Orphan crept through the tunnels, keeping his footfalls as silent as possible. The sharpest sentries in the armies of Khorvaire wouldn’t have heard him, but that was the real world. Today’s world. Now he was in the world of demons, and one of their sentries had nearly killed him just a half-hour ago.
The worming holes under the Waste through which Orphan traveled were roughly circular tubes, about nine feet across. Here and there they had been worked to lessen some of the steeper grades, or to widen a turning point, but overall they seemed the result of some natural process rather than an artificial one. The tunnels often doubled back on themselves, and sometimes they tapered to a dead end, but Orphan had not even explored a tenth of them yet.
He adjusted the sunrod in his belt sash so that he could see better as he came to an intersection. Someone had hacked away at the joining of the two tubes long ago, and made a squarish room.
Orphan turned, sensing that he was not alone. A shimmering figure came flying directly out of the rock. The monk had a sense of a ghostly figure with a translucent face, a vaguely luminescent thing that slipped right through him. A chill accompanied its passage, a feeling of wrongness that twisted him on the inside.
Orphan whipped out his kama and set his mind on defending himself. The creature, puzzled by something, flew at the monk again, but the magic in the kama made it bank to the side.
“You can’t drain life-force from me,” Orphan said. The thing hesitated, floating in the air as it looked at him with hatred. He could tell that it used to be an elf when it was alive. “You can hurt me, but you can’t feed off of me.” A part of Orphan regretted that, and was ashamed to say it aloud, but Oalian had told him that he was alive, so the monk resolved not to be taken aback by the immunities that his construct nature afforded him. He flicked the magical edge of the kama at the ghostly thing a few times, and at one point he nicked it. “Do you still want to fight or do you want to talk?” he asked it.
The thing hesitated, then flew into the floor and disappeared.
“Or you could do that,” Orphan muttered. He waited a moment and then ventured on.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Chapter 17 - Part 5
Delegado examined the horse. Except for the scars, it seemed whole. It had been dying when the demon teleported away with the warforged, until Thomas had used a curing scroll on it.
“You going to tell me that I shouldn’t have spent a scroll on a horse?” Thomas asked. With Orphan gone he seemed convinced that Delegado would start telling him what to do again.
“No,” Delegado said, forcing himself to be pleasant. “I think leaving a large carcass would attract all sorts of problems and so I’m glad you did it.”
Thomas shrugged. They had finished collecting what they could of the caltrops and packing up their horses. Feather had just come back from a fifteen minute sweep of the area and Delegado had used one of his two daily spells talking to the bird. There was no sign of the warforged.
Thomas sighed, and his stormstalk bobbed in the air. “What do we do about the warforged?’
“He won,” the half-orc said.
“He did?” Thomas asked.
“If he hadn’t, the demon would be back by now,” Delegado said. “You know a little of magic, how far is the range on a teleport spell?”
“I don’t know that much, but theoretically, none,” Thomas told him.
Delegado’s eyes widened. “What?”
“There’s different ways to do it,” Thomas said. “But I don’t think he’s far. The demon picked up my scrying and I was only looking over the immediate area, so he was in it. And he likely hunts here, or claims it as his place, or is assigned to guard it, which is why he noticed.”
“Feather didn’t spot anything,” Delegado noted. “And he has sharp eyes.”
“Teleportation magic may work strangely here,” Thomas mused. “Look at the scars on the land from magical battle. Centuries old, millenia old maybe, and still here. That’s got to do something to magic in the area.”
Delegado sucked on his lower teeth. “Huh.” A thought occurred to him. “Maybe he’s underground?”
“You haven’t tried using your dragonmark to find him yet,” Thomas noted.
“I can only use either finding ability once a day,” Delegado said. “Wasn’t sure if I should until we tried other options. What do you think?”
Delegado could tell that Thomas liked that the half-orc was consulting with him. “Well,” Thomas said. “You can find things and people right?”
“Right.” Delegado knew what the thing to do was, but he needed to let the half-daelkyr figure it out himself.
“Try finding his kama first,” Thomas suggested.
“Good idea,” Delegado said. Took you long enough, worm-neck. The half-orc closed his eyes, something not strictly necessary, but he wanted to concentrate as best as he could in case Orphan was at the edge of his powers. Then Delegado focused his mind, and felt the mark on the skin of his lower back and buttocks tingle.
This time it was different. There was a change that he had only felt twice before in his life.
“What?” Thomas asked in response to the smile on the half-orc’s face.
Power rushed through Delegado’s body, wrapping around him, emanating from and settling back into his dragonmark. It pulsed, and then it grew, spreading further in all directions. It took less than a second to nearly double in size, forming into a greater dragonmark.
“Yesssssssssssssssssssssssss,” Delegado said in ecstacy. He was a finder. He could find things. The thrill of it was amazing, even better than when the least dragonmark had appeared when he hit puberty, and then when it had spread into the lesser dragonmark years later.
He felt the power of the new mark lock onto something deep and below. It was a flickering feeling, but he had a direction and a depth. Taking a chance he stepped in that direction and focused his mind again. Again the rush of power filled him and now he locked onto Orphan himself, although again only briefly until some interference cut him off.
“What?” Thomas demanded.
“My power has increased,” Delegado said. He pointed east and down. “Orphan is that way, about eight hundred feet in that direction plus some sixty feet beneath the surface.”
“And how do we get there?” Thomas asked doubtfully.
“I have a greater dragonmark now,” Delegado said.
“Congratulations,” Thomas said, still unsure. “That gets us there how?”
“By my finding us a path,” Delegado said. “Mount up!”
“You going to tell me that I shouldn’t have spent a scroll on a horse?” Thomas asked. With Orphan gone he seemed convinced that Delegado would start telling him what to do again.
“No,” Delegado said, forcing himself to be pleasant. “I think leaving a large carcass would attract all sorts of problems and so I’m glad you did it.”
Thomas shrugged. They had finished collecting what they could of the caltrops and packing up their horses. Feather had just come back from a fifteen minute sweep of the area and Delegado had used one of his two daily spells talking to the bird. There was no sign of the warforged.
Thomas sighed, and his stormstalk bobbed in the air. “What do we do about the warforged?’
“He won,” the half-orc said.
“He did?” Thomas asked.
“If he hadn’t, the demon would be back by now,” Delegado said. “You know a little of magic, how far is the range on a teleport spell?”
“I don’t know that much, but theoretically, none,” Thomas told him.
Delegado’s eyes widened. “What?”
“There’s different ways to do it,” Thomas said. “But I don’t think he’s far. The demon picked up my scrying and I was only looking over the immediate area, so he was in it. And he likely hunts here, or claims it as his place, or is assigned to guard it, which is why he noticed.”
“Feather didn’t spot anything,” Delegado noted. “And he has sharp eyes.”
“Teleportation magic may work strangely here,” Thomas mused. “Look at the scars on the land from magical battle. Centuries old, millenia old maybe, and still here. That’s got to do something to magic in the area.”
Delegado sucked on his lower teeth. “Huh.” A thought occurred to him. “Maybe he’s underground?”
“You haven’t tried using your dragonmark to find him yet,” Thomas noted.
“I can only use either finding ability once a day,” Delegado said. “Wasn’t sure if I should until we tried other options. What do you think?”
Delegado could tell that Thomas liked that the half-orc was consulting with him. “Well,” Thomas said. “You can find things and people right?”
“Right.” Delegado knew what the thing to do was, but he needed to let the half-daelkyr figure it out himself.
“Try finding his kama first,” Thomas suggested.
“Good idea,” Delegado said. Took you long enough, worm-neck. The half-orc closed his eyes, something not strictly necessary, but he wanted to concentrate as best as he could in case Orphan was at the edge of his powers. Then Delegado focused his mind, and felt the mark on the skin of his lower back and buttocks tingle.
This time it was different. There was a change that he had only felt twice before in his life.
“What?” Thomas asked in response to the smile on the half-orc’s face.
Power rushed through Delegado’s body, wrapping around him, emanating from and settling back into his dragonmark. It pulsed, and then it grew, spreading further in all directions. It took less than a second to nearly double in size, forming into a greater dragonmark.
“Yesssssssssssssssssssssssss,” Delegado said in ecstacy. He was a finder. He could find things. The thrill of it was amazing, even better than when the least dragonmark had appeared when he hit puberty, and then when it had spread into the lesser dragonmark years later.
He felt the power of the new mark lock onto something deep and below. It was a flickering feeling, but he had a direction and a depth. Taking a chance he stepped in that direction and focused his mind again. Again the rush of power filled him and now he locked onto Orphan himself, although again only briefly until some interference cut him off.
“What?” Thomas demanded.
“My power has increased,” Delegado said. He pointed east and down. “Orphan is that way, about eight hundred feet in that direction plus some sixty feet beneath the surface.”
“And how do we get there?” Thomas asked doubtfully.
“I have a greater dragonmark now,” Delegado said.
“Congratulations,” Thomas said, still unsure. “That gets us there how?”
“By my finding us a path,” Delegado said. “Mount up!”
Chapter 17 - Part 4
The morning of the thirteenth of Sypheros dawned without incident, but there was a bitter chill from new-fallen snow. Even Orphan felt the cold, which did not abate until Thomas used seven scrolls up to help them all endure the elements. Delegado meditated for a bit to prepare his own spells, and then after a cold breakfast they mounted up and made their way down the trail. Thomas used another scroll that kept the horse’s hooves from leaving prints in the snow. Orphan would have protested this fast use of magical resources, but Delegado’s words from the night before weighed on him.
Delegado rode first, an arrow with holy enchantments out and against his bow. Feather flew ahead of them, staying low to the ground, as they made their way slowly down the rocky and icy path. Next came Thomas, with his scrolls ready. He had only a few javelins, and his massive greataxe, but the scrolls with their powerful spells would serve as better ranged weapons. Finally Orphan came, clumsily riding his horse, wishing he could walk on his own two feet. He was pretty certain that he could run faster than the horse, and under other circumstances he would have enjoyed competing against it.
Two hours later they were attacked. A great flying thing, with dark skin, and red eyes that seemed to smoke, dove silently at them. Orphan’s mount reared back in terror, and it was all the monk could do to not fall. Feather screeched and flew around the monstrosity. Delegado was already firing, getting one arrow through a wing membrane, while another scratched the side of the thing’s enormously long beak.
“Fiendish dinosaur,” Thomas shouted, ducking as the thing’s long claws gouged his back. He hissed in pain, then took a swipe at its tail as it went by, but he missed.
Delegado dismounted and drew an enchanted arrow out of his quiver. Orphan was still trying to get his panicking horse to calm down, but he recognized the arrow anyway. Magically holding holy spells in a tiny Eberron dragonshard, the arrowhead cracked open on hitting the flying thing, tearing a hole in its chest the width of a hand. The flying thing roared with rage, then turned to fly away. In seconds its great wings had carried it to the other side of the ridge.
Delegado ran up and soothed the horse Orphan was riding. “You okay?” he asked the warforged.
“Feeling useless but unharmed,” Orphan confessed.
“Good,” Delegado said. The half-orc ran back to his mount and got back on.
Some two hours later they were in the foothills, and it became clear that the fifty-five mile length quoted by the druid did not factor in the torn and rippled earth, or the complete lack of roads. The earth was torn into crevasses in many places, while in others great boulders or deposits of dirt were sticking up like bones of some giant, scavenged corpse. There was little snow on the ground in the foothills, and almost nothing in the way of plant life other than a few hardy weeds and some scraggly bushes. The predominant feature seemed to be black sand, rough, cracked earth, or stretches of black volcanic glass where some long-ago heat had seared the ground. Delegado avoided walking the horses over the latter, and they did not ask him why.
They spoke little, not wanting to attract attention, using hand motions whenever possible. About once an hour they stopped and took their bearings, sometimes sending Feather up and sometimes not.
Finally when the sun was a weak spot in a sky that was gathering dark clouds, they stopped for lunch next to a tall boulder. Thomas drove two stakes in the ground and tied a length of cord between them. They wrapped the horse’s reins around the cord, then took empty buckets and placed them in front of each horse. Thomas used three scrolls in quick succession, filling the buckets with pure conjured water. The horses drank eagerly.
Delegado handed meat and cheese and a small wineskin to Thomas, and the two of them ate quickly. Orphan walked around the boulder on either side, listening carefully, hearing nothing. Something bothered him, although he couldn’t name it.
He came back to find Feather eating some grain from a dish and Thomas using another scroll. “We’re going through those fast,” Orphan said.
“He’s got plenty more,” Delegado said. “Besides, we each had a funny feeling.”
“Like you’re being watched?”
“You too, eh?”
“Yes.” Orphan watched as Thomas completed the spell. The half-daelkyr then took out an expensive-looking mirror and stared into it.
His reflection stared back, but only briefly. The mirror’s surface then showed the landscape around them, and the picture then changed, moving in a widening spiral. They saw only more cracked earth, sand, tough weeds and desolation.
“Are we alone?” Orphan asked.
Suddenly the picture in the mirror froze, and then distorted. It fractured, then reformed, and became a snarling, hateful face of a gaunt humanoid covered in black, leathery skin. A large curved horn rose out of the back of its skull behind pointed ears, and its mouth was a mass of jagged teeth. “You came to the wrong place to sneak,” it snarled at them.
“End the spell!” Delegado demanded.
“I can’t!” Thomas said. “It won’t stop!”
“Come to spy out the hidden parts of the land,” the creature snorted. “Take it for yourself. I see you, oh yes I do.”
Delegado grabbed the mirror and threw it on the ground. It shattered into dozens of pieces.
“You just made my other two scrying scrolls useless,” Thomas said.
“It was getting a bead on us,” Delegado said. “Everyone oil up now.”
“Bless weapon oils before magic weapon oils,” Orphan said. “Then drink one of those potions that protects you from evil in case it has mind-magic.”
They quickly applied the oils, Thomas to his greataxe, Delegado to his bow and then his sword, and Orphan to his hands and feet. They also quickly swallowed the protection potion and then spread out a bit.
“I don’t hear or see anything coming,” Thomas said after a bit.
“If it was talking to you it was trying to get a good reading for a teleportation,” Delegado said.
“And it may be invisible,” Orphan added. “So listen carefully.”
Thomas frowned, but did as he was bade.
Suddenly it was among them, reeking of decay, the air shoved aside with its teleportation effect. The horses whinnied in fear, tugging at the rope that held them, trying futilely to flee the demon’s presence. It slashed at Thomas with massive claws, but the half-daelkyr had lived long enough in the wild that he reacted instinctively to the thing’s arrival, pulling back and avoiding the worst of it. Still the claw tips slashed his neck and face, places where Thomas’ armor did not cover.
“Fools to come,” it purred, flexing its muscles under the slimy red jelly coating its skin. The horses were rearing now, their minds overwhelmed with fear. Feather screeched and flew overhead.
Orphan charged at the thing, executing a flying kick that cracked hard against the back of its leg. The thing snarled in pain, but Orphan nearly did so as well. The jelly on the demon was a strong acid, and Orphan barely tumbled away before receiving a serious burn.
“Down!” Delegado yelled. Orphan obliged by doing a handflip away from the thing. Delegado put three arrows into it, the second one bearing another holy spell within an Eberron dragonshard.
The demon howled as the arrows pierced its skin, and then faded away with a crack of air from another teleportation effect. Thomas swiped it in retaliation as it went, nicking a leg before it faded away.
“It will come back,” Delegado said.
“Caltrops!” Orphan said. “All of them, now!” He rushed to the saddlebags and the other two followed. “The demon will stalk us, enjoying the hunt,” Orphan explained, spilling out the first bag. “The smartest thing for it to do is to take out our mounts so it can hunt us at its leisure. Get the horses surrounded by caltrops – use the adamantine-tipped ones – and douse the caltrops with our bless weapon oils, quickly!”
Delegado and Thomas hurried to do as he said, and they quickly used up all their supply of caltrops surrounding the panicked animals. Thomas and Delegado began coating the spiky little jacks with the magical oils, while Orphan drank a potion.
“What’s that?” Thomas asked Orphan, each hand sprinkling oil on a patch of caltrops.
“Acid resistance,” Orphan said. “You’ll see why. Spread out.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Delegado said, tossing the empty flasks aside. He took the time to swallow a potion of his own before taking his bow off of his shoulder again. They all felt a surge of morale and confidence. “That’s all our adamantine-tipped caltrops, and we’ve only got four bags of the regular. Let’s spread out in case this thing comes back with some area spells.”
“I have a few of those myself,” Thomas said, patting his pack. But he spread out.
Orphan turned out to be right. The demon came back with a wrenching sound of displaced air, teleporting next to the horses. It seemed unharmed, having apparently healed itself while back at wherever it had teleported from. It slashed with its claws and bit down with its sharp teeth, tearing the animal badly. But even as the horse screamed and fell, the demon snarled in pain as well, its feet jabbed by the now-holy spiked jacks. Seconds later Delegado shot his arrows quickly. One missed as the demon jerked its head, but the other two hit unholy flesh and bone. Thomas was too far from the demon to effectively use his greataxe, so he cast from a scroll instead. Two darts of force shot from the half-daelkyr’s hand, but faded out as they hit the demon, doing no damage.
Iron Orphan was moving even as Delegado was shooting. He had already made up his mind, even if he hadn’t told the others. The demon could not be allowed to stalk them at will. They would all die if he did.
The warforged jumped up over the caltrops and wrapped his legs around the demon’s torso, gripping its head with his three-fingered hands. Orphan felt the potion humming within him, fighting off the acid in the jelly coating on the foul creature. The warforged began to twist the demon’s neck harshly, avoiding the backswept horn on the back of his head. Its smell was disgusting. The thing’s neck tendons stretched and creaked painfully.
The demon did not teleport away immediately, apparently unable to summon up the concentration to produce the magic through the pain of its wounds. Instead he flipped over on his side, rolling in the caltrops. Orphan did his best to focus, but the caltrops were poking him now, and the demon was slashing at the warforged with its long claws. To make matters worse, the horses were kicking blindly in terror, and one hoof clipped Orphan in the side of his head. Delegado was yelling at Orphan to let go, unwilling to risk the shot, and Thomas cast something else, but again the demon’s innate power fended off Thomas’ spell.
Orphan pushed harder, trying to apply more pressure to the thing’s neck, but it grabbed his wrists, and began to push him back. Then it flipped itself away from the caltrops, and drew a deep breath.
There was a shimmer, a wrenching motion, and it was dark and hot. They were underground, and a dim light was coming from a nearby pool of lava. Orphan let go of the demon as it slashed at his neck with its claws, and somersaulted until he was flush against a wall. He threw a shiruken, but in the dark he missed the demon, his shot going wide.
“Be with you in a moment,” the demon promised, chortling through sharp teeth. “Have another berry to taste, to heal up.”
Orphan cocked his head, listening carefully, but the thing’s footsteps seemed to make no noise. Taking a chance he charged back from when he came, pulling out a sunrod and activating it as he did so. The demon’s back was to him now, and it was pushing a rock away from a hole in the floor to get at something. Orphan landed a kick in the middle of its back.
The demon snarled in fury, and turned around to rake Orphan with its claws and teeth. The warforged monk fell back, startled by the demon’s speed. He tumbled away from the demon and pulled out a flask of magical oil, sprinkling it quickly to repair the worst of the damage to his body. The sunrod lay dropped on the floor of the cave, still giving off its light.
The demon smiled with all of its teeth. “You need that,” it hissed, kicking the rock back over its hidey-hole. “I don’t.” It charged him, and its claws opened up deep furrows in Orphan’s torso. Pain wracked at the warforged, taking his mind and trying to crack it with the most primitive flight or die response.
“No,” the warforged monk said. He pushed his mind past the pain, finding his center, finding that place that knew who he was even when he first became aware inside of a hot forge. “I am law, you are chaos!” He slammed his fists, catching the demon repeatedly in its chest, cracking ribs and pummeling it without mercy. “I am good, you are evil!”
The demon slashed at him once, then thought the better of it and ran back towards the rock-covered hole. Orphan did not let up, kicking the back of its ankle as it fled from him. With a sickening crunch the ankle went, and the demon stumbled and fell. Orphan was on its back, hammering his fists into the back of the thing’s skull just under its horn.
The demon twitched, then stopped moving as the back of its head caved in. Orphan stopped, then got off of its back. Checking the demon for any signs of life and satisfied that there were none, the warforged monk walked over to the hidey-hole.
The rock was heavier than it looked, and Orphan suspected that it contained some lead in it. He finally managed to get it pushed aside and he held the sunrod over the hole. It held mostly coins and gems – a fortune elsewhere in Khorvaire, but here just pretty baubles, and several leaf-wrapped bundles. Orphan pulled the bundles out and opened them.
At the center of each bundle was a berry. The berry seemed soft and fresh, despite sitting in a rock not far from a lava pool. Orphan figured that the leaves had a preservative effect, and he tucked a few in a pocket as a souvenir. He then hesitated, but he ate the berries.
