25th Day of Goodmonth, 565 CY
The Aerie, The Pomarj
Elrohir screamed as loudly as he could as he led the charge.
In part, this was to frighten away as many people as possible, leaving that many fewer people he was going to have to slay in order to secure a boat for himself and his friends.
And in part it was because of all the increasing horrors he had seen and felt that were still pressing down on his soul.
The ranger felt like he had only two options anymore.
Scream, and kill. Or die.
The remaining fishing boat was a small cog, with one mast and a square sail. Even in his state of heightened battle awareness, the sight was discouraging to Elrohir. The boat, maybe twenty five long and ten feet broad, would barely be big enough for all of them.
Assuming they could even get to it.
The noncombatants had turned away, and a cadre of guardsmen twice their number, waiting their turn for a chance to storm the boat, turned and readied their swords as the ranger and his companions plowed into them.
Elrohir let himself go in battle.
The ranger ducked under one sword swing, parried a second and thrust his own weapon nearly up to the hilt in the chest of a third guardsman, all in the space of a few seconds.
He felt only the rush of battle. The only sights he saw were weapons and vulnerable body parts.
The only things he heard that mattered were the sounds of feet moving around on the creaky slats of the pier and the clang of blades meeting each other or a shield.
He heard the screams of the wounded too, but he catalogued them only as to whether or not the people uttering them were still an immediate threat.
These people were keeping him away from the boat.
They were keeping him away from his vengeance.
They'd made the boat now, but the fighting still raged.
Only a half-dozen warriors remained, but they were all Slave Lord officers. They had better armor than Elrohir and his friends. They had good fighting skills, and they had the desperation of dying men.
But they didn't have the rage of their opponents.
Watching one of their own get stabbed in the gut by Aslan and then immediately grabbed by Argo and hurled overboard, one of the men dropped his sword.
"Wait!" he shouted. "Parley!"
For a moment, the battle actually ceased.
"Look, we're all in the same situation!" the officer continued. "We'll all die if we don't work together! We're all in the same boat here!"
He smiled slightly at his own pun and gestured around him for emphasis.
"We're all literally in the same bo-"
The man gasped as the point of a longsword erupted from his chest, covered in bright red blood.
And as the man fell, Elrohir's companions stared at the ranger standing behind his latest victim.
"That's right," he muttered in a low voice. "And that boat's not big enough for all of us."
The remaining four warriors backed off the boat and back onto the pier. They then turned and started running for one of the other docks.
Elrohir didn't acknowledge any of his group.
"Tojo," he gestured to the samurai, who alone seemed unperturbed by what they had just seen, "dump him overboard."
"What-?"
With maddening slowness and the pain of a thousand hangovers, the largest blur in Zantac's vision resolved itself into Cygnus' face.
"Zantac?" he asked. "Are you all right?"
"Please," the Willip wizard mumbled. "Someone cast a silence spell inside my skull."
"Soon enough," the Aardian mage replied while gently lifting Zantac up into a sitting position. "But right now, we need you. The anchor is up, but you're the only one here who knows how to work a sail. We need your nautical know-how to get us out of here."
Zantac groaned and let his forehead rest in his palm for a moment before blearily looking around at his surroundings.
Then he turned back to Cygnus with a frown.
"You mean," he muttered, "none of you can even figure out that you have to untie the boat first?"
Cygnus looked to the stern, and his face turned red.
"Umm," he managed. "We knew that. I just wanted to make sure you were all right first."
The tall mage clambered awkwardly to his feet and headed to the rear.
Zantac watched him go, still trying to shake the cobwebs from his brain.
He turned to see Unru sitting beside him, looking keenly at him.
And then Zantac remembered.
"Beryl!"
Unru grabbed his fellow magic-user by the shoulder.
"Listen, Lord Andrew. Either she's already made her way onto a boat, or she's dead. Either way, there's nothing you can do about it now. Your team leader is a knife's edge away from killing anyone who doesn't do what he wants, so I'd suggest you man the giblets, or whatever it is you have to do to get this hulk moving!"
Zantac stared back at the illusionist.
He didn't want to leave The Aerie.
Not without Beryl.
Not without knowing.
Zantac looked back towards the docks.
The yellow smoke had formed into a wall of opaque vapor now moving into Scumslum. He couldn't even see the walls of Suderham anymore.
