Chapter 13 - Part 1

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – AGAINST ALL ODDS
The 1st of Sypheros, 993 Y.K., right before sunset in Merylsward


Iron Orphan watched the Aundairian man come back, looking furtive. The warforged was confused about the man’s apparent nervousness. If he meant to desert a second time, why would he come back? Orphan wondered if he was misreading the man’s demeanor. Surely everyone was on edge.

Everyone including him. Orphan had been forced to fight many battles in his short life, but except for when he had killed Phantom, he had not battled other warforged. This business of ‘allegiance to your own kind’ had always seemed illogical to him. After all, goblins killed goblins, humans killed humans, elves killed elves, and so on and so forth. Warforged were a sentient race, and thus capable of being good or being evil. As such each one had to be judged as an individual.

Except that it wasn’t precisely true. Orphan knew of the brainwashing, and he understood what it was like being birthed as an aware, but naïve thing. Warforged were not really aware that they were allowed to think. They were children in many respects. He hated to think it, he hated to sound superior to others of his race, even in his own mind, but it was true.

Pienna had spoken of warforged trapped in the ground, helpless to stop her natural allies from tearing them to pieces. That chilled him somehow.

There has got to be a better way, he thought. Somehow, somewhere, there has got to be a better way. He wanted to ask Pienna what she thought, but this was a council of war, not a philosophy session. She was as focused as Delegado, as the dwarf, and the others.

Thomas was the only one not focused, but the tall human seemed only concerned with not being stared at, and not being talked to. He was uncomfortable around people, which made sense given his years as a hermit. The men pointing to his stormstalk and whispering were not helping any.

Time slowed, and Orphan’s mind tingled. Trouble came into focus as a result of monk training that had stressed being aware, over, and over, and over. A sound. A displacement. Soft chanting.

“Scatter!” Orphan yelled, without knowing why. A heartbeat later the scarred, patchwork form of Lo’Paih came into view as she finished reading a scroll held in a new prosthetic hand, and a ball of heat shot forth from her flesh-and-blood one. It detonated near Jak and his rejects, killing them all except for Holgit, who was on the other side of the clearing. A shifter Warden of the Wood also fell, his face gone, his internal organs seared.

Delegado was rolling on the ground, going for his bow. Thomas gripped his axe, and his stormstalk swiveled. Chubat planted himself in front of Pienna.

“Did you think I would not take revenge?” Lo’Paih screamed. A second scroll was in her hands, and her chanting rang like thunder to Orphan’s auditory input.

Delegado fired, but the arrow broke on an unseen magical shield. Orphan somersaulted forward, passing by the smoking meat that had been Jak, shiruken flying from his hand. They were aimed at Lo’Paih’s ankles, but while he got under the magical shield he barely scratched her armor.

Thomas’ stormstalk fired, hitting the second scroll as Lo’Paih finished casting. The spell misfired, and flames erupted all around the patchwork woman.

“Damn you to the fiends, Pienna!” Lo’Paih howled. A crossbow bolt from Chubat punched slightly through her armor, puncturing her upper leg. “Because you stole the deepforged from me I was cast down!” A ring on her finger glowed and the flames were extinguished. “But my new sponsor, ah, he brings true victory! Now, Holgit, now!”

Pienna cried out in pain, and Orphan turned to see the Aundairian pull his sword out of the druidess’ back. There was blood all the way up to the hilt. The reject gritted his teeth and prepared a second strike, but it was never delivered. The panther, Missy, had been staying back at Pienna’s command. Now she landed on Holgit all at once, and blood flew from the man’s screams.

Delegado fired an arrow dead on, knocking through Lo’Paih’s magical and metal defenses. It sprouted from her back, and blood leaked from her lips, adding red to the charred ruin that had been her face. Behind the half-orc Chubat was catching Pienna as she fell, howling in grief. Thomas charged, moving with fantastic speed over the forest floor. His greataxe crashed heavily on the Cannith woman, burying halfway into her torso. Gasping, gurgling, she pushed herself off of his weapon, trying to resist. But it was futile. The half-daelkyr struck her again, and again, and again, turning her body into red and black kindling.

“Enough,” Orphan said. “She’s dead! Do you have a healing spell in one of those scrolls that you carry?” Thomas shook his head in the negative. “Then do something useful! Get some of these men together and go around the clearing to be sure no other ally of Lo’Paih’s is coming!” Thomas swallowed, nodded, and gestured for the militia and others to follow him. No one argued with the angry man with the greataxe.
Orphan frisked the dead pieces of Lo’Paih, trying to find a healing potion of some kind. There were charred devices, lockpicks, and a handful of odds and ends, but no more scrolls or potions.

