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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Canaan" data-source="post: 2820256" data-attributes="member: 40239">Chapter 7: Balian's TowerI hurried to catch up with Hu Li. He had stepped up to Jazzad, who was pacing excitedly, the veins in his exposed arms bloated with effort as his muscles fought to tear his wrists free of the belts that bound them. The Ranger’s whole face was twisted in a feral grimace. Foam and spittle oozed down his chin, neck and bare chest. “Domiere.” Hu Li lazily uttered as he passed Jazzad. The Ranger’s legs buckled, his eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground, again, out cold. I finally caught up with him. “Hu Li.” I said, wheezing from the effort of running. He shot an irritated glare at me. “I wanted to tell you, I agree with you. We are outmatched by whatever…”“Good!” he said, curtly cutting me off. “You are wise, as a priest should be. Let’s be off then.” “And.,.” I began, but thoughts began to clumsily topple over one another in my head. I stood there, sputtering for a moment. Hu Li watched me, encased in a posture mixed with bemusement and impatience.“Well?” He said, reminiscent of a town guard who had been dealing with a drunkard. “Spit it out, then.” I gave a quick look back over my shoulder and spotted the others closing in. They were still out of earshot, or at least I hoped they were. I quickly turned back to Hu Li.“I would like an audience with your Master, Balian. A private one. If you could arrange it.” “Hu Li!” I heard Gabriel shout. “We have all agreed. You are correct. We should take Jazzad back to Menion. Our mission here is done.” Hu Li ignored the tallow haired monk. His eyes stabbed at me. They went from shock, to dubiousness, to a hint of jealously, and ultimately ending on something I interrupted as akin to victory. I shuddered. “I believe that can be arranged.” His shrill voice purred. Gabriel and Talon glided up to us. Jazzad’s dog, who had been sleeping, suddenly awoke and sprang past us, bolting for Shale. The two monks looked down at the sleeping ranger. “Still out?” Asked Gabriel, somewhat surprised. “Yes. Thanks to me.” Answered Hu Li with more than a little pride.Talon sighed. He and Gabriel lifted the ranger up over their shoulders as the remainder of the band joined us.“How many days back to Goldfire Glen is it?” asked Gabriel. “Several.” Lilian responded. “Hu Li, you have the power to keep him asleep the whole time?” I asked. “Well, no.” Hu Li answered, with a hint of embarrassment. “Only a few moments each day. We will have to find some alternative methods of keeping him sedated.”“I think I will be able to handle that.” Talon said.No one questioned him. In silence, we turned back east, back toward Auros. Back toward the Granite Bridge and Farmer Jed’s. Back toward civilization. I will admit, I was much relieved to be finally leaving what I had grown to feel was a beautiful, but awful place. “One moment.” We heard Shale say. “We have no moments to spare, druid!” Cracked Hu Li.Shale had knelt down. He was tracing his hand over some trampled grass. “Tracks.” He said. “Footprints. They appear to be goblins.”“Good!” Said Hu Li. “Then we can avoid them.”But his voice betrayed a dread that there would be nothing of the kind. Shale led the charge, Jazzad’s dog at his heels, while Lilian, Aesendal, Talon, Gabriel, Hu Li and finally myself followed the goblins’ trail. Jazzad had begun to stir. Talon, who was grasping the ranger’s upper torso as Gabriel held onto the legs, deftly reached up to Jazzad’s neck. He gently pressed two of his fingers against the side of the neck, near the shoulder. Jazzad let out a sigh and stopped stirring.Up ahead, Shale yelped. Something scurried through the tall grass. Shale was holding onto the side of his neck. I could see a thin needle protruding from betwixt the druid’s fingers. Lilian ran up to him. She pulled the needle out and placed her hand on the wound. Aesendal ran past both of them, intent on hunting down whatever was moving through the grass. Talon held onto Jazzad as Gabriel let go of the ranger’s legs and sprang after the sorcerer. I moved up to Shale. Lilian may have healed the wound with her touch, but the scab around was beginning to bubble. Shale reached a hand up to scratch it. I held up my hand to block him. “What is it?” He asked me. “I believe you have been poisoned.” I said. Shale nodded. He looked to Lilian, and then to me. “We must get out of here.” Lilian said. There was a hiss and a flash of green light. I could make out the outline of a translucent, glowing arrow sailing over the tops of the grass. It caught the small frame of a goblin who had suddenly leapt above the ceiling of the grass, its body flat, as if diving. Aesendal’s hand was outstretched, a fading green glow surrounding it.