Ryan Nock first dreamed of traveling the world when his mother read to him The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia as a child. Later he covered his bedroom walls with maps of Toril, the Inner Sphere, and Talislanta, created new worlds to explore in his games and his writing, and earned a degree in Creative Writing at Emory University in the international travel hub of Atlanta, where he lives today.
Ryan finally fulfilled his goal of getting out of his country at Gen Con, when a group of Canadian game publishers annexed a hotel suite and invited him to their party, where he stumbled through a portal into a faerie world. Soon thereafter, Ryan directed the original development of EN Publishing’s War of the Burning Sky campaign saga, now being revised for 4th edition.
Ryan finally fulfilled his goal of getting out of his country at Gen Con, when a group of Canadian game publishers annexed a hotel suite and invited him to their party, where he stumbled through a portal into a faerie world. Soon thereafter, Ryan directed the original development of EN Publishing’s War of the Burning Sky campaign saga, now being revised for 4th edition.
WotBS, Pt. 1 - The Scouring of Gate Pass
Posted 1st October 2009 at 07:47 PM by RangerWickett
Updated 2nd November 2009 at 04:49 AM by Morrus
Updated 2nd November 2009 at 04:49 AM by Morrus
War of the Burning Sky
Book One: The Scourge
by Ryan Nock
For more information on the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga for both D&D 3.5 and 4th Edition, please check out the official web page.
Book One: The Scourge
by Ryan Nock
For more information on the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga for both D&D 3.5 and 4th Edition, please check out the official web page.
Act One
Chapter One
Torchlight fell upon the inquisitor as he knelt over the corpse of the sorceress. Beneath the carved bear skull he wore as a mask, shadows concealed all but his amused smile. The gleam of fire reflected off a brass clawed gauntlet on his right hand as he flicked idly through the woman’s robes, looking for clues to whom she had been on her way to meet.
The body was still twitching slightly, but corpses always took a while to realize they were dead when their souls were ripped from their flesh.
“Guthwulf,” said the lieutenant behind him.
Guthwulf, inquisitor for the Ragesian Empire, glanced over his shoulder as he lifted the woman’s hand by her bracelet, then dropped it with disinterest.
The lieutenant stood among three soldiers, two of them holding torches to help Guthwulf investigate the dead mage in the gloomy late autumn night. The third – a thick-jawed, tusked herethim with a black muttonchop beard that made him look almost aristocratic – wheezed shallowly, too proud to even grunt his pain.
The sorceress had tried to crush the man’s chest, but Guthwulf had managed to absorb the brunt of the attack’s essence. Not that the soldiers weren’t eminently expendable, but Guthwulf had seen no reason to let the woman’s mana be wasted. Her own power had been the fuel for the spell he had used to snatch her soul.
“Sir,” asked the lieutenant, “must I have my men kill him for being tainted by the sorcery?”
Guthwulf gave him a dubious look, which was no doubt lost through the concealment of the mask.
“No,” he laughed. “She was trying to kill him, not control his mind. You men are brave and not incompetent, and I’m certainly not going to kill you just because Leska can’t word her decrees more precisely. I’m not cruel.”
The soldiers shifted nervously at such casual mention of her name. Ragesians had long feared her mysterious, witch-like powers when she was merely Supreme Inquisitor, but now, just weeks after Leska replaced the nation’s fallen emperor, many feared her as they would a vengeful god.
Guthwulf turned his attention back to the dead sorceress. She had been a smart enough spy not to carry any clues to her destination, and the inquisitor’s mood darkened as he prepared himself. He held up his clawed hand to warn the soldiers to be quiet and keep back, and then he willed the soul he held in his other hand to speak to him. He lifted it up to his face, his fingers loosely viced around the spirit, invisible except as a memory of magic and pain.
In an ancient Otharil tongue he commanded:
“Your existence is defined by the grip of my hand. If I release my grasp, you will be free. If I wish, I can crush you, snuffing you for eternity. But unless you answer me truthfully, I will keep you as long as I live to torment you, and my dying curse will consume you so you never reach the afterlife.”
The soul’s fear gave it shape as its wisps briefly assumed the form it had in life, cowering in his palm. The figure nodded desperately.
Guthwulf spoke now in Seren. “Tell me your mission, where you were headed, and who your contacts were. And be quick about it. Neither one of us really wants you to stick around.”
Memories from the soul tried to flood into Guthwulf’s mind, but his mask kept them from overwhelming him. He took his time to find the answers he sought, a moment passing as he reviewed the knowledge he had stolen. Torches crackled behind him. The frigid night wind blew snow across the body. It had finally stopped twitching.
Guthwulf turned to the soldiers.
“Gate Pass,” he said. “The armies are already preparing to march there, so we can catch up with them later, but she still has accomplices here in Ragos. You men interested in capturing some mages tonight?”
The subordinates looked to each other nervously, but the lieutenant cleared his throat and said, “Yes sir. Whatever you command, but we aren’t well equipped for a raid.”
The soul squirmed in the inquisitor’s left hand. He put his right hand to his chin, chewing errantly on the tip of his brass thumb claw.
“No,” he said. “We could use some help.”
Guthwulf reached within his bearskin cloak, dabbed his fingers in a pouch of black ash, and then traced a pair of concentric circles in the snow around the woman’s body, keeping his grip on the soul casual but tight. The spirit could only be dimly aware of what was going on, but the air was beginning to brim with power, and Guthwulf felt her terror rising.
He invoked the name of an infernal creature and reached his left hand into the summoning ring, then released his grasp. The soul swept free from his palm, but the black ash rings flickered a red darker than the torchlight, and the spirit screamed, realizing it was bound within.
Distorted features, like a second set of eyes and teeth, twisted the corpse’s face, and then the body sat suddenly bolt upright, lashing out with its hands to grasp the invisible soul. The soldiers behind Guthwulf drew sharp breaths in horror as the corpse drew its meal to its mouth and began to chew on something intangible.
Once the demon-possessed corpse had consumed the soul Guthwulf had offered it, it turned its lifeless eyes to him. The woman’s pale face looked almost peaceful as the demon waited, but her posture was twisted, her eyes focused into something beyond the corporeal, and she did not breathe.
Guthwulf turned again to the ancient tongues as he gave his newest servant its orders.
