Chapter 9 – Part 18

The dwarf turned in his pallet, then turned again.

His tent was protected somewhat from the cold and wet by an infusion, and his blankets were warmed by the same, but his old bones were aching nonetheless. Aching from memory if not from the temperature.

He hated the almost-dreams. The thoughts that intruded and swirled about when he was nearly asleep. That kept him from falling into real sleep, but instead rolled him about in a perpetual restlessness.

He kept seeing his brother’s faces. Davv, the littlest one, with a crossbow bolt’s head poking out of one eye. The killer was from another clan, and Davv was to be married the next week. John, his uncle, had raised Van after Van’s father died of heartstop. Van had come back to the hold to find John dead, his skull split open by a jealous business competitor.

And Saul. Poor Saul. The shrieks of Van Deers d’Kundarak’s older brother still rang in Van’s ears nearly two centuries later as the conjured acid ate away his hands, and without them gripping the cliff wall, Saul fell hundreds of feet to his death.

Every death a murder. Every murderer another dwarf. Every one hideous and unnecessary.

Van Deers had said publicly that being conquered by the Karrns had saved more dwarven lives that anything else. And he’d argued against independence as a result.

The subsequent attempts on his life had been only half the reason that his House sent him to the West. He’d agreed because he’d hoped to forget.

Some days were harder than others. Van Deers had mostly given up on sleeping at night.

Suddenly he awoke. There was a chiming. The old dwarf sat up, blinking and looking about. The chiming was coming from a chest where he kept a miscellany of devices, most of which he’d never really had a practical reason to use.

Slippers on his feet, he rubbed the bridge of his nose, and walked to the chest. The chiming was getting more insistent. He moved about the various bits of interest – they could never be junk to him, and idly noted their function. A sculpted reptilian scale set in amber which supposedly detected dragon-mice hybrids. A cracked tile with an indecipherable glyph that someone had found in a sunken ship of unknown design, covered in the silt of decades. A string of spheres and wires that could be set to spin and predict phases of the moon.

And a crystal rod, maybe a foot long, with Elvish script on one side, in a font no elf on Khorvaire used, and a gnomish character inscribed on a blue dragonshard set in the middle. It was supposed to be used to detect elemental bindings.

Van Deers was confused, and overly tired. The dragonshard was pointing up. He shook his head and willed it to shut off, then went back to bed.

Van Deers had never really examined the rod, and therefore was not aware that it had an extreme range setting.

Nor did he know that the long-ago drow wizard who’d crafted the thing had been worried about airborne raids. Having never heard of drow, why would he be thinking about it?

Chapter 9 – Part 17

They’d torn the provisional commander’s uniform from him before beating him and placing him in chains. The beating had been vengeful at first, and then purposeful. They’d knocked out half of his teeth, one at a time. It would be a while before he could imitate another. His natural ability to change color and texture didn’t include growing new teeth.

They’d left the back molars, too hard to get to. They hadn’t even looked at the left, lower back molar.

The front teeth were all gone, however. He’d not pass for anyone other than a toothless backwoods dweller until he bought himself some dentures. Which it was doubtful that he’d live long enough to do.

He kneeled, naked and bleeding from his mouth and nose, his hands with the broken fingers bound behind his back and then tied to his ankles. He’d tried slipping his bonds, but they were tight, and hardened by some druid spell.

And the two shifters guarding him had clouted him under his ribs mightily each time he’d tried.

The tent flap opened, and someone came in. The changeling blinked against the light, tears leaking from one swollen eye. The flap closed. Two figures stood before him.

To the left, a shifter woman in hide armor, her face covered with light hair and raccoon-like markings. She wore a wooden shield strapped to one arm, and an owl sat perched on her shoulder, eyeing the prisoner with a gaze that held far more intelligence than any animal should have.

To the right, a medium-sized humanoid figure in leather armor, a longsword on his left side and a wolf crouching at his right. The medium-sized figure had the insignia of the Wardens of the Wood on him, two officer’s stars pinned to his collar, and a red scarf on his neck.

And his skin was waxy and white, his eyes mostly white with barely a pupil, and his close cropped hair thin and gray.

The spy who’d been pretending to be the provisional commander spat blood. It was pinker, paler than human blood, but still red enough. In his bound position, he couldn’t reach the Warden of the Woods’ boots, but he’d tried.

“Race traitor,” he coughed. “Serving their plants.”

The Warden crouched, and stared directly into the prisoner’s eyes. Not a word was exchanged between the two changelings for a good two minutes. Finally the Warden smiled.

“I can break you,” the Warden said. “I know I can. You’re a coward. We figured out who you killed to get close enough to the provisional commander to garrote him. We figured out who you pretended to be before that. We traced you back to the stones that you rested against when you swam to shore after slipping off the boat.” He smiled slightly, but with no warmth. “It’s easy to find things if you know what to look for.” The smile left. “Now, who hired you to get us to stand down?”

“Go have relations with yourself,” snickered the bleeding spy. “I don’t even know who hired me, you know how it works.”

The Warden turned to look at the woman and she shook her head. He then gestured to the shifters on either side of the spy, and they simultaneously kicked him in the shins.

The changeling spy howled in pain and pitched forward, his bleeding mouth scraping the cold, hard ground. He felt the Warden grab hold of his ear, and his head was cruelly turned upwards.

The Warden changeling’s face was large in his vision, through the tears and pain. “The Dream Catcher says that you lie. She’s good at spotting lies. Even from people like you and me. You know something of who hired you, even if they said nothing. You’d want to be sure that you had cover. I’m guessing that they assured you that the Medani would be busy chasing low-level saboteurs and other changelings in Varna, so that you’d slip in unnoticed and push us all loose.”

The spy considered his options as he lay bound like a lamb for the slaughter. He swore to himself in his mind. When he’d heard that Parnain had been dispatched he’d nearly lost control of his bowels. His half-sister had a different reaction to Parnaian’s name. She’d attempted to back out then and there, and they’d killed her. A grimy claw had reached out from a bandaged hand and paralyzed her with a scratch, and then they’d fed her to something that stank of the grave.

He hadn’t needed to force himself to place the accents. Only Karrnath used undead. He’d been all set to mourn his half-sister, maybe entertain some revenge, but then they’d promised him her half.

Five thousand gold down, fifteen thousand more on success. In a Kundarak escrow. With that type of money, he’d be comfortable in a Cyran townhouse until the end of his days.

He’d rushed things. He’d done it too fast. The damned gnome butler had found the body. He should have figured out a way to bury it.

Something in the back of his mind tickled. It seemed familiar.

“He’s thinking of accents,” the shifter woman said suddenly. “It’s hard to get information from his mind, he has been trained well.”

The changeling spy froze. She was trying to get into his mind. Druid magic or the thing that his uncle had warned him about? The mind magic? His uncle had trained him to resist mental probes, but the mind tired as did the body.

He swallowed. And if they found the tooth? And if the Karrns raised him from the dead to torture his ghost? The Reachers could only kill him once, the necromancers of Karrnath could kill him many times.

The tickle again, and it was deeper in.

“Grab and hold his mouth!” shouted the shifter woman.

He didn’t give them the chance. He bit down on the lower, left, back molar, and the poison filled his mouth.

He was dead before they even pulled his head back.

Chapter 9 – Part 16

The gnome gestured angrily at the captain, and the pilot watched nervously. The winds were bearing crossways, and they had precise coordinates that they had to account for. The captain didn’t like it, but finally acquiesced.

Aundair was paying Lyrandar enough that they expected the captain to risk his ship’s structural integrity. The captain, like all airship captains, was nervous about structural damage, and losing his commission because of it. There were far more airship captains than there were airships, and Lyrandar leaned on their officers to be careful with their toys.

The ship banked, and then began to spiral in a controlled descent. The real trouble wouldn’t begin until they broke cloud cover.

Chapter 9 – Part 15

Bresbin casually chewed on a cold chicken leg that he’d paid entirely too much for. The locals were friendly enough to goblins, far more than some places as there were plenty of goblins in the Reacher armies who made life hell for Aundairan scouts, but they weren’t going to just give any grub to someone not wearing a Reacher uniform.

If you could call them uniforms. They barely had insignia. Bresbin disliked the lack of discipline that he observed, but he easily kept it off his face.

The Brelish advisers had discipline, but they spent much of their time trying to be friendly, and from what Bresbin could tell, part of that friendliness seemed to be living rough and not regularly cleaning their uniforms.

Fortunately the secondary officer remembered intelligence protocol. Such things were always left to the secondary officer. The primary was too busy keeping everyone alive.

The secondary officer had left a spool of blue thread to his left, with a red-capped needle in it, while he stitched his jacket up. In public, where he could be seen. It wasn’t that his uniform kept getting torn, it was that he was sending an alert to any Dark Lantern agents.

Gorka was in town, and the shifter expected any roaming agents to check in.

Bresbin stifled a frown, and turned to find himself a group of goblins playing dice. He’d lose some money to them and get them to talk. That would give him a way to get some information to Pienna before she went to challenge this elf and his strange messages about her.

Chapter 9 – Part 14

The major had been introduced to her only as Major East. She knew that it was a code cover, and she could easily think of three good reasons why without straining, so Pienna didn’t take any offense. She was surprised that she’d been taken directly to such a high-ranking officer, but it wasn’t long before she found out why.

“I don’t doubt you,” the major said. He had deep-set, hollow eyes, and his face carried two day’s worth of gray stubble. “But it seems strange that you would return to Varna by this great magic, and not go right to the city.”

“I seek the lay of the land, Major,” Pienna said softly. She stroked Missy’s fur and the big cat rumbled, making three nearby guards nervous. One of them wore a red scarf, but Pienna did not grasp its significance. “That is all.”

“You had a goblin with you?” the Major asked. A soldier to his left nodded.

“Brezzy,” she said. “A Gatekeeper follower, although not a druid. He is trustworthy. He is checking out some things for me. Nothing to do with your army, I do not sell information to Audnair.”

“You do not,” the Major said. “You are Chu-bat’s friend, yes?”

A tear came unbidden to her eyes. “Yes,” she said.

“And another Gatekeeper living with Vadalis, making potions for them, and elf, he wants to see you badly, does he not?”

She blinked at this. “I wasn’t aware that this was common knowledge.”

“We are a careful people, Pienna,” the Major said. “And it is my job to keep track of such things. But you have caught us at an – uncomfortable time. And your request for aid, well, we wouldn’t mind helping you, if we knew everything that you know.”

She smelled suspicion, and she saw that the soldier with the red scarf seemed to take a very serious interest in things. They clearly wanted to help her, and get helped by her in return, but just as clearly they were frightened of trusting.

