| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 24 Apr 2011 : 21:50:33
A chunk of Kirion's story, dealing with a green dragon, a pseudodragon ghost, an artifact sword, and a cleric with a hangover. And a barfighting half-fiend, a hybrid dragon, a likable lycanthrope, an arachnophobic tiefling...
Yeah, yeah, too many rare types in a single story/party when there shouldn't be that many of them in a very wide area....Whatever, it was fun to write. I make weird characters, and I decided to draw most if not all of them together for this story, along with a few of my husband's "normals." Laerrigan and Dor take part, too.
I had Kirion at the Inn only briefly, but there's a lot behind him so here's some of it. Quick character description follows, because the first portions of his story (where all the descriptions take place) I don't like nearly enough to post here. For anyone familiar with Kirion elsewhere, he had the draconic template when I wrote this, though I've decided against it since then.
Kirion Iskaussir
male wood half-elf, cleric (Tamara), LG
Age: 23 (equivalent to about 17 for a human, in my estimation)
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160 lbs
Hair: black, short, curly
Eyes: mossy green
The back of each hand bears a tattoo of his family sigil---a silver-filled chain running in an unbroken circle around a white seven-pointed star on a black field
General Physical Description
Kirion is sturdily-built but not bulky, and has a generally warm-and-pleasant if unrevealing demeanor. His face is a bit squarish for a half-elf, with a strong chin and nose from his silver dragon heritage; his nosebridge in particular is long, smooth, and very slightly convex, almost horselike yet nobly refined, without actually looking unnatural. He occasionally bears a bit of a deadpan martyred manner.
Voice
Kirion's speech is stoically laid-back with an earthy warmth, but it can harden and chill drastically if he's sufficiently irked. There is richness of timbre and strength behind it, should he need to project, but he's no singer.
Clothing/Armor
Kirion dresses simply and comfortably in earthtones, generally along the lines of a shirt or tunic and trousers and perhaps some kind of open waistcoat. His cloak is an "official" garment, contrasting greatly with his garb if he isn't in his armor; the cloak is sturdy and watershedding, black fading slightly to a pale silvery-blue at the bottom edge like a clear predawn sky, with the Iskaussir sigil embroidered large between his shoulders and small on the left breast.
His armor is of considerably better quality than he could afford for himself, inherited from his half-dragon grandfather when Grandpa got hold of a better suit for his wandering-cleric battles. The full suit of masterwork scale mail is of mithril, designed to resemble silver dragon scales, and the forehead of the helmet and the belt buckle bear Tamara's seven-pointed star.
Birthplace: Darstrigorn, west of Highmoon in Deepingdale. The name is corrupted from Draconic for "silver dragon," and the small town was founded by his silver dragon ancestor, Keileadonies, as a refuge for creatures of any description in need of a place of healing both physical and nonphysical, where even evil creatures (so long as they behaved) could find sanctuary and hopefully see how life could be. He grew up around the occasional natural lycanthrope, Eilistraeean drow, and manticore in need of a place to "get away from it all" and do some serious contemplation.
Less than two months ago, a dracolich appeared out of the blue while Kirion was away, killed Keile, and utterly destroyed the town, including Kirion's family. Thus he became the only remnant of Tamara's following in a wide area. After a single month of mourning, his deity appeared in a dream to tell him to set out for Scornubel and find a particular human there. That's all he knows. He's in a continuing journey through stages and effects of grief, while dealing with external dangers, tough love, and imperatives of faith.
Devam, his friend that he picked up while traveling, is a male harpy, a CN ranger. He can don a servicable disguise as a half-crippled old hunchback by folding his wings tight, wearing a thick robe and oversized gloves, and wrapping his lizardlike feet with burlap and twine. It's highly uncomfortable and makes him grouchy, but it works when needed.
Rith is an evil pseudodragon ghost in Falazure's service. She's already had interactions with Kirion and Devam; Kirion doesn't know anything about it, but Devam has his suspicions about one incident, though he has no concept of what actually happened.
Story to follow in next post....
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| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 03 Jun 2011 : 03:43:06
Jenna was beginning to think she was the only one in the party to notice these things. She'd had her suspicions about the Calishite long before he'd been revealed as a tiefling, though she hadn't been able to put her finger on the reason for her unease. Now the golden-winged sun elf sitting up at the bar kept drawing her attention in that same vaguely disturbing way.
Ylant plunked down in the chair across the square table from her and cast a glance across the inn's common room without bothering to mask it. "You too?" he murmured.
She'd been doing her best to keep her surveillance circumspect. Either she wasn't as good as she'd thought, or a weredog had some natural recognition of the subtleties of body language.
She withheld a response while Ylant flagged down a serving girl and requested supper. Then she said quietly, "I can't figure it out. He stands out to me the same way Laerrigan did. Does. Maybe it's just something about extraplanar blood."
Ylant gave a casual shrug. "Not an eye for odd-looking males?"
Jenna regarded him levelly without reply.
He cocked his head, studying her demeanor. "No offense meant," he said, sounding puzzled.
She had a sudden mental image of a big, friendly dog wagging its tail in earnest to clear any slight. Slouched back in her seat to pick at the remainder of her meal, she curled a hand in front of her mouth to stifle a snicker.
He looked, if anything, more puzzled than before, but he didn't ask.
She should have known that being the first one down to the common room after checking in would mark hers as the table to choose as the others came down for lunch. Kirion was approaching. So much for people-watching. At least he wasn't wearing that gods-awful sparkly armor and sending beams of light dancing across walls and ceiling. Well, it wasn't that bad. But close enough.
His eyes were also obviously caught by the tall elf with the golden ponytail and wings. Was Jenna the only one who knew how to watch without being noticed as watching? Except by weredogs, she reminded herself with fleeting amusement.
Esk came only a short way behind Kirion, and the half-elf pulled out a chair for her, automatically it seemed. Jenna still wondered if there were anything between them. Any information about one's associates could prove useful at some point.
The others at the table had started on their food when an argument arose suddenly between the winged sun elf and the human sitting next to him at the bar.
"I did not, and you couldn't prove it anyhow," the elf declared loudly enough for his words to reach them clearly, speaking the common tongue with five times as much backwoods twang as she'd ever heard from Kirion. He certainly didn't sound like a gold elf.
The man beside him insisted, in an Amnian accent with ever increasing volume, that he had seen it plain as day, and Dennet would back him up. The big, musclebound man on his other side nodded grimly, looking across his smaller friend at the elf.
After a couple more rounds of loud arguing, the winged elf dipped his fingers into a pocket on his vest. Jenna tensed inside, expecting to have to leave the room in order to stay out of a fight that would probably spread.
But when the elf's long fingers emerged, all they held was a bunched wad of pink yarn, which he flipped almost contemptuously at the smaller man's scowling face as if to win the argument with absurd insult.
In the mere inches between hand and face, the yarn unwadded itself with a violent motion, flashing outward into a loosely tangled mass. It struck the human and instantly wrapped around his face and head like an octopus' tentacles, drawing a startled oath from its victim.
By that time, the elf was already on his feet and turning away in disgust. The human beside him growled curses and dug his fingers under the half-blinding yarn, but didn't appear to be hurt or even terribly surprised.
"Now tha's jus' nah fair," Dennet slurred and staggered to his feet, waving his tankard in protest. "You know I'm gonna hafta beat you for that." He downed the last swallow and tossed the tankard aside, advancing on the elf with a regretful look on his broad face.
"Outside!" the barkeeper yelled desperately.
"Won't take but a moment, goodman," the elf said with a facetious little salute. As the massive human advanced on him, he casually picked up an empty stool. A small but surprisingly powerful jab of a wooden leg in the pit of the stomach sent Dennet to his knees, struggling for breath.
The elf looked at the stool he held. "Didn't even break it this time," he said with a note of wonder.
The smaller man had pulled the tangled yarn off his face, and now he threw it back at the elf with a scowl. "I'm not drinking with you anymore."
The sun elf scooped up the string and pocketed it. "Yeah, maybe I'll believe it one of these times." He tossed a coin onto the bar near the man. "Buy Dennet another round so he doesn't get all depressed at losing to a scarecrow. I--"
His speech broke off as Dennet surged up from his knees and tackled the elf, sending him crashing to the floorboards with half-flared wings.
"Looks like he doesn't need another one," the other human said pleasantly.
"Jesse, what are you doing?!" Elly and Vindrik were back from visiting her father, and Elly was rushing over to the brawl with an angry look as she spoke.
Now sitting on the floor, Dennet had Jesse in an arm bar, heavy muscles flexing.
"Hi there, love," the winged elf choked out. "Just--waiting--for you--"
"Father said you were in town," Elly told him as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Vindrik was watching the spectacle on the floor with blatant concern, even disbelief.
"I--urk--stopped by to--akk--see him," Jesse replied, clawing at the thick arm around his neck.
"Well, get up from there and let me introduce you to everyone!" Elly demanded.
"Getting--boring--anyway," he grumbled.
He did nothing that Jenna could see, but Dennet let out a bellow and released his opponent to wrap his arms around his own head. "Ge' them out!" he wailed pitifully. "Ge' them outta my head!"
Jesse scrambled to stand and stepped prudently out of reach of the big man cowering on the floor. "One of these days he's just going to crack," he sighed, looking down at Dennet. Then he turned, grabbed Elly in a bear hug, and spun her around with her legs flailing.
"It's been a while," he said when he set her back on her feet.
"It's been nearly thirty years since the last time you dropped by, is what it's been!" she retorted.
"That long?" he mused. "I'd imagine you've been promised off already to some rich merchant with proper manners and a big mansion for you to laze around in and knit doilies."
"Not if I can help it."
"You're your mother's child," Jesse said, wiping at one dry eye. "Almost makes me teary."
The smaller human was kneeling to check Dennet, who was still cowering with his arms around his head. "What'd you do to him?"
"Nothing!" Jesse insisted with a frown. "Just a little trick I picked up. It works good on drunken louts. He won't remember it in the morning. By the way," he said to Elly, "that's Fander. He's one of the carnival's acrobats. That's Dennet on the floor. He's our strongman. He's really a lot smarter when he's sober. An absolute demon at cards."
"Hi," Elly said brightly to the carnies. "I'm his sister," pointing at Jesse. Then she took the much-taller elf's hand and pulled him toward Jenna's table. "Come meet the others."
Kirion rose to stand as they approached, and the others at the table followed more slowly. Except Jenna, who didn't move.
Elly speared a finger at each of them as she went. "That's Vindrik, of course, practically another brother for me for the last twenty years and more. I wrote you about him before, but he was just a kid then. That's Kirion, from Deepingdale. His great-grandmother was a dragon. That's Ylant; he's a weredog from the Lurkwood. And Jenna, who still hasn't said where she's from, but I'm betting on the Dragon Coast. And Esk came along from Scornubel to represent Teshell, who has a major interest in this caravan's contents." She pointed at Jesse again, still not releasing his captured hand. "This is my big brother, Taljesir. Or Jesse."
"Half-brother," he corrected, giving his wings a flip by way of explanation.
"Close enough."
Vindrik had pulled up three extra chairs, though the newcomers would be unable to eat at the table due to crowding. "So, Jesse," he said as they sat down, "have anything planned for the next tenday or so?"
"Yeah, actually. This traveling carnival is a great setup."
"...Oh," Vindrik muttered, wavering between relief and disappointment.
"Do we get free admission?" Elly put in.
"What's it worth to you?"
"A punch in the nose if we don't."
Jesse grinned. Jenna imagined that a woman less jaded with men in general might find the rakish expression attractive on that elegant face. As things stood, it only made her more guarded.
"Ahh, I'm just playing with you," Jesse confessed to Vindrik in that drawl that almost seemed deliberately exaggerated, snagging an untouched bread roll from Jenna's ravaged plate. "Amandaer told me what you're doing. I've got a girl lined up who's really been wanting to take a turn at trick riding. Been practicing hard for months, and she's got natural talent besides. Be a shame not to give her a chance to shine for a while." He bit off more than half of the roll, then paused and looked at Jenna. "You didn't want that, did you?" he asked around the big mouthful, holding up the remaining crescent of bread.
"No," she said with mock generosity, "be my guest. Allow me to recommend what's left of the chop, if you don't think the bone will stick on the way down."
He grinned again, heedless of his full mouth, and finished chewing and swallowing. "Thanks. Always good to have a buffer against the booze." He munched the rest of the roll. At least he waited until after he'd swallowed before speaking this time. "Now," he said to Vindrik, "I hear there's a dragon involved in all this. The rest of them know, right?" he asked with a small wave that indicated everyone at the table.
"That's why I hired so many. There are three more who aren't here. And the ten laborers."
"You really think that'll be enough if it comes back?"
Vindrik made a delicate grimace, running his fingers through his jaw-length silver hair as if to settle it after wind. "Honestly, it's going to have to be. We've taken a big loss on this trip already. Even if most of the weapons and jewelry are recoverable, I'm not sure we'll make any profit after paying this many. Right now, I'm just hoping to break even."
