Destan
Citizen of Val Hor
Chapter Ten
The first creature through the door was more torch than man.
Destan’s arcane fire had consumed most of the poor soul’s flesh. His clothes were burned away, as was most of his face. His hair was gone, as were his eyebrows, and he held no weapon in the burnt, fleshy appendages which had once been hands. All things considered, his lifetime could be measured in perhaps the span of ten seconds.
That was about nine second seconds too long, evidently, for Cleaver. The Rornish half-troll cut upward with his falchion, nearly sundering the torch-man in two.* The body fell backward, still crackling with flames, and caused his smoke-trailing comrade to step quickly to one side.
Which, of course, placed the second victim within the reach of Baden’s axe. The dwarf wasn’t as dramatic as his half-troll companion. He crushed the man’s leg with the flat of Borbidan’s axe, skittering a kneecap across the alley like a halfling skipstone.
And so it went, for a minute or longer. Man after man, some alight with fire, some not, came hurtling through the rear door. And man after man died, some quickly, some not so quickly. The alleyway before the door was soon a grisly quagmire.
The rush of fleeing brigands, once so steady, slowed and then stopped.
Cleaver looked over Baden’s shoulder toward Raylin and Kellus where both men tensely stood in front of their own, as-yet-unopened door. “Your turn, boys.”
***
On cue, the rickety door between Kellus and Raylin burst open and three bolts shot outward from the smoke-filled interior. Two slammed into Kellus’ upraised shield, sending sparks and bolthead slivers into his face. The priest heard more than saw Raylin dispatch a pair of men that attempted to use the opportunity to escape the inferno behind them.
Two more quickly followed. Kellus traded blows with one, felt he got the better of the exchange, then nearly collapsed as a fourth crossbow bolt impaled his shin. The Helmite gamely ambled forward, finished off one of the men Raylin had dropped, and took up a position directly in front of the now-gaping exit.
“More come,” he muttered in a voice made hoarse from pain.
Four more, to be exact - one after the other, in quick succession.
Raylin moved to meet them. The ranger’s borrowed blades flashed outward, slicing open the cheek of the first and showering all the combatants in a red mist. Even as the first brigand dropped to his knees, his companion dove forward and tackled Raylin to the ground. A third man lent his weight to the pile.
Kellus moved forward – with as much speed as his wounded leg would allow – but his movement was blocked by the fourth man. The Helmite took a moment to judge his adversary. This warrior, unlike his companions, showed no signs of Destan’s fire. A mantle displaying the faded colors of a Basilican legion was draped over a well-tended chain shirt. His eyes were hard, narrow, and utterly without fear.
“I have no fight with you. Step aside, priest.”
Kellus shook his head, cautious now. He knew the dove-white and purple colors on the man’s surcoat marked him as a member – or former member – of the Third Arens Legion. If such were the case, Kellus was outmatched - and he knew it. “I will not.”
The Arenite spared at glance toward the ground; Raylin was nearly hidden beneath the flailing elbows and knees of the two men atop him. When the deserter looked up, Kellus saw the resolve in his eyes. “Then you die, priest, and may your god forgive me.”
It took only one exchange for Kellus to realize the legionary spoke the truth. Try as he might, Kellus was unable to get beyond the man’s guard; the Arenite’s gladius was everywhere at once. Kellus was capable with a mace, certainly, and knew the right way to buckle on his breastplate – but, all told, the Helmite appreciated the difficulty of his current situation.
Though it was not, perhaps, as difficult as Raylin’s.
Kellus could hear his friend’s muffled groans – they were tinged with pain. He needed to act, and act now. With a cry to Helm that sounded more like a drunkard’s cough, Kellus lowered his head and charged his opponent.
The legionary deftly stepped to one side, kicked Kellus’ leg out from under him, and sliced his backside as if he were smacking the rump of a passing tavern wench. Kellus nearly crumpled to the ground, blood hot and sticky on the rear of his legs.
The Arenite was behind him, now. Kellus, wounded as he was and located between the open doorway and the legionary, suddenly found himself in an even worse position. No sounds came from the grapple at his feet; Raylin might already be dead.
Kellus ignored the doorway to his back and focused solely on the legionary with the short, stabbing sword. Helm, protect me. Though the Arenite returned his stare his eyes were focused elsewhere; doubtless the man wondered whether he should flee immediately or finish Kellus first. As it turned out, the legionary never reached a decision.