Orphan paused, looking at the metal parts of Lo’Paih’s head. The metal was charred, and damaged by a backswing from a greataxe, but…it had to be his imagination. He thought he saw something like a ghulra.

Now was not the time, however. He bolted back to where the others were. Chubat was weeping, and gripping his axe, while Missy sat with her great face on her paws, softly yowling. Of Holgit, less remained than did of Lo’Paih.

Delegado had pulled some bandages out of his pack, and some herbs, and was working feverishly on the druidess. He shouted for Chubat to help him, and the dwarf applied pressure on one bandage. Orphan took a spare shirt from Delegado’s pack and rolled it into a ball, then placed it under Pienna’s head.

“Will she die?” he asked Delegado. The half-orc seemed to know something of mundane medical care, and his hands were a blur.

“Not if I have anything to say about it!” Delegado said, popping open a flask. He tossed it to the warforged. “Get two drops of that under her tongue, now!”

Orphan did do, and he thought he saw Pienna’s twitch. Then he read the label on the bottle. It was adrenalin.

“Come on, Pienna, f’test it!” Delegado snarled. “Don’t you die on me, this House Jorasco field kit is expensive! Come on, stop losing so much blood and get up and preach to me! Come on!”

The half-orc worked with a speed and skill that Orphan would not have expected. He managed to stitch close the worst of Pienna’s wound with some needle and thread, and he began to wrap pressure bandages, directing Chubat and Orphan with efficiency.

“Tell me she’ll live,” Chubat sobbed, red seeping through his fingers. “Tell me she’ll live and I’ll kiss every one of your womenfolk on the lips!”

“I have no idea,” Delegado said. He felt for a pulse. “She’s lost a lot of blood, and she’s not breathing!” The half-orc put his mouth over Pienna’s, and blew into it harshly. Her chest moved a bit, and the half-orc kept it up. Orphan watched this, stunned that breath was not a selfish thing, that the act of breathing could be a giving thing.

I could not do this, Orphan realized. The small amount of air that I move to make speech could never give life.

Thomas came back with the men. “There’s warforged coming, I hear them,” he said. “They’re spread out. It’s hard to say, but at least fifty of them are on the move, maybe more.” He looked at Pienna.

“We’re dead!” one of the militia cried. “We’re dead without the druidess!” Another militia man said nothing, but turned with tears in his eyes and began to run back to the village. Lyle looked like he wanted to vomit.

“Her heart has stopped,” Delegado told Chubat.

“No!” the dwarf screamed.

“F’test,” someone groaned.

Orphan also did not speak, instead silently praying for a miracle.

Thomas also said nothing, but his eyes narrowed in thought as his knuckles turned white while he gripped the handle of his greataxe.

Delegado held his fist above Pienna’s chest. “If I pound her to start it I’ll aggravate the puncture to her diaphragm and the tear in her lungs will open! She’ll drown in her own blood!”

“Step back,” Thomas said, edging in. His eyestalk was squirming, trying not to face Pienna.

“What are you doing?” roared Chubat.

“When I was with my father’s forces,” Thomas said. “Sometimes we tortured men and their hearts gave out. I can restart it.” His eyestalk twitched, and he actually slapped it. Hard. Thomas winced at the pain, but the stalk did as well.

“You stay away from her you unnatural filth!” Chubat said, readying his axe.

“We’ve got seconds, Chubat!” Delegado said, grabbing his elbow. “If that!” The dwarf’s face wrinkled with anger and indecision, then relented.

“Fine!” Chubat snarled, lowering his weapon. “Fine!”

Thomas barked an angry word in an alien tongue, a word composed of syllables that were twisted from what they should have been, and his eyestalk spat electricity. It was not a strong bolt, not like the ones they had seen him use in combat, rather it was a trickle of lightning. It hit Pienna in the chest, making her body twitch. Chubat twitched as well, the bolt affecting him as he hovered over Pienna.

“Get clear of her!” Thomas yelled. Chubat did. Another spit of electricity. Pienna twitched again. “Check her!” ordered the half-daelkyr.

Delegado leaned in and listened. “I’ve got a heartbeat!” he yelled. A ragged cheer went up. Chubat went back to putting pressure on the bandages, and Delegado went back to breathing into Pienna’s mouth.

It took some time, but eventually Pienna was breathing on her own. Her heart moved of its own accord, and her bleeding was staunched. But she did not wake up.