Someone had burned them, and recently. There had been a bustle of activity as she’d been lead to the central of the camp, and she’d then been made to wait for a good fifteen minutes. She’d been patient, and had caught someone whispering about calling for the Medani.

She hadn’t understood what that meant, but the tumblers were beginning to fall into place.

“Major,” she said. “I know little of the local situation, and it is clear that I have come into a situation that is developing. Perhaps if you could tell me in what way I can assist you, then I can demonstrate my trust to you, rather than expecting you to take it on faith.”

The Major considered this, and then a weak smile broke out on his face. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, we’re just very nervous right now. Maybe you could come back later?”

“Of course,” she said, tapping Missy. The great cat rose to walk beside her.

“I mean no offense, Ma’am,” Major East assured her.

“I take none,” she said. “Your time is valuable, Major, and I appreciate it.” She turned to leave.

“Ma’am,” he said, sprinting to catch up to her. She turned towards him, surprised. “This Aruunis, the money he’s been spending, the alliance that he made with House Vadalis, who is spared the bombardment that periodically afflicts Varna, well…the fear is that after you assisted us, you would feel that you had to prove that you were neutral, and so you’d have to…well, we don’t know what to think right now.”

She suddenly comprehended. “You just caught a changeling, so you’re as jumpy as a spring-loaded gnome’s toy.” His face showed shock, then a sheepish acknowledgement. She gave a small head bow. “Major, as long as I am in Varna, you may call on me.”

He grinned, gave a small salute, and they parted ways amicably.

Chapter 9 – Part 13

Tettalla, or Tetty, as his grandchildren called him, was fussy. It was his business to be fussy. He had been a clerk in the army of the Eldeen, and a butler after that to a lieutenant who had been promoted to a captain, and then a major, and finally a provisional general. When Tetty had first met the young man, he’d been more concerned with studying the druidic mystics than commanding an army in the field. Due to the fact that he’d survived battles that his superior officers hadn’t, the young man had both aged rapidly and been promoted rapidly.

And Tetty had been with him, assisting him, helping the provisional commander move the things that needed to be moved.

At one time he’d had twelve grandchildren that called him Tetty. Now he only had three. The other nine had been lost to Aundairian weapons, Aundairan spells, or famines caused by Aundairian attacks.

It shamed Tetty that he could remember a time when he saluted Aundair’s flag. Before Aundair had abandoned them, then sought to reclaim them in blood.

Tetty dusted first, then checked the ties on the clothing bags. The cords had to be drawn most tight, then sealed with wax in order to prevent humidity damage. After checking on the ties, he turned down the bed. A spot of something caught his eye, but he couldn’t identify it. He made a note to do more laundry.

He then checked the desk. It was a simple thing, with drawers that never carried anything other than pens and ink, as the important papers were kept in locked and trapped boxes, but Tetty always studiously waxed the desk surface three times every day. There was always a chance that the scratches on the desk may give a clue to someone who ought not be there, so he waxed frequently. This was even more important lately, as the provisional commander was about to move the army into Aundair before the heavy snows came.

Tetty wasn’t supposed to know that, but he was a keen observer, and the provisional commander had been fretting about challenging the major, and other junior officers that were older than he. The middle officers wanted to disband, but the provisional commander was determined to advance.

The man had been so worked up about it, that he hadn’t given Tetty the usual cheery greeting that morning. Ever since they’d survived an attack two years before, the provisional commander had always greeted him the same way. “Good morning to you, Tetty, and mind the arrows.”

This morning it had just been “Good morning,” and the man’s eyes had been puffy and sleepless. The provisional commander had barely touched his breakfast, and he’d departed with his bodyguards to get to the meeting early.

Tetty felt bad for the man. He was so overworked. It was so much responsibility for one so young.

The gnome bustled over to a corner of the tent where a long chest sat. He frowned. It should properly be standing. There were delicately folded winter linens in there.

Tetty lifted the chest, or tried to. It was much heavier than it should have been. He frowned, and fingered the latch.

There was a lock on it. A new, unknown lock.

Tetty whirled and looked at the boxes with the military documents. They were still sealed, untouched, the magical alarms in them having not even been jostled. The gnome then turned back to the long chest.

A cheer went up from outside. Shifter and human voices began animatedly discussing the rumor that they’d heard, about being discharged for the winter.

Tetty grew cold inside, and slid a long, slim took from his belt. He’d been apprenticed to an artificer in his youth, and while he’d gone in a different direction in the end, he’d learned something about locks.

He was rusty. It took him a good three minutes to get the lock open and discover the provisional commander’s body. It took him a whole ten seconds after that to alert the red scarves that the provisional commander had been killed, and that a changeling was currently giving orders to disband the army.

Chapter 9 – Part 12

Henry rubbed his arms to keep the circulation going. The civilian clothes were not as warm as his uniform, but he was sacrificing come comfort for deniability. He’d kept the cap, however. One military-issue cap wasn't unusual. Even civilians scrounged for good winter clothing.

He had four men including himself, not ten, and one wasn’t exactly a volunteer. But he’d put them together well before he’d finally made the colonel guilty enough to give him permission. They were coming now, to yet another graveyard produced by the war. Some two years ago a number of men had been hastily buried here, several of them enemy dead. The Reachers avoided the place, which made it perfect for this clandestine meeting.

The shifter arrived first. He was tall and burly, and he wore leather armor studded with metal plates and rivets. It made not a squeak as he walked, no, loped into view. Standing upright, he might have been two or three inches over six feet, but the beast-man preferred hunching when he stood and moved. It kept his broad, wolf-like nose closer to the ground.

He called himself Dawn, notwithstanding that in Breland that was a woman’s name, and when he shifted he could track like the wolf that he resembled. He could also produce wickedly long and sharp teeth like a wolf. And like a wolf, he was loyal to those who were loyal to him.

Carl had saved Dawn’s life twice, and the beast man with his bulging muscles and reddish-brown body hair had sworn that he would find the Brelish human, wherever Aundairian or Karrnathi troops were holding him.

“Captain,” the shifter said, raising his head a bit, if not saluting.

“I’m just a soldier,” Henry said. “I’m not an officer, Dawn.”

“You a captain now,” Dawn grunted, absent-minded checking the hilts of the three swords that he wore, and the crossbows strapped to his legs. Dawn was not long on smooth words, but he wasn’t short on weapons.

Or brains, no matter how he talked. Dawn was cunning. Like a wolf.

The Halfling came with the gnome next. Dawn heard them before Henry did, but the old soldier had battlefield reflexes, so he heard the soft footfalls only a few seconds after the shifter. Of course light as Phillen’s feet were, if the Halfling had cared about being heard, they’d not have known he was there until his body parted the mist.

Phillen wore armor like Dawn’s, only a miniaturized version of it. The cocky Halfling had a shaved head and bright blue eyes, and the only visible weapon on his person was a sling. A sling he was very, very good at using, especially in conjunction with the several dozen magical stones he kept on his person.

Phillen’s sister, a baker, not a soldier, had been killed by a nervous Aundairan infantryman some twelve years ago. The Halfling had been mad for killing them ever since.

Right now he was grinning that wide, cocksure grin that he had, bouncing a key from one gloved palm to the other. The key was to the collar that was fastened around the neck of the fourth member of their expedition.

Manfred Oboken was the name that he’d been convicted under, although doubtless he’d used others. He’d been a small-time crook and a moderately talented illusionist who’d finally been caught by the Dark Lanterns. Manfred had thought that he’d been involved in a lead-as-gold scam, and had been horrified to find out that he’d been unwittingly assisting Cyran spies. He’d been even more horrified to find out that he’d been accused of treason and they were going to behead him.

They didn’t of course. They’d offered him a pardon if he spent ten years in the army instead of twenty at hard labor.

Manfred didn’t like army life any more than he liked the simple and itchy wool robe that he wore with his collar. But he’d used his illusion magic successfully on a number of occasions, and he would be very, very useful in hiding them in the Aundairan countryside.

Manfred’s black, glittering eyes locked on Henry, then on Dawn, then on Henry again. “You’re going to rescue that junior officer, Carl, aren’t you?” he asked.

“He’s not stupid, this wizard,” grinned Phillen. “No he’s not. So tell us, boss, what’s next?”

“Anita’s Ford,” Henry said.

“That’s seasonal,” Dawn grunted. “Summer only. Rest of the time the water’s too high and too cold.”

“Phantom’s Crossing,” Henry told him.

“That’s a myth,” frowned Phillen. “You sure you don’t want to steal a boat instead, boss?”

“Not a myth,” Manfred said suddenly. “But the key has been lost for over two score years.”

“I don’t have the key,” Henry told them. “But I know how to find the keymaster. Or at least I think I do. If we get there and it doesn’t work, we’ll try another way. But we can’t go the regular ways, they’re being watched. And the idea is to not fight the entire Aundairan army.”

“Let’s go then,” growled Dawn. “It’s quite a walk.”

“I procured some mounts,” Henry said. “I don’t know if Manfred can ride, but –”

“I’ll tie him to the saddle,” grinned the Halfling.

Chapter 9 - part 11

“If you can’t tell me why you’re so pissed, can you at least tell me what we’re going to do about it?” the younger, red-haired Medani asked his second cousin.

“There are some things I don’t share with anyone,” Parnain told him. “Don’t take it personally. You’re my closest living kin in the House, you know far more than any other.” The two were sitting together in a second-story room, drinking tea and eating sandwiches while looking past heavy curtains to the street below them. A illusion spell had been cast on the front of the window, making it appear as if the curtains were drawn tight, and the room had been rented through a series of double blinds.

“We have six more changeling heads in that chest over there,” the younger half-elf said. “We were going to move on anyway, but then you go see a druid who gave you some intel and come back mad as Khyber’s whore-spawned goblins, demanding that we get to Aundair of all places by magical transportation, but we can’t use a teleporter. What’s going on?”

Parnain stirred his tea, and watched the street below. Some petty criminals had been impressed into doing public service, and they were raking pebbles and clay into the street in an attempt to even it out from the damage that the heavy rain did to it. From here he could count the sacks and guess their weight. It was a primitive way to do street maintenance. “So I wanted to leave before and now I really want to leave,” Parnain said. “What bothers you?”

“We don’t have a gig in Aundair, and they’ve got to be irritated that we butchered their agents here,” the red-haired Medani pointed out. “But we’re going there? What did this druid say to you?”

“This is the druid that saved us from a nasty ambush and let us trip up the gnome’s double-cross,” Parnain pointed out. “Let’s just say the druid has a nasty habit of unearthing facts that others prefer to stay buried.”

“He gave you a job in Aundair?” the red-haired Medani told his cousin. “Is that what this is about? And it’s a high enough target that you think that the Orien teleporters will be watched as a matter of course?”