Chapter Two
Rantle wished he was near a nice warm fire, instead of waiting for a chance to get himself killed. War was coming, Ragesia’s armies were marching for the western wall of Gate Pass, and the whole city might be in flames by morning – which at least would make things warmer – but Rantle wasn’t expecting to fall in some grand battle. More likely, his sister was going to be the death of him.
Huddled for warmth beneath his cloak, Rantle peeked out of the alley and down the darkened street to the Poison Apple Pub. Wintry wind cut its way down the street, fluttering banners hung from second- and third-story windows and stripping petals from the flower wreaths hung along the stone skybridges that led to and from nearly every building in the city, until finally it found Rantle’s hiding place and stung him for being foolish enough to come out at midnight.
There were dozens of other pubs within walking distance, places full of forced cheer where Gatekeepers tried to forget that their city was about to be crushed by the might of the most powerful nation of the world. Rantle could be there, pretending to be oblivious like the rest of them, but family came before, in Rantle’s mind, everything.
The Apple was where he and his younger sister Katrina had met for the past five new year’s eves. He never knew what she did the rest of her year anymore, ever since she had run off at seventeen. Every year she would return from wherever she had been, lie about her travels with a lifetime worth of practice, and be gone in just a few days.
This year, however, the Apple was closed.
All Rantle had heard was that the owner had been arrested for hostile collusion, which likely meant he had been helping mages flee the city before the inquisitors got here.
Rantle almost hoped Katrina wasn’t coming. She deserved better than to be betrayed by the city that had raised them. When they were kids, standing up to Ragesia would have made you a hero. Today, it seemed, people spent more energy wondering what sorts of costumes would be on display for the new year’s festival, and less working for their future.
Still, any hope that he might see his sister and find out she was alright was worth freezing a little, so he waited, keeping an eye on the entrance to the Apple in case she came by.
Rantle was starting to nod off when the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow caught his attention. He peeked out of the alley, hoping to see his sister, safe and sound. Instead a group of three people slinked down the street, hunched in winter coats and scarves. Two were clearly men – one likely a herethim by the slope of his brow, the other a young man – and the woman had too slight a build for Katrina, and black hair.
The group stopped outside the Poison Apple and looked around as if to make sure they were in the right place, muttering too softly for Rantle to hear from his hiding place one building down. Then the herethim knocked on the door, and a moment later it opened and someone leaned out. More words were exchanged, and before Rantle knew it they had gone inside and the pub door was closed again.
For a moment, Rantle indulged his own amusement, chuckling that he had not thought to even try the door. Apparently whatever ‘hostile collusion’ had gone on in the Apple hadn’t stopped with its owner’s arrest.
He was just about to follow the group in when he heard the horse approaching from the back end of the alley.
Rantle had plenty of experience in hiding at a moment’s notice, but he was distracted, and by the time he thought to move, the rider was already turning the corner toward him. Anyway, Rantle told himself, any danger tonight was on the other side of the city walls, probably resting in a nice warm tent. Just in case, though, he tucked his arms into his coat, which would look like he was keeping warm, but which put his hand near his knife.
Brown-haired and barely bundled against the chill, a strong horse walked into Rantle’s alley, coming in from the gutter alley that ran parallel to the main streets, between the lines of three-story houses and shops. Almost immediately Rantle wondered if running would have been a better idea, since the horse was armored, as was its rider.
“New year’s blessings,” Rantle said, putting on his best smile.
The dark-haired rider stopped short, clearly not expecting to run into anyone. The man looked to be in his twenties, about as old as Rantle, but he was built for swinging heavy objects at fleshy targets. Blue-eyed, his complexion was the color of dry soil, and his black hair was cut short. He wore only cavalry plate armor and no winter coat, which likely meant he either was crazy, or was the stubborn type who needed to display how tough he thought he was.
The horse’s saddle held enough weapons for a small military campaign, most prominent being a massive two-hander sheathed along the steed’s flank. Even with his greatsword useless in the tight quarters of the alley, the man had ways enough to make Rantle regret getting on his bad side.
“Get out of here,” the man said.
Rantle raised a hand calmingly, still keeping a smile on his face.
“Peace, friend, I’m going.” He took a step back. “But, before I go, do you mind if I ask what brings you out to this part of town? At midnight, on new year’s eve, when the nearest open pub is four streets that way? Are you lost?”
The man’s blue eyes narrowed in irritation, but he didn’t say anything.
“You look Ragesian,” Rantle continued. “You’re definitely not a Gatekeeper. I admit, I wasn’t burning to get into a fight tonight, but a good citizen would think it’s his duty to fight against some sharpened tilt from the Ragesian army who found a way inside our walls.”
“I’m not with the army.”
Rantle detected something like a sigh in his tone. It threw him off briefly.
“Good,” Rantle said eventually. “Because I’m not a good citizen. Honestly, I think the leadership of this city has gone downhill lately. Do you think they’re actually going to surrender to the rags?”
“No,” the cavalryman said. “Now get out of my way.”
Rantle hesitated. He could hear more snow crunching, this time overhead, crossing a skybridge over the alley. Perhaps this horseman, whoever he was, he had not come alone.
“Look,” Rantle said, “I sense you plan to kill someone tonight, so I’m going to be honest with you, stranger. I’m Rantle. You?”
After a pause, “Kathor.”
“Kathor,” Rantle said, “I’ve got a nice flask of alwyr red. It’s strong and sweet, not the sort of drink a poor soldier gets a chance to enjoy usually. Or a poor bounty hunter, if you grasp my meaning? I was looking to share it with my sister, who I haven’t seen for a year now. We were supposed to meet for drinks just down the way, and I’m worried that you’re here, with all your swords and knives, for her.
“Now if that’s true,” he continued, “then I’m probably going to get myself killed, because she’s my little sister, and she has this nasty habit of getting into trouble that only I can wind her out of. Which means I won’t get to enjoy this one last nice drink before your friends in that army out there come in and burn down my city. So I’m going to offer this: tell me that you’re not here for my sister, and the two of us can toast the end of one year and the start of another.”
A bell tolled mournfully in the distance, from the great Spire Clocktower in the central district of Gate Pass, three miles away. Rantle straightened slightly and waited as other bells joined it, proclaiming midnight and new year, slowly ringing up and down the length of the city – nine miles of mountain pass, snow, and frightened people.
