Chapter 21 - Part 2

The plaza was much as they had left it, although the city was not. Alarms were going off, gongs were being tolled, and enough creatures were yelling to drown out the screaming coming from the top of the tower.

Feather was on Ois’ shoulder now, and not happy about it. Delegado had his bow on his right shoulder, and his father’s body on his left, so there was no place for the hawk to sit. Delegado had to use a spell to make Feather stay with Ois, the bird didn’t know her well enough to trust her, otherwise.

“It sounds like Orphan hasn’t been caught,” Delegado said. “Let’s head north.”

“Which way is north?” she asked.

“This way,” he said, sword out, hurrying down the street. Ois’ noticed that a small trail of dust leaking from her blow to Bartemain’s head was leaving a trail, but one that seemed to blend in with the dust on the street. She hurried after Delegado, but said nothing to him about his father’s head seepage. He was too close to cracking now, too many emotional things had happened to him in too short a period of time.

Because you keep too much in, Delegado, she thought accusingly. You always did. The only emotion you aren’t ashamed of is irritation. Feather squawked and launched himself from her shoulder, as if sensing her mental criticism of his master.

She felt ashamed. The Flame should have burned away grudges. Again, she was found lacking in her own eyes.

You try to out perform everyone, as if you have something to prove, a dwarven cleric of the Flame had told her once. He was right, but that didn’t change her. Her drive was what defined her, something that Delegado could not seem to grasp.

The half-orc stepped behind a half-collapsed overhang, crouching near some rubble. He gingerly set his father’s body down, and then sheathed his sword. Scanning the opposite corner, where a gaping hole in a wall let them see the dusty interior of what had once been a large building, the half-orc took out his bow and drew two arrows against it. Feather settled down on a nook above Delegado and fluttered his wings nervously.

She hurried to crouch next to him, hiding her sunrod against her body. She also sheathed her sword and drew out the mace with the dragonshard that she had found. “What do you see?” she asked, knowing that his orcsight was telling him something.

“Something moved in there,” he said. “I don’t know what, but it’s waiting for us, I know that. I think it’s hiding behind that column in there, the one that’s fallen over halfway.”

Ois concentrated, focusing her senses with the Silver Flame. The Flame burned away all distractions, showing her the narrow world of good and evil. A great blot spread across her vision behind that half-fallen pillar. “It’s very dangerous,” she said, withdrawing her senses. “Very evil. Very hungry.”

“Then why isn’t it hunting Orphan?” Delegado asked. “What’s it waiting for? Why can’t they order it around?”

She thought about that. “Maybe it was, and it heard you coming.”

“Why not attack me directly if it’s so powerful?” he asked her. “No, it’s got cunning, but it isn’t smart.”

“A fiendishly-bred animal?” she asked. “I have seen many in this land.”

“Tell me about it,” he snorted. “Thomas and I fought wolves, snakes, and all sorts of devilspawn things. I take it you did, too.”

“A fiendish mountain goat,” she said.

He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “Wow,” he said in that sarcastic tone she knew too well.

“It tried to knock me off a mountain,” she said.

“But the Silver Flame protected you,” he said, returning his gaze to the building with the gaping hole.

“Later I faced a fiendishly-bred thunder lizard, similar to the most dangerous beast in the heathen Talenta lands,” she told him. “Lightning from the sky came when I prayed to the Flame and destroyed it.”

Delegado looked puzzled. “You’re a druid?”

She did not give him the satisfaction of rolling her eyes. “So you think it’s a fiendish animal, or a fiend with animal intelligence?”

He shrugged. “Either way it will move soon, then I’m going to shoot it.”

She took a flask out of her belt and unstoppered it, then poured its oil over the top of his longbow. The magical oil seeped into the wood of the bow, and it glowed with holy light briefly. “Bless weapon oil,” she said. “Made by the finest brewers in Thrane. The Silver Flame will help your weapon strike past the defenses of the fiends.”

“Where were you when we were trying to kill that rakshasa lord?” he asked her.

“You fought with a rakshasa lord?” She could not keep the impressed tone out of her voice, and the grin on his face made her angry. Again. Being smug was a subset of pride on most lists of seven sins, but she sometimes wondered if Delegado was proof that smugness was the eighth great one.

“Yeah,” he said. “Orphan killed it, but we all helped.” He squinted. “There!”

Delegado stood, and fired both arrows. Something in the building snarled in pain. It began to charge out into the street, but Delegado shot four more times and it collapsed.

She squinted. She could see it now. It was like an ape, but with a scaly hide the same color as the stone of the building. She nodded and picked up Bartemain.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Leaving you free to use your bow against the many enemies that face us,” she said. “I believe the phrase is, ‘range beats numbers every time,’ yes?” She settled Bartemain’s body onto her shoulder. He did not weigh a lot, but she could clearly feel the sand within his body.

Delegado suddenly leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. He said nothing, however, but jogged down the street. Feather flew after him, and Ois followed with her new mace in her hand.