A Motley Crew - the Minotaur

The passages of this labyrinth were never ending, they looped back upon themselves so gradually that it appeared to be a straight passage, but in reality, there were no straight passages anywhere.  The minotaur endlessly prowled the corridors looking for intruders into his domain.  The sounds of his heavy footsteps echoing off the walls as his nonstop patrolling continued.

There was an odd breeze, and he smelled an unfamiliar scent in the air.  He gripped his mighty double bladed battle axe tightly in his meaty grip.  He inhaled a deep breath through his nose, and he smelt the stench of human and dwarf, and his pace picked up as he hurried in the direction of the smell.  

He sped through the maze, the scent of the intruders growing stronger as he drew closer to them until the stench was nearly overwhelming and he could hear them just a couple turns away.
“Shhh,” a voice said softly, “Be quiet you hairy oaf, the minotaur will hear you!”

“Ha,” a more burly and gruff voice said back loudly, “Let it hear us!  I will slay the beast!” he boasted.

The minotaur sighed and shook his horned head and took a deep breath and let out a loud, feral roar that echoed loudly throughout the labyrinth.

“Shit!” a female voice said, “He’s found us!”

“Let him come!” the gruff voice said.

“Damn it, Harmeth!” another male sounding voice shouted, “Just run!”

The minotaur smiled a little as he heard the loud clanging of mailed footsteps running away from him.  As quietly as his seven-foot-tall frame would allow, he followed the invading adventures.

“I think we lost him,” another female voice said as their pace slowed down.

“Don’t count on it,” and elderly sounding male voice said, “The minotaur knows this maze like the back of his hand.  He is probably circling around us right now to try to ambush us somewhere down the line.”

“Do you think he’s that smart, Richard?” Harmeth asked.

“In all my long years I have learned that underestimating your enemies often leads to one’s demise,” Richard said, “I think it was my third death when we were facing the Medusa that one of my companions didn’t believe the myth and convinced us that she couldn’t turn us to stone.  Needless to say, I was a statue for a couple years thanks to that idiot.”

“Point taken,” Harmeth said, “Let’s get moving again before the beast stumbles upon us.”
The minotaur waited for them to continue searching his maze and he followed behind.

“Blast it Richard,” Harmeth said, “I though you knew the way through the labyrinth.”

“I do,” Richard said, and the minotaur heard paper rustling, “According to the map, I believe we are here, so we go this way.”

The minotaur continued to follow them through the maze, through the twists and turns, knowing that they were going in the right direction.  Then, they took a wrong turn down a corridor that they should not go down.  The minotaur grunted and raced through a couple of passageways and got ahead of them and waited for them near the corridor that would get them back on track.

He waited silently for the party of adventurers to arrive in the intersection.  One they were in the middle, he jumped forward and howled in rage, brandishing his monstrous great axe, intending to drive them down the corridor, but Harmeth turned and stood his ground with a wicked grin on his face.

“Come at me!” the dwarf screamed at the bull headed man and the minotaur rushed forward with his axe raised.

“Fuck!” screamed an elven woman dressed in leather holding a couple of daggers in her hand, “Run you fool!” she yelled at Harmeth.

Harmeth swung his great axe with all the force he could muster and struck the minotaur.  The blow would have surely killed an ordinary man, but the giant humanoid hardly felt it.  

The minotaur swung his mighty axe down in a large sweeping curve and struck the dwarf in the shoulder, driving the axe deep into the dwarf’s chest, nearly severing the arm.

Harmeth looked at the axe lodged deep in his chest with a surprised look on his face and with his final breath whispered, “Run,” before collapsing on the floor in a bloody heap.

The minotaur howled in pleasure at his kill and roughly pulled the axe from the dwarf’s chest, spraying bright red blood everywhere.

The wizard grabbed the elven rogue by the sleeve and pulled her towards the hallway behind them, “Keelie,” he yelled at her, “He’s dead! Run!”

The minotaur stood over his kill and watched as the party fled down the corridor and around a corner and out of site.

