Chapter 8 - Part 1

CHAPTER EIGHT – FIRST IMPRESSIONS
24th of Nymm, 993 Y.K., a battlefield approximately 75 miles southwest of Taer Valior

The screams could be heard from miles away. Blood watered the blasted rock and blazing sand, as four armies collided in the place where desert met blasted lands. Siege engines threw boulders onto men, crushing them like bugs. The maimed begged for aid that would never come, and the dying gasped for water that they would never see. Arrows pierced skulls, swords opened bellies, and heavy fists of stone and metal crushed rib cages. At least two of the armies had spellcasters amongst them, and fire and lightning tore through the combatants, making great rips in the assembled formations.

The largest group was the goblins, by far. They had sailed eastwards in an arc, avoiding the Cyran-directed, Cannith-made waterborne constructs in the aptly-named Kraken Bay, then landing on the shores of Valenar to head northwards, sneaking through the elflands to come at Cyre from an unexpected direction. Along the way they had left a trail of sacked ranches and broken bodies. Hobgoblins drove the smaller goblins mercilessly, with their greater bugbear cousins in the vanguard. Lines of archers protected by light footmen, and heavily armored calvary with great lances and swords, made up the invading forces, some five thousand strong. Battle adepts devoted to both Dol Dorn and the Mockery walked the lines, reinforcing the soldiers’ stamina and morale with magic. Two hobgoblin wizards of minor power carefully selected targets for their magical darts. Even a hobgoblin artificer worked behind a double-line of goblin archers, adding nasty little surprises to their arrows.

Slashing at the edges of the goblin army and then riding off were the Valenar horsemen. Wielding both longbow and double scimitar from the saddle, a dozen small groups of them, each group barely twenty in number, harassed the goblin flank without mercy. Amongst the armored warriors were wizards in robes, as able to ride as their more mundanely armed brethren. Spells bit into the goblin forces, masses of webs snarled their siege engines, rolling orbs of fire fell into their trenches, and the occasional bolt of magically summoned lightning punched through the goblin infantry.

The second-largest force was the Cyrans. Having been alerted by their intelligence forces regarding the maneuverings of the Darguun force, they preemptively invaded Valenar as well, and were dug in when the goblins had encountered them. The three thousand strong Cyran army was at least two-thirds warforged, accompanied by a warforged titan. Not needing to eat, they had no reason to raid Valenar farms and ranches, and therefore did not alert the Valenar forces to their presence. The human third of the army had been late arriving, as unlike the warforged they had a need to sleep. The humans had their own spellcasters. Some were battle wizards of minor repute, a few were devotees of the Sovereign Host, but most were artificers, strengthening the warforged troops with infusions and repairing their damage instantly.

The final army was not so much an army as it was two small bands of opportunists, riding fast-running dinosaurs. The halflings from the Talenta Plains had drifted south looking for trouble, and they had found it. The two groups engaged the other three forces with bow and sling, and sometimes engaged for close-quarters fighting. Either the little people of the plains had a druid enhancing their beasts, or their dinosaurs were truly astonishing. One pack surrounded a Valenar rider who had drifted from his group, and tore him to shreds in seconds.

The goblin catapults destroyed a Cyran observation tower. Valenar archers cut down a bugbear knight. A line of warforged rose up from a hidden trench and slaughtered advancing hobgoblin troops. Halflings screeched war cries, and goblins and humans warbled as they died. It was an ugly, bloody, painful mess, and it was less than an hour old.

The sun was halfway between its zenith and the western horizon, beating down mercilessly through air that was devoid of moisture. Thirst and exhaustion began to weaken all who were not warforged. Bowstrings twanged, and conjured fire rained down.

High above the battle, hovering in the western sky so that it would hopefully go unnoticed against the sun, was a long ship made of elegant soarwood. Almost three hundred feet in length, it was kept aloft by a huge ring of fire, a summoned elemental bound into the service of House Lyrandar by dragonshard. Carrying a crew of over twenty men, all armed and skilled, along with three very important passengers, it stayed over three thousand feet in the sky. On the off chance that it would be spotted against the sun by the those dying and killing on the ground, its captain was keeping it well out of range of any weapon. Still, the sounds and smells of death crept upwards.

The first passenger sat calmly on the deck of the airship, concentrating on a scrying spell. His ears and face were slightly angular, showing him to be a half-elf, but he was not of the Lyrandar crew. Indeed the wizard Gullif was not even of House Lyrandar, or any dragonmarked house for that matter. He was in service to Breland, under the command of the second passenger on the airship. The usually gregarious half-elf was being very quiet as he used his magic to find a hidden entrance at the base of one of the rock outcroppings, where a secret monastery was trying to ride out the battle.

The second passenger was short, perhaps five feet and five inches, but had powerful forearms and a barrel chest. He wore no weapon or armor, but his savage features, tufted ears, and bushy eyebrows marked him as a shifter, a descendant of lycanthropes and humans who could form deadly weapons out of his own teeth and nails. He had only identified himself as Gorka, but it was he who represented Breland, and it was his purse that had hired this airship. Rumored to be a captain in the Dark Lanterns, Gorka clearly had a high-ranking position in Brelish intelligence. He spoke little except to issue orders, but his orders were obeyed. Somewhere on the ground, three thousand feet below, was a man he wanted alive. He had made that very, very clear when he hired the third and final passenger, who was only going to get paid if the spy from Thrane was breathing when he was hauled up onto the deck of Sky’s Favor, the airship that they were on.

The final passenger was one of the most skilled and respected members of the House of Finding. A trained hawk sat on the shoulder of his enchanted mithril shirt, and a longbow that few other than he could draw sat on the other. A sword forged from adamantine sat on his hip, and various alchemical devices and potions were stored and set on his person. He was born of a human father and an orc mother in a great swamp at the other end of the continent, and he was feeling distinctly sick.

