Monty Tomasi
First Post
Part XI:
Ella laid quietly asleep, her chest rising and falling gently as she slept under a single silken sheet. The lighting that had danced along her skin like zephyrs playing in the sands of Pelion had died away. She smiled in her sleep and unconsciously reached her arm over to the other side of the bed.
Suddenly the door flew open and Ella sat bolt upright. In her right hand she held a thin, serrated dagger and with her left hand she brought up the edge of the sheet to cover her modesty.
Standing in the doorway was Sergeant Perrin, radiating anger with such cold composure that Ella felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright. She glanced around looking for another exit but none presented itself.
“You’re better,” Perrin stated, leaving no room for argument. “Get dressed; we have a job to do.”
“Sarge,” Ella stammered. “What’s happening? I’ve never seen you like this…”
“Just get dressed, OK?”
“Yes Sir.” Ella responded getting to her feet. She lost her balance momentarily and then recovered it by leaning against the wardrobe next to her bed.
Perrin remained standing in the doorway staring at the other Harmonium officer.
“Sarge?” Ella asked uncertain whether Perrin was going to charge in to the room or not.
“Tell Oho to get dressed as well. Meet me in my office in five minutes.”
There was a small sigh from under the bed.
Narcovi sat at her desk going through the latest reports marking those of particular interest to her with a small chalk pencil. The pile of parchment marked with chalk had only a handful of sheets whilst the unmarked pile was almost a foot in height.
The dwarven officer took off the small spectacles that she used for reading and rubbed her tired eyes. Glancing up at the shelf with her collection of curios, she listened to the ticking and whirling sounds that they produced. With a contented sigh she put her spectacles back on at the exact same moment that someone began knocking urgently on her office door.
“Ma’am, may I come in please?”
“Who is it?” Narcovi responded, peering over the edge of her spectacles at the locked door. “This is not a good time; can you please come back later?”
“It’s me, Ella-Morro-Moo.” There was a lengthy pause from the other side of the door. “I’m sorry to bother you Ma’am but it’s to do with Sarge. He’s really lost it this time and I fear that he’ll go and do something… well, something regrettable. I’m sorry to bother you at this time…”
“Very well,” the dwarf jumped off her chair, manoeuvred around her large desk and walked over to unlock the door.
As soon as the door opened Ella grabbed her hand and began tugging her down the corridor.
“Hold on a moment, girl.” Narcovi said as she planted her feet firmly. “I can’t go leaving my post on a whim. Tell me what’s amiss girl and be quick about it.”
“It’s Sarge,” Ella panted with exertion. “He was ranting on about going in the restricted section and taking the files about Camp Fortune to Harry Hatchis. He said something about spilling the dark on Arcadia and some terrible mistake that happened at Training Camp Fortune… I’m sorry Ma’am but he was not making much sense. I tried to stop him, but…”
Ella doubled over and held on to the dwarf’s arm for support. Narcovi helped the other officer stand upright so as to let her get more air in to her lungs.
“There… there… child.” Narcovi patted Ella’s arm but her gaze was fixed on a point deeper inside the Barracks at a level that few knew about and even fewer visited. “It’s good that you came and told me this. Together we’ll go and put matter aright. Actually, best if you return to your bed and get more rest. You’ll need to regain you strength before all’s said and done.”
Narcovi locked the door to her office and was about to head off when she felt Ella’s hand on her arm once again.
“Please be careful Ma’am,” Ella said softly.
“Fear not,” Narcovi replied smiling. “I can handle Perrin just fine. In fact, I have the papers filled out already for his next demotion.” The dwarf’s grin grew even wider and she set off at a hurried pace down the corridor.
Once Narcovi had turned the corner and was lost from sight, Ella pulled the key to the office out of her sleeve and checked that the corridor was clear. She inserted the key in to the lock and was in and out of the office in the span of twenty heartbeats.
“Can you use these?” Perrin asked Oho showing him a pair of silver-plated knuckledusters.
“Uh yes, for sure.” Oho replied raising his eyebrows at the sight of the beautiful weapons.