Kathor had turned his attention away briefly. Though his eyes were skyward, the horseman’s question was aimed at Rantle.
“Is your sister a mage?”
Rantle grabbed the knife in his coat, waiting for an attack that didn’t come. A moment passed, and he thought he heard movement, but the bells made it hard to tell from where. He cleared his throat to gather his courage.
“New year,” Rantle observed. “We have a tradition here, that you should make a wish at the turn of the year, and if it’s what you really want, what you truly dream about, it will come to you in the coming year.”
Kathor turned his attention back to Rantle, and to Rantle’s relief it looked as if the man was actually listening to him. Rantle had just wanted to distract him in case he had to fight, but Kathor seemed genuinely interested. Rantle didn’t quite know what he was hoping to accomplish, but he bit his lip and decided it wouldn’t hurt to see where this went.
“Kathor,” he said, “do you really want to be doing this? You say you’re not a soldier, so if you’re hunting mages, that means you’re a bounty hunter. That means you’re probably trapped in this city just like everyone else, and I don’t think a few collared mages are going to earn you mercy.”
“I’m not stuck,” Kathor said. “And you’re just trying to avoid a fight.”
“Of course I am,” Rantle said. “And if you want to be spending your new year, when by rights we should all be drinking and celebrating, instead helping the god damned rags attack a city that never did you anything wrong, I don’t think I can stop you. But ask yourself, is that really what you wish for tonight?”
Kathor seemed to consider, mulling Rantle’s words.
The new year’s bells faltered, their tolling cutting out one by one. Rantle and Kathor both looked around nervously. Beneath the echoes of the bells, faint, deep thumps were audible, sounding like rotten fruit striking a roof.
Kathor gave a single bemused chuckle, straightened in his saddle, then shouted.
“Move! Everyone, move!”
Rantle heard people running in the street, and he saw dark shapes moving for the entrance to the Apple. Distracted, by the time he realized Kathor had drawn his sword and was intending to trample him, Rantle had lost his chance to strike first.
He scrambled backward for the street as Kathor rode toward him. Though the man’s sword was too huge to swing in the alley, it served fine as a makeshift lance, and it was all Rantle could do to dodge to the side at the alley’s mouth and avoid being skewered. Kathor’s horse stopped awkwardly in the icy street as Kathor tried to wheel to face him, and Rantle drew his dueling sword and knife. He stabbed out with the sword, hoping to catch the man when he was unbalanced, but Kathor knocked his bladed aside with his two-hander.
Rantle leapt back and held his sword and knife up defensively, but Kathor did not press the attack. The man’s eyes flicked in the direction of the Apple, and Rantle was faintly aware that Kathor’s allies ten yards down the street were hammering at the pub’s door with a small battering ram. The Spire bells now began to ring again wildly, sounding an alarm.
“I told you to leave,” Kathor shouted. “Your city’s under attack. Find someplace open, away from buildings. Or else go underground.”
Rantle cocked his head disdainfully. “You’re trying to get me to run when my sister might be in the building your thugs are atta-?”
A roar of sound and a slamming force the likes of which Rantle had never felt before struck him from behind, and when he came to his senses he was lying in the street next to Kathor’s horse, which was likewise knocked off its feet.
People were yelling, and there was fire – a great deal of fire.
Rantle cleared his head with a shake, then looked at the flames. A word he remembered from his sister’s early experiments with fire magic came to mind: explosion.
The building next to the Poison Apple had – it really was the only word that did justice – exploded, and now the street was littered with glass, burning wood, shattered stone, and cracked plaster. The second floor of the building was almost completely obliterated, and the ground floor was engulfed in flames. The Apple itself was covered with burning debris, and the men in the street with the battering ram had simply stopped to see what had happened.
Nearby Rantle heard a groan, and he remembered he had been fighting.
Retrieving his knife from the debris in the street – his sword was nowhere to be seen – Rantle staggered around the flailing warhorse to where Kathor lay, a leg pinned under his mount. Kathor saw him coming and reached for his two-hander, but Rantle put his boot on it and pulled it away, then bent down and picked it up for himself.
“You should leave,” Rantle smirked. “City’s under attack. Better get to safety. Maybe run back to whoever holds your leash.”
Rantle backed away in the direction of the pub, tucking his knife back into his coat and holding Kathor’s sword warily. Kathor crawled out from under his horse, his expression hard to read, but a moment later he had gotten his horse to its feet. He swung himself up into the saddle and turned to face Rantle.
Kathor looked him in the eyes and frowned.
“What?” Rantle demanded.
Without a word, Kathor glanced in the direction of the pub, then turned and rode off. People who had come out of their houses to see what was going on stepped out of way of his horse, and in a moment he had vanished beyond the edge of the firelight.
Chapter Three
Rantle shouted for the people in the streets to keep back. Holding the huge sword he had stolen from Kathor, he sprinted down the street to the door of the Apple, where the men with the battering ram had just managed to knock the door open. Over the panic they didn’t hear Rantle coming, and he aimed for the first man’s neck.
Rantle had been in a lot of fights, and he had killed a man once, a guildsman from the Takers gang. The fight had been over turf, and Rantle had meant to leave the Takers guildsman with just a scar, but his blade had gone in farther than he had expected, and – since the man had been trying to kill Rantle anyway – he hadn’t regretted it. Better, his fellow Mauser guildsmen had treated him to a night of drinks to reward his toughness, so in the end Rantle had come away feeling alright with the idea of killing people.
These bounty hunters might have come looking for his sister, so Rantle did not hesitate as he swung.
“Come out quietly, or we’ll lock you in here to burn!” one of the bounty hunters was shouting. “Surren-”
Kathor’s sword was nearly as long as Rantle was tall, heavy enough to crush plate armor and sharp enough to sever a horse’s leg. It cut through the first man’s neck cleanly, and its momentum carried its tip into the side of the second man’s jaw just as he was demanding a surrender. Rantle imagined he could feel bone crunching and teeth snapping free through the blade’s hilt. The man screamed, dropped his metal club, and collapsed. Rantle staggered back, shocked, but then he heard shouts inside the Apple, and saw the man was still moving, red steam filling the air with his every breath. Shuddering, Rantle stepped over the man’s body and in through the pub’s front door.