Parnain sighed. “I’ve taught you too well it seems,” he said. “You can’t tell anyone about this,” he said, peering carefully at the younger half-elf.

“Parnain, you can trust me,” the red-haired Medani said, an affronted tone coming into his voice. He set down his tea cup and caressed Parnain’s hand. “What haven’t I given you? What haven’t I let you do? Who have I told?”

Parnain jerked his hand away like his cousin’s touch had burned him. “We don’t talk about that unless I bring it up first,” he hissed.

The red-haired Medani hung his head. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Parnain’s eyes coldly watched the younger half-elf, and a painful, awkward moment passed. The younger half-elf looked up, blushed, and then looked away, shamed that his mentor and lover was angry with him.

And when his attention was so diverted, Parnain’s fingers passed over the other half-elf’s teacup.

“Think nothing of it,” Parnain said after a while. “My temper got the better of me. How about we figure out another way upriver, then once we’re out of this town I’ll tell you everything?”

The other Medani grinned and took a big swallow of tea. “Thanks, Parnain, I’m sorry I – talked about what I will never talk about again. Okay?”

Parnain gave a half-smile.

The younger half-elf paused, his face wincing in pain.

Parnain’s half-smile evaporated as the younger half-elf then gasped, and dropped his tea cup.

“You made the mistake of thinking that because you were useful, because I enjoyed using you, that you were my friend,” Parnain told him. The blonde half-elf stood, cold eyes on the cousin that he had just poisoned, as the red-haired half-elf fell off of his chair and onto the floor. The younger man’s eyes rolled wildly as his tongue expanded, blocking his airflow, and his heart slowed.

The red-haired Medani was tough. It took him a good three minutes to die. He spent most of the time paralyzed by pain, crying wordlessly for mercy. He got none.

Chapter 9 – Part 10

“Our sixth serious insubordination in a week,” the major said, slapping the report down on the battered wooden table in the command tent. The table wasn’t the only piece of furniture that wasn’t the most luxurious. The Reachers had no intention of making the tent where their most senior officers met easily identifiable.

They were many miles from the border, and some serious money had been paid for the services of a certain notorious Medani hunter of changelings to limit the spying against them but still they took such precautions.

“It’s close to winter,” snarled a half-elf. She’d lived with shifters most of her life in a remote area of the Reaches, and their habits had rubbed off on her. “They need to return to their tribes, their people, to hunt, to provide. Aundair is bloodied, and our people need not stay here. So tempers are short.”

“They’re soldiers,” snorted a white-haired Warden of the Wood. A druid and a warrior, he carried a bastard sword on his hip. He held the hilt in one hand, and stroked a wolf with the other. “They ought to do what they are told. Begin flogging the insubordinate ones.”

“You sound Deneith,” grumbled another human. He’d jumped up in rank quickly over the past year, mostly due to not dying. It was commonly thought he’d been promoted past his competence. “Send them home and they’ll be back in spring to fight twice as hard. Try to hold them, and they’ll rebel. They cared not for Aundair’s demands, they’ll not care for ours.”

“Ridiculous coddling,” snapped the white-haired man.

“Morale is a weapon!” the half-elf woman spat out, gnashing her teeth.

“We need to do something,” the major said, sitting in a creaky chair. “Either let them go or attack across the border. They can’t sit and do nothing for long.”

“Weather won’t allow it,” muttered a half-orc druid. “More rain, more sleet. Hard to get across the river.”

“We let them go home, we have to pay them, and nobody knows what will turn up in that wagon,” sighed a man with an eye patch. He hardly talked at these meetings, and when he did, he worried over money or food. “We need someone to calculate what we’ll pay them if we disband for the winter, and if we have it.”

“The tension is becoming racial,” the major said. “Some of the shifters feel that the Deneith humans look down on them.”

“They don’t?” snorted a shifter woman holding a longbow.

“If we go across,” the half-elven woman said. “Will the blue coats go with us?”

The conversation stopped, and their eyes turned towards the provisional commander. He was young, and he was a druid of only middling power, but he was a tactical genius. As such he’d been raised in rank to general, and been given command over the growing army near Varna. It was now the largest single concentration of Reacher troops, more than triple the size of the next largest. Originally conceived as a blacking force, it was being rethought following surprise victories that blunted the Aundairian advance.

“Breland will defend our borders, but not advance,” the provisional commander told them. Several of the officers present cursed, and the half-elven woman spat. “Given that they’ve had incidents of our own going rogue and attacking them despite the current truce between our nations, I suspect that they’ve no desire to be caught between our forces and Aundair. Aundair isn’t ready to attack us, not yet. We hurt them, and they’re tied up with Thrane so badly that they can’t come again. So for now, between Aundair’s reluctance and Brelish bolstering, we are safe.”

“We send them home then?” the major asked. “Or we take the initiative and attack?”

“According to Brelish intelligence, Karrns have sent undead to bolster the border between us and Aundair,” the provisional commander said. He pursed his lips. “I see no reason to wait the time it will take to pass this matter onto the high command, let’s start letting them go. Do it in phases, not everyone at once. That way we can stay on top of the accounting –” He directed a wry grin at the man with the eye patch. “- and we can remobilize if we need to.”

“How do we organize it?” the white-haired Warden asked.

“I’d talk to the middle officers, get rid of the troublesome first,” the provisional commander said. “Then the hardship cases, the folk with the farthest to go, and kin to provide for. Keep Deneith, and keep the cavalry. In general go for about a sixth of our force in weekly spacings, keeping the last sixth through the winter.”

“A sixth is Deneith and our full-time force,” the major noted.

The provisional commander nodded. “Yes. Everyone goes home.”

Chapter 9 – Part 9

“Hold steady now, steady,” Van Deers d’Kundarak said, eyeing the crack in the warforged’s leg as he applied the adhesive. The elderly dwarf used a thick magnifying monocle, attached to his head by a worn piece of leather tugged around his wool cap. He eyed the warforged’s limb to make sure that not a dab of the substance was wasted.

“This unit, Saul, follows your direction, Master Artificer,” the warforged responded with a deep bass tone. Of the three in the camp, he was the only one with adamantine plating, so it was ironic that he had been injured when excavating the gully that the accounting wagon was hidden in.

“I keep telling you to just call me Van, I’ve no official rank,” the bemused dwarf said with a smile. “Ah! That ought to do it.” He paused, watching the air dry the exposed sealant in second. “Flex the leg a bit, would you please?” The warforged obeyed. “Splendid!”

“Thank you Van,” Saul told him. “May this – may I return to my duties?”

“You are quite welcome, Saul, quite welcome,” Van Deers said. “And yes, you can go back to guarding the wagon with John and Davv.”

The warforged called Saul nodded, and turned to walk the few yards to the wagon. Van Deers sighed, removed his monocle, and rubbed his mostly bald head through the cold weather cap. The damp was hurting his bones. He’d left Mror because he was tired of this weather.

And because he was tired of the ghosts.

Van Deers tucked his monocle and its strap into a pouch, and pulled on some gloves as he encircled the wagon. John was at its front, so he soon saw Davv at its back. The warforged, sleepless creatures that they were, always had two of the three on the outside and one on the inside.

“Good morning, Davv,” the dwarf said with forced cheer as he walked up to the basket on the peg. The coals had long banked, and even a warforged felt this sort of cold.

“Good morning, squad leader,” Davv said in a quiet voice. Davv was always quiet. His composite plating was black-coated mithril, and it had been silenced when Davv was first acquired by the Eldeen army. Van Deers had enhanced that silence, and as a result Davv always saw the dwarven artificer as another commando, despite any evidence to the contrary.

“Too cold and wet,” Van Deers said, laying his hand above the basket. It was made of iron mesh, and with the proper infusion the coals fired up, generating enough heat to keep the warforged from being damaged by the cold. “There, that should hold for another four hours.”

“You are considerate, squad leader,” Davv said.

“I try, anyway,” Van Deers beamed. “You’re a good fellow Davv, and I like you and the others a lot.”

“Why do you call us these names?” Davv asked suddenly. His voice was as flat as usual, and his eyes unreadable, but something in his stance said it was important.

“Well, er, that is…” Van Deers trailed off. “You are entitled to names, and you didn’t object to my naming you, I mean to call you by numbers, when you are valued, er, well…”

“I do not object to having a name,” Davv said. “Nor do I object to the squad leader who repaired us on the battlefield being the one to choose the name. I just wondered why these three names.”

“They – they meant something to me,” Van Deers said. His eyes were misting with tears. “I have to go.”

The warforged called Davv watched the dwarf go, its face impassive. If it was aware that it had accidentally upset the artificer, it didn’t show it.

It had a job to do. An important one. The records of which soldier would be paid what were stored in the wagon. Without them, the soldiers could not be paid.

And soldiers, particularly the independent-minded ones in the Reaches, would not take kindly to not being paid.

Chapter 9 – Part 8

“Geddup!” Young Red heard. He snarled in his sleep, twisting deeper into his thin blanket, trying vainly to shelter himself from the cold morning. Let the human find him well-dug, he would not come out! Young Red had been in a wonderful dream. He’d been back in the Deep Wood, hunting with his pack, shifting his teeth long to catch a fat rabbit.

The reality of where he was wasn’t exactly something he wanted to wake to.

“GEDDUP!” bellowed the sergeant. Cold water hit Young Red as the human dumped it on his head, and wakefulness rushed into the young shifter like an avalanche.

His body hair bristled and lengthened as he rolled out of the blanket, hissing and snarling, his teeth growing long. The others in his tent may have been tempted to laugh, but they held their tongues. He’d kill them all if he had to!

The human sergeant stood there grinning, not even drawing his sword as he let the empty bucket clang on the floor. “You’re late for your shift, again,” the man said.

Young Red screamed, hurling himself forward, ready to bite them man’s neck out. The human didn’t flinch.

Pain, scraping, falling backwards. The magical, invisible armor had been conjured about the man. Young Red had slammed full force into a shield that he could neither see nor smell, and now he lay on the ground, stars in his vision, shivering in the cold.

“Do it again and you’ll be at a court-martial,” the human sergeant said calmly. Four months back when the sergeant had come to command their unit, he’d told them that there was the way that they’d known before, and there was the Deneith way, and they’d better do things the Deneith way.

“No difference between you and Aundair!” snarled Young Red, feeling the swelling on his bruised face begin. A few others in the tent hissed at this insult, but the sergeant remained unmoved.

“You have three minutes to be at post,” the sergeant said. “Understand?”

Young Red didn’t answer, but he didn’t snarl either. For now, the sergeant had the power. For now.