"Don't bother asking, I'm coming along for free. You got plenty of healing potions and all?"
"Kirion takes care of that."
Jesse gave the young cleric a frankly measuring look. "Can you even use the tongues spell?"
Kirion's brows drew together in a slight frown. "No..." he said warily.
"With an inexperienced cleric and that many people to get hurt," Jesse informed Vindrik, "you're going to need potions. And a few for things like fixing paralysis and weakening. Maybe invisibility. And definitely acid protection. You let them all set out without seeing to that?" he asked Kirion, annoyed and incredulous.
"I brought what I believed I'd need," Kirion said slowly, as if not overly eager to speak to this individual. He could clam up like no other Jenna had seen, when pushed the wrong way.
"So you had no idea what you're up against, or you just looked to yourself and let everyone else make those little oversights that could cost lives?"
"Shut up, Jesse," Elly said, bristling. "He's more concerned for people than you are."
"Just trying to make sure you're well cared for, love," he said with a disarming smile. "Your father'd expect no less. You are, after all, terribly underage for venturing out into this dangerous world..."
"I'm only nine years from a hundred!" she flared, automatically it seemed.
He just patted her head consolingly, and she batted his hand away. Then she socked Vindrik in the arm for his snicker.
"Ah, the joys of family and friends," Jenna said dryly. "I'm going to go wander around a bit. We're leaving at dawn?" she asked Vindrik as she stood.
"If all goes as planned between now and then."
"Aww, you look so hopeful," she cooed. "See you at dawn, then."
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| Laerrigan |
Posted - 30 May 2011 : 08:38:20
((((((skipping a bit, going on to Soubar...))))))
Jesse halted outside the wooden door and took a deep breath, determined to make himself go through with this. He'd already walked right into a temple, however small, and its servants hadn't batted an eye. Except for a few elbow-nudges and whispers among themselves, of course. But he'd grown up with that. An overly-tall sun elf with gold-feathered wings could hardly expect otherwise.
The truly hard part lay ahead. He squared his shoulders and rapped at the door.
"Enter," came the familiar voice from the room on the other side.
He was committed now. Not giving himself a chance to hesitate, he turned the handle and pushed the door open. "Hello again," he said, trying to sound cheerful.
They'd told him what to expect when he'd arrived, but the sight of Amandaer still made his stomach twist. His right eye looked like frosted glass, blinded by the dragon's acid breath despite very little scarring around it. The resident cleric's magic had done wonders, but he'd been unable to save the vision in that eye. Amandaer's right arm and leg were also severely weakened from losing muscle to the acid, more damage that had been irreparable with the means at hand.
The servants of the world's scheming deities always had thought more of themselves than they should.
Sitting at a small writing desk across the novice cell where he'd been lodged, Amandaer stared at what had appeared in his doorway.
Jesse wondered what else to say. After an uncomfortable silence, he fidgeted, glancing back into the hall. "I just heard you were here. And what had happened. Figured I'd check in. I...shouldn't have come. Sorry." He started to turn.
"Taljesir, wait."
He paused, looking at the floor in the corner, wanting more than anything just to get back outside and find a tavern.
"I've never blamed you. Didn't Elleona tell you that in her letters?"
"Hot weather they've got here, this time of year," Jesse said. "But people still show up for a carnival. I'll be up for trick riding tomorrow. Better go practice. I just wanted to see for myself you're all right. More or less." He shifted his weight again to leave.
"Elleona will be here, hopefully within the next few days."
That drew a quick look from Jesse.
"She and Vindrik went ahead to Scornubel to meet with our receivers and tell them the news," Amandaer continued. "I stayed behind because I can't ride very well right now and I didn't want to slow them. They'll be heading back to the bridge with a team of guards and laborers, to save what we can of the cargo that went into the river when the dragon attacked. I'll be going along, and I know I'd be more than grateful for your aid on that venture."
"I have a job to do."
One of his coppery brows rose. "Riding a horse through dust and danger for a measely wage and the applause of the slobbering rabble?"
"That's exactly why I can't stand you people!" Jesse exploded. "You're no better than that 'rabble' just because you have pointed ears and more education than you know what to do with. It never seems to occur to you that maybe they like their lives just as they are, that maybe they look down on you for being a prissy-rich ass."
Jesse knew his gold eyes were glowing reddish in the dim light near the door as he spoke, but he didn't bother restraining his anger. The people he'd passed on his way through the small temple might think him a half-celestial, but Amandaer knew all about him.
Amandaer held up his acid-warped hand in an unconscious gesture to halt a forthcoming tirade for a moment. "I only meant that you personally could do so much more. If that really is all you want from life, far be it from me to--"
"And there you are again. 'All you want from life.' What makes it so bad? I like going absolutely nowhere, and going there with a passion! It's an art! Sorry I showed up and disturbed your view of the world."
This time he left before his mother's husband could say anything more.
He hardly noticed the interior of the cozy little temple on the way out. That temple drew more cursing in his mind when he realized he'd have to go halfway across Soubar to find a decently indecent tavern in which to squander another few hours of his life.
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| Laerrigan |
Posted - 21 May 2011 : 05:39:23
Even in her sleep, Gyrtusjachuskpersvekariymwaere turned her new name over and over in her mind, admiring it like a trophy won in some great battle. Which it was, though the battle had been marvelously easy, especially for so great a gain. The long-forgotten cave was hers now, and the rich, ancient shrine to Tiamat it held in its deepest chamber.
A faint sound much like the chirp of a sparrow heard through a tunnel roused her instantly from slumber. Her eyes snapped open.
The ghost was back. Rith had learned last time not to wake her with telepathic contact. This time the pseudodragon had remained near the far wall of the spacious cave, manifested so Gyrtusjach could see her without effort, and had chirped rather tentatively to wake her.
The old green dragon stretched lazily where she lay on her newly-increased collection of valuables from across the realm and throughout history. "And what mission of world-shattering import brings you all this way again, to waste a portion of your invaluable time in seeking my new, humble lair?"
Your great work is about to be undone, Your Magnificence, Rith said carefully, drifting within telepathic range. A group of laborers and guards is on its way to lift the caravan's cargo from the water.
"Great work? Are you perhaps referring to that bit of exercise at the bridge?"
Yes, Ancient One.
"My 'work' cannot be undone," Gyrtusjach noted, laying her head back down and half closing her eyes. "Unless these creatures plan an attempt to draw the elves back out of me. I toppled the wagons merely as a favor. Entertainment along with a delightful meal." She'd have to think of something for the pitiful creature to do in exchange for that favor. It wouldn't be capable of much, but principle was principle.
It is very important that they not recover the cargo.
"It must be, indeed. You utterly forgot to use an obsequious title in address. My life is richer for having learned of such momentous events taking place outside this wood; you may take my heartfelt thanks with you when you leave." She closed her eyes in dismissal.
There was silence for the space of a few breaths. Then Rith spoke again in her mind.
Ariskendeem is in one of those wagons.
Gyrtusjach's eyes opened to slits. "How thoughtful of you to draw me into the maneuverings of your god. If ever I contemplate lichdom as a means of prolonging my tenure in this corroding world, away from the glorious personal presence of Tiamat, perhaps I will begin to care about a weapon that hungers only for draconic undead. In the meantime, I suggest you begin flight now, before someone with reason to dislike you manages to acquire it."
She stared hard at the ghost as she finished, wondering how much more pointed she would have to be before her unwanted guest grasped the concept of leaving in relative peace.
...I can promise a large reward from Medraxthanat's hoard--
Between the beginning and end of the last word, Gyrtusjach was on her feet and lashing out with divinely-powered anger. The ghost squeaked in fright and curled into a ball, its misty form trembling visibly.
"Leave before I decide your presence in the name of Falazure's minion dishonors my shrine," she hissed, glaring down at the presumptuous creature.
Rith vanished from sight without hesitation. A quick check for the proximity of any undead assured Gyrtusjach it really was gone.
That had hardly been satisfying. The ghost was weak and nothing worthwhile had come of scaring it off. The old cleric settled back down among her piles of precious metals and jewels with an irritable growl.
At least the shrine was hers. Its previous owner had made the stupid mistake of bragging about discovering the cave system when he didn't have the strength to defend it. That victory had been more worthwhile. The prize had far outweighed the effort involved. She drifted back to sleep with comforting thoughts of her grand lair, and a new name with it.
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| Laerrigan |
Posted - 12 May 2011 : 00:17:47
Kirion was up with the first hint of blue-green light at the eastern horizon. Feeling more at peace than he had since the destruction of his home, he wandered away from camp, enjoying the cool, clean breezes that were beginning to stir under the crystalline sky. The day would all too soon turn his armor into a furnace. The weather had only gotten hotter in the past few days.
With that thought, he changed his plans a bit and decided to ask for magic to mitigate the heat. He hated to waste one of his allotment of spells for the day on himself, but he'd be no good to anyone if he suffered heatstroke, and he really didn't want to travel unarmored.
As the sun crested the edge of the world, spilling clear light across the tops of the low hills and ridges, he concluded his time of silent prayer and reflection. He rose from his seat atop the bluff where they'd battled the spider and returned to the camp. He still had work to do, the results of that fight.
Elly, Laerrigan, and Dor had all been bitten by the spider. All three of them had completely lost mobility very soon after the thing had been killed, and had needed to be carried. They were currently laid in their bedrolls alongside each other, surrounded by the rest of the camp for protection.
When Kirion reached them, Dor was struggling valiantly to sit up, and Elly's eyes were open and looking around.
"Just hold still for a few moments," Kirion told the elf, sitting down beside her bedroll. "I can get some of your strength back, at least."
It was difficult, having both a career choice and a type of magic that often required physical contact with the opposite sex. A part of him rather liked the idea, and for innocent reasons; girls generally had nicer skin than boys, and were much more pleasant to look at, as he'd rather look at a verdant forest than a rocky hillside. But mostly he felt he was invading their personal space. Especially since age had brought a direct understanding of such things.
Elly in particular seemed the sort who would not only harbor suspicions of his motives, but would have no problem voicing them. He was thankful the spell required no more than a hand placed lightly on her forehead, and he hoped it wouldn't bother her.
He focused on his murmured request to Tamara and was glad when the spell was finished. He knew only a dozen heartbeats had passed, but it felt like much longer.
"Sorry I can't do more right now," he said quietly, moving over to Dor and not looking at her. "I can only use this enough times to cover each of you once. I'll do it again tomorrow. And, um...you might want to go aside and change your bandage soon," he added uncomfortably.
He'd used only one spell for healing on each of the casualties last night, not knowing what else might jump out of a hole in the ground and require more magic in the fight. He felt the same about healing spells today, when their wounds would heal on their own with time. He just hated the necessity of leaving them with any amount of pain, however slight.
Elly sat up. "...All right," she said, as if not knowing what else to say.
Why was it that Kirion could handle the notion of body functions and even childbirth in any patient without a problem, and yet balked when faced with checking a wound on a girl's thigh? He'd put on a professional front last night after the three had stopped moving, and had assigned Jenna to bandaging up Elly while Kirion worked on Laerrigan and Dor. Some impartial healer he was proving to be.
"Hold still, if you can manage it," he said wryly to the halfling, who had finally been able to sit up as well.
"Can you give me ogre strength?" Dor asked earnestly, panting a little after the effort of kicking and shoving his light blanket aside.
"No."
Dor sighed deeply, but held still for the spell.
Kirion sensed that not as much was repaired in Dor as in Elly, but he couldn't afford to try again. He still had to take care of Laerrigan. He suspected the gods made spell results variable just because they liked to keep their clerics guessing.
Laerrigan appeared to be sleeping. But as soon as Kirion touched his forehead, the patchy-colored arcanist spoke without opening his eyes.
"Don't bother," he said quite rationally. "I'm not a terrible lot of use. May as well not waste a spell." Then his eyes flew open with a look of great concern, and he dragged a hand up to brush at his brow.
Kirion had assumed his paralyzed patient would want the sweatband sash removed from his head for sleep, so he wouldn't be lying on the knot at the back. He hadn't been surprised to find partly-developed horns underneath. Not after removing Laerrigan's duster, vest, and shirt to tend the spider bite on his back and finding small, leathery wings wrapped around his torso under the clothing, and scattered scaly patches all across his black-marbled skin.
"By the time I took that off," Kirion told him, "there wasn't much to hide. We'd already seen the wings when I tended your bite. Were you really out cold?"
"Yes," Laerrigan said, now eyeing him as if looking for the slightest sign that he might attack a tiefling regardless of incapacitation.
Kirion shrugged faintly. "You have an excuse. It bit you pretty good."
"After he nearly killed it with his righteous fury," Dor put in loudly. "He's the world's most powerful wizard!"
Laerrigan stared at the halfling, then closed his eyes and rubbed at them slowly with the heels of both hands, despite the rough cloth of his fingerless gloves. Most likely the gloves concealed more scaly skin.