“This flying stuff is for the birds,” Delegado d’Tharask grumbled. Feather squawked something from his shoulder that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“Mister Delegado, are you paying attention to the battlefield?” Gorka demanded.

“Yes,” the half-orc snapped. “Goblins and warforged. Whoopee.”

“Has your man found the cave yet, Gorka?” came a call from the sheltering roof under the great fire elemental. Captain Brunis d’Lyrandar was the first member of the House of Storm that Delegado had ever instantly disliked. The man was petulant, fussy, and worried constantly. He was some kind of wizard, but insisted that he was not, proclaiming himself a student of wu jen, whatever the f’test that was. He didn’t gamble and he didn’t drink, declaring them to be taboo activities. Delegado felt like smacking the man at least twice a day. Brunis had no familiar, unlike many other wizards. Delegado wondered if the half-elven captain had annoyed it into running away.

“If he did, I would have ordered you to dive,” Gorka snapped at him. “Lyrandar is getting paid to enable the extraction, not to annoy the living daylights out of me. Be silent lest you disturb Gullif.”

Brunis’ mouth fell open. “How dare you?” he sputtered. “I am the captain of this vessel!”

“And you may just find every airship docking tower in Sharn closed to you if you don’t quit irritating me,” Gorka stated flatly. Brunis scowled and went below decks.

Delegado grinned in spite of his airsickness. Gorka was a pain in the behind, but he took garbage from no one. Delegado was certain that the man could make good on his threat, too. Unlike the Marcuiss job, Delegado had been told how much Tharashk would get paid for this extraction. If Breland was willing to shell out the small fortune in question, they were more than willing to blacklist one of these flying cargo pushers.

“Got it!” Gullif announced. He rattled off some coordinates to a House Lyrandar sailor who was standing at attention. That worthy darted off to find the helmsman. “Be careful, Delegado,” Gullif warned. “There’s a group of goblin scouts moving into that area. It’s not far from their western flank, which has nothing on it yet, but some Valenar horsemen are working around that way.”

“I can take down the goblins,” Delegado said. “The sooner I get on solid ground the better.”

“You have the flare?” Gorka demanded.

“Yes, and I know how to use it,” Delegado said sourly. “I’ll pull out the doo-dad when I get out of the bunker with Xavier Dunnel, or whatever name he’s using.”

“And you have memorized the maps?” Gorka asked.

“Yes, for the third time today alone,” the half-orc snapped. “And yes I know that the maps are two years old and the monks may have extended the old Dhakaani tunnels that they settled into. Back off, Gorka. I’ll find your man.”

“Beware the monks,” Gorka said.

“A dozen or so mumbling aesthetics who take pointless vows?” Delegado asked. “Not a problem.”

“You specialize in tracking and fighting humans and goblinoids,” Gorka said. “But the humans down there are perhaps different than you have encountered.”

Delegado gave him a dirty look. “If you’ve done your homework on me like you keep intimating that you have, you’ll know I fought three of these jumping and kicking freaks in Karrnath a couple of years ago. They had been hired by a man in Vedykar that I was bringing to justice. I plan ahead, Gorka, that’s how I survive.”

Gorka nodded. “Captain Brunis!” bellowed the shifter. “We need to dive!” The captain’s voice answered distantly, but with a vexed affirmative. Gorka grunted.

“Okay then,” Gullif said, standing. “I’ll be sending you down to the ground once we get to about six hundred and seventy-five feet. I don’t have a spell that can bring both you and your prisoner up at the same time, for that we’ll dive by with a line that you’ll have to catch. We’ll actually cast two lines out, incase you miss one.”

“I know,” Delegado said. Gullif was just reviewing what they had been over several times. “Stay,” the half-orc whispered to Feather. The hawk did not like it, but it hopped off of his shoulder and settled on a railing. The bird was not a very good combatant underground. “You’ll be scrying with your block of glass there in case the doo-dad gets broken?” he asked the half-elf.

“It’s not scrying, its clairvoyance,” Gullif told him. “A different discipline entirely. And yes I will, but even with my magnifier it is hard to maintain at the range we will be at. We have to stay well away from the battle, else we be mistaken for a combatant.”

Delegado nodded. He was well aware of the need to stay out of the idiotic war. He was somewhat nettled by the fact that Gullif couldn’t throw down some serious fireballs if things got hairy. The half-elf specialized in information magic and couldn’t use serious offensive stuff – what the wizard termed ‘evoking’ – as a result. While it made Gullif very valuable to Brelish intelligence, it decreased the chances of Delegado making it out of this mess alive.

Why did I agree to this? Delegado wondered to himself. There’s a point where glory is for morons. When House Tharashk had offered the job he had been told that the territory was contested, but nobody knew that the day of the arrival there was going to be a major battle. The contract had been very specific. Xavier Dunnel, alive. If Xavier was killed by a stray goblin arrow, no money for Tharashk. If Xavier was trampled by one of the Cannith-made psychotic killing machines, no money for Tharashk. If Xavier died from eating bad cheese, no money for Tharashk. Xavier Dunnel knew the name and location of every Thranish spy in Breland’s military. What he was doing in this boar’s rump back end of the continent huddling with a bunch of prayer-mutterers just under the nose of the bigoted, antagonistic Valenar horse lords was anyone’s guess. Delegado had to get into the underground complex, use his dragonmark if necessary to find the man, punch his lights out, manacle him, and haul his body out of there. Alive.

The half-orc felt the ship lurch as it dove, and he wished he hadn’t eaten lunch. Vomiting all over the deck might knock his reputation down a notch or two.