’ scouts we have to stop them gaining a foothold. We’re only a couple of blocks away. That’s probably closer than any soldiers or city watch. What if we can make the difference?”
He immediately nodded and started calling for the guards. He ended up leaving two to guard the house but the rest of us grabbed weapons and armor. I had to change clothes because I wasn’t going to ruin my expense new outfit and it wasn’t made for fighting. Who knew what we would find at the river? It didn’t take me long, and Venzik had needed the time to wake the off duty guards anyway. Finally we headed out the door.
I had seven guards with me, not counting Venzik and Vone, so we made a troop of ten as we pushed against the crowd intelligently running away from the fight. About a half a block from my front door the street intersects with River road. At this point it isn’t actually on the river, just leading to it. At least for us. For the people fleeing the fight it obviously led away from the river, but we turned left and had two blocks to go before the road starting winding along the rocky bank of our river, or moat, or whatever it is. Both, I guess.
The Waterfront District has mostly the back of buildings facing the river. They are supposed to not have any ground floor windows, but they do, of course. No one likes following rules that only matter every hundred years or so. Plus, it’s one of the worst parts of town so I guess the Lords of Ansdron don’t worry too much that it gets beaten up so badly during the drant wars. It does tend to focus where the drants try to get in. At least they didn’t rebuild the bridge that was destroyed during the last drant war over on the other end of the Waterfront District from where we were. Of course, it would have been nice if they had rebuilt the section of wall the drants had brought down at the same time as the bridge but, to be fair, this drant war was ahead of schedule. As we made it halfway to the river bank, a block from where we had turned onto River Road with another block still to go to the small tower that guarded this end we could finally see our first drants.
The noise was terrible. People screaming mixed with the sounds of battle. Vone screamed some sort of battle cry and had a look of pure joy on his face. I realized that I was pretty excited, too. Was it because there is something straightforward about fighting drants? Something simple and clear cut? As opposed to the Kathaldi there is certainly a lack of confusion over whether they really are drants or not. I had been so confused about what I felt about Jade lately that I was looking forward to some good old fashioned good versus evil fighting.
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We all had our weapons out and we had made it past the majority of the people running away. It was time to forget my troubles and have some fun! I had my sword in my right hand and a dagger in my left. I let my anger build as we all started yelling and screaming while running the last block towards the drants and soldiers fighting next to the tower. The defenders were a mix of soldiers from the army and city watch, with a few knights also participating. I noticed some archers on top of the guard tower but they were shooting away from us, towards the river. I was glad they weren’t trying to shoot too near the fight but wasn’t reassured by the idea that there were more drants coming.
Vone pulled ahead of the rest of us. He was so excited to fight somebody! That guy really loves fighting. I noticed Venzik staying directly to my left, presumably to protect me. He was looking straight ahead at the fight, face a mask of determination. The forty or so defenders were spread out in a thin line, trying to keep the drants from breaking through and getting into the city streets and alleys where we would have to hunt them down street by street and house by house. At least once during a previous drant war when they had broken through and scattered into the city they had started a fire that consumed a good part of swamp district. No one wanted that to happen again, except for the drants, maybe. I hate those stinky, ugly children of Drantor.
Vone reached the line of defenders first, quite close to the base of the tower. A member of the city watch fell back, wounded, and Vone jumped right in, caving in the head of the rather large drant who had been fighting the injured watchman. The stupid thing had been so happy that it took a moment to throw back his head and yell some sort of victory howl. It quickly ended when Vone’s mace smashed down, and he fell when the priest of Kefnak used his shield as a tiny battering ram against his chest.
I headed to the same area with Venzik still by my side. The rest of the guards came along with us and we spread out a little, pushing our way past the defenders to give them a little time to catch their breath. Some fell back for a moment but others were obviously heartened by seeing even a small amount of help show up and pushed themselves harder at the drants. They yelled out their thanks and I’m pretty sure I heard the word heroes once or twice. I resolved to get used to it.