"I'd rather you were able to at least carry your own gear," Kirion told him, privately wondering why he'd think he was so useless if he'd really lept to the defense of his friend and done serious damage to the spider before being taken down. "This won't take but a few moments." He laid his fingers on the Calishite's forehead again and quietly began the spell for the third time.
Meanwhile, Dor began dramatically crawling away with a grimace, dragging himself across the hard ground on his elbows toward the privy, despite the fact that he had plenty of strength to stand.
When he was done, Kirion left the recovering casualties and walked through the roadside camp. Many of the people were ready to ride after a cold breakfast. Kirion snagged a wedge of cheese and half a loaf of hard-crusted bread from one of the workers whose mount was carrying stores, and ate quickly as he walked.
He found what he sought near the front of the company. Eriaeskalor stood with Vindrik in quiet conversation, both of them casting an occasional glance at the road ahead.
Kirion made sure his boots scuffed in the pebbly dirt as he approached. He knew Vindrik was uncomfortable with him. Their conversation halted.
"I don't mean to interrupt," he told them. "I'd just like a word with Esk when you're done."
"There isn't much more to discuss," Esk said with a twist of a humorless smile. "All that can be done about hidden local fauna is continue to send out scout riders. And thoroughly check the vicinity of our camp sites before settling down."
Kirion said nothing to that, but led her away from anyone who was near enough to overhear them. Then he turned and looked her in the eye.
"I noticed someone was missing from the fray," he said.
"I have a cover to maintain, Kirion," she said calmly. "You did well enough for yourselves."
"Three people too weak to help if we're attacked by anything else today is not doing well enough."
"One is a spellcaster. He'll prefer to stay out of direct combat, and his weakness won't affect his magic."
"One more bite and he might have been dead. And the other two as well."
"But that didn't happen," she said, sounding confident that the trend would continue. "All of you worked very well together as a team, and the creature was killed with little loss. If the green dragon from the bridge had flown all the way here to attack, I'd have had no choice but to help, but I stayed out of so small a fight last night. I'd rather not give away my nature so soon, when the green may be waiting for us to arrive. Right now, he or she knows nothing about me. That could prove an advantage."
Before Kirion could think of a reply, a look of unpleasant realization came over her almost delicate face.
"That is, of course, assuming that the ghost isn't acting as a spy for someone greater..."
Kirion resisted the powerful urge to reach his senses out with magic to search for the little ghost, in case it was near but invisible. If it was listening to them, it would expect him to search now, and would either dart out of range or stay behind him no matter which way he turned to look. The path of the extra sense would never cross the undead pseudodragon, and Kirion would have lost another spell for the day.
Esk was watching him intently. She said nothing further on the matter, hopefully because her thoughts were following a similar line.
After a long moment of silence, Kirion turned and walked away, trying to make himself accept her reasoning. What else could he do? Keileadonies had always maintained that other dragons--even his scattered relatives--would not associate with him on as level a field as she had. In fact, most of them would view him as an embarrassing mongrel even more than did a few of his elven relatives, and would probably resent Tamara's choice to grant him power as her cleric.
Eriaeskalor had actually surprised him with her willingness to explain herself. But three of the guards for this operation were largely out of commission because his great aunt had chosen anonymity over aid.
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 30 Apr 2011 : 19:48:09
"You burned down an entire village with ordinary fire," Laerrigan reminded Dor in a harsh whisper that night, as someone began playing some kind of pipes out in the darkness. "You don't need more magic fire!"
Dor took a big bite of flavorless dried meat, though there was plenty of very good stew for everyone in the camp. Laerrigan had long since stopped trying to make sense of the beanhead's random preferences. He was a strongheart halfling--quite possibly with gnome blood in him--who'd voluntarily spent the largest portion of his life playing with explosives in Lantan. What sense was there to find?
"You worry a lot," Dor said around the mouthful.
"I wonder why."
"I'm only furthering the cause of my deity," he claimed with great relish, spraying bits of chewed jerky.
"You've really grabbed that and run with it, haven't you? Do you even have any idea what Kossuth's cause may be?"
"Burning stuff."
Laerrigan rubbed at his head, which always seemed to hurt when they had these conversations. Then he carefully readjusted his headband sash to make sure it kept covering the shallow bony domes he had in place of true horns on his forehead, after nudging it without thinking.
"Why do I bother...?" he sighed in response to the halfling.
Dor patted his arm with sudden, overdone sympathy. "Because you care."
"Burn in the Ninth Hell."
"Feel better now?"
"For the moment."
Some time later, the tiefling put his journal away and laid out his bedroll. Dor was nowhere to be seen, but that was hardly unusual. He'd get to sleep whenever he got to sleep.
But just after Laerrigan lay down, his friend hollered excitedly from the darkness. "Laerrigan! Laerrigan! I found a hole!"
Eyes closed, Laerrigan slowly rubbed a hand over his face. If he ignored him, he might go away. Or he might keep shouting until someone either went to look or tied him up and gagged him so everyone could sleep.
Dor had a coil of rope on his pack. He wondered if the pack had been left nearby while Dor went exploring.
No. He couldn't do that, even if he were physically capable of wrestling the over-competetive halfling down and trussing him. As Dor hollered for him again, more emphatically this time, Laerrigan got to his feet and trudged off in the direction of the voice.
He saw well enough in complete darkness, and the moonless but starry night gave him no difficulty. He found Dor after only a few moments of following his voice around a rocky rise.
The hole was a horizontal crack that angled sharply downward under upthrust layers of sandstone before turning to follow a more level path. That turn blocked from Laerrigan's darkvision anything more than fifteen feet inside it.
"Congratulations," Laerrigan said, staring at the base of the low cliff in sarcastic awe. "You have indeed found a hole. One big enough that you could walk into it upright. I'll buy you a medal when we reach Triel. But before then, I'd like to get some sleep."
"But it could be a cave! There could be bandit treasure in there!"
"Or any of two dozen kinds of nasty creatures that would swallow you in one bite. Or inject you with paralyzing poison and lay their eggs in your gut, so you're still alive when their young hatch out and start eating you from inside. We're getting adequate payment for this job. Why don't--"
His words froze along with the rest of him, possibly including his heart. Something had poked into view at the bend in the cave. Something with six globular, lidless eyes the size of Laerrigan's head, and a complex arrangement of mandibles. Something easily as big as a bed at a very expensive inn.
Before he knew what he was doing, he'd shoved Dor into a sideways tumble. He was peripherally aware of the many-eyed head popping out of the crack in the ground, fanged palps snatching at the air where they'd just been.
"What--" Dor began, then saw it.
Sitting in the dirt, Laerrigan watched in sickened fascination as the very embodiment of his most horrific nightmares came boiling up out of that hole, hairy legs spearing out and down like some macabre fountain to pull the soft, bulbous body into the moonlight.
Furry and fat-legged, brown and tan, with a strangely delicate pink on the rounded toes. A desert spider. Big enough to catch horses like flies; when he'd thought it was the size of a bed, he'd only been seeing its cephalothorax, which proved to be a terribly small part of its body. Amazing, how small a space it had squeezed through.
He scrambled frantically away from the vast obscenity, stumbling to his feet only after the first several yards. His thoughts consisted of nothing but an overwhelming image of that unspeakable beast, and a primal terror driving him away from it. And wondering vaguely where that wimpering sound was coming from.
Dor was hollering something at the top of his lungs.
Laerrigan could only focus on staying conscious and not losing his balance on the broken ground.
"YES! GIANT, KILLER BUG!!"
Jenna's eyes snapped open at the hoarse, elated scream.
That was the halfling. She briefly considered tuning out his antics, hoping he'd go to sleep soon.
Loud cursing in another language quickly followed, and thrashing in the scrubby bushes.
She sat up, frowning in the direction of the noise. The cookfires had burned down to barely glimmering embers. There'd been no alarm from the four people on watch, though they had turned to orient on the cry.
A double clap of thunder echoed sharply across the rough land and made her hunch instinctively. The starry sky was clear.
That halfling had had a pair of gnomish pistols at his belt.
She lept to her feet, automatically grabbing up her sheathed rapier. On second thought, she took her crossbow as well, drawing the string and fumbling a bolt into the barrel even as she set out.
Others were standing and snatching up weapons now. A white-and-brown streak wearing peasant clothes must be Ylant, dashing away into the night in half-animal form. He'd get wherever they were going first, moving that quickly.
Jenna let him go, and a few others as well, before following. The others circled the near end of a rise that cut off in a cliff on the far side, which was now sillhouetted against a flickering orange glow. Clutching her sheathed sword under the crossbow, she moved up the rugged slope to the top, sinking to a crouch and finally onto her belly as she neared the edge and peered over.
Dor had understated. That spider was no less than thirty feet long. Not counting the fat legs.
It was also on fire. Slightly. Burning oil or alchemist's fire had started a small blaze on one side of its huge abdomen, and flames licked up among the hairs. And Ylant was clinging to the top of its broad head, shortsword jammed down into the fuzzy carapace to anchor him as he tore at the creature's nearest eye with the claws of his free hand.
As Jenna paused to take in the barely-visible scene, she heard Vindrik skittering over the stones to join her, loosing an arrow from his longbow almost as soon as he'd come to a halt and looked down.
Devam plummeted from the dark sky like a stooping falcon, no more than a flicker of black and a gleam of steel to human vision. The spider reared up and snatched with its front pair of legs, nearly dislodging Ylant, but the harpy jerked and rolled in the air, slipping through with surely no more than a hand's breadth to spare. He slammed into the thing's round abdomen with an audible thud, then sprang away back into the air only to be batted to the ground by another strike of the spider's leg.
With an inward shrug, Jenna took aim and fired down on Dor's giant bug, carefully aiming away from Ylant, who was now violently twisting his embedded shortsword.
Light flashed not far from Ylant, and a snakelike creature appeared on the spider's back. Snakelike and segmented and as long as the spider, with hundreds of little legs that fluttered in the starlight as it coiled and got a grip before sinking astonishingly large fangs into its living perch.
And the spider, battered and failing visibly now, lurched backward toward the cliff face below Jenna. But there was no retreat for it; mithral glittered faintly behind it, and Kirion braced himself and sliced at its rear with a glowing sword, using the massive creature's momentum to add power to the blow. Beside him, Elly threw her weight forward and ran the length of her own sword into the soft, furry mass. And everyone took one last shot.
The spider shuddered, then crumpled to the ground and lay still except for one leg that continued to spasm. The giant centipede on its back vanished in a swirl of light.
By the time Jenna had made her way down the slope and around to its other side to join her fellows in arms, Kirion was busy with his healing magic by the flickering light of the small flames on the spider. Elly was sitting on a rock, slouched and a bit dazed; her pants bore a dark patch on one thigh, but Kirion had already turned away from her to check Dor. The halfling sat on the ground, even more slouched than Elly, bowed head in his hands.
"Find Laerrigan!" Dor told Kirion as the half-elf stood after dropping to one knee to heal him. He sounded terribly worn-out, probably suffering from the spider's venom. "He ran in to kill the bug when it attacked me, but it bit him and threw him somewhere!"
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 28 Apr 2011 : 01:46:13
Kirion nudged his horse into a trot and drew up even with Vindrik. He'd caught the moon half-elf's unconscious glance in his direction while he spoke with Esk.
"I'll ride around as northern scout," Kirion said when he reached Esk's other side, looking across her at Vindrik and Jenna.
No one responded. Vindrik didn't even look straight at him.
Kirion didn't bother waiting more than an instant before setting his mount to trotting again, and then cantering. He wanted to be out alone, nothing but him and his horse and whatever might live in this hot, dusty land. A forest would have been infinitely better, but the only trees in sight were occasional twisted, scraggly things that hardly resembled the firs their needles claimed them to be.
Once he was over a low hill and out of sight of the road, he slowed back to a walk. And before long, he turned at the sound of hooves on the baked ground. Devam was riding awkwardly toward him.
"You can take the south side," Kirion called just loudly enough to reach him over the dry wind.
"I'm taking your side, you melodramatic halfbreed," Devam snarled back as he drew near. "You can't--"
Kirion kicked his horse's flanks, sending the startled animal into a near-gallop. He wasn't the greatest rider in the world, but Devam was much worse. Perhaps the harpy would take the hint and not bother trying to keep up.
When he glanced back after a while, it had worked. He slowed again, feeling bad for pushing his mount like that in this heat.
The animal shied and snorted, and a dark shape with brightly-patterned wings fell from the sky to land in a wash of stirred-up dust directly ahead. It seemed Devam had left his robe, cloak, and horse behind.
"Don't...ever...run from me." His beautiful voice was a hiss through clenched teeth, and his sharp eyes were wide and intense like a cat's before the pounce as he crouched as if to leap.
"Then don't follow when I want to be alone." He steered around the harpy and continued on.