“Good. Ella, I’ll need you to keep a look-out for trouble. Here’s a whistle in case anyone comes along that could spoil our little surprise party.”
Ella took the whistle and after a brief test she tucked it in to her belt.
“Any reservations?” Perrin asked.
“None,” Ella and Oho replied together.
“Excellent,” the Harmonium officer responded
The trio set off down a narrow alleyway in single file. They each stepped carefully over the guard that had been standing watch moments before in a carefully concealed alcove and who now lay unconscious up against the wall.
Graffiti was scrawled on the walls, a lone rat scurried along in the gutter and the caked mud in the narrow passageway had only a single pair of footprints in it. The graffiti was interspersed with random scrawls and drawings that a Xaosman had been inspired to paint a long time ago. As Ella glanced around her position as look-out in the alleyway, she noticed the words: “In/E/Di-gress, but where in Agathion?” written in florid, curvaceous letters.
Oho and Perrin continued down the passageway. After twelve feet the lead Harmonium officer came to an abrupt halt and turned to the wall on his right. Oho gently traced his hand over the brickwork until his fingers came across the outline of a doorway. Brushing away the cobwebs he traced more of the line separating the bricks and blew out some of the dust.
Oho spat on his palms, rubbed them together and then placed both his hands on the stone door. He pushed hard, his shoulder and arm muscles flexing but nothing happened. Taking a deep breath he tried once more but the door did not budge an inch.
Perrin pushed forward and thrust his man-catcher in to Oho’s hands. Placing both his hands against the stone door Perrin pushed once and the door swung open silently revealing a dark passageway leading down. The other Harmonium officer raised an eyebrow as he passed the man-catcher back.
“Must be a knack to it,” he muttered as the pair descended down the slime-encrusted staircase. The walls of the downward sloping passageway were roughly cut from crumbling dark stones. Water trickled down the sides of the walls and the stairs had been worn away by the steady rivulets of water seeping down over the dark blue slime.
“Number fifty five sword,” Perrin said as he drew a gleaming short sword that curved around in a spiral like a corkscrew. The less-than-a-foot long twisting stubby short sword gave off a silvery glow that illuminated the passage for about twenty five feet in either direction.
“Nice sword,” Oho said just above the sound of a whisper.
“Yeah, made by an archon that was between paths. She did not really understand what the sword was going to be used for.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“I’m not a very nice sometimes,” Perrin said treading softly down the rest of the stairs and in to the passage beyond.
The corridor came to a junction a few steps away from the stairs branching off in to three directions. Each was as dark and dismal as the other with no signs distinguishing them except for a series of marks at head height in each passageway. The marks consisted of zeros and crosses in line with a seemingly random number of each in no particular order.
Perrin paused to look at the lines and chose the left-most passage way. Oho handed him back his man-catcher and the two set off down the tunnel deeper in to the warrens and catacombs beneath the city.
At times they passed dark things scurrying past, some of which they saw and some of which they only sensed were nearby. At least once Oho thought that he caught sight of something man-like hunched over a sarcophagus but Perrin quickly pulled him along.
After about ten minutes of wandering the pair began a slow ascent up several sloping corridors, an underground well and up a set of broad winding stairs. When they go close to the top a dark shape dropped out of the shadows sending both Perrin and Oho tumbling down the stairs.
“Should not have come for me,” the barbazu said as it licked the fresh, hot blood off its glaive. Its beard writhed like a mass of blood-hungry worms and the dark cape it wore fluttered behind it like a pair of shredded leathery wings.
Perrin recovered quickly and charged at the fiend with his man-catcher. The barbazu side-stepped the attack and smashed the glaive in to the shaft of the Harmonium officer’s weapon breaking the wooden handle cleanly in two. However, the fiend recovered too slowly from the attack. Its attempt to sunder the other’s weapon had met with far less resistance than it had anticipated and the fiend was caught off-balance.
From behind it felt a series of sharp stinging blows as the other Harmonium officer jabbed it in the back with silver-plated knuckledusters. The cloak it wore offered no protection and the final blow connected with the middle of the fiend’s spine with a wet crunch. The barbazu lashed out with its glaive forcing Oho to dodge to the side but as the momentum spun the fiend around it let out an agonised scream.