There were five berries all told, and each one rejuvenated him, making him feel more wholesome, better. The cracks and cuts in his body slowly decreased. He then concentrated, focusing his ki, and they closed even more. Finally he pulled out the last two oils of repair that he had on him and used those, and he was restored fully.
Orphan got up and examined the demon’s body. He touched it to make sure that the magic protecting him from acid was still working, then he picked it up and dragged it over to the lava pool. The drop from the edge of the cave floor to the lava was only about two feet, so Orphan lay the demon’s body down and kicked it in rather than simply tossing it. Some lava splashed up anyway, but nowhere near the warforged monk. The demon’s body floated for a moment, even in death its inner power seemed to hold some of the lava’s heat at bay, but it eventually succumbed, turning to ash and sinking.
“Good riddance,” Orphan whispered to himself. He then picked up the sunrod and began searching the cave. He had to find a way out of here.
Delegado rode first, an arrow with holy enchantments out and against his bow. Feather flew ahead of them, staying low to the ground, as they made their way slowly down the rocky and icy path. Next came Thomas, with his scrolls ready. He had only a few javelins, and his massive greataxe, but the scrolls with their powerful spells would serve as better ranged weapons. Finally Orphan came, clumsily riding his horse, wishing he could walk on his own two feet. He was pretty certain that he could run faster than the horse, and under other circumstances he would have enjoyed competing against it.
Two hours later they were attacked. A great flying thing, with dark skin, and red eyes that seemed to smoke, dove silently at them. Orphan’s mount reared back in terror, and it was all the monk could do to not fall. Feather screeched and flew around the monstrosity. Delegado was already firing, getting one arrow through a wing membrane, while another scratched the side of the thing’s enormously long beak.
“Fiendish dinosaur,” Thomas shouted, ducking as the thing’s long claws gouged his back. He hissed in pain, then took a swipe at its tail as it went by, but he missed.
Delegado dismounted and drew an enchanted arrow out of his quiver. Orphan was still trying to get his panicking horse to calm down, but he recognized the arrow anyway. Magically holding holy spells in a tiny Eberron dragonshard, the arrowhead cracked open on hitting the flying thing, tearing a hole in its chest the width of a hand. The flying thing roared with rage, then turned to fly away. In seconds its great wings had carried it to the other side of the ridge.
Delegado ran up and soothed the horse Orphan was riding. “You okay?” he asked the warforged.
“Feeling useless but unharmed,” Orphan confessed.
“Good,” Delegado said. The half-orc ran back to his mount and got back on.
Some two hours later they were in the foothills, and it became clear that the fifty-five mile length quoted by the druid did not factor in the torn and rippled earth, or the complete lack of roads. The earth was torn into crevasses in many places, while in others great boulders or deposits of dirt were sticking up like bones of some giant, scavenged corpse. There was little snow on the ground in the foothills, and almost nothing in the way of plant life other than a few hardy weeds and some scraggly bushes. The predominant feature seemed to be black sand, rough, cracked earth, or stretches of black volcanic glass where some long-ago heat had seared the ground. Delegado avoided walking the horses over the latter, and they did not ask him why.
They spoke little, not wanting to attract attention, using hand motions whenever possible. About once an hour they stopped and took their bearings, sometimes sending Feather up and sometimes not.
Finally when the sun was a weak spot in a sky that was gathering dark clouds, they stopped for lunch next to a tall boulder. Thomas drove two stakes in the ground and tied a length of cord between them. They wrapped the horse’s reins around the cord, then took empty buckets and placed them in front of each horse. Thomas used three scrolls in quick succession, filling the buckets with pure conjured water. The horses drank eagerly.
Delegado handed meat and cheese and a small wineskin to Thomas, and the two of them ate quickly. Orphan walked around the boulder on either side, listening carefully, hearing nothing. Something bothered him, although he couldn’t name it.
He came back to find Feather eating some grain from a dish and Thomas using another scroll. “We’re going through those fast,” Orphan said.
“He’s got plenty more,” Delegado said. “Besides, we each had a funny feeling.”
“Like you’re being watched?”
“You too, eh?”
“Yes.” Orphan watched as Thomas completed the spell. The half-daelkyr then took out an expensive-looking mirror and stared into it.
His reflection stared back, but only briefly. The mirror’s surface then showed the landscape around them, and the picture then changed, moving in a widening spiral. They saw only more cracked earth, sand, tough weeds and desolation.
“Are we alone?” Orphan asked.
Suddenly the picture in the mirror froze, and then distorted. It fractured, then reformed, and became a snarling, hateful face of a gaunt humanoid covered in black, leathery skin. A large curved horn rose out of the back of its skull behind pointed ears, and its mouth was a mass of jagged teeth. “You came to the wrong place to sneak,” it snarled at them.
“End the spell!” Delegado demanded.
“I can’t!” Thomas said. “It won’t stop!”
“Come to spy out the hidden parts of the land,” the creature snorted. “Take it for yourself. I see you, oh yes I do.”
Delegado grabbed the mirror and threw it on the ground. It shattered into dozens of pieces.
“You just made my other two scrying scrolls useless,” Thomas said.
“It was getting a bead on us,” Delegado said. “Everyone oil up now.”
“Bless weapon oils before magic weapon oils,” Orphan said. “Then drink one of those potions that protects you from evil in case it has mind-magic.”
They quickly applied the oils, Thomas to his greataxe, Delegado to his bow and then his sword, and Orphan to his hands and feet. They also quickly swallowed the protection potion and then spread out a bit.
“I don’t hear or see anything coming,” Thomas said after a bit.
“If it was talking to you it was trying to get a good reading for a teleportation,” Delegado said.
“And it may be invisible,” Orphan added. “So listen carefully.”
Thomas frowned, but did as he was bade.
Suddenly it was among them, reeking of decay, the air shoved aside with its teleportation effect. The horses whinnied in fear, tugging at the rope that held them, trying futilely to flee the demon’s presence. It slashed at Thomas with massive claws, but the half-daelkyr had lived long enough in the wild that he reacted instinctively to the thing’s arrival, pulling back and avoiding the worst of it. Still the claw tips slashed his neck and face, places where Thomas’ armor did not cover.
“Fools to come,” it purred, flexing its muscles under the slimy red jelly coating its skin. The horses were rearing now, their minds overwhelmed with fear. Feather screeched and flew overhead.
Orphan charged at the thing, executing a flying kick that cracked hard against the back of its leg. The thing snarled in pain, but Orphan nearly did so as well. The jelly on the demon was a strong acid, and Orphan barely tumbled away before receiving a serious burn.
“Down!” Delegado yelled. Orphan obliged by doing a handflip away from the thing. Delegado put three arrows into it, the second one bearing another holy spell within an Eberron dragonshard.
The demon howled as the arrows pierced its skin, and then faded away with a crack of air from another teleportation effect. Thomas swiped it in retaliation as it went, nicking a leg before it faded away.
“It will come back,” Delegado said.
“Caltrops!” Orphan said. “All of them, now!” He rushed to the saddlebags and the other two followed. “The demon will stalk us, enjoying the hunt,” Orphan explained, spilling out the first bag. “The smartest thing for it to do is to take out our mounts so it can hunt us at its leisure. Get the horses surrounded by caltrops – use the adamantine-tipped ones – and douse the caltrops with our bless weapon oils, quickly!”
Delegado and Thomas hurried to do as he said, and they quickly used up all their supply of caltrops surrounding the panicked animals. Thomas and Delegado began coating the spiky little jacks with the magical oils, while Orphan drank a potion.
“What’s that?” Thomas asked Orphan, each hand sprinkling oil on a patch of caltrops.
“Acid resistance,” Orphan said. “You’ll see why. Spread out.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Delegado said, tossing the empty flasks aside. He took the time to swallow a potion of his own before taking his bow off of his shoulder again. They all felt a surge of morale and confidence. “That’s all our adamantine-tipped caltrops, and we’ve only got four bags of the regular. Let’s spread out in case this thing comes back with some area spells.”
“I have a few of those myself,” Thomas said, patting his pack. But he spread out.
Orphan turned out to be right. The demon came back with a wrenching sound of displaced air, teleporting next to the horses. It seemed unharmed, having apparently healed itself while back at wherever it had teleported from. It slashed with its claws and bit down with its sharp teeth, tearing the animal badly. But even as the horse screamed and fell, the demon snarled in pain as well, its feet jabbed by the now-holy spiked jacks. Seconds later Delegado shot his arrows quickly. One missed as the demon jerked its head, but the other two hit unholy flesh and bone. Thomas was too far from the demon to effectively use his greataxe, so he cast from a scroll instead. Two darts of force shot from the half-daelkyr’s hand, but faded out as they hit the demon, doing no damage.
Iron Orphan was moving even as Delegado was shooting. He had already made up his mind, even if he hadn’t told the others. The demon could not be allowed to stalk them at will. They would all die if he did.
The warforged jumped up over the caltrops and wrapped his legs around the demon’s torso, gripping its head with his three-fingered hands. Orphan felt the potion humming within him, fighting off the acid in the jelly coating on the foul creature. The warforged began to twist the demon’s neck harshly, avoiding the backswept horn on the back of his head. Its smell was disgusting. The thing’s neck tendons stretched and creaked painfully.
The demon did not teleport away immediately, apparently unable to summon up the concentration to produce the magic through the pain of its wounds. Instead he flipped over on his side, rolling in the caltrops. Orphan did his best to focus, but the caltrops were poking him now, and the demon was slashing at the warforged with its long claws. To make matters worse, the horses were kicking blindly in terror, and one hoof clipped Orphan in the side of his head. Delegado was yelling at Orphan to let go, unwilling to risk the shot, and Thomas cast something else, but again the demon’s innate power fended off Thomas’ spell.
Orphan pushed harder, trying to apply more pressure to the thing’s neck, but it grabbed his wrists, and began to push him back. Then it flipped itself away from the caltrops, and drew a deep breath.
There was a shimmer, a wrenching motion, and it was dark and hot. They were underground, and a dim light was coming from a nearby pool of lava. Orphan let go of the demon as it slashed at his neck with its claws, and somersaulted until he was flush against a wall. He threw a shiruken, but in the dark he missed the demon, his shot going wide.
“Be with you in a moment,” the demon promised, chortling through sharp teeth. “Have another berry to taste, to heal up.”
Orphan cocked his head, listening carefully, but the thing’s footsteps seemed to make no noise. Taking a chance he charged back from when he came, pulling out a sunrod and activating it as he did so. The demon’s back was to him now, and it was pushing a rock away from a hole in the floor to get at something. Orphan landed a kick in the middle of its back.
The demon snarled in fury, and turned around to rake Orphan with its claws and teeth. The warforged monk fell back, startled by the demon’s speed. He tumbled away from the demon and pulled out a flask of magical oil, sprinkling it quickly to repair the worst of the damage to his body. The sunrod lay dropped on the floor of the cave, still giving off its light.
The demon smiled with all of its teeth. “You need that,” it hissed, kicking the rock back over its hidey-hole. “I don’t.” It charged him, and its claws opened up deep furrows in Orphan’s torso. Pain wracked at the warforged, taking his mind and trying to crack it with the most primitive flight or die response.
“No,” the warforged monk said. He pushed his mind past the pain, finding his center, finding that place that knew who he was even when he first became aware inside of a hot forge. “I am law, you are chaos!” He slammed his fists, catching the demon repeatedly in its chest, cracking ribs and pummeling it without mercy. “I am good, you are evil!”
The demon slashed at him once, then thought the better of it and ran back towards the rock-covered hole. Orphan did not let up, kicking the back of its ankle as it fled from him. With a sickening crunch the ankle went, and the demon stumbled and fell. Orphan was on its back, hammering his fists into the back of the thing’s skull just under its horn.
The demon twitched, then stopped moving as the back of its head caved in. Orphan stopped, then got off of its back. Checking the demon for any signs of life and satisfied that there were none, the warforged monk walked over to the hidey-hole.
The rock was heavier than it looked, and Orphan suspected that it contained some lead in it. He finally managed to get it pushed aside and he held the sunrod over the hole. It held mostly coins and gems – a fortune elsewhere in Khorvaire, but here just pretty baubles, and several leaf-wrapped bundles. Orphan pulled the bundles out and opened them.
At the center of each bundle was a berry. The berry seemed soft and fresh, despite sitting in a rock not far from a lava pool. Orphan figured that the leaves had a preservative effect, and he tucked a few in a pocket as a souvenir. He then hesitated, but he ate the berries.
There were five berries all told, and each one rejuvenated him, making him feel more wholesome, better. The cracks and cuts in his body slowly decreased. He then concentrated, focusing his ki, and they closed even more. Finally he pulled out the last two oils of repair that he had on him and used those, and he was restored fully.
Orphan got up and examined the demon’s body. He touched it to make sure that the magic protecting him from acid was still working, then he picked it up and dragged it over to the lava pool. The drop from the edge of the cave floor to the lava was only about two feet, so Orphan lay the demon’s body down and kicked it in rather than simply tossing it. Some lava splashed up anyway, but nowhere near the warforged monk. The demon’s body floated for a moment, even in death its inner power seemed to hold some of the lava’s heat at bay, but it eventually succumbed, turning to ash and sinking.
“Good riddance,” Orphan whispered to himself. He then picked up the sunrod and began searching the cave. He had to find a way out of here.
Chapter 17 - Part 3
They were semi-transparent, drifting things of mist with the wind at their backs. They were far higher up in the air than they had been on the pegasi, but since their bodies were clouds, the cold did not affect them.
Feather clicked his barely substantial beak as he lay nestled in the reed cocoon against Delegado’s chest. The hawk did not like the ride, especially the past seven or so hours of it after the sun had gone down. Delegado could not blame him. Even with darkvision he could barely make out the misty forms of Orphan and Thomas as they flew on either side of him, with the druid ahead. Their confused horses rode under them.
The druid had not bothered introducing himself, but he was obviously Ashbound. He told them he hated their potions and scrolls, and that the warforged was tainted, and that he was only doing this because Oalian had commanded him too. He was needed at the front to kill filthy Aundairian wizards, and good men were dying because he was not there. They hadn’t even bothered explaining to him what this was about. He had ordered them in close, cast the spell, and they turned into misty forms of themselves. He had repeated the spell to affect their horses, and then all of them had shot up into the air. The first few minutes had been exhilarating. The last twelve and a-half hours had been sheer boredom.
Delegado felt them tilt, and they rushed downwards. He realized that they had already past most of the peaks of the Icehorn Mountains, but that they would be landing halfway down the range. Soon he saw more of the ridge, and finally they landed on the edge of a steep drop, where a small cave, sheltering them from the wind, could be found.
The horse’s whinnied as they turned substantial again, and Feather screeched. Thomas and his eyestalk twitched, whereas Orphan merely studied his body.
“The trail is that way, don’t try it until morning,” the druid said, a soft ball of light hovering on his palm. “The cave is big enough for your horses.” He cast a spell and threw fire into the cave, where it impacted on some wood that had been stored. “Druids sometimes come here, so tidy up after you leave if you aren’t dead. Fiends and natural predators roam this place, and the undead shades of those who came before you abound as well. You are about fifty-five miles from a small place called Festering Holt, if you dare go there.” Without a further word he shifted himself and became a falcon, and launched himself into the sky.
“I think he liked us,” Thomas said sarcastically, nudging his horse into the cave. The others followed.
Delegado got to work making supper, because he, Thomas, and the hawk were famished. Feather flew to a niche in the ceiling, no doubt one sculpted out by some long-ago druid sneak in the Wastes to accommodate his animal companion, and looked down on them imperiously. Thomas cast a spell from a scroll at the cave entrance that made a shimmering wall of black.
“That will last only an hour,” Thomas said. “I’ll cast a spell that makes an alarm near the entrance before Delegado and I go to sleep. Ah, if that’s all right with you.”
“Me being in charge means that I make the decision to trust you to make your own judgements about matters like that,” Orphan said, setting up the horses’ feed bags. “I’m thinking the Demon Wastes is not a place to hoard resources. What do you think Delegado?”
“You’re right,” the half-orc said, setting the eggs and meat in the pan. “Well, except for food and water, which we have plenty of, but should still ration. Hard to find what there is to eat and drink here. But generally speaking, use all of our potions, oils, and consumable weapons when we think there is a need. We won’t get a chance to be wrong. If we’re dead they don’t help us.” For a moment Delegado thought he was saying too much, but the others did not object.
“Right,” Thomas said. He reshuffled his scrolls before sitting down to eat.
The half-daelkyr ate with Delegado, and then cast his scroll of the alarm spell before pulling out a bedroll. Delegado stayed up to make sure Feather ate, and then he pulled his own bedroll out.
“Do you think we have a chance?” Orphan asked him suddenly.
Delegado sighed, then decided to be truthful. “Even if we manage to find the place by some miracle, nobody leaves Ashtakala alive,” he said.
With that Delegado went to sleep, leaving Orphan behind to watch the fire embers die down.
Feather clicked his barely substantial beak as he lay nestled in the reed cocoon against Delegado’s chest. The hawk did not like the ride, especially the past seven or so hours of it after the sun had gone down. Delegado could not blame him. Even with darkvision he could barely make out the misty forms of Orphan and Thomas as they flew on either side of him, with the druid ahead. Their confused horses rode under them.
The druid had not bothered introducing himself, but he was obviously Ashbound. He told them he hated their potions and scrolls, and that the warforged was tainted, and that he was only doing this because Oalian had commanded him too. He was needed at the front to kill filthy Aundairian wizards, and good men were dying because he was not there. They hadn’t even bothered explaining to him what this was about. He had ordered them in close, cast the spell, and they turned into misty forms of themselves. He had repeated the spell to affect their horses, and then all of them had shot up into the air. The first few minutes had been exhilarating. The last twelve and a-half hours had been sheer boredom.
Delegado felt them tilt, and they rushed downwards. He realized that they had already past most of the peaks of the Icehorn Mountains, but that they would be landing halfway down the range. Soon he saw more of the ridge, and finally they landed on the edge of a steep drop, where a small cave, sheltering them from the wind, could be found.
The horse’s whinnied as they turned substantial again, and Feather screeched. Thomas and his eyestalk twitched, whereas Orphan merely studied his body.
“The trail is that way, don’t try it until morning,” the druid said, a soft ball of light hovering on his palm. “The cave is big enough for your horses.” He cast a spell and threw fire into the cave, where it impacted on some wood that had been stored. “Druids sometimes come here, so tidy up after you leave if you aren’t dead. Fiends and natural predators roam this place, and the undead shades of those who came before you abound as well. You are about fifty-five miles from a small place called Festering Holt, if you dare go there.” Without a further word he shifted himself and became a falcon, and launched himself into the sky.
“I think he liked us,” Thomas said sarcastically, nudging his horse into the cave. The others followed.
Delegado got to work making supper, because he, Thomas, and the hawk were famished. Feather flew to a niche in the ceiling, no doubt one sculpted out by some long-ago druid sneak in the Wastes to accommodate his animal companion, and looked down on them imperiously. Thomas cast a spell from a scroll at the cave entrance that made a shimmering wall of black.
“That will last only an hour,” Thomas said. “I’ll cast a spell that makes an alarm near the entrance before Delegado and I go to sleep. Ah, if that’s all right with you.”
“Me being in charge means that I make the decision to trust you to make your own judgements about matters like that,” Orphan said, setting up the horses’ feed bags. “I’m thinking the Demon Wastes is not a place to hoard resources. What do you think Delegado?”
“You’re right,” the half-orc said, setting the eggs and meat in the pan. “Well, except for food and water, which we have plenty of, but should still ration. Hard to find what there is to eat and drink here. But generally speaking, use all of our potions, oils, and consumable weapons when we think there is a need. We won’t get a chance to be wrong. If we’re dead they don’t help us.” For a moment Delegado thought he was saying too much, but the others did not object.
“Right,” Thomas said. He reshuffled his scrolls before sitting down to eat.
The half-daelkyr ate with Delegado, and then cast his scroll of the alarm spell before pulling out a bedroll. Delegado stayed up to make sure Feather ate, and then he pulled his own bedroll out.
“Do you think we have a chance?” Orphan asked him suddenly.
Delegado sighed, then decided to be truthful. “Even if we manage to find the place by some miracle, nobody leaves Ashtakala alive,” he said.
With that Delegado went to sleep, leaving Orphan behind to watch the fire embers die down.
Chapter 17 - Part 2
Delegado spent every bit of the money. First he bought three durable magebred horses from Vadalis, along with the best saddles, saddlebags, and plenty of food. Then he and Thomas hit up a few hermits and Greensingers who had arcane scrolls. That stock was snatched up pretty quickly, and they then convinced the Wardens of the Wood to let them buy some of the town’s scrolls. Following that they visited a gnome druid alchemist who had come to sell his wares, and cleared out everything the short humanoid had to offer. Finally they visited the Cannith operative. Ignoring questions about the warforged, Delegado again bought every oil, potion, and spare bit of weaponry available.