Overhead, the roof and second story burned like they were coated with pitch, and the explosion of the adjacent building had fractured the walls. Fiery oil had somehow seeped through the cracks, setting one wall on fire. On the far wall behind the bar, dozens of bottles had fallen during the impact, leaving the shelves bare. Still upright, though, a bronze bust of the late Emperor Coaltongue took in the battle without expression.
Throughout the pub’s common room a half dozen men dressed like the thugs outside fought amid clustered tables and chairs against their five potential bounties. Rantle recognized no one in the small melee, and he scanned the wrecked walls for signs that Katrina might be trapped or hiding.
Just inside the doorway lay a dead bounty hunter, and near him the herethim man Rantle had seen outside earlier slumped against a table, blinking dully and hissing in pain. He held a blood-soaked sword, but a dagger had punctured his chest, and blood poured down his forehead from a wretched wound where something had bludgeoned his skull.
To the right of the bar the black-haired woman Rantle had seen enter earlier hid behind an overturned table, shaking and yelling at the other man who had come with her as he bled to death from his throat. Between them and the thugs stood a young white-haired woman in breastplate and greaves. She thrashed a flurry of axe strikes into one bounty hunter and shoved him back into his allies, but another bounty hunter, his clothes and face burnt from dripping oil, flanked wide through the common room tables so he could get her from behind. She yelled to the dark-haired woman for help.
To the left of the bar, a bloodied bounty hunter wrestled with a short jispin man that Rantle had not seen with the group earlier. The jispin man, wearing what looked like an expensive servant’s outfit under a tattered brown cloak, was barely half the size of the bounty hunter, but he was kicking and flailing with the tenacity of a cornered dog, slashing his enemy’s arms with a tiny knife since he could not reach the man’s throat.
The dark-haired woman in the far right corner of the room screamed, and Rantle leapt into the battle.
He switched the oversized sword to his left hand, drew his dagger, and ran up behind the nearest bounty hunters, who were keeping the white-haired woman busy. The thug who was trying to flank her called out a warning to his allies, and one of the two bounty hunters spun and swung at Rantle with a sword. Rantle saw the attack coming, knocked it aside with a clumsy one-handed wipe of the two-hander, and then lunged in with his knife. He almost stopped himself, remembering the dying man he had left in the doorway, but then his blade slipped into the bounty hunter’s belly, and the man doubled over. Rantle ripped his knife out and drove it into the man’s throat.
Rantle cringed, expecting the second bounty hunter to come at him, but the warrior woman had swung at that man, and he was desperately trying to keep her axe at bay with his sword.
The third, flanking bounty hunter had given up on the white-haired warrior woman and was instead trying to grab the cowering woman on the floor. She scrambled under a table, but with all the scattered chairs and tables in the way Rantle knew he wouldn’t be able to get to her before the bounty hunter did.
Hoping to distract the man long enough to close the distance, Rantle drew back the two-handed sword and hurled it lengthwise. It whirled through the air, twisting slightly so that when it struck the bounty hunter it was the flat that hit, but still the force of the impact staggered the man, and he turned to see what had hit him. With that moment’s pause, Rantle had picked up the sword from the last man he had stabbed, and now he shouted and charged in.
The bounty hunter slashed as Rantle reached him. Rantle tried to parry, but the other man locked the crossguard of their swords together, then stepped in and lifted a knee into Rantle’s stomach.
Rantle doubled over, expecting to die any moment, but no one hit him. He forced himself to straighten up and swung at his enemy, only to discover the man had an axe in his collar bone. The white-haired woman had managed to dispatch her enemy, and had come to his aid.
She stepped in, gripped her axe tightly, and shoved the man off the blade with her foot. He slumped to the ground clutching the horrible wound in his chest, and for a moment the woman looked like she was going to finish him, but then she spat and turned away. The bounty hunter feebly clambered away to the door.
Rantle sighed and nodded. “Thanks.”
The woman was not looking at him, though.
“Rivereye,” she shouted.
“Alive,” came the reply from the jispin.
The short man, barely four feet tall, had somehow managed to extricate himself from the bounty hunter who had been grabbing him, and who now lay curled in a pool of blood near the bar.
The jispin man was ugly. Most jispin had that cute appeal all small things have, but warts riddled Rivereye’s face, and his skin had a blue pallor. Gem-studded rings adorned his hands, and he had slung a heavy pack over his shoulder, filled with something large and boxy. His eyes, squinty, nervous slits of dark blue, fixed on Rantle. He produced a knife and held it out warily.
“I’m here to help,” Rantle said. “Is there anyone else with you? A red-headed woman?”
The warrior woman shook her head, glancing around the room quickly as she moved over to the herethim with a knife in his side.
“No,” she said. “We need to get out of here before this place falls on us. Kell, come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Rantle had already stepped away, looking down at the black-haired woman who cowered on the floor. She wore the tunic of a craftswoman, dyed light purple, and had no weapons on her. Her hair was tied back in a thin braid, and her brown eyes stared wide and blankly at the floor. Rantle knelt beside her, holding up his less-bloodied hand to try to calm her.
“This place isn’t safe,” he said. “Come with me.”
The woman shook her head, quivering with fear. Her eyes flickered to the body of the man beside her, and then she closed them tight, her face twisting with grief.
Rantle sighed and wished he did not have to, but the fire gave him little choice. He leaned forward, grabbed her by her armpit and waist, and threw her over his shoulder. She didn’t struggle, and a moment later he was outside, laying her down on the opposite side of the icy street, next to a closed shop. The short jispin Rivereye and the warrior woman had dragged their herethim comrade out as well, and were tending to the dagger in his ribs, but it didn’t look good.
Overhead, families peered out of the upper story windows. The streets were swelling with confused people, but most kept their distance from the fire for now. Distant sounds like massive drumbeats called out from all around, but the people spoke only in whispers, unable to comprehend what was happening.
As Rantle laid the shocked woman down, she said, “Torrent.”
The white-haired warrior woman looked over like she had been called by name. “I’m here, Sorra. Don’t worry. We’re safe.”
“Coran’s in-.” Sorra stopped, choking on her tears before she could finish. “Torrent, he’s still inside.”
The warrior woman, Torrent, glanced at Rantle.
“Coran, the other man,” she said. “Get him out.”
Her voice had a sadness that made it clear that she knew the man was already dead, but Rantle just nodded. He needed to get his sword back anyway.