The slender tip of a Lantern Grove quarrel suddenly protruded from the Arenite’s forehead like the spire of a unicorn. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he dropped to both knees before falling forward.
Kellus had forgotten about Mellish, but Mellish had not forgotten about him.
Another elf-made bolt shot downward from the shadowy rooftops across the alleyway. A man that had been straddling Raylin’s inert form toppled to the ground, a quarrel in the nape of his neck.
The brief respite allowed Kellus to wonder why, in the name of Almighty Helm, Baden and Cleaver hadn’t moved to help him. Then he saw his answer – the other door was vomiting a horde of men onto the dwarf and the half-troll. Kellus caved in the face of the last of Raylin’s attackers, almost as an afterthought, and knelt at the ranger’s side.
He is dead. Kellus felt grief explode into his chest with as much force as Destan’s earlier fireballs. Of all…of all of them…why Raylin?
“Hea…heal me.”
Kellus opened his eyes – he had not realized he had closed them – and stared at his friend in wonderment. No one could have survived those wounds. His companion was torn and rent like a child’s discarded doll, his head nearly twice its normal size from the pummeling that had pounded him into submission.
“Kel…please…”
Kellus needed no more prompting. With a deep sigh, suddenly oblivious to the chaos surrounding him, Kellus did what he did best. He healed.
And Helm answered. Bones knitted together, torn flesh melded – first into ragged strips, then rough seams, then nearly invisible lines. Kellus willed Raylin’s heartbeat to match his own, strong and rapid. Blood pumped, arteries leapt into life, color returned to the Larrenman’s once-ashen face.
Raylin gently pushed away Kellus’ hands as the ranger took a knee. He allowed himself one deep breath before gathering his swords and moving once more toward the open doorway. In the time it took Raylin to advance two paces, a gaggle of frightened, half-burnt men exploded outward from the warehouse inferno.
Kellus stumbled forward to stand beside his reinvigorated companion. He had no idea how he had been given the opportunity to heal his friend; surely he should have been killed from behind. Helm. Helm had spared him. The brief moment of relative peace had allowed him to do his God’s work.
No – not Helm, Kellus corrected himself as he glanced at a pair of bodies behind him. Neither corpse had been there when he had first knelt to heal Raylin; both were pierced by crossbow bolts. Mellish. That wonderful, arrogant elf.
***
Mellish, for a time, had forgotten to breathe. He sucked air into his lungs as he scanned the tableau below. The elf had placed twenty bolts in front of him on the lip of the roof, before the fires had burned the sky. None now remained.
He had more, of course, in the quiver tied to his leg – but these were not as finely fashioned as those that had been shot. Mellish rolled to one side, grabbed a handful of bolts by their fletching, and cast them in front of him like a pagan might do with rune-bones. With practiced ease the elf thumbed one into his crossbow’s center-notch.
The priest and the ranger were alone on the field, for the moment. Cleaver and the dwarf, however, were hard-pressed. Mellish adjusted his position, raised the crossbow, and stared down the length of his nocked bolt. He saw movement within the darkness of the furthest doorway – his elven vision seemed to be helped by the fire burning within the warehouse.
The elf slowly exhaled, judged where the concealed man might be, and pulled the trigger. A body fell into the alleyway, a bolt embedded in the man’s collarbone. It was, Mellish knew, an incredibly lucky shot.
Not that he’d tell anyone, of course.
We are losing.
That thought began to surface again and again in Mellish’s head. The elf shot the bolts that were before him, gathered another handful, and proceeded to begin shooting those as well. For the first time in his life Mellish thought he might actually run out of ammunition. And what then? Swordplay? Bugger that. I will run.
The wave of men fleeing from the warehouse had slackened somewhat, but Mellish thought this was due more to caution than any significant dwindling in their numbers. By Avanu, he swore, how many are there?
Mellish watched as the priest lumbered toward the dwarf, placed his hands on him, and began to pray. He looked toward Cleaver; there the brute stood, alone, armor bedecked with gore. Mellish had seen the half-troll hug one poor bastard against the spikes protruding from his breastplate – it looked as if some of the man’s torso still hung there, impaled.