Walking towards the town square, Delegado was counting arrows and Thomas was checking valises.
“This is an incredible haul,” Thomas said. “These spells, some are very powerful. War spells.”
“We’ll need them,” Delegado said. “We’re entering the Wastes.”
“Have you been there?” Thomas asked.
“No,” Delegado said. “But House Tharashk has a presence in a place called Blood Crescent. There’s dragonshards, narstones, other things there. But it’s a bad place.”
“I thought of crossing the Icehorn Mountains to go there,” Thomas said. He gripped his new staff before putting it into a carrying sling on his back. “I had heard of a town of sorts, a place called the Holt.”
“Festering Holt,” Delegado said. “It’s a rumor, may not be true, about a town of misfits. You thought you’d join them?”
“Aye,” Thomas said. “I did not though. I decided I would rather be alone.”
“I know that feeling,” Delegado said.
He and Thomas walked in silence for a bit, and Delegado saw the half-daelkyr’s face contract. The half-orc recalled something that Orphan had told him about Thomas feeling left out.
“My father died in the Demon Wastes,” Delegado said.
“He did?” Thomas asked, more surprised that Delegado was telling him than anything else.
“Yeah, he was really too old to go prospecting but he wanted to go,” Delegado said. “He um, his prospecting party got caught by something.”
“I am sorry,” Thomas said.
“Yeah, Wastes is a dangerous place is all I’m saying,” Delegado told him. They walked in silence after that. I hope you’re happy, Delegado thought when he saw the warforged waiting for them.
Walking towards the town square, Delegado was counting arrows and Thomas was checking valises.
“This is an incredible haul,” Thomas said. “These spells, some are very powerful. War spells.”
“We’ll need them,” Delegado said. “We’re entering the Wastes.”
“Have you been there?” Thomas asked.
“No,” Delegado said. “But House Tharashk has a presence in a place called Blood Crescent. There’s dragonshards, narstones, other things there. But it’s a bad place.”
“I thought of crossing the Icehorn Mountains to go there,” Thomas said. He gripped his new staff before putting it into a carrying sling on his back. “I had heard of a town of sorts, a place called the Holt.”
“Festering Holt,” Delegado said. “It’s a rumor, may not be true, about a town of misfits. You thought you’d join them?”
“Aye,” Thomas said. “I did not though. I decided I would rather be alone.”
“I know that feeling,” Delegado said.
He and Thomas walked in silence for a bit, and Delegado saw the half-daelkyr’s face contract. The half-orc recalled something that Orphan had told him about Thomas feeling left out.
“My father died in the Demon Wastes,” Delegado said.
“He did?” Thomas asked, more surprised that Delegado was telling him than anything else.
“Yeah, he was really too old to go prospecting but he wanted to go,” Delegado said. “He um, his prospecting party got caught by something.”
“I am sorry,” Thomas said.
“Yeah, Wastes is a dangerous place is all I’m saying,” Delegado told him. They walked in silence after that. I hope you’re happy, Delegado thought when he saw the warforged waiting for them.
Chapter 17 - Part 1
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – ASSEMBLING
The 12th of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., mid-morning, House Kundarak’s offices in Greenheart
“Sign here,” the dwarf said, stroking the gemstones arrayed carefully in his manicured beard. “And here. And then there. And put your palm in the ink and place it there at the bottom, one clean impression.”
“Kundarak loves making things complicated,” Delegado muttered, following the instructions. Feather shifted his weight on the half-orc’s shoulders as Delegado did the palm print.
“All locks are complicated,” the dwarf said, admiring the puffy lace coming out of his sleeves. It was silk. “And locks keep things safe. And this is quite a lot of money you are asking us to back up. The House of Warding takes things seriously.”
“And charges a f’testing high service fee,” Delegado grumbled.
“The profanity is f’tesk,” the dwarf told him. “Not f’test.” The dwarf paused to brush an invisible bit of dust from his polished mahogany desk.
“No, it’s f’test,” Delegado insisted. “You’re using the human pronunciation which is incorrect. It’s an orcish word.”
“It’s a dwarven word,” the dwarf insisted, adjusting the gold links to his bejeweled amulet.
“Keeper’s bony arse it is,” Delegado said, takng a damp towel and wiping his palm.
“Very good,” the dwarf said, handing Delegado a bunch of receipts. “Write down the number carefully and report to me before you go. Anyone bearing these has until sundown to come to me for verification, no later.”
“I know the drill,” Delegado said. He turned to his companions. “Okay people, let’s go shopping.”
“That was a large number,” Thomas said wonderingly. Two Wardens of the Wood flanked the half-daelkyr. Their sole purpose seemed to be keeping people away from the man. They looked bored. Word had gotten around that Oalian had spoken to Thomas, and no one bothered him anymore.
“Years of back pay and commissions,” Delegado explained, opening the door into the morning sunshine as they followed him. “I’ve never really done anything with the money, now’s a good use for it.”
“What are we doing again?” Orphan asked.
“Buying every potion, scroll, and alchemical device in Greenheart that isn’t nailed down,” Delegado said. “Oils that temporarily make weapons good or magical, potions that give us bursts of strength and magical force shields, scrolls that Thomas can use, all that stuff.”
“So you plan to visit the Cannith agent,” Orphan said.
Delegado caught that. “Um, yeah, why don’t you, uh…”
“I’d like to talk to some of the druids from that sect that has a philosophy like the Balanced Palm,” Orphan said.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Delegado told him. “See you at noon in the town square.”
The 12th of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., mid-morning, House Kundarak’s offices in Greenheart
“Sign here,” the dwarf said, stroking the gemstones arrayed carefully in his manicured beard. “And here. And then there. And put your palm in the ink and place it there at the bottom, one clean impression.”
“Kundarak loves making things complicated,” Delegado muttered, following the instructions. Feather shifted his weight on the half-orc’s shoulders as Delegado did the palm print.
“All locks are complicated,” the dwarf said, admiring the puffy lace coming out of his sleeves. It was silk. “And locks keep things safe. And this is quite a lot of money you are asking us to back up. The House of Warding takes things seriously.”
“And charges a f’testing high service fee,” Delegado grumbled.
“The profanity is f’tesk,” the dwarf told him. “Not f’test.” The dwarf paused to brush an invisible bit of dust from his polished mahogany desk.
“No, it’s f’test,” Delegado insisted. “You’re using the human pronunciation which is incorrect. It’s an orcish word.”
“It’s a dwarven word,” the dwarf insisted, adjusting the gold links to his bejeweled amulet.
“Keeper’s bony arse it is,” Delegado said, takng a damp towel and wiping his palm.
“Very good,” the dwarf said, handing Delegado a bunch of receipts. “Write down the number carefully and report to me before you go. Anyone bearing these has until sundown to come to me for verification, no later.”
“I know the drill,” Delegado said. He turned to his companions. “Okay people, let’s go shopping.”
“That was a large number,” Thomas said wonderingly. Two Wardens of the Wood flanked the half-daelkyr. Their sole purpose seemed to be keeping people away from the man. They looked bored. Word had gotten around that Oalian had spoken to Thomas, and no one bothered him anymore.
“Years of back pay and commissions,” Delegado explained, opening the door into the morning sunshine as they followed him. “I’ve never really done anything with the money, now’s a good use for it.”
“What are we doing again?” Orphan asked.
“Buying every potion, scroll, and alchemical device in Greenheart that isn’t nailed down,” Delegado said. “Oils that temporarily make weapons good or magical, potions that give us bursts of strength and magical force shields, scrolls that Thomas can use, all that stuff.”
“So you plan to visit the Cannith agent,” Orphan said.
Delegado caught that. “Um, yeah, why don’t you, uh…”
“I’d like to talk to some of the druids from that sect that has a philosophy like the Balanced Palm,” Orphan said.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Delegado told him. “See you at noon in the town square.”
Chapter 16 - Part 9
The path widened, and the plants were lush. The treant led them with powerful strides, and they were forced to walk quickly to keep up. Only one of the Wardens of the Wood accompanied them as a rear guard. From slight movement on either side in he trees, Orphan suspected that there were more servants of Oalian watching them than they knew.
The path widened further, and a beautiful grove spread out before them. Life and sunlight seemed to burst into them, and flowers danced at every corner. Birds and animals frolicked, and streams burbled over rocks, filled with leaping fish. A great bear, an animal more than double the size of any other bear that Orphan had ever seen, lounged on a flat boulder, idly watching the newcomers.
Standing over the stream, dipping thin branches into the water – branches that were long wooden fingers, was a moving tree. Like the treant, this tree had a face in the bark, branches that served as arms, and a split trunk that would serve as legs. The face was wizened and ancient, like the face of the oldest man in the world. The legs were strong, but judging from the grass growing around the tree, the tree rarely moved.
And it was an even greater tree than the treant. It was Oalian, a greatpine at full growth that had been awakened into sentience millenia ago. Oalian straightened, the majesty of his body towering over them all, making even the great treant seem like a small child before a giant. Orphan could see squirrels and birds running along Oalian’s branches and leafy hair.
“Great Oalian,” the treant said, bowing. Thomas bowed, as did Delegado and the Warden. Even Feather seemed to nod his head. Orphan did as well after a moment, wondering what to say.
Oalian responded in the Sylvan language, briefly conversing with the treant, until the treant nodded and walked back down the path.
“Barson,” Oalian rumbled, his voice a deep echo of the earth.
“Majesty?” the Warden asked. “What is your will?”
“Go back and have the following announced,” Oalian commanded him. “The three Gatekeepers who broke the peace have been physically chastised, and they will give two months’ labors to Tharashk. Greoche is banned from Greenheart for the remainder of her days. Vestiol shall be taken out of the Eldeen Reaches under custody of Deneith. Brogan and Delegado are commended for their maturity, even if it took too long.” Orphan felt Delegado bristle at that, but the half-orc wisely kept silent. “Go now.” The Warden nodded and got up, trotting out of the grove.
Oalian towered over them, peering down with a somber visage. He radiated power and serenity, and seemed to be all of the force that nature had ever exhibited. “I have spoken more today than I have in the past six moons,” Oalian said finally. “I wished to slumber, but I must lay eyes on the hearts on those who the Prophecy has chosen. Thomas, to you I speak first. Tell me why you are here.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “I am here to find peace,” he said.
“Peace does not exist,” Oalian said. “Nature is always in flux. Peace is an illusion, a containment of life.”
“Then I seek less self-loathing and no more trouble in my mind,” Thomas persisted.
“Your victims prefer that you know of no such tranquility,” Oalian rumbled. “It is the way of things that when a root splits a rock the root can no longer rest on the rock.”
“But can I never be forgiven?” Thomas persisted, his face full of pain.
“Forgiveness will come with balance,” Oalian said. “You are on a path of great peril, but if you succeed, peace will come to this world which has been lately afflicted with wide-ranging war. You may find greater peace than you thought you needed.”
Thomas swallowed. “Then I will follow my path. I seek the Branch of Water and Air. This is supposed to help me find the first riddle. Drorin told me you would know what he meant when he said the first riddle was with the prisoner.”
Oalian gestured slightly with one branch, and a staff that seemed to dance with air and water slowly rose from the ground. Thomas took it carefully, and a look of amazement came over his face as he gripped it.
“Study it carefully, for it is greater than even the most powerful scroll that you have manipulated,” Oalian told him. “It has but one function, to control the weather itself. You will need to use it more than once, and you will die and your quest fail should you not even be able to properly use it once."
“I will,” Thomas said.
“Delegado,” Oalian said. “The wheel turns. Kurse chose his path, and it led him to you. But your path leads you where? Towards what and away from what?”
“I don’t know,” the half-orc said warily. “Will you tell us where to find the first prisoner?”
“Hardly the first prisoner of that place,” Oalian admonished him gently, his voice like a series of strong winds running along the plains. “But the first riddle is there. Delegado, have you heard tales of a city surrounded by an unending storm of flying volcanic glass?”
“Yes,” the half-orc said. Orphan was surprised to see a look of dread on Delegado’s face.
“They are true,” Oalian said. “Ashtakala is where the prisoner who knows the first riddle is. They have broken him countless times, but they do not know the meaning of his riddle, so they cannot act on it.”
“Him?” Delegado said. “Not her? The prisoner is not – is not a woman?”
“This particular one is not a female,” Oalian said, his voice now a soft, comforting rain. “But do not think you have only one who can bring pain to your heart. You go to the city of demons, the capital of the blasted lands to the north, the place where the rajah scheme in the Demon Wastes. You risk much, and you will be needed to find a way in, even if Thomas is successful with the staff. The prisoner you seek is kept near the place where the stolen artifact of the Balanced Palm lies.”
Delegado seemed to deflate, and he nodded. “Thank you,” he said.
“Thomas and Delegado, leave the grove now and prepare yourselves,” Oalian ordered. “A druid will come for you at noon to cast a spell that will let you fly as mist over the Icehorn Mountains. This druid has been pulled from the Aundairian front, where his powers are badly needed. An hour or two after midnight he will deposit you, and then leave. Go now. I will speak to your friend, the warforged.”
Delegado and Thomas nodded, and departed. Oalian waited for a while, watching them walk away, then turned to Orphan.
“I am weary,” he said. “Ask what you will, but quickly.”
“Am I alive?” Orphan asked.
“Yes,” Oalian said simply.
“Am I alive as that bear?” Orphan persisted.
“Is a fish alive as a bird?” Oalian asked. “Is a flower as alive as the ants that burrow in the sand? Yours is a new race, but a living one. Beware the interest of the Chamber.” Oalian’s face closed its eyes, and his branches went limp.
The treant came up behind Orphan. “It is time to go,” it told him.
Orphan nodded, and he gave a short bow to the sleeping Oalian before turning and following the treant out of the grove.
The path widened further, and a beautiful grove spread out before them. Life and sunlight seemed to burst into them, and flowers danced at every corner. Birds and animals frolicked, and streams burbled over rocks, filled with leaping fish. A great bear, an animal more than double the size of any other bear that Orphan had ever seen, lounged on a flat boulder, idly watching the newcomers.
Standing over the stream, dipping thin branches into the water – branches that were long wooden fingers, was a moving tree. Like the treant, this tree had a face in the bark, branches that served as arms, and a split trunk that would serve as legs. The face was wizened and ancient, like the face of the oldest man in the world. The legs were strong, but judging from the grass growing around the tree, the tree rarely moved.
And it was an even greater tree than the treant. It was Oalian, a greatpine at full growth that had been awakened into sentience millenia ago. Oalian straightened, the majesty of his body towering over them all, making even the great treant seem like a small child before a giant. Orphan could see squirrels and birds running along Oalian’s branches and leafy hair.
“Great Oalian,” the treant said, bowing. Thomas bowed, as did Delegado and the Warden. Even Feather seemed to nod his head. Orphan did as well after a moment, wondering what to say.
Oalian responded in the Sylvan language, briefly conversing with the treant, until the treant nodded and walked back down the path.
“Barson,” Oalian rumbled, his voice a deep echo of the earth.
“Majesty?” the Warden asked. “What is your will?”
“Go back and have the following announced,” Oalian commanded him. “The three Gatekeepers who broke the peace have been physically chastised, and they will give two months’ labors to Tharashk. Greoche is banned from Greenheart for the remainder of her days. Vestiol shall be taken out of the Eldeen Reaches under custody of Deneith. Brogan and Delegado are commended for their maturity, even if it took too long.” Orphan felt Delegado bristle at that, but the half-orc wisely kept silent. “Go now.” The Warden nodded and got up, trotting out of the grove.
Oalian towered over them, peering down with a somber visage. He radiated power and serenity, and seemed to be all of the force that nature had ever exhibited. “I have spoken more today than I have in the past six moons,” Oalian said finally. “I wished to slumber, but I must lay eyes on the hearts on those who the Prophecy has chosen. Thomas, to you I speak first. Tell me why you are here.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “I am here to find peace,” he said.
“Peace does not exist,” Oalian said. “Nature is always in flux. Peace is an illusion, a containment of life.”
“Then I seek less self-loathing and no more trouble in my mind,” Thomas persisted.
“Your victims prefer that you know of no such tranquility,” Oalian rumbled. “It is the way of things that when a root splits a rock the root can no longer rest on the rock.”
“But can I never be forgiven?” Thomas persisted, his face full of pain.
“Forgiveness will come with balance,” Oalian said. “You are on a path of great peril, but if you succeed, peace will come to this world which has been lately afflicted with wide-ranging war. You may find greater peace than you thought you needed.”
Thomas swallowed. “Then I will follow my path. I seek the Branch of Water and Air. This is supposed to help me find the first riddle. Drorin told me you would know what he meant when he said the first riddle was with the prisoner.”
Oalian gestured slightly with one branch, and a staff that seemed to dance with air and water slowly rose from the ground. Thomas took it carefully, and a look of amazement came over his face as he gripped it.
“Study it carefully, for it is greater than even the most powerful scroll that you have manipulated,” Oalian told him. “It has but one function, to control the weather itself. You will need to use it more than once, and you will die and your quest fail should you not even be able to properly use it once."
“I will,” Thomas said.
“Delegado,” Oalian said. “The wheel turns. Kurse chose his path, and it led him to you. But your path leads you where? Towards what and away from what?”
“I don’t know,” the half-orc said warily. “Will you tell us where to find the first prisoner?”
“Hardly the first prisoner of that place,” Oalian admonished him gently, his voice like a series of strong winds running along the plains. “But the first riddle is there. Delegado, have you heard tales of a city surrounded by an unending storm of flying volcanic glass?”
“Yes,” the half-orc said. Orphan was surprised to see a look of dread on Delegado’s face.
“They are true,” Oalian said. “Ashtakala is where the prisoner who knows the first riddle is. They have broken him countless times, but they do not know the meaning of his riddle, so they cannot act on it.”
“Him?” Delegado said. “Not her? The prisoner is not – is not a woman?”
“This particular one is not a female,” Oalian said, his voice now a soft, comforting rain. “But do not think you have only one who can bring pain to your heart. You go to the city of demons, the capital of the blasted lands to the north, the place where the rajah scheme in the Demon Wastes. You risk much, and you will be needed to find a way in, even if Thomas is successful with the staff. The prisoner you seek is kept near the place where the stolen artifact of the Balanced Palm lies.”
Delegado seemed to deflate, and he nodded. “Thank you,” he said.
“Thomas and Delegado, leave the grove now and prepare yourselves,” Oalian ordered. “A druid will come for you at noon to cast a spell that will let you fly as mist over the Icehorn Mountains. This druid has been pulled from the Aundairian front, where his powers are badly needed. An hour or two after midnight he will deposit you, and then leave. Go now. I will speak to your friend, the warforged.”
Delegado and Thomas nodded, and departed. Oalian waited for a while, watching them walk away, then turned to Orphan.
“I am weary,” he said. “Ask what you will, but quickly.”
“Am I alive?” Orphan asked.
“Yes,” Oalian said simply.
“Am I alive as that bear?” Orphan persisted.
“Is a fish alive as a bird?” Oalian asked. “Is a flower as alive as the ants that burrow in the sand? Yours is a new race, but a living one. Beware the interest of the Chamber.” Oalian’s face closed its eyes, and his branches went limp.
The treant came up behind Orphan. “It is time to go,” it told him.
Orphan nodded, and he gave a short bow to the sleeping Oalian before turning and following the treant out of the grove.
Chapter 16 - Part 8
Orphan looked outside of the small window in the cell. The sky began to grow less dark in the east, and then gray, and then orange and blue as the sun budded over the horizon. Orphan never tired of that sight.
Booted feet were heard, and Thomas came awake, grabbing for his greataxe. Both he and the symbiont were bleary-eyed.
A group of Wardens of the Wood came and pushed the unlocked cell door open.
“I am Ryan,” the leader said. “Come, Oalian awaits.”
“No breakfast for the condemned?” Thomas rumbled.
“That’s up to Oalian,” Ryan said. “Let’s go.”
Orphan stepped out first, followed by Thomas. One Warden went ahead of the warforged and Ryan, while four walked behind Thomas. They went down the hall, then down the stairs, and then out the main doors of the building.
People were already awake, going about their daily business. Thomas snorted, clearing his throat as he stepped outside, and they all stopped, staring at him.
“Go about what you were doing,” Ryan ordered all of them. “Come on now, go about!”
The people looked at each other, then went back to their tasks, stopping to stare every now and then.
Ryan now took the lead, and they followed him through the town, along with four Wardens of the Wood carrying shortbows. They hurriedly left the town proper behind, and walked down a flower-lined path into the forest.
“Are all of these troops to protect us or to intimidate us?” Thomas growled at Ryan. Oprhan could tell the man was nervous.
“They’re here to prevent trouble,” Ryan said simply.
“Then they did an admirable job,” Orphan said. The warforged was trying to take in the majestic beauty of the towering trees, but the Wardens were hurrying him quickly along. Ryan did not respond.