A minute later, Rantle staggered out of the door of the Apple, Coran’s body over his left shoulder, Kathor’s sword in his right hand, and a bundle of loot from the bounty hunters under his arm. The pub was filling with smoke, but it would still be a while before its ceiling would cave, Rantle guessed. Coughing, Rantle came over beside the other survivors and dropped the body and loot with as much finesse as he could, then slumped to the ground himself.
His legs had been shaking, and now he realized his whole body was shivering, but not from the cold. He wanted to get up and do something. The city was in chaos, and Rantle did not know what was going on, but he felt like he should be helping, somehow. He considered running to the west wall, since the rags were probably attacking; or going back into the Apple to drag out some of the bounty hunters who might not yet be dead, but he could not bring himself to move, not yet.
Far overhead, Rantle thought he heard a sound like a massive flag flapping in the wind, and the alarm bells were still ringing.
“Feeling alright?” Torrent asked.
Rantle glanced over to her. She leaned against the stone façade of the shop and rubbed a poultice into a gash on her shoulder. Her white hair – her most obvious feature – was almost short enough to be a military cut, like she had once been a soldier and had never been comfortable with letting it grow out.
The light brown color of her skin marked her as being from the south-eastern Ragesian empire, the land that had been called Chathus before the Ragesians conquered it decades earlier, though Rantle wondered if she might be part jen – not of the han race, like him. She looked normal enough, but had a gentle jawline and piercing eyes that suggested jen, and her white hair was definitely unusual for a han woman her age. Also, the armor she wore was clearly of Shahalesti make, decorated with fine etchings of waves and sea creatures.
Despite Rantle’s prolonged stare, she did not look at him as she tended to her wound, though it was clear she was waiting for his reply.
“I’m not hurt,” he said.
Torrent half-shrugged, half-nodded. “You’ll be alright. Thank you for the help.”
“Yeah,” Rantle said.
They watched the crowds filling the street, confusion on everyone’s faces. No one was trying to put out the fire in the Apple, and there were shouts that there fires all over the city. Torrent took out a flask, sipped a bit, then cleared her throat.
“You were looking for someone when you came cutting your way into that pub,” she said. “A woman, right?”
“My sister, Katrina,” he said. “Red hair. Twenty-two. She’s a mage, like these people with you are, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah,” Torrent shrugged, “they’re mages. I’m trying to get them to safety. But I haven’t met your sister. Maybe she’s already on her way to Seaquen.”
“What’s that?” Rantle said.
“Seaquen,” Torrent said. “That’s why you came tonight, right?”
Rantle said nothing, but he was sure his expression made his confusion clear.
Torrent shrugged. “For whatever mad reason, Leska’s got the rags capturing mages, and we’re all heading to Seaquen, in south Dassen, where it’s safe. Tonight’s our last run, but there were other-”
The force of another explosion a few streets away shook the ground and lit up the night with fire. People who had gathered outside screamed and fled, and Rantle and Torrent both cringed at the building-shattering roar.
“What in hell are those?” Rantle demanded. “We’re a mile inside the walls. That couldn’t have been a catapult.”
Torrent looked to the jispin man, who was trying to hide in the doorway of the shop, his eyes cast skyward.
“Rivereye,” she said. Then again, “Rivereye!”
The short man ducked, then looked over at the two of them. He carried himself like a dog often beaten, afraid of being struck again.
Torrent tilted her head at the pub. “What caused that?”
A smile flitted across Rivereye’s lips, then vanished. “Dractyls.”
Rantle said, “What?”
Rivereye scoffed darkly. “You’ve got great birds here in Gate Pass, right? Avilons?”
Rantle nodded. Avilons were like eagles the size of a horse, just large enough for small women and young men to ride them. Though officially they constituted an aerial cavalry, most Gatekeepers just thought of them as unique entertainers who soared through the city during festivals, performing elaborate dances in the sky.
“The Ragesians have avilon cavalry?” Rantle said, bewildered.
“Better,” Rivereye said. “Or worse, I suppose, for us. Dractyls. They’re like stupid dragons, twice as big as an avilon, big enough to carry a knight in armor. I once saw a group of dractyl riders training. They could get a dractyl to pick up a clay urn the size of a keg and drop it on a target ten feet across from a hundred feet up. Of course, the ones they were using were for practice. The ones they’re carrying now use some sort of fire magic, and are filled lots of oil.”
“Dragons?” Rantle said. “The Ragesians have dragon cavalry? That’s impossible.”
“Don’t believe me then,” Rivereye sneered. He turned away and began muttering.
Torrent said, “They’re not true dragons. More like cats, bred down from mountain lions. You notice they’re not breathing fire. You’d be surprised what magic you can buy with an empire’s fortune.”
“Still,” Rantle said. “We’re helpless, and more important, worthless. My city is being destroyed by ‘cats.’ How do we fight something that flies?”
Torrent had a small, tight smile on her lips. “You’re too eager to fight. Your city has its own defenders who will do the fighting. What we need to do is find some shelter tonight.”
People were surging past them in the street – not enough to risk trampling them so close to the building, but enough to make it clear that most of them were just panicking, scared people, each trying to go wherever he or she thought was safest.
“It looks like the Ragesians are just scattering the strikes randomly,” Rivereye said. “The army is probably attacking the wall right now, and the more people who are in the streets, the harder it is for reinforcements to get there. I think we should actually stay here, since they won’t drop another bomb so close to this one.”
“No,” Torrent said. “I told you, we’re getting out of this city. I’m not letting you hole yourself up and wait to get killed.”
Sorra, the dark-haired woman Rantle had carried out earlier, shivered as she said, “Inquisitors.”
Torrent leaned over and put a calming hand on her shoulder. Then she looked back to Rantle.
“I need to keep these people safe,” she said, “which means we’re leaving. We were lucky you came and helped us. We’re leaving the city, if you’d be interested in coming with us? Your sister might already be on the way to Seaquen.”
Rantle shook his head and stood, holding the two-handed sword and wondering what to do with it.
“She might be here too,” he said, “or she might never even have gotten here. I’m not going to run. Look, once you find some place safe, lay easy. I imagine it’s good to stay out in the open, or to be underground, away from the ‘bombs.’”