The sergeant must have seen something that satisfied him, so he turned and left. Once he was gone, Young Red howled at the others, but they would not meet his gaze, would not give him the satisfaction of a fight.

With twenty seconds let, he’d gotten into a somewhat drier uniform, and headed to guard the pile of barrels filled with lamp oil.

Boring duty, guarding huge stacks of barrels. It wasn’t like they were going anywhere.

As he took his post, he began to fantasize about biting the sergeant in all of his veins.

August 10th, Posts Coming

I will get caught up, honest. I'm sorry that I've really, really fallen behind in posting, but there's a good reason (several good reasons, including major work shifts, but one that I will address here).

See, I don't write the story in order. I work on some parts, and then others, and I skip around. And there are some parts that I tinker with more than others, needless to say.

So there's actually several posts done, just teh ones preceding them aren't done.

So...(drumroll), on August 10, 2009, watch this space! I've set a deadline for myself, n which I hope to dump a lot of posts at once.

See you then!

Chapter 9 – Part 7

“Damn cold,” growled the shifter, hefting his shortbow. He might have been as tall as his human companion, but he walked hunched over, gritting his teeth. “Sun not better than a candle! Damn!”

“Still got to walk the perimeter,” said the shifter’s companion. He was a human male in studded leather armor who carried a sword at his hip and a crossbow in his hands. “We’re done in another half-hour, we can get coffee and sit by the fire.”

“Feh!” spat the shifter. “Why the night watch not over once it ain’t night? Damn!”

“For a guy with a fur coat you sure complain about the damp a lot,” chuckled the human. “My gloves are wearing out, and my fingers are going numb, but you don’t hear me complaining.”

“My hair gets wetter than yours, nor warmer,” snorted the shifter. “It paused to spit a phlegm ball into the bushes as the walked around the great camp. Some ten thousand or so soldiers were stationed just southwest of Varna, off the road, and supposedly hidden by the trees. The Reachers rarely congregated in numbers this large, to keep Aundair from hitting them with area affect spells, but now was different. The army had been first assembled to relieve Varna, expecting it to be besieged at best, overrun at worst. But the Aundairian advance had been stymied, and now the army hid under trees, hoping that their druids had convinced the many creatures of the forest to keep them hidden, or at least keep the firmer details from being found.

Rumors ran wild in the camp. Some said they were to invade Aundair, some said they were to be sent home, others said that they were to turn on their Brelish allies. The human suspected that the generals didn’t know what to do. They’d not expected the Aundairian advance to falter.

But he was alive, if wretched cold, so he wasn’t going to complain. And there were worse duties than a simple perimeter guard.

“Stop!” hissed the shifter, grabbing his companion with an uncomfortable strength as his teeth grew magically long. A moment later the human heard it too. A humming, almost like music. A smell of freshly unfolding leaves.

The underbrush shimmered, and green light, comforting somehow in its hue, came into being and then became three figures. Within a heartbeat, the magical display faded, and three figures stood not twenty feet from the two guards. One was an older human woman, a wooden circlet on her head. Standing beside her on her right was a large, heavily muscled panther with too-intelligent eyes. To her right was a goblin in sharp leather, carrying a drawn shortbow.

“Halt!” gulped the human guard, fumbling for his sword. His shifter partner drew a pair of scimitars while keeping his fangs bared. The display made the panther bare its fangs as well, and the human didn’t want to calculate the odds on who would win a biting contest.

“We mean you no harm,” he woman said, her voice sweet and comforting. “I am Pienna, of the Gatekeeper sect, and I have come a long way. I take it we are west of Varna?”

The human looked at the shifter, and after a moment they nodded to one another. The shifter’s teeth shrank and he put his weapons back in their sheath. The human let go of his sword hilt. In response, the panther relaxed, and the goblin put his bow and arrow away. “Um, Miss Pienna, you’ve – uh, whatever you did – you’re on the edge of the largest army encamped in the Reaches.”

“Pienna?” sniffed the shifter. He cocked his head to one side. “This name I know.”

“I have fought for the Eldeen before,” the woman stated. “Though the Gatekeepers are neutral, I have defended myself and my companions when attacked.”

“You, um, won’t mind coming to see our commanding officer, will you?” the human asked. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to force her if she said no.

“I would love to, dear boy,” she said. “I need to get a lay of the land in any event, and you may have comrades in need of healing.”

“And we won’t say no to breakfast, oh no,” said the goblin. He grinned, showing many teeth. “Missy here is hungry.”

The human took a look at the size of the cat and nodded.

Chapter 9 – Part 6

Aruunis’ companion alerted first, well before the elf heard anyone at the door. A moment later, the large brass handles turned, and a well-muscled half-elf in a chain shirt shoved them both open.

Aruunis eyed the half-blood across the length of the library. Tables and movable shelves had been pushed to the side, to make the forty feet or so between the library’s main entrance and the chair upon which the elven druid sat bare of any furnishings. Even the rugs had been removed, leaving a cold, wooden floor.

The druid had cast a fire-resisting spell on the floor, placed several potted plants near the doorway and along the walls, and banked the fireplace to blazing. He’d also cast several defensive spells on his person. There were several ways that this could end, and Aruunis had calculated only a one in five chance that he and Parnain would not come to blows.

The half-blood picked his head up, the proud face staring from a tangle of blonde hair, the icy blue eyes clearly meant to intimidate. But Aruunis could tell it was half bravado, or at least half.

He hadn’t even been sure that the Medani would come. There was no profit in it, at least no profit that the half-elf was yet aware of.

“Won’t you come in, Master Parnain?” he asked pleasantly. “There is mead and water, should you be thirsty.”

Parnain smirked, but did not answer. He stepped into the library and let the doors fall shut behind him. The half-blood tipped his head to the side slightly and studied the elven Gatekeeper.

“What do you want?” Aruunis finally asked, after a half-minute of silence.

“Shouldn’t that be my question?” Parnain chuckled. To Aruunis it sounded forced, but the half-blood’s walk was casual as he walked forward and held his hands out to the fire’s warmth. “You sent out a call for me, but wouldn’t say why.”

“And you came, without me paying off the bookkeepers of your House,” Aruunis said. “Quite against protocol. But you came anyway, before a contract was negotiated. So you want something. And you think I can give it.”

Parnain snorted. “You tickled my fancy, dirt-worshipper, nothing more. I was here anyway, so I decided to see what there was to see.”

“Parnain d’Medani,” Aruunis said. “His father was Medani, his mother was not, he rose quickly through the ranks after his parents were killed during a naval engagement between Cyrans and Lhazaar pirates that caught many civilians in the crossfire. Infiltrated a cult worshipping the Mockery, and some say he learned their faith with their tactics.”

“Aruunis, son of the tapestry makers,” Parnain countered. “Liquidated his family’s assets after he was the sole survivor of a political purge, which publicly was blamed on fanatical Silver Flame worshippers. Supposedly wrote off Karrnath, couldn’t stand the undead, and became a druid. Married into an Aundair family, a wealthy one, but didn’t advertise it to his fellow druids. You’ve spent decades if not centuries being low-key, but in the past few weeks you’ve been spending money like water. For some reason Vadalis is giving you succor.”

“Breland hired your services over two months ago when they decided to bolster the Eldeen with their troops,” Aruunis returned. “You were given carte blanche to do your favorite thing, kill changelings. Theoretically you only go after changelings who are Aundairian spies, but with no one else possessing you uncanny ability to find shapeshifters, you’re able to kill who you want and claim that it’s part of the job.” The elf grimaced. “Not even our deathless-worshipping ancestors bathed in so much blood.”

“Your ancestors, you mean,” sneered Parnain. “I’ve heard of your distaste for the Khorvar, watering down the blood they say.”

“In your case even more so,” Aruunis said. Then the elf cast a spell.

Parnain was quick, but the humanoid form that stepped out of the fireplace was quicker. It was a fire elemental, rough in form at first, merely a walking blob of flame some six feet tall. But as it placed itself between the druid and the assassin, it began to take on sharper detail.

“I do not fear your summoned playthings,” Parnain snarled, drawing a dagger in one hand and a longsword in his other.

“No, of course not,” Aruunis said, as he gripped a bunch of holly and mistletoe. The potted plants came alive, and their long branches and vines whipped out, trying to ensnare the Medani.

“So you called me here to kill me, is that it?” spat Parnain. “Better that you have tried!”

“Medani prides itself on detecting threats,” Aruunis said. “Information is key.” He twisted his hand, and the plants moved in, catching ankles and wrists. Parnain slashed at them, severing branches, but they kept him occupied. “But the smallest bits of knowledge lie in the oddest places.”

Aruunis gestured again, and the fire elemental finished its shape. It now resembled a glowing red half-elf, not too different in features from Parnain, carrying a flame version of a heavy pick. The weapon that Parnain’s father used.

Parnain growled a curse, and severed one of the plants. Another swing went towards the center of the fire elemental, but it dodged. “Going to kill me or talk me to death?” the half-blood growled.

“Making sure I have your attention,” Aruunis said. “And keeping you too busy to study me for a death attack, as the Mockery’s cultists taught you.” He spoke a word in Ignan, and the fire elemental lost its fine detail, becoming a humanoid blob again. “Some years ago I was talking to some fish in the Scions Sound,” he said casually. Parnain and the plants continued their battle, while the fire elemental made lunges at the half-blood designed solely to keep him off-balance. “Some think talking to fish is a silly waste of magical power, but it is a wonderful way to gather information, especially about shipwrecks.”

Parnain spun, uprooting an entire plant with his blades. “I will kill you druid, for this attack on my person!”

“You’ll not,” Aruunis said, casting another spell. Poisonous snakes formed from the magical energy of the natural world, and surrounded the half-blood, fangs glistening. Parnain gritted his teeth and whirled, trying to avoid vine, fang, and fire. If they’d been doing more than merely trying to keep him off-balance, he would soon take serious injury. “Instead you will dance with my creations and hear my story. And try no to take it personally, because you likely would have attacked me anyway.”

Parnain’s inarticulate growl was an acknowledgement of this, as the half-blood severed one of the summoned vipers with one blow.

“Anyway,” the druid continued, after summoning two more vipers to keep the half-blood dancing. “I found the ship at the bottom of the sound. The bodies were mostly devoured by crabs, but the skeletons were still fairly recognizable. Many human, some hobgoblin, and some half-elf. But no half-elf females. No elf-shaped skulls on bodies with large pelvic bones.”

Parnain got a wild look in his eyes as he slashed at the fire elemental. It responded by singeing his shoulder with a hard punch.

“But there was one body, female, with long, rubbery bones. A changeling.”

