The Company of the Black Moon
The Dark Fellowship
Chapter Three
Several nights before…
As the clouds drifted past the light of the quarter moon shone down on the inn known as the Lonely Heart. Too ritzy for peasants and most transients, the lodgings served as a place where nobles (and over the years an occasional monarch, or so the rumours say) of the land could conduct dalliances away from prying eyes. This particular evening Duke Cavorc, a rotund and blustering buffoon oblivious to his girth and lack of charm enjoyed the attention of a raven-haired woman who had recently caught his wandering eye.
Clutching the bottle of fine wine in both hands, the uncouth aristocrat bit down on its cork and with a twist of his neck wrenched it out, unintentionally splashing his guest who forced a smile and pretended not to notice. A slender woman, her pale complexion contrasted well with her black tresses. With a hand she shifted a lock of that hair to conceal the small scar above her brow; it and several others across her toned arms were all that marred her otherwise perfect form.
"You'll find this the finest in all the kingdom," Cavorc bragged as he filled two goblets, spilling as much of it on the floor as into the glasses, "But I believe you asked about something else, um…"
"Ellis," the woman reminded him of her name, "I had asked about some humanoids they say the king had addressed…"
Upon leaving the underground vault where for some time she had hidden, Ellis the Oathbreaker sought clues to the fate of the shape shifting Garadon and, she suspected at the time, at least one dark elf. After months of false leads and wild goose chases she made her way to the desert city Balaiassi; the walls of its buildings decorated with wanted posters showing a man's face that she'd often seen Gradon wear (though never longer than a moment) alongside that of a drow spellcaster and a bugbear. The nature of their crime was vague but allegedly it had nearly condemned Balaiassi's citizens to die of thirst.
From there the trail led her to a caravan of human nomads, according to which they had acquired another companion in the form of a six-foot bipedal insect. Those nomads directed her back to the north; in the hope of learning more she suffered the company of this arrogant lummox.
"Ah, yes. The brutes had walled themselves up in 'Stoneruin'- the nickname of a keep that was built to garrison some iron mines," Cavorc passed his lady guest a goblet, "Once all the iron was dug out of those hills the place was deserted; when word reached Alsadar four humanoids like you described had killed off the monsters squatting there he went over with a host of knights and archers."
"To recapture the keep," Ellis assumed.
"You'd think so," Corvac belched, "Instead he hired them of all things- to deal with a few troublemaking sellswords that at some point turned into werewolves. Frankly, I hope they both wipe each other off the face of the world."
Downing the rest of his glass Cormac turned to put it back on the nightstand; with his back to her Ellis took a silken cloth in both hands, with which she wrapped around the noble's flabby neck and tightened. Shortly after he gasped his last she heaved his corpse onto the bed and covered him with the blanket. That done she prepared to leave. Repellent as Corvac was he had served a purpose; knowing Garadon and company hunted werewolves should narrow down their whereabouts some, and even if it didn't she could always seek out this place called Stoneruin.
As she slipped away from the inn and made her way back to the dead tree trunk whose hollow she had stashed her sword and armour it occurred to Ellis- all this time she had been trying to track the doppelganger down, she hadn't stopped to think what she would do once she finally found it…
The present day…
Path-Chak watched from within the boughs of the tree he hid, save for slowly turning his head to indifferent directions his camouflaged form kept as still as the smaller mantids his people resembled.
He almost missed them at first- though he were careful and kept beneath the bush someone was definitely approaching the cabin. Trying not to panic or make himself too obvious the thri-kreen made out an additional four figures creeping toward the structure- and all five of them seemed able to elude the traps Garadon said were all around it.
They had to be the Company of the Black Moon. Path-Chak debated using his telepathy to shout out an alarm but as by now they had closed well within sixty feet of the cabin Garadon likely sensed them already. What his allies needed was a way out- then it occurred to him though the enemy surrounded the cabin they had passed the tree in which he hid by- if he was quiet and careful enough he might be able to be the knife in their back…
Inside the cabin Path-Chak's comrades tensed. Using the sign language Shoutanei taught them all Garadon said he sensed five strangers around the cabin- all of which knew they were there, and none of which intended them anything close to good will.
"What about bug-man?" Kezreck asked using the same sign language, "Did they catch him already?"
"I don't think so," Garadon replied, "But there's not much he can do without giving himself away, and the second he does that he's a goner."
Tightening the fingers on both hands around his staff Shoutanei muttered under his breath, "Like rothe to the slaughter."