They walked into a wide meadow circled by great boulders, moss-covered rocks bigger than wagons. There were two ways out other than the way they came. It seemed to be a waiting area. Wardens with bows and robed druids were keeping watch atop the boulders. In the clearing itself was a deep pool surrounded by a low wall of stones.
Waiting in the meadow were several groups of people. A halfling in druid’s robes was scratching the bumps on the head of a ferocious-looking great lizard with a saddle. He was talking to two of his fellows in the language of the Talenta Plains. Not far from the three halflings and the toothy lizard was an old orc woman, sheltering her eyes from the bright sunlight with a deep hood. She wore no symbol on her fraying robes, but she bore a stout cudgel that was covered with carvings of holly leaves. Near a boulder, three men wearing bright blue cloaks with the symbol of Breland were having a quiet and urgent conversation. At the deep pool, a tall woman made of water was conversing with a pair of shifter women in a language that made Orphan’s ring hum. It was something about hidden pools in the Twlight Demesne – whatever that was. Two half-elven males bearing the symbol of House Lyrandar were examining a flower that was growing between two rocks. A tall creature that had the body of a horse, but the torso, arms, and head of a human where the horse’s neck and head would be, idly played on some pipes. And finally, surrounded by a ring of Wardens, three Gatekeeper druids were being held prisoner. Orphan did not see the shifter with the battleaxe or the others from the previous evening’s fight.
Several heads turned, regarding Thomas and Orphan. The warforged was regarded with frank curiosity, but Thomas received looks of loathing, hatred, or fear. The woman made of water frowned at the half-daelkyr, made an apology to the shifter women, and then dove down into her pool. One of the halflings gripped a sling while he eyed Thomas coldly. The horse-thing stepped back with suspicion.
“Good morning,” Orphan said politely.
The orc woman moved away from the boulder, and tottered over to Orphan and Thomas. What hair on her hands and body that showed was white. The Wardens surrounding the warforged and the half-daelkyr steadied themselves, and the stormstalk whipped behind Thomas to hide.
The orc woman apparently had a green dragon’s head woven with green thread on the front of her robes. She was a Gatekeeper.
“You are Iron Orphan,” she said.
“Yes,” he told her.
“And you are Thomas,” she said to the half-daelkyr. “Born against your will, serving evil for years, then withdrawing, and now repentant, yes?”
“Yes,” Thomas croaked. He seemed to want to say more, but he could not.
“Your pardon, Mother of the Marshes,” Ryan said. “I did not know that you knew these men.”
“Heh,” she laughed, her voice old, but strong. “You mean you worry that I will attack them like those fools there. No, young man, you need not fear. Thomas will inspire many, if he follows his personal prophecy. Princes of the impure will battle the evil below. I know his heart.” The stormstalk peeked at her, then withdrew again. “And I know your heart as well, thing,” she said, in a far less friendly tone of voice. “Leaving Thomas’ neck again, or disobeying him in any way, is a death sentence for you. You live at his mercy, else my order would have destroyed you.” The stormstalk seemed to make some small noise.
“You are a Gatekeeper,” Thomas said, his voice full of wonder. “But you are kind to me.”
“And Pienna was not?” the woman said. “Orphan and Thomas, I must go soon. Will you listen?” The two of them nodded. “Forgive Delegado, he is not used to working with others. You will see him having accomplished the unexpected soon.”
Orphan considered that. “Very well,” he said. “But Delegado and I exchanged words, he may not –”
“He will,” she said. She turned and shuffled her way towards the deep pool. Standing at its edge, she smiled and the female shifters who were trying to cajole the water woman back. The elderly female orc leaned over, and her body shifted into a large trout as she flopped into the water and swam away.
“Interesting,” Orphan said.
A tree was moving. Before Orphan’s mind fully registered that, the tree proved itself to be a tall being like a tree, with a face in the bark, long arms gnarled like branches, and legs like a split trunk. Over its eyes and along its head were many smaller branches from which hung great leaves. It was huge.
“Oalian?” Thomas asked.
“No,” Ryan whispered. “A treant.”
The treant spoke in a booming voice. The words were in the forest language that Orphan knew was called Sylvan, even if he couldn’t understand it. The Wardens of the Wood that were surrounding the Gatekeeper prisoners shuffled them along, and several of the archers along the boulders followed. The treant led the prisoners to see Oalian’s justice, and they all left through one of the paths between the boulders. Minutes later the sound of their footsteps were gone even to Orphan’s ability to hear. The mood in the meadow seemed to lighten.
The water woman finally returned, speaking quickly to the shifter women before disappearing back into the water again. The shifter women then hurried out of the meadow on the third way, not the way that Orphan had come or that the prisoners had gone.
Some fifteen minutes later the treant returned, his tall body swaying. “The ambassadors from Breland will be seen now,” it said, now speaking in the common tongue. The trio in blue walked towards the treant who lead them away. Soon they were gone from sight.
“What happened to the three druids?” Orphan asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Ask Oalian yourself if you care to.”
The business with the Brelish took a half-hour, and the treant came for the horse-thing, which by then Orphan had learned was called a centaur.
“If we’re going to keep waiting I’m going to eat some breakfast,” grumbled Thomas after a long silence.
“You have rations,” Ryan said.
“I’m allowed to eat here?” Thomas asked.
Ryan turned to look at him. “Who told you that you weren’t?”
“When summoned to –” Thomas began, but then caught himself and stopped talking. Orphan suspected that the followers of the Dragon Below were made to go hungry when summoned. Thomas tore open a bag of jerky and unstoppered a wineskin.
Thomas did not spend a long time eating, despite his protestations of hunger. He seemed too nervous to eat much. In the meantime, the House Lyrandar members were chatting amiably with the halflings, and the halfling druid was making the great lizard do tricks.
There was movement down the trail that the two shifters had taken, and the remaining Warden archers up on the boulders gripped their bows and turned to watch that way.
A procession came down the trail and into the meadow. Led by two Wardens, Delegado was walking with Brogan d’Deneith, who was in full armor. They carried a bound and beaten elf between them. A half-elf in armor and a semi-clean ogre walked behind them, with another Warden of the Wood trailing. The half-elf had a hard look to his face, like he was trying to suppress something, and a scarf around his neck almost totally hid a bandage on the hollow of his throat.
“That’s Vestiol d’Phiarlan they’re holding,” one of the Wardens near Orphan said.
The group came up to Ryan, and the lead Warden saluted.
“Ryan,” Brogan said with a bow.
“General,” Ryan said carefully.
“Ryan, baby!” Delegado grinned. Feather sat on Delegado’s shoulder, preening himself.
“These must be your friends,” Brogan said to Delegado. He stuck his hand out to the warforged. “Iron Orphan, I am Brogan d’Deneith.”
“Nice to meet you,” Orphan said, shaking his hand.
“Thomas, Deneith only wishes you well,” Brogan said, extending his hand to the half-daelkyr. Thomas sneered, and did not answer. Brogan took his hand back, but for all his face showed, Thomas had just showered him with compliments. “Orphan, this is Marlal d’Deneith, my nephew and my second.” The half-elf gave the warforged a small head nod. He was definitely irritated, but only at Delegado. Orphan nodded back. “And this is Rahg, he follows the Deneith tribe now,” Brogan said, gesturing to the warforged.
“Rahg carries Blademarks banner!” Rahg said loudly.
“Rahg is honor for he carries honor,” Orphan said, recalling something that he had read once. Rahg beamed, pleased at the compliment.
“Okay, enough with the flowers and perfumes,” Delegado said. He gave the elf a shake. “This is Vestiol d’Phiarlan, he’s under the joint custody of House Tharashk and House Deneith, and he has some explaining to do to Oalian. After we’re done of course. He’d agree with me if his mouth wasn’t too swollen to talk.”
“Elf threatened General Brogan,” snarled Rahg. “Rahg teach him no.”
“Rahg is very persuasive,” Brogan said amiably.
Ryan scowled, but made no verbal objection.
“You made peace with Deneith,” Orphan noted. The whole presentation had a staged feeling to it, but that probably didn’t matter.
“We have exchanged letters complimenting one another and declaring that we have no claim against one another,” Brogan said. “We each wrote and signed multiple copies, and House Sivis is delivering them.”
“Well, that throws the betting pool off,” one of the Wardens muttered.
“Thomas, I’m sorry I didn’t consult with you,” Delegado said. “I’m too used to working alone. I’ll try not to do that again. Orphan, I’m not saying what I’m about to say twice. You were right, I was wrong. I’m sorry. Greoche is a Dragon Below cultist. She’s got her bags packed and is out on the next Orien caravan. She lied about what Brogan was doing here, but she was set up by this guy here.” Delegado gave Vestiol a shake. “Oh, and Ryan, House Deneith is sealing the House Tharashk cottage and guarding it under my order until Greoche’s replacement comes.”
“General Brogan, you have an appointment with Oalian?” Ryan asked.
“No, Delegado asked me to come along to let you know we have settled our differences,” Brogan said. “I would have written you a letter as well but my hand was tired. Delegado, may I take Vestiol with me? I will bring him back to Oalian once I have my appointment.”
“He’s all yours,” Delegado said. “You have the authority under your House’s charter to deal with lawbreakers, and I respect your House’s mission.” Brogan and Delegado shook hands, and then the entourage of the ogre, the half-elf, the elven prisoner, the Deneith general, and the Warden of the Wood that had accompanied the Blademarks all walked back the way they came. “We okay now?” Delegado asked.
“Yes,” Orphan told him. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
“Yeah, like I give a galig,” Delegado joked. “I was asking Thomas.”
Thomas gave a soft smile. “We’re fine. But Orphan is in charge from now on.”
“Works for me,” Delegado said.
“I am impressed that you went to Brogan to cooperate with him,” Orphan said.
“Professionals live in the future, amateurs live in the past,” Delegado told him.
“Does that mean you and he really like each other all that much?” Orphan asked, suspecting the answer.
“About as much as an Ashbound preacher likes an Aundair wizard,” Delegado shrugged. “But what he and I think and say privately isn’t the important thing in this.”
“Houses,” Ryan snorted.
“Aw, don’t feel left out, Ryan,” Delegado said. He pursed his lips and looked around. “You bored just waiting around here, Ryan? Want to make small talk?”
“Not with you,” Ryan grumbled.
“Tsk, too bad,” the half-orc replied. He seemed to suddenly have an idea. “Hey, you got a sister, Ryan?”
“Two,” Ryan said flatly.
“She knows that orcs do it with more strength, right?” Delegado asked with a nasty smirk. Thomas shook his head.
Ryan turned several colors and gripped the handle of his sword. Fortunately the treant came again and summoned them to Oalian before the human decided to draw it.
Booted feet were heard, and Thomas came awake, grabbing for his greataxe. Both he and the symbiont were bleary-eyed.
A group of Wardens of the Wood came and pushed the unlocked cell door open.
“I am Ryan,” the leader said. “Come, Oalian awaits.”
“No breakfast for the condemned?” Thomas rumbled.
“That’s up to Oalian,” Ryan said. “Let’s go.”
Orphan stepped out first, followed by Thomas. One Warden went ahead of the warforged and Ryan, while four walked behind Thomas. They went down the hall, then down the stairs, and then out the main doors of the building.
People were already awake, going about their daily business. Thomas snorted, clearing his throat as he stepped outside, and they all stopped, staring at him.
“Go about what you were doing,” Ryan ordered all of them. “Come on now, go about!”
The people looked at each other, then went back to their tasks, stopping to stare every now and then.
Ryan now took the lead, and they followed him through the town, along with four Wardens of the Wood carrying shortbows. They hurriedly left the town proper behind, and walked down a flower-lined path into the forest.
“Are all of these troops to protect us or to intimidate us?” Thomas growled at Ryan. Oprhan could tell the man was nervous.
“They’re here to prevent trouble,” Ryan said simply.
“Then they did an admirable job,” Orphan said. The warforged was trying to take in the majestic beauty of the towering trees, but the Wardens were hurrying him quickly along. Ryan did not respond.
They walked into a wide meadow circled by great boulders, moss-covered rocks bigger than wagons. There were two ways out other than the way they came. It seemed to be a waiting area. Wardens with bows and robed druids were keeping watch atop the boulders. In the clearing itself was a deep pool surrounded by a low wall of stones.
Waiting in the meadow were several groups of people. A halfling in druid’s robes was scratching the bumps on the head of a ferocious-looking great lizard with a saddle. He was talking to two of his fellows in the language of the Talenta Plains. Not far from the three halflings and the toothy lizard was an old orc woman, sheltering her eyes from the bright sunlight with a deep hood. She wore no symbol on her fraying robes, but she bore a stout cudgel that was covered with carvings of holly leaves. Near a boulder, three men wearing bright blue cloaks with the symbol of Breland were having a quiet and urgent conversation. At the deep pool, a tall woman made of water was conversing with a pair of shifter women in a language that made Orphan’s ring hum. It was something about hidden pools in the Twlight Demesne – whatever that was. Two half-elven males bearing the symbol of House Lyrandar were examining a flower that was growing between two rocks. A tall creature that had the body of a horse, but the torso, arms, and head of a human where the horse’s neck and head would be, idly played on some pipes. And finally, surrounded by a ring of Wardens, three Gatekeeper druids were being held prisoner. Orphan did not see the shifter with the battleaxe or the others from the previous evening’s fight.
Several heads turned, regarding Thomas and Orphan. The warforged was regarded with frank curiosity, but Thomas received looks of loathing, hatred, or fear. The woman made of water frowned at the half-daelkyr, made an apology to the shifter women, and then dove down into her pool. One of the halflings gripped a sling while he eyed Thomas coldly. The horse-thing stepped back with suspicion.
“Good morning,” Orphan said politely.
The orc woman moved away from the boulder, and tottered over to Orphan and Thomas. What hair on her hands and body that showed was white. The Wardens surrounding the warforged and the half-daelkyr steadied themselves, and the stormstalk whipped behind Thomas to hide.
The orc woman apparently had a green dragon’s head woven with green thread on the front of her robes. She was a Gatekeeper.
“You are Iron Orphan,” she said.
“Yes,” he told her.
“And you are Thomas,” she said to the half-daelkyr. “Born against your will, serving evil for years, then withdrawing, and now repentant, yes?”
“Yes,” Thomas croaked. He seemed to want to say more, but he could not.
“Your pardon, Mother of the Marshes,” Ryan said. “I did not know that you knew these men.”
“Heh,” she laughed, her voice old, but strong. “You mean you worry that I will attack them like those fools there. No, young man, you need not fear. Thomas will inspire many, if he follows his personal prophecy. Princes of the impure will battle the evil below. I know his heart.” The stormstalk peeked at her, then withdrew again. “And I know your heart as well, thing,” she said, in a far less friendly tone of voice. “Leaving Thomas’ neck again, or disobeying him in any way, is a death sentence for you. You live at his mercy, else my order would have destroyed you.” The stormstalk seemed to make some small noise.
“You are a Gatekeeper,” Thomas said, his voice full of wonder. “But you are kind to me.”
“And Pienna was not?” the woman said. “Orphan and Thomas, I must go soon. Will you listen?” The two of them nodded. “Forgive Delegado, he is not used to working with others. You will see him having accomplished the unexpected soon.”
Orphan considered that. “Very well,” he said. “But Delegado and I exchanged words, he may not –”
“He will,” she said. She turned and shuffled her way towards the deep pool. Standing at its edge, she smiled and the female shifters who were trying to cajole the water woman back. The elderly female orc leaned over, and her body shifted into a large trout as she flopped into the water and swam away.
“Interesting,” Orphan said.
A tree was moving. Before Orphan’s mind fully registered that, the tree proved itself to be a tall being like a tree, with a face in the bark, long arms gnarled like branches, and legs like a split trunk. Over its eyes and along its head were many smaller branches from which hung great leaves. It was huge.
“Oalian?” Thomas asked.
“No,” Ryan whispered. “A treant.”
The treant spoke in a booming voice. The words were in the forest language that Orphan knew was called Sylvan, even if he couldn’t understand it. The Wardens of the Wood that were surrounding the Gatekeeper prisoners shuffled them along, and several of the archers along the boulders followed. The treant led the prisoners to see Oalian’s justice, and they all left through one of the paths between the boulders. Minutes later the sound of their footsteps were gone even to Orphan’s ability to hear. The mood in the meadow seemed to lighten.
The water woman finally returned, speaking quickly to the shifter women before disappearing back into the water again. The shifter women then hurried out of the meadow on the third way, not the way that Orphan had come or that the prisoners had gone.
Some fifteen minutes later the treant returned, his tall body swaying. “The ambassadors from Breland will be seen now,” it said, now speaking in the common tongue. The trio in blue walked towards the treant who lead them away. Soon they were gone from sight.
“What happened to the three druids?” Orphan asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Ask Oalian yourself if you care to.”
The business with the Brelish took a half-hour, and the treant came for the horse-thing, which by then Orphan had learned was called a centaur.
“If we’re going to keep waiting I’m going to eat some breakfast,” grumbled Thomas after a long silence.
“You have rations,” Ryan said.
“I’m allowed to eat here?” Thomas asked.
Ryan turned to look at him. “Who told you that you weren’t?”
“When summoned to –” Thomas began, but then caught himself and stopped talking. Orphan suspected that the followers of the Dragon Below were made to go hungry when summoned. Thomas tore open a bag of jerky and unstoppered a wineskin.
Thomas did not spend a long time eating, despite his protestations of hunger. He seemed too nervous to eat much. In the meantime, the House Lyrandar members were chatting amiably with the halflings, and the halfling druid was making the great lizard do tricks.
There was movement down the trail that the two shifters had taken, and the remaining Warden archers up on the boulders gripped their bows and turned to watch that way.
A procession came down the trail and into the meadow. Led by two Wardens, Delegado was walking with Brogan d’Deneith, who was in full armor. They carried a bound and beaten elf between them. A half-elf in armor and a semi-clean ogre walked behind them, with another Warden of the Wood trailing. The half-elf had a hard look to his face, like he was trying to suppress something, and a scarf around his neck almost totally hid a bandage on the hollow of his throat.
“That’s Vestiol d’Phiarlan they’re holding,” one of the Wardens near Orphan said.
The group came up to Ryan, and the lead Warden saluted.
“Ryan,” Brogan said with a bow.
“General,” Ryan said carefully.
“Ryan, baby!” Delegado grinned. Feather sat on Delegado’s shoulder, preening himself.
“These must be your friends,” Brogan said to Delegado. He stuck his hand out to the warforged. “Iron Orphan, I am Brogan d’Deneith.”
“Nice to meet you,” Orphan said, shaking his hand.
“Thomas, Deneith only wishes you well,” Brogan said, extending his hand to the half-daelkyr. Thomas sneered, and did not answer. Brogan took his hand back, but for all his face showed, Thomas had just showered him with compliments. “Orphan, this is Marlal d’Deneith, my nephew and my second.” The half-elf gave the warforged a small head nod. He was definitely irritated, but only at Delegado. Orphan nodded back. “And this is Rahg, he follows the Deneith tribe now,” Brogan said, gesturing to the warforged.
“Rahg carries Blademarks banner!” Rahg said loudly.
“Rahg is honor for he carries honor,” Orphan said, recalling something that he had read once. Rahg beamed, pleased at the compliment.
“Okay, enough with the flowers and perfumes,” Delegado said. He gave the elf a shake. “This is Vestiol d’Phiarlan, he’s under the joint custody of House Tharashk and House Deneith, and he has some explaining to do to Oalian. After we’re done of course. He’d agree with me if his mouth wasn’t too swollen to talk.”
“Elf threatened General Brogan,” snarled Rahg. “Rahg teach him no.”
“Rahg is very persuasive,” Brogan said amiably.
Ryan scowled, but made no verbal objection.
“You made peace with Deneith,” Orphan noted. The whole presentation had a staged feeling to it, but that probably didn’t matter.
“We have exchanged letters complimenting one another and declaring that we have no claim against one another,” Brogan said. “We each wrote and signed multiple copies, and House Sivis is delivering them.”
“Well, that throws the betting pool off,” one of the Wardens muttered.
“Thomas, I’m sorry I didn’t consult with you,” Delegado said. “I’m too used to working alone. I’ll try not to do that again. Orphan, I’m not saying what I’m about to say twice. You were right, I was wrong. I’m sorry. Greoche is a Dragon Below cultist. She’s got her bags packed and is out on the next Orien caravan. She lied about what Brogan was doing here, but she was set up by this guy here.” Delegado gave Vestiol a shake. “Oh, and Ryan, House Deneith is sealing the House Tharashk cottage and guarding it under my order until Greoche’s replacement comes.”
“General Brogan, you have an appointment with Oalian?” Ryan asked.
“No, Delegado asked me to come along to let you know we have settled our differences,” Brogan said. “I would have written you a letter as well but my hand was tired. Delegado, may I take Vestiol with me? I will bring him back to Oalian once I have my appointment.”
