Bern hurried to the open area in front of the Sivis Station’s front porch. His mother had kept him late for a few extra chores, and he was worried about meeting the other children. In Merylsward there was a custom that went back more years than anyone but a dwarf could remember that allowed children under the age of ten some free time to play after lunch. Bern was almost eight years old, and he didn’t want to be cut out of the fun.
The sandy-haired human boy turned a corner and found that thankfully, everyone else was still there. Bern played with a group of about twenty youngsters between the ages of seven and ten. Some were human like him, some were shifters, one was a goblin, and one was a half-orc girl that Bern kind of liked in a way that he didn’t understand. Two other boys, both human and only slightly older than Bern, waved to him.
“Hey Bern,” said Vroyd. Vroyd always spoke in a quiet voice, and he had a missing pinky. He was the innkeeper’s nephew. He had lost the pinky and his parents when a wizard from Aundair had flown above their town and unleashed a strong of magical lightning bolts that blew buildings up.
“Hey,” Bern said a little breathlessly. “Everyone else got here late too, huh?”
“Naw, they’re all just making cheese!” said the other boy, Dannick. Dannick’s father ran a dairy farm, and to the tall and thin boy ‘making cheese’ meant running your mouth and not actually doing anything. “Nobody can agree on what to play.”
“What does Kurska want to play?” Bern asked quickly.
Dannick laughed out loud, and even Vroyd smiled a little. “Bern-and-Kurska, sitting on a dragon!” Dannick began to chant. “She offered him a cup, and he drank a whole flagon!”
“Shut up!” Bern snapped. “I was just asking. If you don’t know…”
“Of course I know!” Dannick said, trying to puff out his thin chest. Dannick always knew things, even when he didn’t. “She wants to play Tharashk, what do you think?”
Bern looked over at the tall girl with the cascading hair all done up in blue and green ribbons. Kurska had biceps like a teenage human boy, and jutting lower canines that marked her father’s race. Kurska’s father worked in Merylsward’s only mine, digging iron, and her human mother was a successful seamstress who always dressed her little girl in the best of clothes. Kurska was making an argument, and losing, that the group should play Tharashk again. Two shifter girls who always disagreed with her were trying to convince everyone else to never play Tharashk again, ever, ever. The girls were very into talking about how things should be, and the boys were so bored they were kicking rocks around.
“I’m playing Tharashk, I don’t care whether everyone plays with me or not!” Bern said loudly, walking over to Kurska and the shifter girls. Both girls glared at him, and one of them shifted, growing sharp teeth. Bern stood his ground, knowing that if Rrro – the girl with the teeth – would ever bite him, her mother would tan her bottom good.
“Great!” Kurska said. “These two can argue, everyone who wants to play let’s start down the Orien road!” A cheer went up from the bored children, and most everyone followed Kurska and Bern down the road. Kurska smiled down at Bern, who was trying to keep up with her. “That was pretty well-harvested, Bern, thanks.”
“It was nothing,” Bern said, blushing. Behind him, Dannick guffawed loudly.
Soon the children were just south of town, with the buildings still in view. The forest on both sides of the road was thick, but not too thick to play. A chanting rhyme went up to determine who in the group would be the first runner. The runner would then take off, running or hiding as they liked, and then the others would attempt to find him or her. The one who found the runner was declared the Tharashk, winning the game. Then, time permitting, another runner would be chosen.
The chant ended on Nuck. The excited little goblin jumped up in the air, clapping his hands. Some of the other children were disappointed. Nuck wasn’t very strong or bright, but he was very good at hiding and stepping quietly. Only Kurska looked excited at the challenge. “Okay, we’re counting to twenty!” yelled one girl. Nuck took off to the west of the road, disappearing in the underbrush. The children counted loudly together, but slowly. Everyone always gave Nuck extra time to do anything, because their parents were always on their necks to be nice to Nuck. Nuck’s parents had been lynched by Aundarian soldiers who hated goblins, and he now lived with his grandfather, a goatherder, and his grandmother, who helped cook at the inn. More than one child was convinced if a dragon attacked the town, all the parents would demand that everyone be nice to Nuck before anything else.
“Nineteen,” everyone said together. They looked at each other, wondering who would be the first to say ‘twenty.’ Finally someone started to say it, and they all yelled “Twenty!”
Some children dove right into the woods, others went north and in, and others south.
Bern went south down the road, mostly because Kurska did. After a minute or two, every other child had turned right into the woods but the half-orc girl and the human boy.
“Aren’t you going in yet?” Bern asked her.
“Nope,” she said. “I’m going down to the culvert. Nuck’s gonna go to the creek, and then go through the pipe under the road. He can fit real easy. He’ll hide on the other side for a while until he wins the game. I’m going to cut him off.”
“How do you know he’s planning that?” Bern asked.
“Cause I’m the one who told him it was such a good idea!” she laughed. “You have to think ahead to win Tharashk! Didn’t you read about Delegado in the Korranberg Chronicle?”
“My Dad says that the Chronicle writes a lot of guff,” Bern said. He didn’t want Kurska not to like him, but his Dad was his Dad, and Dad knew lots.
“My Dad heard from an orc bard that Delegado is the best hunter in Tharashk, and that the papers don’t even touch half of it, and that he always plans ahead,” was her response. “Here’s the culvert! Come on!”
Bern started to follow her but stopped. “You hear that?” he said, pointing down the road. After a moment she did.
“Horse steps and wagon wheels!” she said, giddily. “The Orien caravan!”
Both children waited anxiously by the culvert, not wanting to miss their chance to see the caravan, but not wanting to miss a chance to grab Nuck, either.
They were soon rewarded. The caravan’s frontriders came around the bend first, Wardens of the Wood on Vadalis magebred horses carrying long lances and shortbows. The riders grinned and waved at the kids who waved back. Then the first wagon came into view. A loud man with fancy blue clothes was talking to a shifter woman in studded leather armor who was ignoring him on top of the first wagon. Six wagon followed in all, along with several other riders, some armed, some not. Ponies and horses carried merchants and one group of refugees – a half-elven family obviously looking to escape the war by heading deep within the Reaches, and even as the wagons passed the children, they began to slow down and disgorge their passengers. People cooped up after a long ride wanted air, and wanted to walk into Merylsward by themselves. Kruska and Bern saw human, shifters, half-elves, gnomes, and one dwarf, all of varying ages, begin to dismount and mill about.
“Wow, this is neat!” Nuck said, crawling out from under a bush to stand between his two friends.
“I got you!” Kruska said, tagging him. Her enthusiastic thump sent Nuck reeling backwards. “I’m the Tharashk!” She glared at Bern, daring him to argue.
“Look,” Bern said with a dry throat, raising a shaky hand.
The last wagon had paused to their right, as the people inside began to get out. Rather than the relieved looks that the other passengers had, they were throwing suspicious glances back at the one person who was currently disembarking.
He wore clothes, loose things of simple weave that some traveling pilgrims of Balinor were fond of, which at first glance made on think he was humanoid. But his feet were bare, as was his head. There was no mistaking the metal parts that glistened in the midday sun, or the three fingers made of stone and metal that gripped a tall walking staff. His belt, a sturdy thing with an ivory-colored central thread, held some weapons that the children had never seen. One was a pointy thing like a fork with pronglike extensions, and another looked like a miniature scythe. The warforged did not drip blood or wear a string of ears as they had heard in the stories, but he seemed capable and confident.
“Ah, so does anyone know where the inn might be located?” he asked his fellow passengers. They sniffed or gave him a glare, and moved away from him without answering. The warforged looked up to query the driver of the wagon, but that worthy, a hireling of House Orien, pretended not to notice the warforged’s predicament as he clicked the reins to get the horses moving again. In short order the warforged was left alone on the road, watching the others walk into town. Comments along the lines of ‘happy to be rid of him’ came floating back from the crowd.
“Are you a warforged?” Kurska asked him suddenly.
The warforged turned his head towards the children, and they all took a step back at his attention. “Hello,” he said. “Do not be afraid. I am Iron Orphan.”
“Are you a warforged?” the half-orc girl asked stubbornly.
To Bern the warforged seemed to sigh. “I prefer to call myself lawforged, but yes I am of the race that you call warforged. I can assure you that most of the stories of brutality that you have heard are overblown. I mean you no harm.”
“Which army do you fight for?” Nuck asked, hiding behind Bern.
“None,” the thing that called itself Iron Orphan said. “I do not fight except when I have no choice.”
“Your owner lets you get away with that?” Kurska asked.
“I have no owner,” the warforged told them. “I am a free being, although some take exception to that. I had hoped that the Eldeen Reaches was a place where people could understand freedom.”
“We are free!” Bern insisted. “It’s the wizards in Aundair that want to make us slaves!”
“Then why can’t I be free?” it asked him, with a humorous tone in his voice. “I do not wish to be a slave.” Bern and Kurska looked at each other, but neither had an answer.
“Why do you call yourself Iron Orphan?” Nuck asked suddenly, his voice serious.
“I have no parents,” Iron Orphan explained.
“Did your parents get hung, too?” the goblin asked in a whisper.
“I was made in a forge,” the warforged said with sympathy. “It was predominantly made of iron. I named myself because I thought it fit. I am sorry about your parents, but I am not part of the great war that rends Khorvaire apart.”
Nuck nodded. “My granny works at the inn, I’ll take you there if you want.”
“Me too,” Bern said.
“Me too,” Kurska said, walking forward of the other two. “Come on, let’s go!”
Bemused, the warforged followed the three children who brought him into the town like he was some prize that they had found.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Chapter 9 - Part 6
“Here we go,” Lyle said with an irritated tone in his voice. The village square was before them, with its central pool in between two tall maples. “The inn is that big building over there.”
Delegado grinned as he rode on his horse. A large number of people had stopped working and come out of houses and farms to gawk at the tall half-orc with the longbow on one shoulder and the hawk on the other. Lyle had made the mistake of telling someone who the half-orc was as they came into the village. Normally Delegado would have ignored it all, but he kept waving and smiling because he knew it irritated the lad. “Such a friendly village!” the half-orc said loudly. “Balinor’s blessing on all of you!”
“We’re a town,” someone protested. But his voice was lost in the general roar of approval.
“I can give you break on a better horse!” came a friendly taunt from a man leading a group of steeds. The hair on the back and sides of his head were shaved to show off the Vadalis dragonmark spreading out from his neck.
“Bah, I can find my own, Vuchen!” the half-orc responded. The crowd thought that was funny.
“You know the Vadalis people here?” Lyle asked.
“I keep in touch with the major players in all the Houses,” Delegado said simply. “Professional courtesy.”
A group of older women came by and presented Delegado with a bouquet of flowers. They blessed him by the Sovereign Host, and he smiled graciously.
“They’re just competing with the druids,” Lyle told him sourly.
“Gotta love it,” Delegado sighed. “Just gotta love it.” He looked at Lyle with a mischievous glint in his eye that the young man was already so sickening familiar with. “Is that jealousy, young fella?”
“To the right,” Lyle snapped, walking ahead. Delegado laughed.
They were now coming to the inn. “Is this the place?” the half-orc inquired. He was serious now, for the contract’s end was approaching.
“Yeah, Meryl’s Rest,” Lyle said. He whistled for a stableboy, and the young shifter lad came out with wide eyes. “Pienna is on the second floor, in the suite.”
“Of course she is,” Delegado snorted. “For a druid she likes the comfortable life. Must be that Cannith upbringing.” He jumped down, and worked at the one heavily laden saddlebag.
“Pienna is of House Cannith?” Lyle asked, surprised.
“Born and raised in comfortable manors surrounded by servants and machines,” Delegado said, working the heavy saddlebag free. He clicked his tongue, and the hawk jumped to his other shoulder so that the half-orc could rest his heavy burden where the hawk had been. He gave quick, rude instructions to the shifter stableboy to rub the horse down, water it and feed it, and not steal anything unless he wanted his arms cut off. The stableboy nodded seriously, not even asking for a tip from the muscular bounty hunter.
Delegado balanced the key carefully on his shoulder. The Keeper-loving thing was heavy, so that even he had to be careful. How in the Fury the dolgrims he had slain to get it had ever moved it around was lost on him.
The front door of the inn was wide open, and Delegado walked in without comment. The common room was empty at this hour, with the lunch crowd not even in yet. A young woman mopping the floor gaped at him.
“Stairs,” he demanded. She pointed wordlessly. “Thanks,” he said, turning so that he was facing toward them. Lyle ducked as one end of the bag nearly hit him. “You still following me?” Delegado laughed.
“I have a duty,” the young human snarled.
Delegado gave a brief frown at the man’s attitude. Hero worship gone sour was always ugly. “You have a beef with me?” Lyle glared but didn’t answer. Delegado let the bag down on the floor and stepped forward, jabbing a finger at the kid’s chest. “I asked you a question. Do you have a beef with me?”
Lyle stepped back. “Yes I do!” he yelled. “You’re an arrogant piece of f’test who worships his own galig and you think you can use me as your chamber pot!” Lyle blinked a bit, but stood his ground.
“I don’t think I can use you as my chamber pot,” Delegado said. He made a thoughtful face. “The rest might be true.” Lyle looked confused, and the half-orc laughed. “Get over it, kid. It’s been a long time since I was given credit for saying ‘pretty please.’”
“It’s been a while since you got your arse kicked, is what you mean,” came a deep voice at the top of the stairs.
Delegado fumed, angry that the Khyber-bound dwarf had snuck up on him via his magical armor again. “I smell some truly rancid meat,” Delegado said loudly. He turned around to face the dwarf. “Oh it’s you, Chubat. I should have realized that rancid meat smells better than you!”
Chubat grinned from a face full of broken teeth and scars. “So it was you that found the key, eh?” the dwarf asked, walking down the stairs. His footsteps made nary a sound, and his breastplate armor made no sound at all, the silencing enchantment built into it still as powerful as it had been when Chubat’s grandfather had crafted it centuries ago. “And I thought Tharashk forwarded the job to someone competent.” The dwarf caressed the waraxe that he held in his belt. A heavy shield of mithril lay across his back, and a light crossbow was in a holster on one leg. Chubat was one of the most deadly warriors that Delegado had ever met, and he was never far from Pienna’s side. “Well, I suppose they wanted to get you out of their way. And you did find it.” Delegado had once seen the ugly little humanoid split an ogre into two pieces with one swing of that axe. “Who would have thought an orc could be useful for anything?” Chubat hated orcs, half-blooded or otherwise, almost as much as he hated the unnatural things that the Gatekeepers fought.
“How’s everybody’s favorite reject from the Holds?” Delegado taunted, gripping the handle of his sword. One of his happiest days had been when he found out Chubat’s father had been shamed and rejected from the Mror Holds, leading him to wander west with his family. Delegado never let pass by an opportunity to rub Chubat’s nose in it. “Oh wait, you weren’t born there, you wouldn’t know, your family holdings are all gone, too!” Delegado smiled and looked down at the dwarf who was approaching him slowly and carefully. It was a deceptive approach. Chubat was capable of moving very quickly without warning. “Yeah, Tharashk was going to take a contract to find all of those ancestral rock carvings that got thrown Mirror Lake, but no one was willing to pay anything for them because they were done so poorly.”
Chubat laughed evilly. “How’s your poor tummy, Delegado? Able to eat all of your yum-yums without help?” Delegado’s stomach clenched involuntarily, remembering the time that Chubat had let his entrails loose. The half-orc had been holding his guts in his body with one hand, and weakly fending off the enraged dwarf with the other, when Pienna had broken them up. It was her magic that had kept Delegado from bleeding out, and it was her magic that tucked all of his intestines back where they belonged as well. Still, the half-orc hadn’t been able to eat right for a week.
“How’s your face?” Delegado asked. It was a poor response. Chubat had dozens of scars, and the one arrow of Delegado’s that had bounced off of his helmet had barely broken the skin.
“Lovely as your mother,” Chubat said. “Now are you done picking on a little kid and losing a battle of wits to a half-drunken dwarf? Because she’s waiting to see the key.”
Delegado snarled, and stepped back to grab the saddlebag. His mood wasn’t improved by the sly grin on Lyle’s face. Rather than lift it, he opened it, and spilled the heavy key out onto the floor.
The key was shaped like any common key would be, with a turner, a shaft, and several teeth. Of course it was four feet long, making it big for even ogre hands, and made out of solid byeshk. It was covered in ancient runes, and held more than a few blood stains, some of which were a few days old while the rest went back uncounted decades. Its massive weight settled onto the floorboards, making them creak. “Whoopsy,” he said. “Want to help me carry it up, dwarf?”
“No,” the dwarf said. “You’re getting paid, you heft it.” His glittering eyes suggested that he well knew Delegado was hoping to punch the dwarf in the mouth when Chubat’s hands were full.
“Fine then,” Delegado said, straining to heft the thing. He finally got it up, and he clicked his teeth as he did so. Feather, who had been silently up to that point, flew off of his shoulder and deposited thick, white droppings in Chubat’s beard.
“Cute trick,” Chubat said, his eyes promising death should Pienna ever let him fight the half-orc again.
“Yeah’s he’s very bright,” Delegado grunted from under the key. “Even smarter than a dwarf. Although that doesn’t say much. You gonna take me to Pienna or what?”
Chubat snarled, and gestured Delegado to follow him. Feather settled back on Delegado’s shoulder as the half-orc began to ascend the stairs, and Lyle followed, picking up the bag that the key had been in because he figured that someone ought to.
Delegado grinned as he rode on his horse. A large number of people had stopped working and come out of houses and farms to gawk at the tall half-orc with the longbow on one shoulder and the hawk on the other. Lyle had made the mistake of telling someone who the half-orc was as they came into the village. Normally Delegado would have ignored it all, but he kept waving and smiling because he knew it irritated the lad. “Such a friendly village!” the half-orc said loudly. “Balinor’s blessing on all of you!”
“We’re a town,” someone protested. But his voice was lost in the general roar of approval.
“I can give you break on a better horse!” came a friendly taunt from a man leading a group of steeds. The hair on the back and sides of his head were shaved to show off the Vadalis dragonmark spreading out from his neck.
“Bah, I can find my own, Vuchen!” the half-orc responded. The crowd thought that was funny.
“You know the Vadalis people here?” Lyle asked.
“I keep in touch with the major players in all the Houses,” Delegado said simply. “Professional courtesy.”
A group of older women came by and presented Delegado with a bouquet of flowers. They blessed him by the Sovereign Host, and he smiled graciously.
“They’re just competing with the druids,” Lyle told him sourly.
“Gotta love it,” Delegado sighed. “Just gotta love it.” He looked at Lyle with a mischievous glint in his eye that the young man was already so sickening familiar with. “Is that jealousy, young fella?”
“To the right,” Lyle snapped, walking ahead. Delegado laughed.
They were now coming to the inn. “Is this the place?” the half-orc inquired. He was serious now, for the contract’s end was approaching.