But he knew it was time to leave.
He slowly rose to his feet and moved to the stern. Cygnus, having untied the rope that held the boat to the cleat, was moving towards the bow. As he passed Zantac, the taller wizard shoved something into his hands. "Here."
Zantac looked down. In his right hand was a leather spell component pouch.
"Sitdale and I took what we needed from some dead wizards we found."
Zantac turned around. Cygnus had stopped. His friend was facing away from him, but he could see from Cygnus' bowed head and trembling frame that he was grieving.
He looked again at the pouch. Besides an embossed "T" in gold thread was imprinted an arcane symbol for scholar that Zantac knew well.
"Cygnus!" he said suddenly, as the recognition hit him. "Wasn't this Thellent's component pouch?"
Cygnus turned back to look at his fellow mage.
"Yes, Zantac," he said softly. "It was."
He turned around again and walked to the front of the boat.
Zantac closed his eyes again.
Death. It's everywhere. It's come for all of us. Why do we even resist?
"Zantac!"
The magic-user opened his eyes.
Elrohir was standing by the mast, glaring at him.
"Get us moving, Zantac," he snarled.
For a moment, the mage thought of telling the ranger to take a flying leap overboard, but then he just nodded.
"All right, Elrohir. I'm going to man the rudder. You'll be in charge of the sail. Just do what I tell you to, and we'll be fine. Now we're already pointing into the wind as much as we can here, so start by hoisting the sail. Pull down on the halyard."
The ranger looked at the sail and all the connecting lines and then back at Zantac.
"What's a halyard?"
Zantac threw up his hands.
"Lord, this'll never work! How ignorant can you be? You live ten leagues away from the largest lake in the world, Elrohir!" Zantac snapped. "Do me a favor; when we get home, learn some useful skills, will you? There's more to life than swinging a sword or casting spells, damn it!"
Without meaning to, he ended in a shriek, tears flying from his eyes.
A vision of pink eyes flashed by and then faded from sight.
Everyone on the boat was staring at the two of them.
Elrohir looked again at his wife's body, lying against the side of the starboard railing. He then looked back at Zantac, his expression calm.
"Help us get back there, Zantac," Elrohir replied evenly, not taking his eyes off those of the magic-user, "and I promise you I will."
His voice shook.
"I swear by all the Aesir, I'll do anything you want."
Zantac blinked.
He had never, ever, heard Elrohir plead before.
He nodded and drew a deep breath.
"All right, Elrohir. We'll take it from the top…"
Everyone held on as best they could as the small boat headed north out into the lake.
Aslan, sitting beside Zantac, looked back.
The screams were fading with distance.
He saw a final few desperate souls leap off the pier as the yellow smoke poured out over the docks.
Portions of the yellow gas cloud glowed orange from within as the lava flows from east and west converged towards Scumslum.
Rumblings still came from Mount Flamenblut. The volcano that had swallowed the sun, and The Aerie of the Slave Lords; and all those who hadn't been able to escape.
The paladin clamped both hands around the metal band encircling his neck and closed his eyes.
He prayed to Lord Odin.
All-Father, save what Dao Lung would not. Take the worthy souls up into Valhalla.
Aslan received no confirmation.
But then, he hadn't expected to. He knew he wasn't worthy enough.
The screams still echoed in his ears.
They wouldn't stop.
They would never stop.
"Hey."
The paladin opened his eyes. Leaning down over him was the person who annoyed him more than anyone else on Oerth.
Except perhaps now.
"You okay?" Argo Bigfellow Junior asked, sitting down next to him.
No smile. No jokes. No pretensions.
Aslan rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes as he replied.
"I can still hear them, Argo. I can still hear their screams."
He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder.
"Those aren't the screams of the past, Aslan. They're the screams of the present."
The paladin opened his eyes. "What-"
But the big ranger wasn't looking at him. He had stood up and was turning around in a circle, pointing. "Look."
Aslan looked.
People were swimming towards their boat.
At least a dozen people in the cold, turbid water who were near enough were expending the last of their energy to reach them.
"Save us!" they screamed. "Please save us!"
Aslan and Argo looked at each and leaned down to offer their hands.
"NO!"
The two whirled around.
So did everyone else on the boat.