Two flaps of large wings placed Devam before him again. "I can outrun that lumbering creature on the wing, and my voice can call it to me regardless," he snapped. "I have had enough of your silence and self-pity. Even if you change with the moon, you have been handed life again. I will not take it from you simply because you would rather lie down and be slain than face a little hardship. I could easily despise you for that wish, but I have not allowed myself to do that. Twice have I seen human parents lose a child, and once a house full of children lose a mother. I will never understand their reactions; I can only accept their sorrow as a part of your kind. But at least they went on."
Kirion said nothing. He didn't trust himself to speak. Not because he might say something he'd regret, but because he knew he couldn't do it without breaking down.
He drew a deep, slow breath, focused on the horizon, and mentally settled himself to weather whatever else Devam might throw at him before becoming frustrated with his lack of response and leaving. Rather like a tortoise drawing into its shell when found by curious dogs.
But there was silence beyond the faint whistling of the wind. Devam just stared hard at him, and time stretched out. Kirion was willing to bet he had more patience than his friend.
He was right. Finally, Devam lept back into the air, nearly blinding Kirion with dust, and flew back toward his mount and the rest of his costume so he could rejoin the traveling party. Their current company knew his nature even as they knew Ylant's, but he wouldn't want passing strangers taking fright at seeing a harpy flying over the road. Of course, his care was more for the danger of being shot with arrow or magic than for the inspired fear itself. He enjoyed that part.
Kirion did eventually have to return to the others when the sun went down. He did his best to pretend nothing was wrong, and sat at one of the cookfires among the laborers who'd be lifting things from the river. They didn't speak much, and when they did, they kept mostly to their little groups of longtime friends.
After eating, he wandered back into the darkness outside the firelight. He found a twisted length of fir trunk that had fallen long ago, and sat on a raised curve of it and pulled his newer pipes from his backpack.
He realized the mournful quality of his soft playing only when he paused for a time, and a flute from back in the camp raised its sweet, light voice in answer. He'd been playing a wistful song of mourning common in the Dalelands. The flute replied with a jaunty dance tune that would surely be recognized in any seaside tavern around the Dragonmere, and which had been carried far inland as well. The two songs used a very similar tune, though in a different key and at different speeds.
Kirion had to smile wryly at himself, knowing how maudlin he must seem. He couldn't justify bringing people around him down just because he felt that way himself sometimes. It was his job to lift them up. To console, not to be consoled. That was what it meant to serve Tamara.
He joined the breathy sound of his wooden birdpipes with the flute for another verse and refrain. He'd never feel comfortable singing the bawdy lyrics to the song, but he had to admit the skirling music was fun. He didn't think he was ready yet to join the unknown floutist by a fire, though.
"Can you go back to Flowers on the Hill...?"
Ylant had approached unheard, and stood somewhat hesitantly a couple yards away.
Irritation stirred briefly in Kirion. The one who'd removed the possibility of a quick death for him was now trying to buddy up. But he squashed the feeling and said nothing, instead switching back to the song he'd originally been playing.
The northlander sat patiently on the ground to hear the entire song, with its musical variations between pairs of verse and refrain. His head was bowed and it looked like his eyes might be closed.
When the sweet, sad song was finished, he raised his head, and his dark eyes bore a candid look of loss. But he smiled.
"I heard that the first time in Silverymoon," he said. "Just a few months after my wife's death." He swallowed hard, but the smile didn't entirely leave his squarish, friendly face. "Thank you," he added simply.
Tears stung Kirion's eyes and he looked away, wiping them with one hand only to have more well up to replace them. Maybe if he just went off by himself he could weep and be done with it, and get back to his usual self for a while more. He should be a comfort to a young man who'd lost a wife, not a further burden on him. He stood to go, trying to think of some pretext that wouldn't hurt or offend Ylant.
But the weredog spoke first, standing as well. "Devam told me what happened," he said softly. "I only lost one. I can't imagine--" He broke off.
Kirion wasn't sure he'd even be able to see his way over the broken ground, with his vision so blurred. How inconvenient.
It dawned on him a moment later that there were arms around him, armor and all. He wondered dazedly when that had happened.
He couldn't remember anyone doing that since the temple in Highmoon. Strange that his response should come so naturally, even unstoppably, as if from ingrained habit; he buried his face in the northlander's shoulder and caved in to silent, racking sobs. And some shred of awareness told him this near-stranger was quietly weeping with him.
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 28 Apr 2011 : 01:45:12
Surrounded as he was by paid fighters and creatures that normally attacked groups of innocent travelers rather than protecting them, Vindrik found himself riding gradually closer to Esk after they'd all left Scornubel. She seemed...normal. Elly had headed straight for that halfling after mounting for the ride, leaving Vindrik to find his own company among strangers.
"So...Why exactly does Teshell want Kirion along?" he quietly asked the human girl, unable to think of any graceful preamble. Kirion was currently riding in silence beside his costumed harpy friend a good distance behind.
"One of the items in your caravan was intended for him," she said. "A very important one."
Vindrik ran through what he remembered of the caravan's contents. Most of what he could recall consisted of the weaponry, both magical and merely well-wrought, being shipped by the Silvervein company. A few of the more powerful weapons would sell at Teshell's shop for over a hundred thousand gold apiece, but in all honesty they were little different from others of their kind sold elsewhere. Perhaps she was referring to something added to the caravan by one of the three other merchants who'd bought cargo space.
That thought almost made him grimace. Master Reonar's leather and fur goods were surely ruined by their dunking, along with any wood on the bows among Silvervein goods. And Lady Talariel's finely-crafted wooden jewelry boxes with their lustrous inlays. At least the jewelry from Evermeet should survive intact, though the silver would need diligent polishing...
"We could have brought it back for him, whatever it is," he said, paying only half attention as he thought.
"He needs it absolutely as soon as possible. And one would think that a clergy member from a temple dedicated especially to healing--one who knows much about dragons--would be welcome on a venture to a location that's already fallen under a dragon's attack once." She gave Vindrik a pointed look.
"Normally, yes, more than welcome. But he's...he has..." He groped for words to sum up the myriad of possible disasters inherent in that one individual. "You heard it all," he finally said, giving up.
He wondered if he'd have any chance to see a ghost coming before it took possession of him. Or of anyone else around him. Was there any less danger from the thing during the day?
"For one of the problems, you're more than adequately covered by the people riding with you. The other will be taken care of when this item passes to Kirion."
He looked at her sideways. "And which is which? Or am I not to know that any more than I know what the special item in my own caravan is?"
"If he transforms with the full moon," she explained with overt patience, "Ylant will know how to handle him. As for the other, suffice to say that the item is his inheritance, and it will help him deal with the ghost."
"Vindrik!" Elly yelled at him from farther up the road. "Do we have any fire weapons in the river?"
"Some," he called back warily. "Why?"
"Dor was just asking."
"For the love of all that's not yet dead, don't let him have any!" Laerrigan called to him from where he rode with Elly and the halfling.
Vindrik sighed heavily and didn't reply. If he'd had any better spellcasting applicants, he would never have hired the disturbing Calishite, especially since the overly-intense Dor came as part of the deal.
"Having fun yet?"
That was Jenna, who had ridden up on his other side. Dressed in dark clothing and slumped a bit in her saddle, she wore a wry little smile. Her black hair looked as if she'd pulled it back into a short pontail without bothering to comb it after sleeping, and her blue eyes squinted noticably in the morning light.
Next to Esk, this human seemed the most approachable of the bunch, right around Vindrik's relative age. He hadn't wanted to bother her so far because she'd appeared somewhat ill since they'd all met outside the inn to ride out, though she bore it with considerable grace.
"More than I ever considered possible in Waterdeep, where nothing ever happens," he said with mock levity. "I don't know why I didn't head for the open road a long time ago. It's so..." He trailed off, searching for a word to desribe with just the right amount of understated precision everything he'd gone through in the past month and a half.
"Unique? Picturesque? Soul-expandingly vital?" Jenna suggested, giving a small wave of a silver flask for dramatic emphasis and then taking a swig from it.
Vindrik frowned faintly in concern. "Is that really a good idea so early?" he asked, indicating the flask. The last thing he needed was a drunkard for a guard.
"It takes the edge off. Mornings are best experienced from the other side of closed drapes. Especially when the night before was spent raising toasts to so fine a city before leaving it. I'm going to miss the choking dust. And those adorable cutthroats in the alleys. Did you know they have their own little guild?" she said indulgently. "Almost makes me homesick." She took another sip.
Feeling she was deliberately leading him on, he said, "And where are you from, dare I ask?"
"Ask whatever you like," she said with a shrug. "If the real answer is too boring, I'll make up a better one." She screwed the cap back on the flask and tucked it in a saddlebag.
He couldn't help but smile. "Well?"
"Straight out of a nest of vampires."
"Is it really that boring a place?"
"No, actually, I felt the truth was more interesting than anything I could come up with on my own. I may not be terribly fond of the sun, but I'd rather be able to face it without poofing out of existence, so I left. You?"
"Your story's better than mine, I'm afraid. Just a routine caravan traveling from Waterdeep to Scornubel. I'm supposed to be learning the family business." He snorted softly. "I hope I'll never need whatever experience I've gained from all of this."
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 27 Apr 2011 : 00:00:31
"After two and a half days of searching and interviewing," Vindrik sighed wearily, waving a hand at those seated at the two tables that had been pushed together, "you're the final results. Now, looking at your potential comrades for the rest of the month, does any of you wish to back out for any reason?"
Moving her head only slightly, Jenna took in the sight of the gathered oddballs with weapons. Of them all, only two stood out as ones to be watched somewhat more than most people, and one of those two in particular.
Devam, the shuffling old hunchback with a hawk-face and sharp black eyes, looked out of place in this battle-ready company. But he could be a spellcaster of some sort, not expected to engage directly with any enemy they might encounter. She had yet to hear him speak.
The one who kept drawing her attention was the half-elf across the table from her. Laerrigan spoke the common tongue with a noticable Calishite accent, though without the stiff formality of most who spoke like that. But his appearance defied regional categorization. His skin was light tan and his short hair black as could be expected. But a large, sharp-edged patch of skin as black as ebony curled down the right side of his face, descending from an equally large patch of pure white hair on the right side of his head above his ear. The tip of that pointed ear was black as well, and also a smaller spot low on his opposite cheek.
His eyes were the strangest part. The left was as gold-flecked green as any elf's, but the right was human-brown on the inner half and a pale, bluish-white on the outer half, the division corresponding to the edge of the black skin. Perhaps he had drow blood in him, though she'd never heard of it causing spots rather than an overall greyish color.
She shrugged inwardly, knowing that coloration was hardly an indicator of character. Other than passing notice, she didn't really care what someone looked like, so long as she could recognize him later.
Even the blatantly suspicious looks Laerrigan often threw at the others gathered weren't all of Jenna's problem with him. No, whatever kept nagging at the edges of her awareness and making her just a bit uneasy around the Calishite was far subtler than that. Her inability to define the problem was a large part of why she found herself watching him almost constantly out of the corner of her vision.
"I'm haunted."
That was Kirion, a Dalelander and a much more ordinary-looking half-elf. If one could say "ordinary" about claws, oddly scalloped ears, and a nose a silver dragon would be proud of.
Everyone turned to look at him.
He shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable at the center of attention. "Just thought I'd make it known at the start. We think it's a pseudodragon ghost. It took control of me once already." Definitely trying not to grind his teeth at that admission. "And it may have possessed at least one other person I've known along the road."
"That's...nice to know," Vindrik said faintly, slumping back in his chair. "Teshell really wants you to go? Nothing personal," he said quickly with a flicker of a sick smile.
"Yes," Esk said firmly. The red-haired human girl sat close beside Kirion and, in the couple times Jenna had seen them together before this, she seemed rather solicitous of him, and he of her. Maybe there was something there. And maybe not. The only official reason Esk was coming along on this venture was her position as representative of the magic arms dealer whose incoming merchandise had comprised the majority of the caravan's value.
After another pause, Kirion spoke again, reluctantly. "And I might be a lycanthrope. Dire badger. One bit me, this past full moon."
Vindrik rubbed at his closed eyes with his fingertips but said nothing.
The sun elf, Elly, grinned at Kirion. "Anything else? Hiding any demon wings under that armor?"
"Ow!" The sound burst from Laerrigan, who immediately donked his halfling companion on top of the head with his closed fist as if by reflex.
The halfling, Dor, gave a single bark of laughter and punched the patchy half-elf in the near arm with astonishing force for what had appeared to be friends. Laerrigan winced slightly but didn't respond, going back to watching the exchange between Vindrik and Kirion with blank expression as if nothing had happened.
It was going to be an interesting experience, the rest of this month.
"Well," Vindrik said, glancing around the extended table at the eight people present, "if no one--"
He broke off as a young man who'd risen from a nearby table bent to say something in his ear.
"Um," Vindrik said uncertainly to them all, "excuse me for a moment..." He rose and went a few paces away for a quiet conversation with the auburn-haired, stubble-cheeked human.