With Oho on one side lower down on the stairs and Perrin higher up on the other side, the fiend decided to evade the pair by leaping up in to the air. The ragged leathery cloak spread outwards in to a pair of bat like wings that would have let the barbazu escape to the bottom of the stair had not Perrin leapt to attack once more.
Using the spiralling celestial blade Perrin punctured one of the wings and stabbed in to the barbazu’s side. The pair came crashing down and rolled from stair to stair, stabbing and clawing at each other as they tumbled right to the bottom. Both lay bleeding heavily, groaning in pain as they fought to stay conscious above the rising tide of pain.
“You’ll pay for that,” the fiend spat dark blood and coughed up some more as it tried to rise to its feet. Looking down it saw that the Harmonium officer was holding on for dear life to a spiralling silver sword that protruded from the fiend’s side.
Perrin’s other arm was bent at an odd angle and his breastplate had come off as the pair had bounced down the stairs. His trousers were stained dark red and Perrin almost passed out as one of his knees lost the strength to support him.
The fiend smirked despite the pain and closed its eyes in concentration. Just as it was about to teleport off it felt a sharp stab of pain and saw that Perrin had retained just enough strength to twist the blade in a fraction further. Not wishing to inflict upon itself more pain by trying to get the blade out the fiend once again mustered the remains of its flagging willpower to make a quick exit but it was thwarted a second time.
Oho had managed to clamp the remains of the man-catcher on the fiends foot as he’d run, then leapt and finally slipped head first down the stairs. The fiend stared incredulously at the metal pincers pinching its toes and snarled in pain, hatred and outrage. When the Barbazu tried to bend down to unclamp the weapon though it found that the celestial blade stuck in its side prevented it from bending over.
Perrin laughed hoarsely and Oho rose to his feet as quickly as he could in order to restrain the fiend to prevent its escape. The barbazu put up little further resistance.
“You cut a deal with the erinye,” Perrin said through gritted teeth as he lay on the ground. He crawled over to the bottom of the staircase and propped himself up on the arm that was causing him less pain.
“I don’t much care what the deal is, but what I do care about is getting my officer back. Now tell me where she is before I get really unpleasant.”
A barking noise came from the barbazu’s throat that sounded like a dog drowning with a large toad attempting to crawl down its throat. The fiend opened its mouth to reveal sharp, yellowed teeth and a stinking maw that did little in the way of unnerving the Harmonium officers.
“Twist the blade,” Perrin said causally. Oho twisted the blade with a calm detachment of a tinker examining a new toy.
The Baatezu let loose with a string of expletives in its native tongue whose coarseness crossed the language divide by sheer malice and vileness. The fiend’s eyes blazed a deep glowing red and for a moment the creature’s aura seemed a living thing that spread outwards to envelope the two Harmonium officers.
“Twist it again,” Perrin said seemingly oblivious to the hate and fear-laden atmosphere. Oho wound the blade a little more and sat back to watch the effects.
The Barbazu thrashed around for a long time, cursing and screaming until it seemed that all of its strength had gone. After some time the fiend lay still.
“I think that we killed it, Sarge.”
“No, it’s just playing with us.” Perrin sat upright and rolled his shoulders, flexing the muscles in his arms. He then slowly stood up, turned his head from side to side as if to ease the stiffness in his joints and took a few steps.
“How did you heal like that?” the fiend whispered, its eyes grown large as it stared up at the Harmonium officer standing over him. “What are you?”
“Nothing you want to mess with,” Perrin replied. Lowering himself down on one knee and he placed his head beside the fiends so that he could whisper in its ear. “Now tell me where my colleague is ad we’ll leave you in piece.”
“She in the Foundry with K. A., that’s where she takes the past lives.”
“Why did she take Valori and not Ella?” Perrin asked looking over at Oho.
“Because the harlot can’t build machines like the innocent one can.”
The fiend began to laugh again, but its bark-like chortling was cut off midway through when Perrin wrenched the sword out of its side.
“No time to lose,” Perrin said and the two Harmonium officers headed off to meet up with Ella before going off to the Foundry.