“He’s all yours,” Delegado said. “You have the authority under your House’s charter to deal with lawbreakers, and I respect your House’s mission.” Brogan and Delegado shook hands, and then the entourage of the ogre, the half-elf, the elven prisoner, the Deneith general, and the Warden of the Wood that had accompanied the Blademarks all walked back the way they came. “We okay now?” Delegado asked.
“Yes,” Orphan told him. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
“Yeah, like I give a galig,” Delegado joked. “I was asking Thomas.”
Thomas gave a soft smile. “We’re fine. But Orphan is in charge from now on.”
“Works for me,” Delegado said.
“I am impressed that you went to Brogan to cooperate with him,” Orphan said.
“Professionals live in the future, amateurs live in the past,” Delegado told him.
“Does that mean you and he really like each other all that much?” Orphan asked, suspecting the answer.
“About as much as an Ashbound preacher likes an Aundair wizard,” Delegado shrugged. “But what he and I think and say privately isn’t the important thing in this.”
“Houses,” Ryan snorted.
“Aw, don’t feel left out, Ryan,” Delegado said. He pursed his lips and looked around. “You bored just waiting around here, Ryan? Want to make small talk?”
“Not with you,” Ryan grumbled.
“Tsk, too bad,” the half-orc replied. He seemed to suddenly have an idea. “Hey, you got a sister, Ryan?”
“Two,” Ryan said flatly.
“She knows that orcs do it with more strength, right?” Delegado asked with a nasty smirk. Thomas shook his head.
Ryan turned several colors and gripped the handle of his sword. Fortunately the treant came again and summoned them to Oalian before the human decided to draw it.
Chapter 16 - Part 7
Thomas sighed, sagging down onto the thin mattress. “I thought they would never leave us alone,” he said.
“They’re listening to us now,” Orphan noted.
“I don’t care,” Thomas said. “I’m too tired to care. You may not need to sleep but I do. I had to tell my life story three times. At least this time someone finally took my token from Pienna.”
“I’ll keep an eye on you,” Orphan said. “Sleep. We meet Oalian in the morning.”
“And if we survive it, what then?” Thomas yawned.
Orphan did not answer. He did not know what to say.
“They’re listening to us now,” Orphan noted.
“I don’t care,” Thomas said. “I’m too tired to care. You may not need to sleep but I do. I had to tell my life story three times. At least this time someone finally took my token from Pienna.”
“I’ll keep an eye on you,” Orphan said. “Sleep. We meet Oalian in the morning.”
“And if we survive it, what then?” Thomas yawned.
Orphan did not answer. He did not know what to say.
Chapter 16 - Part 6
Delegado watched Quinn go, and he hoped that nothing befell the man until Tharashk could catch up with him. Quinn was talented, and the House would be poorer without him. For now Delegado focused his attention on Greoche.
“Iron Orphan thinks you lied to me,” he said. “I told him House members never lie to each other. I’m wondering if I was wrong.”
Greoche tossed the dagger back into the open box and walked past Delegado, heading for the kitchen. He grabbed her arm, and she glared at him.
“I need a drink,” she said. “Then we can talk.”
Delegado considered this for a minute, staring into her eyes.
“No,” he said, dragging her forward and tossing her into the chair that Quinn had just vacated. “No poison for you. You’re not backing out of this so easily.”
“I would never!” she protested, but her face was ashamed, and he knew that she wanted the quick way out.
“Tell me the truth,” he said angrily.
She sighed, deflating. “Vestiol d’Phiarlan came to see me,” she said. “Brogan is being backed by Brelish money. Breland is paying Deneith to hire mercenaries of all kinds and make trouble on the Droaam-Eldeen border. At the same time Breland is observing a cease-fire with the Reaches and negotiating terms of a possible alliance, and Breland has also secretly been contacting Thrane for the same. With Deneith harassing Droaam from the north, Droaam has to divert some forces from their eastern front with Breland. With the Eldeen Reaches and Thrane coordinating their attacks on Aundair, Aundair will have to divert some forces from their front with Breland.”
“And with four fronts quiet, Breland builds up for a charge into Cyre,” Delegado said.
“Or perhaps Darguun,” Greoche said tiredly. “But the guess is that Beland wants to suddenly blitz into Cyre and wipe out as many warforged production facilities as they can in order to stem the tide. Those golem friends of yours are proving dangerous.”
“I’m only friends with one of them,” Delegado said, putting his thumbs in his belt. It was a deceptive pose, he could draw a weapon with ease if he needed to, but he suspected that Greoche was not going to give him any more trouble. “So the reports about my brother’s prospecting mission were forged?”
“No, they were real,” she said. “Additional security for the site has already been dispatched. All the documents I showed you were real, I was just selective about which ones to show.”
“So Brogan came here not looking for trouble, and you decided to stir it up anyway,” Delegado said. She nodded. “Why?”
She looked up at him with eyes that seemed to want to cry and laugh at the same time. “Delegado, it’s what the Masters of Newflesh would want,” she told him in the same tone that one would use with a small, particularly stupid child. “They would not want Breland to gain an edge, for Breland wants the war to end, and chaos above gives the Blessed Dragon Below its ability to act freely.”
Delegado felt like puking. “You are a cultist then,” he said with disgust.
“I would say that I’m devout,” she said. “You’re reacting to Gatekeeper prejudice.” She pointed to the blood-soaked upthrust floorboards. “Gatekeepers made that wood twist and dance, trapping Brode, helping their hirelings kill him.”
Delegado clenched his fists, then unclenched them. He had to keep control of his anger. “You spent House money on trying to prevent Brelish-enforced world peace, is that it?”
“I spent no money,” she laughed.
“You said you got this from Phiarlan.”
“I got it for free.”
A warning chime rang in Delegado’s mind. “Phiarlan never gives out anything for free,” he pointed out. “Any more than we do.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. “He said that it was professional courtesy between Houses, and he wanted me to find a misplaced letter for him.” She sounded as if she very much wanted to believe it.
“You lied to me,” Delegado found himself yelling. “You told me Brogan wanted to rob dragonshards, stirring up a f’testing nest of hornets, all because you believed something that an officer of Phiarlan told you for free? Are you an idiot, woman?”
She began to cry. “I – I had to believe him! I need to Masters of Newflesh to fix me!”
“You got Brode killed!” he yelled, jabbing a finger in her face. “Marlal d’Deneith is the one who sent the Gatekeepers here!”
“No!” she said, her face growing white. “No!”
“Sh!” he said, putting his finger to his lips. He had thought that he heard something.
“I didn’t mean to!” she was sobbing. “I didn’t mean to!”
“Shut up!” he snapped. Then he heard the lock in the front door click, and suddenly everything went pitch black.
Delegado fought down panic. Unlike a human, half-orcs and orcs were not used to real darkness, as they could see in normal dark. Therefore magical darkness unnerved them far more than it did others, and he stumbled forwards, knowing that whoever had cast the magical darkness would be on the other side of the door. He heard Greoche sob and stumble in the opposite direction, towards the kitchen again.
The door was swinging in, but he shoved it back the other way and had the satisfaction of hearing it hit someone who responded with a muffled elvish curse. Delegado yanked the door open and charged out of the shadow bubble, barreling into an elf wearing fancy clothing marked with the Phiarlan insignia.
“Vestiol, I presume,” Delegado said, swinging a fist at the elf.
“Indeed,” Vestiol said, ducking the blow and rolling away from the orc. Springing to his feet several fee away he produced a small hand crossbow from the hidden folds of his clothing. “Careful now, Delegado, the poison on the end of this is particularly dangerous to those of orcish blood.”
Delegado snarled, pulling out his longsword and moving sideways to give Vestiol a harder target. All those Wardens that had been outside not ten minutes ago had gone, heading to an indoor fire to beat away the mid-autumn chill, curse the luck. Delegado wasn’t sure if the elf was telling the truth about the poison or not, but he wasn’t taking chances. “So what’s the real story here, Vestiol?” the half-orc asked, keeping an eye on the elf’s trigger finger.
“What I told her was the unvarnished truth,” Vestiol said. “Except for the bit about me missing a letter. I made that up. But yes, Breland is setting up a situation that allows them to invade Cyre.”
“And you didn’t charge her for that information because you’re on the Cyran payroll,” Delegado guessed, still circling. He wondered if Greoche was busy killing herself or if she would call the Wardens again.
“Not their payroll, just their lease,” Vestiol grinned. “You see, I know of Greoche’s religious leanings. I know lots of facts that my dear Thuranni cousin thinks are irrelevant. I simply told her in a casual fashion and let her do the rest. You dropping in on us was simply a wonderful bonus that accelerated things.”
“Nice to know I’m useful,” Delegado muttered. He waved his sword a bit, but Vestiol’s arm did not waver in its aim. “You know Brogan hired Kurse.”
“Yes, and due to the information that I fed Marlal through second and third parties, Marlal went to the Gatekeepers about your friend Thomas, and Kurse went looking for you,” Vestiol said. “It’s amazing what people will do when they are told the truth – select truths of course.” He smiled. “I take it that you killed Kurse? Wonderful. I’ve stymied Brogan already.”
“Aside from making me want to kill you, why are you bragging about your puppetmaster status?” Delegado snarled.
“Put the blade away,” Vestiol said, drawing careful aim.
“I don’t think so,” Delegado said. “As long as it's out you don’t dare take the shot, because if you miss, I come for you before you can reload.”
“Put it away or I will fire, Delegado, and what’s more I will hit,” Vestiol said. He flipped an empty potion flask towards Delegado’s feet. It rolled to a stop with its label facing up, and Delegado saw a target mark on it. “Truestrike potion,” the elf explained. “Now put the blade away. I don’t want to kill you.”
Delegado fumed, but put his blade back in his sheath. “You didn’t answer my earlier question,” Delegado said carefully. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because every grand villain reveals his plan when he thinks the hero is beaten,” Vestiol said with heavy sarcasm. He flicked his wrist and the hand crossbow disappeared up a wide sleeve. “Why do you think, Delegado? I’m a businessman. I buy and sell information, and I buy and sell the selling and buying of information.”
“That doesn’t tell me why you’re telling me all of this,” the half-orc said, taking a single step forward.
“Don’t,” the elf said, twisting his wrist to make the hand crossbow fall into his hand again. “Don’t try anything funny.”
Delegado took two steps back. “My patience isn’t great, Vestiol,” Delegado said.
“I know,” the elf said. “I was trying to explain myself before you so rudely took a step forward. Now, I am a businessman. I honestly do not care if the war ends or if it doesn’t or who loses. Neither should you. We are members of the great Houses, and what’s more we both bear a dragonmark.”
“You don’t flaunt yours,” Delegado noted.
The elf grinned. “Like you mine is on a – er, private area of my body,” he explained. “In any event, my lease to Cyre still stands. As such I can give you the information you need to sneak into Brogan’s camp, via two potions, one there and one back, that will hide you with invisibility. You get to get revenge on Brogan, I get another commission from Cyre. I’ll also give you a cut, and your House a cut. They’ll need it after tonight.”
“Why shouldn’t I avenge my House over this debacle?” Delegado seethed.
“For what?” Vestiol asked. “Think like a businessman, fellow! You discovered Blessing has double loyalties, and a cultist has been exposed and will be removed. You’re ahead by all counts. I think debacle is quite the wrong word.”
“Brode is dead,” Delegado snarled.
“For which at least one of the druids involved should face charges of conspiracy to commit murder,” Vestiol retorted. “You know their order frowns on that. Look, Delegado, I know you. I’m telling you all of this because I am being straight with you. I know that you hate forked tongues and doublespeak, so I am flat out explaining to you how I manipulated events.”
“You’re being straight with me in order to manipulate me,” Delegado said dryly.
“Exactly!” Vestiol laughed. “You do get it! Why else would I explain everything I’ve done? I know I can’t dangle and bait you, so I’m telling you exactly what I’m doing. You want Brogan dead. I want Brogan stopped. You need money. I’ll supply it. You need to pull it off without being caught. I can take care of that as well.”
“And I’ll just fall right in line,” the half-orc said, folding his arms. Seeing that, Vestiol relaxed his own grip, but only slightly.
“Well, keep in mind that Marlal has already told Borgan what happened,” Vestiol said. “You roughed that fellow up, made him bleed. That’s one proud half-elf. He’s not bright enough to realize when he’s being spoon-fed, but he is proud. And he’s Borgan’s nephew. And there are a lot of soldiers under his command. And I could make sure the right tidbits of information make their way to the Wardens of the Wood and get Marlal exiled permanently from the Reaches. Brogan dead, Marlal exiled, Deneith routed, it all lines up.”
“You’ve thought of everything,” Delegado said.
“Of course!” Vestiol said. “Now, are you in…” He steadied his crossbow hand. “Or are you out?” The second option was said in a colder tone of voice.
“I’m up, then down,” Delegado said.
Vestiol look puzzled, until Feather dove right down onto his arm, gouging it with his claws, and ripping the hand crossbow away. The hawk’s flight was so fast that Vestiol had no chance to fire the poisoned weapon.
Delegado charged, not bothering to draw his weapon, and punched Vestiol hard in the jaw. The elf wavered, falling backwards, and tried to hit back. He apparently had not been bluffing about the truestrike potion, because he was able to slap Delegado before the half-orc’s next two blows put him out, blood leaking from his broken nose.
Feather swooped back in and dropped the crossbow, then settled comfortably on the half-orc’s shoulder.
“Took you long enough,” Delegado told him. The half-orc picked the hand crossbow up and saw a dark paste on the bolt head. “Hm,” he said, thinking about just how truthful Phiarlan was. “We have to go see someone, Feather.”
“Iron Orphan thinks you lied to me,” he said. “I told him House members never lie to each other. I’m wondering if I was wrong.”
Greoche tossed the dagger back into the open box and walked past Delegado, heading for the kitchen. He grabbed her arm, and she glared at him.
“I need a drink,” she said. “Then we can talk.”
Delegado considered this for a minute, staring into her eyes.
“No,” he said, dragging her forward and tossing her into the chair that Quinn had just vacated. “No poison for you. You’re not backing out of this so easily.”
“I would never!” she protested, but her face was ashamed, and he knew that she wanted the quick way out.
“Tell me the truth,” he said angrily.
She sighed, deflating. “Vestiol d’Phiarlan came to see me,” she said. “Brogan is being backed by Brelish money. Breland is paying Deneith to hire mercenaries of all kinds and make trouble on the Droaam-Eldeen border. At the same time Breland is observing a cease-fire with the Reaches and negotiating terms of a possible alliance, and Breland has also secretly been contacting Thrane for the same. With Deneith harassing Droaam from the north, Droaam has to divert some forces from their eastern front with Breland. With the Eldeen Reaches and Thrane coordinating their attacks on Aundair, Aundair will have to divert some forces from their front with Breland.”
“And with four fronts quiet, Breland builds up for a charge into Cyre,” Delegado said.
“Or perhaps Darguun,” Greoche said tiredly. “But the guess is that Beland wants to suddenly blitz into Cyre and wipe out as many warforged production facilities as they can in order to stem the tide. Those golem friends of yours are proving dangerous.”
“I’m only friends with one of them,” Delegado said, putting his thumbs in his belt. It was a deceptive pose, he could draw a weapon with ease if he needed to, but he suspected that Greoche was not going to give him any more trouble. “So the reports about my brother’s prospecting mission were forged?”
“No, they were real,” she said. “Additional security for the site has already been dispatched. All the documents I showed you were real, I was just selective about which ones to show.”
“So Brogan came here not looking for trouble, and you decided to stir it up anyway,” Delegado said. She nodded. “Why?”
She looked up at him with eyes that seemed to want to cry and laugh at the same time. “Delegado, it’s what the Masters of Newflesh would want,” she told him in the same tone that one would use with a small, particularly stupid child. “They would not want Breland to gain an edge, for Breland wants the war to end, and chaos above gives the Blessed Dragon Below its ability to act freely.”
Delegado felt like puking. “You are a cultist then,” he said with disgust.
“I would say that I’m devout,” she said. “You’re reacting to Gatekeeper prejudice.” She pointed to the blood-soaked upthrust floorboards. “Gatekeepers made that wood twist and dance, trapping Brode, helping their hirelings kill him.”
Delegado clenched his fists, then unclenched them. He had to keep control of his anger. “You spent House money on trying to prevent Brelish-enforced world peace, is that it?”
“I spent no money,” she laughed.
“You said you got this from Phiarlan.”
“I got it for free.”
A warning chime rang in Delegado’s mind. “Phiarlan never gives out anything for free,” he pointed out. “Any more than we do.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. “He said that it was professional courtesy between Houses, and he wanted me to find a misplaced letter for him.” She sounded as if she very much wanted to believe it.
“You lied to me,” Delegado found himself yelling. “You told me Brogan wanted to rob dragonshards, stirring up a f’testing nest of hornets, all because you believed something that an officer of Phiarlan told you for free? Are you an idiot, woman?”
She began to cry. “I – I had to believe him! I need to Masters of Newflesh to fix me!”
“You got Brode killed!” he yelled, jabbing a finger in her face. “Marlal d’Deneith is the one who sent the Gatekeepers here!”
“No!” she said, her face growing white. “No!”
“Sh!” he said, putting his finger to his lips. He had thought that he heard something.
“I didn’t mean to!” she was sobbing. “I didn’t mean to!”
“Shut up!” he snapped. Then he heard the lock in the front door click, and suddenly everything went pitch black.
Delegado fought down panic. Unlike a human, half-orcs and orcs were not used to real darkness, as they could see in normal dark. Therefore magical darkness unnerved them far more than it did others, and he stumbled forwards, knowing that whoever had cast the magical darkness would be on the other side of the door. He heard Greoche sob and stumble in the opposite direction, towards the kitchen again.
The door was swinging in, but he shoved it back the other way and had the satisfaction of hearing it hit someone who responded with a muffled elvish curse. Delegado yanked the door open and charged out of the shadow bubble, barreling into an elf wearing fancy clothing marked with the Phiarlan insignia.
“Vestiol, I presume,” Delegado said, swinging a fist at the elf.
“Indeed,” Vestiol said, ducking the blow and rolling away from the orc. Springing to his feet several fee away he produced a small hand crossbow from the hidden folds of his clothing. “Careful now, Delegado, the poison on the end of this is particularly dangerous to those of orcish blood.”
Delegado snarled, pulling out his longsword and moving sideways to give Vestiol a harder target. All those Wardens that had been outside not ten minutes ago had gone, heading to an indoor fire to beat away the mid-autumn chill, curse the luck. Delegado wasn’t sure if the elf was telling the truth about the poison or not, but he wasn’t taking chances. “So what’s the real story here, Vestiol?” the half-orc asked, keeping an eye on the elf’s trigger finger.
“What I told her was the unvarnished truth,” Vestiol said. “Except for the bit about me missing a letter. I made that up. But yes, Breland is setting up a situation that allows them to invade Cyre.”
“And you didn’t charge her for that information because you’re on the Cyran payroll,” Delegado guessed, still circling. He wondered if Greoche was busy killing herself or if she would call the Wardens again.
“Not their payroll, just their lease,” Vestiol grinned. “You see, I know of Greoche’s religious leanings. I know lots of facts that my dear Thuranni cousin thinks are irrelevant. I simply told her in a casual fashion and let her do the rest. You dropping in on us was simply a wonderful bonus that accelerated things.”
“Nice to know I’m useful,” Delegado muttered. He waved his sword a bit, but Vestiol’s arm did not waver in its aim. “You know Brogan hired Kurse.”
“Yes, and due to the information that I fed Marlal through second and third parties, Marlal went to the Gatekeepers about your friend Thomas, and Kurse went looking for you,” Vestiol said. “It’s amazing what people will do when they are told the truth – select truths of course.” He smiled. “I take it that you killed Kurse? Wonderful. I’ve stymied Brogan already.”
“Aside from making me want to kill you, why are you bragging about your puppetmaster status?” Delegado snarled.
“Put the blade away,” Vestiol said, drawing careful aim.
“I don’t think so,” Delegado said. “As long as it's out you don’t dare take the shot, because if you miss, I come for you before you can reload.”
“Put it away or I will fire, Delegado, and what’s more I will hit,” Vestiol said. He flipped an empty potion flask towards Delegado’s feet. It rolled to a stop with its label facing up, and Delegado saw a target mark on it. “Truestrike potion,” the elf explained. “Now put the blade away. I don’t want to kill you.”
Delegado fumed, but put his blade back in his sheath. “You didn’t answer my earlier question,” Delegado said carefully. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because every grand villain reveals his plan when he thinks the hero is beaten,” Vestiol said with heavy sarcasm. He flicked his wrist and the hand crossbow disappeared up a wide sleeve. “Why do you think, Delegado? I’m a businessman. I buy and sell information, and I buy and sell the selling and buying of information.”