The fire elemental took detail again, this time of a half-elven woman, a wedding band on one hand, and a Medani sigil on her gown. Parnain howled with rage, and slashed at the fire elemental. He grazed it, but a vine tripped him, and a newly summoned large monkey landed on his back and began pummeling his head.

Aruunis cast another spell, this one boosted by a dragonshard, and an air elemental formed. The summoned elemental picked Parnain up, monkey and all, and flew high into the ceiling, slamming the half-blood’s head on a rafter, before dropping him to the floor with a crash. The snakes bit, but at the bidding of their master, did not inject venom. The vines wrapped around Parnain’s wrist, taking advantage of the stunned killer’s weak grip.

“It took me a long while to put all the pieces together,” Aruunis said, gesturing again. The firey half-elven woman’s face ran together like wax, and a changeling’s face showed. “Even then it was speculation. I shelved it, concentrating on other things.”

Parnain staggered to his feet and slashed again, then again, and then again, killing plants, snakes, and monkey. He then stood with his back to a bookshelf, his chest heaving. “Call them off and we talk,” Parnain said.

“Put your weapons away,” Aruunis said. Parnain hesitated. “Half-breed, if I had wanted you dead, you would be dead,” snapped Aruunis. “I thought I proved that. Now put your blades away.”

Parnain hesitated, then did so. Aruunis gestured, and the elementals took a step back. “You called me here to tell me you claim my mother was a changeling?” Parnain scoffed. “More original lies have been told.”

“No, I called you here to let you know that a cleric used a speak with dead spell to discover that her own son had killed her,” Aruunis said. “Her last words to you were ‘Parnain, understand, understand that I never meant to lie.’”

The blonde half-elf’s face contorted with rage, and he threw two daggers through the air. The air elemental flew upwards and caught them with its body, spinning them to the floor. The fire elemental, its body a humanoid blob once again, stepped forward, its limbs reaching forward. The books behind Parnain began to smell of smoke, and the half-blood’s skin began to sear.

“Get control of yourself,” Aruunis said. “You cannot defeat a druid who is prepared, and you cannot get out of the Eldeen alive if the entire House Vadalis is looking for you. I do not want to fight you, and I do not want to blackmail you, and the cleric in question didn’t know the significance of what I had paid him for. Not to mention that this was almost ten years ago and he died shortly thereafter while trying to direct some ghouls against a Talenta tribe. The dinosaurs ate ghouls faster than the ghouls could paralyze the dinosaurs’ handlers.”

Parnain forced himself to be calm. “Fine. Make them stand back.”

“I’ll do better,” Aruunis said, waving his hand. Both the fire elemental and the air elemental unfolded and winked out. “But come no closer, I can bring them back faster than you can act.”

Parnain took a step away from the bookshelves, and quickly drank a potion to caused the majority of his bruises and burns to fade. “Even if what you said about my mother is true, what’s the point of all of this?”

“You’re here,” Aruunis said. “I’m taking advantage of that. I didn’t plan it.”

“You want me to do something for you or you tell everyone this lie about me,” Parnain spat.

“You spot liars better than you like yourself,” Aruunis said. “But no, I’m not going to try to blackmail you. Nor will I try to buy you, I don’t think I could afford it, not with the money I’m spending, anyway. I want to trade with you.”

“You’re going to produce some potions for me?” snorted the half-blood.

“I’m going to give you a line on one of the highest-ranking agents in Thrane intelligence,” Aruunis said. He smiled, hoping that the potions of glibness that he’d purchased worked as advertised. If not, at least this would be a test run. He only had one more left, and he’d be needing it more than he needed the one running through him now. “The changeling paladin of the Silver Flame? The one reputedly in Droaam?”

“She’s out of service now, vanished months ago,” Parnain said dubiously. Aruunis could tell that the half-blood believed him, even if the Medani’s words were still skeptical.

“Let’s jump past the dickering,” Aruunis said. “You’re going to slip into Aundair’s main camp on their western front, just across the river and to the north, I’ll tell you where. There’s a half-elven commander named Hackkim. I need him killed, and a book bound in black lizardskin, maybe dragonskin, stolen. It’s heavily trapped, but you should be able to bypass the traps with your training. It’s a book of ciphers. I need to see it, then you can sell it to the Reachers, or the Brelish, or whoever you want. And then, I tell you how to find a woman named Ois Silva.” He gave a grim smile. “And you get to take down a changeling that has a huge price on her head in certain quarters. And ah, any speculation I have about your mother stays with me.”

Parnain stared at him for a moment. “This doesn’t mean I won’t kill you someday.”

“You have two sunrises from the one occurring now to kill Hackkim and bring me the book,” Aruunis said. “Otherwise I’ll go through other channels to achieve the same result. Not to mention that my intel on Ois won’t stay fresh for long.”

Parnain snorted. “We have a deal, druid, but after Hackkim, and after Ois, comes you.”

Only after the half-elf stormed out and slammed the doors behind him did Aruunis allow himself to exhale noisily.

Chapter 9 – Part 5

They wore winter clothes, the gloves tightly cinched by cords. Masks covered their faces, with bottles of fresh air attached, else they would fall faint in the thin air this high up. Steel cleats on their boots kept their purchase on a deck perpetually coated with ice. A wizard stood by with prestidigitation spells, trying to keep the deck and the equipment reasonably clear, but the equipment helped.

They were on a specially reinforced Lyrandar airship, a good half-mile over what was considered the safest maximum travel height. The Lyrandar crew had been reduced to the pilot and the captain, and a grand total of five Aundairian special forces operatives were preparing the barrels of incendiary fluid that they hoped to rain down on the center of the Reacher army encamped near Varna.

It was a tightly run operation, one that no one in the Aundairian command would have spent money on, under other circumstances. Dropping barrels from a great height was not the most accurate method of aiming a weapon, and the cost of each barrel rivaled that of a newly-minted warforged with a feather fall enchantment.

But something needed to be done to keep the Reachers off-balance, and a new offensive was not in the works, not after a dwarf named Chubat had carved through Aundair’s best battle wizards. So when an officer named Hackkim procured an intelligence source, one that the Reachers supposedly would not expect at all, the decision was made to move on it.

Because there are always those who feel a need to do something, if only because they cannot stand doing nothing.

Down on the ground, it was wet and cold, less than an hour before sunrise on the 4th day of Vult. This high up in the air, it was freezing cold, and perpetually wet as they flew in between the ragged clouds. The bound air elemental that powered the ship whined in protest at the temperature, and the Lyrandar pilot gripped the wheel tightly with gloved hands to make the thing obey.

Finally, a magical timepiece worn on the belt of the commanding officer chimed. The officer, a gnome with a penchant for artificer magic, called out a command over the winds that howled at this altitude, and the airship began a slow, angled descent.

Chapter 9 – Part 4

The colonel was already up when the tap came from outside of his tent. He’d been up for a good ten minutes, and he’d spent the last two lathering his neck in front of the mirror balanced carefully on the wooden stand. The colonel shaved everyday, twice a day. He had when he’d first been made an officer. Even when he was standing hip-deep in mud and blood on the Cyran front, he’d shaved.

It was important to look like you have your act together. No matter what was going on, your men needed to see that you had to have your act together.

His first commanding officer had told him that. He’d last seen the old man on leave in Sharn. Some walking Karrn corpse had shattered the old man’s mind, and even House Jorasco was unable to put the man’s mind back together.

But the man’s nurses kept him cleanly shaven. It was part of being an officer in the Brelish forces.

Even if the officer was halfway across the world in an overgrown, dirt-encrusted, savage forest that no sane man would want to live in.

“Come,” he sighed, beginning to shave his upper neck.

The flap opened, and he saw his personal guard salute. “Colonel,” the young man said. He was human, and only nineteen years of age, but what was in his eyes could age a dwarf. “He’s back again.”

There was no need to say who the guard was talking about. Only one man had been constantly demanding an audience with the commander of the Brelish expedition in the northern Eldeen. Only one man could do that and not get court-martialed.

And not just because he was the oldest infantryman anyone knew. The colonel’s staff knew that their boss blamed himself for the deaths of Henry’s sons.

“Let him in,” the colonel said.

“Sir?”

“Let him in,” the colonel said again.

He continued to shave as his guard went out. He scraped the razor as he heard his man talk briefly to Henry. Then the canvas rustled and Henry stepped in.

The colonel continued to shave, but he regarded the man in the mirror. Henry stood, weariness evident on his face, his cold weather cap twisted between his hands, his shoulders thrown back in proper parade rest. The man’s uniform was worn, but his weapons were clean and ready.

Life on the front left its marks.

“You want me to order an incursion across the border,” the colonel said. It wasn’t a question.

“Permission to speak freely, sir,” Henry said. He locked gazes through the mirror with the field commander.

“For you,” the colonel said. “Always.” He began shaving his cheeks.

“We left a man out there,” Henry said. His eyes accused.

“We have orders to defend the Reachers,” the colonel said. “Defend, not attack Aundair. We’re to help the Eldeen forces hold the line, not go on the offensive against their former masters.” He finished the cheek and started on the other. “I sent not one, but two requests to my commanders. We’re part of an overall strategic plan. A plan that does not allow for crossing the river.”

“We crossed it once,” Henry said.

“Failure of chain of command,” the colonel said, finishing up. He began to wipe his face with a towel. “You’ll recall I got this position a few weeks ago, after an Aundairian sniper took out my commanding officer. In the gap of command, some people got overzealous.” He set his thinks in the basin, then turned to face Henry. “We’re buffering the Eldeen border to keep Aundair busy so that we can advance on other fronts. We have to keep the Reachers happy, but only to a point. They don’t exactly want us here.”

“The Karrns were in the field,” Henry said. “One of their cursed corpse-things took him. Alive.”

“War is a horrible thing,” the colonel said. He suddenly felt weird that he was in a sleeping robe rather than a uniform, or better, armor. “I have only so much in the way of resources.”

“Don’t hand me the official line,” Henry said. His voice had suddenly gone up, and the pretense that he was addressing a subordinate officer was now gone. “The Karrns took Carl alive. Do you know what they’re likely to do? Karrns.”

“Infantryman, I have cut you some slack over this matter,” the colonel said, feeling the heat rush into his voice. “But you had best watch your tone, because –”

“Carl was like my son,” Henry growled. “Given that I have no others living.”

The colonel looked down, biting his lip. Logically it hadn’t been his fault, but he still blamed himself. “Henry…Henry, I can’t. I have orders. I mean the fact that Karrnath is bolstering Aundair’s western front so that Aundair will have more of a free hand to deal with Thrane, which frees up Karrnath elsewhere, and we’re doing the same thing –”

“I’m not stupid,” Henry cut in. “I know that something major is coming, and it’s either Cyre or Karrnath, but that doesn’t matter to me. We have a missing man. We followed Carl ever since the battle of Chubat’s Stand. Carl held us together until we rejoined the rest of our people. Carl rallied us when we hit the lines, again and again. Now he’s being held by a Karrn expeditionary force. Unless he’s become food for one of their monsters.” Henry paused, and waited until the colonel met his eyes. “We. Can’t. Leave. Him.”