"Want to arm wrestle?" Dor demanded. Jenna realized he was addressing her, sitting almost directly across from her. She couldn't quite place his accent.
Brow creased in faint puzzlement, she said, "No."
"Why?" He sounded like she'd denied him the last candy in the dish.
"You're in the wrong seat."
"Laerrigan, move." He said it genially enough, but she thought there was a threat lurking in there. The half-elf sighed at the bother and scooted over to the empty chair on his other side without protest.
"And there's the problem of my arm being longer," Jenna pointed out.
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Leverage is an annoying adversary, isn't it?" Laerrigan muttered, handing a chunk of boiled egg to the slender little weasel that had emerged from a pocket on his lightweight, duster-like robe to sit on his shoulder.
"You say silly things," Dor informed his friend beatifically. "The shorter lever is stronger, with the same force behind it."
"I was speaking to her."
Jenna was spared further inanity by Vindrik's return to the table. The plain-faced young man who'd taken him aside was with him.
"I'd like to add one more to the group," Vindrik told them with wry satisfaction. "Ylant is a born weredog. He's offered to come along as a safeguard against...unpleasant possibilities." His silver-grey eyes flicked toward Kirion and away again.
"Sorry for eavesdropping," Ylant said. "It's a habit."
Jenna wasn't familiar with his accent, but that fact combined with his auburn hair, pale complexion, and strong--though fairly short--build told her he was probably from the far north. He wore simple clothes and no armor, and carried only a shortsword at his side. When he smiled an apology for listening in, she almost wanted to smile along with him. Oh yes, there was humor hidden behind that calmly alert face...
"So we've got two animals with us," the grizzled and well-armed human fighter at the end of the table growled in blatant disgust.
"Three, it looks like," Ylant replied, crossing his arms and meeting the man's eyes. "If you'd rather there was one less, I'll stay behind. I only offered because I might be better suited to handling one who's recently cursed."
"Dealt with them before, have you?" the older man asked flatly.
"A few times. My people give refuge to folks that the Black Blood tries to turn, who don't want to join them. The first few moons are the hardest. And the most dangerous. Then it gets easier, if there's someone around to help. Someone who knows what it's all about, and can stay close to them and not keep the wounds." Another smile twitched at his expressive mouth.
The edge of Jenna's awareness noted Kirion slouched in his chair with lowered eyes, absently tapping the table with one claw, while Devam stared at the side of his head as if to bore through it. For the length of two heartbeats, Kirion looked up at the hunchback with an unspoken plea. Then he dropped his gaze again, apparently not finding whatever he'd hoped for in his companion's face.
"One maddened beast trying to curse the rest of us is bad enough," the older man was saying. "Two only makes it worse. If that one changes," and he jerked a nod toward Kirion, "we can just kill him and be done with it, but I'd rather not have to deal with any more than that."
"Those not born into the change can't pass it on," Ylant told him, his patience obviously wearing thin. "And those born to it don't go mad. At least no more than folks with only one shape. As for me, if I was forced to fight you in another form, I'd make sure you didn't survive to worry about any curse."
"Can you bite me so I can change?" Dor burst out with desperate excitement, as if he'd been barely restraining himself from the first time lycanthropy came up in the discussion.
And right on the heels of his blurted question came Laerrigan's "Don't you dare!"
"You never let me have any fun!" the halfling shot back.
Without response to what Jenna was starting to think of as the comic relief duo, the bearded fighter rose to his feet. She wondered if he was about to ask Ylant to step outside. Would the weredog fight him in a furry form, right out in public view where all the passersby, ignorant of the situation, would automatically take the normal human's part?
"That's company I just won't keep," the man told Vindrik. "You can take the risk if you want, but I watched my cousin go mad after changing and slaughtering his own parents. I'm out." With a barely respectful nod of his head to the young half-elf, he left.
"Loser," Elly and Dor grumbled as one when the common room's door closed behind him. The wicked grin that flashed between them at that sent a shudder down Jenna's spine.
She seriously considered dosing up on the inn's homebrew tonight, because she was quite certain she'd want to leave it all behind when they left in the morning. This was a company in which she'd want every last one of her wits about her.
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 26 Apr 2011 : 23:59:24
Biting back the whines that struggled to escape, Rith forced her borrowed body to hold the scimitar steady despite the pain that threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to kill the cleric--Oh, the ironies in such a death!--and she was fairly certain that Medraxthanat would allow it now that she'd learned of Ariskendeem and this offspring of Keileadonies. But with the dragon's fog spell breaking the neccessarily confusing flow of Rith's ambush and halting potential combat, killing Kirion now would most likely require the ghost to deliberately run her borrowed body through with the scimitar.
Her body lay supine, and the point was poised before her throat. All it would take was a single thrust. Yet she hesitated.
Then she found she couldn't move. Not because of her thrice-damned cowardice about experiencing another death, but because every muscle was frozen in place. She couldn't even blink. And someone was crossing the wooden floor toward her through the fog.
Of course a shop such as this would have powerful magical defenses against robbery, including an instant paralyzing field that wouldn't affect the shop owner or the dragon.
Thinking numerous and colorful curses, Rith decided to accept her momentary defeat and depart. She had more important things to attend at the moment than trying to bluff her way through this. She could always find Kirion again later.
No longer caring if she was seen before demanifesting, she tore herself away from her immobilized host body and fled.
One moment Kirion was standing before a newly-discovered relative, and the next he was on his back on the floor in fog so thick one could almost eat it, holding his sword as if to run it through his own throat. A faint flicker of movement in the inexplicable fog above him disappeared as soon as he saw it. The backs of his legs throbbed with heat and felt numb.
Puzzled, he tried to move the sword aside and sit up, but nothing happened. He was frozen in place.
Yes, this is my life lately, he thought, and mentally settled down in a soft old armchair with a mug of tea to await whatever was coming.
A soft step on the floorboards landed near his head but out of his field of vision. A dozen heartbeats passed. Two dozen.
"The sooner you let me hear your thoughts, Kirion, the sooner I can release you."
It was Esk by his head.
"I only want to hear your side of this," she continued, "but I can't release you to talk until then. Our safety devices allow us to try to listen to the surface thoughts of a captive. Just relax and let it work."
"Something that looked like a tiny dragon made of mist flew inside him," Devam said, approaching from the side
Esk's shoes made a quick shuffle as she whirled to face him and back up a step or two. "What are you?" she demanded. "The holding field catches anything even similar to a human."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Devam grumbled under his breath, bending to peer down into Kirion's frozen face through the dense fog. "Is he himself again?"
"That's what I'd like to find out," Esk said carefully, sounding like she was giving Devam a hard look at his lack of answer. "Kirion, I'll try it one more time. Just cooperate."
Why not? He concentrated on not blocking the thought-reading attempt, consciously pushing his thoughts outward. Thoughts of hoping Esk could make some sense of whatever had just happened, because he'd completely missed it all.
"...Interesting. What do you last remember?"
Standing at the counter, having just learned your name. I'd very much like to know why I appear to have been trying to kill myself.
"That, I couldn't answer. You drew your sword, and your silent companion moved much more quickly than I'd have credited. He slashed your legs, you fell to the floor, and I summoned a fog to stop the fight before thinking of the holding field."
Why does my life make no sense?
He heard the grin in her response. "That's a bit too philosophical for the moment. Can you wait a few centuries for an answer?"
I've got time, but not that much.
His arms abruptly sagged to the floor, and he carefully kept his sword away from his throat on the way down. "Well, I can move now," he noted aloud. "And I think I'll take care of that whole leg-slashing thing before I try much else." He let go of his sword, rested a hand on his thigh, and whispered the few words of the ritual plea for healing. "I seem to be doing that more for myself than for anyone else, since taking up with you," he told Devam, and sat up to inspect the bloodied rents in the leather at the backs of his knees.
Devam waved off his complaint. "It makes you stronger."
"By the way," Kirion said to Esk as he inspected, "he's a harpy. Devam." Another muttered word, and the leather under his fingers was whole again, darkened with his blood but unscarred. A brief half-smile touched his face at putting it right. "Now, what was that about a dragon made of mist?"
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 24 Apr 2011 : 22:04:54
He told himself again and again that it was his imagination. They were not all staring at him as if seeing right through his disguise. But then why had Devam not had this feeling in the humanoid settlements through which they'd already come?
He found himself fondling the hunting horn that hung on a cord over his shoulder. The horn possessed magic that could inflict debilitating pain and weariness on an attacker. He'd moved it from his pack to his shoulder before they'd left the inn this morning. His axes also hung at his belt, though keeping them outside his robe and within immediate reach had required him to stretch his belt around his hidden, folded wings as well as his waist. So he looked like a rather stout, crippled old man who liked weapons.
The people who wore red insignia shaped like shields were most definitely giving him longer looks than they gave to anyone else. He had a difficult time of restraining himself from glaring back at them in challenge. His brightly-patterned wings ached to flash outward in threat display, and he kept them rigidly in check under their cloth covering.
He rode close to Kirion on the way through the hot, dusty city and did his best to keep his eyes on the lifeless ground in front of him. It was barely midmorning, and already this place was parched. Nothing grew in Scornubel except little ragged-looking plants here and there at the base of a wall. And commerce. Of the two, Devam thought the struggling plants made more sense.
They turned a few corners on Scornubel's packed-dirt main streets and halted at last before a long, low building of tightly-fitted sandstone blocks with a sign out front depicting crossed swords over an elaborately-shaped shield. Two men wearing armor stood in the shade of the porch, one on either side of the heavy wooden door, leaning casually against the wall behind them. The metal and leather of their armor looked badly corroded in a couple large patches, despite otherwise appearing well-kept. They wore no shield insignia, but they eyed the shiny-armored Kirion as he approached and dismounted.
"Is there any problem with us going in there right now?" Kirion asked them, partially drawing their attention away from Devam's awkward dismount.
"Not so long as you've got good intentions," the nearer one replied. "I'm not so sure about him, though," he added, nodding toward Devam.
Kirion cocked his head at the harpy in his old hunchback costume. "Does he really look that much more threatening?" he asked whimsically.
"Just suspicious, is all. You--"
But the door opened then, and two humanoids emerged. The copper-haired female was definitely an elf, and the male with dark silver-colored hair looked to be part elf. They couldn't be any older than Kirion. Relatively speaking, of course, for the female.
The male was finishing a sentence over his shoulder to someone inside, but the female immediately noticed the new arrivals. She left the male's side and strode out toward Devam and Kirion with a determined look on her face.
"You look like a good place to start," she declared in the common tongue, addressing Kirion, who was closer to her. "We need--" She seemed to really see Devam for the first time. She paused, but hastily went on. "We're going to be retrieving some things that fell off Boareskyr Bridge into the river. Downstream. We'll have workers, but we need guards for the operation."
The male joined them. Devam instinctively braced for any hostile action on account of the female's gregariousness. But all the silvery-haired one did was make a small grimace and murmur to her, "Do you mind?"
"You were busy," she told him.
"I haven't even decided yet."
"Of course you have. You just won't admit it, because that'd be too 'hasty'. I swear, Vindrik, you're more blasted elvish than I am."
"Kirion Iskaussir," Kirion stated loudly enough to break in, reaching a hand out to Vindrik. "Sorry for any awkwardness, there. We were just about to go inside. Hope we didn't make things more difficult for you..."
With a quirk of a half-smile, Vindrik took the offered hand for a quick shake as if by reflex. Almost immediately he did a little sliver of a double-take, probably noticing the claws on the hand. "Oh...No. No more than usual. So, you, um...You wouldn't by chance know anyone who'd want to go out to the Boareskyr Bridge for a few days, would you?" he asked gingerly.
"We're new in town. Don't know anyone yet, I'm afraid."
"So how about you?" the female asked brightly. "There aren't that many scullions or apprentices here who just walk around town in mastercrafted mithral armor. Probably with magic in that scimitar, huh, Vindrik?" she added, glancing at the intricately-wrought weapon and then at her companion.
"Elly..." Vindrik muttered with an oddly pleading note, but she didn't seem to hear.
A smile twitched at Kirion's mouth. "Maybe I should try to blend in a little more."
"That's not an answer," Elly told him.
"No, it isn't. I can't commit to anything until I at least talk with Goodman Teshell."
"We're staying at the Red Griffon," Vindrik put in quickly as if to regain some degree of control. "If you do decide that a bit of travel at fair pay would be worthwhile, just inquire there after the Silvervein party."
"Red Griffon." Kirion nodded polite acknowledgement. "We will."
Once they were gone with their four guards--two more had emerged from the building behind them--Devam nudged Kirion's side to get his attention. "You didn't even tell them we're at the same inn."
"They didn't ask."
"You're turning unfriendly enough to compete with me."
Kirion flashed a rather boyish grin, incongruous with that striking armor and cloak, and ascended the porch steps and opened the door.