“That doesn’t tell me why you’re telling me all of this,” the half-orc said, taking a single step forward.
“Don’t,” the elf said, twisting his wrist to make the hand crossbow fall into his hand again. “Don’t try anything funny.”
Delegado took two steps back. “My patience isn’t great, Vestiol,” Delegado said.
“I know,” the elf said. “I was trying to explain myself before you so rudely took a step forward. Now, I am a businessman. I honestly do not care if the war ends or if it doesn’t or who loses. Neither should you. We are members of the great Houses, and what’s more we both bear a dragonmark.”
“You don’t flaunt yours,” Delegado noted.
The elf grinned. “Like you mine is on a – er, private area of my body,” he explained. “In any event, my lease to Cyre still stands. As such I can give you the information you need to sneak into Brogan’s camp, via two potions, one there and one back, that will hide you with invisibility. You get to get revenge on Brogan, I get another commission from Cyre. I’ll also give you a cut, and your House a cut. They’ll need it after tonight.”
“Why shouldn’t I avenge my House over this debacle?” Delegado seethed.
“For what?” Vestiol asked. “Think like a businessman, fellow! You discovered Blessing has double loyalties, and a cultist has been exposed and will be removed. You’re ahead by all counts. I think debacle is quite the wrong word.”
“Brode is dead,” Delegado snarled.
“For which at least one of the druids involved should face charges of conspiracy to commit murder,” Vestiol retorted. “You know their order frowns on that. Look, Delegado, I know you. I’m telling you all of this because I am being straight with you. I know that you hate forked tongues and doublespeak, so I am flat out explaining to you how I manipulated events.”
“You’re being straight with me in order to manipulate me,” Delegado said dryly.
“Exactly!” Vestiol laughed. “You do get it! Why else would I explain everything I’ve done? I know I can’t dangle and bait you, so I’m telling you exactly what I’m doing. You want Brogan dead. I want Brogan stopped. You need money. I’ll supply it. You need to pull it off without being caught. I can take care of that as well.”
“And I’ll just fall right in line,” the half-orc said, folding his arms. Seeing that, Vestiol relaxed his own grip, but only slightly.
“Well, keep in mind that Marlal has already told Borgan what happened,” Vestiol said. “You roughed that fellow up, made him bleed. That’s one proud half-elf. He’s not bright enough to realize when he’s being spoon-fed, but he is proud. And he’s Borgan’s nephew. And there are a lot of soldiers under his command. And I could make sure the right tidbits of information make their way to the Wardens of the Wood and get Marlal exiled permanently from the Reaches. Brogan dead, Marlal exiled, Deneith routed, it all lines up.”
“You’ve thought of everything,” Delegado said.
“Of course!” Vestiol said. “Now, are you in…” He steadied his crossbow hand. “Or are you out?” The second option was said in a colder tone of voice.
“I’m up, then down,” Delegado said.
Vestiol look puzzled, until Feather dove right down onto his arm, gouging it with his claws, and ripping the hand crossbow away. The hawk’s flight was so fast that Vestiol had no chance to fire the poisoned weapon.
Delegado charged, not bothering to draw his weapon, and punched Vestiol hard in the jaw. The elf wavered, falling backwards, and tried to hit back. He apparently had not been bluffing about the truestrike potion, because he was able to slap Delegado before the half-orc’s next two blows put him out, blood leaking from his broken nose.
Feather swooped back in and dropped the crossbow, then settled comfortably on the half-orc’s shoulder.
“Took you long enough,” Delegado told him. The half-orc picked the hand crossbow up and saw a dark paste on the bolt head. “Hm,” he said, thinking about just how truthful Phiarlan was. “We have to go see someone, Feather.”
Chapter 16 - Part 5
Quinn was holding a damp cloth against his bruises. The crushed herbs on the inside of the cloth were helping some, but not a lot. He was done telling the little that he knew to some three or four different Wardens, and now he was just sitting in a chair, a chair that had a long scratch in its back, wondering how this had happened. Blessing had been his friend, a good friend. They had gone on so many missions together, laughed together, drank together, and everything else.
He felt sick. He would have preferred a knife in the gut to this.
Greoche slammed the door, finally getting the last Warden out. They had taken Brode’s body for evidence purposes, along with the other dead men, and so Greoche and Quinn were alone with the blood. The Wardens had even taken the housemaid back to her family. The girl – a young thing barely fifteen years old - had been terrified, telling anyone who would listen how Blessing had tied her up and gagged her. The Wardens looked dark about that, and someone mentioned getting a rope to hang the elf. They all seemed to think he had done far more than the housemaid could make herself admit to.
I had no choice, Blessing had said before being taken away. I have seen what the abominations have done. I joined Tharashk because the Gatekeepers helped me.
You’re dead to me, was all Quinn had told the elf.
Footsteps came from the back of the building.
“I locked that door!” Greoche said nervously. She rooted through a box and produced a dagger. “Well?” she asked Quinn. “Get up, it could be someone else!”
Quinn gave her a disgusted look. She was his boss, and he had never even thought of disobeying her, but his world was upside down. “Don’t you think the Wardens would have found someone if they were there?” he asked her angrily. “It’s someone who just came now.” He supposed he should ready a weapon, be he didn’t care to. He would end up defending Greoche, for one thing.
“That back door is locked,” she whispered, eyeing the kitchen door. Quinn could tell that she was wondering if she had time to go get her crossbow. He could also tell that the woman was not used to the level of strain that she was dealing with tonight.
“I have a key, though,” Delegado said, coming into the room. The half-orc’s face was settled into a scowl, and he was staring at Greoche in a most unfriendly fashion. “What I don’t have are answers.”
“The elf worked against us,” Quinn said, his eyes becoming wet. “He – he let them in. Your friend Thomas and your warforged are okay, though, just in protective custody.”
“The warforged is his own master,” Delegado said, his eyes not leaving Greoche’s face. “But that’s not what I’m asking, I already know what happened to them. I asking Greoche something, and I’m hoping she’ll be truthful.”
“How dare you?” Greoche yelled, baring her teeth as she shook her dagger. “I am House mistress here!”
“Of who?” Quinn asked her, his eyes burning. “Of Blessing? He left. Our housemaid? She’s about to quit. Delegado? I doubt you can order him about.”
“Of you,” she whispered desperately.
“No, not of me,” Quinn said, standing up. “I’m putting in my walking papers and requesting a transfer. I’m also packing up and moving out tonight, whether you sign those papers or not. I have enough coin to spend a night at the inn, and then I’ll start walking.”
“To where?” she asked him with contempt.
“I grew up in Delethorn,” he replied. “So that’s a start I guess. But if between here and there Tharashk wants to send me anywhere else, that’s fine too.” He stared at Greoche one more time. “So long as you’re not there.” He walked away from here. “Delegado,” he said with a nod.
“Olladra roll your dice,” Delegado told him. Quinn was surprised when the half-orc stuck out a hand. He had been half-expecting the bounty hunter to admonish him for insubordination.
“You as well,” Quinn said, shaking Delegado’s hand.
Then Quinn walked back to his room and packed everything he owned, save for a few things that Blessing had given him as gifts. He let himself out the back and did not return.
He felt sick. He would have preferred a knife in the gut to this.
Greoche slammed the door, finally getting the last Warden out. They had taken Brode’s body for evidence purposes, along with the other dead men, and so Greoche and Quinn were alone with the blood. The Wardens had even taken the housemaid back to her family. The girl – a young thing barely fifteen years old - had been terrified, telling anyone who would listen how Blessing had tied her up and gagged her. The Wardens looked dark about that, and someone mentioned getting a rope to hang the elf. They all seemed to think he had done far more than the housemaid could make herself admit to.
I had no choice, Blessing had said before being taken away. I have seen what the abominations have done. I joined Tharashk because the Gatekeepers helped me.
You’re dead to me, was all Quinn had told the elf.
Footsteps came from the back of the building.
“I locked that door!” Greoche said nervously. She rooted through a box and produced a dagger. “Well?” she asked Quinn. “Get up, it could be someone else!”
Quinn gave her a disgusted look. She was his boss, and he had never even thought of disobeying her, but his world was upside down. “Don’t you think the Wardens would have found someone if they were there?” he asked her angrily. “It’s someone who just came now.” He supposed he should ready a weapon, be he didn’t care to. He would end up defending Greoche, for one thing.
“That back door is locked,” she whispered, eyeing the kitchen door. Quinn could tell that she was wondering if she had time to go get her crossbow. He could also tell that the woman was not used to the level of strain that she was dealing with tonight.
“I have a key, though,” Delegado said, coming into the room. The half-orc’s face was settled into a scowl, and he was staring at Greoche in a most unfriendly fashion. “What I don’t have are answers.”
“The elf worked against us,” Quinn said, his eyes becoming wet. “He – he let them in. Your friend Thomas and your warforged are okay, though, just in protective custody.”
“The warforged is his own master,” Delegado said, his eyes not leaving Greoche’s face. “But that’s not what I’m asking, I already know what happened to them. I asking Greoche something, and I’m hoping she’ll be truthful.”
“How dare you?” Greoche yelled, baring her teeth as she shook her dagger. “I am House mistress here!”
“Of who?” Quinn asked her, his eyes burning. “Of Blessing? He left. Our housemaid? She’s about to quit. Delegado? I doubt you can order him about.”
“Of you,” she whispered desperately.
“No, not of me,” Quinn said, standing up. “I’m putting in my walking papers and requesting a transfer. I’m also packing up and moving out tonight, whether you sign those papers or not. I have enough coin to spend a night at the inn, and then I’ll start walking.”
“To where?” she asked him with contempt.
“I grew up in Delethorn,” he replied. “So that’s a start I guess. But if between here and there Tharashk wants to send me anywhere else, that’s fine too.” He stared at Greoche one more time. “So long as you’re not there.” He walked away from here. “Delegado,” he said with a nod.
“Olladra roll your dice,” Delegado told him. Quinn was surprised when the half-orc stuck out a hand. He had been half-expecting the bounty hunter to admonish him for insubordination.
“You as well,” Quinn said, shaking Delegado’s hand.
Then Quinn walked back to his room and packed everything he owned, save for a few things that Blessing had given him as gifts. He let himself out the back and did not return.
Chapter 16 - Part 4
Marlal casually walked to the corner and surveyed the scene. There were plenty of lights for the humans, and his elven heritage let him pick out details with even the smallest amount of light. The half-elf was not in his armor, preferring a cloak made out of darkweave.
The largest group had already left, and from the comments of the Wardens still at the scene, it seemed that Marlal had missed the warforged and the man called Thomas – who was some sort of daelkyr-bred thing after all – being taken away. He found that regrettable, but he had been forced to move slowly when coming to the Tharashk cottage to see if the Gatekeepers had taken the bait.
Apparently they had. Greoche was refusing to come out of the cottage, something about a House sanctuary that they could not take her from – Marlal was not up on the finer points of Reaches law, but the Wardens seemed to be buying it – and dead bodies were being brought out on stretchers. An elf and a shifter were being led away in manacles, and four humans, three of them clearly druids, were having an angry exchange with the Warden known as Ryan.
A fiercely strong hand grabbed Marlal by the hood of his cloak, and slammed his head into a wall. Reeling, the half-elf from Deneith turned, trying to draw a dagger. He halted his motion when the point of an adamantine longsword rested against the hollow of his throat.
“You know,” the half-orc said with the deliberate tone of voice used by a man who is wondering if he should bother controlling his temper. “Here I am wondering what happened at my House’s cottage, and here I spot you hiding and watching. So now here I am thinking that you’re going to tell me what the f’test happened here, or I’m going to kill you.” The sword point poked at Marlal’s throat, forcing him to put his back against the wall of the building that he had been lurking by.
“What happened is that somehow the Gatekeepers found out what you were hiding here,” Marlal said. “And they got in. And there was a standoff.”
“More detail,” Delegado said, leaning in. The swordpoint broke Marlal’s skin, and blood trickled down his breastbone.
“I just got here a few minutes ago,” Marlal said quickly. “Thomas and the warforged have been taken away, apparently willingly. The black bear that was the companion of the oldest druid is dead. Brode is dead, as are three swordsmen sworn to the Gatekeepers. The elf called Blessing has been taken away with the shifter known as Boarsworn.”
“Why shouldn’t I kill you?” Delegado asked.
“Because I did nothing except share a theory with some Gatekeepers,” Marlal said. “A theory that apparently was true.”
“How good for you,” sneered Delegado. “You have clean hands.”
“Cleaner than yours,” Marlal said. “Are you going to kill me now?”
Delegado thought, but then put his sword away. “Go back to Brogan, half-elf,” Delegado said. “Tell him that this is a strike at my House, and at my friends, and he will regret this.”
Marlal touched his throat, then looked at his blood. “Certainly,” he said, fishing a clean cloth out and pressing it against the shallow cut. “But I do not see how this is a strike against your friends.”
“The warforged and the daelkyr-bred, you idiot,” Delegado snapped. Marlal smelled uncertainty.
“Oh, they’re your friends, are they?” the half-elf asked. “I suppose that’s why you were with them, fighting those that had invaded your House’s cottage.”
Delegado stared hate, and Marlal decided not to press his luck. The half-elf quickly walked back to the training grounds that Deneith had rented.
The largest group had already left, and from the comments of the Wardens still at the scene, it seemed that Marlal had missed the warforged and the man called Thomas – who was some sort of daelkyr-bred thing after all – being taken away. He found that regrettable, but he had been forced to move slowly when coming to the Tharashk cottage to see if the Gatekeepers had taken the bait.
Apparently they had. Greoche was refusing to come out of the cottage, something about a House sanctuary that they could not take her from – Marlal was not up on the finer points of Reaches law, but the Wardens seemed to be buying it – and dead bodies were being brought out on stretchers. An elf and a shifter were being led away in manacles, and four humans, three of them clearly druids, were having an angry exchange with the Warden known as Ryan.
A fiercely strong hand grabbed Marlal by the hood of his cloak, and slammed his head into a wall. Reeling, the half-elf from Deneith turned, trying to draw a dagger. He halted his motion when the point of an adamantine longsword rested against the hollow of his throat.
“You know,” the half-orc said with the deliberate tone of voice used by a man who is wondering if he should bother controlling his temper. “Here I am wondering what happened at my House’s cottage, and here I spot you hiding and watching. So now here I am thinking that you’re going to tell me what the f’test happened here, or I’m going to kill you.” The sword point poked at Marlal’s throat, forcing him to put his back against the wall of the building that he had been lurking by.
“What happened is that somehow the Gatekeepers found out what you were hiding here,” Marlal said. “And they got in. And there was a standoff.”
“More detail,” Delegado said, leaning in. The swordpoint broke Marlal’s skin, and blood trickled down his breastbone.
“I just got here a few minutes ago,” Marlal said quickly. “Thomas and the warforged have been taken away, apparently willingly. The black bear that was the companion of the oldest druid is dead. Brode is dead, as are three swordsmen sworn to the Gatekeepers. The elf called Blessing has been taken away with the shifter known as Boarsworn.”
“Why shouldn’t I kill you?” Delegado asked.
“Because I did nothing except share a theory with some Gatekeepers,” Marlal said. “A theory that apparently was true.”
“How good for you,” sneered Delegado. “You have clean hands.”
“Cleaner than yours,” Marlal said. “Are you going to kill me now?”
Delegado thought, but then put his sword away. “Go back to Brogan, half-elf,” Delegado said. “Tell him that this is a strike at my House, and at my friends, and he will regret this.”
Marlal touched his throat, then looked at his blood. “Certainly,” he said, fishing a clean cloth out and pressing it against the shallow cut. “But I do not see how this is a strike against your friends.”
“The warforged and the daelkyr-bred, you idiot,” Delegado snapped. Marlal smelled uncertainty.
“Oh, they’re your friends, are they?” the half-elf asked. “I suppose that’s why you were with them, fighting those that had invaded your House’s cottage.”
Delegado stared hate, and Marlal decided not to press his luck. The half-elf quickly walked back to the training grounds that Deneith had rented.
Chapter 16 - Part 3
Orphan trotted into town, wondering at the appearance of street fog in the area near the Tharashk cottage. He slowed down as he saw that a horse and rider stood in front of the building. Inside he heard sounds, but he was too far away to hear clearly what they were.
The warforged monk meant to go around the back and sneak into the cottage, but the Tharashk elf was there, and had spotted him. Orphan had not been trying to hide, so that was no major feat, but something made him nervous. There was a shifter standing next to the elf, and the shifter’s stance was not friendly.
“Ahoy, Orphan!” the elf called. Orphan carefully walked up, noting that the man on the horse was shifting his longspear.
“Hello,” he said. “What is that I hear in the cottage?”
“Just Brode and Thomas sparring,” the elf said casually.
Too casually. Orphan glanced about and saw that no one else was out on the street. It was night, and everyone was inside. In fact, the street was suspiciously empty, and several windows that he would have expected to be open, were shuttered. The street fog that had appeared so suddenly seemed to be concentrated on trails that lead to places where the Wardens of the Wood congregated.
“Then I can go in and join them,” Orphan said, testing him.
The man on the horse shifted, and Orphan saw the green dragon head that marked the Gatekeepers. He also saw the human in leather armor sticking to the shadows.
“You can’t come in now,” the elf said vaguely. “House business, sorry.”
“Right,” Orphan said. He made as if to turn, then he rushed the horse and grabbed the longspear. He expertly wrenched it from the startled druid’s hands, and then spun and threw it at the shifter. It was an awkward thing to throw, and it only scratched the surface of the shifter’s chain shirt, but violence erupted immediately.
The horse raised its hooves and struck at Orphan, clipping him slightly as he twisted away. The stout druid easily kept his place in the saddle even as his horse reared, and began to cast a spell. Then the human in leather armor came somersaulting out from the shadows and threw a kick at the warforged. Orphan dodged it easily. Then the elf and the shifter pulled out their rapier and battleaxe respectively, and waded in as well. The shifter’s face was morphing, taking on the animalistic aspects of his ancestors.
Iron Orphan spun around, launching a flurry of kicks and punches. The human in leather armor was thrown backwards by a hand chop to the throat, and hit his head hard on the ground. He would not be up for hours. The shifter, whom Orphan had incorrectly identified as the most dangerous combatant, took a punch in the nose that barely slowed him down, while the elf expertly dodged a kick to the ankles.
Behind him the horse struck again, this time missing, but something else happened. The druid was still chanting, and something from the druid’s words was touching Orphan internally. He felt cold, very cold, like all the metal parts of him were turning to ice. The pain was building, and he felt the stress reach his joints.
Dodging both rapier and battleaxe, Orphan flipped backwards, tumbling under the rearing horse to come up behind the druid. He snagged the man around the throat and jerked him out of the saddle. The startled druid was a good rider, and the saddle was well constructed, but months of training with the Balanced Palm had only amplified the skills that Orphan had been forged with. The pressure on his throat made the druid lose the spell, and he thrashed about on the ground trying to break Orphan’s grip. Orphan felt the cold welling within vanish utterly, and knew that he had made the right call.
The horse pranced, unwilling to try and strike, afraid of hitting his master. Similarly the elf and the shifter paced around them, but were wary of trying to attack.
“Tell them all to back up twenty paces or I snap your neck!” Orphan yelled.
“Do as he says!” the druid gasped, no doubt urging on by the lack of air and the stretching of his neck ligaments.
The horse snorted in anger, but did as his master bade him. The elf and the shifter looked at one another, but then stepped backwards.
“Good,” Orphan said. He let the druid’s neck go, but then walloped the man on the side of the head with a stone and metal fist. The druid went limp, although like his hireling he would survive. Orphan was not about to kill anyone of Pienna’s order so long as he was merely able to knock them out. The warforged rolled to his feet and darted for the front door of the cottage. The horse could not fit in, and neither the elf nor the shifter was fleet enough of foot to follow.
He locked it behind him as he entered, wondering if the elf had a key, and came to a stop in the main room.
Ahead of him was Thomas, rage contorting his face, standing over Greoche. To the left of Orphan was the man Quinn, unconscious, with deep bruises around his head. Ahead and to the left Brode stood dead, supported only by wood planks that had somehow wrapped themselves up to his knees. Three dead men lay around him in a sickening and gory pastiche of blood. Behind Thomas lay a black bear, gutted and dead. To the right of Thomas was a man, a druid by the look of him, clutching his stomach and trying to hold his intestines in.
“Why did you bring them here?” Thomas was roaring, his own life leaking from a dozen lacerations. “To test me?”
“No!” Greoche was screaming. “No!”
Orphan took note of all of this in mere moments, and even as he heard someone outside attack the door, he saw the mortally wounded druid beg for assistance.
“Orphan!” Thomas called, his axe wavering. “Help me kill her! She has – she has betrayed – help me…” The half-daelkyr finally collapsed, the rage-fueled adrenaline subsiding. He keeled over not far from the dying druid, his greataxe tumbling from his hands.
