After Saheila had vanished beyond the log bridge Ifan looked to Sebille. She was looking out across the ocean, her grey eyes clear.
"Let's go, Fane and Lohse seemed to be holding their own but a battle can flip in an instant."
Saying this, he touched her hand lightly and returned along the corridor which led to the deck. Sebille followed, pulling her daggers out. They turned left as the corridor opened onto the square in the centre and moved steadily, Ifan taking the lead and holding up a clenched fist as they came to an open doorway.
Inside, a deadly-looking dwarf woman took practice swings of a blood-smattered axe, bringing it down again and again, the air whooshing around it from the force of the velocity.
Sebille stiffened, recognising the weapon as elven, and pulled her arm back to hurl a dagger into the dwarf woman's spine when her back was turned. Ifan caught her hand with a look of warning.
He looked back through the doorway and waited with bated breath until her back was to them again, then grabbed Sebille by the hand and hauled her past the open doorway. Beyond, the thick smoke that they could see earlier had morphed into clouds which rained down thick red torrents across the bridge and the ground nearby.
Sebille stopped short to stare in wonder as the clouds exsanguinated over the battlefield. Ifan had already moved too far beyond her to turn back by the time he noticed her absence at his side. He hastily retreated to the top-most sentry tower, near to where he'd seen Firewater fall from. The platform was no longer aflame, but remained enveloped in smoke, its' supports lightly charred from the conflagration.
Ifan's lungs protested as they sucked in the first few breaths, but Ifan wasn't the type to be overcome with fumes. The visibility was terrible, but the thought he could make out a couple of slumped bodies roughly where the Wolves' positions had been when he'd crossed the bridge. He couldn't see any of them now, but the blood rain still fell from the sky, feeling as if tiny knives were trying to find their way through his skin. Cursing, he clambered clumsily down the ladder, out from the smoke cloud. There, wreathed in fire and clouds of poison on the closest edge of the bridge, stood a cowled figure.
'Fane!'
Ifan couldn't believe that he was happy to see the irascible Eternal, but it had been a strange sort of day. He looked rather the worse for wear but was still bearing up, raising his staff, which emitted globs of magical poison towards the square. Ifan's gaze followed the trajectory of his teammates' projectile.
It landed amidst some barrels, from which a pained scream then erupted.
'Gotcha,' he thought, taking an oil-tipped bolt to load into his bow, struggling to balance it as he went to his pocket for his flint, striking it twice before, on the third try, it lit. He took aim, more carefully this time, the arrow finding its' mark amongst the barrels as the poison ignited, causing a massive explosion to boom throughout the sawmill.
Ifan felt the struts beneath the platform begin to crumble; half-charred, already weakened by the earlier flames, the vibrations from the explosion caused the platform upon which he stood to sway dangerously.
He made for the ladder, but as he did so the whole structure keeled sideways as one of the supports gave way entirely. Pulled downwards in an arc that seemed to take an age, Ifan waited until the last moment before he jumped clear of the impact. Shrapnel and woodchips rained down around him, but he escaped being buried by the collapsing wooden beams. He coughed as the dust settled, the sky above brightening from sore, bruised purple to an azure blue as the rain ceased abruptly. Shakily looking around, Ifan heard only silence as he surveyed the wreckage of corpses, blood and debris.
Fane, picking his way over, raised a hand towards him.
"That was the last. What you were thinking...regardless, it's done." The Eternal took a strange device from his robes. It had five serrated adjustable blades fastened around a circle of metal, which was the approximate circumference of a human face. Ifan blanched and quickly turned to leave him to it.
Sebille rushed up to them and asked anxiously, "Where is Lohse?"
They all searched for the familiar flicker of ginger hair as the smoke cleared, but saw nothing; they called her, but received no response.
Ifan turned to Fane, concerned, "Where did you last have eyes on her?"
Fane shrugged nonchalantly, "She was ahead of me as I recall, but as to how far..." The direction of his cowl jerked towards the rubble of the fallen sentry-tower.
Sebille hurled herself at the pile first, slinging hunks of wood aside, calling out Lohse's name every now and then. Ifan quickly joined her, helping her to heave logs out of the way. Afrit appeared, whining, and began to dig around an area several feet away. Ifan moved to the spot the wolf indicated and began to wrestle aside the mess of wood and rope, Sebille rapidly coming around the other side of the wolf to aid them. Fane was nowhere to be seen. Just then, Ifan pulled aside a large section of broken flooring to reveal Lohse's crumpled form curled beneath, eyes closed.
She was bloodied but not crushed. He bent down to ascertain that she was breathing, then hauled her onto his burly shoulder and slowly climbed out from the wreckage, carrying her a few feet away before he carefully laid out her still, limp form. He felt Sebille at his side; turning to her, he asked her with urgency,
"Do you have any healing elixirs on you?" She shook her head, eyes wide with worry.
"O.K, hang on." Ifan closed his eyes and summoned power to his hands, rubbing them together for a few seconds before placing them on Lohse's abdomen and exhaling. Her body twitched, and then she stretched, eyelids fluttering, not regaining consciousness. Some of the faded colour in her lips and cheeks returned as the spell refreshed her, knitting bone and artery as her condition stabilized.
"Will she recover?" Sebille exhibited more anguish over Lohse's state than Ifan had expected. Her voice was choked and feline eyes seemed glassy with unspilt tears. He felt the way she looked.
As he gently patted Lohse's cheek her blue eyes flickered open to meet his; she frowned and tried to move, then winced in pain. His body flooded with relief and he resisted the urge to sweep her into a bear hug. Those bones needed more rest.
"Fane!" He barked over to wherever the avaricious old skeleton had got to. "Help us over here, or may the Void take you -!"
Fane had reappeared at Ifan's shoulder, spooking him. The Eternal held Honeyhook's freshly carved-off face, which looked eerily like a malformed sock puppet.
"No need for that language," he chided, and pulled from the voluminous sleeve of his robe a small red vial of healing elixir. He handed it wordlessly to Ifan, who tipped to bottle to the fallen bards' lips. Lohse's pallor brightened substantially, and she went to stand, swaying a little as she did so. Ifan slung her arm across his shoulder, next beginning to guide her through the bloody scene in the courtyard to the barracks beyond. Sebille took her other arm, and together she and Ifan pulled Lohse into one of the bedrolls as the latter futilely protested, "I'm fine, really! Oh, put me down."
Her eyes turned a shining black as her head jerked to the corpses and she rasped gutterally, "I can see them."