The interior of the sandstone building was dimmer than outside, but well-lit as enclosed spaces went. The wood-paneled walls were neatly patterned with hooks of varying sizes and shapes, all bearing weapons of every imaginable description except plain. Devam's eyes hungrily caressed the glittering curves of edges even finer than those of his coveted handaxes, and he tried very hard not to think about what he could do to an enemy with such tools. Several of the weapons on display shed faint light in an array of colors.
A rotund human well past his prime rose from his seat on the other side of the heavy wooden counter. "How can I help you, friends?" he asked smoothly. "Are you looking for something in particular?"
"That's a bit complicated," Kirion said, tearing his eyes away from the displays. "I'm hoping you'll know more about it than I do. I'm Kirion Iskaussir, from Darstrigorn in Deepingdale. The dragon goddess Tamara sent me here to find an arms dealer named Teshell. She didn't bother to tell me why, though, or what to do once I'd found you. Any ideas?"
The man frowned slightly and tapped his chin as he thought about that. "...Possibly," he said at last. "Let me get someone who might know more. Might."
He disappeared through a small door behind the counter. Devam wondered how he'd know if one of them walked off with a weapon or two. It was tempting to try. The human had enough to spare, and he obviously wouldn't starve without the sale...
But the door opened again in mere moments, and a human girl somewhat older than Kirion's apparent age entered the room instead of the man. Her long hair was rich red-gold and tied back, her skin was pale and disgustingly soft-looking, and her blue-green eyes were large and slightly angled as if from just a trace of elven ancestry. She looked like the last to receive food in her clutch, she was so skinny and frail. Breeding would likely kill her.
Devam did his best to repress his glower at the substandard female. The elf had looked sturdier.
"Iskaussir?" the female asked hopefully as soon as she closed the door behind her. At least her voice had more vitality than her frame. In fact, she had a very confident, self-possessed air about her despite her appearance. "From Keileadonies' line?"
With a small, wry smile, Kirion held up a hand briefly to show his claws and the star and circled chain tattooed on the back. "My grandfather looked much more the part," he noted.
The female darted a glance around the room as if to make doubly sure there was no one to overhear. "I knew him," she said, hardly more than a whisper. "What's happened, that the one he served would send you so far?"
Kirion crossed his arms and drew a slow, deep breath before speaking, but otherwise remained outwardly unaffected. "Darstrigorn is gone," he said levelly, locking his gaze onto the countertop between them. "And my great-grandmother with it. And everyone else I knew there. A green dragon, much older than Keile, razed the place and killed her. I'd swear before anyone that it was breathing fire, not acid. And it appeared...tattered...though my view wasn't good enough for me to say for sure it was a lich. Tamara allowed me a month of mourning and no more, then set me to traveling."
Devam blinked at him. That had to be the first time he'd heard anything close to resentment from the insufferably stoic creature.
The human female looked ill. She swallowed hard and rubbed at one cheek. The silence lengthened. Then she murmured, "Keile was my mother."
Kirion's head jerked up at that.
"I'm afraid you'll find no rest after reaching here at last," she continued, giving him no chance to speak. "You must go with us to the Boareskyr Bridge. I'm quite sure now of why you were sent here. To find me, and to take your grandfather's sword."
"...I thought I already had it," Kirion said slowly with a pat on the hilt of the cold scimitar he wore, its pommel worked with Tamara's seven-pointed star.
"The sword he brought with him when he left Deepingdale to bear my egg to safety," she clarified. "I'm Eriaeskalor," she said then, reaching a hand across the counter in greeting. "I go by Esk. And when we reach the bridge and pull the young Silvervein's remaining assets from the river, I'll introduce you to Ariskendeem."
Looking stunned, Kirion slowly reached to take her hand. And a patch of air behind him flickered, giving Devam a single-instant impression of an absurdly tiny dragon which darted forward like a striking snake. But he could see through the thing as through a tendril of steam on a summer morning in the marsh.
The little apparition disappeared upon touching Kirion's armored back. Kirion halted his reach for the dragon's hand, instead grabbing his scimitar and yanking it from its sheath.
Instinct made Devam move decisively before he consciously began to associate the odd thing he'd seen with Kirion's uncharacteristic intent. Axes suddenly in hand, he spun around to bring both of them slashing toward the backs of the half-elf's knees, hoping to prevent his incipient attack by collapsing him to the floor.
Steel bit through bare leather at the joints where scales would have reduced flexibility. The smell of blood and the shout of his prey excited him, and he just barely kept himself from hacking again as his companion's wounded legs buckled. He reminded himself fiercely that something strange was happening, that the Kirion he knew would not have drawn his sword against an ally.
He remembered Rannad--or what had looked like the boy--on the mountain road.
A peculiar sound like a thin whine, almost a whimper, came from Kirion, but he oriented on Devam from his now-sitting position on the floor. That scimitar glowed with a pale silvery-blue light, and the air around it actually crackled with cold.
And suddenly Devam couldn't see. Panicking, he threw himself backward, away from the known threat, nearly ripping through his robe with the force of his wings trying to spread. He crouched low and scrambled across the smooth wooden floor until he came up against a wall, where he hunkered like a cornered cat and stared frantically around him with useless eyes that saw nothing but blank whiteness.
But no, his eyes were fine; the room was merely filled with a heavy fog, glowing softly in the lamplight, smelling of damp stone and making even his view of the floor at his feet hazy.
The room was silent. Dead silent, except for that quiet, dry crackling from the cold scimitar somewhere in the impenetrable fog.
Where was Kirion?
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 24 Apr 2011 : 22:04:10
"No regrets?"
Kirion looked over at Devam where the harpy had just landed to waddle beside the horses. "About what?" he asked.
"About killing that elf last night. You seemed..." He thought for a moment, giving a single flap of his big wings to keep up with the horse. "...Opposed...to the idea, before."
"I already told you it's what I'd want done, were I in his shoes. Or fur. And besides, he started it."
Devam stared at him.
Kirion stifled a chuckle. "You know, it just makes my day when you give me that look."
The stare turned to an unamused expression bordering on a glare before Devam took to the air again.
Two days later, Kirion was sorry to leave the dappled shade of the Reaching Wood, but Devam looked somewhat more at ease out from among the trees that had surrounded them for the past day and a half. He'd never be happy wrapped in cloth, but Kirion supposed the open sky above was an improvement for him. They rode a cargo ferry across the River Reaching, and entered Scornubel at last early in the evening.
"Now what?" Devam murmured, keeping his horse close beside Kirion's after riding up the sturdy ramp from the ferry to the stone wharf.
"Now we find room and board for the night," Kirion replied.
"That's it? After so long a journey? Why are you here?"
"Because Tamara told me to be."
"...Perhaps I should ask, What are you here to accomplish?"
"I have no idea. I'm supposed to find a certain merchant. After that..." He shrugged.
Oddly, the lack of direction no longer bothered him. Maybe he was getting used to things happening as they would, whether or not he expected them, whether or not he wanted them. He really was feeling considerably better, these past several days. He could even remember his last conversation with his father without a monumental struggle against tears.
He swiped at his eye with the heel of his hand, hoping no one would notice. Well, one or two tears was vastly better than the drowning floods that had overwhelmed him while he stayed at Corellon Larethian's temple in Highmoon. Life went on. Tiny step by tiny step.
"Wouldn't that make finding the merchant your first priority?" Devam asked.
"She never said it should be. I'm ready for an actual bed and a properly-prepared meal. In the absence of orders to the contrary, I'm looking first for an inn. I think she expects it."
That thoughtful expression drew Devam's brows together. "What's the word..." he muttered sardonically under his breath. "...Rationalization...?"
Kirion couldn't help the smile that stole across his face at that as they rode past gangs of laborers and stacks of crates and strings of horses. "It's possible. I'm afraid I'm not as shiningly perfect as you might have thought. But Tamara knows me quite well. If it was that important that my first action in Scornubel be chasing down a particular person, she'd have said so. Trust me on that."
"You'd know better than I, I suppose," Devam grumbled.
"Why are you suddenly so concerned with my abject obedience, anyhow?"
"I see nothing here but your wingless kin. If I'm robbed of my disguise and this city is not like Asbravn, I'd rather have the assurance of your full powers at hand. Do me the favor of not irritating the source of them."
Very quietly, Kirion began to laugh. He wasn't entirely sure why he did, but it was a while before he could stop. He couldn't remember laughing at all in the past two months.
Devam looked minorly offended, but said nothing more all the way to the inn Kirion chose.
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| Laerrigan |
Posted - 24 Apr 2011 : 22:03:28
They ended up spending the rest of the day and night in Asbravn, then headed north of west across open country early in the morning. After they passed the last of the farms late in the afternoon, there was no road through the gentle hills, not even a beaten track. Only miles of dry, scruffy grass and low shrubs and occasional stunted trees. At least there was no need for disguise.
Devam stayed almost entirely in the air throughout the day. It had been a few years since he was last hungry. Since he took a plain gold ring from a bandit he killed on the road near his human home and decided to wear it. Living among humans had been so much easier after that, without having to fight stirrings of hunger when among their young or their livestock. But his recent captors had removed his magic ring overnight. For the next several days, he would get hungry and thirsty and tired according to nature, until the ring started working again. He wanted to stay away from Kirion as much as possible until then, to avoid all temptation.
And blast it all, he wanted food! Concoctions of grain and water and hard, smoke-tainted strips of what might once have been flesh were not food. He ranged farther from his ward than was his habit, scanning the ground for motion.
By dusk, he'd caught a small, tawny-furred, rodent-like thing that had scrambled up out of its hole at the sound of his song, but it had been mostly bone and gristle and gut, very little meat. He hadn't bothered with the seven other ones he'd killed while singing.
"I'll take first watch," Devam told Kirion when he landed briefly to converse as the sun sank below the horizon. He wanted to see what kind of nocturnal game he might find.
"Don't you always?" Kirion asked absently as he laid out his bedroll with its head under a scrub tree.
"Yes," Devam replied, unsure of his reason for asking. He paused, but the half-elf said nothing further, so he left. He didn't feel like standing in place for talk while his companion ate.
He flew a short distance the west, believing he was more likely to find decent-sized game in a region they hadn't just crossed, and began circling.
When he had hunted and eaten and had cut up the remaining meat and piled it in the horse-sized creature's rough-cut skin, he began to realize how long he'd been away from the one he was supposed to be guarding. They were away from habitations and roads, out in truly wild country. He grabbed up the fur sack and launched into the sky, navigating back to the camp by the positions of the stars and flying as quickly as he could.
As he approached the campsite, bright moonlight showed Kirion in his armor standing near his bedroll. And...someone else was sprawled on the ground at his feet, naked. Kirion was wiping his curved sword, but he glanced up and saw Devam when the harpy was still several bodylengths above the ground.
Kirion slid his enchanted blade into its sheath and threw his arms into the air. "What happened to my aerial cover?" he demanded.
Devam landed, dropped the sack, and dashed to his side, frowning at the crumpled elf on the ground. "I--I found some fresh meat--"
"I nearly was fresh meat for that," Kirion stated, pointing.
Guilt was a sensation with which Devam had no experience. He stared up at Kirion, at a loss for words.
Then he saw the broad grin.
Before Devam could figure out whether to be relieved or angry, the absurd creature flopped down to sit on the ground and examine his left arm. The armored bracers he wore during the day were off along with his helmet, though he slept in the rest of his scale-like armor when outside of town. There was quite a bit of blood on that forearm.
Of course, there was no wound underneath when Kirion pulled out a rag and wiped the mess away. He'd already healed himself. But what if it had been his throat while he slept, instead of his arm?
Still unable to think of anything to say, Devam inspected the elf lying naked and dead. Deep slashes surrounded by severe burns without char scored his pale skin in several places, seared to the bone in a few of them, surely the work of the deathly-cold magic of Kirion's blade. But he looked like a normal elf. There weren't even any weapons in evidence.
"Dire werebadger," Kirion said from behind him, still sitting. "He looked a little more dangerous before you arrived. Honest. Nearly bit my arm off."
"You're terribly happy for having been bitten," Devam growled, turning back to him. He'd heard of humans and their kin going mad and taking on ravening animal forms against their will, when bitten by such a creature.
Kirion waved it off. "If I change next month, you'll just have to kill me."
What was he supposed to say to that?
"I'm serious, Devam," Kirion asserted, despite the fact that he hadn't completely stopped smiling. "If that happens, I'll most likely lose my mind and go on a killing spree. I'll hurt innocent people, and lose Tamara's favor and power. And if I don't, I'll just have to fight it again every time the moon is full. And fight that murderous urge when I'm under stress every day in between full moons, for the rest of my life. Everyone I know is already gone, and I'd rather just join them than go through that."
Devam tilted his head and regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment, remembering his own months and years of struggling against the innate drive to torture and kill. Even now, the urge wasn't entirely gone, but he dealt with it as he went. He was trying not to think poorly of one who'd rather surrender and die than stand his ground and fight to the end.
But he shrugged as if unaffected. "If you wish."
