On the first day of Quen'pillar, the snapping chill of the previous week abated with a beautiful morning of bright sunlight and a welcome warm breeze. The sky was blue and speckled with white clouds, and many of those who already found themselves on the streets were shedding coats and cloaks to enjoy the sunshine that warmed their limbs.
As bright as the world was, Helman was trudging toward the gate of the Margrave's Keep as if the whole sky was filled with dark and dreary rain. Deep circles under his eyes and a pallid expression made him look more like the walking dead than a respectable Shield of Westruun.
As he arrived, he rudely shoved past a young man in a long, dark coat with wide lapels and a velvet hat. He returned a middle finger salute to the young woman in blue robes next to him, and he didn't even stop until he was halfway to the door, when a captain cut him off.
"Private Erikson! You better have a fucking good excuse for missing two goddamn days!"
The soldiers in the yard had already glanced their attention at the captain telling off a private. It was a common occurrence, and nothing truly worthy of their time, beyond finding fuel to rib their companion later. What was quickly noticed, however, was Private Helman Erikson was glaring at his captain in disbelief, his fists shaking with restrained rage that suddenly exploded from its bonds. Helman went on a tirade, describing a mugging, abduction, human trafficking all the way to the Underwalk Ward, abuse, and being trapped for literal days in a dark room with nothing to eat except the occasional "knuckle sandwich". All the way, Helman swore and cursed with such fury and creativity that even a sailor would blush at the display.
All attention in the demonstration field was upon the flinching captain and the furious soldier, and vindictive troops purposely failed to intervene as they watched the captain finally swallow his own medicine. Explosively, the captain regained his vitriol and shot back, screaming orders for Helman to stand down and respect the authority he had pledged loyalty to. It was at this moment that two higher-ranked officers finally arrived to drag Helman off to a holding cell, where he could take time to cool off and think about how he should have reacted differently to his superiors.
As this happened, a delivery arrived for Captain Easchert, Secretary of Warfare. The man was constantly ordering parchment, so a box supposedly filled with reams of the stuff was nothing new and quickly passed inspection. The delivery man, lightly freckled and chewing on an errant sprig of prairie grass that had made its way into Westruun, was so bored and plain that the guard barely looked at him twice before turning his attention back to the vicious argument unfolding on the nearby grounds. With an unseen tip of his hat, the delivery man stuck to the sides, rather than ducking across everyone's attention of the midday entertainment.
Once inside, Al kept his eyes down and his shoulders loose as he quickly made his way through the initial hallway. He barely ducked into a meeting room in time to avoid the men dragging Helman, still screaming, into an interrogation room down the hall. With a sigh of relief, he placed the box on the ground and pulled off the wooden lid.
Bera popped up, gasped for air, and immediately whined as she tried to stretch out her back.
"When I said I'd help, I didn't mean actually infiltrating the Margrave's Keep!" she hissed through her teeth. Al placed a finger to his lips to shush her and began to listen through the door, so Bera felt safe briefly mocking his "be quiet" motion to the empty room.
"...Seems like we're safe for now," Al whispered. He turned to Bera. "Okay, moving on to the next step. You know what you have to do?"
Bera nodded reluctantly. "Sneak over to Margrave Zimmerset's office while he's interviewing Jonathan and Zoe, find anything about this abduction thing and anything else that could possibly indict him, hide in the box and wait for a pick up. You'll remember to come back for me, right?"
"Who else is going to repaint my freckles?" Al teased. He was in his element. "Get back in the box and I'll move it closer to the office. Ready?"
Bera groaned but crawled back in the box and folded herself into the smallest ball she could manage. "You could've gotten a bigger box…"
"Not one that delivers paper," Al smirked. He closed it up and hoisted the box back into his arms before he checked the hallway again. A listen and a glance seemed to show everything was clear, so he stepped back into the hall.
According to the sketches Jayce and Bera had obtained the day before, the margrave's personal office was on the southern side of the building, tucked behind the dining room. Structurally, it made sense, as it would give the man the most available light per day, but that also isolated the room from the rest of the building. Al knew he'd have to be careful, as there was only one known route to or from that room, and if anyone was looking for Margrave Zimmerset, they would cross paths.
Again, he kept his head down, the box with Bera tucked in his arms. The borrowed worker's cap was enough to keep his eyes hidden from a casual glance, but anything more intense would reveal him. Even so, experience taught him that eyes are the fastest way to grab someone's attention, so as long as he made no eye contact, most would ignore him.
Such a theory worked out beautifully as he was passed by two officers, both chatting about the screaming fit Helman had made just minutes before. Apparently, he was audible through the closed windows, although the exact nature of his cursing had eluded them. Al turned a corner just as the men started making bets on what exactly got the private in trouble.
He faced the final hall, flanked on either side by portraits of grand officers through Westruun's history, and absolutely nowhere to hide. No potted plants, no end tables, no standing lamps were within reach as he began softly walking his way toward the far door.
Al had counted the minutes. Jonathan and Zoe should be in the same meeting room from a few days prior, with the maps and the large table, by now, and should be in an audience with the margrave. That meant, if he was correct, that the margrave's office was empty.
He hated empty hallways. Nowhere to hide if anything went wrong.
His heart was pounding by the time he reached the door. Gently, gingerly, he reached out his hand and brushed the handle with his fingertips. It gave slightly, then stuck. The door was locked. He allowed himself to breathe. Usually, doors were only locked when the room was empty, so he gently placed Bera's box on the floor and pulled out his tools.
