For the typical people who moved about the bustling cobblestone paths of Waterdeep’s market district, the passing of a large, hunched humanoid in a tattered brown cloak was cause for little more than passing notice. Daichot was not a typical person, however, so he was watching the individual closely. Their appearance was unusual to him, as the fabric of the robe hung awkwardly across their wide frame, but more peculiar was the erratic gait with which they moved through the crowd. They moved not like someone old or infirm, but like a strong and able-bodied person trying to look old and infirm.
Daichot was a tiefling, humanoid in appearance, but with blood-red skin, black horns on either side of a shock of dark blue hair, and gleaming silver eyes. In a smaller city, his race was exceedingly rare, but around the likes of major populations like Waterdeep and Neverwinter, the tieflings were not unheard of, though his devil-like appearance still drew plenty of whispers in his wake. Worse yet for Daichot, he had spent a good portion of his life begging on the streets and trying to look as needy as possible in the hopes of a greater pittance from passersby. Because of that he was well equipped to spot the façade from someone with such an amateur performance. As a street urchin living in the damp alleys and dark corners of the largest city on the entire Sword Coast, one had to have a keen eye for spotting trouble quickly, and with no family or support, living in the streets and often turned away even from shelters because of his horns and tail, Daichot had to learn to take care of himself, and other outcasts.
A swift motion that did not match the pace the hunched figure had been displaying confirmed Daichot’s suspicions. He slightly increased his steps, just enough to match speed with the individual. As the figure turned down a smaller side street, the tiefling slipped through a cluster of people with a whispered pardon, pausing at the corner to keep from getting too close to his quarry.
“Stand ever alert against corruption.”
Daichot turned his head back towards the words and saw a chubby, round figured woman of elder years looking at him. She had grey hair in a neat bun, and wore a drab but clean blue dress with laced cuffs and neckline. A ribbon sash fought to contain her ample belly and she was smiling at him. As Daichot was over six feet tall, he nodded politely down to her and quickly offered a return hymnal.
“Salvation may be found through service, milady.”
His voice was distracted as he continued to watch the lumbering figure moving further away down the side street; their pace was still quickening.
“My grandson has intention to become a knight of Torm, such as yourself,” she said to him, pointing at the holy symbol around his neck.
Daichot absently felt the pendant on a short cord around his neck, the silver gauntlet of Torm, open palm facing outward. The robed figure was moving with longer strides now, towards an alleyway that would take him out of sight. “I’m not a knight,” he said distantly to the woman, with more hostility than intended. He looked at her, and tried to soften the edge in his voice, “this symbol belonged to my master, Sir Bellamin.”
The woman’s eyes widened with recognition. “Sir Bellamin the Savior?” she asked excitedly.
“One and the same,” Daichot answered. The figure strode heavily into the alley, and the tiefling thought he saw a glint of metal flash from beneath the robes. “Excuse me, milady, Torm’s blessing to you.”
The tiefling broke into a trot as he moved up to the alley entrance. As he rounded the corner he was faced only with a vacant space between buildings, where only a haze of dim light filtered down through the yawning roofs and clothes hanging from lines suspended for stories up. The robed man must have broken into a run to have gotten out of sight already. Whether that was because he noticed Daichot following him, which seemed unlikely, or whomever they were following had increased their pace as well, he did not know.
The tiefling looked back at the side street behind him, mentally visualizing where he was in the city. He had lived on these streets for most of his life, and many times his safety depended on the ability to navigate the winding alleyways unerringly. This alley in particular took a serpentine path along the district wall of the market, meaning there were many spots ideal for an ambush. Rather than chasing the man down the alleys with no idea how far behind he was, Daichot turned back to the side street and moved briskly ahead to another access where he should be able to intercept the strange figure.
As he quickly made his way two blocks over, very close to the inner wall dividing the market district from the military quarter, he noticed a pair of humans stride quickly into the same alley that he intended to use as a shortcut. He moved cautiously towards the mouth of the alley, and peered around the corner, in time to see the two humans both brandishing tarnished blades and wearing thick leather tunics under their cloaks. They spoke to one another softly, but Daichot was unable to make out their words.
Waiting for them to follow the alley around the first of many turns that followed the inner walls, he slipped into the alley and followed them, gripping the base of the scabbard strapped to his back with his left hand, and gripping the heavy, wire-wound hilt with his right, and drew his great sword as quietly as he could. Each step he took in the alley felt like it echoed for miles in the quiet of the alley, as his chainmail jingled with every motion. By the time Daichot reached the turn though, the two humans were ahead of him still, moving too quickly to hear him behind them, apparently.