“Got you!” he shouted. Gabriel ran forward to where the goblin fell. He stopped and turned back to us. He held up a finger to his lips and signaled all of us to get down. We obeyed. Lilian, Shale and I crawled forward. Moments later we met Gabriel and Aesendal who were both pushing aside some of the tall grass and peering out to what lay beyond. Talon and Hu Li stayed behind, keeping watch over Jazzad. “There is a village of some kind down in the gorge.” Aesendal whispered. “Small mud huts surrounding a wood pillar.”“It’s the goblin’s home.” Shale said. He gritted his teeth and winced. We all looked to him.“I am fine.” He said with some effort. “The poison is only making me a little dizzy.” “We need to go.” Lilian said. “We are in no condition to deal with a whole goblin village.” No one disagreed. “As much as I hate to admit it,” Gabriel added. “Jordan is right. With everything that is happening, we need Balian’s counsel.” We hurried back to the dark, guano strewn cave. The darkmantle corpse had begun to rot. With much relief we found our rope still tied to the pit where we originally climbed down. With an even greater relief, my donkey at the top of the cliff, was still there. He had barely moved. Not a pinch of the supplies he carried on his back had been molested. Talon and Gabriel tied the slumbering Jazzad to the donkey’s saddle. The next few days went by in a blur. We barely stopped moving. We slept for only an hour at a rest. Prayers and morning rituals, even Hu Li’s necessity for study went ignored in the name of haste. Jazzad was kept sedated by Talon’s skillful touch. Shale’s condition stabilized. His eyes would mist over now and again, but he showed no signs of deterioration. We swept over the Granite Bridge, each, in turn, keeping to the tradition of discarding a pinch of salt for the spirit that legend claimed haunted there. Within an hour of passing the bridge, we smelled smoke. Acrid gray clouds hung bloated above the trees before us. Gabriel and Talon surged forward. Lilian and Aesendal followed. The smoke was rising from directly over Farmer Jed’s. Beyond exhausted, I felt Canaan’s presence around me. His power gave me strength, conviction and hope. Fatigue vanished. I clutched my mace and with a shout sprang ahead. Within moments I came onto another chaotic battle. Goblins, bearing chipped short blades and stone axes, hoarded around Farmer Jed’s cottage. Some were on the roof. Some were at the doors and windows, hacking at the thresholds with their axes. Lilian had felled many by the time I arrived, and she found herself surrounded. Talon and Gabriel were busy breaking through the goblins’ ranks, clearing a path to the cottage door. Aesendal took in a deep, chest inflating breath and instantly let it out. A stream of acid, the color of moldy bread, geysered from his open maw and bathed the goblins on the roof. They howled with pain and plummeted to the ground, their flesh eaten away.I gave a shout and ran up to aid Lilian. At my cry and charge, a few of the goblins fled, but she was still greatly outnumbered. I clinched my mace and slammed it down on the head of the first goblin that I could reach. Its skull cracked like a robin’s egg and leaked out blood, bone and gore. Lilian’s blade slashed through the marauders. Her eyes were fixed, bloodshot and despite all the traveling and the lack of sleep, full of power. Within moments the sound of battle melted into the fading whoops and cries of the fleeing goblins. Talon and Gabriel had cut down many with their uncanny martial mastery. Aesendal was at the door, calling out to Farmer Jed and his family. The door swung open. The old farmer emerged with a pitchfork clutched in his white knuckled hands.“They came out of nowhere.” He said, trembling. “We thought we were done for. How may I ever repay you?”