Ella laid quietly asleep, her chest rising and falling gently as she slept under a single silken sheet. The lighting that had danced along her skin like zephyrs playing in the sands of Pelion had died away. She smiled in her sleep and unconsciously reached her arm over to the other side of the bed.
Suddenly the door flew open and Ella sat bolt upright. In her right hand she held a thin, serrated dagger and with her left hand she brought up the edge of the sheet to cover her modesty.
Standing in the doorway was Sergeant Perrin, radiating anger with such cold composure that Ella felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright. She glanced around looking for another exit but none presented itself.
“You’re better,” Perrin stated, leaving no room for argument. “Get dressed; we have a job to do.”
“Sarge,” Ella stammered. “What’s happening? I’ve never seen you like this…”
“Just get dressed, OK?”
“Yes Sir.” Ella responded getting to her feet. She lost her balance momentarily and then recovered it by leaning against the wardrobe next to her bed.
Perrin remained standing in the doorway staring at the other Harmonium officer.
“Sarge?” Ella asked uncertain whether Perrin was going to charge in to the room or not.
“Tell Oho to get dressed as well. Meet me in my office in five minutes.”
There was a small sigh from under the bed.
Narcovi sat at her desk going through the latest reports marking those of particular interest to her with a small chalk pencil. The pile of parchment marked with chalk had only a handful of sheets whilst the unmarked pile was almost a foot in height.
The dwarven officer took off the small spectacles that she used for reading and rubbed her tired eyes. Glancing up at the shelf with her collection of curios, she listened to the ticking and whirling sounds that they produced. With a contented sigh she put her spectacles back on at the exact same moment that someone began knocking urgently on her office door.
“Ma’am, may I come in please?”
“Who is it?” Narcovi responded, peering over the edge of her spectacles at the locked door. “This is not a good time; can you please come back later?”
“It’s me, Ella-Morro-Moo.” There was a lengthy pause from the other side of the door. “I’m sorry to bother you Ma’am but it’s to do with Sarge. He’s really lost it this time and I fear that he’ll go and do something… well, something regrettable. I’m sorry to bother you at this time…”
“Very well,” the dwarf jumped off her chair, manoeuvred around her large desk and walked over to unlock the door.
As soon as the door opened Ella grabbed her hand and began tugging her down the corridor.
“Hold on a moment, girl.” Narcovi said as she planted her feet firmly. “I can’t go leaving my post on a whim. Tell me what’s amiss girl and be quick about it.”
“It’s Sarge,” Ella panted with exertion. “He was ranting on about going in the restricted section and taking the files about Camp Fortune to Harry Hatchis. He said something about spilling the dark on Arcadia and some terrible mistake that happened at Training Camp Fortune… I’m sorry Ma’am but he was not making much sense. I tried to stop him, but…”
Ella doubled over and held on to the dwarf’s arm for support. Narcovi helped the other officer stand upright so as to let her get more air in to her lungs.
“There… there… child.” Narcovi patted Ella’s arm but her gaze was fixed on a point deeper inside the Barracks at a level that few knew about and even fewer visited. “It’s good that you came and told me this. Together we’ll go and put matter aright. Actually, best if you return to your bed and get more rest. You’ll need to regain you strength before all’s said and done.”
Narcovi locked the door to her office and was about to head off when she felt Ella’s hand on her arm once again.
“Please be careful Ma’am,” Ella said softly.
“Fear not,” Narcovi replied smiling. “I can handle Perrin just fine. In fact, I have the papers filled out already for his next demotion.” The dwarf’s grin grew even wider and she set off at a hurried pace down the corridor.
Once Narcovi had turned the corner and was lost from sight, Ella pulled the key to the office out of her sleeve and checked that the corridor was clear. She inserted the key in to the lock and was in and out of the office in the span of twenty heartbeats.
“Can you use these?” Perrin asked Oho showing him a pair of silver-plated knuckledusters.
“Uh yes, for sure.” Oho replied raising his eyebrows at the sight of the beautiful weapons.
“Good. Ella, I’ll need you to keep a look-out for trouble. Here’s a whistle in case anyone comes along that could spoil our little surprise party.”