From somewhere beyond those two humans, there was a bellowing roar and sudden clang of metal, which shattered the stillness of the alley. The two humans broke into a sprint and headed for the sound, ducking down yet another branch of the complex alleys in the market district. Daichot dropped all attempts at stealth and ran after them, as fast as his legs would carry him. He felt his heart thundering in his temples in anticipation of battle.
There was another roar, which did not sound like anything Daichot could identify. It was almost like a screeching eagle, only with a much deeper pitch, and with a clacking sound at the end that was almost reptilian. This time there was an answering cry as well, that sounded like a human, and was silenced abruptly with the unmistakable noise that metal makes when impacting flesh. His legs were starting to burn from the strain of running in a full suit of chainmail, but he shrugged away feeling and rounded the last corner into the alley junction he had already seen in his mind.
The scene brought him up short.
There were three humans in the alley junction, spread out in a half-circle around a towering humanoid, but definitely not human. On the ground at its feet was a crumpled pile of dirty cloth—the robe it had been trying to conceal itself with earlier. Standing over that was a towering figure, taller than Daichot by several inches. It had arms and legs like a human, but a face that was reptilian with sharp, twitching red eyes, and shimmering golden scales instead of skin. Its muscles flexed beneath the thick scaled hide as the creature switched its grip on a huge, menacing great axe dripping with gore. A fourth human was sprawled upon the alley stones in a quickly spreading pool of dark blood.
“Humans!” the creature said in thickly accented common, seemingly struggling with the sounds. “I have questions… you have answers. Drop… your weapons!”
Daichot stepped into the alley, his sword at the ready. They all saw him, and there was a collective gasp from the humans followed by a hiss from the dragon-man as they all adjusted their position for a new combatant. “What’s going on here?” the tiefling demanded.
“None of your business, devil!” One of the human men sneered at him. He lunged at the tiefling but Daichot found the attack to be slow, and predictable. He easily sidestepped the thrust and smashed the broad hilt of his great sword into the man’s face. His nose flattened with a wet crunching noise, and his eyes rolled back into his head as he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
“These are cultists… of the… Dragon!” exclaimed the dragon-man, as though that would explain everything.
“One of them is dead,” pronounced Daichot, to the giant creature, “by your hand.”
The other two humans were frozen with indecision between the two men. Their eyes darted from Daichot to the dragon-man, and back.
“He… attacked… me!” protested the dragon-man. The words in Common appeared to be a struggle for him to remember.
Daichot looked at the human he had just knocked out. The man was sputtering for breath on the ground, choking on his own blood. The tiefling nudged him onto his stomach with a booted foot, and his breathing eased. “I believe you,” he announced, watching the other two for any hint of movement, “but I don’t know why, or if you deserved it.”
“No!” screamed the dragon-man, the shrill cry climbing in pitch to again sound like some mix of eagle and lizard. “They… attacked… me!” he repeated more forcefully.
Daichot was agitated with the circular conversation, but felt a calming sense of peace and direction to his thoughts. “And I said I believed you,” he stated with finality. The dragon-man seemed to relax slightly. “Now, all of you will lower your weapons. There will be justice to whom it is due.” The two standing humans both looked at each other, and relaxed their stances, though they did not sheathe their swords. The dragonoid stood taller, and Daichot could see a seething anger boiling in its eyes, but then it allowed the giant axe head to slide to the ground, one hand on the handle.
“Better,” Daichot approved. “What is your name?”
“Koven Mishan Daarshidian,” proclaimed the dragon-man. Most of the name melted into a noise that just sounded like the Draconic tongue to Daichot, but he caught the first word and held it.
“Koven , then. You are a dragonborn?” Koven nodded in ascent. “I’ve only heard legends of your race, from across the sea.”
Koven shook his head. “No. I am from the… Dalelands. I am… hunter. Come to city to find… honor.”
“And these men took your honor?” Daichot proposed, half-sarcastically, but the quick nod and flare of anger from the dragonborn made him regret the statement.
“Yes! These… humans… are Cult… of the Dragon!” he yelled, raising his axe from the ground again.
“Wait!” bellowed Daichot, holding one hand up towards the dragonborn. Koven took a step back, but did not lower the axe. Seizing the gap in action, he pointed at the humans, “Who are you then? Why did you attack me, or this dragonborn?”
The man looked at the tiefling with a hard stare, as though he were trying to bore through him with only his gaze. “The barbarian is right—we are the Cult of the Dragon—and you shouldn’t have meddled in our affairs!” With a lurch, the man jumped back away from Daichot and threw a small knife in his direction.
