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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 4219437" data-attributes="member: 60965">Session 4, Part 3Suniel entered the barracks quietly and walked over to where Ming sat staring into the fire.  He pulled up a stool and sat beside her."Not getting any sleep?" Suniel said softly.Ming grunted.  "If you were going to die at dawn, would you?  You'd probably just raise from the dead again anyway."Suniel ignored the barb and put a hand on her shoulder.  "Come now, with your skill at arms you don't have anything to worry about, do you?""Whatever.  Even if I kill him, what makes you think another brother or cousin or uncle won't just come for me or just send some flunky to slit my throat in my sleep?"  She shrugged his arm off her shoulder.  "I have plenty to worry about."Suniel paused for a moment.  "Did you murder his brother like he said?""Murder?  That bastard deserved what he got.  Kellins are filth masquerading as nobles.""And that doesn't answer my question," Suniel said softly.Ming pointed to her sword.  "That isn't my family crest on the pommel - I don't even have a family."Suniel carefully picked up the sword from where it leaned against the wall and inspected the well-worn pommel in the firelight.  It had what looked like a two-headed dog embossed on it.  He put it back and stood.  "Well, get some sleep.  You'll need all your strength tomorrow.  We all carry secrets that sometimes find their way into the light, I wish you luck with yours."Suniel stood, but as he started to walk away, she said his name softly and he stopped.She reached to her neck, pulled a silver chain he hadn't noticed before from beneath the collar of the padding she wore under her armor, and handed it to Suniel.  The chain itself was nothing spectacular, but attached to the end of it was what looked like an oblong piece of hematite, smooth and silvery.  At its touch, the air seemed to take on that charged feeling in the air right before a thunderstorm."Where did you get it?" he said, turning it over in his hands."I went back and took it off my parent's bodies after they died," she said.  "You know what it is?"He shook his head as he handed it back to her.  "There's definitely magic in it though."She held it for a moment before putting it back on, hiding it again beneath her armor.  A grim half-smile settled on her lips and she glanced at him.  "Tell you what, if I die, you can take it and figure out what it is."The smile quickly faded and turned to stare back into the fire.Quietly, Suniel turned and left.***By the time dawn came, a dozen plans to spring Ming from the barracks where she was being held until her "trial" formed and dissolved.  Ilsa wanted to free her comrade, but the guards were innocent and she wasn't sure some of them wouldn't be killed in the process. So, instead, she stood in the crowd that ringed where Ming, Laris, and Durgon Kellin stood.  Laris squinted at the first light and nodded.  "It is dawn," he said loudly.  "If Ming is guilty of the charges may she find justice.  If Sir Kellin's charges are false, let him pay the price for bearing false witness."He turned and walked to the edge of the ring.  Ming popped her neck and gripped her sword a few times while Durgon tapped the flat of his axe against his boots and then spat."None shall leave the ring until one of you is dead.  None shall interfere on pain of death," Laris said.  "Let the combat begin."Ilsa disregarded Laris's last warning.  With a moment of concentration, she invoked the power of the dragon scale, shifting to a new position in the crowd so she could be sure that Ming was in the minor protective warding of her totem.  If she couldn't help directly...***Ming circled the big man warily, wishing she hadn't had so much to drink the night before.  Her head was pounding and her gut churned.She was big, but he was even bigger and that axe was wicked.  I need to catch him off guard, she thought, if I just-He lunged in suddenly and she jerked sideways just in time, the axe missing her head and scraping across her armor.  She spun away, swinging wildly.  He ducked it easily and charged again.She stepped forward to catch the haft of his axe on her shoulder and brought the pommel of her sword into his face, sending him reeling back.  The tip of his axe caught on her shoulder as he stumbled away and pulled her off-balance towards him as well before slipping free and slicing the back of her neck and her cheek.They circled again, his chin bleeding freely and her neck burning, warm blood running down her back.  She stepped in and brought her sword down, but he dropped low and chopped towards her legs.  She lurched heavily to the side in a clumsy leap over the axe, the flat of her blade clanging off of his breastplate as she landed heavily on her back in the dirt.He swung immediately and she rolled out of the way, the axe sinking into the sandy dirt a foot from her head.  She staggered back to her feet, but he was already on her, slamming his knee into her chin.  Something popped in her jaw and her vision blurred, but she managed to recover as he charged her again, axe held high.  She launched forwards, body-slamming into him and driving him backwards, swinging awkwardly with one hand as she did so.Her blade scraped metal and bit through chain on his side.  He cursed and grabbed her hair with a gantleted fist, jerking her off to the side and clubbing her in the side of the head with the haft of his axe repeatedly.She snarled and jerked her head away, ignoring the pain as a clump of silver hair ripped from her head, and drove her elbow into his throat.  He stumbled away gasping for air but somehow had the presence of mind to swing his axe down as he did so.There was an explosion of agony as it buried into her foot.  She screamed in pain and rage, grabbed her sword like a spear and drove it into his gut.  It scraped off his breastplate, deflecting down and piercing into his leg, his axe ripping out of her foot as he fell to one knee, the whitewashed delirium of pain it unleashed toppling Ming.She saw his fist close on a handful of sand and she lunged forwards, slamming the heavy boot of her good foot onto his hand with all her might.  There was a crunch as her foot slammed onto his hand and he screamed.  Blood flew from her other foot as it connected with his face hard enough that his head jerked back and the axe flew from his hand.  He knelt there, staring up at her, dazed and bloody, hand still pinned beneath Ming's boot."Meet your brother in hell, you bastard," she said, as she swung with all her might.  Her blade came down on the center of his forehead and the crowd recoiled from the explosion of blood, brain, and bone.As she stepped away, she distantly saw Suniel nod to her from the crowd with a faint smile, heard Laris pronouncing her innocence, tasted blood and dust, and felt Ilsa grab her as the world spun and she landed heavily in the sand.***Harold pushed his way out of the press of the crowd before Durgon's body had even hit the sand and gazed out into the Ragged Hills as he walked along the shore of the lake.  The gains of wiping out that outpost were negated by the hobgoblin ambush, he thought.  I need to do more to prove the Crystal Tower's worthiness as allies.As the furor began to die down back in the village, he thought of the first night there, the raft attack, suddenly halting as something came to him.  A raft of that size and construction would need a pretty sizable group to build it.  If we could wipe out something like that...He turned and began walking quickly back to the village.  Once Ming recovers, the rest will come along as well, he thought.  We made short work of the outpost, so we shouldn't have a problem with some raft camp.  By the time he reached the village again, he had a rough plan in his head.He glanced back towards the Ragged Hills one last time, slowed, then stopped, squinting in the golden early-morning light.Riding towards the village were five dark figures, riding strange reptilian beasts the like of which Harold had never seen.  Harold watched them for a moment longer, then jogged off to tell the others.</blockquote>

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