Ella took the whistle and after a brief test she tucked it in to her belt.
“Any reservations?” Perrin asked.
“None,” Ella and Oho replied together.
“Excellent,” the Harmonium officer responded
The trio set off down a narrow alleyway in single file. They each stepped carefully over the guard that had been standing watch moments before in a carefully concealed alcove and who now lay unconscious up against the wall.
Graffiti was scrawled on the walls, a lone rat scurried along in the gutter and the caked mud in the narrow passageway had only a single pair of footprints in it. The graffiti was interspersed with random scrawls and drawings that a Xaosman had been inspired to paint a long time ago. As Ella glanced around her position as look-out in the alleyway, she noticed the words: “In/E/Di-gress, but where in Agathion?” written in florid, curvaceous letters.
Oho and Perrin continued down the passageway. After twelve feet the lead Harmonium officer came to an abrupt halt and turned to the wall on his right. Oho gently traced his hand over the brickwork until his fingers came across the outline of a doorway. Brushing away the cobwebs he traced more of the line separating the bricks and blew out some of the dust.
Oho spat on his palms, rubbed them together and then placed both his hands on the stone door. He pushed hard, his shoulder and arm muscles flexing but nothing happened. Taking a deep breath he tried once more but the door did not budge an inch.
Perrin pushed forward and thrust his man-catcher in to Oho’s hands. Placing both his hands against the stone door Perrin pushed once and the door swung open silently revealing a dark passageway leading down. The other Harmonium officer raised an eyebrow as he passed the man-catcher back.
“Must be a knack to it,” he muttered as the pair descended down the slime-encrusted staircase. The walls of the downward sloping passageway were roughly cut from crumbling dark stones. Water trickled down the sides of the walls and the stairs had been worn away by the steady rivulets of water seeping down over the dark blue slime.
“Number fifty five sword,” Perrin said as he drew a gleaming short sword that curved around in a spiral like a corkscrew. The less-than-a-foot long twisting stubby short sword gave off a silvery glow that illuminated the passage for about twenty five feet in either direction.
“Nice sword,” Oho said just above the sound of a whisper.
“Yeah, made by an archon that was between paths. She did not really understand what the sword was going to be used for.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“I’m not a very nice sometimes,” Perrin said treading softly down the rest of the stairs and in to the passage beyond.
The corridor came to a junction a few steps away from the stairs branching off in to three directions. Each was as dark and dismal as the other with no signs distinguishing them except for a series of marks at head height in each passageway. The marks consisted of zeros and crosses in line with a seemingly random number of each in no particular order.
Perrin paused to look at the lines and chose the left-most passage way. Oho handed him back his man-catcher and the two set off down the tunnel deeper in to the warrens and catacombs beneath the city.
At times they passed dark things scurrying past, some of which they saw and some of which they only sensed were nearby. At least once Oho thought that he caught sight of something man-like hunched over a sarcophagus but Perrin quickly pulled him along.
After about ten minutes of wandering the pair began a slow ascent up several sloping corridors, an underground well and up a set of broad winding stairs. When they go close to the top a dark shape dropped out of the shadows sending both Perrin and Oho tumbling down the stairs.
“Should not have come for me,” the barbazu said as it licked the fresh, hot blood off its glaive. Its beard writhed like a mass of blood-hungry worms and the dark cape it wore fluttered behind it like a pair of shredded leathery wings.
Perrin recovered quickly and charged at the fiend with his man-catcher. The barbazu side-stepped the attack and smashed the glaive in to the shaft of the Harmonium officer’s weapon breaking the wooden handle cleanly in two. However, the fiend recovered too slowly from the attack. Its attempt to sunder the other’s weapon had met with far less resistance than it had anticipated and the fiend was caught off-balance.
From behind it felt a series of sharp stinging blows as the other Harmonium officer jabbed it in the back with silver-plated knuckledusters. The cloak it wore offered no protection and the final blow connected with the middle of the fiend’s spine with a wet crunch. The barbazu lashed out with its glaive forcing Oho to dodge to the side but as the momentum spun the fiend around it let out an agonised scream.
