Chapter 2: Turned Coats
"You have to admit, those kids don't do anything in half measures. The big one ripped a Taclak warrior in half with his bare hands - and the blue one literally, LITERALLY, outran the wind. I didn't know either of those was possible. They'll be great, if they can ever stop being idiots."
The assault on Greilyn...could have gone better, if I'm going to be completely honest. The Morden hit hard, the mercenary squads working well with the heavy infantry and cavalry to clear a landing zone. Once the dragons began dropping off their transports, the Morden established a foothold, fortifying the beach and expanding the operations zone. Primary resistance was from a type of creature called Bracken, essentially humanoid forms of wood and magic. Alone, they weren't much threat, but as a whole, they were dangerous as hell. I saw a number of Mercenaries and Morden alike brought down by sheer numbers, swarmed and ripped apart by their clawed hands. Reinforcing them were the Protectors, a type of wooden construct the Dryads favored. Mostly, they seemed to be shaped like over-sized stumps, with four larger roots grown into legs, save for the ominous hole where a head would be expected - a hole that, it turned out, fired bolts of bitterly cold magic, ice shards that exploded on impact. These caught several of the Morden-Graal fire mages by surprise, turning them to frozen sculptures before they could gather their magic up. However, both Bracken and Protectors were vulnerable to fire, which the Morden had in abundance.
We advanced through the trenches, dug by hand and reinforced with wooden planks, usually keeping us safe from the arrows of the still-distant Dryad archers. As we passed a Morden Medical outpost, my curiosity got the best of me. I approached a wounded Morden, asking him if I could do anything to help. "Yes," he responded, "DIE and leave me a pint of your blood!" I shook my head, returning to my squad - only to see a familiar face, up on the ridge of the next trench over. "Amren?!" He simply smiled at me, loosing an arrow off that killed a Morden not two feet away, and turned to vanish over the ridge, returning to his duties. Drevin and I shared a worried look. If Amren was working with the Dryads, there had to be a reason - as well as a reason that he hadn't simply killed us when he had the chance. Unable to work out anything further, we pressed on, eager to finish the job.
Deeper into the island, we began to encounter the dreaded Ketril, ten-foot-tall lizard-like beasts with layers of thick muscle and heavy bone protecting them from most harm. Drevin was nearly killed by one as it ambushed us, but I was able to match the creature's strength and tear its limbs off. Emboldened by my power, our squad pushed on, taking the Ketril with combined firepower each time: Arrows in its face, Drevin and another elf cutting its hamstrings, and a burst of ice to cripple it, followed by me delivering the killing blow: a two-handed chop across its neck, cleanly severing the head. We did this enough to get comfortable with the routine, before we finally made it to the temple we were after. Some kind of ancient Agallan relic lay here, undisturbed for centuries, waiting for the right time to be recovered. As we neared the Temple, Drevin called for a momentary break, five minutes, and took me aside. Something in his eyes told me it was important, and I did not argue.
"Brother, I know you don't like hearing about my visions, but this is important," he began. A wonderful start. But I stifled a groan, if only to resist offending him. "I don't know what's going to happen at the temple, but I want you to wear my medallion. I...feel that the time has come to pass it to you." I was dumbfounded. Drevin's medallion was priceless to him, a family heirloom passed down more than a hundred generations. I started to ask him why, but he just shook his head, smiling sadly. "I'll explain later, if all goes well. And if it doesn't, please, look after my family. Our family. Alright?" I took the medallion, and assured him that, of course, I would. Not that it seemed to matter. We were so close to success, I couldn't imagine anything going wrong. To placate him, I agreed, firmly taking his hand in a reassuring grip. "We'll be alright," I told him.
When we returned to our squad, they were finishing their preparations for the final assault: An Alpha Ketril stood between us and the Temple, and would be far stronger, and more vicious, than its lesser brethren. Even with its might, however, it could not stop the combined might of Aman'lu's greatest warriors, and I took one of its foot-long fangs as a trophy. Drevin never understood why I did that, but trophy-taking is deeply ingrained in the psyche of every Half-Giant. Perhaps some have learned to control that instinct, but I never did. I never saw the point. Why shouldn't I be proud of my victories? There were fangs to go around, if anybody else in the squad wanted one, but none of them seemed so inclined. I shrugged. Not my business. And I accompanied them to the Temple doors, arriving just in time to see the Rustguards awaken.
Fifteen feet tall, human in shape apart from the four arms, and each hand carrying a sword as large as Drevin, the Rustguards were an impressive sight. Swinging their blades in efficient arcs, they began to chew through the forces assembled against them. Though only four in number, they proved a match for the hundreds of troops gathered - until the Nature Mages stepped in. Morden-Graal skilled in the use of ice, the way their counterparts had perfected fire, they froze the Rustguards solid, every joint filling with ice, every hollow pocket within the ancient constructs abruptly crystallizing. It was at this moment that I noticed just how old the sentries were: Moss had spread over their bodies, tarnished metal poking through here and there, their blades chipped and flaked with age. But that didn't stop me. I hurled myself forwards, throwing my weight against the chest of a frozen Rustguard, and felt it shatter on the impact, bringing it down with a surge of triumphant pride. The others followed suit, shattering our foes to pieces, and we went into the Temple, leaving the exhausted Ice Graal mages outside. Their jobs done, they had earned their rest.