“Yeah, Meryl’s Rest,” Lyle said. He whistled for a stableboy, and the young shifter lad came out with wide eyes. “Pienna is on the second floor, in the suite.”
“Of course she is,” Delegado snorted. “For a druid she likes the comfortable life. Must be that Cannith upbringing.” He jumped down, and worked at the one heavily laden saddlebag.
“Pienna is of House Cannith?” Lyle asked, surprised.
“Born and raised in comfortable manors surrounded by servants and machines,” Delegado said, working the heavy saddlebag free. He clicked his tongue, and the hawk jumped to his other shoulder so that the half-orc could rest his heavy burden where the hawk had been. He gave quick, rude instructions to the shifter stableboy to rub the horse down, water it and feed it, and not steal anything unless he wanted his arms cut off. The stableboy nodded seriously, not even asking for a tip from the muscular bounty hunter.
Delegado balanced the key carefully on his shoulder. The Keeper-loving thing was heavy, so that even he had to be careful. How in the Fury the dolgrims he had slain to get it had ever moved it around was lost on him.
The front door of the inn was wide open, and Delegado walked in without comment. The common room was empty at this hour, with the lunch crowd not even in yet. A young woman mopping the floor gaped at him.
“Stairs,” he demanded. She pointed wordlessly. “Thanks,” he said, turning so that he was facing toward them. Lyle ducked as one end of the bag nearly hit him. “You still following me?” Delegado laughed.
“I have a duty,” the young human snarled.
Delegado gave a brief frown at the man’s attitude. Hero worship gone sour was always ugly. “You have a beef with me?” Lyle glared but didn’t answer. Delegado let the bag down on the floor and stepped forward, jabbing a finger at the kid’s chest. “I asked you a question. Do you have a beef with me?”
Lyle stepped back. “Yes I do!” he yelled. “You’re an arrogant piece of f’test who worships his own galig and you think you can use me as your chamber pot!” Lyle blinked a bit, but stood his ground.
“I don’t think I can use you as my chamber pot,” Delegado said. He made a thoughtful face. “The rest might be true.” Lyle looked confused, and the half-orc laughed. “Get over it, kid. It’s been a long time since I was given credit for saying ‘pretty please.’”
“It’s been a while since you got your arse kicked, is what you mean,” came a deep voice at the top of the stairs.
Delegado fumed, angry that the Khyber-bound dwarf had snuck up on him via his magical armor again. “I smell some truly rancid meat,” Delegado said loudly. He turned around to face the dwarf. “Oh it’s you, Chubat. I should have realized that rancid meat smells better than you!”
Chubat grinned from a face full of broken teeth and scars. “So it was you that found the key, eh?” the dwarf asked, walking down the stairs. His footsteps made nary a sound, and his breastplate armor made no sound at all, the silencing enchantment built into it still as powerful as it had been when Chubat’s grandfather had crafted it centuries ago. “And I thought Tharashk forwarded the job to someone competent.” The dwarf caressed the waraxe that he held in his belt. A heavy shield of mithril lay across his back, and a light crossbow was in a holster on one leg. Chubat was one of the most deadly warriors that Delegado had ever met, and he was never far from Pienna’s side. “Well, I suppose they wanted to get you out of their way. And you did find it.” Delegado had once seen the ugly little humanoid split an ogre into two pieces with one swing of that axe. “Who would have thought an orc could be useful for anything?” Chubat hated orcs, half-blooded or otherwise, almost as much as he hated the unnatural things that the Gatekeepers fought.
“How’s everybody’s favorite reject from the Holds?” Delegado taunted, gripping the handle of his sword. One of his happiest days had been when he found out Chubat’s father had been shamed and rejected from the Mror Holds, leading him to wander west with his family. Delegado never let pass by an opportunity to rub Chubat’s nose in it. “Oh wait, you weren’t born there, you wouldn’t know, your family holdings are all gone, too!” Delegado smiled and looked down at the dwarf who was approaching him slowly and carefully. It was a deceptive approach. Chubat was capable of moving very quickly without warning. “Yeah, Tharashk was going to take a contract to find all of those ancestral rock carvings that got thrown Mirror Lake, but no one was willing to pay anything for them because they were done so poorly.”
Chubat laughed evilly. “How’s your poor tummy, Delegado? Able to eat all of your yum-yums without help?” Delegado’s stomach clenched involuntarily, remembering the time that Chubat had let his entrails loose. The half-orc had been holding his guts in his body with one hand, and weakly fending off the enraged dwarf with the other, when Pienna had broken them up. It was her magic that had kept Delegado from bleeding out, and it was her magic that tucked all of his intestines back where they belonged as well. Still, the half-orc hadn’t been able to eat right for a week.
“How’s your face?” Delegado asked. It was a poor response. Chubat had dozens of scars, and the one arrow of Delegado’s that had bounced off of his helmet had barely broken the skin.
“Lovely as your mother,” Chubat said. “Now are you done picking on a little kid and losing a battle of wits to a half-drunken dwarf? Because she’s waiting to see the key.”
Delegado snarled, and stepped back to grab the saddlebag. His mood wasn’t improved by the sly grin on Lyle’s face. Rather than lift it, he opened it, and spilled the heavy key out onto the floor.
The key was shaped like any common key would be, with a turner, a shaft, and several teeth. Of course it was four feet long, making it big for even ogre hands, and made out of solid byeshk. It was covered in ancient runes, and held more than a few blood stains, some of which were a few days old while the rest went back uncounted decades. Its massive weight settled onto the floorboards, making them creak. “Whoopsy,” he said. “Want to help me carry it up, dwarf?”
“No,” the dwarf said. “You’re getting paid, you heft it.” His glittering eyes suggested that he well knew Delegado was hoping to punch the dwarf in the mouth when Chubat’s hands were full.
“Fine then,” Delegado said, straining to heft the thing. He finally got it up, and he clicked his teeth as he did so. Feather, who had been silently up to that point, flew off of his shoulder and deposited thick, white droppings in Chubat’s beard.
“Cute trick,” Chubat said, his eyes promising death should Pienna ever let him fight the half-orc again.
“Yeah’s he’s very bright,” Delegado grunted from under the key. “Even smarter than a dwarf. Although that doesn’t say much. You gonna take me to Pienna or what?”
Chubat snarled, and gestured Delegado to follow him. Feather settled back on Delegado’s shoulder as the half-orc began to ascend the stairs, and Lyle followed, picking up the bag that the key had been in because he figured that someone ought to.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Chapter 9 - Part 5
He walked in from the northwest, sticking to the trees. At first glance he appeared to be a human in breastplate armor with a greataxe and worn clothing that spoke of a long time traveling in the wild. He moved like a ghost through the trees, even in armor, and he was not spotted until the trees thinned out too much to provide any cover.
Gelth saw him first. The wizened goblin was tending to his goats and fretting about the news in last week’s Korranberg Chronicle when he finally saw the tall shape come out of the trees.
“Hey there!” Gelth shouted, grabbing his little sling. His goats made alarmed noises and drifted away from the strangers approach. “Who are you then, sneaking up on an old goatherder!” The man who had come out of the forest was almost six feet tall, and covered in a hooded cloak despite the summer heat.
“I mean no harm,” the man said in a rich baritone. His voice sounded oddly curious, as if the fellow had not heard himself speak in a while. “I am Thomas, I have come from the Icehorn Mountains.” He placed his greataxe handle in a complicated sheath on his back, to try to show that he was peaceable. Gelth saw two javelins in the man’s belt, and more disturbingly, something on the man’s neck moved. It was a long creature kind of like a ferret. The goblin only got a glimpse before the man dropped his cloak. “I am trying to find a town.”
“Merylsward is that way,” Gelth told him. “My town. Lots of people, largest place within three hundred miles.” He peered within the man’s hood. Something about his eyes… “You from Alvirado?”
“No,” Thomas told him. “I am originally from a land far from here, but I have been living by myself for years. Does the war still go on?”
“Aye, more and more dead all the time,” Gelth told him. “You looking for trouble?”
“No, no!” Thomas assured him. “I have had dreams. I need to be in Merylsward today, though I do not know why. I have been dreaming about a woman’s name. Pienna.”
“Really?” Gelth told him. “Well then you are in luck. Pienna got here near a month ago, and she’s still here, staying at the inn with some crazy halfling from Talenta. All the halflings are crazy there. They ride lizards, not horses, can you fathom that? Or do you come from there?”
“I do not come from Talenta, but I know what it is,” Thomas told him. “This Pienna, is she a priest or a healer?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the goblin said, finally putting his sling back in his belt. “She’s a druid, or druidess. A gatekeeper.”
“A gatekeeper?” Thomas said. The man’s voice held sheer terror. “No! No! Are you sure?”
Gelth’s hand went back to the sling. “Look, Thomas, I think you had better move on, I have goats to watch.” That thing under the cloak had twitched in time with Thomas’ exclamation.
“I have no hope, there is no end to this if I do not go,” Thomas moaned, perhaps to himself. “Very well. I will go. Thank you for talking to me, honorable goatherder.” Thomas sighed and walked past the goblin, a great lack of enthusiasm evident in his pace. As he passed, Gelth got a good look at Thomas’ face beneath the hood. He seemed like a human, but his eyes were – wrong. Gelth suddenly had a shiver of racial memory run through him.
“You uh, you’re not looking for trouble then?” he asked as Thomas was walking down the small incline to the trail that led into town.
“No, no, I am looking for rest,” Thomas told him bitterly. “And I may never find it, except in the grave.”
“Um, you want to read the paper and catch up on the world?” Gelth asked him, feeling sorry for the man, and having nothing else to offer him.
“It will accomplish nothing,” Thomas told him sadly. The man’s pace picked up, and he was soon out of sight.
Gelth wondered at this strange visitor, then dismissed it from his mind. He had not finished the Chronicle. The stories that held the goblin’s attention were many, but the most interesting were about town of Cragwar going back to Breland after a particularly nasty battle, and an airship crashing in Cyre. There was also a smaller piece about an elderly halfling woman named Visha perishing in a fire at an orphanage in Thrane while saving children, but one old halfling lady couldn’t be all that important to the grand scheme of things in Gelth’s estimation.
Gelth saw him first. The wizened goblin was tending to his goats and fretting about the news in last week’s Korranberg Chronicle when he finally saw the tall shape come out of the trees.
“Hey there!” Gelth shouted, grabbing his little sling. His goats made alarmed noises and drifted away from the strangers approach. “Who are you then, sneaking up on an old goatherder!” The man who had come out of the forest was almost six feet tall, and covered in a hooded cloak despite the summer heat.
“I mean no harm,” the man said in a rich baritone. His voice sounded oddly curious, as if the fellow had not heard himself speak in a while. “I am Thomas, I have come from the Icehorn Mountains.” He placed his greataxe handle in a complicated sheath on his back, to try to show that he was peaceable. Gelth saw two javelins in the man’s belt, and more disturbingly, something on the man’s neck moved. It was a long creature kind of like a ferret. The goblin only got a glimpse before the man dropped his cloak. “I am trying to find a town.”
“Merylsward is that way,” Gelth told him. “My town. Lots of people, largest place within three hundred miles.” He peered within the man’s hood. Something about his eyes… “You from Alvirado?”
“No,” Thomas told him. “I am originally from a land far from here, but I have been living by myself for years. Does the war still go on?”
“Aye, more and more dead all the time,” Gelth told him. “You looking for trouble?”
“No, no!” Thomas assured him. “I have had dreams. I need to be in Merylsward today, though I do not know why. I have been dreaming about a woman’s name. Pienna.”
“Really?” Gelth told him. “Well then you are in luck. Pienna got here near a month ago, and she’s still here, staying at the inn with some crazy halfling from Talenta. All the halflings are crazy there. They ride lizards, not horses, can you fathom that? Or do you come from there?”
“I do not come from Talenta, but I know what it is,” Thomas told him. “This Pienna, is she a priest or a healer?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the goblin said, finally putting his sling back in his belt. “She’s a druid, or druidess. A gatekeeper.”
“A gatekeeper?” Thomas said. The man’s voice held sheer terror. “No! No! Are you sure?”
Gelth’s hand went back to the sling. “Look, Thomas, I think you had better move on, I have goats to watch.” That thing under the cloak had twitched in time with Thomas’ exclamation.
“I have no hope, there is no end to this if I do not go,” Thomas moaned, perhaps to himself. “Very well. I will go. Thank you for talking to me, honorable goatherder.” Thomas sighed and walked past the goblin, a great lack of enthusiasm evident in his pace. As he passed, Gelth got a good look at Thomas’ face beneath the hood. He seemed like a human, but his eyes were – wrong. Gelth suddenly had a shiver of racial memory run through him.
“You uh, you’re not looking for trouble then?” he asked as Thomas was walking down the small incline to the trail that led into town.
“No, no, I am looking for rest,” Thomas told him bitterly. “And I may never find it, except in the grave.”
“Um, you want to read the paper and catch up on the world?” Gelth asked him, feeling sorry for the man, and having nothing else to offer him.
“It will accomplish nothing,” Thomas told him sadly. The man’s pace picked up, and he was soon out of sight.
Gelth wondered at this strange visitor, then dismissed it from his mind. He had not finished the Chronicle. The stories that held the goblin’s attention were many, but the most interesting were about town of Cragwar going back to Breland after a particularly nasty battle, and an airship crashing in Cyre. There was also a smaller piece about an elderly halfling woman named Visha perishing in a fire at an orphanage in Thrane while saving children, but one old halfling lady couldn’t be all that important to the grand scheme of things in Gelth’s estimation.
Chapter 9 - Part 4
“Of course I have seen trees like this,” thundered Ambassador Reesir Toppe, who was as usual using a voice that carried to all the other wagons in the caravan. The ambassador was nominally addressing the shifter sitting atop the wagon with him, a female named Gleaning who was a highly-placed officer in the Wardens of the Wood, but he always made sure everyone could hear him. “I have looked down at them from the towers in Sharn. People on the lower levels grow them in gardens.”
“Everything seems to be in Sharn,” Gleaning said sarcastically.
Ambassador Toppe either ignored her sarcasm or he didn’t catch it. “Yes indeed, everything except this beastly cold weather than you have here! This gatekeeper that I need to speak to would do well to live in Varna, which at least has paved roads!”
“This is cold?” an Orien driver asked on the seat below them.
“Only because its not paved, apparently,” said his partner.
“I was under the impression that Orien trade roads were uniform in every country,” said the goblin footman that accompanied the ambassador. No one remembered his name, for he almost never spoke.
“Now we in Breland are glad that you Reachers have seen the advantage of working with us against the things that have taken over the Droaam province,” the ambassador was saying, oblivious to the implied criticism around him. “We work jointly against the monsters, and also against the Aundairians!” He began to gesticulate as he discussed the war, his bright blue sleeves flapping in the wind. Gleaning had never seen anyone other than a Brelander wear that annoying shade of blue. “The war that these monarchies love to stir up must end, and it is fitting that we in Breland, the greatest country that ever was in history, ally ourselves with those who understand something of democracy, as you Reachers seem to do!”
Gleaning gritted her pointed teeth and fought off an urge to shift her claws out to their full length. The stupid human in blue had said the same thing to her countless times in the long, long ride from Redleaf. Hers was not a race known for its patience, and if not for the fact that it would definitely turn the border with Breland hot again, she would have challenged the loudmouth sitting next to her to a duel long ago. Why do we need to come all the way to Merylsward? Gleaning grumbled in her mind, and not for the first time. The gatekeeper sect was free to operate in the Eldeen Reaches, but they were not part of Oalian’s governing body as the other groups were. Even the deranged Children of Winter acknowledged the greatpine as the leader of the Reaches, but the snooty gatekeepers, with their main attention in the Shadow Marches, somehow managed to get audience with Oalian whenever they wanted it. Both Oalian and the King of Breland wanted to coordinate something with the gatekeepers, so Gleaning got to babysit this loudmouth. And for some reason, the gatekeeper was at the other end of the Reaches.
“Have I ever told you what Beggar Dane says about trees?” the ambassador asked her.
“Yes!” Gleaning snarled between clenched teeth. Her nails twitched.
He proceeded to tell her anyway. At length. When they finally saw the first marker for Merylsward she felt like cheering.
“Everything seems to be in Sharn,” Gleaning said sarcastically.
Ambassador Toppe either ignored her sarcasm or he didn’t catch it. “Yes indeed, everything except this beastly cold weather than you have here! This gatekeeper that I need to speak to would do well to live in Varna, which at least has paved roads!”
“This is cold?” an Orien driver asked on the seat below them.
“Only because its not paved, apparently,” said his partner.
“I was under the impression that Orien trade roads were uniform in every country,” said the goblin footman that accompanied the ambassador. No one remembered his name, for he almost never spoke.
“Now we in Breland are glad that you Reachers have seen the advantage of working with us against the things that have taken over the Droaam province,” the ambassador was saying, oblivious to the implied criticism around him. “We work jointly against the monsters, and also against the Aundairians!” He began to gesticulate as he discussed the war, his bright blue sleeves flapping in the wind. Gleaning had never seen anyone other than a Brelander wear that annoying shade of blue. “The war that these monarchies love to stir up must end, and it is fitting that we in Breland, the greatest country that ever was in history, ally ourselves with those who understand something of democracy, as you Reachers seem to do!”
Gleaning gritted her pointed teeth and fought off an urge to shift her claws out to their full length. The stupid human in blue had said the same thing to her countless times in the long, long ride from Redleaf. Hers was not a race known for its patience, and if not for the fact that it would definitely turn the border with Breland hot again, she would have challenged the loudmouth sitting next to her to a duel long ago. Why do we need to come all the way to Merylsward? Gleaning grumbled in her mind, and not for the first time. The gatekeeper sect was free to operate in the Eldeen Reaches, but they were not part of Oalian’s governing body as the other groups were. Even the deranged Children of Winter acknowledged the greatpine as the leader of the Reaches, but the snooty gatekeepers, with their main attention in the Shadow Marches, somehow managed to get audience with Oalian whenever they wanted it. Both Oalian and the King of Breland wanted to coordinate something with the gatekeepers, so Gleaning got to babysit this loudmouth. And for some reason, the gatekeeper was at the other end of the Reaches.
“Have I ever told you what Beggar Dane says about trees?” the ambassador asked her.
“Yes!” Gleaning snarled between clenched teeth. Her nails twitched.
He proceeded to tell her anyway. At length. When they finally saw the first marker for Merylsward she felt like cheering.
Chapter 9 - Part 3
The lead ship drifted, letting the prevailing tide take it towards shore. It moved within a magically created fog bank, and the admiral in charge of all four vessels was trying to stay hidden until the last possible moment by acting as an autumn fog coming across the Eldeen Bay would. Only one of the four vessels was a real warship, the other three were slow, bulky, troop carriers, and none of the four had been tested in at-sea combat. They had been built in secret to the west of the Whispering Woods, launched in secret under cover of darkness, and manned in secret by careful wagon load after wagon load from House Cannith.