Kirion watched him a moment longer with just a faint trace of his smile remaining, then returned to his bedroll with an air of utter peace. Devam figured it would be his own job to remove the dead werebadger from the scene.
|
| Laerrigan |
Posted - 24 Apr 2011 : 22:02:12
With squinted eyes, Kirion rubbed at his nosebridge and brows with his fingertips. He succeeded only in jabbing an eyelid with a claw.
"Ow," he protested before he could stop himself.
One of his guides through town turned an inquiring look on him.
"Nothing," Kirion muttered, trying to sound like he was suffering less than he was after more wine last night than he ever should have had.
The sunlight stabbed through his face to the back of his skull. He felt vaguely ill, even after the water he'd forced himself to drink before the two men had knocked on the door of his room at the inn. It would take a while for his body to absorb all the water. Meanwhile, he just wanted to lie back down with his pillow over his head and pass out until he felt better. He couldn't understand anyone doing this deliberately for fun. And he was certain Tamara was chuckling at the fact that healing magic wouldn't help.
At Asbravn's courthouse, Kirion gritted his teeth and focused on the situation at hand. He'd left all his gear behind in his room, including his armor, when the red-cloaked men had arrived not far behind the dawn light to advise him that Devam was in a holding cell here. And also that Asbravn's highest judge would like to speak with Kirion.
His guides led him directly in through the open door of a wood-paneled office complete with leather chairs for visitors and a bulky desk fronted with Tyr's hammer and scales. The light through the window was indirect, and Kirion felt slightly less horrible.
An old man in a dark red robe stood from his seat behind the desk as they entered. "Kirion Iskaussir?" he inquired flatly.
"Yes, my lord?" The light was better, but he wished he didn't have to talk.
The judge paused, then frowned. "Are you hung over?" There was a note of incredulity in his hard tone.
"Yes, my lord."
Perhaps he'd expected some kind of denial. His eyes flicked downward just a bit, surely noting the deeply-embossed silver pendant bearing Tamara's star on its chain around his neck. Kirion thought the man recognized it.
He held the judge's eyes without apology when they darted back up. His temple had no prohibitions against drinking as much as he liked. Except maybe common sense, which Kirion seemed to have misplaced somewhere.
"I'd very much like to return to my room for prayer and less light," Kirion told him, hoping he didn't sound too plaintive. "May I collect my friend, or has he committed some crime?"
The judge stood like a statue, studying him until Kirion wanted badly to fidget, whatever his thoughts on his own innocence.
"I hear you spent Midsummer night with my granddaughter," the judge said at last.
Now he understood. He'd encountered Laralee at the pastry stand where he'd gone in search of distraction after Devam's performance. The human maid was terribly engaging, despite a lingering sadness in her eyes. Or perhaps that was part of what drew him. Familiar wounds, he supposed. Instead of going back to the inn to sit in solitary gloom with a handful of berry tarts, he'd ended up sitting and talking with her. Though she wasn't long into adulthood, she had lost her new husband last summer. A horse had spooked and kicked him. Such was the tenuousness of life.
She had kissed Kirion's cheek before going home as dawn approached. And smiled. He doubted she'd warmed so much to anyone in the past year, and her grandfather's reaction confirmed the thought for him.
Kirion swallowed to loosen his throat for speech. "We danced together, my lord," he said softly, hands linked behind him and eyes fixed on Tyr's symbol on the front face of the desk. "And spoke of her loss. And had a glass or two more than would have been wise, sitting in full view of everyone in the square." He looked up at the man. "I planned on leaving Asbravn today, to go where my goddess commanded me to go. I'm not one to start what I can't finish. Especially when it hurts someone."
The old judge made no response, just standing and looking at him as if weighing his words. Kirion tried to hold his gaze, but soon had to clamp his eyes shut with a wince against a random bout of pounding in his head. If he'd ever had any aspirations toward dignity, he'd be severely embarrassed right now. He wondered if his stomach would forgive him, or if he'd be forced to add to his laughability by asking where he could find a basin.
Finally the judge spoke. "The harpy is in a cell down the hall. Halladal, please escort him there and see them both out."
One of the red-cloaked men who'd brought Kirion to the courthouse led him through a heavy, locked door and down a wide stone hall. Doors composed of metal slats that formed grates lined the hall, several of them with bleary-looking occupants whose painful squints were all too familiar to Kirion.
"I hope that harpy responds better to you than to us," Halladal said as they walked. "He won't talk, and he won't even let a healer tend to him. I think he'd rather bite off our faces than look at us, but he hasn't actually done anything wrong. Just tried to take on an entire band of goblins and a bugbear single-handedly. One of our patrols found him out cold with that bugbear about to send him to whatever god'll take him." He stopped himself and made a half-glance in Kirion's direction as if thinking he might somehow take offense.
Kirion didn't respond. He didn't want to talk any more than he had to. In fact, he wished this man wasn't so talkative.
Halladal slowed and halted before one door, pulling a keyring from his pocket. As they drew in sight of the interior of the small cell, a rush of motion signaled Devam's violent shying away.
The left side of the harpy's spikey black hair was caked thickly with dried blood. The entire left side of his scaly torso was darkened with bruising, ripped open in small but numerous gashes, and he cradled his visibly-broken right forearm. The stone floor showed that his wounds had bled for some time after his arrival, but at least they had stopped since.
His sharp face was not exactly shining with hope of release. Primal fear held his black eyes wide as they stared first at Halladal and then rolled around at the close confines of the cell.
Kirion sighed at the thought that, most likely, that fear would lead not to cowering but to murder.
Why had he drunk so much last night?
"Devam," he said, rubbing at his aching forehead as he spoke, "don't you dare jump out of there. Stay right where you are, and I'll take care of your wounds. And then we'll go. All right?"
The harpy only stared at him in that terribly intense way of his.
Kirion casually reached a hand out to halt the key on the way to the lock, watching what he'd like to consider a friend for any sign of comprehension.
Devam blinked a few times, and his eyes darted down and up, taking in the sight of Kirion as if only then recognizing him. He gave a terse nod.
Kirion let Halladal unlock the door. Then the man nudged Kirion and handed him a smaller key of unusual design. "You get to go in there and unlock the dampener cuff."
He'd noticed the hand-width, highly engraved metal band on Devam's uninjured wrist. Now he knew what it was. He walked into the cell, doing his best to hide a little spurt of nervousness as he approached the hunkering harpy in the small space.
"This may be awfully small as cities go," Halladal continued gratuitously, "but you'd be surprised at what comes through here now and then. Some of the Red Cloaks can use magic of one sort or another, and they don't get bored with their job. I figured your friend'd be more comfortable in there without being bound and gagged, so I grabbed one of the cuffs. Those things'll stop a red dragon from flaming, if you can get one on it. I'd rather not find myself standing at the door, there, unable to move, being clawed to pieces by a ticked off harpy."
His rambling seemed disjointed, but Kirion thought he grasped the unspoken connections between statements. He just wished once again that he didn't talk so much.
Crouched in a back corner, Devam held still as a statue while Kirion unlocked the antimagic cuff and passed it to the man. Reluctantly, Kirion told the harpy that he was going to have to set the bone in his arm before he could heal it, or it would always be crooked and weak. Still not speaking, Devam just closed his eyes, tensed, and held out the swollen limb.
It went quickly, and not a sound escaped Devam.
In short order, he was whole again, though faint scars would remain for a while in the knobbly-scaled hide of his side. Halladal handed over Devam's belt with its finely-wrought handaxes, the little ruby pendant with mage armor worked into it, and the simple gold ring he always wore and about which Kirion had never inquired.
Once they were outdoors, Devam finally spoke in a quiet mutter. "My costume is out in the fields."
"No lecture about taking stupid risks?"
"What?"
"You looked ready to kill, back there, and maybe not just the warden."
Devam said nothing.
Many people, of course, noticed a harpy walking through town. Some were obvious in their mutters and nervous avoidance of him, but most just kept a prudent distance and went on their way, secure in the safe atmosphere of Asbravn. Kirion wondered how things might be different if Devam weren't walking alongside a relatively normal-looking person under broad daylight.
At least the Riders in Red Cloaks, the city's rather effective militia, were fully aware of everything last night. Including Devam's identity as the one who'd gone up on stage for that poem, according to Halladal's continued commentary as they'd left the courthouse.
Kirion insisted on taking at least a couple more hours for his delayed prayer time and for forcing himself to eat something. What he didn't mention was his certainty that he couldn't ride just now without throwing up.
"Get a bath in the meantime," he suggested as they reached their shared room at the inn. Healing took care of wounds but left behind the dried blood and dirt. "You're starting to look like a harpy."
The narrowing of those black eyes signalled some return of Devam's usual confidence, but he made no response. As Kirion opened the door, he slunk off down the corridor toward the baths. Kirion refused to imagine how that would go, if anyone else were in there in the middle of the day.
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| Laerrigan |
Posted - 24 Apr 2011 : 22:01:07
(((Switching scene....Kirion and Devam are traveling crosscountry and have stopped in Asbravn at what happens to be Midsummer. Devam is in his hunchback disguise, but drew attention himself by going up on the small outdoor stage between dance music bouts to use his oratory skill. The sonnet he delivered hit Kirion in a painful place inside, which Kirion has been trying to pretend doesn't exist (that's part of why Devam did it). When Devam got back to their table among all those in the square, Kirion had disappeared on him.)))
Asbravn's locals and the members of the caravans in town were all so intent on drinking and dancing and stealing away in pairs to dark places in the surrounding fields, it had occurred to Devam what an absolutely ideal night it was for lurking predators. And so, unable to dance and uninterested in these strange-looking females, he had taken it upon himself to stand watch, as it were, leaving his costume under a bush and taking to the sky to circle around the city and its farms.
So far, he'd seen quite a bit as he flew unnoticed in the dark sky and occasionally dropped close to the ground to stealthily investigate a noise. He could only assume the significance of the behavior he saw, as the humans of his mountain home hadn't seen his ignorance of their ways and his naturalistic attitude about breeding as any reason to be less private about such things. But he would bet there would be many young who could trace their origins to this night.
Fortunately, the city wasn't entirely oblivious to danger; small parties of humanoids rode along the farm lanes here and there, heading out in surveillance loops and returning to the celebration while another group went out. Their cloaks were red in the lanternlight, but red was the first color to fade to black in dim light, leaving them as camouflaged as riders on horses could be on a night lit brazenly by a full moon.
The first trouble Devam came across was a band of fifteen or twenty small creatures that proved to be goblins upon closer inspection, with a big brute that could only be a bugbear taking the lead. They were using the slight rises and dips in the land to great advantage as they presumably searched for hapless revelers or untended farmhouses, sending scouts ahead to plot a course that would avoid detection by the riders. They had no cover from the air, however.
Devam considered finding the nearest band of riders and leading them to the sneaking marauders, but discarded the idea. Explaining that he himself wasn't yet another threat was one bother he didn't want. And with flight and magic on his side, he felt confident enough against landbound prey.
In fact, flight alone should suffice for most of his quickly-forming plan. He angled his wings for a sharp turn and raced off to the place where he'd dropped his costume under a bush. He landed, grabbed his cloak, and took off again, heading for a patch of ground he'd seen recently. There he landed again, hastily snatched up rocks ranging from the size of his doubled fist to the size of his head, and piled them on his spread cloak on the ground. In moments, he drew up the edges of the thick cloak to form a large sack that must weigh more than he did, and heaved it up with him into the air, barely making headway against the weight and hoping the fabric would hold.
The goblin band hadn't made much progress. They were really being careful. Devam circled outside of their range of vision, straining to gain altitude. Then he flew high over them, calculated angle and speed, folded his wings, and dove, grinning in the gale-force wind of uncontrolled descent.
About fifty yards above the main knot of goblins, when he could be sure his rocks wouldn't spread out too far, he simultaneously flared his wings with a thump and loosed his grip on half of his cloak-sack. Muscles and tendons and wing membrane strained at the sudden halt in the air and he almost thought he would fall, but the tearing pain was welcome because of the results it brought.
Stones plummeted in a deadly shower. Small, dark forms jumped and writhed, shouting with startled agony that they quickly stifled, not wanting to give away their position to other possible attackers.
Giggling wickedly, Devam struggled and clawed his way upwards again, fighting a continued pain in one wing elbow that said something was wrong. He had no time for injuries; this set-up wouldn't last forever.
Barns. Barns usually had lanterns hanging near their doors. The farmhouses should be deserted tonight. Where was a barn?!
A looming, boxy shape over the next shallow hill caught his attention, and he drove himself through the air toward it at top speed. He landed, skidded on hard-packed dirt, and caught his balance with extended wings.
A lantern! He snatched it from its hook, then yanked the barn door open, searching the blackness inside with eyes that had no need for light.
Three more lanterns stood on a dusty shelf on the wall. And two large clay jugs. More oil!
He waddled back outside with lanterns hanging from one arm and a jug cradled in each. Setting everything down, he dashed back inside to grab the rusty old striker he'd almost missed in his search.