The sight of the Temple made my heart soar for a jubilant moment. The architecture was Pre-Azunite, to be sure, showing the telltale signs of construction by the Agallan Giants - my people, some part of me whispered, despite my knowledge that they would never accept me as one of theirs. And at the alter sat a gorgeous object - a flat, smooth tablet of stone, bearing the Azunite sigil of the Tree of Life, a powerful icon in their mythos. I wondered why the Dryads would have such a thing - until I noticed the Rustguards, unfolding themselves from the walls, awakening to fight the intruders as their home was threatened. More than a dozen of them, and us without our Ice Graal. It was going to be a slaughter - until the floor shook, an inhuman bellow shaking the walls, and a mighty form dropping through the ceiling. Standing a few feet taller than even me, the Prince was hard to recognize. I had heard that he was human, but no human in the world was twelve feet tall, and built more solidly than four stone outhouses bolted together. The sword in his hand sent shivers down my spine - a greatsword, similar to my own, save for the gleaming red eyes embedded along its length, spreading an organic-looking coating along the metal, so that the weapon almost seemed to be alive. With a bellow, the Prince charged the Rustguards, destroying them each with a single powerful swing. I stood in awe, barely able to comprehend the power that he carried so brazenly, so casually, demolishing the animated statues that had just as easily decimated our numbers.
As the rubble settled, we approached him, Drevin speaking for our squad as a whole. "Well, Valdis, the temple is yours. When can we expect our pay?" I realized something was wrong, a moment before the others, and began to curl defensively, lifting a heavy shield I'd taken from a Morden Lancer earlier, and barking out a warning. But Drevin had seen it too. The bloodthirsty glint in Valdis' eyes - nearly identical to those in his sword - spoke volumes. His sword swept up in a backhand, and for a moment, all I could see was Drevin, outlined by golden fire, shield raised to defend, his father's hammer in his hand, raised to return the blow. But everything went red, and then black, a splitting pain in my skull mercifully subsiding as I lost consciousness.
I didn't know it then, but Valdis didn't care about the Temple. I learned later that he'd taken the tablet - the Aegis of Life - and ordered the Temple burned, his Morden destroying a large stretch of the Greilyn Jungle where the Dryads lived in petty revenge for their resistance - not that I ever saw a single Dryad up close, all through the battle. Their style was to shoot arrows from afar, letting their pawns and creatures fight on the front lines for them. After the battle, they kept to their city of Eirulan, somewhere in the jungle, hidden from the Morden. Their scouts captured many mercenary forces in the aftermath, abandoned or outright attacked by their Morden 'allies'. Nearly two hundred of us were rounded up - including me, my unconscious form taken from the pile of wreckage left in Valdis' wake.
I awoke in a cell, stripped of my belongings and gear. My Dryad captors had thoughtfully provided a set of clothing for me - too small to wear, however, leaving me nude in a wooden cage. Outside my cage were a pair of Dryads, speaking in undertones to one another, though they were still close enough for me to hear them. "I'm just saying, what could be the harm?" "Come on, Deru, the Warden said he's dangerous! You heard about what he did to those Ketril!" "HAH! That's ridiculous, Taar! Nobody can tear a Ketril apart! Besides, doesn't the danger just make it more fun? I bet I could get a ride or two in before he even wakes up. Wanna join me?" Deciding that enough was enough, I rolled to my feet, grabbing the bars closest to them and letting out a bellow of rage. To my satisfaction, the pair of them backed away in terror - though once they had taken several steps back, their gaze fell from my angry face. Right. I'd forgotten I was still naked. Luckily, the guards of the Dryad prison were closing in, accompanied by the Warden herself. As she approached, another captured mercenary - evidently put to work to repair some minor damages - lunged at her, hammer held aloft to crack her skull open.
He made it four steps before he simply fell, clutching at his throat, where a fierce red line of energy seemed to have wrapped around his throat - killing him, sadly, and much to the Warden's disgust. "Pathetic creature. Were it up to me, we'd simply execute you all and be done with it. However, Amren the elf has spoken highly of you, and it is on his recommendation that I am giving you the chance to earn your freedom. Do you understand?" As I nodded my agreement, the Warden turned to the two who had been speaking about me, a glare on her face that could curdle milk. "YOU TWO! Get out of my damn prison, if you know what's good for you!" Shocked out of their daydreams, the two took off, giggling to themselves all the way. The Warden looked me over, her disgust obvious on her face. "Put some clothes on, you fool, you're embarrassing yourself." I replied that I was quite comfortable, actually, but I had no desire to make anybody uncomfortable. I tore apart the offered leather chestplate and greaves, fashioning them into a sort of kilt, a tasteful covering to hold until I could find something better to wear.