There were almost seven hundred individuals aboard the fleet, and only about one hundred and fifty of them were born by biological process. The rest were all warforged.
“Watch the lines, we’re drifting too far!” an artificer whose coat bore the sigils of the Arcane Congress. “I can’t maintain the fog correctly!”
“Who are you, Lord Major Derge ir’Lain?” came the sarcastic reply from the deck officer. “You do your job and I’ll do mine!”
“Chattering doesn’t roll the barrel, gentlemen,” said a tall figure passing by. Both the artificer and the deck officer jumped, not having seen Lord Ibraim ir’Wynarn until he was right on top of them. Lord Ibraim was rumored to by something of a wizard along with being a tactical genius, and the tall man in the black coat with the rapier that seemed to be made of pure shadow intimidated all of his men.
Ibraim moved on, satisfied that his men would quit their bickering. Tensions had been running high since the ships were launched two days ago. Aundair’s navy was never the most successful, and trying to put an invasion force to sea without being spotted by House Lyrandar in Stormhome, agents of Brelish intelligence, Lhazaar pirates, or others, had been a daunting task. In a few hours they would be close enough to shore to where the three troop carriers would drop their load and the warforged soldiers could be expected to swim to the shore. The warforged units could not drown, but they could be swept off course by the tide if they did not get dropped off close enough. To get them in close enough without losing them to the current, but far enough away so that the renegades of the west would not see them coming, that was the trick.
Ibraim walked to the aft deck and down the stairs to the command cabin. No guard stood on duty here, for the reputation of those within was grim enough. The tall human opened the door and then quickly shut it as he entered.
Most of the maps and books had been stowed away, leaving one long map pegged into the long table that ran the length of the room. The map showed the town of Merylsward and the coastline near it. The porthole shutters were closed, allowing in no outside light, but enough magical sources of light left the room without any shadow. Three others were waiting for Ibraim when he came in.
Kleris Zenden, a longtime member of the Royal Eyes of Aundair, stood by the table, peering at some detail of the coastal reefs. It would be his call as to when the warforged would be released, and the meticulous half-elf was reviewing his calculations. Kleris’ face was devoid of emotion as he did so. Ibraim assumed that the Khoravar was trying not to think about the battle plan that called for the termination of all potential witnesses within fifteen minutes, child or adult. Many officers in Aundair referred to Kleris belittlingly as ‘Risia’ for his supposed lack of feeling, but Ibraim knew that the half-elf had simply accept long ago that the only way to survive this war was to accept necessity as the only moral.
Sitting across from Kleris, puffing on an ornate pipe, was Herschem Banekert, a wizard of renown who had been at the Arcane Congress for decades. The white-haired and bearded old human was still spry at seventy-some years of age, and enjoyed affecting all of the cliches of a wizard, even so far as to wear pointy hats with stars sown onto them. For all of Herschem’s affected joviality, he was a deadly serious man when he needed to be. Herschem would be in the vanguard of phase two of the assault, and the important buildings that he planned to destroy with his magic were marked in red.
Ibraim noticed a new mark on the map. “The Sivis building? Is that necessary?” he asked.
“I’m not making unnecessary antagonisms with a dragonmarked house,” Herschem said seriously. “It is unavoidable. And we will antagonize Vadalis as well, for they run many operations in the town. But we have no choice, our actions are dictated by necessity. Merylsward is to be the base of our operations, and we can’t risk letting anyone know we are here. The druidic spells of communication will be bad enough without the more efficient Sivis facilities notifying Oalian. We’ll claim that it was an accident within the fog of war.” He shrugged. “Besides, phase one of this operation calls for the extermination of everyone on the bay’s edge, and I think if any attention in the form of moral outrage occurs, it will be focused on that.”
“One more atrocity in a long line of them going back a hundred years,” Kleris noted calmly. “No one will object, unfortunately, any more than objections were raised when Karrnathi undead went through three tents of Aundair’s wounded last year, killing all of those abed and the halfling healers who were attending them. If we don’t make it look purposeful then Sivis will be forced to look the other way. Not even the Houses are immune to the mistakes of war.” Kleris’ eyes darted toward Ibraim. “MiLord I opened the sealed scroll, I know our first objective.”
Ibraim nodded. Striking a decisive blow at the rebels who were bleeding Aundair’s back while it dealt with Karrnath, Thrane, and Breland, was a good reason for hitting this far west, and even for using Merylsward as a base of operations, but it was all a cover. Ibraim had a charge from his cousin, the Queen herself, to follow the dictates of the Mosaic Committee, an obscure group that Ibraim had not even heard of until two months ago. “Somewhere in Merylsward, in the company of a Gatekeeper druidess, is a halfling with magical powers that must die,” Ibraim mused. “It sounds like something out of a fanciful bard’s tale. Powers beyond our shores manipulating events, a half-sane Talenta savage acting as their conduit here, and a druidess who is supposedly dead directing the entire thing.”
“The evil manipulations of the chamber are real,” Herschem assured him. “I wouldn’t have been called away from our front lines if it was a fanciful tale.”
“I believe you,” Ibraim said. “Although in truth it does not matter if I did, I do as my Queen orders. And now that we have al of these warforged, er, on loan from House Cannith, as it were –”
The bitter, mocking laughter from the room’s fourth occupant interrupted him. The woman sometimes seemed rational and normal, but mostly she came across as obsessed and unstable. Whatever her mental state, Lo’Paih acted on behalf of one of Cannith’s major players, and when she had offered the field-testing of five hundred new warforged units – new models that had been crafted with a layer of ironwood, Aundair grabbed the opportunity. “A loan, you say? Oh but they are yours, if you follow our directions!” laughed the woman. “And make no mistake, the druidess must die, or all five hundred units will withdraw from the field of battle.” Lo’Paih was human, or nominally so. Thick robes and cloaks surrounded her, but they did not hide the giant metal fist that was in place of her right hand. Bits and pieces of the woman were no longer flesh, instead they had been replaced with metallic parts from a warforged or some similar construct. Perhaps Lo’Paih had once been beautiful, but the woman’s face was full of scars, many of which appeared to be self-inflicted.
“Dirty hands stroke a white beard,” Ibraim sighed. These five hundred units were being provided at no cost so that someone in Cannith could be sure to butcher and slaughter Pienna and all that knew her. Once that was done, Lo’Paih had made it very clear that Aundair could do whatever they wanted with the warforged. Lo’Paih’s strange obsession with Pienna meshed nicely with the Mosaic Committee’s odd, arcane desire to slay a deranged halfling that somehow represented a dangerous threat to the world. As such, the eccentricities of a dragonmarked woman who chose to butcher herself had to be tolerated. “Sivis and a highly placed Gatekeeper. We risk a backlash but we have no choice. It all rests on your spells, Herschem.”
“Wizardry has ever served Aundair,” the old man nodded. He gestured to Kleris. “But only Master Kleris’ intelligence and your direction will get the warforged units to, ah, properly subdue those who may warn the town of my approach.”
“Yes, yes, follow our directions and the Reaches no longer threaten you,” Lo’Paih chortled with a strange raspy sound. “Leaving you free to smash Thrane, teach them a lesson, gain glory for yourselves.”
Ibraim kept his face smooth. He wanted to spit at the woman, which would have been insane, especially given her proficiency with artificer magic, but he was a professional. And he had read the file that Kleris had provided. Sword, infusion, and now surgically attached battlefist, all made Lo’Paih a dangerous opponent. As a graduate of Rekkenmark her proficiency with a blade was not to be underestimated.
The greatest concern to Ibraim was not the woman’s battle prowess, but her place in the grand scheme of things. She simply did not fit. Kleris had told Ibraim a week ago that this odd woman from Cannith was feuding with her uncle over a recent failure of some sort, and that the Gatekeeper Lo’Paih wanted dead so badly was her own second cousin. A cousin that everyone in Cannith thought had died in a lightning rail accident. Lo’Paih’s place in things made no sense, and her cousin and the other House elders allowing her to casually use five hundred new models of warforged was did not make sense. To Ibraim the whole thing was a harebrained knot of trouble. But Ibraim took orders, he did not argue with them. “What of phase three?” Ibraim asked Herschem.
“The reject units, those composed of criminals and deserters fighting for a pardon, land by longboat to the south under Captain Thiel’s command,” Herschem said. “They’re thirty men, twenty of them the rejects, and they camp out on the Orien road. They ambush any Wardens of the Wood coming to the rescue or any inhabitants fleeing southeast. No prisoners. We expect them to suffer high casualty rates so that they can earn their pardon.”
“Why do you need flesh at all?” Lo’Paih asked, knocking her metal hand on the table. The map twitched. “Why do not you take what I have given you?”
“Because the force holding the road is the most likely to be spotted at a distance,” Kleris explained. “And as the road is the fastest method of travel for the area, anyone who might get away will report seeing Aundair humans, not Cannith warforged. Any villagers who get away fleeing through the woods will not encounter anyone to report to about the warforged for weeks. It is about maintaining tactical surprise.”
“They’re also not participating in the direct attack because we don’t trust them all that much,” Herschem added. “Each has a close friend or relative back in Fairhaven as additional insurance, but they have already abandoned law and country once, they may abandon family, too. And as Kleris said, if phase one succeeds and no one knows of the attack from the sea, any low-level divinations will point to a force on the Orien Road as the source of trouble, not the new warforged, buying us some more time.”
“You don’t trust me,” Lo’Paih laughed. “Precious toys buy nothing.”
“Delayed notification of the enemy is our goal, trusting you is not relevant to that,” Kleris said. “We need strategic surprise even if we can’t get tactical, but tactical surprise is even better.”
“I spent my life reading currents of power in the House, and untwining lies from truth,” Lo’Paih told him. “So don’t lie to me. I don’t care that you do not trust me, whatever military reasons you give. Pienna must die. That is all.”
“Our plans are in accordance,” Ibraim said. “No one disagrees with you, Lo’Paih. We have to kill this Pienna because she will protect the halfling and the town. She is a viable military target. Fear not.”
“I have crafted myself a pure crafting, free from fear!” she cackled.
Ibraim ignored her, addressing Kleris and Herschem. He hated the fact that this Cannith woman had to be at the meeting. “What’s the casualty rate expected amongst the warforged?”
“If I manage to take out the Gatekeeper and the halfling before they know I’m there, only ten percent,” Herschem assured him. “If I don’t, about fifty. This woman is a powerful druid, and she has a great panther and a dangerous dwarf at her side. Other than her there is no one of import in the area that we know of. Vadalis has a presence, and an Orien trade caravan may or may not be in the town, but so far as we know there is no other unusual activity. Of course, there’s always going to be some intelligence we don’t have, but that’s life. You have two strings for your bow, and you pray to the Host.”
“He will be in Merylsward, I have been assured of it,” Lo’Paih said suddenly.
“He?” Ibraim said, swinging to look at her. “Who is ‘he’? What are you talking about? I though you were looking for a woman named Pienna!”
“Fear not, for I will deal with him,” Lo’paih said, unfazed by the temper of the Aundarian Lord. “My power will be at your side, bringing death to the Reachers.”
The wizard, the spy, and the noblemen all looked at each other, but said nothing. It was far too late to turn back now.
There were almost seven hundred individuals aboard the fleet, and only about one hundred and fifty of them were born by biological process. The rest were all warforged.
“Watch the lines, we’re drifting too far!” an artificer whose coat bore the sigils of the Arcane Congress. “I can’t maintain the fog correctly!”
“Who are you, Lord Major Derge ir’Lain?” came the sarcastic reply from the deck officer. “You do your job and I’ll do mine!”
“Chattering doesn’t roll the barrel, gentlemen,” said a tall figure passing by. Both the artificer and the deck officer jumped, not having seen Lord Ibraim ir’Wynarn until he was right on top of them. Lord Ibraim was rumored to by something of a wizard along with being a tactical genius, and the tall man in the black coat with the rapier that seemed to be made of pure shadow intimidated all of his men.
Ibraim moved on, satisfied that his men would quit their bickering. Tensions had been running high since the ships were launched two days ago. Aundair’s navy was never the most successful, and trying to put an invasion force to sea without being spotted by House Lyrandar in Stormhome, agents of Brelish intelligence, Lhazaar pirates, or others, had been a daunting task. In a few hours they would be close enough to shore to where the three troop carriers would drop their load and the warforged soldiers could be expected to swim to the shore. The warforged units could not drown, but they could be swept off course by the tide if they did not get dropped off close enough. To get them in close enough without losing them to the current, but far enough away so that the renegades of the west would not see them coming, that was the trick.
Ibraim walked to the aft deck and down the stairs to the command cabin. No guard stood on duty here, for the reputation of those within was grim enough. The tall human opened the door and then quickly shut it as he entered.
Most of the maps and books had been stowed away, leaving one long map pegged into the long table that ran the length of the room. The map showed the town of Merylsward and the coastline near it. The porthole shutters were closed, allowing in no outside light, but enough magical sources of light left the room without any shadow. Three others were waiting for Ibraim when he came in.
Kleris Zenden, a longtime member of the Royal Eyes of Aundair, stood by the table, peering at some detail of the coastal reefs. It would be his call as to when the warforged would be released, and the meticulous half-elf was reviewing his calculations. Kleris’ face was devoid of emotion as he did so. Ibraim assumed that the Khoravar was trying not to think about the battle plan that called for the termination of all potential witnesses within fifteen minutes, child or adult. Many officers in Aundair referred to Kleris belittlingly as ‘Risia’ for his supposed lack of feeling, but Ibraim knew that the half-elf had simply accept long ago that the only way to survive this war was to accept necessity as the only moral.
Sitting across from Kleris, puffing on an ornate pipe, was Herschem Banekert, a wizard of renown who had been at the Arcane Congress for decades. The white-haired and bearded old human was still spry at seventy-some years of age, and enjoyed affecting all of the cliches of a wizard, even so far as to wear pointy hats with stars sown onto them. For all of Herschem’s affected joviality, he was a deadly serious man when he needed to be. Herschem would be in the vanguard of phase two of the assault, and the important buildings that he planned to destroy with his magic were marked in red.
Ibraim noticed a new mark on the map. “The Sivis building? Is that necessary?” he asked.
“I’m not making unnecessary antagonisms with a dragonmarked house,” Herschem said seriously. “It is unavoidable. And we will antagonize Vadalis as well, for they run many operations in the town. But we have no choice, our actions are dictated by necessity. Merylsward is to be the base of our operations, and we can’t risk letting anyone know we are here. The druidic spells of communication will be bad enough without the more efficient Sivis facilities notifying Oalian. We’ll claim that it was an accident within the fog of war.” He shrugged. “Besides, phase one of this operation calls for the extermination of everyone on the bay’s edge, and I think if any attention in the form of moral outrage occurs, it will be focused on that.”
“One more atrocity in a long line of them going back a hundred years,” Kleris noted calmly. “No one will object, unfortunately, any more than objections were raised when Karrnathi undead went through three tents of Aundair’s wounded last year, killing all of those abed and the halfling healers who were attending them. If we don’t make it look purposeful then Sivis will be forced to look the other way. Not even the Houses are immune to the mistakes of war.” Kleris’ eyes darted toward Ibraim. “MiLord I opened the sealed scroll, I know our first objective.”
Ibraim nodded. Striking a decisive blow at the rebels who were bleeding Aundair’s back while it dealt with Karrnath, Thrane, and Breland, was a good reason for hitting this far west, and even for using Merylsward as a base of operations, but it was all a cover. Ibraim had a charge from his cousin, the Queen herself, to follow the dictates of the Mosaic Committee, an obscure group that Ibraim had not even heard of until two months ago. “Somewhere in Merylsward, in the company of a Gatekeeper druidess, is a halfling with magical powers that must die,” Ibraim mused. “It sounds like something out of a fanciful bard’s tale. Powers beyond our shores manipulating events, a half-sane Talenta savage acting as their conduit here, and a druidess who is supposedly dead directing the entire thing.”
“The evil manipulations of the chamber are real,” Herschem assured him. “I wouldn’t have been called away from our front lines if it was a fanciful tale.”
“I believe you,” Ibraim said. “Although in truth it does not matter if I did, I do as my Queen orders. And now that we have al of these warforged, er, on loan from House Cannith, as it were –”
The bitter, mocking laughter from the room’s fourth occupant interrupted him. The woman sometimes seemed rational and normal, but mostly she came across as obsessed and unstable. Whatever her mental state, Lo’Paih acted on behalf of one of Cannith’s major players, and when she had offered the field-testing of five hundred new warforged units – new models that had been crafted with a layer of ironwood, Aundair grabbed the opportunity. “A loan, you say? Oh but they are yours, if you follow our directions!” laughed the woman. “And make no mistake, the druidess must die, or all five hundred units will withdraw from the field of battle.” Lo’Paih was human, or nominally so. Thick robes and cloaks surrounded her, but they did not hide the giant metal fist that was in place of her right hand. Bits and pieces of the woman were no longer flesh, instead they had been replaced with metallic parts from a warforged or some similar construct. Perhaps Lo’Paih had once been beautiful, but the woman’s face was full of scars, many of which appeared to be self-inflicted.
“Dirty hands stroke a white beard,” Ibraim sighed. These five hundred units were being provided at no cost so that someone in Cannith could be sure to butcher and slaughter Pienna and all that knew her. Once that was done, Lo’Paih had made it very clear that Aundair could do whatever they wanted with the warforged. Lo’Paih’s strange obsession with Pienna meshed nicely with the Mosaic Committee’s odd, arcane desire to slay a deranged halfling that somehow represented a dangerous threat to the world. As such, the eccentricities of a dragonmarked woman who chose to butcher herself had to be tolerated. “Sivis and a highly placed Gatekeeper. We risk a backlash but we have no choice. It all rests on your spells, Herschem.”
“Wizardry has ever served Aundair,” the old man nodded. He gestured to Kleris. “But only Master Kleris’ intelligence and your direction will get the warforged units to, ah, properly subdue those who may warn the town of my approach.”
“Yes, yes, follow our directions and the Reaches no longer threaten you,” Lo’Paih chortled with a strange raspy sound. “Leaving you free to smash Thrane, teach them a lesson, gain glory for yourselves.”
Ibraim kept his face smooth. He wanted to spit at the woman, which would have been insane, especially given her proficiency with artificer magic, but he was a professional. And he had read the file that Kleris had provided. Sword, infusion, and now surgically attached battlefist, all made Lo’Paih a dangerous opponent. As a graduate of Rekkenmark her proficiency with a blade was not to be underestimated.
The greatest concern to Ibraim was not the woman’s battle prowess, but her place in the grand scheme of things. She simply did not fit. Kleris had told Ibraim a week ago that this odd woman from Cannith was feuding with her uncle over a recent failure of some sort, and that the Gatekeeper Lo’Paih wanted dead so badly was her own second cousin. A cousin that everyone in Cannith thought had died in a lightning rail accident. Lo’Paih’s place in things made no sense, and her cousin and the other House elders allowing her to casually use five hundred new models of warforged was did not make sense. To Ibraim the whole thing was a harebrained knot of trouble. But Ibraim took orders, he did not argue with them. “What of phase three?” Ibraim asked Herschem.
