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.