With Oho on one side lower down on the stairs and Perrin higher up on the other side, the fiend decided to evade the pair by leaping up in to the air. The ragged leathery cloak spread outwards in to a pair of bat like wings that would have let the barbazu escape to the bottom of the stair had not Perrin leapt to attack once more.
Using the spiralling celestial blade Perrin punctured one of the wings and stabbed in to the barbazu’s side. The pair came crashing down and rolled from stair to stair, stabbing and clawing at each other as they tumbled right to the bottom. Both lay bleeding heavily, groaning in pain as they fought to stay conscious above the rising tide of pain.
“You’ll pay for that,” the fiend spat dark blood and coughed up some more as it tried to rise to its feet. Looking down it saw that the Harmonium officer was holding on for dear life to a spiralling silver sword that protruded from the fiend’s side.
Perrin’s other arm was bent at an odd angle and his breastplate had come off as the pair had bounced down the stairs. His trousers were stained dark red and Perrin almost passed out as one of his knees lost the strength to support him.
The fiend smirked despite the pain and closed its eyes in concentration. Just as it was about to teleport off it felt a sharp stab of pain and saw that Perrin had retained just enough strength to twist the blade in a fraction further. Not wishing to inflict upon itself more pain by trying to get the blade out the fiend once again mustered the remains of its flagging willpower to make a quick exit but it was thwarted a second time.
Oho had managed to clamp the remains of the man-catcher on the fiends foot as he’d run, then leapt and finally slipped head first down the stairs. The fiend stared incredulously at the metal pincers pinching its toes and snarled in pain, hatred and outrage. When the Barbazu tried to bend down to unclamp the weapon though it found that the celestial blade stuck in its side prevented it from bending over.
Perrin laughed hoarsely and Oho rose to his feet as quickly as he could in order to restrain the fiend to prevent its escape. The barbazu put up little further resistance.
“You cut a deal with the erinye,” Perrin said through gritted teeth as he lay on the ground. He crawled over to the bottom of the staircase and propped himself up on the arm that was causing him less pain.
“I don’t much care what the deal is, but what I do care about is getting my officer back. Now tell me where she is before I get really unpleasant.”
A barking noise came from the barbazu’s throat that sounded like a dog drowning with a large toad attempting to crawl down its throat. The fiend opened its mouth to reveal sharp, yellowed teeth and a stinking maw that did little in the way of unnerving the Harmonium officers.
“Twist the blade,” Perrin said causally. Oho twisted the blade with a calm detachment of a tinker examining a new toy.
The Baatezu let loose with a string of expletives in its native tongue whose coarseness crossed the language divide by sheer malice and vileness. The fiend’s eyes blazed a deep glowing red and for a moment the creature’s aura seemed a living thing that spread outwards to envelope the two Harmonium officers.
“Twist it again,” Perrin said seemingly oblivious to the hate and fear-laden atmosphere. Oho wound the blade a little more and sat back to watch the effects.
The Barbazu thrashed around for a long time, cursing and screaming until it seemed that all of its strength had gone. After some time the fiend lay still.
“I think that we killed it, Sarge.”
“No, it’s just playing with us.” Perrin sat upright and rolled his shoulders, flexing the muscles in his arms. He then slowly stood up, turned his head from side to side as if to ease the stiffness in his joints and took a few steps.
“How did you heal like that?” the fiend whispered, its eyes grown large as it stared up at the Harmonium officer standing over him. “What are you?”
“Nothing you want to mess with,” Perrin replied. Lowering himself down on one knee and he placed his head beside the fiends so that he could whisper in its ear. “Now tell me where my colleague is ad we’ll leave you in piece.”
“She in the Foundry with K. A., that’s where she takes the past lives.”
“Why did she take Valori and not Ella?” Perrin asked looking over at Oho.
“Because the harlot can’t build machines like the innocent one can.”
The fiend began to laugh again, but its bark-like chortling was cut off midway through when Perrin wrenched the sword out of its side.
“No time to lose,” Perrin said and the two Harmonium officers headed off to meet up with Ella before going off to the Foundry.