“The reject units, those composed of criminals and deserters fighting for a pardon, land by longboat to the south under Captain Thiel’s command,” Herschem said. “They’re thirty men, twenty of them the rejects, and they camp out on the Orien road. They ambush any Wardens of the Wood coming to the rescue or any inhabitants fleeing southeast. No prisoners. We expect them to suffer high casualty rates so that they can earn their pardon.”
“Why do you need flesh at all?” Lo’Paih asked, knocking her metal hand on the table. The map twitched. “Why do not you take what I have given you?”
“Because the force holding the road is the most likely to be spotted at a distance,” Kleris explained. “And as the road is the fastest method of travel for the area, anyone who might get away will report seeing Aundair humans, not Cannith warforged. Any villagers who get away fleeing through the woods will not encounter anyone to report to about the warforged for weeks. It is about maintaining tactical surprise.”
“They’re also not participating in the direct attack because we don’t trust them all that much,” Herschem added. “Each has a close friend or relative back in Fairhaven as additional insurance, but they have already abandoned law and country once, they may abandon family, too. And as Kleris said, if phase one succeeds and no one knows of the attack from the sea, any low-level divinations will point to a force on the Orien Road as the source of trouble, not the new warforged, buying us some more time.”
“You don’t trust me,” Lo’Paih laughed. “Precious toys buy nothing.”
“Delayed notification of the enemy is our goal, trusting you is not relevant to that,” Kleris said. “We need strategic surprise even if we can’t get tactical, but tactical surprise is even better.”
“I spent my life reading currents of power in the House, and untwining lies from truth,” Lo’Paih told him. “So don’t lie to me. I don’t care that you do not trust me, whatever military reasons you give. Pienna must die. That is all.”
“Our plans are in accordance,” Ibraim said. “No one disagrees with you, Lo’Paih. We have to kill this Pienna because she will protect the halfling and the town. She is a viable military target. Fear not.”
“I have crafted myself a pure crafting, free from fear!” she cackled.
Ibraim ignored her, addressing Kleris and Herschem. He hated the fact that this Cannith woman had to be at the meeting. “What’s the casualty rate expected amongst the warforged?”
“If I manage to take out the Gatekeeper and the halfling before they know I’m there, only ten percent,” Herschem assured him. “If I don’t, about fifty. This woman is a powerful druid, and she has a great panther and a dangerous dwarf at her side. Other than her there is no one of import in the area that we know of. Vadalis has a presence, and an Orien trade caravan may or may not be in the town, but so far as we know there is no other unusual activity. Of course, there’s always going to be some intelligence we don’t have, but that’s life. You have two strings for your bow, and you pray to the Host.”
“He will be in Merylsward, I have been assured of it,” Lo’Paih said suddenly.
“He?” Ibraim said, swinging to look at her. “Who is ‘he’? What are you talking about? I though you were looking for a woman named Pienna!”
“Fear not, for I will deal with him,” Lo’paih said, unfazed by the temper of the Aundarian Lord. “My power will be at your side, bringing death to the Reachers.”
The wizard, the spy, and the noblemen all looked at each other, but said nothing. It was far too late to turn back now.
Chapter 9 - Part 2
Lyle waited high up in the branches of a pine tree, watching the trails that ran in from the west towards Merylsward. The seventeen year-old human was some four miles west of the first picket, which was currently unmanned, and six miles west of Crahks’ farm, a nice, fertile piece of land that didn’t even see itself as part of Merylsward proper. Crahks was the most recent landholder in a long line of shifters that had worked the land since they had fled the Inquisition from Thrane.
Lyle squinted, trying to look for the first sign of the rider. The mayor had sent him here to deliver a message for the druidess that had come to Merylsward last week. It was she that told him to expect the famous Delegado. The Tharashk bounty hunter was so good in the wilderness that many in the Reaches who had heard of the half-orc swore that both of his family trees had roots to the north of the Shadow Marches, here in the most verdant place on Khorvaire.
The young man (and he was a man in the Reaches, even if other countries picked such things by an arbitrary age rather than ability) stroked the longsword sheathed at his hip. The sword had been his father’s, and his father had taught him how to use it. His father had been killed by an Aundarian wizard two years ago, and so little was left to bury that only his sword had been brought back.
Lyle hated the Aundairians. Some swore at the Brelish, the monsters of Droaam, the walking dead of Karrnath, the war machines of Cyre, or whatever other wretch appeared to them to be the worst of the world. As far as Lyle was concerned, the pompous, over-fancy, spell-using Aundairians were behind the entire war, and all of its ills. Lyle was one of the few people who regularly went to hear the Ashbound preachers come and talk about arcane deviltry, so great was the young man’s hatred for the Aundairians.
This was a bit of a source of friction for many, as plenty of folk in Merylsward did not like the Ashbound, especially the House Vadalis folk who employed a large portion of the town. Others couldn’t give the Ashbound any good eyes, either. The druidess whose message he was carrying was a Gatekeeper, for instance, and they were rivals or something. The long of the short of it was the mayor had told Lyle to shush up around her about all that stuff, or anyone else. Of course the mayor was a shifter who was considered by many to be too dense to have a proper job, but his approval was necessary for Lyle to be accepted into the Wardens of the Wood, so Lyle did as he was told.
There. Something was moving. Lyle squinted. A man on a horse, with heavy saddlebags. Lyle leaned forward…
A hawk screeched and buzzed his head, and Lyle fell off of the branch, falling heavily onto another branch below, badly scratching his back. The hawk screamed again and scratched his arm.
A whistle was heard from below, and the hawk quit its attack on Lyle’s person, instead slashing at his belt. Lyle yelled as his sword and scabbard fell down to the forest floor far beneath him. The young man began to climb down the pine to get his weapon, but then the hawk came back at him, feinting with its claws and beak as if it would attack him again. Lyle threw a piece of wood at it to no effect, swore at it to even less effect, and then finally got down the tree and grabbed his sword.
As he stood up, he saw that hidden in between two trees, not ten feet from him, was a tied horse and a tall half-orc holding the biggest longbow Lyle had ever seen. An arrow was drawn on the thick, taut string, and pointed directly at Lyle’s heart. The young man worked his mouth but could say nothing.
Finally the half-orc spoke, flexing his greenish-graying cheek around his lower canines that sprouted tusk-like out of his jaw. “Boy,” the half-orc said. “There had better be a real good reason why you were waiting to ambush me.”
Lyle finally noticed the House Tharashk dragonne on the man’s belt buckle and sword hilt. The young human carefully stood up, letting his sword drop back onto the leafy ground, and keeping his hands in plain sight. The half-orc loosened the arrow slightly, but only slightly. “Um, are you Delegado d’Tharashk, sir?” Lyle asked very, very politely.
“No, I’m Jaela Daran in disguise,” the half-orc said sarcastically. “Were you waiting for me?”
Lyle nodded. “Yes sir, the Gatekeepers have a visiting druidess here, high in their order. The mayor gave me a sealed scroll from her to you, and you are to bring the thing you were sent to find directly to her.” At mention of the half-orc’s reason for being in the Reaches, Lyle’s eyes darted to one saddlebag that was heavily laden.
Delegado put his arrow back and his bow up. Lyle visibly exhaled. The half-orc grinned, and then whistled, and the hawk that had attacked Lyle flew down and settled on Delegado’s shoulder, its powerful claws pressing into the half-orc’s mithril armor. “You really had best not try to hide when you’re supposed to greet someone,” the half-orc advised him, taking his horse’s reins from the tree branch that they had been resting around. “I thought you were another one of those idiot Ashbound that are always trying to give me trouble.”
Lyle’s cheeks flushed, and he took the sealed scroll out of his shirt, near-throwing it at Delegado. “You’re lucky I didn’t kill your stupid chicken,” Lyle snapped. “And the Ashbound have a point, or don’t you ever get attacked by Aundairians?”
“You couldn’t kill Feather if he was asleep,” Delegado said casually, easily catching the scroll. “And I’ve killed my share of wizards without falling for some lunatic’s suggestion that I live without basic magical supplies. You want to get into a philosophical argument, do it with someone else, I don’t care.” He broke open the scroll and began to read it.
Flushing more, Lyle picked up his sword belt and got himself together. He fantasized about hacking this ‘Feather’ to pieces while the half-orc read.
Lyle flinched as Delegado laughed aloud. “What?” the human asked, in spite of himself.
“Pienna is here!” Delegado snorted. “That woman can’t say hello without using twenty more words that a Brelish barrister!” He shook his head and tossed the scroll into a saddlebag. “All right then, lead on hawk-bait, let’s not keep the Gatekeepers waiting!”
Lyle seethed, but walked ahead of the arrogant half-orc.
Lyle squinted, trying to look for the first sign of the rider. The mayor had sent him here to deliver a message for the druidess that had come to Merylsward last week. It was she that told him to expect the famous Delegado. The Tharashk bounty hunter was so good in the wilderness that many in the Reaches who had heard of the half-orc swore that both of his family trees had roots to the north of the Shadow Marches, here in the most verdant place on Khorvaire.
The young man (and he was a man in the Reaches, even if other countries picked such things by an arbitrary age rather than ability) stroked the longsword sheathed at his hip. The sword had been his father’s, and his father had taught him how to use it. His father had been killed by an Aundarian wizard two years ago, and so little was left to bury that only his sword had been brought back.
Lyle hated the Aundairians. Some swore at the Brelish, the monsters of Droaam, the walking dead of Karrnath, the war machines of Cyre, or whatever other wretch appeared to them to be the worst of the world. As far as Lyle was concerned, the pompous, over-fancy, spell-using Aundairians were behind the entire war, and all of its ills. Lyle was one of the few people who regularly went to hear the Ashbound preachers come and talk about arcane deviltry, so great was the young man’s hatred for the Aundairians.
This was a bit of a source of friction for many, as plenty of folk in Merylsward did not like the Ashbound, especially the House Vadalis folk who employed a large portion of the town. Others couldn’t give the Ashbound any good eyes, either. The druidess whose message he was carrying was a Gatekeeper, for instance, and they were rivals or something. The long of the short of it was the mayor had told Lyle to shush up around her about all that stuff, or anyone else. Of course the mayor was a shifter who was considered by many to be too dense to have a proper job, but his approval was necessary for Lyle to be accepted into the Wardens of the Wood, so Lyle did as he was told.
There. Something was moving. Lyle squinted. A man on a horse, with heavy saddlebags. Lyle leaned forward…
A hawk screeched and buzzed his head, and Lyle fell off of the branch, falling heavily onto another branch below, badly scratching his back. The hawk screamed again and scratched his arm.
A whistle was heard from below, and the hawk quit its attack on Lyle’s person, instead slashing at his belt. Lyle yelled as his sword and scabbard fell down to the forest floor far beneath him. The young man began to climb down the pine to get his weapon, but then the hawk came back at him, feinting with its claws and beak as if it would attack him again. Lyle threw a piece of wood at it to no effect, swore at it to even less effect, and then finally got down the tree and grabbed his sword.
As he stood up, he saw that hidden in between two trees, not ten feet from him, was a tied horse and a tall half-orc holding the biggest longbow Lyle had ever seen. An arrow was drawn on the thick, taut string, and pointed directly at Lyle’s heart. The young man worked his mouth but could say nothing.
Finally the half-orc spoke, flexing his greenish-graying cheek around his lower canines that sprouted tusk-like out of his jaw. “Boy,” the half-orc said. “There had better be a real good reason why you were waiting to ambush me.”
Lyle finally noticed the House Tharashk dragonne on the man’s belt buckle and sword hilt. The young human carefully stood up, letting his sword drop back onto the leafy ground, and keeping his hands in plain sight. The half-orc loosened the arrow slightly, but only slightly. “Um, are you Delegado d’Tharashk, sir?” Lyle asked very, very politely.
“No, I’m Jaela Daran in disguise,” the half-orc said sarcastically. “Were you waiting for me?”
Lyle nodded. “Yes sir, the Gatekeepers have a visiting druidess here, high in their order. The mayor gave me a sealed scroll from her to you, and you are to bring the thing you were sent to find directly to her.” At mention of the half-orc’s reason for being in the Reaches, Lyle’s eyes darted to one saddlebag that was heavily laden.
Delegado put his arrow back and his bow up. Lyle visibly exhaled. The half-orc grinned, and then whistled, and the hawk that had attacked Lyle flew down and settled on Delegado’s shoulder, its powerful claws pressing into the half-orc’s mithril armor. “You really had best not try to hide when you’re supposed to greet someone,” the half-orc advised him, taking his horse’s reins from the tree branch that they had been resting around. “I thought you were another one of those idiot Ashbound that are always trying to give me trouble.”
Lyle’s cheeks flushed, and he took the sealed scroll out of his shirt, near-throwing it at Delegado. “You’re lucky I didn’t kill your stupid chicken,” Lyle snapped. “And the Ashbound have a point, or don’t you ever get attacked by Aundairians?”
“You couldn’t kill Feather if he was asleep,” Delegado said casually, easily catching the scroll. “And I’ve killed my share of wizards without falling for some lunatic’s suggestion that I live without basic magical supplies. You want to get into a philosophical argument, do it with someone else, I don’t care.” He broke open the scroll and began to read it.
Flushing more, Lyle picked up his sword belt and got himself together. He fantasized about hacking this ‘Feather’ to pieces while the half-orc read.
Lyle flinched as Delegado laughed aloud. “What?” the human asked, in spite of himself.
“Pienna is here!” Delegado snorted. “That woman can’t say hello without using twenty more words that a Brelish barrister!” He shook his head and tossed the scroll into a saddlebag. “All right then, lead on hawk-bait, let’s not keep the Gatekeepers waiting!”
Lyle seethed, but walked ahead of the arrogant half-orc.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Chapter 9 - Part 1
CHAPTER NINE – REUNIONS, HAPPY AND OTHERWISE
The 1st of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., in the northern area of the Eldeen Reaches
The worst of the summer heat was long gone, but it was not cold yet, even this far north in Khorvaire. The tall trees, so densely packed across the fertile plains and rolling hills, were a bright, brilliant cascade of gorgeous gold, yellow, red, and brown leaves. In every generation of visitors to and residents of the Eldeen Reaches, from the shifters and humans that were its current inhabitants all the way back to the orc druids and huntsmen that lived there in the times of the Dhakaani Empire, the middle of autumn was considered the most beautiful time of year. Stories persisted of travelers whose enjoyment and appreciation so touched their heart that they were brought to the plane of Thelanis, where the Faerie Queen would grant them their greatest desire.
The thickness of the trees began to thin out some as loggers, farmers, and other minor spots of civilization broke through the leaves in a bright spot of green grass marked by the sharp lines of cultivation. Rough trails connected the small pockets of people, and these sometimes became broader trails than linked up with the well-paved, well-maintained House Orien trade roads that connected the larger population centers. The Reaches had only one real city, but many inhabitants.
On the northern edge of the country, halfway between the Wynarn River to the southeast, and the Icehorn Mountains to the west and north, sprawled a small town by the name of Merylsward. Sitting at the terminus of a House Orien trade route, Merylsward would have been a loose collection of farms, fishing shacks, and trading posts in any other country on Khorvaire rather than a single town. Its roughly thirteen hundred inhabitants lived within an area some thirty miles across. Most were within the center of a natural bowl of land tending to crops, but some were to the west and south where the trees were still quick. About a tenth of the people were on the northern or eastern edges of the area, and some of the more ornery residents of the fishing shacks that clung to the sides of the high hills approaching the Eldeen Bay considered Merylsward to be “that far-away city.”
Merylsward was only a third human, and the rest were an eclectic bunch of races with no one group predominant. They all shared a fierce independence, and a loathing of Aundair. The overwhelming majority of them were combat veterans, and there was more than one widow whose husband had died by the Wynarn River repulsing the tyrannical wizard-kingdom. There had been a lull in the fighting over the summer, allowing many folk to come home and see their families, as Aundair focused on Thrane. The inhabitants of Merylsward, especially the shifters, fervently hoped that the Aundairians and the Thranes would kill each other to the last man.
Juzhe d’Sivis sighed as he leaned over the windowsill, smelling the bright morning air. He had been sent here by his House to conduct Sivis business some fifty years earlier and had since refused to leave. The city-born gnome had fallen in love with the Eldeen Reaches, and had married a local gnome carpenter’s daughter.
“Morning, Juzhe,” called a rough voice coming across the road. Mrask was almost seven feet in height, and possessed of great muscle. His skin was a green pigment with tan highlights, and he was covered in short, coarse, black body hair. The orc wore a wide straw hat to protect his eyes from the light, and no shirt with his rough-spun pants and hard leather boots. The only ornamentation on him was a gold cap on one of his jutting lower canines. Mrask typically started work at midnight, cutting wood until dawn with his race’s ability to see in the dark, even with no moon out. He had an impressive haul on the sledge he was dragging.
“Heading to my father-in-law?” Juzhe asked. “I know he wants some new spruce, he’s working on a clock.”
“Yah, me giving him first pick,” Mrask said. “Then central market. Then lunch and nap.”
“I’ve been smelling your second wife’s pie for the last half-hour,” the gnome told him. “Wow, that woman can cook!”
“Yah, me miss other wife, though,” Mrask said with worry in his voice. The orc’s first spouse was very good with a bow, and she spent a lot of time on the front with Aundair. She had killed twelve Aundairians in the month of Barrakas alone, including one wizard. Juzhe personally thought that a man should only have one wife, but the predominant feeling in the Reaches was that grown folks let other grown folks alone.
“She’ll be good, don’t worry, no one can mess with her!” Juzhe laughed.
“Me hopes,” the orc said. “Gots to go, be free!”
“Be free!” Juzhe responded. That ubiquitous greeting was one of the first things he had loved about the Reaches.
Juzhe looked down the road, wondering when the expected House Orien caravan would arrive. Juzhe’s wife had heard there would be some serious activity coming their way soon and the curious gnome rubbed his hands in expectation of who would be with the caravan. New information made the curious gnome happier than a dog with a fresh bone.
The 1st of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., in the northern area of the Eldeen Reaches
The worst of the summer heat was long gone, but it was not cold yet, even this far north in Khorvaire. The tall trees, so densely packed across the fertile plains and rolling hills, were a bright, brilliant cascade of gorgeous gold, yellow, red, and brown leaves. In every generation of visitors to and residents of the Eldeen Reaches, from the shifters and humans that were its current inhabitants all the way back to the orc druids and huntsmen that lived there in the times of the Dhakaani Empire, the middle of autumn was considered the most beautiful time of year. Stories persisted of travelers whose enjoyment and appreciation so touched their heart that they were brought to the plane of Thelanis, where the Faerie Queen would grant them their greatest desire.
