Author: Malaskor
Disclaimer: All characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to Joss
Whedon,
Greyhawk belongs to Wizards of the Coast, the characters Justicar,
Cinders, Escalla, Enid, Polk, Henry and Morag belong to Paul Kidd and
Wizards of the Coast
Summary: Xander starts to patrol alone. Then finds this interesting stone...
Setting: Season 4 after the Initiative was discovered by the Scoobies /
AU Anya left during Graduation Day never to return. Xander has already
his job in construction, but doesn't show any talent for carpentry so
far
Pairings: B/R in the beginning, you won't be bothered with it too long.
B/X in the end (I hope J - this was the plan when I started the story
but currently I don't see how I'm going to do that, so I'll gurantee
frindship for now, maybe more later), W/T mentioned
Rating: PG 13, PG 16 max. Due to some violence and swearing
Feedback: Of course, after all I want to get better.
Author's notes: 'Italics' denotes thoughts; and Underlined denotes telepathic communication - which is a change to previous chapters, but the page and quickedit don't allow it anymore and either don't display my tag or see it as an html-tag. Same goes for my scene seperators - so they too had to be changed...
AN 2: Yay, my muse finally deigned to share a new chapter for this story with me. Hopefully she will continue to do so and won't take so long...
further notes will be added as necessary
Thanks to Tenhawk for bouncing ideas back and forth with me
Part 6
"…. Who are you to deny him his choice?"
At the end of their argument both girls were near tears as they slowly started to see that they were wrong with their tactic and had in fact reached the opposite of their goal of keeping Xander safe. They had driven him right into his current situation.
"Ok, no more excluding Xander from patrols but I'll still have a serious talk with him when we get him back. I mean what was he thinking to go out there alone? Doesn't he know what it would do to me, to us, if he would die?"
"Be that as it may, I have to go now to see an old friend in Los Angeles about a book that might have some more clues about Xander's whereabouts. Please shut the door behind you when you leave."
On the way to his car Giles wondered if the two girls would remember their realization when Xander came back or would they slide back into pattern and try to 'protect' Xander from the life he had chosen.
(A/N: From now on we - read: I - are going to focus on Xander in Greyhawk, for now assume that the season runs close to what you remember, any changes will be explained in flashbacks when appropriate -
unless my muse kicks me with an idea that has to be used at once and not in the future)
Duchy of Ulek, Oerth
The next days were filled with the same routine every day, they would march from shortly after sunrise for about eight hours, and then they would search for a good place to set up camp. While the others would then proceed to prepare the evening meal or something along these lines, Xander would spend his time with Jus training how to handle a mace.Then, shortly after dinner Xander would fall into a deep, exhausted sleep only to be woken two hours before sunrise to take the last watch of the night. Despite of his misgivings about the early rise he was glad not to have the first watch, or even worse one of the watches in the middle of the night where he would have to wake up after a few hours and be alert only to get then back to sleep for a short while until it was time to get up again. No, compared to that he had an excellent guard duty.
When the sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn Xander started to fan the ashes and charred wooden remains of the campfire up again and placed new wood into the fire pit. Now that the fire's glare wouldn't destroy his night vision anymore he could get warmed up and start the first preparations for the breakfast. As the fire grew to full size the birds began to sing their morning songs and slowly the stars winked out as the sky grew brighter.
Soon the others woke up r were woken by those awake and they had a short breakfast of trail bread, dried fruit and porridge with water and cider to drink from. After packing all the gear together the group was ready to leave and moved onwards towards their goal the village of Hommlet. Their way continued to lead them over rolling hills with the occasional island of trees and little creek.
By late afternoon rusty swords and armor parts began to jut from the ground, growing more numerous as they progressed. Soon they could also see bleached bones littering the ground, both humanoid and obviously nonhuman bones could be found mixed haphazardly with each other. As the traces of battle grew in number, the life of the plants diminished, with the grass becoming shorter and sicklier, even to the untrained eye, until only a few patches of brownish grey grass were all that covered part of the ground leaving the rest open to the elements.
"We have to move on quickly. I don't want to be caught here in the dark. This is one of the sites of the War where one of Iuz's troops was destroyed. There is no telling if there aren't any lingering necromantic magics still hanging around," the ranger ordered before quickening his steps without waiting for a reply.
Xander directed a questioning look at Henry and the badger Polk that sat on the cart Enid pulled, looking around for danger. When Henry noticed Xander's ignorance about the potential dangers of the area the young soldier hurried to explain while keeping an eye out for trouble.
"Iuz and his magi used a lot of necromancy to bolster their armies' ranks with the raised dead. That is one of the reasons why the resistance and regular units did cut off the left foot and right hand of their fallen, sometimes even the tongues, so that they wouldn't be of use to the necromancers. But even that wasn't always effective when they used their mightiest spells. When Jus says we have to move quickly he has either spotted traces of some of these spells or he saw complete remains that could rise at any moment. We have to be careful."
"Thanks," Xander replied, "I'll take this side to watch," he continued while walking purposefully alongside the wagon, his gaze sweeping the field to the left of him while Henry took care of the right and Polk looked out of the back of the cart, though in his case his nose was much more important than his eyes.
It was close to dusk when they had passed the last, sporadic traces of the battle. It must have been a steady retreating action by one of the two sides, for the remains of the fight had littered the ground for several miles after leaving the epicenter of the battleground. The losses had been horrific, Xander guessed that he had seen parts of several hundred dead and there was no telling how many were hidden from sight under the earth. No matter who won there, they had paid a steep price.
This time they broke their usual routine, Jus didn't want to make their camp so close to the battlefield so they kept on moving until well after nightfall in the light of a single hooded lantern and the flickering, multicolored globes of light Escalla had conjured when it became too dark to safely see where they were stepping while maintaining their speed.
Finally they reached a place Jus deemed suitable and readied their camp for the night. A fire was lit and the last of their flesh provisions was grilled, well all except Enid's portion of course. Some wild fungi and beans made up the rest of the meal in form of a warm paste that they spread on some simple flat bread Jus made in the fire, abusing a metal shield as the baking tray.
Several miles behind them something reacted to the passage of life force through the area. It woke up and in a barely visible bluish shockwave it traveled through the scarred strip of land.
In its wake all was silent, not even a cricket made a sound. It was as if the world held collectively its breath.
Then, minutes later, a bony hand broke through the ground. And then another, and another. Over there it was the head of a horse that rose out of the ground and there a rusted sword led the way to the air.
An army was waking to ride again.
End Part 6