A cry broke Mellish’s reverie. He looked away from Cleaver and saw that the Larrenman had been left alone at his door. A cordon of men had rushed him, and two of them made no pretense to fight. They were fleeing, and fleeing fast. They dodged the clansman’s swords and sprinted from him in terror. Before Mellish could react, both men disappeared from view.
Mellish grabbed a bolt as he stood. He ran to the adjacent side of the roof. No one could be allowed to escape – any one of them, Destan had said, might be a feratu. The elf scoured the alleyway below with iridescent eyes. “Where?” he breathed, softly, to himself.
There.
Both men were still running. They were sprinting down the center of an alleyway, heedless of the debris at their feet. Mellish lifted the crossbow to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. The lead man fell, rolling forward across the cobbles until his head impacted the corner of a nearby building.
Mellish reloaded.
The second man pulled up, slower now, eyes scanning the rooftops. Mellish saw the fear therein, even from this distance.
I’m…
Mellish aimed…
…up…
…shot…
here.
The man dropped.
Mellish paused only long enough to ensure neither man moved. He raced backward toward his original perch, half-certain it would be too late. The elf expected to see the bodies of his companions being trampled by the feratus’ minions.
What he saw was worse.
***
Baden sucked in mouthfuls of the night air. Kellus had brought him back – twice – from the edge of Moradin’s long embrace. But the dwarf still bled, still hurt. His movements were slow, his breathing ragged. If Destan and his boys didn’t soon reach the rear of the warehouse, it would be over. And in a bad way.
– A demon, Baden! I sense him!
The dwarf wiped gore and sweat from his brow and surveyed the battlefield.
Raylin and Kellus were together once again, in front of their own door. Cleaver had not left his post; indeed, the half-troll had remained stationary save for the one time he had loped forward to gather one poor bastard to his spiked chest in a deadly hug.
Other than his friends, however, Baden saw no one. Time for a bit o’ cheer. “Seems them bastards would rather burn to death than…than step out here and face us.” Cleaver and Kellus ignored him, but Raylin flashed a fierce, blood-specked grin.
Baden sighed and made his way back toward his post opposite Cleaver. He wiped his palms on his breeches; it was becoming difficult to maintain a good grip on Borbidan’s axe. The dwarf took a care to watch where he stepped. By the High Forge, what a mess.
Cleaver eyed him impassively. “Go, if you must.”
“Go?”
The half-troll nodded toward Baden’s legs. The dwarf looked down. His thighs and knees were awash in his own blood, and grew darker by the moment. Baden raised his head and traded a look with the half-troll. “Like hell.”
Cleaver turned away without comment and once again faced the blackness of the doorway.
Baden placed his back to the wall of the warehouse, partly to steady himself. His vision was blurry, now, his head swimming. He wanted to call to Kellus but knew without asking that the priest’s divine power was spent.
There would be no more healing this night, only death.
- Baden, please! A demon!
As Baden squared his shoulders against the wall, he saw the ground in the center of the alleyway move. “What in the hell-”
Cleaver followed his glance. “Sewers!”
Evidently some of the retreating men had found a new exit from the warehouse. By the time Baden registered the moving sewer plate, it had been pushed to the side. Already a number of thick, black rats were streaming upward into the alleyway from the hole.
Baden lumbered forward as he called to Cleaver over his shoulder, “You stay…I’ll…I’ll get the sewers.”
His chest was burning from exertion, his stomach a bellyful of coals. He kicked away one rat, stepped over another, and took up a position near the manhole. A head, thick with sweat-plastered hair, was beneath him. It was almost unfair. Baden swung; the head was beneath him no more.
A second man scampered upward into the dimness of the alleyway, a dagger held feebly above him in one hand. Baden had the good grace to allow him to expose his midsection before the dwarf returned him, too, to the blackness below.
A third man died to Mellish’s bolt, and yet another to Baden’s axe.
Silence fell.
***
“It is I – Destan!” A voice filled with wrathful authority called outward from the fire-rimmed blackness of the warehouse. “The warehouse is clear! We are coming out!”
Baden glanced over his shoulder, back toward Cleaver. The half-troll did not lower his guard as he barked, “What flowers?”
“Poppalun.”
Evidently, Baden realized, it was some sort of code. Cleaver seemed satisfied. The half-troll lowered his falchion - somewhat reluctantly. Mad. The half-troll is mad as a dwem blood-druid.