Torrent stood and raised a hand in a mock toast. “I hope you have that luxury, because we don’t.”
“Yeah, well,” Rantle said, “it’s a new year, so I wish you – and me – the luck to make it through tonight alive.”
Torrent said, “Don’t run into any more burning buildings.”
Rantle smirked and then, before his nerve and legs grew weak again, he headed down the alley beside the nearest three-story building, jumped onto the ladder built into the bricks, and started climbing. Halfway up, he glanced down and saw Torrent, Rivereye, and Sorra heading off. They had left behind Coran and the herethim man whose name Rantle had not caught. Only then did Rantle realize the herethim must have died from his wound.
Rantle kept climbing.
When he reached the roof he threw the sword he had taken from Kathor up first, then clambered onto the flat, icy rooftop, careful not to lose his balance. More than anything else, he had chosen to take the skybridge route because he wanted to see what was happening from a high vantage point, and when he stood up he cursed.
Scattered fires lit up his city, stretching away a mile to the west gate and miles more eastward. The sky was dark with clouds, but their undersides reflected the dim orange of the burning flames. As he watched, another explosion blossomed in the central district, and it took a long breath for the muted thump to reach his ears. When the bomb flared, its light glinted off bronze high overhead, hinting at the shape of a mighty statue, a colossus that had been left forty years ago, the last time Ragesia had attacked Gate Pass.
Ninety feet tall, it had been erected to mark the victory of the glorious emperor, Drakus Coaltongue, called the Old Dragon, who had conquered Gate Pass near the end of his ascension to power. Even after the resistance had driven out the rags, the city had kept the statue as a reminder to all Gatekeepers that they had the strength to defeat the greatest power in the world.
Now, the rumors said Coaltongue was dead, and Ragesia had gone to war to avenge him, and to locate and recover that most precious artifact, wielded for the hundred years of the emperor’s reign, which had made the Ragesian Empire invincible.
Coaltongue’s colossus towered over the city, its right arm raised to the heavens, holding horizontally over its head the bronze-cast image of that artifact, a jagged femur crowned with flame – the Torch of the Burning Sky.
Chapter Four
The bombs had stopped falling, and the bell ringers had found better things to do, since by now the entire city had awoken, but the air still brimmed with cacophony as Rantle ran along the skybridges toward the guildhouse.
Above the voices of the surging crowds murmured the faint sounds of battle in the skies, as avilon riders tried to cut down the Ragesian dractyls before they could return to their army and get more bombs. Rantle could not see the battles, just occasional holes in the starry sky sweeping past.
Mostly, Rantle tried not to look up, though he would duck every time he heard the heavy flapping of leathern wings coming too close. Once he came across a man dead from a crossbow bolt that could only have been fired from overhead.
The rooftops were almost as crowded as the streets, but few who had the sense to get to high ground were as panicked as those below. Rantle occasionally had to use normal roads whenever he came upon a building demolished by bombing, cutting off his path, but the only truly dangerous part of his journey was passing through the gate between the fourth and fifth districts, where a crush of panicked men and women trying to get farther from the Ragesians had nearly suffocated him.
Rantle had no home to check on, and the only places he could think to go to ride out the night in safety were themselves dangerous for him to return to, but anything was better than staying out in the chaos of the streets. Finally, after nearly ten minutes of hard running Rantle reached the Mauser guildhouse
The house thankfully had been spared the Ragesian fire. Mausers with meaty cudgels stood in front of the entrance, shouting at the crowds to keep their distance. The fifth district was home to more beggars, criminals, and poor families than any other, and Rantle had passed several scenes of looting as the pathetically impoverished tried to find anything valuable in the homes of their equally penniless neighbors.
“Sandir,” Rantle shouted to one of the guards, a heavy-set blond second story man.
With an irritated snap of his fingers, Sandir waved Rantle in from the crowded street. The other guildsmen guarding the door scowled.
“Don’t trust him,” warned Rugan, a dark-haired enforcer with a scar on his left ear. “He’s in with the bellmen.”
“Peace,” Rantle said, “seriously. We’re all friends here.”
“Why in hell are you here, Rantle?” Sandir asked, snapping his fingers repeatedly to hasten Rantle’s reply. “We know you went cliff diving for that two-dip councilwoman. What happened? Thrown out on your arse by another woman scorned?”
“I finished that job weeks ago,” Rantle said. “She knows she got deuced, and I don’t think she’d be letting me share her bedroom tonight, but she isn’t ‘scorned’ by any damned measure.”
This was not quite true. Councilwoman Pravati Bhari was the most gullible woman Rantle had ever stolen from, and as soon as Sandir mentioned it, Rantle wished he had decided to go to her manor instead of here. But the guildhouse was closer, and if Katrina were in the city, it was the only place she would know to look for him now.
Rugan sneered. “So you get tossed a few damned bridges to betray Dirus, and now you’re coming back here for what? Tomas kept the irons hot for you.”
Rantle took a wary step back. “Is this necessary right now?”
“Why in hell should we waste our time helping a traitor?” Sandir said.
“Wait,” Rantle said. “Just because I didn’t take another man’s beating doesn’t mean I’m a traitor. If Dirus had been thinking with his tongue instead of his knife, well, he’d still be able to clap.”
“That’s not the way I heard it,” Sandir said. “Whispers say you turned him in. If you weren’t at all to blame, why’d you run off like a scared mouse?”
“I was still running the deuce,” Rantle said, exasperated. “What, do you think I’m here to turn in the gang? I mean, look around. The bellmen have better tin to do now than raiding our house. Listen, I’ll explain this all to Tomas. Just let me in. I came to see if I could help.”
Sandir and Rugan exchanged dubious glances.
“Alright, that’s hensblood,” Rantle confessed. “I came to see if Katrina came by.”
“She’s back?” Rugan asked.
Rugan possessed an oft-proclaimed feral desire for Rantle’s sister, which was one reason Katrina had avoided the guildhouse for the past five years, but Rantle hoped he could rely on the man’s lust to get him to bend the rules and let Rantle in.
Sandir said, “We haven’t seen that whore in years. You know that.”
“Well she’s here now,” Rantle said, refusing to respond to Sandir’s insult. “She came into town a few days ago. You know the Poison Apple, in the fourth? It’s burning down right now. I was supposed to meet her there, but now, I have no damned idea where she might be.”