He quickly knelt over the body of the dwarf and knew he had to act fast.  He pulled a bag of power from a pouch on his belt and spready over and into the wound on the dwarf’s chest.  He then pulled a small glass bottle from another pouch and poured it onto the powder.  There was a hissing sound and the mixture started to bubble.

The minotaur reached to the side and took the dwarf’s axe and walked a few feet away, set the axe against the wall next to him and waited and watched the dwarf for any signs of life.

After several seconds, he saw the dwarf’s chest start to rise and fall as he began breathing again.  The minotaur sighed a breath of relief, he had applied aid in time, the dwarf would be ok.

A few minutes later the dwarf sat up slowly, groaning in pain and looked at the rent armor on his chest and the quickly mending wound underneath and then at the minotaur, “I don’t know… what kind of… game you’re playing at, beast,” Harmeth said with ragged breaths, “But I won’t.. let you kill me again… without a fight,”
The minotaur rolled his eyes as Harmeth slowly stood up and pulled a dagger from his belt.  He took a step towards the minotaur and grunted in pain and started falling forward.  The minotaur rushed towards Harmth.

With fear in his eyes at the monstrosity running at him, he made a weak stab at the creature as he started to tumble forward.

The minotaur easily batted away the dwarf’s pathetic attack and sent the dagger flying and caught the dwarf before he hit the ground.  Harmeth tried to resist and squirm free, but the minotaur’s grasp was just too tight. 

Harmeth prepared himself to feel the minotaur rip him apart, but instead the minotaur carefully set him down on the floor and then backed away slowly with his hands held before him showing Harmeth that he meant no harm. The minotaur backed up about ten feet to where he had left both axes and sat against the wall and watched Harmeth.

The dwarf sat in the middle of the intersection, near a large pool of his own blood and watched the minotaur sit there, doing nothing.  Harmeth slowly and painfully took his pack off and pulled it into his lap, the minotaur’s eyes never leaving him.  He opened the bag and when he reached in, the minotaur jumped up on the defensive.

“It’s ok,” Harmeth and pulled out a metal flask, “This is to help me with the pain.” He opened the metal flask and drank deeply of the alcoholic mixture inside, “Much better,” he said as the minotaur relaxed and sat back down.

They sat in silence for a while just looking at each other until Harmesh broke the silence, “Can you understand what I’m saying?” he asked the creature.

The minotaur nodded in response.

“But you can’t speak common I take it?”

The minotaur shook his head indicating that he could not speak and instead let out a mooing sound to which both of them laughed slightly.
“Did you heal me?” Harmeth asked and the minotaur nodded. “Why?” he followed up.

The minotaur looked around and made several strange sounds and odd hand motions as he was trying to explain it to him.

“Are you going to kill me?” Harmeth asked with a tense tone to his voice.

The bull’s head shook back and forth, the large horns on its head nearly hitting the wall beside him.

“Then why did you attack me?” the dwarf asked.
The minotaur pointed to the still bleeding gash in his side.

“Right,” the dwarf said, “Sorry about that,” and the minotaur just shrugged like it was no big deal. “Wait,” he asked with sudden realization, “If I had run with the others, you wouldn’t have attacked me?”

The bull smiled as only a cow can smile and pointed to his nose and at the dwarf and nodded and the dwarf laughed and shook his head.

“Keelie always said that my impulsiveness would be the death of me,” he said sighing, “and it very nearly was.”

With ease and grace the minotaur stood up and then reached down and grabbed both axes in one large hand and walked over to the dwarf and extended his hand to him.

Harmeth cautiously took the minotaur’s hand and was gently pulled to his feet.  Once on his feet, the minotaur took Harmeth’s axe in his free hand and extended it to Harmeth.

He took the axe and held it at his side, “Thank you,” he said to the bull, “Thank you for saving my life.”

The minotaur nodded and started walking down a different corridor than the one that his friends went down.

“My friends went that way,” he said as a large hand extended towards him and beckoned him to come with, “I suppose you know a faster way to get to them?”

He simply nodded his huge bull head and walked down the hall slowly so that Harmeth could keep pace.