Destan appeared in the doorway. His robes, always stained with grime, were now soot-covered. He appeared unhurt. A number of his men filtered past him and spread outward into the alleyway, weapons ready.
The Archmage let his gaze dance over the dozens of corpses piled before both doors. He looked toward Kellus. “Four of the fertau are accounted for. There was a fifth. Did you take him?”
The priest shook his head as his back slid down the wall of the warehouse. Kellus sat quietly for a moment, legs straight as church pews before him. The Helmite was as white as Borsk snow.
Raylin, too, dropped to one knee. “If the feratu came through either of these doors, the feratu died.” The Larrenman’s voice was clipped with fatigue.
“No.” Destan’s eyes smoldered. “He is not here.”
“The sewers,” Mellish called from the roof. The elf pointed his crossbow toward the open manhole. “More came from there.”
Without hesitation, Destan murmured a word and walked forward. He stepped into the air above the open sewer well and immediately began a gentle, cascading descent into the darkness. He disappeared from view.
Baden removed his helm and sat on it. He heard distant shouts of alarm from Val Hor’s citizenry; the smoke from the burning warehouse was visible even in the night sky. Baden didn’t pay either – citizens or smoke - any mind. No one did.
Finally, after what could have been only moments, Destan re-emerged from the depths. He seemed to have lost some of the power he had held only moments before. “There is no one below. No one alive. And no demon.”
Cleaver thumbed some indiscriminate glob of flesh from the edge of his blade. “Could this last feratu have fled through the sewers?”
Destan shook his head. “All the adjoining waterways are securely grated. There is no egress save this well.” His head snapped up, suddenly. “Cleaver - do you smell it? The demon?”
Cleaver removed his helm. The half-troll pushed hair away from his face and smelled the night air. “The smoke makes it hard…but…yes, I smell the demon. Close.” Even Cleaver seemed surprised.
Destan nodded slowly before turning to survey his men, including the Brothers of Olgotha. His eyes glittered with hardness. “It masquerades as one of us, then?” The Archmage walked toward Cleaver. “Speak, half-troll! Has the demon taken one of our forms for its own?”
“No,” Cleaver breathed, almost to himself. The half-troll crouched, smelled the ground nearest the sewers, and then raised his head to look down a retreating alleyway. “He went that way. And recently.”
“Oh, blessed Helm,” Kellus swore from where he was still slumped against the side of the warehouse. “Blessed, blessed Helm…”
“If you know something, priest,” Cleaver growled, “you’d best tell it.”
“The rats.” Kellus stared at his friends in disappointed shock. “The feratu – it was one of the rats that fled upward from the sewers.”
Destan clenched his teeth, his cheeks hard beneath his threadbare beard. “We have failed, then. The feratu is gone.”
The Archmage looked anew at the gore of the battlefield, then turned to scan the men crowding around him. Behind and above them the sky continued to burn and, even now, running footsteps could be heard moving in their direction.
Baden looked to where Raylin leaned on his swords next to him. “We had best be leaving this place, and soon.” The dwarf didn’t know nor care how much political clout the Archmage had with the rulers of Val Hor; few noble uppity-up’s would forgive a man who incinerated a city block. “This wizard…he stands there when we should be fleeing.”
“He is counting,” Raylin replied, softly. “He counts the faces of those that now stand around him.”
Baden had not known Cleaver was behind him until the half-troll spat. “Wrong, Larrenman - he counts those faces that do not. There is a difference.”
Destan’s shoulders sagged, after a bit, and he drew a shaking hand across his face. “Come, my sons, let us collect the bodies of our own. The night’s work is finished.”
* Cleaver’s first in-game attack was a deadly, confirmed critical. It proved an auspicious beginning for Matt’s (aka John of Pell) new character. I’m not very good about remembering play-by-play actions within combat, but this battle was different. There were a couple things that stood out enough for me to recall even now, perhaps two years after this particular session. Other than Cleaver’s deadly strike, he also bear-hugged (grappled) a guy to death against his spiked armor. Mellish did, indeed, send two long-range shots after two guys that would have otherwise escaped the scene; both hit, both died. If Kellus weren’t bald, his hair would have been on fire – I recall him running around healing his companions like a madman. Anyway, it was a pretty good fight, and a great way to introduce two new Brothers – Cleaver and Mellish.