“You think,” Rugan said hopefully, “she might come here?”
“Maybe,” Rantle said. “Listen, I know you all hate me, but I also know you all like my sister, and with all the fire falling from the sky I know Tomas would like to have her around too. This is the only place she knows to find me, and she won’t stay unless I’m here.”
Rugan grumbled the way he did when he knew he was making a bad decision.
Rantle looked upward in frustration. “Can you just let me the hell in?”
“Dammit, fine,” Rugan said. “But I’m taking you to see Tomas.”
“Really?” Rantle drew out his reply to make sure dim Rugan caught the sarcasm. “No, I need to talk to Tomas anyway, to clear up this ‘traitor’ tin you’re canting about.”
Sandir snapped his finger and pointed at Rantle in one motion. “Leave the sword. What the hell are you doing with something like that anyway?”
Rantle looked at Kathor’s sword slowly, looked back to Sandir, and smiled.
“I took it off a Ragesian tilt I killed.”
Unimpressed, Sandir grabbed the sword from Rantle, and waved for him and Rugan to head inside.
The ground floor of the Mauser guildhouse served as a restaurant, one of the few respectable places in the district, but even that was a disorienting maze, decorated with numerous copies of a small numbers of paintings and sculptures to throw off attempts to navigate the halls. Unlike most structures in the city, no skybridges connected it to other buildings.
Rugan took Rantle through the quiet restaurant, which was empty save for a pair of gossiping women collecting food from the kitchen cupboards. Rantle smiled to them and they stopped their conversation long enough to start flirting back.
“Not now,” Rugan said.
The women shrugged and let them pass.
“Some people in the guild seem to still like me,” Rantle said.
Rugan scoffed. They headed up to the second floor, where the guildsmen had their own rooms. A few other Mausers chatting in the hallway saw him and sneered, but Rugan and Rantle pressed past them to Rantle’s old room. Rugan opened the door and shoved Rantle through.
“Stay put ‘til I come get you,” Rugan said.
“What?” Rantle said. “Is Tomas too busy to see me now? Is he playing cards while the city burns?”
“You better hope your sister comes.”
Rugan started to head off, but Rantle leaned out of his door and called, “Hey, Rugan.”
“What!”
“Katrina once told me she thought you looked dashing in that red vest you have.”
“Hen’s blood,” Rugan scoffed.
“I swear,” Rantle said. “You might want to find it before she shows up.”
Rugan grumbled in embarrassment, then came back and shut Rantle’s door. Rantle sighed in relief, then chuckled and walked over to the window. Through the snow-glazed glass he could see people scrambling through the alley below, and he heard a man shouting for his children to keep up.
Rantle turned away, then went over to his bed and sat down. Something rolled against his thigh, and when he looked down he saw a clay urn, brown, about the size of an apple, with a red wax seal over the mouth. Curious, he picked it up and shook it, hearing the light rattle of rolled up paper inside.
These sorts of urns were ubiquitous in Gate Pass around new year’s. On new year’s day every year, the city celebrated the Festival of Dreams with a parade consisting of throngs of revelers and dancers wearing exotic costumes far too titilating and skimpy for the middle of winter. The parade wound its way through the city, finally coming to a stop in the central district, in the park at the foot of the colossus of Emperor Coaltongue, where people of the city traditionally deposited urns like this. Each urn’s owner placed a strip of paper inside, on which was written that person’s dream or desire.
When the parade reached its end, each of the shakurs in charge of the eight major temples in Gate Pass chose one urn from the thousands piled together, cracked it open, and read its contents aloud. According to legend, every dream so revealed would come true before the year’s end, though whether that was due to divine blessing or simple hard work on the part of the temples was up for debate. Of course, particularly cruel, selfish, or impossible wishes had a way of coming about in unintended ways.
Rantle had not been in his room at the guildhouse for months, so with a shrug he rapped the urn against the squat metal chest at the side of his bed where he kept his clothes. The urn cracked open, and Rantle leaned over to collect the paper.
When he realized it was in Katrina’s hand-writing, he groaned.
“I wish I could be with you for the festival,” it read. “I hope this finds you, and that you find me. I’ve headed south, to a little town called Seaquen in south Dassen. I’ll be fine on the trip, but I want you to meet me there. I could use your help, Rantle. I know there’s a war going on, but I have a way that we can come out safe in the end. You need to meet up with a woman named Torrent. She’s with the Resistance, and is headed in the same direction. I made sure she will be waiting at our usual New Year’s spot. Don’t mention me, though. I’ll explain all of this when I see you.It was signed, and dated two weeks past. Rantle reread the note, grimacing with an intense feeling of frustration. A knock at the door stopped him just as he was about to smack his forehead at his bad luck. Grumbling, Rantle folded the note and tucked it into his vest, then stood up and opened the door.
“I won’t say more, in case someone finds this. Be on the look out for a trap, and don’t be surprised if the Ragesians have spies watching the meeting.
“You’ve never let me down, brother. Thank you, and happy new year. Be sure to make a nice wish before you go.”
Rugan stood there in his dashing red vest, along with another two guildsmen and Tomas, wearing a fine gray suit as if he had just come from a party. Apparently he was not willing to stop his celebrations just because of a little war, as he was holding a glass of golden liquor. A disbelieving rat-like grin appeared on Tomas’s mustached lips, and Rantle realized the three Mauser enforcers with him were all eagerly holding knives.
Rugan lunged forward to stab him, and Rantle shoved the door closed, slamming it on Rugan’s wrist and knocking the knife out of his grasp. Rugan pulled his hand back with a yelp, and Rantle pushed the door shut, then threw his weight against it. A second knife dug through the door near his belly, the tip poking him in his belt. Rantle quickly readjusted himself so he didn’t have anything more vital than his hands touching the door.
“We’re not going to talk about this?” Rantle yelled.
Another knife stabbed where Rantle’s head had been a moment earlier. He looked around for something to help him keep the door shut, but there wasn’t much in the tiny room. With one foot he reached out and awkwardly dragged the bed closer. The stabbings continued, followed by a few slams against the door that Rantle managed to hold back, before finally the assault stopped.
“You sold out one of your brothers,” Tomas said. “Was it worth it for a few more nights in the embrace of that filthy Chathan cap? I thought you were smart enough to know what the consequences would be for that, but I never imagined you’d be stupid enough to come back here.”