Chuckling in anticipation, he quickly lit the wicks in all four glass-globed lanterns, trimmed them high, and tucked the striker in his belt. Then he gathered his incendiary gear again and took to the sky, cursing aloud at the tendon in his wing elbow. Once well into the air, he tore the cork from the neck of one oil jug with his teeth.
The goblins were in looser formation now, but if they strayed too far from their hidden spot, they risked being seen by the city's mounted patrols. A few of them lay on the ground, not moving. The rest had weapons brandished, scanning the sky. As Devam approached, several goblins nudged their neighbors and pointed at the light of the lanterns he carried, until all of them faced his direction.
This would require one last, sustained burst of effort on Devam's part to keep his prey from scattering. Trying not to pant, he began to sing the magic inherent in his people.
Below him, goblins turned mindlessly to orient on Devam as he continued circling. They shambled forward in whatever direction they happened to face at any given moment, walking in circles as they tried to reach the flying source of their enthrallment. But they stayed in a group, oblivious to danger, which was his intent.
Two of the dark shapes didn't walk, merely turning in place to stare up into the night sky at the circling cluster of lights and the dim flickers of wings. Two heartbeats after realizing the state of their fellow raiders, they took off running in opposite directions, fleeing for their lives.
Devam circled lower, still forcing out the haunting, wordless song that held his prey captive, and in moments he was just a few yards above the goblins' heads. At that point he braced his wings against the imbalance he was creating in his load, and used the arm looped with lantern handles to hug one of the jugs against his chest while his other arm supported and slowly tipped the other oil jug, the one without a cork.
He doused the raiding party thoroughly, pouring all the oil from both jugs as he crossed back and forth above the group. Once more he struggled painfully for altitude, determinedly maintaining his song around labored breathing. Then he dropped his entire load of lanterns directly on top of the mindless, densely-packed mob.
He continued singing and circling as the fire spread. The enthralled creatures gave no indication of noticing as their gear and then their hides caught fire. When they had no hope of saving themselves by dousing the flames, Devam at last ceased his song, returning the goblins to their own will.
Panting deeply now, he settled to the top of a broad pile of rock a dozen yards away to watch the screaming bonfire. The injured tendon in his wing seemed to scream just as loudly, and he fiercely ignored it, fanning his half-furled wings to cool himself from the exertion.
He couldn't stay on the ground. Two goblins had escaped. And as his tight focus started to relax a bit, he remembered something else he'd initially seen. Not just goblins. Hadn't there also been--
The world jolted, and he heard a yelp, aware only an instant later that it was his own voice. He was on his side on the ground, uncertain of which way was up. Instinct more than conscious sense brought his arm up to fend off a blur that streaked toward him again. Something cracked in his forearm, but this time he made no sound.
He jerked his feet under him and started to leap up to fight, and just barely swung aside in time to avoid yet another swipe of a weapon. He took a couple steps back and tried his enthralling magic, but he'd sung for only a moment or two before he was nearly smashed in the head again. Apparently the bugbear wasn't falling for that, though it did back off a couple paces after its strike as if wary of its opponent's magic now.
Devam snatched an axe from his belt with his good arm, leapt forward, and slashed back with joy at a new enemy.
Twice he struck blissfully deep into flesh, biting into the bone on one side of the broad face. The bugbear grunted and flailed with both of its weapons--spiked clubs, they turned out to be. One glanced off of Devam just before quite reaching his skin, thanks to the pretty little magical necklace he'd taken from a dead bandit years ago. But the other slammed into his side, nearly knocking the lightweight harpy off his feet.
Thinking he'd have more of an advantage in the air again, Devam threw his wings outward and jumped high, hoping the strained one wouldn't give out. But the bugbear swung again with unbelievable speed.
Caught in the air, Devam was slammed violently to the ground, and his head bounced off a rock. He heard galloping hooves, and then knew no more.
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| Laerrigan |
Posted - 24 Apr 2011 : 21:53:49
At the first shouts of alarm from the far end of the Boareskyr Bridge, Vindrik wished he'd stayed home. He could have been enjoying the Midsummer festival tonight with his father and friends in Waterdeep's North Ward. Instead, he had a sinking suspicion he was about to gain some of that necessary experience for a future head of the Silvervein family business.
The train of six solidly-built wagons and thirty guards was strung out along the bridge, the lead wagon nearly all the way across the arching expanse. Vindrik was currently riding a bit more than halfway down the length of the train, unable to see whatever had caused the commotion ahead. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, the young moon half-elf--feeling younger than usual at the moment--kicked his horse forward to crest the top of the bridge, catch up with Amandaer and Elleona, and see what was happening.
When he came in sight of the battle, he stopped his horse in startlement. Halflings? Halflings were attacking the caravan? Right out in the open, between two full encampments of traders at either end of the great bridge? Granted, it was nearly full dark, but still...
No, he realized an instant later--not halflings. They moved much too quickly. And they sounded like a pack of vicious little dogs.
Kobolds. What looked like hundreds of their dark forms scurried and lept through the moonlight on the end of the bridge like a churning sea, slashing and stabbing with their spears, calling to each other with a cacophony of sharp barking sounds.
Vindrik swallowed hard and continued forward toward the chaos. He still hadn't found the sun elf or his daughter.
"Vindrik!" Amandaer's voice.
He turned toward the shout, saw the wave, and rushed his horse to the space between the second and third wagons where his father's friend had ducked for shelter. Amandaer's longsword was in his hand.
"Where's Elly?" Vindrik asked as he reined in, casting about.
"On top of the wagon," her father growled, nodding upward. "At least she's out of reach for the moment."
Vindrik wanted to say that sounded like a terribly good idea, but he clamped his mouth shut. He knew without doubt that Amandaer's irritation with her location was due to the fact that she was surely stringing her magic bow just then, heedless of the fact that standing to shoot from that elevated place would make a target out of her that no kobold with sling or spear could resist.
"What are you waiting for?" Amandaer demanded. "Get up there!"
Needing no further encouragement, Vindrik grabbed hold of the ladder at the back of the second wagon and climbed up directly from his saddle. His horse would stay away from the fighting. Horses had good sense.
"Watch the rear," Amandaer told him grimly as he climbed. "Expect more than this. I'll check back there, then go haul a few more of our guards from the front to the rear."
After seeing him safely up, the sun elf slunk out into the open, staying close beside the wagons with sword ready, hurrying toward the rear and away from the uncomfortably-close combat zone. He had none of the look of someone escaping danger. Rather, one deliberately forging into it.
"Vindrik!" came Elly's hiss from the fore of the wagon as he watched Amandaer. "Are you crazy? Get down! I don't want you giving away my location!"
"If you stand to shoot, you'll do it yourself," he returned. But he dropped down to his belly to crawl forward and join her.
"So who says I'm going to stand?" she murmured distractedly, rolling onto her left side with her longbow held out before her, left arm lying on the wagon's flat roof. The arrow's diamond-shaped head sparkled like a sinister black gem with the injurious magic the bow gave it. With the arow resting on the right side of the bow above the grip, she drew, took a moment for aiming from that odd position, and fired.
A kobold jerked upright with a squeak, and fell dead.
Elly giggled. Vindrik couldn't recall ever hearing that sound from her.
He wasn't about to let her be the only one to take down enemies. Blast it all, he was better in tournaments than she. Why hadn't he thought of shooting like that? Wasting no more time, he hastily strung his own longbow and mirrored her position, lying on his right for his left-handed draw. The space was cramped atop the wagon, but not enough to hamper them so long as they didn't let the crossed upper limbs of their bows touch.
The technique required more careful aim, involving moving the arrow hand but not the bow hand and accounting for a different angle of arc in relation to the archer, but overall it worked surprisingly well. They had taken down two kobolds apiece by the time the creatures seemed to realize they were at a disadvantage in this raid despite overwhelming numbers.
When that mass realization came, the remaining kobolds seemed to recoil as one from the defenders. By that time, people from the traders' camp beyond the bridge had joined the fight, grinding the creatures between them and the caravan guards. Several spells had snapped and exploded among the enemy--in one spot, slick black tentacles had sprung up from the ground to snatch and crush the scaly things--and the kobolds were surely thinking they had better places to be by now.
In the same moment as the kobolds recoiled, two things happened. A hazy globe of deepest shadow descended from the sky like a falling stone, stopping on the bridge and largely obscuring everything beyond the front of the first wagon in the train. And a soft brush of a breeze fanned his face, bringing with it a heavy, acrid smell that made his eyes sting and his face ache. He sneezed.
Everything was happening up front. Watch the rear.
Squinting watery eyes, Vindrik jerked his head around to look backward toward supposedly safe ground as Elly growled something uncomplimentary of whoever had dropped that darkness spell.
Looking toward the rear, there was nothing there. And then, out of nowhere, there was. In fact, a very, very large something with dappled-green membranous wings suddenly took up most of his view above the wagons. And even as he saw it, its toothy maw was open and a billowing cloud of greenish-yellow gas was shooting forth through the light of the wagons' lanterns as the enormous dragon rushed overhead.
Perhaps it was cowardice. Perhaps it was extremely sensible survival instinct. Either way, with an involuntary gasp he grabbed Elly and threw his weight toward the edge of the wagon's roof, dragging her along.
She squawked as they went over. Not only did her weight land on him, knocking his breath from him and blinding him for a moment with masses of copper hair, but she very deliberately jabbed her elbow into his side as she struggled to disentangle herself and get up. "What in the Nine Hells--" she began, then stopped, eyes wide at the horrifying, agonized screams ripping through the air from the area of the darkness spell.
"It's coming back," Vindrik said weakly, sitting up. Somehow he'd fallen near one of the square buttresses of the bridge's wall, as good a shield as he was likely to find.
Elly just stared at the massive green dragon as it made a wide loop in the air to the east, no more than a shadowy sillhouette even to elven eyes at its current distance. Shoulders squaring in a familiar way, she set another arrow to her bow.
Screams still rattled at the end of the bridge, and now people from the caravan and the encampment started staggering out of the darkness globe, clawing at their faces and chests. White bone and greenish slicks of melted flesh showed everywhere. One man who ran blindly right past them in their hiding place between wagon and bridge wall was still bubbling and steaming with active acid, one arm nothing but a melted stump. Vindrik turned and heaved up what little was left of his lunch.
Determinedly not looking up again regardless of what he heard, he scooted to one side and grabbed the bow he'd dropped over the edge of the wagon ahead of Elly and himself. It seemed to be fine after its fall. Better than its owner, in fact. He knew he'd have nasty bruises to show for that maneuver. If he survived tonight.
A blast of acrid wind and a slight shudder in the solid stone bridge announced the return and landing of the dragon. Vindrik scrambled backward in his sitting position until he felt his back press against cool stone. Under the wagon's floorboard, he saw a sliver of the thing's foot. Each curved claw was as long as his forearm.
Elly dodged to the side and fired between the wagons.
Vindrik stared at the mad elf.
Whether or not the dragon noticed, he couldn't say. Its next actions may have been from its own plans, or may have been in response to her temerity.
Its head reared high above the wagons so that Vindrik could see its spiny crest frill and the hornlets above its eyes from his low position. Then it ducked out of sight, and what must be its tail slammed into the upper portion of the first wagon. The thick wood caved in with an explosive sound like thunder and the roof flew off, but the wagon didn't topple. The crates and crates of fine weaponry inside it were too heavy to allow it to overbalance.
At that point Elly joined him on the ground, pressed to the wall. Together, they started edging away from the dragon. Maybe they could even reach the northwestern end of the bridge and get to solid ground and find better cover. At least they'd be farther from that beast.
Suddenly the damaged lead wagon tilted wildly out of line with the others. Tilted, creaked, tilted...and rolled over the four-foot wall at the downriver side of the bridge to crash into the deep, black water below.
The dragon's foreparts landed in the space where the wagon had been. It had deliberately heaved the wagon over. There was no possibility it had been an accident.
The brutish, man-length head turned toward them. Vindrik had some idea how a rabbit caught in the open felt.
But the dragon didn't immediately come for the cowering youths. No, it pulled back and shoved at the second wagon. The one they'd been beside only moments before.
Yanking Elly along, Vindrik jumped to his feet and ran for the other end of the bridge.
A faint flash of purplish light, almost too dim to notice, flared behind them and painted the near sides of the bridge's buttresses. The dragon made a coughing growl, conveying annoyance but also some degree of pain.
"Waur kotharvorastrix," it growled, vibrating the stone bridge. Somehow its booming voice conveyed knife-edged sarcasm.
Vindrik sincerely hoped he would never know what that was about, or what transpired after. He wanted to be as far from Boareskyr Bridge as was physically possible by sunup.
But Elly was hauling against him as they neared solid land. "Where's my father?!"
Vindrik felt ill all over again, and his feet stumbled in his run. "He'd just come forward to grab some guards when the darkness was dropped..." He came to a halt, terribly torn. But he knew what had to be done as soon as the dragon finished its work and left. He wished he were anywhere but where he was.
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