The first creature through the door was more torch than man.
Destan’s arcane fire had consumed most of the poor soul’s flesh. His clothes were burned away, as was most of his face. His hair was gone, as were his eyebrows, and he held no weapon in the burnt, fleshy appendages which had once been hands. All things considered, his lifetime could be measured in perhaps the span of ten seconds.
That was about nine second seconds too long, evidently, for Cleaver. The Rornish half-troll cut upward with his falchion, nearly sundering the torch-man in two.* The body fell backward, still crackling with flames, and caused his smoke-trailing comrade to step quickly to one side.
Which, of course, placed the second victim within the reach of Baden’s axe. The dwarf wasn’t as dramatic as his half-troll companion. He crushed the man’s leg with the flat of Borbidan’s axe, skittering a kneecap across the alley like a halfling skipstone.
And so it went, for a minute or longer. Man after man, some alight with fire, some not, came hurtling through the rear door. And man after man died, some quickly, some not so quickly. The alleyway before the door was soon a grisly quagmire.
The rush of fleeing brigands, once so steady, slowed and then stopped.
Cleaver looked over Baden’s shoulder toward Raylin and Kellus where both men tensely stood in front of their own, as-yet-unopened door. “Your turn, boys.”
***
On cue, the rickety door between Kellus and Raylin burst open and three bolts shot outward from the smoke-filled interior. Two slammed into Kellus’ upraised shield, sending sparks and bolthead slivers into his face. The priest heard more than saw Raylin dispatch a pair of men that attempted to use the opportunity to escape the inferno behind them.
Two more quickly followed. Kellus traded blows with one, felt he got the better of the exchange, then nearly collapsed as a fourth crossbow bolt impaled his shin. The Helmite gamely ambled forward, finished off one of the men Raylin had dropped, and took up a position directly in front of the now-gaping exit.
“More come,” he muttered in a voice made hoarse from pain.
Four more, to be exact - one after the other, in quick succession.
Raylin moved to meet them. The ranger’s borrowed blades flashed outward, slicing open the cheek of the first and showering all the combatants in a red mist. Even as the first brigand dropped to his knees, his companion dove forward and tackled Raylin to the ground. A third man lent his weight to the pile.
Kellus moved forward – with as much speed as his wounded leg would allow – but his movement was blocked by the fourth man. The Helmite took a moment to judge his adversary. This warrior, unlike his companions, showed no signs of Destan’s fire. A mantle displaying the faded colors of a Basilican legion was draped over a well-tended chain shirt. His eyes were hard, narrow, and utterly without fear.
“I have no fight with you. Step aside, priest.”
Kellus shook his head, cautious now. He knew the dove-white and purple colors on the man’s surcoat marked him as a member – or former member – of the Third Arens Legion. If such were the case, Kellus was outmatched - and he knew it. “I will not.”
The Arenite spared at glance toward the ground; Raylin was nearly hidden beneath the flailing elbows and knees of the two men atop him. When the deserter looked up, Kellus saw the resolve in his eyes. “Then you die, priest, and may your god forgive me.”
It took only one exchange for Kellus to realize the legionary spoke the truth. Try as he might, Kellus was unable to get beyond the man’s guard; the Arenite’s gladius was everywhere at once. Kellus was capable with a mace, certainly, and knew the right way to buckle on his breastplate – but, all told, the Helmite appreciated the difficulty of his current situation.
Though it was not, perhaps, as difficult as Raylin’s.
Kellus could hear his friend’s muffled groans – they were tinged with pain. He needed to act, and act now. With a cry to Helm that sounded more like a drunkard’s cough, Kellus lowered his head and charged his opponent.
The legionary deftly stepped to one side, kicked Kellus’ leg out from under him, and sliced his backside as if he were smacking the rump of a passing tavern wench. Kellus nearly crumpled to the ground, blood hot and sticky on the rear of his legs.
The Arenite was behind him, now. Kellus, wounded as he was and located between the open doorway and the legionary, suddenly found himself in an even worse position. No sounds came from the grapple at his feet; Raylin might already be dead.
Kellus ignored the doorway to his back and focused solely on the legionary with the short, stabbing sword. Helm, protect me. Though the Arenite returned his stare his eyes were focused elsewhere; doubtless the man wondered whether he should flee immediately or finish Kellus first. As it turned out, the legionary never reached a decision.