The thickness of the trees began to thin out some as loggers, farmers, and other minor spots of civilization broke through the leaves in a bright spot of green grass marked by the sharp lines of cultivation. Rough trails connected the small pockets of people, and these sometimes became broader trails than linked up with the well-paved, well-maintained House Orien trade roads that connected the larger population centers. The Reaches had only one real city, but many inhabitants.
On the northern edge of the country, halfway between the Wynarn River to the southeast, and the Icehorn Mountains to the west and north, sprawled a small town by the name of Merylsward. Sitting at the terminus of a House Orien trade route, Merylsward would have been a loose collection of farms, fishing shacks, and trading posts in any other country on Khorvaire rather than a single town. Its roughly thirteen hundred inhabitants lived within an area some thirty miles across. Most were within the center of a natural bowl of land tending to crops, but some were to the west and south where the trees were still quick. About a tenth of the people were on the northern or eastern edges of the area, and some of the more ornery residents of the fishing shacks that clung to the sides of the high hills approaching the Eldeen Bay considered Merylsward to be “that far-away city.”
Merylsward was only a third human, and the rest were an eclectic bunch of races with no one group predominant. They all shared a fierce independence, and a loathing of Aundair. The overwhelming majority of them were combat veterans, and there was more than one widow whose husband had died by the Wynarn River repulsing the tyrannical wizard-kingdom. There had been a lull in the fighting over the summer, allowing many folk to come home and see their families, as Aundair focused on Thrane. The inhabitants of Merylsward, especially the shifters, fervently hoped that the Aundairians and the Thranes would kill each other to the last man.
Juzhe d’Sivis sighed as he leaned over the windowsill, smelling the bright morning air. He had been sent here by his House to conduct Sivis business some fifty years earlier and had since refused to leave. The city-born gnome had fallen in love with the Eldeen Reaches, and had married a local gnome carpenter’s daughter.
“Morning, Juzhe,” called a rough voice coming across the road. Mrask was almost seven feet in height, and possessed of great muscle. His skin was a green pigment with tan highlights, and he was covered in short, coarse, black body hair. The orc wore a wide straw hat to protect his eyes from the light, and no shirt with his rough-spun pants and hard leather boots. The only ornamentation on him was a gold cap on one of his jutting lower canines. Mrask typically started work at midnight, cutting wood until dawn with his race’s ability to see in the dark, even with no moon out. He had an impressive haul on the sledge he was dragging.
“Heading to my father-in-law?” Juzhe asked. “I know he wants some new spruce, he’s working on a clock.”
“Yah, me giving him first pick,” Mrask said. “Then central market. Then lunch and nap.”
“I’ve been smelling your second wife’s pie for the last half-hour,” the gnome told him. “Wow, that woman can cook!”
“Yah, me miss other wife, though,” Mrask said with worry in his voice. The orc’s first spouse was very good with a bow, and she spent a lot of time on the front with Aundair. She had killed twelve Aundairians in the month of Barrakas alone, including one wizard. Juzhe personally thought that a man should only have one wife, but the predominant feeling in the Reaches was that grown folks let other grown folks alone.
“She’ll be good, don’t worry, no one can mess with her!” Juzhe laughed.
“Me hopes,” the orc said. “Gots to go, be free!”
“Be free!” Juzhe responded. That ubiquitous greeting was one of the first things he had loved about the Reaches.
Juzhe looked down the road, wondering when the expected House Orien caravan would arrive. Juzhe’s wife had heard there would be some serious activity coming their way soon and the curious gnome rubbed his hands in expectation of who would be with the caravan. New information made the curious gnome happier than a dog with a fresh bone.
Chapter 8 - Part 7
They ran out of a back tunnel that had not collapsed, fighting off two unorganized goblin ambushes. In both instances the goblins broke it off after a few of them took wounds. Their hearts did not seem to be in it. Visha took a knife in the gut from one lucky shot, but used some innate power of hers to close the gash. Orphan took wounds and attacks, but knocked the goblins over like pins in a bowling game as he charged at them. The warforged seemed to frighten the goblins the most. Despite his relative lack of plating they seemed to think he was yet another war golem from Cyre.
Eventually they were on the other side of the hill, fresh air and a gorgeous sunset awaiting them. Sky’s Favor was circling above, and the remaining warforged units were pointing at it and gesticulating wildly. The airship surged downwards to Delegado and his temporary allies, causing those remaining units of Cyre to take cover.
“Stay low,” Delegado hissed. “We don’t want the warforged to spot us!”
Visha disappeared into a crack in the ground, and Orphan did a passable imitation of a disabled Cyran soldier-construct.
Its fiery ring blazing, the airship dove down from the skies, the sailors aboard firing crossbows blindly to intimidate would-be attackers. In addition Gullif had apparently conjured up bright illusions and booming noises that gave the impression he was about to cast horrendous spells of destruction. Sky’s Favor screamed through the air, relentless in its approach.
The airship then straightened and pulled up, its soarwood hull creaking. The elemental ring around it passed over several Cyran positions, making the soldiers, human and warforged alike, hug the ground to escape being burnt to death. As the ring of fire lifted up over Delegado, his prisoner, and the two monks, a pair of long cables were tossed from the aft of the ship.
Delegado caught one easily, wrapping it around his forearm as he put his other arm around Xavier’s chest, under the man’s armpits. The warforged monk and Visha grabbed the other cable at the same time.
The half-orc suddenly felt himself jerked upwards, with only air beneath his feet. Both of his arms began to feel the strain, but he held on grimly, feeling the cable being pulled up. He shut his eyes to avoid the sickening vertigo that the shrinking ground was giving him. He thought he heard crossbows twanging down below, but he neither felt nor heard anything hit. No spells came their way either.
Likely everything that could be cast has been cast, the bounty hunter thought, keeping a tight grip on Xavier’s limp form as the wind whipped ever-faster past his face, chilling his exposed skin. The bag of documents and writings on his back began to feel like stone.
The higher the ship climbed, the faster he felt himself going up with it. He opened his eyes, only to behold that the ground was already several hundred feet below him. He quickly shut them again.
Soon he felt the heat of the elemental pass him by, and he tilted his head up to see that he was next to the hull of the airship, and the top deck railing was fast approaching. Lyrandar sailors grabbed him and Xavier and pulled him over the railing onto the deck with a roaring cheer.
On the other side of the deck was the other cable, and it was not being pulled or handled. Visha nonetheless scampered quickly into view shortly after Delegado was hauled on deck, and regarded the small crowd that had gathered carefully. The sailors regarded her curiously, but did not speak to her. Gorka appeared, shoving through the crowd of sailors with a grim face which gradually became a relieved smile when he saw Xavier out cold but breathing.
“Well done,” the shifter Dark Lantern said, pressing his hand into the half-orc’s. “Well done.” Gorka snapped his fingers and barked orders, and sailors began securing Xavier even more fully before hauling the Thrane below. “I will send a message to the Kundarak bankers via my Sivis device immediately.”
“You will after you explain a few things,” Visha said firmly. Behind her the warforged finally appeared.
“She wants proof about the Thrane,” the weary half-orc told Gorka. He could barely do more than shake hand after hand. The Lyrandar sailors were very impressed with him, and they kept asking him questions about the warforged titan that they had seen fall into the hill.
“Very well,” Gorka said. “I will send the message after mollifying this halfling woman.” The warforged was coiling the cable that he had climbed up, oblivious to all the commotion. One Lyrandar sailor had the presence of mind to thank him.
“Don’t mollify too long,” Delegado joked, and several of the sailors laughed.
“And we are expecting a ride and accommodations as well,” Visha said. She was simultaneously eyeing every Lyrandar sailor on deck.
“Yeah, she and her tin buddy want out of here, who can blame them? I figure you can give them a lift, the warforged won’t eat much.”
Gorka smiled. “Indeed. Brunis!”
“Captain Brunis!” cried the offended half-elf from somewhere.
“Captain then,” the shifter crowed. “Head due west, straight for Wroat!”
“Over Darguun?” Brunis asked incredulously.
“I didn’t say fly low, I said fly west,” Gorka chuckled. “It wouldn’t hurt to gain altitude, would it?” Brunis stalked off.
Delegado sat down on the deck he was so tired. Xavier was hauled away from him, and all of his adrenaline seemed to be gone. Gullif appeared before him as the sailors drifted off to their assigned tasks. The wizard had brought him a cup of steaming soup.
“You looked hungry in my magnifier,” the half-elven wizard chuckled. “And everyone else is busy, so enjoy. The cook says it has goat in it.” The wizard wrinkled his nose. “I think that the goat may have hatched from an egg.”
“Thanks,” Delegado told him, drinking deeply. It was good. He looked across the deck to see Gorka leading Visha to his cabin where the papers on Xavier were. The warforged was holding onto the bag of writings, which he had quietly taken when Delegado had been chatting with Gullif. “Hey!” the half-orc called to the warforged. “Hey, Orphan!”
“Yes?” The warforged’s reply was both careful and calm.
“Gullif, you have some repair spells prepared?” the half-orc asked.
“On a large boat that could fall out of the sky should something break?” Gullif said. “Why you know what, I do!”
“Spend one on this guy here, would you?”
Gullif nodded and cast the spell. Touching the bad hole in the middle of the warforged’s torso, he made a circular motion with his fingers and the hole closed up.
“Thank you,” Orphan said gratefully. “That was most troubling to me.”
“You are welcome,” Gullif said. “Quite a nasty hole, who gave it to you?”
“He did,” the warforged said, pointing at the half-orc.
Gullif looked at Delegado, and the bounty hunter started to laugh. “You have an odd way of making friends, Delegado, you know that?”
“Oh he’s not my friend,” chuckled the half-orc. He finished his soup and stood, stretching. “He’s not my friend at all.”
“It’s mutual,” the half-orc heard the warforged mutter. That made him laugh all the more.
“I’m down to my cabin, my part is done,” the half-orc said. “How long until Wroat?”
“It’s roughly one thousand and seven hundred and fifty miles in a straight line,” Gullif said, retrieving the empty soup cup. “Slightly more with the curvature of the planet, add on some for avoiding the higher edges of the mountains between Darguun and Breland. I figure that with not much bad weather and Gorka pushing Captain Brunis for near-round-the-clock travel, we’ll be there in four sunrises.”
“That’s quick,” the warforged noted.
“Yeah, three and a-half days until I never have to see you again,” Delegado said. “Don’t care where you and the midget go when we get to Wroat, clickety-clack, just don’t go my way.” He began to make his way down to the decks below.
“My name is Iron Orphan,” the warforged said behind Delegado.
The half-orc had no reply. He was going to crash in his bunk, eat ravenously upon awakening, and repeat the cycle until he got to Wroat. The warforged and the halfling sensei were already out of his mind.
Eventually they were on the other side of the hill, fresh air and a gorgeous sunset awaiting them. Sky’s Favor was circling above, and the remaining warforged units were pointing at it and gesticulating wildly. The airship surged downwards to Delegado and his temporary allies, causing those remaining units of Cyre to take cover.
“Stay low,” Delegado hissed. “We don’t want the warforged to spot us!”
Visha disappeared into a crack in the ground, and Orphan did a passable imitation of a disabled Cyran soldier-construct.
Its fiery ring blazing, the airship dove down from the skies, the sailors aboard firing crossbows blindly to intimidate would-be attackers. In addition Gullif had apparently conjured up bright illusions and booming noises that gave the impression he was about to cast horrendous spells of destruction. Sky’s Favor screamed through the air, relentless in its approach.
The airship then straightened and pulled up, its soarwood hull creaking. The elemental ring around it passed over several Cyran positions, making the soldiers, human and warforged alike, hug the ground to escape being burnt to death. As the ring of fire lifted up over Delegado, his prisoner, and the two monks, a pair of long cables were tossed from the aft of the ship.
Delegado caught one easily, wrapping it around his forearm as he put his other arm around Xavier’s chest, under the man’s armpits. The warforged monk and Visha grabbed the other cable at the same time.
The half-orc suddenly felt himself jerked upwards, with only air beneath his feet. Both of his arms began to feel the strain, but he held on grimly, feeling the cable being pulled up. He shut his eyes to avoid the sickening vertigo that the shrinking ground was giving him. He thought he heard crossbows twanging down below, but he neither felt nor heard anything hit. No spells came their way either.
Likely everything that could be cast has been cast, the bounty hunter thought, keeping a tight grip on Xavier’s limp form as the wind whipped ever-faster past his face, chilling his exposed skin. The bag of documents and writings on his back began to feel like stone.
The higher the ship climbed, the faster he felt himself going up with it. He opened his eyes, only to behold that the ground was already several hundred feet below him. He quickly shut them again.
Soon he felt the heat of the elemental pass him by, and he tilted his head up to see that he was next to the hull of the airship, and the top deck railing was fast approaching. Lyrandar sailors grabbed him and Xavier and pulled him over the railing onto the deck with a roaring cheer.
On the other side of the deck was the other cable, and it was not being pulled or handled. Visha nonetheless scampered quickly into view shortly after Delegado was hauled on deck, and regarded the small crowd that had gathered carefully. The sailors regarded her curiously, but did not speak to her. Gorka appeared, shoving through the crowd of sailors with a grim face which gradually became a relieved smile when he saw Xavier out cold but breathing.
“Well done,” the shifter Dark Lantern said, pressing his hand into the half-orc’s. “Well done.” Gorka snapped his fingers and barked orders, and sailors began securing Xavier even more fully before hauling the Thrane below. “I will send a message to the Kundarak bankers via my Sivis device immediately.”
“You will after you explain a few things,” Visha said firmly. Behind her the warforged finally appeared.
“She wants proof about the Thrane,” the weary half-orc told Gorka. He could barely do more than shake hand after hand. The Lyrandar sailors were very impressed with him, and they kept asking him questions about the warforged titan that they had seen fall into the hill.
“Very well,” Gorka said. “I will send the message after mollifying this halfling woman.” The warforged was coiling the cable that he had climbed up, oblivious to all the commotion. One Lyrandar sailor had the presence of mind to thank him.
“Don’t mollify too long,” Delegado joked, and several of the sailors laughed.
“And we are expecting a ride and accommodations as well,” Visha said. She was simultaneously eyeing every Lyrandar sailor on deck.
“Yeah, she and her tin buddy want out of here, who can blame them? I figure you can give them a lift, the warforged won’t eat much.”
Gorka smiled. “Indeed. Brunis!”
“Captain Brunis!” cried the offended half-elf from somewhere.
“Captain then,” the shifter crowed. “Head due west, straight for Wroat!”
“Over Darguun?” Brunis asked incredulously.
“I didn’t say fly low, I said fly west,” Gorka chuckled. “It wouldn’t hurt to gain altitude, would it?” Brunis stalked off.
Delegado sat down on the deck he was so tired. Xavier was hauled away from him, and all of his adrenaline seemed to be gone. Gullif appeared before him as the sailors drifted off to their assigned tasks. The wizard had brought him a cup of steaming soup.
“You looked hungry in my magnifier,” the half-elven wizard chuckled. “And everyone else is busy, so enjoy. The cook says it has goat in it.” The wizard wrinkled his nose. “I think that the goat may have hatched from an egg.”
“Thanks,” Delegado told him, drinking deeply. It was good. He looked across the deck to see Gorka leading Visha to his cabin where the papers on Xavier were. The warforged was holding onto the bag of writings, which he had quietly taken when Delegado had been chatting with Gullif. “Hey!” the half-orc called to the warforged. “Hey, Orphan!”
“Yes?” The warforged’s reply was both careful and calm.
“Gullif, you have some repair spells prepared?” the half-orc asked.
“On a large boat that could fall out of the sky should something break?” Gullif said. “Why you know what, I do!”
“Spend one on this guy here, would you?”
Gullif nodded and cast the spell. Touching the bad hole in the middle of the warforged’s torso, he made a circular motion with his fingers and the hole closed up.
“Thank you,” Orphan said gratefully. “That was most troubling to me.”
“You are welcome,” Gullif said. “Quite a nasty hole, who gave it to you?”
“He did,” the warforged said, pointing at the half-orc.
Gullif looked at Delegado, and the bounty hunter started to laugh. “You have an odd way of making friends, Delegado, you know that?”
“Oh he’s not my friend,” chuckled the half-orc. He finished his soup and stood, stretching. “He’s not my friend at all.”
“It’s mutual,” the half-orc heard the warforged mutter. That made him laugh all the more.
“I’m down to my cabin, my part is done,” the half-orc said. “How long until Wroat?”
“It’s roughly one thousand and seven hundred and fifty miles in a straight line,” Gullif said, retrieving the empty soup cup. “Slightly more with the curvature of the planet, add on some for avoiding the higher edges of the mountains between Darguun and Breland. I figure that with not much bad weather and Gorka pushing Captain Brunis for near-round-the-clock travel, we’ll be there in four sunrises.”
“That’s quick,” the warforged noted.
“Yeah, three and a-half days until I never have to see you again,” Delegado said. “Don’t care where you and the midget go when we get to Wroat, clickety-clack, just don’t go my way.” He began to make his way down to the decks below.
“My name is Iron Orphan,” the warforged said behind Delegado.
The half-orc had no reply. He was going to crash in his bunk, eat ravenously upon awakening, and repeat the cycle until he got to Wroat. The warforged and the halfling sensei were already out of his mind.
Chapter 8 - Part 6
Was he in the wrong place, heading for a watery death? Dare he go back to the cistern to draw more breath, and face dozens of angry goblins looking for the one who had insulted them?
He had little choice. Bracing himself, he shoved hard at the grate. At first it held, but he pressed again, bubbles escaping from his mouth. The old grate’s pins stretched, and then broke. It fell through the water, and he shot forward, finding his way.
The noise pulled at him. He kicked upwards as he felt the well rise up from the pipe, seeing the lights and hearing if dully the cries and smash of metal and bone.
Air wrapped around his head, and it was only by sheer force of will that he did not gasp loudly enough to be heard despite the raging battle. Sounds of punches, kicks, screams, and death filled his ears, along with the smell of blood and hate that the half-orc was thoroughly sick of.
Delegado raised himself up to peer over the edge of the well guard. The dwarf and the gnome lay dead, along with one of the two brothers. The warforged, the other brother, and the halfling woman were fighting the goblin horde, holding back the surging line with punches and kicks, dodging spears, clubs, and knives. Xavier stood behind them, firing crossbow bolts into the milling crowd. Delegado could easily see about twenty dead goblins, most of whom had their necks snapped. The warforged that they called Orphan – And I thought ‘Equilibrium’ was a dumb name – was snatching the filthy little scroungers up and easily cracking their neck vertebrae with his wrestling moves.
Behind Delegado was row upon row of empty, dusty shelves, with the occasional wine bottle or old box hanging about. The entranceway was the choke point, not back where the monks may have food and drink stored. And maybe some fine possessions that rightfully belonged to a certain bounty hunter from House Tharashk.
