The sweet song of Backgammon's Peak

Patron and Atlas looked at each other with shared understanding. The sweet, soft singing coming from outside was not good. They were standing at the entrance to a large circular room. Two other sets of double doors were evenly spaced around the walls. There were a couple of smaller solid-looking doors and scattered rocks and animal droppings on the floor. The place smelled of sheep. The double doors across the room were open, letting the last of the sunset wash the room with a soft grey-orange light. Behind them, the stone causeway to the West Face stretched into darkness.

Wizz and Lona Rona were edging round to the closest of the small doors when they heard the siren’s song. Wizz quickly covered his ears but didn’t stop walking. Dropping their guard Lona Rona and Wizz simply walked out the doors and out of sight of the puzzled onlookers.

Patron moved quickly to break pieces of wax from a candle and jam them in his ears. Better, but not sound-proof. His heart raced, thinking how quickly things can tun deadly. Just a few hours ago the Troll they had surprised in its lair had taken a swipe at him, smashing his head against the stone wall and nearly knocking him out. His escape had been luck, not skill.

That whole Troll episode had been a disaster, although it had looked good to begin with. Without realising what they were fighting Patron hurled a molotov that badly burned the seven foot tall leathery beast. Then things turned to shit. The troll plunged its claws deep into Karr’s midriff and ripped his insides out. Karr went down, gurgling, groaning and bleeding out, her guts spilling across the rough stone floor. Patron stepped into the space Karr left and got past the stinking creature, slashing its side and drawing its attention. Fixlla, Atlas, Wizz and Lona pressed on with magic missiles, arrows and Lona’s spear.

That was when the beast backhanded Parton, smashing through his shield and slamming his head into the stone wall. Dazed, Patron scrambled away, saved only by the persistent attack from the others. Wounds caused by the arrows were healing fast but the burning oil and magic missiles shooting from the hands of Fixlla and Wizz were taking their toll. Atlas, with epic marksmanship, sank arrow after arrow into the beast’s head, wounding faster that it could heal. Fixlla threw a second flask of oil and flames engulfed the Trolls head and upper body. That was enough to bring the screaming beast to its knees. Patron was quick to find things to burn and soon built a good size fire on the beast that reduced the troll to a charred carcass.

Searching the trash strewn around the Troll’s lair Fixxla found a battered scroll of healing, tucked inside the beaten armour of a victim of the Troll. Fixller placed Karr’s golden cross on her grievous wound and called forth the magic of the scroll. The cross burst into light. Karr’s passion for life and the ancient power of the tattered scroll struck a note in the heavens and Karr awoke from death; a new look in her eyes, her confidence replaced by reverence. She has returned and cheated death as this was not to be her time to leave Durin for the great Halls.

And now they were chasing after Lona and Wizz who had walked through the open doors into the dimming light, following the angel-voiced singing. When Patron, Fixxla and Atlas got to the doorway they understood the danger. Lona and Wizz were striding across a wide paved yard on the south side of Backgammon’s Peak. To the left and right stone halls protruded from the mountainside. The right hand hall had large doors, broken and open to the court. Ahead, a short round tower split the courtyard. Beyond the low wall on each side of the dumpy tower the sunset silhouetted the mountains to the west.

Swooping left and right an eagle with a woman’s body was flying just beyond the courtyard edge. It was her singing that charmed Lona and Wizz who were approaching the edge of the court without any sign of slowing. There were other beasts in the air as well, dogs with bat-like wings diving and grabbing at Lona and Wizz. Patron and Atlas harassed the eagle-woman Harpy with arrows and Wizz seemed to snap out of the song-spell long enough to stab at one of the harassing dogs. Lona Rona was saved by a tackle from Fixlla just as she scaled the short stone ledge, smiling with delight as she got closer to that melodic masterpiece. Patron’s arrows managed to pierce the wing of the Harpy, disrupting the eagle-woman’s song, and she dropped from sight followed by her bat-dogs.

No sooner had the Harpy left than a clattering of metal and hoof beats started up in the hall to the right. Charging though the open doors came a woolly mountain ram. Clinging to its back was a miniature knight in plate mail armour, levelling a spear and shouting in a high-pitched voice. The farcical duo clattered across the court and past Lona and the others, stabbing ineffectually with the spear. Patron muttered a short incantation and with the swift movement of arms a viscous ropy web nets the knight and mountain ram. They thrash ineffectually on the ground.

Wizz held the little figure and Patron pulled off its helmet revealing an aging Goblin. The Goblin pleaded innocence when questioned about the Harpy and subsequently lost an ear to Patron’s impatient knife. Screaming and thrashing, the Goblin wore at Wizz’s nerves. Wizz slit the old Goblins skinny throat and watched him die with mixed emotions.

It was dark now, and although they had come close to losing Lona off the cliff no one had been lost. The Harpy and her flying pit-bulls were still out there somewhere and there were unexplored doors and spaces. Wizz, with his seeming insatiable lust for adventure, was about to open the sturdy door to the short tower. The South Tower of Backgammon’s Peak still had some secrets to offer.