The slender tip of a Lantern Grove quarrel suddenly protruded from the Arenite’s forehead like the spire of a unicorn. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he dropped to both knees before falling forward.
Kellus had forgotten about Mellish, but Mellish had not forgotten about him.
Another elf-made bolt shot downward from the shadowy rooftops across the alleyway. A man that had been straddling Raylin’s inert form toppled to the ground, a quarrel in the nape of his neck.
The brief respite allowed Kellus to wonder why, in the name of Almighty Helm, Baden and Cleaver hadn’t moved to help him. Then he saw his answer – the other door was vomiting a horde of men onto the dwarf and the half-troll. Kellus caved in the face of the last of Raylin’s attackers, almost as an afterthought, and knelt at the ranger’s side.
He is dead. Kellus felt grief explode into his chest with as much force as Destan’s earlier fireballs. Of all…of all of them…why Raylin?
“Hea…heal me.”
Kellus opened his eyes – he had not realized he had closed them – and stared at his friend in wonderment. No one could have survived those wounds. His companion was torn and rent like a child’s discarded doll, his head nearly twice its normal size from the pummeling that had pounded him into submission.
“Kel…please…”
Kellus needed no more prompting. With a deep sigh, suddenly oblivious to the chaos surrounding him, Kellus did what he did best. He healed.
And Helm answered. Bones knitted together, torn flesh melded – first into ragged strips, then rough seams, then nearly invisible lines. Kellus willed Raylin’s heartbeat to match his own, strong and rapid. Blood pumped, arteries leapt into life, color returned to the Larrenman’s once-ashen face.
Raylin gently pushed away Kellus’ hands as the ranger took a knee. He allowed himself one deep breath before gathering his swords and moving once more toward the open doorway. In the time it took Raylin to advance two paces, a gaggle of frightened, half-burnt men exploded outward from the warehouse inferno.
Kellus stumbled forward to stand beside his reinvigorated companion. He had no idea how he had been given the opportunity to heal his friend; surely he should have been killed from behind. Helm. Helm had spared him. The brief moment of relative peace had allowed him to do his God’s work.
No – not Helm, Kellus corrected himself as he glanced at a pair of bodies behind him. Neither corpse had been there when he had first knelt to heal Raylin; both were pierced by crossbow bolts. Mellish. That wonderful, arrogant elf.
***
Mellish, for a time, had forgotten to breathe. He sucked air into his lungs as he scanned the tableau below. The elf had placed twenty bolts in front of him on the lip of the roof, before the fires had burned the sky. None now remained.
He had more, of course, in the quiver tied to his leg – but these were not as finely fashioned as those that had been shot. Mellish rolled to one side, grabbed a handful of bolts by their fletching, and cast them in front of him like a pagan might do with rune-bones. With practiced ease the elf thumbed one into his crossbow’s center-notch.
The priest and the ranger were alone on the field, for the moment. Cleaver and the dwarf, however, were hard-pressed. Mellish adjusted his position, raised the crossbow, and stared down the length of his nocked bolt. He saw movement within the darkness of the furthest doorway – his elven vision seemed to be helped by the fire burning within the warehouse.
The elf slowly exhaled, judged where the concealed man might be, and pulled the trigger. A body fell into the alleyway, a bolt embedded in the man’s collarbone. It was, Mellish knew, an incredibly lucky shot.
Not that he’d tell anyone, of course.
We are losing.
That thought began to surface again and again in Mellish’s head. The elf shot the bolts that were before him, gathered another handful, and proceeded to begin shooting those as well. For the first time in his life Mellish thought he might actually run out of ammunition. And what then? Swordplay? Bugger that. I will run.
The wave of men fleeing from the warehouse had slackened somewhat, but Mellish thought this was due more to caution than any significant dwindling in their numbers. By Avanu, he swore, how many are there?
Mellish watched as the priest lumbered toward the dwarf, placed his hands on him, and began to pray. He looked toward Cleaver; there the brute stood, alone, armor bedecked with gore. Mellish had seen the half-troll hug one poor bastard against the spikes protruding from his breastplate – it looked as if some of the man’s torso still hung there, impaled.
