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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4687894" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 5“A motley throng,” Vhael said.  “We’ve had worse crews,” Gral pointed out.  “Remember that time we had to take command of the militia at Greatcliffe?”The dragonborn snorted.  “Was that the time that ogre berserker threw you across the square and through a roof?”Gral raised a bushy white eyebrow.  “That was Haldenford, as you well know.”The two were standing off to the side of the camp, near the remains of one of the settlement’s ruined outbuildings.  The soldiers were unloading the pack animals, and otherwise preparing the camp for occupancy.  Gezzelhaupt and Chaffin had already investigated the sagging remains of the turf house, but reported it unfit for occupancy, its interior sodden and dank with mold and fungus, the surviving half of the roof tentative at best.  Vhael gave an expert eye to the deepening evening sky.  The weather looked to hold at least through the night, and by tomorrow, it would no longer be a concern to the expedition. The same could not be said of the nobleman’s get, who was approaching the two of them, a stormy look on his face.  “Al’alzin’s Comment on Leadership states that, ‘A commander of men must be as patient as the oak,’” Gral said under his breath.  Vhael wasn’t feeling especially patient, but before Carzen Zelos could get close enough to speak, the dragonborn heard a faint cry over the rustling of the wind.  He shot a look at the wizard, who’d heard it too, coming from the sloping hill behind the settlement, covered in deep grass.  The content of the shout was lost over the breeze, but Vhael had heard enough warnings to be able to divine the message in this one in an instant.  “Alert!” the dragonborn shouted, reaching for the huge sword slung across his broad back.  But even as the men of Fallcrest looked up from their labors, more curious than alarmed, Vhael saw the threat, rising up behind the squat bulk of the turf house, the ruins barely big enough to conceal its approach.  He yelled a warning, but knew it was too late even as he drew out the sword and charged, flicking the long sheath free of the blade with a twist of a clawed hand.  Behind him, Gral followed more slowly, his staff tapping the packed earth, approaching to bring the enemy within range of his magic. The creature that leapt onto the ruins of the turf house was a long reptilian shape, the ancestry that it shared with Vhael obvious in its scaled hide, and the long dagger-shaped head dominated by a jaw full of rows of sharp teeth.  “Dragon!” someone screamed, but Vhael knew it for what it was, a wyvern, a lesser but still deadly cousin of the great drakes.  Its wingspan was easily thirty feet across, and the dragonborn paid particular heed to the long scorpion-like tail that rose above its hindquarters, bearing a sting that carried a deadly venom.  But this was all in the first chaotic second, for even as men—his men—turned toward the threat, just beginning to understand that they were in deadly danger, the wyvern sprang to the attack.  With a powerful kick of its muscled legs, bolstered by a push from its wings, the wyvern shot forward in a flat arc like a catapult stone.  Behind it, the turf house groaned and collapsed, but it had served the creature’s needs for the moment.  Tomon, still fumbling with his blade, screamed as the wyvern landed on him, his body crumpling as a claw bore him to the ground.  A few paces away, Ladren turned and ran, but he only managed a few steps before the wyvern’s head darted out on its long neck, its jaws snapping down with finality on the guardsman’s shoulder.  His scream died almost before it began, and the wyvern lifted him high into the air, bright red droplets of blood flying everywhere before it flicked its head and tossed the dead man almost casually aside.  The attack had come with such suddenness and vicious intensity that the remaining survivors were stunned.  The wyvern lifted its head and roared, its jaws streaked with garish red. “Rraaaaaaaaarrrrrgggh!” Vhael roared in echo, lifting his greatsword above his head in both hands.  But the dragonborn was still a good twenty paces distant, although he seemed to almost fly over the ground with his great strides. The pack mules panicked, breaking their tethers in their frenzy to get free.  Allon tried to grab the harness of one of them, but the terrified mule twisted and lashed out, a hoof slamming into the guardsman’s leg hard enough to snap the bone.  He screamed and fell, and was trampled by the second mule as it tore free and followed the first out of the encampment and back down the valley.  The wyvern looked toward the mules, but its attention was drawn back across the clearing as Chaffin rushed forward and delivered a solid strike with his sword.  The razor-sharp blade bit into the wyvern’s flank, but the creature’s hide was like old leather, and the wound was only superficial, drawing blood but failing to penetrate through the dense muscle beneath to the vital organs.  The wyvern clearly felt the hurt, though, and it shifted to face him.  Chaffin lifted his shield and readied for the darting jaws.  “Ware the tail!” Vhael warned, but even as the corporal saw the threat, the tail and its deadly sting lunged forward.  Chaffin raised his shield, but the sting came down over it, driving into his shoulder.  The soldier screamed and fell back, staggering as the venom worked its speedy course through his body.  Within a pair of heartbeats he fell to the ground, his struggles weakening quickly. A javelin hurled by Carzen flew across the battlefield and glanced off the wyvern’s scaled neck, but it ignored the attack, focusing on the closer threat of the dragonborn warlord as he closed to attack.  The long neck lashed out again, the wyvern’s tail sweeping around to balance it as it shifted.  Vhael dodged under the probing jaws, and swept his sword around in a powerful two-handed strike.  The sword bit into its torso just below the junction where its left wing met its body; a thin squirt of dark blood jetted from the wound.  He had positioned himself to shelter the fallen Chaffin, to give the man a chance to crawl free of the wyvern’s reach, but when he glanced down at the corporal, he saw that the man had stopped moving.  Snarling in anger, Vhael lifted his sword into a defensive stance, ready for the inevitable counterattack. White energy flared in a ray that shot past the wyvern’s head.  The creature reared, and the second of Gral’s icy rays hit it squarely in the center of its chest.  The wyvern screamed as the magical cold penetrated its body.  Unable to lift its wings to drive forward to attack, it instead took out its frustrations on the dragonborn warlord.  But Vhael was ready for the darting sting, and he narrowly deflected the thrust aimed at repeating the deadly hit on Chaffin.  But he could not avoid the attack entirely, and as it snapped back its tail the poisoned tip caught on his shoulder, tearing through the links of his chainmail and nicking his tough skin.  Vhael grimaced at the venom burned a fiery trail through his shoulder, but the dragonborn held his ground.  Opening his jaws wide, he spat out a gout of flame that washed over the wyvern’s body.  The fire splashed over the creature’s hide but did little real damage; even as it died, another frosty blast lanced into the wyvern from fifty feet away, where Gral continued working his magic.  Another javelin flew past, missing entirely; Carzen snarled and drew his sword, raising his shield as he edged forward toward the melee.  The wyvern did not wait.  It fell into a crouch, spreading its wings wide to catch the air.  Vhael, seeing what was coming, tried to dart back, but as the wyvern lunged forward he was clipped hard on the side of his head, and he was flung onto his back.  The creature swooped forward, driving its wings back, flashing scant feet above the ground as it rushed toward Gral.  The dwarf held his ground, and raising his staff conjured a freezing cloud that engulfed the charging creature.  For a moment, the beast vanished within that billowing sphere, but then it surged through, roaring again as the icy chill frosted on the leading edges of its wings.  Its momentum had not quite taken it far enough for another claw attack, but as it landed, its long talons digging furrows in the packed earth, it lunged out with its long neck, snapping at the dwarf’s head.  Gral fell back, narrowly avoiding decapitation, but the teeth snagged on his robe, tearing the fabric—and more than a little of the skin beneath—as those powerful jaws snapped shut.  The wyvern threw its head back, and the dwarf was launched high into the air.  He flipped end over end as he arced over the wyvern and his magical cloud, and finally landed with a hard thud on his back, some twenty paces from where he’d started.</blockquote>

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