Delegado glanced forward again to make sure that Visha and her three remaining companions were too busy to notice him. It suddenly came to him as he watched the halfling woman chop a goblin in the throat that he knew her from somewhere. House Cannith had put a huge price on her head, and had come to Tharashk for help in finding her. The Triumvirate of House elders had turned the contract down without comment, something that a handful of those in know – a handful that including Delegado – had wondered about. It was very rare that the Dragonmarked Houses turned down contracts from one another, even over a matter of rivalry.
He shook his head at himself, irritated with his woolgathering. Everything was irrelevant except getting his gear and capturing Xavier. He silently stepped out of the well and moved back between the shelving units. Only one goblin saw him in the entire crowd, and the knife that it threw came nowhere near him.
He quickly found the cleared area that held the property of the monks. It seemed half of it was books and tied scrolls, rather than food. His own things were collected in a pile. He put on his ring first, then his boots. His swordbelt and blade followed, as did his papers and money. His daggers and all of his potions and alchemical devices were missing, no doubt used on the goblins, but his bow and arrows were untouched, as was the signaling device for the airship. The half-orc quickly got his gear together.
And of course, hidden in his boots was a spare key for his manacles. Those he quickly removed and tucked into his belt. They were for Xavier, after all.
Running back towards the fighting, he fired both of his special stunning arrows that he had requisitioned specially for this job. The blunt heads slammed in Xavier’s back, their magical energy making him twitch and fall. Most of the remaining arrows, some enchanted with fire or acid, others with merely a basic punching power, were then spent on the goblins.
The human monk had been run through with a goblin spear while Delegado was gearing up, and it was all the warforged and the halfling woman could do to hold back the horde. Delegado’s bow changed all of that. The arrows slammed into goblin after goblin, each one killing its target, some quite spectacularly. Delegado emptied an entire quiver and a-half before the goblins had the presence of mind to rout. Squealing and screaming, they ran away, stomping each other and scattering through the tunnels.
Visha and her warforged turned to face Delegado. The halfling woman was sweaty and tired, covered in fresh bruises and cuts, and warforged had several new scratches and gouges. Both eyed the half-orc warily.
Xavier began to stir, and Delegado swung his hands together into a heavy fist, striking the Thranish prize across the base of the skull. Xavier collapsed, and Delegado manacled him, ignoring the halfling and the warforged.
“I see you survived,” Sensei Visha said dryly. “I suppose that you are innocent after all.”
“You listen to me!” Delegado said, jabbing a finger at her. “The only reason I’m not going to arrest you for interfering in Tharashk business is that I need you and your machine there –”
“He is my student,” she interrupted him icily.
“Whatever! I need you and him to get out of here. And you need me to get out of here.”
“So you weren’t lying about the airship,” the warforged said.
“No, nor was I lying about Xavier,” Delegado said. “There’s proof on the airship if you want to see it. Now, do you want to fight whatever goblins are left, and beyond that whatever warforged and Cyran artificers are left, and beyond that whatever Valenar riders and wizards are charging this way, or do you want to get out of here?”
Visha frowned. “You are an incredibly rude man,” she said. “But it only adds truth to your words.”
The weary and bruised half-orc barked a laugh. “Sweet words do nothing for you in the wild,” he told her.
“And braggadocio does not impress the clawfoot,” she responded. “You haul Nifensva, or Xavier as you say he is, and a box of our most sacred writings besides. We will go both ahead and behind you to a place where we can signal your airship.”
In response Delegado grinned and flicked the switch on the Brelish doo-dad. “Give me your scribbling and prose, and make it snappy, I don’t know how long this lasts for.”
He had little choice. Bracing himself, he shoved hard at the grate. At first it held, but he pressed again, bubbles escaping from his mouth. The old grate’s pins stretched, and then broke. It fell through the water, and he shot forward, finding his way.
The noise pulled at him. He kicked upwards as he felt the well rise up from the pipe, seeing the lights and hearing if dully the cries and smash of metal and bone.
Air wrapped around his head, and it was only by sheer force of will that he did not gasp loudly enough to be heard despite the raging battle. Sounds of punches, kicks, screams, and death filled his ears, along with the smell of blood and hate that the half-orc was thoroughly sick of.
Delegado raised himself up to peer over the edge of the well guard. The dwarf and the gnome lay dead, along with one of the two brothers. The warforged, the other brother, and the halfling woman were fighting the goblin horde, holding back the surging line with punches and kicks, dodging spears, clubs, and knives. Xavier stood behind them, firing crossbow bolts into the milling crowd. Delegado could easily see about twenty dead goblins, most of whom had their necks snapped. The warforged that they called Orphan – And I thought ‘Equilibrium’ was a dumb name – was snatching the filthy little scroungers up and easily cracking their neck vertebrae with his wrestling moves.
Behind Delegado was row upon row of empty, dusty shelves, with the occasional wine bottle or old box hanging about. The entranceway was the choke point, not back where the monks may have food and drink stored. And maybe some fine possessions that rightfully belonged to a certain bounty hunter from House Tharashk.
Delegado glanced forward again to make sure that Visha and her three remaining companions were too busy to notice him. It suddenly came to him as he watched the halfling woman chop a goblin in the throat that he knew her from somewhere. House Cannith had put a huge price on her head, and had come to Tharashk for help in finding her. The Triumvirate of House elders had turned the contract down without comment, something that a handful of those in know – a handful that including Delegado – had wondered about. It was very rare that the Dragonmarked Houses turned down contracts from one another, even over a matter of rivalry.
He shook his head at himself, irritated with his woolgathering. Everything was irrelevant except getting his gear and capturing Xavier. He silently stepped out of the well and moved back between the shelving units. Only one goblin saw him in the entire crowd, and the knife that it threw came nowhere near him.
He quickly found the cleared area that held the property of the monks. It seemed half of it was books and tied scrolls, rather than food. His own things were collected in a pile. He put on his ring first, then his boots. His swordbelt and blade followed, as did his papers and money. His daggers and all of his potions and alchemical devices were missing, no doubt used on the goblins, but his bow and arrows were untouched, as was the signaling device for the airship. The half-orc quickly got his gear together.
And of course, hidden in his boots was a spare key for his manacles. Those he quickly removed and tucked into his belt. They were for Xavier, after all.
Running back towards the fighting, he fired both of his special stunning arrows that he had requisitioned specially for this job. The blunt heads slammed in Xavier’s back, their magical energy making him twitch and fall. Most of the remaining arrows, some enchanted with fire or acid, others with merely a basic punching power, were then spent on the goblins.
The human monk had been run through with a goblin spear while Delegado was gearing up, and it was all the warforged and the halfling woman could do to hold back the horde. Delegado’s bow changed all of that. The arrows slammed into goblin after goblin, each one killing its target, some quite spectacularly. Delegado emptied an entire quiver and a-half before the goblins had the presence of mind to rout. Squealing and screaming, they ran away, stomping each other and scattering through the tunnels.
Visha and her warforged turned to face Delegado. The halfling woman was sweaty and tired, covered in fresh bruises and cuts, and warforged had several new scratches and gouges. Both eyed the half-orc warily.
Xavier began to stir, and Delegado swung his hands together into a heavy fist, striking the Thranish prize across the base of the skull. Xavier collapsed, and Delegado manacled him, ignoring the halfling and the warforged.
“I see you survived,” Sensei Visha said dryly. “I suppose that you are innocent after all.”
“You listen to me!” Delegado said, jabbing a finger at her. “The only reason I’m not going to arrest you for interfering in Tharashk business is that I need you and your machine there –”
“He is my student,” she interrupted him icily.
“Whatever! I need you and him to get out of here. And you need me to get out of here.”
“So you weren’t lying about the airship,” the warforged said.
“No, nor was I lying about Xavier,” Delegado said. “There’s proof on the airship if you want to see it. Now, do you want to fight whatever goblins are left, and beyond that whatever warforged and Cyran artificers are left, and beyond that whatever Valenar riders and wizards are charging this way, or do you want to get out of here?”
Visha frowned. “You are an incredibly rude man,” she said. “But it only adds truth to your words.”
The weary and bruised half-orc barked a laugh. “Sweet words do nothing for you in the wild,” he told her.
“And braggadocio does not impress the clawfoot,” she responded. “You haul Nifensva, or Xavier as you say he is, and a box of our most sacred writings besides. We will go both ahead and behind you to a place where we can signal your airship.”
In response Delegado grinned and flicked the switch on the Brelish doo-dad. “Give me your scribbling and prose, and make it snappy, I don’t know how long this lasts for.”
Chapter 8 - Part 5
He slowly came to, feeling the tightness of his bonds above all of his bruises, cuts, and pains. He was in his own manacles, his arms behind his back. Thick ropes were tied around his neck, his ankles, and his torso, holding him above the ground. Wherever he was the smell was moldy, and there was a dampness in the air.
“You can stop attending to him,” a voice said. “He’s conscious.”
Delegado opened his eyes, although his left one was swollen partially shut. He was bound to a wall near some old pipe openings. The room was fairly large for something this far underground, about thirty feet wide and slightly shorter in length. A well stood in the middle of the room, its water only fairly pure if his sense of smell was accurate.
On a bench across the room sat the warforged monk that had knocked him unconscious. It did not have any numbers painted or branded onto it that he could see, nor was what little he could see of the mark on its forehead familiar. Oddly it seemed to have no armor plating protecting its frame.
A gnome wearing a blacksmith’s apron attended to the warforged, using various machine tools to try and patch up its busted and worn parts, especially the deep gash from Delegado’s sword that went all the way through it. Aside from the apron the gnome wore the same plain but efficient clothing the other monks had worn.
Delegado’s sword, his daggers, his longbow, two quivers, and arrows, were laid out on a table to Delegado’s left, along with the magical ring that granted him the luck to avoid the worst of spells, traps, and other hazards. That ring was a Tharashk heirloom. Next to the ring was his money, his letters of credit from Kundarak, his identity papers, and his belt of potions and alchemical devices. The latter was being identified and looted by two human monks who appeared to be brothers if not twins. They were especially excited over the holy water and the alchemist’s fire. The Brelish device that would summon the airship lay amidst the jumble, next to his boots.
Three other figures gathered to Delegado’s right, examining a frieze on the wall that seemed to be a diagram of the underground monastery. One was a dwarven woman who was carrying Delegado’s healer’s kit, which she had been using to bring him around. Her back was to Delegado as she pointed to the frieze and talked about how far the goblins had explored. Oddly enough for a monk, she had a huge axe stuck in her belt.
Standing on the other side of the dwarf, facing Delegado with cold, careful eyes, was a human male with tan skin and thick eyebrows. His head was shaven, and he had brown eyes.
Delegado quickly gathered the strength of his dragonmark. He was beaten and tired, but the dragonmark’s strength came from his will and mind, his very sense of self. He could use it even if paralyzed. His skin tingled, and his attention was magically riveted on the man staring at him. It was Xavier.
“We have lost ten all told,” said the third figure. It was a halfling woman, and it was her voice that had ordered the dwarven woman to leave him be. “Four from our prisoner, and six from the goblins.”
“Pity that titan didn’t kill all of the goblinfolk,” the gnome said. “I still think we should venture out to examine its frame.”
“You won’t find anything useful, Bodkins,” the warforged told the gnome. “Its animating magic is gone, and the pieces left are too large to be used.”
“You calling me short, Orphan?” chuckled the gnome.
“There is a horde of goblins who have abandoned their bugbear and hobgoblin commanders to occupy our tunnels,” the halfling woman said. “They stand between us and the construct. And beyond them the remnants of the Cyrans are fighting the gathering Valenar groups. We need to find a way to survive the cowards coming down here for shelter. Concentrate on repairing my student so that we can do this, Master Bodkins.”
The halfling woman reminded Delegado of his mother. They even dressed the same in animal skins, except that the halfling woman wore a belt of rope around her waist that seemed sized for a larger creature like a human. He suspected that the ivory-colored central thread of the belt contained powerful magic.
“I am Delegado of House Tharask,” the bounty hunter began.
“We know,” said a monk to his left, pocketing a potion. “We’ve seen your identity papers. Oh, is this dagger byeshk?”
“And enchanted, and House property,” Delegado threatened. He suddenly realized that he was still wearing his armor. Perhaps they were not robbing him blind after all. “I am here to capture one Xavier Dunnel, who is standing next to your leader.”
“Save it, half-breed,” sneered Xavier. “These people have known me for years since I first began visiting Sensei Visha in Flamekeep.”
“You must be mistaken about Brother Nifensva,” the warforged told him. “I can understand that you felt you had a duty, and I am ashamed that my sister in the Balanced Palm tried to kill you. As such I merely incapacitated you and brought you to the sensei.”
“That man is an intelligence operative from Thrane who is responsible for every agent in Breland,” Delegado said. “There is an airship filled with Brelish forces above this battle. If you are responsible for Xavier’s escape from Brelish justice then your order will be hunted down and imprisoned in Breland. Do you want that?”
“We really should gag him,” Xavier scowled. “I do not like that he calls me a liar.”
“Your name is Xavier Dunnel, and I have a dragonmark that helped me find you!” Delegado coughed.
“You are marked?” Bodkins asked, turning around. “Where?”
The brothers pawing through the half-orc’s equipment stopped at looked at each other nervously.
“On a part of me you can kiss!” Delegado snarled. “You are preventing me from fulfilling my House duty! Don’t think you can hide from Tharashk’s retribution!”
“Well, you do find people,” Visha murmured. “You will pardon me if my concern is the hundred or so goblins who have flooded this place.”
“Yeah, well if you had paid a minimal fee to Tharashk, you could have found the artifact that you’re looking for.” Every head suddenly turned towards him. “Oh come on, like I couldn’t figure out what decades of digging meant! Your order hid something here a long time ago, which is the only reason you’re here, you’re still looking for it!”
“He is fairly intelligent,” the warforged said. “What I read about orcs must not be true.”
“It is true, Orphan!” snorted the dwarf. “This is a half-orc, they are more devious.”
“Hey, strung up right here, rock-picker!” Delegado snapped. He was aware that there were orcs far to the north in the Mror Holds that were engaged in a centuries-old genocidal struggle with the dwarves, but in his mind those orcs had nothing to do with his people from the Shadow Marches. As a result Delegado didn’t care for the dwarven attitude. “My point is that you will need my House, and you had better let me go to do my duty!”
“You have a habit of killing my students instead of helping them,” Visha told him, still studying the map. “If not for the debatable actions of one wizardress I would have had your throat slit already. As it is you will stay there until the crisis has passed. I do not enjoy rifling through your belongings either, but we must survive this goblin assault.”
“We will have less problems if will kill him,” Xavier pressed.
“Calm yourself, Nifensva,” the halfling told the Thranish spymaster. “He cannot harm you.” A distant boom was heard. “They have forced the door,” Visha frowned. “Come, we will make a stand in the storage room. Bring the half-orc’s things, some may prove useful in our fight.” The monks nodded and began gathering their things.
“You want to give me my bow at least?” Delegado demanded. “I’m the only one that can pull it anyway.”
“You are staying here,” she told him as her people began to file out the door. “Aureon of the Host will decide your guilt. If goblins find you, they will kill you. If they do not, they will not. Let that be your trial, agent of the Finding House. Let us see who finds you.”
Delegado swore a vicious streak as she walked out. Xavier made sure that he left last, and the Thrane agent ‘accidentally’ dropped some food and a coin bag at the entrance. They weren’t meant for Delegado.
Once they were out of earshot Delegado quit swearing, as it was a pointless exercise. He tested the ropes around him, trying to find the tightest point. The monks had used one long rope to bind him, not trusting in Delegado’s own manacles, and as a result the half-orc merely had to find the one place where if the rope could be broken he could slide free.
There. Right behind one of his kidneys was a thick knot. His manacled hands had been pulled away from it by another loop of the rope. He stretched against the knot to be sure, then wriggled his fingers to grab a few holly leaves. His hands could move enough to cast the spell, and the few nature sound ‘words’ that he uttered were soft and persuasive.
He beseeched the forces of nature, much as a druid would, asking for one small spark of the bonfire to aid him. He was taking a drop from a river, a bit of sand from a great beach, a puff from a maelstrom.
Nature provided him with a small ally, a rat of prodigious size and sharp teeth that quivered its nose as it slunk out of one of the old pipe openings. It glanced around quizzically, seeking an enemy, and then it noticed the knot on his back. He felt it jump on his back, and it began gnawing through the knot with its large teeth.
The rat did not stay long. In fact it darted back to its hidey-hole as soon as the brief magic that had directed it was over. But it was long enough to sever the rope. Delegado began stretching, and the rope began to unravel around him.
Goblin voices could be heard from down the hallway. Sweat appeared on Delegado’s brow as he worked his way out of the ropes. The goblins were walking as softly as they could, but they seemed to argue a great deal amongst themselves, lacking any one strong leader.
The ropes gave way, and Delegado dropped to the floor with a grunt. The sound was not unheard by the goblins, who hissed at each other.
The half-orc shook the last rope free, even as he heard the quiet goblin feet slink forward. He pulled his feet up, pushing the manacle chain beneath his bare feet so that his hands were again in front of him.
The goblins had found the food and coin, and were in the doorway. Pointing fingers at the half-orc they shrieked and threw their little spears.
Delegado dodged the first clumsy throw, and his armor blocked the next two. He ran at the goblins who yelled and swore and pulled out their little clubs, but dove headfirst into the well instead of attacking them.
Ice cold water hit him, covering his body and blocking all sight. The half-orc shuddered, but persevered. Like all who lived the majority of life outdoors he had an endurance that helped him hold his breath and resist shock. But he was not merely planning to hide and hold his breath, he had memorized the pipelines in this place from the maps that Gorka had provided him with. Some twenty feet down he came to a cross-pipe, and he kicked left, swimming through the pipe that lay dozens of feet beneath the earth.
About fifty feet down there was another pipe up, leading to a cistern. Gorka had told him that the Dhakaani builders of this place had connected all of their drinking water sources so as to make it easier to fight fires anywhere in the complex. The reason for the apprehension of fire that these goblins of long-ago had was long lost to time.
Delegado’s head surfaced in the cistern, a large, open vat of water, and he happily took a deep breath. Listening carefully, he heard sounds of fighting from another passageway, and mentally went through the memorized maps. The storage room where the monks had holed up was the easternmost one, judging by the sounds of fighting that he was hearing. It had its own well, one that he could get to from here with some small difficulty.
He heard a scream that was distinctly that of a dying human. He had to buy the monks time, else they would be overrun and Breland would pay nothing for Xavier’s dead body. He stepped out of the cistern and cautiously made his way down a rusted set of bumps that had doubtless been a maintenance ladder some time in the distant past. Carefully he crept across the cracked flagstones, his darkvision leading him to a goblin guard picking its nose while nonchalantly holding a spear.