Elrohir was still trembling, but now it was in rage.
"We take on no one!" the ranger yelled. "And that is a direct order!"
There was a stunned silence.
"What are you all gaping at?" Elrohir shouted at his companions. "We can't take all those people on! They'll overload the boat! And even if they don't, we'd never catch up to the Water Dragon laden like that! Do you want the Slave Lords to get away with all our possessions? Do you want them to get away and start this whole operation all over again somewhere else? You know they will!"
He paused only to draw in one breath before screaming.
"Do you want them to get away after all they've done to us?"
Still, no one could speak.
"Tojo!" Elrohir's eyes locked onto the samurai. "They have your swords!"
"Arwald, Thorimund!" he continued. "It's their fault Hengist is dead! They threw us down into those caverns! And they're the ones that killed Wainold, too!"
Everyone looked at each other, and then back at their leader.
Still, no one spoke.
Elrohir looked around at them like they were all mad.
"What's the matter with you people? Don't you understand what the Slave Lords have done? All the sorrows and difficulties we've faced, from that first trip to Highport until now, have all been their fault! The Slave Lords brought this catastrophe down open themselves! Thousands have already died; will saving one dozen make up for letting the source of all this evil escape to flourish again? We can't let them escape! The Slave Lords have to be stopped! The Slave Lords have to be destroyed, once and for all! They-"
"Elrohir!"
Aslan had jumped to his feet with his exclamation.
Argo at his side, the two warriors walked slowly forward until they stood directly in front of their team leader.
He looked at their solemn faces. Elrohir's voice dropped down to its normal volume.
Now, he was pleading once again.
"Aslan, Argo," he said. "We have to catch them. We have to kill them. They killed- they killed…"
The ranger broke off, dipping his head down as he tried to choke off his tears.
Argo and Aslan looked at each other. An unspoken understanding passed between them.
"You tell him," Argo said quietly.
"Elrohir," Aslan placed both his hands on his friend's shoulders, "we have to save these people."
"WHY?" screamed Elrohir. "THE SLAVE LORDS DIDN'T SAVE THEM! WHY SHOULD WE? WHY? WHY?"
Aslan stared into the blue eyes of his friend.
He could see the pain there.
He could see the anger.
But most importantly, he could see the loss.
And Aslan, just for one moment, let go of all his own pain and his anger and his guilt.
And when all that was gone, he remembered why he was a paladin.
Aslan smiled a sad smile.
"Because, Elrohir," the paladin said. "We're not The Slave Lords."
Elrohir stared into the paladin's eyes for a long time.
Then he glanced over to Argo.
His fellow ranger nodded. A thin smile played around his lips.
Elrohir's body seemed to visibly shrink as the rage left it.
He clasped Aslan and Argo by their shoulders. His whisper was so soft, they almost missed it.
"Thank you."
The ranger seemed to grow again, but with determination, not anger.
"Get those people aboard!" he shouted.
"I couldn't catch what you said to Elrohir," Cygnus said to Argo and Aslan as they passed, "but I'm glad it was effective."
"It's just as well that it was," Aslan said, shrugging. "Argo would have disobeyed him anyway, and I'd have been forced to relieve Elrohir of command, and that might have destroyed him."
He looked up at Cygnus and smiled again. "It's always better to make people see the light."
"And that's why prisons are always so dark," added Argo.
Down near the stern on the starboard side, Bigfellow held out his hand to the man swimming up.
Of all the people coming towards them, he was the only one in armor. It was chain and bore the number "9" of a Slave Lord lieutenant. Argo frowned at the blood coating the armor's front, and then realized with a start that this was the officer that had been stabbed by Aslan and then thrown overboard by Argo himself.
"You are desperate, aren't you?" Argo called out.
The man gratefully grabbed the ranger's hand, but then gasped as Argo yanked him hard against the boat's hull.
When he looked up, Argo was holding a dagger to his throat.
"Do you know who you are?" Bigfellow asked him in an unexpectedly conversational tone.
The officer floundered. "I, uhh- my name is-"
Argo slammed him again against the boat.
"Wrong! Your name is Slimebucket, and if I hear you speak or answer to any other name, I will personally cut off your testicles with this dagger and force-feed them to you over an agonizingly long period of time. Understand?"