He defensively held up his arm and the blade glanced off the chain mesh of his sleeve, and saw that the man was looking somewhere past him now. He followed the gaze to see four more men, all in similar garb closing on them from the same alley Daichot used earlier. He turned back to the pair of men in time to see Koven roar and bring up his axe in one motion, nearly splitting one of them in two as he kicked the human off of his embedded weapon.
Daichot and Koven found themselves backing towards the same wall of the junction, with five humans in leather armor and wielding shortswords encircling them. The golden-scaled dragonborn’s chest was heaving with anticipation of the carnage, and a grisly noise slipped from between his sharp teeth as his shoulders shook.
“Don’t… kill them… all,” said Koven, and his muscled tensed, like a viper about to strike.
With that statement, the cultists charged. Daichot slapped away two thrusts, sending their blades wide, and countered with sweeping, downward cleave that left one of the men without his sword arm. The other screamed with a combination of panic and desperation, taking a wild hack at the tiefling, only to strike air, as he ducked low, and thrust upwards with the giant sword, piercing the man’s belly and sliding the blade up till it protruded from his collar. Daichot continued to thrust upwards as his legs and arms extended, lifting the man several feet off the ground and pulled his sword free, leaving the body to flop to the ground with a spray of blood pouring from the ruined torso. The first cultist, missing his arm, pulled a dagger from his belt with his other hand and raised his arm to stab downward at Daichot’s leg. With backward stride he brought his sword down and neatly decapitated him.
Daichot turned and saw the dragonborn moving in a blur that belied his size. The first enemy he reached tried to parry with his swordsword, but the great axe just drove the blade back into the man’s face, wrecking his skull with his own weapon, followed by the gore-slicked head of the axe. Before the motion stopped, Koven whipped his tail around behind him, reversing his spin and cleaving through the next man’s thigh with the axe, then delivering a bone-jarring punch to the man’s face as he screamed in agony, which was silenced as the blow crushed his jaw.
The last man turned to flee as the barbaric fighter hoisted the axe over his head and launched the weapon end-over-end, embedding the weapon in his back, and the man fell flat to the damp cobblestones of the alley, dead before reaching the ground. Daichot watched guardedly as the dragonborn turned back to the man with a crushed jaw and scooped him up by the jerkin, and pulled the mangled visage closer to him.
With a sharp inhale that sounded akin to a forge bellows, Koven's jaws spread inhumanly wide and paused for a split second, a glow emanating from the depths of his reptilian throat. Then with a sound not unlike a retching cat, a continual blast of flame erupted from the dragonborn and consumed the cultist’s face for several seconds. When the torrent of fire subsided, the barbarian dropped the charred remains to the ground, and stood upright, his chest heaving.
The metallic smell of blood mixed with the disturbingly aromatic smell of charred flesh, and left Daichot momentarily speechless. Koven frowned as he looked about the carnage, and suddenly exploded in outrage. “I ssaid… don’t kill them… all!”
The tiefling felt the instinct to raise his sword, but the dragonborn didn’t advance on him—his tantrum was restricted to just yelling. Daichot pointed to the man on his stomach, still unconscious, with a smashed nose. “That one is still alive, Koven.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the dragonborn, and retrieved his great axe by planting his foot on the body and tearing the head free. “I forgot… that one. You are smart… to knock one out before you… kill rest.” Again, Koven made the same sickly gurgle in his throat.
“Are you...” Daichot hesitated to ask, “Are you… giggling?”
“Yes,” Koven nodded, “it is… funny… that I forgot!” Daichot wasn’t sure what to say to that, but Koven quickly moved over to the unconscious one. “When he… wakes… you will… see they take… my honor.”
Daichot walked over to stand next to Koven , and saw that he had a gash in his side, which was bleeding steadily. “You are hurt.”
Koven nodded, “I am… fine. It is… deep scratch. Thanks to you… for helping.”
Daichot shrugged at that, not sure if he wanted thanks for this battle yet, but abruptly placed a hand on the wound, and felt the divine power of Torm flow through him. The wound closed abruptly, and mended without a scar.
Koven's small eyes widened in realization. “You are… pala-damned!”
The tiefling’s expression puzzled. “What did you say?”
“Pala-damned. You heal with… gods! You are… pala-damned!”
Daichot felt a dark emotion for just a moment, then smiled at Koven. “It’s pala-DIN.”
Koven's demeanor shifted from that of towering strength to crestfallen embarrassment. “I… sorry. Not mean… insult.”
Daichot held up a hand to stop him. “No need, you were closer than you know. And anyway, I’m not a paladin, either.”
***