Rantle nodded silently in agreement, rolling his eyes at his own short-sightedness.
“I was stupid, yes,” he said. “Honestly, Tomas, I thought you would not be this upset. Tonight’s obviously already stressful. Maybe I should come back some other day?”
“No,” Tomas said, dragging out the word with amusement. “My men are nervous, and you picked an excellent time to help me remind them of the importance of discipline.”
“Tomas,” Rantle said to stall for time. “Did Rugan tell you Katrina is coming? I mean, you- you know the temper she has. If you kill me, I’m warning you she might not like it, is all I’m saying.”
“Keep squealing,” Tomas chuckled. “You’re like a mouse trapped in a hole.”
Rantle shifted his weight so he could lean down and pick up the edge of the bed. It was not very heavy, but it would help. He propped the bed against the door and leaned against that, looking around for a weapon better than the dagger Rugan had dropped. He saw none.
He cursed, and the men outside guffawed.
Suddenly he wished he had decorated his room better. All he had to show for a dozen years of thieving and conning was a chest of nice clothes he used to impress women, a few books of stories and history he kept as guilty pleasures, and a map of the first manor house he had ever robbed hanging on his wall.
“Tomas,” Rantle said, “I explained this to Rugan, but I guess he wasn’t the best choice for someone to speak on my behalf. I didn’t take a swim on Dirus. He fouled up the job, and it was either one of us getting caught or both.
“Be honest,” Rantle shouted through the door. “Honor or not, you would have done the same thing. Be reasonable, Tomas.”
“No,” Tomas raged. “We are a brotherhood, and I would bite a serpent’s tail if it would protect one of my men. You don’t care for anyone but yourself, and, as evidenced by your coming back here tonight, you’re too stupid for me to want to keep in the guild anyway.”
“Yeah,” Rantle said. “Dirus is much more useful now than I am. He gets caught, loses the loot he was supposed to get, whereas I don’t trip up, and you reward me with death. You’re a brilliant leader, Tomas. I’m sure this will inspire loyalty.”
A moment passed before Tomas replied.
“We don’t want to kill you,” he said, “just give you the ringing you thought you’d dodged. Be reasonable, Rantle. It’s only a hand. If I weren’t so busy, I might take the time to come up with something more creative.”
“Alright,” Rantle said through the door. “Let’s talk about something other than snipping off my hand, please? Tomas, I came here for a reason. You think I would be foolish enough to come here and just expect you to forgive me because you like me? I have good news, good enough that I swear you won’t want to punish me.”
“You’re probably spewing hen’s blood,” Tomas replied, “but I’ll listen. I have a party to attend to, though, so speak quickly.”
Rantle risked stepping away from the barricade, then bent over and picked up the chest of clothes by the handle on one end.
“Alright,” he said, “this is going to make us all rich.”
Instead of continuing with his lie, though, he just hurled the chest through his window, shattering the frame and smashing open an escape route. The chest flew out trailing shards of glass, and thumped heavily in the alley below. Rantle knew that Rugan and the others would come bursting through the door in a moment, so he didn’t take the time to worry about cutting himself on loose glass, and just jumped feet first through the window. He released a yell as he fell, which thankfully turned into a groan and not a scream as he managed to land on his feet and roll to reduce some of the pain of impact. Overhead he heard Tomas shouting, ordering his thieves to run Rantle down.
Rantle’s fall startled the family who had been fleeing through the alley, and they ran out into the main street in a hurry. After what he felt was a reasonable amount of time grimacing in pain, Rantle pushed himself wearily to his feet and grabbed his chest of clothes, but before he could run away he heard a loud snap of fingers from the mouth of the alley.
“You?” was all Sandir said, as he glanced back and forth between Rantle and the window on the second floor.
The panicked family had apparently drawn Sandir’s attention away from the front door of the guildhouse, and now he stood a dozen feet away from Rantle, still holding the sword Rantle had taken off of Kathor, looking dumb-founded at Rantle’s presence.
Shouts were already coming from the front of the guildhouse as word spread of Rantle’s escape. Sandir looked back briefly, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, and during his moment’s distraction, Rantle grabbed the chest handle, then hurled it overhanded at his old thieves’ guild friend.
The twenty-pound chest struck Sandir in the stomach and crumpled him almost silently. Rantle staggered over to him and grabbed the two-handed sword, leaving the chest behind.
“Bye,” Rantle said. “And sorry.”
Despite the pain in his feet and knees, Rantle forced himself to jog away, straight into the main street and the masses of terrified people, where he hoped the guildsmen wouldn’t follow. He desperately wished that his sister knew what he was going through in order to help her.
Tags: war of the burning sky
Total Comments 5
Comments
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I want to read this book! When you publish it, could you also make it available to buy from the Kindle store? Thanks!Posted 2nd October 2009 at 11:34 AM by Whimsical
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i am very interested in your creative process. are you writing this as a novel? or are you thinking of it more episodically, like a serial? is it still a work in progress? how much more editing are you planning? how deeply have you planned out the story ahead of time?
i would love to here your comments on the various choices you've made. kind of like the dvd commentary to go along with the main feature.Posted 2nd October 2009 at 04:57 PM by lotuseater -
I'd love to have a Kindle version published some day. For now, though, I'm satisfied sharing it on the boards. I hope the format isn't too long.
As for how I'm writing it, I initially envisioned it as a normal novel, but divided into episodes. I suppose I should blame watching too much TV as a kid, but I want resolution of some sort at a regular pace.
The (eventually) large cast and length actually favor a serial format, though. I have half a year of this already finalized, and a fairly detailed outline of how to keep the story interesting and moving for the equivalent of three books. I hope people are enjoying it, because I want to keep writing it.Posted 9th October 2009 at 03:34 PM by RangerWickett -
O boy I'm gone love this and can't wait for the next instalment. How Rantle will ever become the towns hero is beyond me but I'm already liking him some more. I'm a player in the burning sky but since our group is already riding through Dassen I think I can read this blog for a while without seeing to many spoilers. Great jop Wickett!
ZanticorPosted 14th October 2009 at 01:33 PM by Zanticor -
This is wonderful! I'm having flashbacks to my own WotBS campaign. Keep up the good work!Posted 20th October 2009 at 07:34 AM by d-minky
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