The man nodded as frantically as he could while keeping his eyes on Argo's blade.
"When you come on board, take off that armor. Anyone here is more worthy than you to wear it. You will take charge of the other refugees and be responsible for their safety. If even one of them dies, so do you. Understand?"
The man nodded wordlessly again.
Argo smiled. "Welcome aboard, Slimebucket."
"Please, save him!"
On the opposite side of the boat from Argo, Aslan reached out as far as he possibly could.
Making his way towards him was a woman of perhaps thirty, trying to hold onto a young boy, maybe four years old. The child was screaming and thrashing, and the woman, though obviously a strong swimmer to have made it this far, was about to give up.
If I only had my Talent!
With a growl, Aslan threw that thought aside. Glancing about for inspiration, he spotted a small harpoon lying on deck.
The paladin snatched it up and thrust the shaft end out.
"Have him grab on!" he yelled to the woman.
The woman nodded and held her son forward while trying to tread water with her legs. "Grab the spear! Go on, grab it!"
"Mama!" the boy squealed. "I don't wanna leave you!"
"You won't!" she yelled back! "I'll be right behind you! Please, honey- I can't hang on any longer- grab it! Just grab it!"
Aslan practically had to poke the boy in his stomach, but the child finally latched on.
With all his strength, Aslan lifted the harpoon up and over and set it down on deck. The paladin tried to pull the weapon free, but the boy was holding on too tightly, ignoring everyone's efforts to get him to relinquish it.
Aslan turned back towards the woman and held out his hand.
She was almost there.
Almost.
Almost.
He had her!
"My child!"
"He's safe! We have him!" Aslan told her. "Hang on! I'll pull you up!"
The paladin braced against the side and began to pull the woman aboard.
It was then that he noticed the waterlogged corpse right beneath the woman.
Then the corpse grabbed her foot.
The woman started to scream, and then her body went rigid. Even her cry of terror was cut off; her expression frozen in sheer horror.
Lacedon!
Aslan looked around.
"Someone, help!"
But there was no help to be found. Everyone else was currently involved with helping someone aboard, and the boat was now pitching violently from side to side as well as sinking lower and lower into the water. It was all Zantac and Elrohir could do to keep it upright.
Aslan gritted his teeth and pulled again.
"I won't let it get you!" he told the woman.
Only her eyes could respond.
Aslan heaved and heaved.
Slowly, more and more of the woman came out of the water.
Aslan leaned over the side as he adjusted his grip. Since the woman could not assist him, he grabbed her under one shoulder and pulled.
"Begone!" he shouted at the undead thing below the waves. "I cast you away!"
Useless. I have no divine focus.
"Let… her… go!" he yelled.
Aslan grabbed the woman under her other shoulder. He had better footing now.
"You lose!" the paladin shouted down at his enemy-
-just as he saw the second ghoul emerge from underneath.
It grabbed the woman's other foot.
Sir Menn had just helped the teenaged boy onto deck when he turned towards Aslan, whom he had heard yell for help earlier.
But all he saw was the paladin, sitting on his butt on the deck.
Staring in horror at his empty hands.
The crowded fishing boat slowly made its way across the lake.
Behind it, Suderham died.
There was crying and weeping from the eleven people who had been saved. Slimebucket had done his best to keep them organized and out of the way of the others.
One of them had enough sailing knowledge to relieve Elrohir.
The ranger walked up to join Tojo and Cygnus at the bow.
"Take a look at that, Elrohir," Cygnus said as he approached. "Tell me what you make of it."
Elrohir looked. The Water Dragon was about three quarters away across the lake. That surprised him. He would have thought it would have reached dock a while ago.
"The ship stopped moving some time ago; I think about when we started picking up survivors," the mage informed him. "I almost think it started to drift."
"Heard sounds," Tojo grunted. "Too far away to be sure, but seemed rike sounds of fighting."
Elrohir stared at his two friends.
"You think there was a battle onboard?"
Cygnus turned and looked his team leader dead in the eye.
"There but for the grace of the gods go ourselves."
Elrohir gazed back at Cygnus, and then soberly nodded, clasping the wizard's shoulder as he done earlier with Aslan and Argo.
"Grace, and as Perlial would say, the power of love." The ranger said, smiling.
Cygnus smiled back.