On his neck the stormstalk twisted and writhed, poking at him, trying to get him up.
“Get healing potions!” Orphan demanded of Greoche.
“No, he’ll kill me!” Greoche yelled. “He hates his own creators, he doesn’t see the glory!”
Orphan jumped towards her, hauling her up to her feet. “I’m not letting him die, and we’re not letting the druid die either!” the warforged insisted. “You must have healing potions, where are they?”
Greoche spit in his face and tried to shove away from him. He felt her saliva n mucus travel down his faceplate from his eye and fall onto the floor. “Like I’d ever tell you!” she snarled. “You spoiled everything! If not for you none of this would have happened!”
The door burst inward, shattered by a battleaxe. The shifter lunged forward, and the elf was right behind him.
“Do either of you have healing potions?” Orphan asked, pointing to Thomas and the dying druid.
“You still stand by the abomination?” the elf asked with a tired sound to his voice. He held his rapier securely in his right hand, and his left hand was fishing for something in his belt.
“My brethren,” the shifter gasped, seeing the dead humans around the standing corpse of Greoche’s nephew.
“This is House Tharashk!” Greoche was screeching. “Get out! Get out! All of you, get out, get out, get out!”
The elf frowned at her, and threw some dust from a packet. It enveloped the woman, and she began to have coughing fits. As he did this, the shifter with the battleaxe charged at Orphan, and the elf then moved towards Thomas with his rapier ready for a coup de grace.
Orphan dodged the battleaxe easily, and jumped for the elf. He plucked the rapier from the traitor’s grasp easily, and followed up with a solid punch to the jaw. The elf reeled backwards, his eyes glassy.
A druid with a snake around his neck had stepped into the doorway in the meantime. He swore an oath and ran for the eldest druid, channeling some small spell energy into him. The man’s guts settled, and the cut in his stomach closed partially, but his eyes still closed all the way and he slumped over. The snake slid off of the newcomer’s neck and circled carefully around Orphan and the shifter, heading for the coughing Greoche.
There was a dreadful slurping sound, and the stormstalk detached itself from Thomas’ neck, leaving a puddle of some abnormal fluid. The symbiont sat up and fired a bolt at the snake, catching it along the length of its body. The snake hissed and doubled back towards the symbiont. Outside the cottage, his horse neighed and whinnied in impotent anger.
“You are first,” the shifter growled, catching Orphan across the back with the battleaxe. It was not the most serious blow that it could have been, but it was bad enough. Orphan twitched from the pain. “Then the abomination and its pet. We’ll see if –” A loud bang followed a gurgling sound as Greoche, who had finally managed to clear her lungs, smashed a chair to kindling over the shifter’s unprotected skull. The shifter did not fall just yet, and he turned to swing at Greoche. He would have killed her if the stormstalk had not turned itself, firing directly into the shifter’s back. Battered and bruised, the electrical bolt sent the shifter into unconsciousness.
The druid cast a spell, and a ripple went through the air. The stormstalk shivered, and appeared weakened. The snake darted forward, fangs glistening.
Hoping he was doing the right thing, Orphan kicked the snake hard through the air where it slapped against a wall. The warforged had a strong feeling that Thomas would eventually die without a symbiont, wounds or no wounds, and he could not let the thing come to harm.
“You chose your side!” the druid howled, raising a sickle. “Prepare for the righteous vengeance of nature as I avenge my snake!”
“He’s not dead,” Orphan said, easily dodging the druid’s attempt to hook his legs and trip him. The warforged followed that up with a kick to the bridge of the druid’s nose. “Just bruised. A woman named Pienna taught me that it is not necessary to slay every opponent.”
The snake pulled itself away from the wall, and slithered towards Orphan, albeit weakly. The stormstalk tried to zap it, but the druid’s spell still had the symbiont confused, and the bolt missed.
Greoche did not. The woman threw a tanglefoot bag, nailing the snake with a puddle of glue. The serpent hissed helplessly as it was stuck fast to the floor. “You’re all dead!” she screeched. “All of you!”
Orphan grabbed the sickle from the druid and hit him between the eyes with its pommel. Blood flowed into the druid’s eyes, and he staggered backwards, screaming deprecations about vengeance. The warforged then grabbed the stormstalk, and held its eye pointing at the floor. “Go get a healing potion for Thomas while there is still time!” he demanded of Greoche.
“Don’t you presume to order me about!” she snarled.
Orphan twisted the stormstalk brutally and it squealed. “If Tomas dies I have no reason to keep this thing alive,” he told her bluntly.
Greoche scrambled into the kitchen, muttering curses under her breath. Behind Orphan the druid stood up and began to cast a spell. Without looking backwards the warforged kicked the man in his stomach, and the wheezing druid fell over on top of his trapped snake.
Moments later Greoche came out of the kitchen with a flask that had a Jorasco stamp on it. Still holding the wriggling stormstalk carefully, Orphan grabbed it from her and poured it into Thomas’ open mouth.
The man awoke with a start, and his body twitched as the many lacerations and bruises healed. Still, the place in his neck where the stormstalk had been continued to leak, so Orphan threw the symbiont to him. Catching it, Thomas forced it back into place. It gave Orphan a sulking look.
“I hate you,” Greoche said. Orphan was not sure who she was talking to you. “I was always passed over for the good assignments, I never attracted the attention of the best men in my village, and I never was as good as those around me. I wanted my body to be different. Faster. Smarter. More attractive. So I wished for newflesh. My crime was to want to better myself.”
“Your nephew is dead because you wanted to better yourself,” Orphan said, pointing to the scarecrow-like form of the dead half-orc.
“You don’t understand,” she said, sinking to her knees. “You don’t understand. You can both build another body.”
“I didn’t get this way from building my body,” Orphan told her bluntly. “I got it from building my soul. It’s sad you don’t seem to care about yours.”
Thomas picked up his axe and regarded the unconscious Gatekeepers. “I would love to kill them,” he said. “But you will tell me that it is wrong because they are of no threat to me now.”
“What do you think?” Orphan asked him.
“I think we leave this place,” Thomas said. “I will go fetch our things.”
“No!” Greoche cried as Thomas walked back to his room. “No, I need you!”
“What you need is the truth,” Orphan told her. “And you need to admit it to yourself.”
“Then as soon as you leave I will kill them!” she swore.
Orphan shoved the druid off of the snake, and then pulled out his kama. The serpent flinched, but Orphan merely cut it free. It tried to bite him out of pique, but its teeth only scratched him, and its poison did nothing.
Orphan put the snake down. It eyed its unconscious master, the other Gatekeepers, and Greoche. “I advise you not to make sudden moves,” Orphan told the Tharashk woman.
“I will tell Delegado about this,” she promised. “He will hunt you down.”
“I’ve bested Delegado in combat before,” the warforged told her. Her eyes widened a bit at that. “I have no fear of him.”
Thomas stepped back into the main room with their small bags. “Your mercy will kill you one day, Orphan,” the half-daelkyr said bitterly. “Enemies brood deeply in the earth, and never forget.”
“One day you will learn not to let your enemies define you,” Orphan told him gently. He glanced down at Greoche. “And perhaps maybe one day she will not let her failures define her.”
“Go f’tesk yourself,” the woman snapped.
“Where do we go now?” Thomas asked.
Orphan tilted his head, listening. Above the whinnying of the stout druid’s horse he heard booted feet. “I suspect that we are going to be taken into protective custody by the Wardens of the Wood,” he said.
“Maybe they’ll kill me,” Thomas said. He almost sounded like he hoped they would do it.
“They know Oalian wants to speak with you,” Orphan told him.
“Does that make it better,” Thomas muttered.
The Wardens came into the open door and surveyed the scene.
“Arrest them!” Greoche screamed. “They invaded my home!”
“Arrest us,” Thomas said. “It will keep us safe from Gatekeeper attacks,”
“Arrest all of us,” Orphan said. “It will make it easier to sort things out.”
The officer leading the Wardens eyed all the unconscious and dead bodies, and told the three men with him that they would need backup.
The warforged monk meant to go around the back and sneak into the cottage, but the Tharashk elf was there, and had spotted him. Orphan had not been trying to hide, so that was no major feat, but something made him nervous. There was a shifter standing next to the elf, and the shifter’s stance was not friendly.
“Ahoy, Orphan!” the elf called. Orphan carefully walked up, noting that the man on the horse was shifting his longspear.
“Hello,” he said. “What is that I hear in the cottage?”
“Just Brode and Thomas sparring,” the elf said casually.
Too casually. Orphan glanced about and saw that no one else was out on the street. It was night, and everyone was inside. In fact, the street was suspiciously empty, and several windows that he would have expected to be open, were shuttered. The street fog that had appeared so suddenly seemed to be concentrated on trails that lead to places where the Wardens of the Wood congregated.
“Then I can go in and join them,” Orphan said, testing him.
The man on the horse shifted, and Orphan saw the green dragon head that marked the Gatekeepers. He also saw the human in leather armor sticking to the shadows.
“You can’t come in now,” the elf said vaguely. “House business, sorry.”
“Right,” Orphan said. He made as if to turn, then he rushed the horse and grabbed the longspear. He expertly wrenched it from the startled druid’s hands, and then spun and threw it at the shifter. It was an awkward thing to throw, and it only scratched the surface of the shifter’s chain shirt, but violence erupted immediately.
The horse raised its hooves and struck at Orphan, clipping him slightly as he twisted away. The stout druid easily kept his place in the saddle even as his horse reared, and began to cast a spell. Then the human in leather armor came somersaulting out from the shadows and threw a kick at the warforged. Orphan dodged it easily. Then the elf and the shifter pulled out their rapier and battleaxe respectively, and waded in as well. The shifter’s face was morphing, taking on the animalistic aspects of his ancestors.
Iron Orphan spun around, launching a flurry of kicks and punches. The human in leather armor was thrown backwards by a hand chop to the throat, and hit his head hard on the ground. He would not be up for hours. The shifter, whom Orphan had incorrectly identified as the most dangerous combatant, took a punch in the nose that barely slowed him down, while the elf expertly dodged a kick to the ankles.
Behind him the horse struck again, this time missing, but something else happened. The druid was still chanting, and something from the druid’s words was touching Orphan internally. He felt cold, very cold, like all the metal parts of him were turning to ice. The pain was building, and he felt the stress reach his joints.
Dodging both rapier and battleaxe, Orphan flipped backwards, tumbling under the rearing horse to come up behind the druid. He snagged the man around the throat and jerked him out of the saddle. The startled druid was a good rider, and the saddle was well constructed, but months of training with the Balanced Palm had only amplified the skills that Orphan had been forged with. The pressure on his throat made the druid lose the spell, and he thrashed about on the ground trying to break Orphan’s grip. Orphan felt the cold welling within vanish utterly, and knew that he had made the right call.
The horse pranced, unwilling to try and strike, afraid of hitting his master. Similarly the elf and the shifter paced around them, but were wary of trying to attack.
“Tell them all to back up twenty paces or I snap your neck!” Orphan yelled.
“Do as he says!” the druid gasped, no doubt urging on by the lack of air and the stretching of his neck ligaments.
The horse snorted in anger, but did as his master bade him. The elf and the shifter looked at one another, but then stepped backwards.
“Good,” Orphan said. He let the druid’s neck go, but then walloped the man on the side of the head with a stone and metal fist. The druid went limp, although like his hireling he would survive. Orphan was not about to kill anyone of Pienna’s order so long as he was merely able to knock them out. The warforged rolled to his feet and darted for the front door of the cottage. The horse could not fit in, and neither the elf nor the shifter was fleet enough of foot to follow.
He locked it behind him as he entered, wondering if the elf had a key, and came to a stop in the main room.
Ahead of him was Thomas, rage contorting his face, standing over Greoche. To the left of Orphan was the man Quinn, unconscious, with deep bruises around his head. Ahead and to the left Brode stood dead, supported only by wood planks that had somehow wrapped themselves up to his knees. Three dead men lay around him in a sickening and gory pastiche of blood. Behind Thomas lay a black bear, gutted and dead. To the right of Thomas was a man, a druid by the look of him, clutching his stomach and trying to hold his intestines in.
“Why did you bring them here?” Thomas was roaring, his own life leaking from a dozen lacerations. “To test me?”
“No!” Greoche was screaming. “No!”
Orphan took note of all of this in mere moments, and even as he heard someone outside attack the door, he saw the mortally wounded druid beg for assistance.
“Orphan!” Thomas called, his axe wavering. “Help me kill her! She has – she has betrayed – help me…” The half-daelkyr finally collapsed, the rage-fueled adrenaline subsiding. He keeled over not far from the dying druid, his greataxe tumbling from his hands.
On his neck the stormstalk twisted and writhed, poking at him, trying to get him up.
“Get healing potions!” Orphan demanded of Greoche.
“No, he’ll kill me!” Greoche yelled. “He hates his own creators, he doesn’t see the glory!”
Orphan jumped towards her, hauling her up to her feet. “I’m not letting him die, and we’re not letting the druid die either!” the warforged insisted. “You must have healing potions, where are they?”
Greoche spit in his face and tried to shove away from him. He felt her saliva n mucus travel down his faceplate from his eye and fall onto the floor. “Like I’d ever tell you!” she snarled. “You spoiled everything! If not for you none of this would have happened!”
The door burst inward, shattered by a battleaxe. The shifter lunged forward, and the elf was right behind him.
“Do either of you have healing potions?” Orphan asked, pointing to Thomas and the dying druid.
“You still stand by the abomination?” the elf asked with a tired sound to his voice. He held his rapier securely in his right hand, and his left hand was fishing for something in his belt.
“My brethren,” the shifter gasped, seeing the dead humans around the standing corpse of Greoche’s nephew.
“This is House Tharashk!” Greoche was screeching. “Get out! Get out! All of you, get out, get out, get out!”
The elf frowned at her, and threw some dust from a packet. It enveloped the woman, and she began to have coughing fits. As he did this, the shifter with the battleaxe charged at Orphan, and the elf then moved towards Thomas with his rapier ready for a coup de grace.
Orphan dodged the battleaxe easily, and jumped for the elf. He plucked the rapier from the traitor’s grasp easily, and followed up with a solid punch to the jaw. The elf reeled backwards, his eyes glassy.
A druid with a snake around his neck had stepped into the doorway in the meantime. He swore an oath and ran for the eldest druid, channeling some small spell energy into him. The man’s guts settled, and the cut in his stomach closed partially, but his eyes still closed all the way and he slumped over. The snake slid off of the newcomer’s neck and circled carefully around Orphan and the shifter, heading for the coughing Greoche.
There was a dreadful slurping sound, and the stormstalk detached itself from Thomas’ neck, leaving a puddle of some abnormal fluid. The symbiont sat up and fired a bolt at the snake, catching it along the length of its body. The snake hissed and doubled back towards the symbiont. Outside the cottage, his horse neighed and whinnied in impotent anger.
“You are first,” the shifter growled, catching Orphan across the back with the battleaxe. It was not the most serious blow that it could have been, but it was bad enough. Orphan twitched from the pain. “Then the abomination and its pet. We’ll see if –” A loud bang followed a gurgling sound as Greoche, who had finally managed to clear her lungs, smashed a chair to kindling over the shifter’s unprotected skull. The shifter did not fall just yet, and he turned to swing at Greoche. He would have killed her if the stormstalk had not turned itself, firing directly into the shifter’s back. Battered and bruised, the electrical bolt sent the shifter into unconsciousness.
The druid cast a spell, and a ripple went through the air. The stormstalk shivered, and appeared weakened. The snake darted forward, fangs glistening.
Hoping he was doing the right thing, Orphan kicked the snake hard through the air where it slapped against a wall. The warforged had a strong feeling that Thomas would eventually die without a symbiont, wounds or no wounds, and he could not let the thing come to harm.
“You chose your side!” the druid howled, raising a sickle. “Prepare for the righteous vengeance of nature as I avenge my snake!”
“He’s not dead,” Orphan said, easily dodging the druid’s attempt to hook his legs and trip him. The warforged followed that up with a kick to the bridge of the druid’s nose. “Just bruised. A woman named Pienna taught me that it is not necessary to slay every opponent.”
The snake pulled itself away from the wall, and slithered towards Orphan, albeit weakly. The stormstalk tried to zap it, but the druid’s spell still had the symbiont confused, and the bolt missed.
Greoche did not. The woman threw a tanglefoot bag, nailing the snake with a puddle of glue. The serpent hissed helplessly as it was stuck fast to the floor. “You’re all dead!” she screeched. “All of you!”
Orphan grabbed the sickle from the druid and hit him between the eyes with its pommel. Blood flowed into the druid’s eyes, and he staggered backwards, screaming deprecations about vengeance. The warforged then grabbed the stormstalk, and held its eye pointing at the floor. “Go get a healing potion for Thomas while there is still time!” he demanded of Greoche.
“Don’t you presume to order me about!” she snarled.
Orphan twisted the stormstalk brutally and it squealed. “If Tomas dies I have no reason to keep this thing alive,” he told her bluntly.
Greoche scrambled into the kitchen, muttering curses under her breath. Behind Orphan the druid stood up and began to cast a spell. Without looking backwards the warforged kicked the man in his stomach, and the wheezing druid fell over on top of his trapped snake.
Moments later Greoche came out of the kitchen with a flask that had a Jorasco stamp on it. Still holding the wriggling stormstalk carefully, Orphan grabbed it from her and poured it into Thomas’ open mouth.
The man awoke with a start, and his body twitched as the many lacerations and bruises healed. Still, the place in his neck where the stormstalk had been continued to leak, so Orphan threw the symbiont to him. Catching it, Thomas forced it back into place. It gave Orphan a sulking look.
“I hate you,” Greoche said. Orphan was not sure who she was talking to you. “I was always passed over for the good assignments, I never attracted the attention of the best men in my village, and I never was as good as those around me. I wanted my body to be different. Faster. Smarter. More attractive. So I wished for newflesh. My crime was to want to better myself.”
“Your nephew is dead because you wanted to better yourself,” Orphan said, pointing to the scarecrow-like form of the dead half-orc.
“You don’t understand,” she said, sinking to her knees. “You don’t understand. You can both build another body.”
“I didn’t get this way from building my body,” Orphan told her bluntly. “I got it from building my soul. It’s sad you don’t seem to care about yours.”
Thomas picked up his axe and regarded the unconscious Gatekeepers. “I would love to kill them,” he said. “But you will tell me that it is wrong because they are of no threat to me now.”
“What do you think?” Orphan asked him.
“I think we leave this place,” Thomas said. “I will go fetch our things.”
“No!” Greoche cried as Thomas walked back to his room. “No, I need you!”
“What you need is the truth,” Orphan told her. “And you need to admit it to yourself.”
“Then as soon as you leave I will kill them!” she swore.
Orphan shoved the druid off of the snake, and then pulled out his kama. The serpent flinched, but Orphan merely cut it free. It tried to bite him out of pique, but its teeth only scratched him, and its poison did nothing.
Orphan put the snake down. It eyed its unconscious master, the other Gatekeepers, and Greoche. “I advise you not to make sudden moves,” Orphan told the Tharashk woman.
“I will tell Delegado about this,” she promised. “He will hunt you down.”
“I’ve bested Delegado in combat before,” the warforged told her. Her eyes widened a bit at that. “I have no fear of him.”
Thomas stepped back into the main room with their small bags. “Your mercy will kill you one day, Orphan,” the half-daelkyr said bitterly. “Enemies brood deeply in the earth, and never forget.”
“One day you will learn not to let your enemies define you,” Orphan told him gently. He glanced down at Greoche. “And perhaps maybe one day she will not let her failures define her.”
“Go f’tesk yourself,” the woman snapped.
“Where do we go now?” Thomas asked.
Orphan tilted his head, listening. Above the whinnying of the stout druid’s horse he heard booted feet. “I suspect that we are going to be taken into protective custody by the Wardens of the Wood,” he said.
“Maybe they’ll kill me,” Thomas said. He almost sounded like he hoped they would do it.
“They know Oalian wants to speak with you,” Orphan told him.
“Does that make it better,” Thomas muttered.
The Wardens came into the open door and surveyed the scene.
“Arrest them!” Greoche screamed. “They invaded my home!”
“Arrest us,” Thomas said. “It will keep us safe from Gatekeeper attacks,”
“Arrest all of us,” Orphan said. “It will make it easier to sort things out.”
The officer leading the Wardens eyed all the unconscious and dead bodies, and told the three men with him that they would need backup.
Chapter 16 - Part 2
“You that way, I this way,” the eldest druid whispered. They had to silence Greoche, and though they had not told Blessing this, lethal force had been authorized if necessary. House Tharashk would be very angry, but the woman was hip-deep in this, and suspected of other things. The Gatekeepers would be forgiven out of necessity, even if the people involved in tonight’s operation would never be allowed to go into the Shadow Marches again.
A sound like vomiting came from behind the kitchen door. The druid and the bear backed up, and the three swordsmen stepped together towards the door.