The Warden's expression suggested that I'd just made an enemy for life with my desecration of the armor, but another thought quickly overwhelmed that. "Where's Drevin? He's an elf, blue hair, probably inured." I may have spoken a touch too loudly, as the Warden took a step back, but she answered as coldly as before. "We pulled you from beneath the corpse of a blue-haired elf at the temple. There were no other survivors from that group - just a mess of bodies and blood profaning what was left of our Temple." I sat heavily, my mind reeling. Drevin couldn't be dead! Weren't elves supposed to be able to predict their own deaths? Why hadn't he - the amulet. My hands shot to my neck, feeling only the same restrictive, thin metal collar the dead prisoner had been wearing - which had, of course, killed him. "Where is my medallion?" The words came out lower and harsher than I had intended, causing some of the guards to turn their weapons towards me.
The Warden shook her head, a look of grudging acceptance in her eyes. "If you prove yourself useful and loyal, your equipment will be returned to you, and your collar removed. You will run errands and perform menial work until we are satisfied that your crimes have been repaid. Or, you can sit in that cell and rot. Preference?" I took several minutes to decide this matter - time mostly spent sizing up the Dryads, their defenses, the Warden herself, and my odds of killing her before the collar could kill me. Eventually, however, the numbers became perfectly clear. I was given a basket of sharpening stones, and sent off to a nearby Dryad outpost, without any gear beyond the simple leather-and-vines kilt I had fashioned for myself. Near the gate stood a pair of figures, bickering and arguing over something irrelevant. One of them, a Dryad, had a bow slung across her back, and a surly demeanor. The other one, however, nearly stopped my breath.
I don't know why Half-Giants are almost always male. It has something to do with the magic, the curse, that created our race in the first place. A group of Agallan Giants branched off from the main tribe, a cadre of proud warriors who refused to retreat from the world. The Agallan king, in his wrath, cursed them as outcasts, marking their flesh and diminishing their stature, until they were shameful wretches, larger than the still-young Humans, but woefully meager compared to their Agallan origins. They wandered the land, and as there were no females of their tribe, interbred with other species. The male children were far more likely to be a Half-Giant like their father, but the females would invariably be their mother's race. Once every few years, a female Half-Giant was born, but the curse ran in her blood as well, tattooing her skin in the same runes as the rest of us - but also leaving her barren, unable to bear children. It seemed needlessly cruel to me, but perhaps I was biased on the matter.
She turned to me and offered a slight nod, which I returned, a wary caution in each of us as we sized one another up. Her skin was the same rich blue color as mine, though her frame less muscled than my own. She wore a flowing robe of rich silks, studded here and there with magical gems, and the staff in her hand was larger than her Dryad friend. Originally a fishing harpoon, tipped with a massive shark's tooth, the blackened wood practically hummed with power, and I recognized it as a mage's staff. Likely a Combat Mage, if the occasional sparks arcing across the tooth were any indication. I wondered how I must have looked to her: Wearing a kilt and a collar, without any weapons or armor, I must have been quite a sight. But she offered her hand to me, offering her name as she did. "Lethe." I responded in kind, trading my name for hers and shaking her hand.
"Heading out to the outpost, are you? Gets a little rough out there. I bet twenty gold he doesn't make it, Sparky." That was the Dryad speaking, haughtily looking me over and - WAIT! it was one of the two who had been standing outside my cage! I suppressed the rage bobbling up, and instead gave her a frosty reply: "Come with me, Twig, and watch me yourself. I'll take that bet, and happily prove you wrong." Lethe's eyes gleamed at that, and she and the Dryad stepped aside to discuss the matter. I waited, of course - I didn't have any serious schedule to keep anyways. When they returned, they bore identical unsettling grins. "Tell ya what," the insufferable plant-woman started. "You call me Deru, not Twig, and I'll watch your back - in exchange for a cut of whatever loot you pull down. Gold, trinkets, whatever. Sparky comes with us, to make sure you don't do anything stupid."
I looked to Lethe, for some sort of confirmation, but found only glittering amusement in her eyes. Giving them both a magnanimous shrug, I turned towards the gate. "Fair enough," I drawled, trying to seem nonchalant about the matter. "Rules for travelling with me: Keep up or get left behind. Make your own sleeping arrangements. Five-minute breaks every hour. And I'm calling dibs on the first pair of pants we find that fit me." Without waiting to see if they were following, I strolled off towards the forest. The footsteps behind me suggested that I'd picked up a couple of followers. Things could be worse, I supposed - though of course, they were about to be. If only I'd known, then, what hells awaited me, perhaps I would have stayed reasonably safe in my cell.