"Ship underway again now," growled Tojo. "Wirr still reach far side before we do."
"But only by a few minutes, I think," Elrohir responded, trying to gauge their respective distances and speed. "We may still be able to catch them and engage in battle before they can escape into those forested hills. We know at least two of The Nine are dead. Hopefully, a few more have perished now, as well."
"We still don't have a chance against them, Elrohir," Cygnus said. "You know that."
Elrohir was about to reply when Tojo unexpectedly spoke up.
"Honor wirr see us through."
Yanigasawa Tojo stood still as a statue. The samurai's violet eyes never left their quarry for a moment.
"What the-"
Nesco Cynewine, standing at the stern near Zantac, turned to her left.
Sitdale was looking back south. Despite the twilight conditions, he appeared to be squinting.
"What is it?" Nesco asked, as she looked to their rear herself. Only the impenetrable wall of gas and smoke was visible as it slowly expanded over the lake.
The half-elf frowned. He did not turn his head as he replied.
"For a moment, I saw what looked like a puff of white smoke emerge out of that yellow smoke. It looked like it was coming this way." He shook his head. "But then it was gone."
Nesco thought. "A burst of steam, perhaps? From a lava flow hitting the water?"
Sitdale sighed. "Maybe."
They both were quiet as they gazed out together over the darkening lake.
At some point, Lady Cynewine became aware that her hands had clenched into fists.
"As soon as we land, we move as fast as we can towards the Water Dragon, if they haven't disembarked." Elrohir was giving orders now. "Sir Murtano, you and Slimebucket get the others together and start herding them north. According to Slimebucket, there's an outpost a few days away. Give him back his armor once its feasible. He says the orcs in the hills won't attack the Slave Lord's minions. As for us, once we can recoup and make camp, we'll see if we can't find some way of removing Aslan's collar."
"There's one part of that I don't understand, Elrohir," Sir Menn commented.
The ranger frowned. "What part?"
"The part about slaying the enemy!" the knight exclaimed. "Five of them defeated fourteen of us while we were near full strength, and now they have all our weapons and armor! How are we supposed to defeat them? With these?" he asked rhetorically, waving his stolen longsword around. "We'll be obliterated! It makes far more sense to hide out until we can free Aslan from that thing and then teleport back to Chendl! From there, we can return when we're ready, with as large a force as we need!"
Elrohir looked behind Sir Menn. Arwald, Thorimund and Sir Murtano were nodding their agreement.
The group leader then eyed Unru and Sitdale. "Comments, gentleman?"
Sitdale shrugged, but the illusionist pursed his lips.
"I've always sort of preferred living to dying, Elrohir. I'm funny that way."
The ranger paused. "I see," he said slowly and then turned to his friends.
Tojo stepped forward immediately.
"I cannot reave, Errohir-sama. I retrieve my daisho now or die."
"And I'm staying with him."
Elrohir, Aslan, Argo, Cygnus and Zantac turned to gape at Lady Nesco Cynewine.
She stepped forward; his eyes fixed on Elrohir.
"I made him a promise."
There was a long silence.
"Well, that's it then," Argo Bigfellow said, rising to his feet from where he'd been sitting.
"We stay and fight."
Tojo frowned, however. "You not need to do this, Argo-sama."
"You're right, Tojo," Bigfellow replied, nodding sagely. "We don't."
The big ranger shook his head and favored the samurai with his pained smile.
"And just when are you going to learn the difference, my friend, between what we have to do, and what we want to do?"
Argo looked around. He saw the agreement in the eyes of all his friends.
Now it was Sir Menn's turn to smile.
"Ah, well," the knight proclaimed as he looked over at his two companions. "I do believe I said something to Mordrammo earlier about doing what was right, and how it often wasn't feasible."
"And Hengist," Arwald added, looking over at Thorimund for confirmation. "He said it was sometimes damn near impossible."
"But we do it anyway," Elrohir finished with a smile of his own.
Sir Murtano stepped forward and raised his blade high.
"To the death of our enemies!" he cried out.
"All right then, Elrohir," Unru said as he walked over to their leader. "You're the miracle worker, they say. How in the name of all that's holy are we going to take on and defeat the Slave Lords?"
Elrohir smiled confidently as he turned and watched the Water Dragon make ready for docking.
"I have no goddamned idea."