Theria smiled to herself as she hefted her crossbow, aiming it squarely on the opened window. Myzza and Corben also steadied ranged weapons on the structure from different flanks; Corben knocked a short bow while Myzza gripped a javelin whose head was shaped like a bolt of lightning in one halfling-sized hand. Foaming at the mouth, Vashav the savage elf clutched an axe in each hand as she shifted from one foot to the other, eager to rush in and start slashing, yet remained where she was, in her assigned role as protector of their company's wizard Ketrog. Behind her the dwarf raised a hand to the red beads hanging from the metal band on his neck. Looking Theria's way, he caught the eye of their leader and nodded.
Theria cleared her throat and yelled out to the fools she and hers had entrapped, "We know you're in there- if those idiots working for the king hadn't told Thornstaff you were coming you might have surprised us! As it is- if the weapons we've trained on you aren't enough reason to surrender, Ketrog has a good arm- and plenty beads on a necklace of fireballs for him to throw with it."
None of the three inside could recall at the moment if their information told of any of the company possessing such an item but they chose to assume Theria spoke the truth; while they tried to think of a way out Garadon shouted back, "Then why hasn't he used it already?"
"Be a shame to burn down a good cabin after all the trouble we went through to fix it," Ketrog joked loudly, "Besides Theria wanted to give you a chance to join us- make you shapechangers like ourselves, teach you how to control it so you decide when to shift and still think like men. Surely that has to sound like a better offer than a bunch of shallow graves in the bush."
Shoutanei readied a hand to cast a fireball spell of his own while in an atypical moment of outrage Kezreck shouted out, "I don't believe this- the human king told us you thugs were supposed to be heroes!"
"Heroes," Theria spat, "And where did that get us- scars and cuts protecting a bunch of ingrate dirt-farmers! When the killings started again we actually thought one or two had been overlooked; by the time we realized it was our doing there was too much 'innocent' blood on our hands to turn back.
"But you know what, at the same time our eyes were truly opened- whether in wolf form or humanoid, it just feels good to be bad. Besides, we know what you are- no matter how much gold that king's dangling in front of your faces you have to know he sees you as monstrous as us, that he hopes at least some of you die doing his dirty work- what do you truly owe him?"
While Theria rambled Kezreck backed to the wall ready to smash open the window on the other side of the door. Shoutanei crouched so he could move to a better position without appearing in line of sight for the enemy outside. Garadon kept to a corner and readied his bow toward another pane on the opposite wall in the direction of the foe he sensed some distance away. But all three knew if they had any hope of getting out of this they needed a distraction…
Theria had decided their silence was answer enough to her offer of inclusion; just as she was about to command Ketrog to unleash his fireballs strange shrieks filled the air- shrieks they none of them had ever heard before.
The three they menaced however, were quite familiar with the sounds of Croltorm, especially their own mounts. Deciding this was the best hope of a diversion they were ever going to get, they acted. As Kezreck smashed the closed window open with his mace Shoutanei sprang back up, at the same time chanting the words and making the gestures for a fireball spell. The very instant a sphere of flame shot from the dark elf's hand into the woods outside Garadon loosed his arrow, hearing a cry of pain an instant before the fireball detonated.
The explosion blasted in all directions; grass, bush and traps that had yet to be sprung went up in flame. The thickest trees held but their bark was badly singed, the leaves on their branches suffered the same fate as the grass below. A deafened Theria tumbled to the ground, rolling to smother the flames that licked at her cloak, boots and hair. Once they were out she took to her feet and though she doubted they could hear her anymore than she could hear herself Theria screamed for any survivors to retreat as she bolted away.
Kezreck peeked from the window he smashed to see a circle of ash about twenty feet in diameter dotted with blackened trunks. Following Garadon and the drow outside he welcomed the greater sight of Path-Chak astride his croltorm, the other three beasts behind him and exulted, "Bug-man!"
"Yes yes, we're all happy to see him alive," Shoutanei muttered, "We can celebrate after we get way from here before any survivors can regroup."
And with that, those still on foot mounted and followed Path-Chak away from the scene of carnage.
At the forest's edges the druid Thornstaff challenged a black-haired woman in armour, demanding to know the human's business. The woman tried to placate her with talk of simply passing through but with a party seeking the Company of the Black Moon entering the forest so recently Thornstaff was having none of it.
Connected to the land as she was, Thornstaff felt the explosion of the fireball rather than hear it. In a scream of both rage and pain she turned from the intruder and melted into the brush. The dark-haired woman briefly smiled, then crept forward in the direction the druid had gone.
Finally deciding they were far enough away the four slowed their steeds to a stop. Even though Garadon sensed no one else near they still looked about in all directions, peering around even as they spoke. Kezreck was the first, asking "What do we do now?"
"We find a defensible location," Shoutanei started, "And do what we can to prepare for their next onslaught."
Path-Chak telepathically questioned the dark elf's strategy and suggested that retreat might be a better option.
"There is no retreat," Garadon answered, "We know they're no longer the cursed do-gooders the king believes them to be. Even if most humans laugh at any accusations we make they can't take the risk that one might believe us- or at the very least harbour some suspicions. They'll never let us leave these woods."