The colonel sighed. “Ten men, volunteers only. No uniforms. No other official marking. Not even Brelish weapons. If caught you will be disavowed. One day there, one back.”

“Understood, sir,” Henry said, stress melting from his posture. “Thank you, sir.”

The old infantryman saluted. The young colonel saluted back. They would not see each other again.

Chapter 9 – Part 3

Parnain ascended a wide set of stairs, dimly light by a single torch in the pre-dawn. His boots made little sound on the polished wood as he walked, both because he was trained in stepping lightly and because of a muffling enchantment in them.

Few were up at this hour, as Vadalis was primarily a house of humans. He noted the sounds of slumbering, the snores and fits of those stirring to wake, and the other minor, whispers of sounds.

Nothing escaped his notice. He was Medani. He was the ultimate Medani.

And he was doing his best to hide the flip-flops in his stomach.

He passed by what he knew from an aerial sketch was a secured wing of the Vadalis compound. A small antechamber with no doors guarded the passageway down that wing. Parnain saw no guard, no pressure plates or glyphs or other sign of a trap.

Although there was a large, raven-like bird on a perch, eyeing him, and eyeing a peg holding a panel on the wall closed. Parnain suspected that should someone enter the room and not speak the right command to the bird, it would fly off of its perch and pull the pin, likely releasing some extremely poisonous reptile.

A trained animal trap. How very Vadalis.

Parnain walked on. Portraits of House elders began appearing on the walls, setting off his thoughts on his own House supervisors.

You are Medani, the old man had told him. Parnain had been young, and he had been set upon by a band of thugs in Wroat while he was tracking a lead. He’d fought them hard, refusing to back down, rolling through a store window. Medani notice things, the old man had said. Whack! The hard cane in the old man’s hands had smacked down on Parnaian’s shoulder’s, but the young, angry half-elf did not flinch. Medani notice, but do not make themselves noticed. That foolishness is for our Lyrandar cousins. Whack! Master Hassan was driving his disapproval home with a painful lesson.

A year later, Parnain had infiltrated, then studied with, an assassins guild that worshipped the Mockery. Two years after that, once he’d learned all their secrets, he’d killed every single one. Only then had he returned to his House, who had written him off as dead when they hadn’t heard from him in over eight months. Only then did he slip into Master Hassan’s room, and smother the old man with a pillow.

He frowned slightly. That he was mentally revisiting the crucial time in his life, the time that made him - was a sign of insecurity. He was trying to reassure himself of who he was. The druid's invitation had rattled him, and he didn't want to admit why.

Parnain had carefully cultivated a reputation as being implacable. He was not flashy, Master Hassan had been right that such an attitude was for Lyrandar, but he made sure – sometimes through action, sometimes through carefully massaged leaks to certain newspapers and intelligence agencies, that he always found who he wanted to find.

That’s why Breland was paying such a large sum for him to find every single changeling spy in Aundair’s employ. They knew that he either would find them or they would run on hearing of Parnain’s presence.

That’s why he couldn’t afford to ignore an invitation from a highly-placed druid. He couldn’t afford to be seen as, well, uninterested.

But he did not like this. Some Druids could change shape, like shifters, like the changelings. The filthy, disgusting changers.

And most importantly, the druid's invitation did not fit. Why should one of the Gatekeeper sect care about changelings? They were supposedly obsessed with swamp monsters. And if this wasn't about changelings, why contact Parnain?

Parnain didn't like that he didn't know why it fit, and that made him - nto nervous, surely not that.

But if Aruunis hadn't sent him the invite, Parnain wouldn't have come. In fact he would have left Varna as soon as possible. No point in staying in one place too long.

Parnain went up another staircase, and saw a human male in a chair. The human male had both a wand and a sword, and a wolf sat at his feet.

“Stop,” the man said, very quietly.

“I’m invited,” Parnain said. But he stopped nonetheless, and stared hard at the man’s earlobes. Those were usually not formed well, they were the afterthought. They seemed real enough, this was likely a real human.

“Your name?” the man asked.

“You don’t know who I am?” smirked Parnain.

The human looked at him for a moment, then waved his hand. “The druid is in the library, unless he’s resting in the loft above it. Don’t make trouble and don’t damage any books.”

Parnain pursed his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

“F’test you!” snapped the man, his hand drifting towards the wand. “You’re in our House now, you –”

“Sleep,” Parnain insisted, scattering a pinch of sand at the man and his wolf. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he leaned back, unconscious.

The wolf resisted the spell, but since its master seemed to have relaxed, it didn’t bother the half-elf. Parnain flexed his fingers, then stepped forward and pushed the library open.

I Shall Return!

Okay, I am sorry, first and foremost. You don't know how many times I've attempted to rewrite Parnaian's meeting with Aruunis, or other things.

On June 1, my family mvoed into a new pat. We still haven't finsihed unpacking or egtting everything out of storage. Also, given that I practcie foreclosure defense and bankruptcy law, my work life has been a little out of control.

Here's the good news: The next part of this chpater has been written and I like it! The bad news, it's still on my home computer, I forgot to put it on the UBS key.

So, um, hang in there with me, okay?

Chapter 9 – Part 2

“Neddiken, quit pacing,” Aruunis snapped. The two elves were alone, save for the druid’s eagle. “I am trying to construct a potion, if you don’t mind.” The druid was hunched over a worktable, eyeing a vial that was slowly ceasing its bubbling.

“I wondered how you were financing this,” the pudgy elf noted as he forced himself to take a seat in a chair covered with bearskins. “Couldn’t figure out why Vadalis was so hospitable. You get a little loft, you see people, you get contacts…”

“Stop yammering,” Aruunis told him. Neddiken stopped yammering.

After a few minutes, the druid was done, and he carefully stoppered the potion that he had created. Anyone drinking it would gain the power to talk to animals, and do so for a longer duration than most nature spellcasters would be capable of.

As always, he felt a bit tired when was done. He own life energy went into keeping the spell locked into the swirling liquid. “Done then.” He stood and stretched before turning to regard his pudgy guest. “Any word from downstairs?”

“That Medani psychopath is in the courtyard,” Neddiken said, checking a scrying mirror. The mirror was a fixture to the room, although the wary Aruunis always kept it draped in a lead-lined blanket when he wasn’t actually using it. “Your instructions about keeping his kinsman away is slowing things down, like you figured.”

“Yes,” Aruunis said. “And I’m glad I did. I don’t want you here when he comes in.” The druid took some gloves from his belt and put them on carefully. The gloves appeared to be leather, but were soft, and a fine stitching covered them, showing the shapes of rearing forest animals. “Of course if you had come when you were supposed to, I wouldn’t have been involved in my potion work, and you’d be gone by now.” He sighed. “Tell me your instructions.”

Neddiken visibly stifled a sigh. “I take the berth in the Brelish ship that you arranged, and head to Wroat. Once there I check in with the herbalist professor that you know, and he’ll set me up with a key to a Kundarak vault that will hold new identity papers for me and some money.”

“Yes, originally intended for me,” Aruunis said. “But I don’t need that particular back up plan anymore.” He narrowed his eyes. “But you forgot something. You didn’t tell me your other instructions.”

“Wherever I stop, I mention the strange warforged with no armor plates,” the pudgy elf said hurriedly. “A warforged that fought in Merylsward and is friends with Pienna. I say that I saw him here, with House Vadalis in Varna.”

“Correct,” Aruunis said.

“Now, um, don’t get me wrong,” Neddiken said. “I’m going to do just what you said, honest. I’m just curious why. You know, so I can do it right.”

“You’re another thread I spin,” Aruunis said. “Leave it at that.”

Neddiken raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “I merely chatter, good druid. I usually trance at this hour, and that plus the early morning cold makes me jittery.”

Aruunis harrumphed, and then checked the scrying mirror. “You’d better go,” he told the other elf, finally handing him the passage papers. “He’s on his way up.”

For an overweight elf, Meddiken moved very fast to avoid being in the same room with Parnain.

Chapter 9 - Part 1

BY OATH EMPOWERED

Varna, in the Eldeen Reaches, the 4th of Vult, 993 Y.K., very early morning, about four hours before dawn

Beads of perspiration formed on the human male’s forehead, despite the late autumn chill in the courtyard. “Only one of you comes in,” the man said. His eyes darted left and right, noting the crossbowmen on the parapets and the pikemen on either side. Most were human, as was he, but more than one was a shifter employee of House Vadalis.

And they cared not for the two demanding entrance.

“Hey, one of your guests wants to see us, captain,” sneered the younger one, a half-elf with bright red hair that peeked out under a steel cap. “We got the word, you let us both in the courtyard, so what’s your problem?”

“I’m the night commander, not a captain,” said the sweating human male. He felt every one of his forty-six year, even as the sweat dripped into a thick gray mustache. “Bu that's okay, my House, unlike yours, doesn’t get so hung up on rank.” His voice hardened. It wasn’t the red-haired pup that made everyone on edge (whether they had shape-changing abilities or not). “But like your House, we in Vadalis take our orders seriously. Especially on night watch. Only one of you enters the building. I assume it’s Parnain.”

His eyes darted to the blonde half-elf with the cold eyes who stood to the right of and in front of the red-haired one. Parnain was everything the legends told of, and more. Since coming to Varna he was rumored to have killed over twenty people.

By Oalian’s root, what were the city fathers thinking allowing this madman free reign? The night commander wondered to himself.

“We didn’t mean to disrupt your watch, night commander,” Parnain spoke. His words shocked. Until that point he’d been letting the other one talk for him. The man’s hands rested on his belt, next to the hilts of his weapons. His tone was without passion, a man reciting formulas of civility by rote. “I understand that those without elven blood get tired.” His eyes suddenly swiveled to the pikeman on the night commander’s left. That man gave a start and took a half-step back. “But, you have to understand that it’s my job to be suspicious when things are out of order. Do you always limit early-morning guests to only one?” He blue eyes stabbed the human with their glare.

“No,” the man answered simply. He’d heard that the half-elf known as Parnain could smell lies. “But we limit people we consider dangerous to the House to only one.”

Parnain made a brief smile, the barest wrinkling of the corners of his mouth. “Well, I am dangerous.” He turned his head to his red-haired accomplice. “Stay here. Don’t kill anyone.”

“Fine,” the younger half-elf sighed.