A cry broke Mellish’s reverie. He looked away from Cleaver and saw that the Larrenman had been left alone at his door. A cordon of men had rushed him, and two of them made no pretense to fight. They were fleeing, and fleeing fast. They dodged the clansman’s swords and sprinted from him in terror. Before Mellish could react, both men disappeared from view.
Mellish grabbed a bolt as he stood. He ran to the adjacent side of the roof. No one could be allowed to escape – any one of them, Destan had said, might be a feratu. The elf scoured the alleyway below with iridescent eyes. “Where?” he breathed, softly, to himself.
There.
Both men were still running. They were sprinting down the center of an alleyway, heedless of the debris at their feet. Mellish lifted the crossbow to his shoulder, aimed, and fired. The lead man fell, rolling forward across the cobbles until his head impacted the corner of a nearby building.
Mellish reloaded.
The second man pulled up, slower now, eyes scanning the rooftops. Mellish saw the fear therein, even from this distance.
I’m…
Mellish aimed…
…up…
…shot…
here.
The man dropped.
Mellish paused only long enough to ensure neither man moved. He raced backward toward his original perch, half-certain it would be too late. The elf expected to see the bodies of his companions being trampled by the feratus’ minions.
What he saw was worse.
***
Baden sucked in mouthfuls of the night air. Kellus had brought him back – twice – from the edge of Moradin’s long embrace. But the dwarf still bled, still hurt. His movements were slow, his breathing ragged. If Destan and his boys didn’t soon reach the rear of the warehouse, it would be over. And in a bad way.
– A demon, Baden! I sense him!
The dwarf wiped gore and sweat from his brow and surveyed the battlefield.
Raylin and Kellus were together once again, in front of their own door. Cleaver had not left his post; indeed, the half-troll had remained stationary save for the one time he had loped forward to gather one poor bastard to his spiked chest in a deadly hug.
Other than his friends, however, Baden saw no one. Time for a bit o’ cheer. “Seems them bastards would rather burn to death than…than step out here and face us.” Cleaver and Kellus ignored him, but Raylin flashed a fierce, blood-specked grin.
Baden sighed and made his way back toward his post opposite Cleaver. He wiped his palms on his breeches; it was becoming difficult to maintain a good grip on Borbidan’s axe. The dwarf took a care to watch where he stepped. By the High Forge, what a mess.
Cleaver eyed him impassively. “Go, if you must.”
“Go?”
The half-troll nodded toward Baden’s legs. The dwarf looked down. His thighs and knees were awash in his own blood, and grew darker by the moment. Baden raised his head and traded a look with the half-troll. “Like hell.”
Cleaver turned away without comment and once again faced the blackness of the doorway.
Baden placed his back to the wall of the warehouse, partly to steady himself. His vision was blurry, now, his head swimming. He wanted to call to Kellus but knew without asking that the priest’s divine power was spent.
There would be no more healing this night, only death.
- Baden, please! A demon!
As Baden squared his shoulders against the wall, he saw the ground in the center of the alleyway move. “What in the hell-”
Cleaver followed his glance. “Sewers!”
Evidently some of the retreating men had found a new exit from the warehouse. By the time Baden registered the moving sewer plate, it had been pushed to the side. Already a number of thick, black rats were streaming upward into the alleyway from the hole.
Baden lumbered forward as he called to Cleaver over his shoulder, “You stay…I’ll…I’ll get the sewers.”
His chest was burning from exertion, his stomach a bellyful of coals. He kicked away one rat, stepped over another, and took up a position near the manhole. A head, thick with sweat-plastered hair, was beneath him. It was almost unfair. Baden swung; the head was beneath him no more.
A second man scampered upward into the dimness of the alleyway, a dagger held feebly above him in one hand. Baden had the good grace to allow him to expose his midsection before the dwarf returned him, too, to the blackness below.
A third man died to Mellish’s bolt, and yet another to Baden’s axe.
Silence fell.
***
“It is I – Destan!” A voice filled with wrathful authority called outward from the fire-rimmed blackness of the warehouse. “The warehouse is clear! We are coming out!”
Baden glanced over his shoulder, back toward Cleaver. The half-troll did not lower his guard as he barked, “What flowers?”
“Poppalun.”
Evidently, Baden realized, it was some sort of code. Cleaver seemed satisfied. The half-troll lowered his falchion - somewhat reluctantly. Mad. The half-troll is mad as a dwem blood-druid.