"It's not just them we need to worry about," Shoutanei added, "Don't forget the druid that led us into their ambush somehow- I doubt she's willing to risk whatever arrangement she has with the werewolves coming to light either."
"Besides," Kezreck contributed, "We turn and run, we don't get paid."
The others stared at him dumbfounded until Shoutanei remarked, "It is good to know you have your priorities in order." With that the wizard pulled out one of the maps King Alsadar had supplied them with, and as a group they studied it.
By now their enemies had gathered back together in their cabin .Standing on her bed, the diminutive Myzza tended to the arrow that went clean through a sitting Corben's shoulder. After carefully cutting the shaft in two she set her dagger aside then reached around him to grasp the arrow and pull it out from behind. She dropped the shaft then pressed against the exit wound with one hand as Corben put pressure on the entry wound with his own.
Seeing her fumble for the bandages with her free hand Corben cracked, "You know, I'm starting to miss the days you could heal me with just a touch."
"Yeah well, chew up a few peasants and suddenly you're no longer worthy to bear the gifts of a paladin," Myzza grumbled back.
The wound dressed Corben studied the head of the offending arrow; sniffing it he grimaced, "Something nasty was applied to this- and you said chugging one of those protection from poison potions before every fight was paranoia."
During this exchange Ketrog had helped Theria drag Vashav's corpse inside with weary arms; dropping it they looked down on their fallen comrade. By sheer bad luck the elf barbarian had stood on the edge of the fireball's blast radius; the left side of her face was mostly recognizable but her body's right side was little more than charcoal that stunk of burnt flesh. Out of a grotesque irony the battle axe she held in her charred right hand looked completely undamaged.
"We should've just stormed the cabin in wolf form and torn the lot of them apart with our teeth and claws," Ketrog spat.
"Yes, we should have," Theria was in complete agreement. There was no excuse- drunk from victories against others sent to 'undo their curse' they'd allowed themselves to get cocky. And now one of them was dead for it.
Theria looked out past the open door as she stood. In the centre of the destruction Thornstaff, on her knees, was wailing over the damage caused to her precious woods. Gradually the others came to the doorway to look.
"You'd think she'd be grateful it didn't spread and burn the whole forest down," Corben muttered.
"She can waste her time crying," Theria spoke, "The question we must answer is, did the bastards who killed Vashav get out while the getting was good or are they idiotic enough to insist on taking on the rest of us?"
They all thought the same as she did. With sadistic grins they shifted. Black fur sprouted from their skin, nails stretched into claws, humanoid faces distorted and became fanged muzzles. Catching the scent of their enemies in the air, the Company of the Black Moon set out into the wilds, eager to savour the taste of humanoid blood one more time.
Snorting the air around them, the werewolves tracked their enemies' scent; a trail that led to a cluster of thick trees with four faint shadows within. The shadows were motionless but they practically stank of Vashav's killers. They circled the cluster, ensuring any flight would only end in bloody death.
Myzza snarled as she hefted her enchanted javelin in her clawed hand; hurling it forward the projectile transformed into a pint-sized bolt of lightning, one of the shadows dropped as the bolt blasted through it.
Upon this all four vaulted into the cluster and fell upon the shadows howling as they slashed with their talons. Only when their rage subsided did they see they were attacking four rain cloaks stuffed with leaves and branches.
"I don't get it," Corben whined, the words distorted by his semi-lupine throat, "The scent led-" he sniffed the air again, "Hells, is that smell what I think it is?"
Urine. Their quarry had actually pissed on the cloaks to ensure the decoys would have their scent; with a thirst for vengeance and the predator in their blood the werewolves had fallen for it like chumps.
"Doesn't matter!" Theria roared, "They're only delaying-" suddenly she froze. Barely audible chanting was in the air; in their rage they had failed to register it- the chanting of a spell. But they noticed it now.
Myzza and Ketrog vaulted from the trees, Myzza shouting "Get out of-"
Too late- all around the cluster a thick mass of webbing materialized, immersing three of the lycanthropes up to their necks. Myzza had almost leapt clear, only to be enveloped at the waist, in a position too awkward to claw herself free. Only Ketrog's head and clawed hands were not wrapped in the mass.
From bushes upwind both Garadon and Kezreck emerged; the former ready at the bow, the latter swinging four sets of manacles- out of five he'd brought in his pack should the 'cursed' Company of the Black Moon proved resistant to being brought back to civilization. Seconds later Shoutanei stood up staff in hand, still chanting and making the gestures with his free fingers necessary to keep the webs he conjured from dispersing.
Kezreck pointed back to the drow with his thumb, and said to the trapped foes, "You know he actually thought you wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for this."