“I need two horses.” Answered Lilian. Without a word, Farmer Jed unbridled his cart horse and released another horse from the mill. Soon after, Lilian and Shale were off, riding with all the might their horses could muster for Goldfire Glen. Jazzad was tethered to Shale’s saddle. We had agreed to rendezvous outside Goldfire Glen in two days time. We needed rest and recuperation. Aesendal, Talon, Gabriel and even Hu Li all pitched in with gathering the goblin’s bodies in a big heap behind his farm. Farmer Jed splashed pitch on the fire and set it aflame. The grateful, provincial man opened his home to us. We dined on succulent boar meat. His lovely family soothed our bruises with sweet smelling salves and stinging hot, but calming teas. I fell asleep to a lullaby sang by Jed’s daughter. The following morning I awoke early to pray. I moved to a secluded spot east of the farm to catch the first rays of the sun as it rose. I was halfway to an old, comfortable looking stump of a tree when I tripped over something. “Please, master! I have had my fill of the tentacle room!” It was unmistakably Hu Li’s high pitched voice. I looked down to see my foot had caught his side. He woke with a shudder.“Master?!” He blinked, looked around and spotted me staring at him. “Oh, it’s you.” He said.“Why are you sleeping outside?” I asked.Hu Li got to his feet, brushed off the wet grass and dirt from his white robes and grumbled.“That fool farmer. I spooked him, I suppose and he banished me from his home.” “What did you do, Hu Li?” “I…” he began “… managed, when no one was looking to procure one of the heads of the fallen goblins. I secured it to one of the farmer’s pitchforks in his barn.”My morning stomach churned. Whatever compassion I had for the wizard’s sleeping arrangements vanished with the story he told.“And, given my limited knowledge of nature of death, I attempted to communicate with the newly deceased goblin’s spirit. To do so, I needed his head. It’s quite simple, really. A standard, quite common procedure, really.” “Did it work?” I asked, secretly horrified by my curiosity. Hu Li’s eyes fell to the floor. “No.” He admitted with derision. “But it would have if that idiot had not interfered. No matter. I want to be off. Be quick with your morning ritual, priest. Time is of the essence!” He stomped off. At the sun’s zenith on the following day, we reunited with Lilian. Shale was not with her. “He is resting with your master, Talon.” She told us. Her voice and face were lit with some inner glow, some aura of sheer happiness that I had never seen in her. I first thought it may have been the result of a good night sleep on a proper bed, but even her brother saw the change in her.“Lilian.” He asked. “What has happened? You seem… blissful.”“I will tell you later. We must be off to Balian’s.” she said. “Is it news of our parents?” Gabriel pushed.“No, but it is joyous news, to be sure. I will tell you all after we visit Balian’s. I wish to know if his counsel will reflect the news I have just heard.” Talon and Aesendal stayed behind in Goldfire Glen. Aesendal wanted to check in on the Feisty Fox and Talon thought it was best to aid his master is watching over Shale. We left Lilian to her enigma and all traveled south, back to Balian’s twisted, moss ridden tower.By noon the following day, it came into view. Hu Li sprang forward.“Master!” He was shouting with glee. “I have returned!” Old fears crept back. I recalled the ill feelings that tower cast upon me the last time I entered its shadows. The stench of dung and rotting plants pummeled my nostrils and snaked down my throat. I swallowed the urge to gag. I was comforted to see, when I turned to the others, that they too we overcome with the sting of the noxious odors. Hands clasped over noses and mouths. Heads turned away from the wind. I heard the angry quacking of the ducks that called the tower’s moat their home. The quacks were soon joined by the creaking of the massive drawbridge being lowered to greet Hu Li who was at the edge of the moat, shouting and gesticulating madly. “We are here.” Said Gabriel, gravely. “Yes.” His sister answered. “I certainly hope this was the right thing to do.” Hu Li scrambled onto the drawbridge before it had completely lowered. He ran through the raised portcullis and vanished within. His voice echoed from the darkness.“Master! My master! I have returned! I bring guests! I bring news! News most urgent! Most foul! You’ll love it!”We crossed the lowered bridge. I was surprised and even a bit delighted to discover that the dread that greeted me on my last visit to the tower had yet to manifest itself. Gabriel, Lilian and I entered the tower. We all came to a sudden stop when we heard a booming, high-pitched, rancorous voice bellow. “APPRENTICE!” it said. “COME QUICK! MY SORES ARE IN DIRE NEED OF A GOOD LICKING!” We all looked at each other. Lilian’s words came instantly back to me. “I certainly hope this was the right thing to do.” In that moment I certainly shared her trepidation.</blockquote>

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