Destan appeared in the doorway. His robes, always stained with grime, were now soot-covered. He appeared unhurt. A number of his men filtered past him and spread outward into the alleyway, weapons ready.
The Archmage let his gaze dance over the dozens of corpses piled before both doors. He looked toward Kellus. “Four of the fertau are accounted for. There was a fifth. Did you take him?”
The priest shook his head as his back slid down the wall of the warehouse. Kellus sat quietly for a moment, legs straight as church pews before him. The Helmite was as white as Borsk snow.
Raylin, too, dropped to one knee. “If the feratu came through either of these doors, the feratu died.” The Larrenman’s voice was clipped with fatigue.
“No.” Destan’s eyes smoldered. “He is not here.”
“The sewers,” Mellish called from the roof. The elf pointed his crossbow toward the open manhole. “More came from there.”
Without hesitation, Destan murmured a word and walked forward. He stepped into the air above the open sewer well and immediately began a gentle, cascading descent into the darkness. He disappeared from view.
Baden removed his helm and sat on it. He heard distant shouts of alarm from Val Hor’s citizenry; the smoke from the burning warehouse was visible even in the night sky. Baden didn’t pay either – citizens or smoke - any mind. No one did.
Finally, after what could have been only moments, Destan re-emerged from the depths. He seemed to have lost some of the power he had held only moments before. “There is no one below. No one alive. And no demon.”
Cleaver thumbed some indiscriminate glob of flesh from the edge of his blade. “Could this last feratu have fled through the sewers?”
Destan shook his head. “All the adjoining waterways are securely grated. There is no egress save this well.” His head snapped up, suddenly. “Cleaver - do you smell it? The demon?”
Cleaver removed his helm. The half-troll pushed hair away from his face and smelled the night air. “The smoke makes it hard…but…yes, I smell the demon. Close.” Even Cleaver seemed surprised.
Destan nodded slowly before turning to survey his men, including the Brothers of Olgotha. His eyes glittered with hardness. “It masquerades as one of us, then?” The Archmage walked toward Cleaver. “Speak, half-troll! Has the demon taken one of our forms for its own?”
“No,” Cleaver breathed, almost to himself. The half-troll crouched, smelled the ground nearest the sewers, and then raised his head to look down a retreating alleyway. “He went that way. And recently.”
“Oh, blessed Helm,” Kellus swore from where he was still slumped against the side of the warehouse. “Blessed, blessed Helm…”
“If you know something, priest,” Cleaver growled, “you’d best tell it.”
“The rats.” Kellus stared at his friends in disappointed shock. “The feratu – it was one of the rats that fled upward from the sewers.”
Destan clenched his teeth, his cheeks hard beneath his threadbare beard. “We have failed, then. The feratu is gone.”
The Archmage looked anew at the gore of the battlefield, then turned to scan the men crowding around him. Behind and above them the sky continued to burn and, even now, running footsteps could be heard moving in their direction.
Baden looked to where Raylin leaned on his swords next to him. “We had best be leaving this place, and soon.” The dwarf didn’t know nor care how much political clout the Archmage had with the rulers of Val Hor; few noble uppity-up’s would forgive a man who incinerated a city block. “This wizard…he stands there when we should be fleeing.”
“He is counting,” Raylin replied, softly. “He counts the faces of those that now stand around him.”
Baden had not known Cleaver was behind him until the half-troll spat. “Wrong, Larrenman - he counts those faces that do not. There is a difference.”
Destan’s shoulders sagged, after a bit, and he drew a shaking hand across his face. “Come, my sons, let us collect the bodies of our own. The night’s work is finished.”
* Cleaver’s first in-game attack was a deadly, confirmed critical. It proved an auspicious beginning for Matt’s (aka John of Pell) new character. I’m not very good about remembering play-by-play actions within combat, but this battle was different. There were a couple things that stood out enough for me to recall even now, perhaps two years after this particular session. Other than Cleaver’s deadly strike, he also bear-hugged (grappled) a guy to death against his spiked armor. Mellish did, indeed, send two long-range shots after two guys that would have otherwise escaped the scene; both hit, both died. If Kellus weren’t bald, his hair would have been on fire – I recall him running around healing his companions like a madman. Anyway, it was a pretty good fight, and a great way to introduce two new Brothers – Cleaver and Mellish.