"Spare us the gloating and kill us already," Theria snarled.
"We probably would but the king's paying more for you alive and cured, for what little good that's supposed to do. Bug-man?"
From a thicket of poplars, also upwind, Path-Chak emerged, doing away with the camouflage as he did so. Approaching Myzza first, with his upper arms out the thri-kreen preformed the remove curse spell he prepared; suddenly the pint-sized predator reverted back to her halfling form forcibly and permanently.
Kezreck selected the pair of manacles sized to contain a halfling, which he locked around Myzza's wrists whist Path-Chak circled around the webbed cluster. Though he had only gone far enough in his field to prepare one spell as advanced as remove curse, he still retained it in the form of several scrolls his party plundered from a giantess during their episode back in the desert. Opening the scroll tube he pulled out three of them, then one by one he read the scroll out loud (sort of,) each sheet of parchment crumbling as each of the werewolves unwillingly returned to their humanoid state.
Shoutanei had to end the web spell for the former lycanthropes to be moved; fortunately the humiliation of entrapment and the 'curing' of their condition seemed to finally take out any fight they had left, none resisted when Kezreck shackled them. The four started to drag their captives when they themselves heard chanting- in the voice of Thornstaff! Before any could react strong vines burst out of the soil and wrapped them up like bales of hay.
The druid stepped forward, still focusing on her entanglement spell; she sneered as the vines she conjured strung themselves around the outsiders necks and began to tighten…
The chants quickly became a scream as something sharp burst through the druid's belly; she dropped to the ground, the vines choking the dark fellows unravelled into nothing. As they looked up they saw behind the druid's body a black-haired woman in armour holding a bloodied sword, whose blade separated into two prongs just over halfway up its length.
The armoured woman looked down on Thornstaff's form. The wound she caused would not have been fatal if inflicted by most blades; yet Thornstaff was not only dead but shrivelled, the vitality just drained out of her.
Ellis looked up from the body to the four and their prisoners. Recognizing the doppelganger as well as observing it had no trouble maintaining its human disguise, she knew this was not the same pitiful wretch once that cowered and ranted in an unknown wizard's dungeon.
"Been a long time, Garadon," she glanced at Shoutanei, "I take it you came with those drow lying in pieces all over the vault?"
Shoutanei frowned but Garadon looked confused, his last encounter with Ellis was before his shattered mind had been remade whole, of what had occurred and who he met during his prolonged dementia he had no memory, he asked, "Am I supposed to know you?"
Her face darkened in anger, especially after sparing him and his friends from strangulation but Ellis held herself in check- she supposed it was folly to think he'd remember her. Wiping the blood off her sword before sheathing it, Ellis glared at the four, then turned and walked off.
"Is she going to be trouble?" Kezreck asked, "Should we, you know-"
"Bad form to hunt down someone who's just saved our lives," Shoutanei interrupted, "Besides I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't leave this forest fast enough," he grabbed Corben, the nearest of the former werewolves by the arm, "Let's get these bastards back to the castle."
"Don't forget we got to swing by and grab the dead one if we want to collect on her too," Kezreck reminded him. With that, the eight of them started walking.
Alsadar IV was speaking with the emissary of another realm when a runner from the gates bolted in to tell him 'they' had arrived. With Mora and a small entourage of guards the monarch headed out past the castle gates to see four of the Company of the Black Moon, alive but chained, before as the beasts he had recruited to find them, as well as a wagon that held something covered in a tarp.
"Here you go- four former werewolves," Kezreck quipped as he shoved the survivors toward the king ad his guards; at this point Garadon reached into the wagon and pulled part of the tarp aside to reveal Vashav's body, the unburnt side of her face bloated in death yet still recognizable.
Mora glared at Garadon and company, "I suppose we should be grateful you brought back any of them alive at all."
"We performed the task you hired us for." Shoutanei calmly but coldly replied.
"Yes you did," Alsadar turned to Mora and, with a tone that made it very clear he was in no mood for argument bade her, "Fetch the gold." two guards took the chained ex-lycanthropes inside.
The following night back at Stoneruin, or as the four had started to call it- Kezreck's Keep, they celebrated with wine amidst the packs stuffed with coin from Alsadar IV's vaults. Kezreck laughed as a handful of gold pieces fell through his fingers and onto the floor, "Not bad for honest work, huh guys?"
"I confess I rather enjoyed that look of disappointment on Mora's face on seeing all of us return safely." Shoutanei admitted, "All the same I don't think we should count on making careers out of this sort of work- with Alsadar or other humans."
"Ah you're just being a party pooper," Kezreck slurred, "If there's one thing I know it's no matter what their race, there's always someone that wants another someone's head caved in and willing to pay good money to see it done."
Shoutanei nodded, it was an observation even he could not argue with