The manacle chain silently slipped over the goblin’s throat, and the half-orc jerked the little humanoid backwards into the cistern chamber, snapping its neck. He carefully looted the goblin’s body, finding a tiny knife and a small coin purse. Delegado ignored the coin purse and slipped the knife into a pocket. He then took the little spear, barely more than a long stick to him, and he stuck his head out of the cistern room.
“Hey!” he screamed, throwing the spear. It clattered down the hallway, and a group of goblins at the rear of the force pressing on the monks turned to see what was going on. Delegado screamed obscenities at them in the orc and goblin tongues, and they shrieked angrily back at him.
The half-orc ran back towards the cistern, shimmying up its side. Thinking he was fleeing their rage, the emboldened goblins charged after him. By the time had poured into the room, Delegado was already beneath the surface of the water, kicking downwards.
The half-orc found the cross pipe, and then another connecting pipe that led towards the well in the storage room where the monks were. He pushed ahead, wracking his brain to make sure he was going the correct way as he swam through the water.
Suddenly he bumped into a grate. Fear gripped him as he froze, trying to remember anything about a grate. Was he in the wrong place, heading for a watery death? Dare he go back to the cistern to draw more breath, and face dozens of angry goblins looking for the one who had insulted them?
“You can stop attending to him,” a voice said. “He’s conscious.”
Delegado opened his eyes, although his left one was swollen partially shut. He was bound to a wall near some old pipe openings. The room was fairly large for something this far underground, about thirty feet wide and slightly shorter in length. A well stood in the middle of the room, its water only fairly pure if his sense of smell was accurate.
On a bench across the room sat the warforged monk that had knocked him unconscious. It did not have any numbers painted or branded onto it that he could see, nor was what little he could see of the mark on its forehead familiar. Oddly it seemed to have no armor plating protecting its frame.
A gnome wearing a blacksmith’s apron attended to the warforged, using various machine tools to try and patch up its busted and worn parts, especially the deep gash from Delegado’s sword that went all the way through it. Aside from the apron the gnome wore the same plain but efficient clothing the other monks had worn.
Delegado’s sword, his daggers, his longbow, two quivers, and arrows, were laid out on a table to Delegado’s left, along with the magical ring that granted him the luck to avoid the worst of spells, traps, and other hazards. That ring was a Tharashk heirloom. Next to the ring was his money, his letters of credit from Kundarak, his identity papers, and his belt of potions and alchemical devices. The latter was being identified and looted by two human monks who appeared to be brothers if not twins. They were especially excited over the holy water and the alchemist’s fire. The Brelish device that would summon the airship lay amidst the jumble, next to his boots.
Three other figures gathered to Delegado’s right, examining a frieze on the wall that seemed to be a diagram of the underground monastery. One was a dwarven woman who was carrying Delegado’s healer’s kit, which she had been using to bring him around. Her back was to Delegado as she pointed to the frieze and talked about how far the goblins had explored. Oddly enough for a monk, she had a huge axe stuck in her belt.
Standing on the other side of the dwarf, facing Delegado with cold, careful eyes, was a human male with tan skin and thick eyebrows. His head was shaven, and he had brown eyes.
Delegado quickly gathered the strength of his dragonmark. He was beaten and tired, but the dragonmark’s strength came from his will and mind, his very sense of self. He could use it even if paralyzed. His skin tingled, and his attention was magically riveted on the man staring at him. It was Xavier.
“We have lost ten all told,” said the third figure. It was a halfling woman, and it was her voice that had ordered the dwarven woman to leave him be. “Four from our prisoner, and six from the goblins.”
“Pity that titan didn’t kill all of the goblinfolk,” the gnome said. “I still think we should venture out to examine its frame.”
“You won’t find anything useful, Bodkins,” the warforged told the gnome. “Its animating magic is gone, and the pieces left are too large to be used.”
“You calling me short, Orphan?” chuckled the gnome.
“There is a horde of goblins who have abandoned their bugbear and hobgoblin commanders to occupy our tunnels,” the halfling woman said. “They stand between us and the construct. And beyond them the remnants of the Cyrans are fighting the gathering Valenar groups. We need to find a way to survive the cowards coming down here for shelter. Concentrate on repairing my student so that we can do this, Master Bodkins.”
The halfling woman reminded Delegado of his mother. They even dressed the same in animal skins, except that the halfling woman wore a belt of rope around her waist that seemed sized for a larger creature like a human. He suspected that the ivory-colored central thread of the belt contained powerful magic.
“I am Delegado of House Tharask,” the bounty hunter began.
“We know,” said a monk to his left, pocketing a potion. “We’ve seen your identity papers. Oh, is this dagger byeshk?”
“And enchanted, and House property,” Delegado threatened. He suddenly realized that he was still wearing his armor. Perhaps they were not robbing him blind after all. “I am here to capture one Xavier Dunnel, who is standing next to your leader.”
“Save it, half-breed,” sneered Xavier. “These people have known me for years since I first began visiting Sensei Visha in Flamekeep.”
“You must be mistaken about Brother Nifensva,” the warforged told him. “I can understand that you felt you had a duty, and I am ashamed that my sister in the Balanced Palm tried to kill you. As such I merely incapacitated you and brought you to the sensei.”
“That man is an intelligence operative from Thrane who is responsible for every agent in Breland,” Delegado said. “There is an airship filled with Brelish forces above this battle. If you are responsible for Xavier’s escape from Brelish justice then your order will be hunted down and imprisoned in Breland. Do you want that?”
“We really should gag him,” Xavier scowled. “I do not like that he calls me a liar.”
“Your name is Xavier Dunnel, and I have a dragonmark that helped me find you!” Delegado coughed.
“You are marked?” Bodkins asked, turning around. “Where?”
The brothers pawing through the half-orc’s equipment stopped at looked at each other nervously.
“On a part of me you can kiss!” Delegado snarled. “You are preventing me from fulfilling my House duty! Don’t think you can hide from Tharashk’s retribution!”
“Well, you do find people,” Visha murmured. “You will pardon me if my concern is the hundred or so goblins who have flooded this place.”
“Yeah, well if you had paid a minimal fee to Tharashk, you could have found the artifact that you’re looking for.” Every head suddenly turned towards him. “Oh come on, like I couldn’t figure out what decades of digging meant! Your order hid something here a long time ago, which is the only reason you’re here, you’re still looking for it!”
“He is fairly intelligent,” the warforged said. “What I read about orcs must not be true.”
“It is true, Orphan!” snorted the dwarf. “This is a half-orc, they are more devious.”
“Hey, strung up right here, rock-picker!” Delegado snapped. He was aware that there were orcs far to the north in the Mror Holds that were engaged in a centuries-old genocidal struggle with the dwarves, but in his mind those orcs had nothing to do with his people from the Shadow Marches. As a result Delegado didn’t care for the dwarven attitude. “My point is that you will need my House, and you had better let me go to do my duty!”
“You have a habit of killing my students instead of helping them,” Visha told him, still studying the map. “If not for the debatable actions of one wizardress I would have had your throat slit already. As it is you will stay there until the crisis has passed. I do not enjoy rifling through your belongings either, but we must survive this goblin assault.”
“We will have less problems if will kill him,” Xavier pressed.
“Calm yourself, Nifensva,” the halfling told the Thranish spymaster. “He cannot harm you.” A distant boom was heard. “They have forced the door,” Visha frowned. “Come, we will make a stand in the storage room. Bring the half-orc’s things, some may prove useful in our fight.” The monks nodded and began gathering their things.
“You want to give me my bow at least?” Delegado demanded. “I’m the only one that can pull it anyway.”
“You are staying here,” she told him as her people began to file out the door. “Aureon of the Host will decide your guilt. If goblins find you, they will kill you. If they do not, they will not. Let that be your trial, agent of the Finding House. Let us see who finds you.”
Delegado swore a vicious streak as she walked out. Xavier made sure that he left last, and the Thrane agent ‘accidentally’ dropped some food and a coin bag at the entrance. They weren’t meant for Delegado.
Once they were out of earshot Delegado quit swearing, as it was a pointless exercise. He tested the ropes around him, trying to find the tightest point. The monks had used one long rope to bind him, not trusting in Delegado’s own manacles, and as a result the half-orc merely had to find the one place where if the rope could be broken he could slide free.
There. Right behind one of his kidneys was a thick knot. His manacled hands had been pulled away from it by another loop of the rope. He stretched against the knot to be sure, then wriggled his fingers to grab a few holly leaves. His hands could move enough to cast the spell, and the few nature sound ‘words’ that he uttered were soft and persuasive.
He beseeched the forces of nature, much as a druid would, asking for one small spark of the bonfire to aid him. He was taking a drop from a river, a bit of sand from a great beach, a puff from a maelstrom.
Nature provided him with a small ally, a rat of prodigious size and sharp teeth that quivered its nose as it slunk out of one of the old pipe openings. It glanced around quizzically, seeking an enemy, and then it noticed the knot on his back. He felt it jump on his back, and it began gnawing through the knot with its large teeth.
The rat did not stay long. In fact it darted back to its hidey-hole as soon as the brief magic that had directed it was over. But it was long enough to sever the rope. Delegado began stretching, and the rope began to unravel around him.
Goblin voices could be heard from down the hallway. Sweat appeared on Delegado’s brow as he worked his way out of the ropes. The goblins were walking as softly as they could, but they seemed to argue a great deal amongst themselves, lacking any one strong leader.
The ropes gave way, and Delegado dropped to the floor with a grunt. The sound was not unheard by the goblins, who hissed at each other.
The half-orc shook the last rope free, even as he heard the quiet goblin feet slink forward. He pulled his feet up, pushing the manacle chain beneath his bare feet so that his hands were again in front of him.
The goblins had found the food and coin, and were in the doorway. Pointing fingers at the half-orc they shrieked and threw their little spears.
Delegado dodged the first clumsy throw, and his armor blocked the next two. He ran at the goblins who yelled and swore and pulled out their little clubs, but dove headfirst into the well instead of attacking them.
Ice cold water hit him, covering his body and blocking all sight. The half-orc shuddered, but persevered. Like all who lived the majority of life outdoors he had an endurance that helped him hold his breath and resist shock. But he was not merely planning to hide and hold his breath, he had memorized the pipelines in this place from the maps that Gorka had provided him with. Some twenty feet down he came to a cross-pipe, and he kicked left, swimming through the pipe that lay dozens of feet beneath the earth.
About fifty feet down there was another pipe up, leading to a cistern. Gorka had told him that the Dhakaani builders of this place had connected all of their drinking water sources so as to make it easier to fight fires anywhere in the complex. The reason for the apprehension of fire that these goblins of long-ago had was long lost to time.
Delegado’s head surfaced in the cistern, a large, open vat of water, and he happily took a deep breath. Listening carefully, he heard sounds of fighting from another passageway, and mentally went through the memorized maps. The storage room where the monks had holed up was the easternmost one, judging by the sounds of fighting that he was hearing. It had its own well, one that he could get to from here with some small difficulty.
He heard a scream that was distinctly that of a dying human. He had to buy the monks time, else they would be overrun and Breland would pay nothing for Xavier’s dead body. He stepped out of the cistern and cautiously made his way down a rusted set of bumps that had doubtless been a maintenance ladder some time in the distant past. Carefully he crept across the cracked flagstones, his darkvision leading him to a goblin guard picking its nose while nonchalantly holding a spear.
The manacle chain silently slipped over the goblin’s throat, and the half-orc jerked the little humanoid backwards into the cistern chamber, snapping its neck. He carefully looted the goblin’s body, finding a tiny knife and a small coin purse. Delegado ignored the coin purse and slipped the knife into a pocket. He then took the little spear, barely more than a long stick to him, and he stuck his head out of the cistern room.
“Hey!” he screamed, throwing the spear. It clattered down the hallway, and a group of goblins at the rear of the force pressing on the monks turned to see what was going on. Delegado screamed obscenities at them in the orc and goblin tongues, and they shrieked angrily back at him.
The half-orc ran back towards the cistern, shimmying up its side. Thinking he was fleeing their rage, the emboldened goblins charged after him. By the time had poured into the room, Delegado was already beneath the surface of the water, kicking downwards.
The half-orc found the cross pipe, and then another connecting pipe that led towards the well in the storage room where the monks were. He pushed ahead, wracking his brain to make sure he was going the correct way as he swam through the water.
Suddenly he bumped into a grate. Fear gripped him as he froze, trying to remember anything about a grate. Was he in the wrong place, heading for a watery death? Dare he go back to the cistern to draw more breath, and face dozens of angry goblins looking for the one who had insulted them?
Chapter 8 - Part 4
A great pressure grew on Delegado’s throat, and the half-orc felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.
No. The half-orc surged forward, breaking free of the warforged, stumbling blindly until he was out of the cloud. Still gagging and wheezing, he drew his sword and spun in a circle, trying to see through eyes that would not stop tearing.
The warforged appeared off to his side, flying through the air with a jumping kick. Delegado staggered and managed to avoid the worst of it, but his follow-up blow missed as the machine went by. The warforged ducked and tumbled, dodging the half-orc easily.
“I regret that this had to be,” the warforged said, readying his stance for another attack.
“Yeah, me too,” Delegado said, whipping the bag that had been clipped to his belt forward. The bag of glue burst around one foot of the warforged, much to its surprise. It tugged away from the fast-hardening glue, but not quickly enough. The point of Delegado’s adamantine blade cut a bad gash in its leg. “You’re not the only one with gadgets,” the half-orc coughed.
The warforged moved back several feet, small, circular knives appearing in its hands. Delegado tried to look around for his bow even as he kept his gaze on the wood and stone figure. “Are you really here for some man named Xavier?” the warforged asked, throwing his little spinning knives.
Delegado ducked one, but another gashed him on the cheek. “Yes,” the half-orc said between gritted teeth. He pulled a potion from his belt and drank it all in one smooth motion. Bruises shrank, cuts closed up, and he was sure a crack in one tooth sealed itself. “But I also plan to get my bow back and kill you.”
The warforged pulled a flask of its own, machine oil rather than a potion. It poured it on its leg, and the gash in the limb closed almost all the way up. “Why do you seek to kill me?”
“You’re trying to kill me!” the half-orc snarled, jabbing the sword forward as he followed the warforged back under the crossbeams towards the open area. At the edge of his attention he heard a loud thumping, like huge footsteps.
“Because you are trying to kill me and because you have killed my brethren,” the warforged said. It cocked its head upwards. “Oh my.”
“I attacked after I was attacked,” Delegado insisted. “It was one of your people that was going to slit my throat while I slept!” A rumbling above him grew with the thumping. The half-orc paused. “What on earth is that?”
“A titan,” the warforged said calmly. “Walking up this hill that it does not know is partially hollow, said hill now serving as a focal point between the forces of Cyre and the goblinoids.”
“I only want Xavier,” Delegado said.
“I believe you,” the warforged told him. “But I do not trust you. You kill too easily, and you would give us away for your own profit.”
“Then let’s quit talking!” Delegado snarled, swinging at the warforged. The warforged ducked backwards, the sword barely missing him. He stepped easily under the blade again, and his fist came up under Delegado’s jaw. The half-orc saw stars, and tried to step back to attack again, but the warforged pressed its advantage, hammering the half-orc around the face and head.
“I truly wish there was another way,” the warforged said. Above it, the grinding grew in pitch.
“Shut up!” Delegado said, finally scoring a direct hit on the creature. His sword went all the way through it, punching cleanly out of the warforged’s back. It stiffened, but pulled it self free, tumbling backwards. A living thing would have been dead, but the warforged persevered. It darted behind another large timber as the noise overhead grew.
Delegado spotted his bow lying on the floor nearby and began to move for it. Then the roof opened, flooding the entire area with sunlight.
The whole of the warforged titan came crashing through the ceiling, a massive machine larger than a house with huge weapons welded to its arms. Shrieking hordes of goblins, some clinging to the thing, fell with it. The tremendous noise of battle came down with the falling debris. Tons of rock and dirt smashed downwards, and choking, gagging rock dust filled everything as the titan and its unwilling passengers slammed into the ground with a crash that drowned out all thought. The dust flew so fast and so thick that Delegado could not see his hand in front of his face.
Nor could he breathe properly. The Jorasco potion had done a lot, but he was still weakened by the warforged’s attacks, and the thick, cloying dust did not help. Instinctively he crouched on the floor, sheathing his sword so that he could properly curl up into a fetal position with his hands over his head.
The dust gradually cleared, but the titan was in the cave with him. One swipe of its great axe started to bring down timbers and crossbeams, generating more of a cave-in. Above, hobgoblin voices were calling for burning oil to be thrown into the pit.
Dodging falling debris, and narrowly avoiding a piece of wood that was ten times his size as it crashed into the floor, he spotted his bow, miraculously untouched. Scooping it up, he bolted for the nearest side tunnel, barely getting ahead of the falling shale and dirt.
There was light ahead, and a smell of water, and the timbers holding up this small tunnel seemed to offer some hope. Delegado coughed one final time, and drew an arrow to the bow as he ran.
The warforged monk stepped out from a hidden side tunnel and slammed a fist into the side of Delegado’s head, and the half-orc fell into unconsciousness.
No. The half-orc surged forward, breaking free of the warforged, stumbling blindly until he was out of the cloud. Still gagging and wheezing, he drew his sword and spun in a circle, trying to see through eyes that would not stop tearing.
The warforged appeared off to his side, flying through the air with a jumping kick. Delegado staggered and managed to avoid the worst of it, but his follow-up blow missed as the machine went by. The warforged ducked and tumbled, dodging the half-orc easily.
“I regret that this had to be,” the warforged said, readying his stance for another attack.
“Yeah, me too,” Delegado said, whipping the bag that had been clipped to his belt forward. The bag of glue burst around one foot of the warforged, much to its surprise. It tugged away from the fast-hardening glue, but not quickly enough. The point of Delegado’s adamantine blade cut a bad gash in its leg. “You’re not the only one with gadgets,” the half-orc coughed.
The warforged moved back several feet, small, circular knives appearing in its hands. Delegado tried to look around for his bow even as he kept his gaze on the wood and stone figure. “Are you really here for some man named Xavier?” the warforged asked, throwing his little spinning knives.
Delegado ducked one, but another gashed him on the cheek. “Yes,” the half-orc said between gritted teeth. He pulled a potion from his belt and drank it all in one smooth motion. Bruises shrank, cuts closed up, and he was sure a crack in one tooth sealed itself. “But I also plan to get my bow back and kill you.”
The warforged pulled a flask of its own, machine oil rather than a potion. It poured it on its leg, and the gash in the limb closed almost all the way up. “Why do you seek to kill me?”
“You’re trying to kill me!” the half-orc snarled, jabbing the sword forward as he followed the warforged back under the crossbeams towards the open area. At the edge of his attention he heard a loud thumping, like huge footsteps.
“Because you are trying to kill me and because you have killed my brethren,” the warforged said. It cocked its head upwards. “Oh my.”