Long seconds passed, and the sharp-eared druid heard a muffled whisper. “Syrup of ipecac,” he said. “And a caffeinated elixir.”
“Sir?” one of the swordsmen asked in a whisper.
The druid was about to explain himself, when the black bear roared and turned around. An electrical jolt hit the druid in the back, stiffening his limbs, and he spun around to see the thing that walked like a man, the thing with the symbiont in his neck, slash a greataxe at his bear. The door to the kitchen burst open, and Brode fell upon his men with vigor from the other side, hacking away at them.
The druid moved behind his bear and cast a healing spell. Much of his magic was already in the bear, enchanting its claws, strengthening it, and making it faster. He simply had to keep his spells apace with whatever the daelkyr half-blood could dish out. Its face was snarling, a hateful expression.
“Unnatural filth!” snarled the eldest druid. Behind him he heard screaming, and he looked backwards. Two of the swordsmen were dead, their bodies torn open by the raging half-orc’s falchion. The third swordsmen had hurt the half-orc, but in its frenzy it had not slowed down. Back in the kitchen, Greoche was loading a heavy crossbow and waiting for a clear shot, yelling at her nephew to clear the doorway.
The druid realized that Brode was more durable than he looked, and he regretted leaving the shifter outside. Kneeling quickly, he touched the wooden floor and chanted. His power was such that he needed no holly or mistletoe, just raw will.
The wood floor shifted and twisted, and rose up, wrapping itself around the half-orc’s ankles and feet. Brode was stuck in place, immobile, and the last swordsman ran him through. The half-orc gargled and swung, cutting a fine length along the swordsman’s torso, but another strike, this one across the front of the half-orc’s neck, ended Brode’s life.
Seconds later the swordsman stiffened as the crossbow bolt went through him. He too fell onto the floor, his blood mingling with the other three dead men.
The druid could spare no thoughts for Greoche’s marksmanship, however. Thomas was actually forcing the bear back, and the druid needed to know why. He cast a simple divination spell, and discovered myriad effects on Thomas’ person. Within seconds he noted the mostly empty scroll bag on Thomas’ back. The half-blood had his own magic.
Smiling a cold smile, the druid cast one of the few spells he had left, and a summoned snake, a large, poisonous viper, appeared behind Thomas, flanking him.
A sound like vomiting came from behind the kitchen door. The druid and the bear backed up, and the three swordsmen stepped together towards the door.
Long seconds passed, and the sharp-eared druid heard a muffled whisper. “Syrup of ipecac,” he said. “And a caffeinated elixir.”
“Sir?” one of the swordsmen asked in a whisper.
The druid was about to explain himself, when the black bear roared and turned around. An electrical jolt hit the druid in the back, stiffening his limbs, and he spun around to see the thing that walked like a man, the thing with the symbiont in his neck, slash a greataxe at his bear. The door to the kitchen burst open, and Brode fell upon his men with vigor from the other side, hacking away at them.
The druid moved behind his bear and cast a healing spell. Much of his magic was already in the bear, enchanting its claws, strengthening it, and making it faster. He simply had to keep his spells apace with whatever the daelkyr half-blood could dish out. Its face was snarling, a hateful expression.
“Unnatural filth!” snarled the eldest druid. Behind him he heard screaming, and he looked backwards. Two of the swordsmen were dead, their bodies torn open by the raging half-orc’s falchion. The third swordsmen had hurt the half-orc, but in its frenzy it had not slowed down. Back in the kitchen, Greoche was loading a heavy crossbow and waiting for a clear shot, yelling at her nephew to clear the doorway.
The druid realized that Brode was more durable than he looked, and he regretted leaving the shifter outside. Kneeling quickly, he touched the wooden floor and chanted. His power was such that he needed no holly or mistletoe, just raw will.
The wood floor shifted and twisted, and rose up, wrapping itself around the half-orc’s ankles and feet. Brode was stuck in place, immobile, and the last swordsman ran him through. The half-orc gargled and swung, cutting a fine length along the swordsman’s torso, but another strike, this one across the front of the half-orc’s neck, ended Brode’s life.
Seconds later the swordsman stiffened as the crossbow bolt went through him. He too fell onto the floor, his blood mingling with the other three dead men.
The druid could spare no thoughts for Greoche’s marksmanship, however. Thomas was actually forcing the bear back, and the druid needed to know why. He cast a simple divination spell, and discovered myriad effects on Thomas’ person. Within seconds he noted the mostly empty scroll bag on Thomas’ back. The half-blood had his own magic.
Smiling a cold smile, the druid cast one of the few spells he had left, and a summoned snake, a large, poisonous viper, appeared behind Thomas, flanking him.
Chapter 16 - Part 1
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – BECAUSE HE SAID SO
The 11th of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., shortly after sundown, the Tharashk cottage
“Did you hear something?” Quinn asked.
Blessing shrugged, focusing on the game before them. Blessing was not his real name, but it was the closest humans were usually able to get to his elvish birth name, so he’d picked it up as a nickname decades ago when he had been bonded to the House. “I hear nothing but that weirdo in the other room pacing,” the elf said, pausing to consider his move. They were playing Conquerer, and Quinn was the better player, so the elf tended to be cautious.
“When are you going to drop that?” Quinn asked, looking back at the board. He was trying to suppress his excitement, and failing. Blessing could tell that the human was going to beat him again.
“Drop what?” Blessing asked, finally moving his piece. His sharp elven ears picked up the footfalls outside the window, but he said nothing.
“Delegado’s guest, the Thomas guy,” Quinn said, his hand quickly moving and taking Blessing’s piece. “You’ve got like five moves left before you’re done, by the way,” he chortled.
“Delegado has the right to bring in whoever he wants,” Blessing said, frowning at the board. “And I have the right to gripe about it, privately of course, to you.”
“Yep, House business stays in the House,” Quinn said.
“I was working for Tharashk before you were born,” Blessing reminded the human. “You don’t need to lecture me just because I wasn’t born into it.” No small amount of irritation was in his voice.
“Sorry, Blessing,” Quinn said. The elf could tell the human meant it. “I didn’t mean that I thought – I just, well…”
“Forget it,” Blessing said, suddenly moving a piece. Quinn was too distracted to hear the door that Blessing had secretly unlocked open slowly.
“Heh, that’s suicide!” laughed Quinn, looking at the board. “I don’t know why you –” He paused, suddenly aware of a draft on the back of his neck, but before he could turn his head the large shifter crashed a sap down across his skull. Quinn fell forward, knocking the board over. The shifter hit him again, and then Blessing hauled the human to his feet and punched him in the jaw. Quinn fell to the floor unconscious.
“Forgive me old friend,” Blessing said. “But suicide is letting that abomination that took over Delegado’s mind do to Greenheart what it did to Merylsward.”
The eldest druid came in with his black bear at his side. “Who else is here?” he asked Blessing.
“Our housemaid is tied up, gagged, and blindfolded in the root cellar,” the elf said. “Brode the half-orc finally succumbed to the elixir that I slipped in his drink and he will not awaken for at least four hours. Delegado and the warforged are out. Greoche is in her office, and the abomination is in the guest room.”
“Very well,” the eldest said. He gestured outside and three humans with longswords in light armor joined him. “You and Boarsworn join the others outside. Let no one come in, by the authority of your House.”
“Aye,” Blessing said. He affixed a Tharashk badge to his shirt and walked outside. Another human in leather was lurking in the shadows, and the stout Gatekeeper sat on his horse, casually holding a longspear. Boarsworn the shifter holstered his battleaxe and joined Blessing outside, closing the door behind him. Another Gatekeeper with a snake draped around his shoulders was watching the street.
“You did not do wrong,” the druid on the horse told Blessing. “You kept your oaths, both to us and to Tharashk.”
“Aye, do not feel ashamed,” said the druid with the snake. He turned to his fellow on horseback. “I’ll start going around the streets, a little fog will do a lot to give us privacy.” The stout druid nodded, and the one with the snake then turned and walked off.
Blessing sighed, feeling the hilt of his rapier.
“You had to do it,” grunted the shifter, in agreement with the druids, of course.
“If you did anything permanent to Quinn I’ll cut your hands off,” Blessing snapped. The shifter’s eyes narrowed at that, but the druid on the horse waved at him to stand down.
Blessing bit his lip. He had done what he had to do, but it tasted wrong to him.
The 11th of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., shortly after sundown, the Tharashk cottage
“Did you hear something?” Quinn asked.
Blessing shrugged, focusing on the game before them. Blessing was not his real name, but it was the closest humans were usually able to get to his elvish birth name, so he’d picked it up as a nickname decades ago when he had been bonded to the House. “I hear nothing but that weirdo in the other room pacing,” the elf said, pausing to consider his move. They were playing Conquerer, and Quinn was the better player, so the elf tended to be cautious.
“When are you going to drop that?” Quinn asked, looking back at the board. He was trying to suppress his excitement, and failing. Blessing could tell that the human was going to beat him again.
“Drop what?” Blessing asked, finally moving his piece. His sharp elven ears picked up the footfalls outside the window, but he said nothing.
“Delegado’s guest, the Thomas guy,” Quinn said, his hand quickly moving and taking Blessing’s piece. “You’ve got like five moves left before you’re done, by the way,” he chortled.
“Delegado has the right to bring in whoever he wants,” Blessing said, frowning at the board. “And I have the right to gripe about it, privately of course, to you.”
“Yep, House business stays in the House,” Quinn said.
“I was working for Tharashk before you were born,” Blessing reminded the human. “You don’t need to lecture me just because I wasn’t born into it.” No small amount of irritation was in his voice.
“Sorry, Blessing,” Quinn said. The elf could tell the human meant it. “I didn’t mean that I thought – I just, well…”
“Forget it,” Blessing said, suddenly moving a piece. Quinn was too distracted to hear the door that Blessing had secretly unlocked open slowly.
“Heh, that’s suicide!” laughed Quinn, looking at the board. “I don’t know why you –” He paused, suddenly aware of a draft on the back of his neck, but before he could turn his head the large shifter crashed a sap down across his skull. Quinn fell forward, knocking the board over. The shifter hit him again, and then Blessing hauled the human to his feet and punched him in the jaw. Quinn fell to the floor unconscious.
“Forgive me old friend,” Blessing said. “But suicide is letting that abomination that took over Delegado’s mind do to Greenheart what it did to Merylsward.”
The eldest druid came in with his black bear at his side. “Who else is here?” he asked Blessing.
“Our housemaid is tied up, gagged, and blindfolded in the root cellar,” the elf said. “Brode the half-orc finally succumbed to the elixir that I slipped in his drink and he will not awaken for at least four hours. Delegado and the warforged are out. Greoche is in her office, and the abomination is in the guest room.”
“Very well,” the eldest said. He gestured outside and three humans with longswords in light armor joined him. “You and Boarsworn join the others outside. Let no one come in, by the authority of your House.”
“Aye,” Blessing said. He affixed a Tharashk badge to his shirt and walked outside. Another human in leather was lurking in the shadows, and the stout Gatekeeper sat on his horse, casually holding a longspear. Boarsworn the shifter holstered his battleaxe and joined Blessing outside, closing the door behind him. Another Gatekeeper with a snake draped around his shoulders was watching the street.
“You did not do wrong,” the druid on the horse told Blessing. “You kept your oaths, both to us and to Tharashk.”
“Aye, do not feel ashamed,” said the druid with the snake. He turned to his fellow on horseback. “I’ll start going around the streets, a little fog will do a lot to give us privacy.” The stout druid nodded, and the one with the snake then turned and walked off.
Blessing sighed, feeling the hilt of his rapier.
“You had to do it,” grunted the shifter, in agreement with the druids, of course.
“If you did anything permanent to Quinn I’ll cut your hands off,” Blessing snapped. The shifter’s eyes narrowed at that, but the druid on the horse waved at him to stand down.
Blessing bit his lip. He had done what he had to do, but it tasted wrong to him.
Chapter 15 - Part 15
Iron Orphan stood up from the mess that had been the giant spider and watched the crazy, filthy humans run. Half their people were dead, picked off by Delegado. Orphan inspected where the spider’s mandibles had cut him as he listened to Delegado make his way down the tree.
“I could have killed three more as they ran,” the half-orc boasted. “But every time I shoot someone in the back it seems to be a matter of blame for me.”
“You shot the shifter in the back,” Orphan said, stepping into the creek to wash the blood from his hands.
“Giving him a chance to use his magic would have been deadly,” Delegado said. “Unlike these posers, he had real magic, magic he could have used from far away.”
“Right,” Orphan said sarcastically. “You know best.”
“I’d have thought you liked me playing nice,” Delegado said. His tone was casual, but Orphan could tell it was affected. Delegado was genuinely hurt. The half-orc had expected to be noticed or complimented somehow for finally behaving in a moral fashion.
“Never said I didn’t,” Orphan said. “But don’t forget that you killed a man who was a brother of mine in the Balanced Palm, and you shot him in the back. It’s a sore subject.” Now why did I bring that up? Orphan wondered.
“What the f’test is your problem?” Delegado asked angrily. “I’m getting blamed for succeeding, is that it? It was some of yours that tried to kill my while they thought I was sleeping too, or did you forget that?"
“No, I didn’t,” Orphan said. “I’m sorry.”
“And it was your sensei that left me tied up as a test,” Delegado continued. “And you agreed to it. And I passed it, and incidentally saved your hide, her hide, and a bunch of Keeper-caring paper that you and yours loved so much!” Orphan could tell that Delegado was only warming up, and the situation had best be defused quickly, or else not at all.
“I said I was sorry,” Orphan said, walking out of the creek. “I’m just –” He tried to think of a good word.
“Tired?” Delegado said sarcastically. “Oh right, you don’t get tired.”
“Even warforged can only maintain concentration on a task for so long before getting mentally fatigued,” Orphan told him.
“Yeah, all that washing your blood off your hands must be real tiring,” Delegado said. “You’re a f’testing hypocrite, you know that? All you law-types are. Rules for you and rules for others.”
“What are you talking about?” Orphan demanded.
“I’m talking about how you could have knocked these people out instead of killing them, but you chose to go lethal,” Delegado said.
“They’re dangerous,” Orphan said. “We had to strike fear into them, especially if Kurse got away. They would have to be too afraid to attack again. We discussed this, and that was your idea.”
“Which you supported,” Delegado said. “Now, do you have a real beef with me or is it that warforged possess a menstrual cycle?”
“A what?”
“You’ve been angry with me since before we trashed the Valenar,” Delegado repeated. “Why?”
“I told you why!” Orphan snapped. “Is it my fault you won’t listen?”
“Raise your voice more, maybe you can attract Brogan’s pet ogre,” Delegado said sarcastically.
Orphan flexed his fingers and did a meditative exercise. “Let’s get back to the cottage,” he said. He focused his mind on his inner self, and his cuts and scrapes healed over.
“We have a date with the Thuranni agent,” Delegado reminded him.
“No, you have a date with the Thuranni agent,” Orphan said. “You made it very clear that I wasn’t to ask any of my ‘Khyber-stupid’ questions about Greoche. Since you clearly consider yourself to be in charge of questions, you can ask them.”
“I don’t have the money to pay for information we don’t need!” Delegado said. “How much do you think I carry around with me, anyway?”
“You have your House account,” Orphan pointed out.
“Which Greoche would find out about,” Delegado said. “And I don’t feel like insulting her, thank you.”
“You still don’t care about anything other than you,” Orphan said. “The mission is of no importance to you.”
“I care about my House, my responsibilities, and my friends,” Delegado said. “I had thought you’d be in that group somehow.” Orphan could tell Delegado was hurt. The half-orc had started to let the warforged in, and he wasn’t taking this well.
“I had thought so too,” Orphan said. “But you’re too blind to see that your blindness is endangering our quest.”
“I see better than you do,” Delegado said. “Especially at night.” It was a juvenile thing to say, and it was a typical comment from the half-orc. The bounty hunter’s response to criticism was usually to take an opportunity to boast, and Iron Orphan found himself sick of it.
“Hooray for you,” Orphan said. “Well, I can’t see in the dark, but I can see well enough to make my way back by myself.” With that he turned and walked away from the astonished half-orc.
“Hey!” Delegado called. Orphan ignored him, putting as much of a hustle into his movement as he could without tripping over anything as full night darkness came on. He should have taken one of the glowing shields or something, but he found stripping the dead to be distasteful. “Hey!” the half-orc called again. “Where the f’test are you going?”
Orphan did not bother to answer. For once he was not restrained. For once he was indulging his temper. It felt good.
“I could have killed three more as they ran,” the half-orc boasted. “But every time I shoot someone in the back it seems to be a matter of blame for me.”
“You shot the shifter in the back,” Orphan said, stepping into the creek to wash the blood from his hands.
“Giving him a chance to use his magic would have been deadly,” Delegado said. “Unlike these posers, he had real magic, magic he could have used from far away.”
“Right,” Orphan said sarcastically. “You know best.”
“I’d have thought you liked me playing nice,” Delegado said. His tone was casual, but Orphan could tell it was affected. Delegado was genuinely hurt. The half-orc had expected to be noticed or complimented somehow for finally behaving in a moral fashion.
“Never said I didn’t,” Orphan said. “But don’t forget that you killed a man who was a brother of mine in the Balanced Palm, and you shot him in the back. It’s a sore subject.” Now why did I bring that up? Orphan wondered.
“What the f’test is your problem?” Delegado asked angrily. “I’m getting blamed for succeeding, is that it? It was some of yours that tried to kill my while they thought I was sleeping too, or did you forget that?"
“No, I didn’t,” Orphan said. “I’m sorry.”
“And it was your sensei that left me tied up as a test,” Delegado continued. “And you agreed to it. And I passed it, and incidentally saved your hide, her hide, and a bunch of Keeper-caring paper that you and yours loved so much!” Orphan could tell that Delegado was only warming up, and the situation had best be defused quickly, or else not at all.
“I said I was sorry,” Orphan said, walking out of the creek. “I’m just –” He tried to think of a good word.
“Tired?” Delegado said sarcastically. “Oh right, you don’t get tired.”
“Even warforged can only maintain concentration on a task for so long before getting mentally fatigued,” Orphan told him.
“Yeah, all that washing your blood off your hands must be real tiring,” Delegado said. “You’re a f’testing hypocrite, you know that? All you law-types are. Rules for you and rules for others.”
“What are you talking about?” Orphan demanded.
“I’m talking about how you could have knocked these people out instead of killing them, but you chose to go lethal,” Delegado said.
“They’re dangerous,” Orphan said. “We had to strike fear into them, especially if Kurse got away. They would have to be too afraid to attack again. We discussed this, and that was your idea.”
“Which you supported,” Delegado said. “Now, do you have a real beef with me or is it that warforged possess a menstrual cycle?”
“A what?”
“You’ve been angry with me since before we trashed the Valenar,” Delegado repeated. “Why?”
“I told you why!” Orphan snapped. “Is it my fault you won’t listen?”
“Raise your voice more, maybe you can attract Brogan’s pet ogre,” Delegado said sarcastically.
Orphan flexed his fingers and did a meditative exercise. “Let’s get back to the cottage,” he said. He focused his mind on his inner self, and his cuts and scrapes healed over.
“We have a date with the Thuranni agent,” Delegado reminded him.
“No, you have a date with the Thuranni agent,” Orphan said. “You made it very clear that I wasn’t to ask any of my ‘Khyber-stupid’ questions about Greoche. Since you clearly consider yourself to be in charge of questions, you can ask them.”
“I don’t have the money to pay for information we don’t need!” Delegado said. “How much do you think I carry around with me, anyway?”
“You have your House account,” Orphan pointed out.
“Which Greoche would find out about,” Delegado said. “And I don’t feel like insulting her, thank you.”
“You still don’t care about anything other than you,” Orphan said. “The mission is of no importance to you.”
“I care about my House, my responsibilities, and my friends,” Delegado said. “I had thought you’d be in that group somehow.” Orphan could tell Delegado was hurt. The half-orc had started to let the warforged in, and he wasn’t taking this well.
“I had thought so too,” Orphan said. “But you’re too blind to see that your blindness is endangering our quest.”
“I see better than you do,” Delegado said. “Especially at night.” It was a juvenile thing to say, and it was a typical comment from the half-orc. The bounty hunter’s response to criticism was usually to take an opportunity to boast, and Iron Orphan found himself sick of it.
“Hooray for you,” Orphan said. “Well, I can’t see in the dark, but I can see well enough to make my way back by myself.” With that he turned and walked away from the astonished half-orc.
“Hey!” Delegado called. Orphan ignored him, putting as much of a hustle into his movement as he could without tripping over anything as full night darkness came on. He should have taken one of the glowing shields or something, but he found stripping the dead to be distasteful. “Hey!” the half-orc called again. “Where the f’test are you going?”
Orphan did not bother to answer. For once he was not restrained. For once he was indulging his temper. It felt good.
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