Parnain stepped forward, as if unaware that there were nearly half a dozen steel-tipped crossbow bolts pointed at him. “Now, you’ve a gatekeeper in there who said he wanted to see me. And I’m running out of changeling spies and saboteurs to kill. So stop wasting my time.”

Anger began to grow in the night commander’s breast. “You watch how you talk to me,” he finally bristled. “I’m not scared of you.”

Parnain leaned in, and the shutters behind his eyes gave way briefly, letting the human see unfettered rage, if only for a moment. “Yes you are,” he said.

A long silence followed as they stared at each other.

“This way,” the night commander said, averting his gaze as he gestured at the men to open the doors.

The night commander led the half-elf into the building, and six armed men waited within to escort them both.

Chapter 8 – Part 19

“We’re bringing in record hauls,” Baruk told Orphan and Delegado. “The temporary vacuum left by the hag’s demise has made finding and gathering easier.”

“So why aren’t we doing that?” Delegado asked. It was maybe two hours after the ceremony, and the druid was guarding Bartemain’s body in a storage chamber. Delegado, Baruk, a young, mustachioed half-orc named Grullik, a gnoll wearing a suit of armor, and a gnome who had barely had time to introduce himself as Nebly, were all in a council room on the top floor of the tallest building. “What the Khyber are we doing here, making tea, is that it?”

Orphan noted that Delegado was in an exceptionally foul mood. The ceremony had made the half-orc angrier, not calmer.

Baruk tossed a disk onto the middle of the table. “Nebly, you first.”

The gnome took the metal and examined it closely, first with his eyes, and then fumbling for a small lens on a stick that magnified the image. “An unusual alloy,” the gnome said. “Some brass, but also some tin, and then something I can’t tell at all. Definitely aged, you can tell from where the acid damaged it. Part of a fight of some kind, a power struggle here in the Wastes.”

“Feh, I figured that out already,” Grullik muttered. It seemed to Orphan that Grullik was acting irritated because Delegado was acting irritated. The younger half-orc seemed to be in awe of the famous bounty hunter.

“It’s an unholy symbol,” the gnome said. “There’s some magic left, not much. This was used to command undead.” Nably slid the disk down the table to Orphan. “Commander Baruk says that this warforged can help with knowledge of magical and religious matters?”

Orphan picked up the disk and studied it. “This is an evil bound by law, rules and axioms,” he said. “I can tell from the patterns on the edge. It’s old. An old cult. Worshipping undeath, not just commanding it.”

“Blood of Vol?” asked Baruk.

“Something older,” Orphan said. “Maybe demons that worshipped undeath?”

“Why would an immortal being care about undead?” asked Grullik.

“They can’t die of old age, but they can die,” Delegado said. “And if their zombies or skeletons or whatever are stronger than the run of the mill stuff, it’s a potent army.”

“Then why they no use it now?” asked the gnoll. Orphan turned, and was surprised to find that the gnoll had come up with a good point. “Why fiends not use corpse of fiends now?”

Nebly tapped his lips with his fingers. “It is believed by some that they consume each other, but perhaps, just perhaps, you see, there are rumors that many fiends worshipped slain ones, expecting them to return.”

“Under the Wastes are many corpses of great fiends slain by the dragons, long ago,” Orphan said. “If the lesser fiends worship them, they wouldn’t like someone animating the bodies as undead.”

“Not really possible, anyway,” Nebly said. “You would need a store of expensive gems to contain the magic, the more powerful undead, the more gems to channel the necromancy…” His voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying.

“So,” boomed the gnoll, tightening the straps on his armor. “We go find the hidden gems now?”

Baruk grinned. “You bored, Del? You wanna sit here until the eastbound ship comes?”

“Orphan, what do you say?” Delegado asked.

“I say bring Foallus,” the warforged said. “And maybe a dozen others. In case they’re any moving corpses out there.”

“Oh, I’d like to come too!” Nebly said. “I have a journal I’m writing, it would make wonderful notations, really.”

Delegado and Grullik snorted at the same time.

Chapter 8 – Part 18

The blessing ceremony was fairly straightforward, and Orphan found that the simplicity was beautiful, and he could tell that the rest of the compound was moved as well.

And it was the rest of the compound. Everyone who wasn’t actually standing guard on the walls came. Orphan had wondered several weeks ago if Delegado had been boasting about his father’s importance to House Tharashk. If anything, the half-orc bounty hunter had understated things.

The druid stated that he would not try to give a complete rendering of Bartemain’s life, that would have to wait for a ceremony in Yrlag. But he did say more than Delegado had ever had the inclination to tell. Not that the half-orc wasn’t proud of his father, far from it, but it hurt Delegado to talk about his father while his body was not ‘returned to nature,’ as the druid put it.

Regardless, what he heard painted an even broader picture of Bartemain. Adventurer, explorer, businessman, husband, father, grandfather, and general pillar of the United House.

And what he didn’t hear said more. No mention of Gatekeeper faith, Sovereigns, or any general druidic following. Orphan had gathered that Bartemain had been skeptical of religion, if not out rightly cynical.

Orphan found himself wondering if the torturers of Ashtakala had reinforced Bartemain’s religious skepticism or had made the man turn to some form of faith in the end.

Near the end of the eulogy the druid mentioned those who had avenged Bartemain. The whole assemblage had turned and bowed their heads in respect to Delegado and Orphan.

A single tear rolled down Delegado’s cheek at that point.

“Who can give affirmation that Bartemain was the best of our House?” asked the druid. He was a half-orc, and he made his voice boom across the compound.

The reply was thunderous, as orc, human, half-orc, and even gnoll, raised their fists in the air and howled with all they could summon in their lungs.

Chapter 8 – Part 17

“You’re a f’testing idiot,” Baruk said as he walked through the hallway to his office. Grullik jumped up from the rickety chair that he’d been sitting in. “Follow me.”

The young half-orc smoothed his long mustaches, adjusted the two battleaxes on his belt, one edged with silver, the other with cold iron, and followed his superior into Baruk’s office. “Commander,” Grullik said, closing the door behind them both as they entered the office. “I didn’t spend your time, I went on my off time, and I – ”

“Oh shut up,” Baruk said, dropping his weary bones into his chair. Grullik stood stiffly until Baruk waved for him to sit. “You’re one of out better trackers,” Baruk said. “Tenacious. You don’t give up. You’ve found some good deposits out in the wastelands.” Baruk paused to glare. “And you’re a seventeen year-old punk with no dragonmark that has no business leaving our compound without security backup.”

“Commander, Dancing Orphan killed the hag, and I’ve been asking you for months to check out the collapsed case that we found,” Grullik said, making his words in a rush. “I figured you’d be cool if I –”

“Oh shut up,” Baruk said. Grullik shut up immediately. “We have narstones and dragonshards to collect, not wild goose chases in collapsed sand pits.”

“Not totally collapsed,” Grullik said, pulling something out of his shirt and setting it carefully on the desk.

Baruk stared down at the worn stone disk. No, not stone, metal, and not a complete disk. It had been damaged, long ago. Its surface was pitted. But the metal had no rust. It felt warm to the touch, as if some magic yet held.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Not sure,” Grullik said. “But it was old, inside of a corpse’s hand. Or at least I think it was a corpse, pretty far gone.”

“Some people say dragons and fiends warred here millennia ago.” He caught Grullik’s befuddled blink. “That means thousands of years.”

“It was really old,” the younger half-orc said. “I think it’s a religious symbol. Maybe when the druid is done with the ceremony, we can ask him.”

Baruk pursed his lips. “Or we can ask Dancing Orphan,” he mused, thinking about what Delegado had said about the headband.

“So I did good?” Grullik asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Baruk told him. “Let’s go to the ceremony first.”

Chapter 8 – Part 16

“Your headband tell you what this is about?” Delegado asked, his huge biceps straining as he shifted the stone bier. Bartemain’s body lay on it, covered by a linen shroud.

“You are trying to align the bier, which is a quadrilateral with right angles, so that the top and center of your father’s head is aligned with the rising son,” Orphan recited. Delegado recognized the sing-song quality of the warforged’s voice when Orphan was repeating whatever data was built into the artifact he wore on his head. He was also impressed with the fact that the warforged was saying it in orc. Orphan spoke nothing else now, as he was hard bent on mastering the language. “This is a druidic ritual that acknowledges light and heat from the sky as the source for true life. It’s general druidic, but with a flavor of Gatekeeper. The ritual will involve placing a representative of the classical elements on each corner, then casting spells designed to purify the body’s remains. This honors your family, as they strive to keep his body natural, and it honors him, as it is believed to be free whatever vestige of trapped spirit that may remain.”

“Right,” Delegado said, finally setting the bier correctly. He sighed and stretched. “And there will be a eulogy, and I will shed one tear.” The half-orc hadn’t realized that he spoke that aloud until he saw the warforged nod.

“I didn’t get that from the headband,” Orphan stated. “I just figured the war orcs are about showing grief, when they actually do it, it’s tightly controlled.”

“Good guess,” Delegado said. He took a water canteen off of his belt clip and took a swig. “You still have that hag’s magic stone?”

“Baruk said that by law of battle it is mine,” Orphan said. “I figured I’d sell it in the Marches, you’d tell me where. Get myself a snake.”

“A ‘stake,’” Delegado corrected him. “Starting money. Yeah, I’ll help you find a good buyer.” He put the canteen back. “The ship with supplies is here, druid will be by after he disembarks, they’ll do the ceremony within an hour or so.”

“The ship will continue on, so it’s not important,” Orphan said. “But the next one is eastbound, right?”

“Yeah,” Delegado said. He was not looking forward to that part. He found his hand straying to his sword hilt.

A stone and wood hand reached out and clapped itself on Delegado’s shoulder. “I’m the only one who disarms anyone,” the warforged said.

Delegado forced a smile, if a hollow one. The cocky idiot machine had never met Tatyanna.

Chapter 8 – Part 15

Baruk frowned, drumming his fingers on the railing of the east wall. The sun was coming up on the 14th day of Zarantyr, and the guards were changing. The full-blooded orcs were heading below to escape the hard light, and the human members of the House were coming up. Gnolls and half-orcs were parts of both shifts.

He liked to be seen at the changing of the guard. He wanted to remind them all that he set the rules here.

It wasn’t that they weren’t disciplined. It wasn’t that they were likely to slack off at what they were supposed to do. It was that if they felt no one was leading them, the stark, creeping terror that was always present would go a little farther and farther until they would bolt.

He could tell them about magical defenses, and strength of arms, but morale was held together by actions, not words.

A gnoll came trotting up a ramp, and then quickly ascended a ladder. “Boss!” it coughed, in a passable orc that was only marred by an ever-present rasp. The throat wound had never healed right, but Beghk didn’t complain, her was lucky to be alive. “The one called Grullik is back.”