“I attacked after I was attacked,” Delegado insisted. “It was one of your people that was going to slit my throat while I slept!” A rumbling above him grew with the thumping. The half-orc paused. “What on earth is that?”
“A titan,” the warforged said calmly. “Walking up this hill that it does not know is partially hollow, said hill now serving as a focal point between the forces of Cyre and the goblinoids.”
“I only want Xavier,” Delegado said.
“I believe you,” the warforged told him. “But I do not trust you. You kill too easily, and you would give us away for your own profit.”
“Then let’s quit talking!” Delegado snarled, swinging at the warforged. The warforged ducked backwards, the sword barely missing him. He stepped easily under the blade again, and his fist came up under Delegado’s jaw. The half-orc saw stars, and tried to step back to attack again, but the warforged pressed its advantage, hammering the half-orc around the face and head.
“I truly wish there was another way,” the warforged said. Above it, the grinding grew in pitch.
“Shut up!” Delegado said, finally scoring a direct hit on the creature. His sword went all the way through it, punching cleanly out of the warforged’s back. It stiffened, but pulled it self free, tumbling backwards. A living thing would have been dead, but the warforged persevered. It darted behind another large timber as the noise overhead grew.
Delegado spotted his bow lying on the floor nearby and began to move for it. Then the roof opened, flooding the entire area with sunlight.
The whole of the warforged titan came crashing through the ceiling, a massive machine larger than a house with huge weapons welded to its arms. Shrieking hordes of goblins, some clinging to the thing, fell with it. The tremendous noise of battle came down with the falling debris. Tons of rock and dirt smashed downwards, and choking, gagging rock dust filled everything as the titan and its unwilling passengers slammed into the ground with a crash that drowned out all thought. The dust flew so fast and so thick that Delegado could not see his hand in front of his face.
Nor could he breathe properly. The Jorasco potion had done a lot, but he was still weakened by the warforged’s attacks, and the thick, cloying dust did not help. Instinctively he crouched on the floor, sheathing his sword so that he could properly curl up into a fetal position with his hands over his head.
The dust gradually cleared, but the titan was in the cave with him. One swipe of its great axe started to bring down timbers and crossbeams, generating more of a cave-in. Above, hobgoblin voices were calling for burning oil to be thrown into the pit.
Dodging falling debris, and narrowly avoiding a piece of wood that was ten times his size as it crashed into the floor, he spotted his bow, miraculously untouched. Scooping it up, he bolted for the nearest side tunnel, barely getting ahead of the falling shale and dirt.
There was light ahead, and a smell of water, and the timbers holding up this small tunnel seemed to offer some hope. Delegado coughed one final time, and drew an arrow to the bow as he ran.
The warforged monk stepped out from a hidden side tunnel and slammed a fist into the side of Delegado’s head, and the half-orc fell into unconsciousness.
Chapter 8 - Part 3
The half-orc gaped. Half of the hill was missing. Great crosspieces of wood, beams of all sizes, some as thick as he was, some a thin latticework, held up the roof and stuck into the walls. A stone column in the center of the vast area bore the brunt of the weight, and showed the greatest age, but much of the hollowed-out area was new.
So the monks have been doing more than praying over the last many years, Delegado thought. He was no dwarf, but he could tell that this excavation had been fairly constant for longer than he was alive. Tunnels snaked in all directions, most going down, but some going up. By far the main objective seemed to be to hollow out the hill, but for what purpose Delegado could not tell. He spotted freshly turned earth, and recently dropped shovels.
His skin crawled. Someone was watching him. And that dim glow came from several hanging lamps filled with fireflies. His sharp ears picked up footsteps high above in the beams and latticework.
Two ways to play this, and I am not interested in the long way, Delegado realized. He bet that with the low level of light, some of which he now realized also came from minute cracks in the ceiling to ventilate the place, it wasn’t easy to spot him, but it was possible. His darkvision worked perfectly of course, but beyond sixty feet the details all blurred together. And there was more than sixty feet of dead space between him and the best hiding places amongst the crossbeams, some of which were a good forty feet off the ground. If they had crossbows, and were well trained at meditating on targets in low light…
The first bolt slammed into the rock wall behind him, the steep tip raising sparks. He fired blind into the general space that the bolt had come from, and sprinted behind the central pillar.
“Hey!” he called, pulling out another acid arrow. “Hey! I’m not your enemy!”
“And yet Edmen is dead,” came a call. It was not from the area that the bolt had come from. The voice was passive, almost in a monotone, but it was not friendly.
“Edmen attacked me!” Delegado said.
“For which you put an arrow into his back,” came another call. This voice had more emotion, and was from the general area of the crossbow shot. “Some threat he was to you then.”
“I wasn’t waiting for him to come back with more weapons after I cut his stick in half!” Delegado stated. “I tried not to fight him, he would have none of it!”
“Well, we can trust a deserter’s word for the events, can’t we,” said a third voice, this one a young woman’s.
“I have nothing to do with the war above,” the half-orc told them. “I’m with House Tharashk! I’m here looking for a man named Xavier, a man from Thrane!” He peeked around the column, seeing three sets of footprints and three shovels.
“We don’t care,” came the crossbowman’s reply. A bolt shot towards where Delegado’s head had been, but the half-orc was already gone.
“We should,” said the more calm first voice. “But there is no one here by that name. You had best leave this place, Tharask agent, there is nothing for you here.”
“He cannot be allowed to leave,” said the young woman. “He will lead someone to us, if he has not already.”
“That was his reason for killing Edmen,” said the calm voice. Delegado thought it was a man, but it was hard to tell. “We are not him, he is not us, let him go.”
“Xavier, from Thrane, about thirty-five years of age, human, with brown eyes and tan skin!” Delegado persisted. “He’s probably using another name! He has thick black eyebrows, and he favors a shaved head!”
Delegado heard words of magic, and he scrunched up, trying to avoid whatever was coming. Instead of a loud flash or bang, and web of film seemed to cover his head and eyes. It was a spell designed to put him to sleep, but the caster was not that powerful a wizard. He shook it off, irritated at the woman.
“He is asleep now,” she said. He heard her soft footfalls as she came out of her hiding place. “I will use my knife.”
“No!” called the first voice, no longer so passive.
“It will be quick!” she said, walking closer. Delegado tensed.
“He could still be awake!” warned the crossbowman. The woman’s feet stopped moving.
Now or never. Delegado whipped around the pillar and fired two shots at a woman in peasant’s clothing. The first one was the acid arrow, which went for her midsection. Astonishingly she swatted it aside, and it burned against a thick timber. The second arrow was too close on the heels of the first one, however. It took her in the face, and went through a weak point in human nose cartilage that Delegado had first learned to exploit years ago. The woman’s end was grisly.
A crossbow fired again, and the bolt clipped the half-orc in the shoulder. The chain shirt barely deflected it, due more to the angle of shot than the strength of his mithril. As it was it left a deep bruise, but it did not throw off Delegado’s return series of shots. The first arrow detonated with enchanted fire, and the half-orc put two more shots after that into the screaming man before he collapsed. The corpse continued to burn, licking at the timbers around them, but not catching. The wood was dry, but it was also permeated with dust, so it wasn’t very flammable.
“Your peaceful words do not match your murderous actions, orc,” came the passive voice. Delegado looked up, realizing the general direction it was coming from. “Tharashk or no, you would be wise to leave this place. When we meet, I will not have mercy.”
“Like they weren’t trying to kill me?” Delegado asked. “You have real selective morals, I see! Like all religious nuts you’re a hypocrite, aren’t you?”
There was no response. The half-orc put his bow back and drew his sword, heading into the latticework. His sharp senses, trained in the deadliest parts of his native swamps, searched about for a clue as to the whereabouts of his last opponent. He briefly considered using his dragonmark again to find Xavier, but he decided instead to deal with the matter at hand. There were too many unknowns, and if enough thick rock was between him and Thrane’s spy chief, he might get a false reading.
He heard a footfall, a soft one, but above him, and accompanied by a slight creak of wood.
Delegado stepped to the side as something fell, and he swung two-handed at the falling figure. Less than a second later he saw it was a sack filled with glowing rocks, and he repositioned himself as the monk landed behind him.
He caught a glimpse, very briefly, of an inhuman form free-falling from the highest crossbeam, touching the latticework briefly as he fell. Then it was before him, landing smoothly and jumping up like a striking cobra. It was wood and stone and metal, with slightly glowing eyes and three-fingered mechanical hands.
Before he could utter an appropriate profanity, the warforged monk was under his guard, slipping past his sword, and hugging him in a tight wrestling pin. Delegado tore one arm free, and hooked his foot behind the warforged’s ankle, trying to trip him. The machine was a step ahead of him, and a shift in weight brought them down together in the dust.
Delegado struggled against the warforged, each trying to get leverage on the other as they wrestled across the cave floor. Delegado had the edge in terms of sheer brute strength, but the warforged was unusually lithe and quick for his kind, and it had obviously practiced this type of fighting a great deal. Back and forth they went, each trying to get into a position to crush the other. The warforged fared better than he did, head-butting him cruelly, and taking advantage of Delegado’s softer physical structure. The half-orc still had his sword in hand, and he had an advantage in that the warforged had to avoid it.
The bounty hunter finally got leverage and threw the warforged off of him. The machine rolled quickly to his feet and ducked behind a pillar.
“I have heard that orcs are strong,” came the warforged’s voice. Delegado tracked it, judging the thing’s position.
“You heard right,” he said. He sheathed his sword and took out his bow, along with one very special arrow. Given to him by a Sharn artificer who worked for Tharashk, it was adamantine tipped, had special bane enchantments against constructs, and would explode with a rusting spell when it hit. The Xavier contract came with an almost guarantee of interference from warforged, as the job was in the middle of hotly contested territory, and Tharashk had wanted him to be prepared. The warforged was very, very good at being quiet, but Delegado was even better at hearing.
The half-orc stepped away from the glowing rocks, and away from any other shafts of light or trapped fireflies. The dark was his friend, not the warforged’s.
Two seconds before the first packet hit near him, Delegado realized that there was only one way to go if one wished to avoid all of the light sources. When the packet exploded, blowing a blinding, itching, vile dust everywhere, he wanted to heave even worse than he did when he was on the airship. He gagged and retched loudly, causing two more packets of the stuff to land near him, and more of the sickening, blinding, itchy stuff filled his mouth and nose and eyes.
A stone and metal fist slammed into his head, and Delegado reeled in pain. “I did not think a member of the fabled House of Finding would walk into my trap.” Another fist caught him in his stomach, only adding to his breathing and retching problems. “I guess what I have heard about the intelligence of orcs is true as well.” Delegado would have told the warforged what he thought of that, but the machine’s leg hammered his arm, causing him to drop his bow. “I was told to save this dust for an invasion of soldiers above, but you did as much damage as anyone can do.” The warforged put him in a full headlock, and Delegado was unable to do anything about it, incapacitated by the dust as he was. “Four good members of the Balanced Palm are now dead.” A great pressure grew on Delegado’s throat, and the half-orc felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.
So the monks have been doing more than praying over the last many years, Delegado thought. He was no dwarf, but he could tell that this excavation had been fairly constant for longer than he was alive. Tunnels snaked in all directions, most going down, but some going up. By far the main objective seemed to be to hollow out the hill, but for what purpose Delegado could not tell. He spotted freshly turned earth, and recently dropped shovels.
His skin crawled. Someone was watching him. And that dim glow came from several hanging lamps filled with fireflies. His sharp ears picked up footsteps high above in the beams and latticework.
Two ways to play this, and I am not interested in the long way, Delegado realized. He bet that with the low level of light, some of which he now realized also came from minute cracks in the ceiling to ventilate the place, it wasn’t easy to spot him, but it was possible. His darkvision worked perfectly of course, but beyond sixty feet the details all blurred together. And there was more than sixty feet of dead space between him and the best hiding places amongst the crossbeams, some of which were a good forty feet off the ground. If they had crossbows, and were well trained at meditating on targets in low light…
The first bolt slammed into the rock wall behind him, the steep tip raising sparks. He fired blind into the general space that the bolt had come from, and sprinted behind the central pillar.
“Hey!” he called, pulling out another acid arrow. “Hey! I’m not your enemy!”
“And yet Edmen is dead,” came a call. It was not from the area that the bolt had come from. The voice was passive, almost in a monotone, but it was not friendly.
“Edmen attacked me!” Delegado said.
“For which you put an arrow into his back,” came another call. This voice had more emotion, and was from the general area of the crossbow shot. “Some threat he was to you then.”
“I wasn’t waiting for him to come back with more weapons after I cut his stick in half!” Delegado stated. “I tried not to fight him, he would have none of it!”
“Well, we can trust a deserter’s word for the events, can’t we,” said a third voice, this one a young woman’s.
“I have nothing to do with the war above,” the half-orc told them. “I’m with House Tharashk! I’m here looking for a man named Xavier, a man from Thrane!” He peeked around the column, seeing three sets of footprints and three shovels.
“We don’t care,” came the crossbowman’s reply. A bolt shot towards where Delegado’s head had been, but the half-orc was already gone.
“We should,” said the more calm first voice. “But there is no one here by that name. You had best leave this place, Tharask agent, there is nothing for you here.”
“He cannot be allowed to leave,” said the young woman. “He will lead someone to us, if he has not already.”
“That was his reason for killing Edmen,” said the calm voice. Delegado thought it was a man, but it was hard to tell. “We are not him, he is not us, let him go.”
“Xavier, from Thrane, about thirty-five years of age, human, with brown eyes and tan skin!” Delegado persisted. “He’s probably using another name! He has thick black eyebrows, and he favors a shaved head!”
Delegado heard words of magic, and he scrunched up, trying to avoid whatever was coming. Instead of a loud flash or bang, and web of film seemed to cover his head and eyes. It was a spell designed to put him to sleep, but the caster was not that powerful a wizard. He shook it off, irritated at the woman.
“He is asleep now,” she said. He heard her soft footfalls as she came out of her hiding place. “I will use my knife.”
“No!” called the first voice, no longer so passive.
“It will be quick!” she said, walking closer. Delegado tensed.
“He could still be awake!” warned the crossbowman. The woman’s feet stopped moving.
Now or never. Delegado whipped around the pillar and fired two shots at a woman in peasant’s clothing. The first one was the acid arrow, which went for her midsection. Astonishingly she swatted it aside, and it burned against a thick timber. The second arrow was too close on the heels of the first one, however. It took her in the face, and went through a weak point in human nose cartilage that Delegado had first learned to exploit years ago. The woman’s end was grisly.
A crossbow fired again, and the bolt clipped the half-orc in the shoulder. The chain shirt barely deflected it, due more to the angle of shot than the strength of his mithril. As it was it left a deep bruise, but it did not throw off Delegado’s return series of shots. The first arrow detonated with enchanted fire, and the half-orc put two more shots after that into the screaming man before he collapsed. The corpse continued to burn, licking at the timbers around them, but not catching. The wood was dry, but it was also permeated with dust, so it wasn’t very flammable.
“Your peaceful words do not match your murderous actions, orc,” came the passive voice. Delegado looked up, realizing the general direction it was coming from. “Tharashk or no, you would be wise to leave this place. When we meet, I will not have mercy.”
“Like they weren’t trying to kill me?” Delegado asked. “You have real selective morals, I see! Like all religious nuts you’re a hypocrite, aren’t you?”
There was no response. The half-orc put his bow back and drew his sword, heading into the latticework. His sharp senses, trained in the deadliest parts of his native swamps, searched about for a clue as to the whereabouts of his last opponent. He briefly considered using his dragonmark again to find Xavier, but he decided instead to deal with the matter at hand. There were too many unknowns, and if enough thick rock was between him and Thrane’s spy chief, he might get a false reading.
He heard a footfall, a soft one, but above him, and accompanied by a slight creak of wood.
Delegado stepped to the side as something fell, and he swung two-handed at the falling figure. Less than a second later he saw it was a sack filled with glowing rocks, and he repositioned himself as the monk landed behind him.
He caught a glimpse, very briefly, of an inhuman form free-falling from the highest crossbeam, touching the latticework briefly as he fell. Then it was before him, landing smoothly and jumping up like a striking cobra. It was wood and stone and metal, with slightly glowing eyes and three-fingered mechanical hands.
Before he could utter an appropriate profanity, the warforged monk was under his guard, slipping past his sword, and hugging him in a tight wrestling pin. Delegado tore one arm free, and hooked his foot behind the warforged’s ankle, trying to trip him. The machine was a step ahead of him, and a shift in weight brought them down together in the dust.
Delegado struggled against the warforged, each trying to get leverage on the other as they wrestled across the cave floor. Delegado had the edge in terms of sheer brute strength, but the warforged was unusually lithe and quick for his kind, and it had obviously practiced this type of fighting a great deal. Back and forth they went, each trying to get into a position to crush the other. The warforged fared better than he did, head-butting him cruelly, and taking advantage of Delegado’s softer physical structure. The half-orc still had his sword in hand, and he had an advantage in that the warforged had to avoid it.
The bounty hunter finally got leverage and threw the warforged off of him. The machine rolled quickly to his feet and ducked behind a pillar.
“I have heard that orcs are strong,” came the warforged’s voice. Delegado tracked it, judging the thing’s position.
“You heard right,” he said. He sheathed his sword and took out his bow, along with one very special arrow. Given to him by a Sharn artificer who worked for Tharashk, it was adamantine tipped, had special bane enchantments against constructs, and would explode with a rusting spell when it hit. The Xavier contract came with an almost guarantee of interference from warforged, as the job was in the middle of hotly contested territory, and Tharashk had wanted him to be prepared. The warforged was very, very good at being quiet, but Delegado was even better at hearing.
The half-orc stepped away from the glowing rocks, and away from any other shafts of light or trapped fireflies. The dark was his friend, not the warforged’s.
Two seconds before the first packet hit near him, Delegado realized that there was only one way to go if one wished to avoid all of the light sources. When the packet exploded, blowing a blinding, itching, vile dust everywhere, he wanted to heave even worse than he did when he was on the airship. He gagged and retched loudly, causing two more packets of the stuff to land near him, and more of the sickening, blinding, itchy stuff filled his mouth and nose and eyes.
A stone and metal fist slammed into his head, and Delegado reeled in pain. “I did not think a member of the fabled House of Finding would walk into my trap.” Another fist caught him in his stomach, only adding to his breathing and retching problems. “I guess what I have heard about the intelligence of orcs is true as well.” Delegado would have told the warforged what he thought of that, but the machine’s leg hammered his arm, causing him to drop his bow. “I was told to save this dust for an invasion of soldiers above, but you did as much damage as anyone can do.” The warforged put him in a full headlock, and Delegado was unable to do anything about it, incapacitated by the dust as he was. “Four good members of the Balanced Palm are now dead.” A great pressure grew on Delegado’s throat, and the half-orc felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.
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