Chapter 7 - Part 1

CHAPTER SEVEN – EVENTS MOVE QUICKLY
21st of Olarune, 993 Y.K., in a private manor just north of the Cyran town of Kalazart

The building was almost three stories high, with a peaked roof. It was also totally hollow, with only a ledge running around the wall at the second-story level. There were many windows, but they were tall and narrow things with artificer-hardened glass. All of the curtains were tightly drawn.

The building’s interior was large, about fifty by fifty feet, and well-lit by a floating ball of glowing light that stayed suspended in mid-air some five feet below the center of the roof. The floor of the building was covered with thick rubber mats that only showed the darkwood flooring at the very edge of the room where some weapon racks were located.

Two guards with crossbow-like devices that fired heavy nets stood on opposite ledges, overlooking the activity on the floor. A one-eyed man whose shaved head sported several scars stood in simple brown wools upon the ledge near one of the guards, watching the proceedings with a more detached eye.

On the main floor, a solitary figure stood in the center of the room. It was made of wood-like cords and stone and metal parts, like a scarecrow made out of raw factory materials. Not born of any creature, it was nonetheless living after a fashion. It was a warforged, albeit one that did not have the usual armor plating attached to it.

An artificer with a wand tucked in his belt stood by the two huge doors that led into the place. He was watching six men with a variety of weapons begin to surround the warforged in the center of the room.

“Now!” called down the one-eyed man with the shaved head, despite the fact that all of the men were not in place yet. He wanted to see if this ‘Iron Orphan’ would expect it.

The warforged gave no sign of being surprised. The six men rushed him, but their quarry moved first. The Orphan tumbled forward on his hands, springing forward in a cartwheel, exiting the circle they were drawing around him. One man wielding an axe tried to cut the warforged, but a metal and stone foot lashed out, cracking the man’s jaw. The axe-holder’s eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he fell over.

The other men reconfigured their attack, trying not to get in each other’s way. Two hurled knives, but the warforged dodged them as if he knew exactly where they would be. Two more moved around to flank the warforged with swords, but it danced and twisted and their assault missed. The final man was holding a halberd, and he swung down onto the warforged’s head.

Astonishingly this too missed, as the warforged moved his head just enough to the side so that the halberd blade passed within inches of its target. The warforged jumped up in the air, and came down with both of his arms out. His fists slammed each swordsman in the face, breaking their noses, and the warforged then stepped forward, under the halberd’s reach.

The swordsmen were not completely out of it, and one man scratched his quarry badly along the torso. The two who had thrown knives were pulling out clubs and charging, but the warforged ducked beneath their swings.

The man with the halberd was no fool. In fact he was an experienced veteran of many battles with Thrane who had managed to get out of the army of Cyre and join the security forces of House Cannith. He took a step back and spun his weapon carefully. The Iron Orphan stiffened as the halberd blade opened a deep gash in his upper chest.

The warforged was not slowed down by his wounds, tucking and tumbling himself between two men with the same acrobatic skill he had exhibited before. As he escaped the circle of men he opened one hand to reveal a cylindrical length of raw metal. It tumbled from the three-fingered hand of the living construct and sailed perfectly until it hit one of the swordsmen in between the eyes. That man fell forward on the mats, unable to move.

“Clever,” whispered the one-eyed man. He had not thought to search a naked warforged for weapons.

The man with the halberd dropped his weapon and threw a knife from a wrist-sheath. This was another weapon not approved for the scenario. Its blade glowed green, and it sunk into the warforged’s leg with the bubbling hiss of acid.

The warforged let out a small sound of pain, and jerked the knife out, but the other three men were already charging at him. The two clubs and the sword did their best to finish their unarmored prey off.

And failed. The warforged who insisted on being called Orphan or Iron Orphan was not there when they arrived. He had shot forward and leaped over the man, landing on top of the man who had thrown the acid knife. A stone and wood arm snaked around that man’s throat, and Iron Orphan whirled the man around, using his body as a shield.

The other three doubled back to the warforged’s position, but they did not attack. The man with the eye patch had promised them one hundred gold pieces each if they destroyed the warforged, but he had said nothing about injuring one of their own.

“Back off!” the warforged said to the three of them, making a motion as if he would snap his captive’s neck. That man was turning blue, fingers scrabbling uselessly against the expert hold that the warforged had on his windpipe. The three men hesitated. Everyone in the room knew that the warforged had been told to not kill them and to not do anything permanent, but that was before the acid knife. The looked up at eye patch for instructions.

The instant they took their eyes off of him, the warforged rabbit-punched the man in his grip in the kidneys, and then dropped him on the mat. That man fell and did not get up. In the same instant that the human landed on the floor, the warforged had shot forward and backhanded the sword-holding man in the throat. That man’s weapon dropped from his fingers as he grabbed his own crushed windpipe in an attempt to find air.

The two with clubs rushed the warforged, and one managed to clip him slightly. The warforged did not slow down from their assault, but grabbed one man and threw him into his companion. They tumbled onto the mat together, and the warforged quickly and efficiently kicked both in the side of the head.

“Well done,” called out the man in the eye patch from the railing. “But you were told no fatalities.” He gestured to the man trying to breathe through a crumpled windpipe. The artificer by the door grimly raised his wand.

The warforged shrugged, walked over to the man, and tapped him twice on the side of the neck. The man coughed and sucked in a lungful of air as his inner workings were straightened out. Then the warforged punched him in the head and the man slumped forward.

“Impressive,” said the man with the eye patch, moving down towards the stairs. He waved at the artificer. That man put his wand back in his belt and walked towards the warforged. The Iron Orphan unit watched warily but did nothing. “Hurry it up,” said eye patch as he came down to the first floor and walked over to the two.

The artificer touched the warforged and began to infuse it with magic. Cut cords reconnected, the acid burn faded and disappeared, and the severed sections sealed up. When he was done, the human hurried back to the door, gripping his wand. The warforged did not bother to thank the man.

“Alright,” said eye patch, coming within arm’s reach of the warforged. He was not about to let the machine think that he was scared of it, especially when he had been training it. “I want to know why you didn’t use your wrestling methods on them earlier. You know how to get under their attacks and use one as a shield. It was the first thing I taught you to do, and it is your best attack.”

“And you told them to expect it,” the warforged said.

The man smiled slowly. He gave a soft chuckle and ran a hand over the many scars over his shaven skull. “So I did. I have my orders to push you hard, and I did. You’ve been learning tactics as well as battle prowess. Well done.”

“I’m a fast learner, Monti,” the warforged told him.

One eye narrowed. “How did you learn my name?” The warforged did not answer. “How did you know my name?” Monti demanded.

“I implore you to copulate with you maternal parent,” the warforged said.

Monti stared at him, and then began to laugh. “Oh you are good, you are very good at finding weaknesses, are you not?” He sighed. “Make yourself useful and drag these unconscious fellows out of here so that they can be mended. Then assemble the poles into the gymnastic framework and practice your acrobatics.” Monti waved to the two men up on the ledge, and they began to depart the building. “All night, hm?”

“It will be more enjoyable than seeing your visage,” the warforged told him coldly.

Monti gave another chuckle as he left the building.