“What the Khyber?” growled Baruk, irritated. “Dancing Orphan kills the hag, so now everyone is going out by themselves?” This was a time for more vigilance, not less. The night hag was a known factor. What would replace her was unknown, and in that way, more dangerous.

Beghk gave a shrug while holding his hands out, palm up, curling and uncurling his fingers. Some one had once told the half-orc commander that gnolls did that to show uncertainty, specifically that they did not know which weapon was appropriate. “Grullik like to search, boss, he’s trying to be like Delegado.”

“He’s going to end up dead,” Baruk snorted. “Find him and send him to my office.” The gnoll nodded and ran off.

“Commander,” came a call from the wharf below. “Ship coming!”

“That’ll be the druid and the gnome, and none to soon,” Baruk said to himself. “Got to get a ceremony done, Grullik, what the Keeper are you playing at?”

Baruk turned around and looked over the compound. Delegado and the warforged were directing people into setting up for the memorial ceremony. Whatever the fiends had done to Bartemain’s body – and it was creepy, touching limbs that felt like a sand doll – the druid was here to give a blessing. And a day or two after that there would be a ship heading east, not west, and it would get Tatyanna’s brother the heck out of here.

Baruk had survival to deal with, he didn’t need to be stuck with House politics. The sooner Delegado was gone, the better.

Chapter 8 – Part 14

“And tell me,” hissed the slithering thing. “Tell me exactly, tell me precisely, tell me and tell me why I should do as you say?”

The rakshasa rajah wrinkled his nose, disgusted with the slime that dripped to the cavern floor. “Aside from the fact that I could kill you and cook you until you were edible?” it sneered. Behind him, the three zakya attendants lifted their pikes and licked their fangs in anticipation. “What’s your alternative, staying here and worshipping this tomb?”

The slithering thing uncoiled itself, showing its great length and snapping its many miniscule claws that lined its sides. “Not a tomb. The Great One only sleeps. The fiends will arise.” It drew out the last syllable in a loving way as it rubbed the top of the calcified corpse lovingly. It had been a Balor magician, many millennia ago.

The rajah gritted his teeth. “There was a time the fiends were united, would you cast aside plots worked for so easily?”

The slithering thing turned twice, and focused three red eyes on the tiger-thing. “Your plots have done what? Stirred up lesser races into killing themselves for a few score years? Have you expanded our boundaries?” The fiend’s voice lowered several octaves as it went into a mocking laugh. “You can’t even keep Ashtakala free from intruders.”

“We’ll find those responsible for –”

“Who cares?” boomed the slithering thing. The zakyas readied for an attack, but the slithering thing did not try to breach the rajah’s personal barriers. “You’ll find where the petty races are hiding? Kill a few to get our respect back? Who cares? The larger picture escapes you! You get lost in the little races, and you have become little yourself! The intruders would not have even gotten in without the dragon’s feint!”

The rajah forced himself to regain his composure. “We have no lost sight of the greater issues.”

The slithering thing turned itself upside down in mockery. “Then why are you looking for my subservience? Not three centuries ago you said you didn’t need me.” It leered. “I know what the others have told you. You’re losing this fragile unity. Accept that. We were never meant to be unified.”

The rajah was silent, and then after a long pause he spoke. “Too many think like you, preferring to worship old glories, rather than look ahead. If we don’t keep prodding the little races in their war, they may end it from weariness. And if that happens, the dragons will be far less busy.”

“That you think the dragons care about the little ones shows how out of touch you are,” the slithering thing snorted. “The rakshasa grip slipped long ago. That Ashtakala was violated only proves to us all what we knew. Catch the intruders if you like, if they are indeed still alive. It will have proven nothing except that you act too late.” The slithering thing turned to caress the calcified corpse. “We have nothing further to discuss.”

The rajah considered killing this thing, he could, if he had to. But he might lose one of the zakyas, and he would need every one. Already the rajahs we infighting, no one trusting another since the discovery that one of them had found the place where the coutal’s ghost had been and kept it to himself.

In the past few months, the fragile unity of the fiends had been shattered, thanks to whoever assisted the intruders who escaped on the Crimson Ship. That burned the rajah’s heart. Centuries of planning, ruined!

But what burned more was the knowledge that this lesser one was also correct, in a fashion. Catching the intruders now, if they were indeed alive, would prove nothing. First he had to rebuild his own standing.

And aside from needing all of his zakya, he may one day need this one.

“We will have what to discuss in the future,” the rajah promised. “For now, I leave you.”

He snarled as he teleported away with his retinue, but the slithering thing, if it even noticed, did not care.

Chapter 8 – Part 13

Delegado sat atop of his horse, firing his longbow at the fleeing Carrion Tribesmen who weren’t able to get out of range quickly enough. He’d come on the scene as Orphan was slamming the hag’s head into a boulder that jutted out of the ground. Her infernal strength has made her almost as good of a wrestler as the warforged, and her sharp teeth had done a number on Orphan’s neck and sides almost as fast as he had damaged her, even with that resistance to weapon damage that all the fiends had. Almost, almost, and almost added up to a dead hag and a living, if seriously damaged, warforged.

Foallus using the last bits of his magical strength to repair Orphan during the fight hadn’t hurt either.

“Hey hero, I’m running out of arrows, here,” Delegado chuckled. “You want to hunt some of these guys down?”

“I’m not a hero,” Orphan said quietly. The battered and gouged warforged was helping the survivors and the other Tharashk servants who had arrived on horseback shortly after Delegado clean things up. This generally meant searching the bodies of their slain enemies and putting their corpses in a pile to be burnt. Despite Orphan’s condition, he bore the brunt of this duty for obvious reasons.

“We say you are hero, Dancing Orphan!” called out a beefy half-orc who was using a silvered saw to remove the dead hag’s head.

“Don’t argue with orcs, Orphan, you could lose an arm,” chuckled Delegado. He sent another arrow into the back of a fleeing Carrion Tribesman.

“I couldn’t get here faster, Delegado,” Orphan said.

“No,” Foallus said, hobbling over. Aside from various minor bruises and cuts, the human had lost a couple of teeth, and his left arm was broken in two places. He’d barely been breathing when the druid had showed up and put some magical healing energy into rebuilding Foallus’ lungs and ribcage. “You couldn’t. So stop blaming yourself. You’ve slain our greatest opponent here.” The sorcerer looked at Delegado, then a the warforged. “Word is that Del is going to Yrlag. I’m guessing that you two will want to stay together, but if you’re not, or you swing by again, we could use you here. Good pay.”

“I go where Delegado goes,” Orphan said.

“Figured I’d ask, no offense to either of you,” Foallus said.

“None taken,” Delegado grinned. “Where do you sleep again?” To his credit, the human sorcerer laughed.

The Tharashk people hurried in their task. It would be dark soon, and it was cold enough as it was when the sun was out.

Chapter 8 – Part 12

The Carrion Tribe that followed the hag who had Blood Crescent in her sights was greater in numbers than anyone had suspected. The hag had carefully recruited members of other tribes who were defeated in battle, choosing to keep some of them rather than slaughtering them all.

She was a clever being, really. It had helped her survive all of her sisters’ assassination attempts.

Fifty of the most expendable had been sacrificed just to gauge Blood Crescent’s defenses. She was not pleased that their loss had taught her nothing other than the fact that Tharashk had acquired an incredibly quick warforged. She had plans of getting the Tharashk wealth and weaponry and using it to assimilate a group called the Moon Reavers. Thus strengthened, she would turn to a careful consolidation of power in the southern Wastes.

Only now she had lost an additional three hundred followers in the attack on the Tharask expedition. The human sorcerer had blasted them with magicks that she hadn’t credited to him. He apparently had a significant number of Tharashk scrolls on him that boosted his natural powers.

And a wand that cast spells that shielded the soldiers from the hag’s magic missiles, confound it.

Her forces were down to barely four score, and they had again surrounded the remains of the Tharashk forces. Six men total, including the human sorcerer, whose remaining spells were weak, pitiful things. Six men, desperately using the carcasses of their dead mounts as makeshift walls against her worshippers.

She hung back, waiting to see the last of it rather than participating in the hand-to-hand combat. If not for those disgusting shield spells, she would be firing her bolts of energy – out of boredom if nothing else – but melee combat was for the lesser creatures.

Annoyingly, she was running out of lesser creatures. She’d thrown away the work of a decade, apparently. It had taken her that long to get to nearly five hundred warriors, and now she had less than a fifth of that. Likely her soldiers would finish off these few rabble in minutes, but it hadn’t been worth it. This whole thing would injure the Tharashk outpost, but not fatally. They’d replace the magic-user with another in weeks, and whatever the artifice was that kept her from entering Blood Crescent ethereally would still be functioning.

A waste.

And thanks to this mysterious warforged, a waste that had produced no serious intelligence.

Something about the warforged made her think she should investigate him more. Perhaps even open up channels to the other fiends. There had been some attempt to contact her a few weeks back, but she had ignored it. She’d gone a century without direct contact with the rajahs and their servants, and she could easily go another century more. Their arrogance was disgusting. Everyone with sense knew that the hags were formed from Khyber’s first drops of blood, not the tiger-men who came later.

She watched as a Tharashk soldier fell, finally succumbing to multiple club blows. Her tribesmen began to pour into the space that the half-orc had been slashing at with the greataxe.

And then everything was spoiled.

She screeched with rage as the warforged jumped high in the air, tackling a whole knot of her worshippers. They screamed with rage and fear, and the Tharashk soldiers hooted with relief and delight. The warforged did not stop moving, dodging blows, kicking stone clubs away from her followers’ hands.

“Kill him you idiots!” she cried, first in her infernal tongue, them in their own, primitive language. But they could not. Oh they occasionally struck the warforged, but only with glancing blows, mere scratches. The warforged hit every time his feet and fists flurried around, or so it seemed. Soon the Tharashk soldiers were merely giving the warforged breathing room, rather than fighting for their lives. Soon thereafter her followers began running, declaring that the stone-and-wood thing could not be killed.

She swore she’d make a paste from their livers. While they watched.

“Stand and fight!” she howled, walking forward. She fired one of her magical missiles at the warforged, and she had the satisfaction of seeing it raise a small, smoking pit on the thing’s back.

The warforged turned around, and from over a hundred feet away she could swear she saw glee in its eyes.

“The hag is mine!” the warforged yelled, somersaulting under the legs of her troops. She hit him with another magical missile, raising another insignificant pit on the thing’s leg. She panicked as he grew closer, firing an enfeebling ray that went wide of its target.

She was pulling out her heartstone to flee into etherealness when he knocked it from her hand.