Al kneeled down to look at the lock. It had a privacy cover on both sides, which limited his light, but his sharp eyes barely noticed the hindrance. With a hook and a pressure pick, he quietly worked both tools into the tumblers, listening to the scratch and strain of the springs inside. He grumbled under his breath. Gravity tumblers would have been easier.
A first, second, and third tumbler finally clicked into place, and he moved on to the fourth. A sudden rush of panic reminded him that time had passed, and he glanced over his shoulder to check if the hallway was still empty. Indeed it was, but his hand slipped as his shoulders twisted, and all three tumblers snapped back to their resting position. Annoyed, he swore under his breath and tried again. He remembered the positions from before, so the first three were handled in barely a second before he moved on to the fourth. Just before he turned it, he heard the groan of a fifth spring, set along the bottom of the lock, as he applied the barest pressure. He snickered and admitted respect to the lockmaker; that was the advantage of spring tumblers, after all. They didn't need to be oriented at the top, like gravity tumblers.
He twisted the pressure pick and the lock unlatched, the door shifting half an inch toward him. With a nod, Al picked up Bera in the box again and gently tugged at the door, which swung silently on its hinge. Satisfied, Al headed inside, and immediately froze.
Someone was sitting in the margrave's chair.
The mid-morning sunlight flooded the room, making the character more a silhouette than a figure as they faced the large windows behind the desk. Al's heart caught in his throat as he kept himself perfectly still for a moment, hardly daring to breathe, before he turned and tried to step back out.
Al locked eyes with an officer at the end of the hall.
Swearing in his thoughts, Al ducked behind the door and tucked Bera's box under a nearby step stool by a bookshelf and glanced around the room. He had literal seconds before the officer made it to the door and charged inside, so he dove at the coat rack, jumped in the pair of heavy mud boots at the base, and pulled the coat in front of him. Thankfully, the boots were large enough to fit his more form fitting, supple footwear without issue, and just as the heavy raincoat was pulled into place, the officer crashed into the door and exploded into the room.
Al just prayed Bera would stay still.
The panicked figure in the room began to shuffle about, his path through the room accentuated by the jerking movement of a chair or the clatter of books striking the floor. Al took a risk to peek and try to see if he could dash to a new hiding spot before his corner of the room was attacked by the investigation.
Instead, what he saw was the officer pause just in front of the seated figure, his panic redirected, but subtle. Al wondered what had happened, and if the figure's condition was unknown to the officer.
Then the officer bent down and pressed his forehead to the figure in the chair, and whispered something softly as he held the person's face. He straightened up, glanced around the room, swore loudly as he slapped his own face, and then left with as much energy as he entered. The door slammed and audibly locked with a near deafening clunk.
Al's heart was pounding in his chest as he finally breathed. Slowly and gently, he untangled himself from the extra boots and pulled himself out of the coat rack. A sudden thump nearly caused him to scream from panic, but he managed to catch his nerves in time.
The culprit was Bera. The box was still under the step stool and her attempt to remove the lid had bumped into it. Al rushed over and tapped the box twice before he pulled away the step stool. He placed it nearby as quietly as he could manage before he pulled the lid off Bera's box.
Bera was curled up tightly, her eyes wide and teary as both hands had clamped her mouth shut. Al gave her a quick motion to keep herself quiet and then waved for her to climb out of the box. Trepidatiously, she complied.
Al motioned to the figure in the chair, and Bera quickly noted the silhouette of a head just above the top edge. She motioned frantically, clearly unsure if she should even be out of the box yet, but Al waved his hands as if he was patting down bedding, in an attempt to calm her down. Bera took a deep breath through her nose and tried desperately to calm her heart; she knew Al was the expert in this situation, but that didn't change the fact that she was completely out of her element.
Al silently took a step toward the desk, paused, then took another. A final stride, measured and slow, brought him up to the side of the figure at the desk, and Al recoiled in horror.
He had never seen Margrave Zimmerset up close before, but he imagined the man looked a far cry from the husk he was currently staring at. Gaunt, yellowed skin, mottled in green and purple bruises of random patterns, clung desperately to bones on the man's face, his eyes sunken and cloudy. The body practically shuddered with rapid, shallow panting, the jaw hung slack, the teeth yellowed and rotting. Al's eyes wandered over the husk of a man in the margrave's uniform, noting with confusion the liver spots that covered the hands and face, and most notably the scalp, which was visible under the wisps of white hair that barely clung to the skin.
"How is this man alive?" Al whispered, unable to keep his horror to himself.
Bera slipped over to his hip and glanced around, then squeaked and whirled around to dry heave. It took her several seconds to recover, but then she leaned heavily on Al's leg and wheezed, "Far as I can tell, he shouldn't be. What happened?"
Al shook his head. "I can't even imagine. He can't do anything like this, so search the room. No names, don't speak unless you have to. Go."
The two of them split and began checking through drawers, shelves, tables, anything they could find, with Al specifically looking for hidden drawers and Bera for innocuously-labeled journals. In barely minutes, Bera pulled out three black journals tucked behind budget ledgers on an upper shelf, and Al had found a false bottom to a drawer on the desk.
"Got a key. You?" Al asked quietly.
"Suspicious journals," Bera replied. She was already running over to stash them in the box.
Al bounced the key in his palm and looked over to the living corpse of Margrave Zimmerset. "Now, where would you hide a safe…?" he mumbled. Then it hit him. He glanced at the key again, and it was pronged in three directions, engraved with a magic rune on the head, and caked lightly in something dark brown.
"I think I found the key to the basement room," Al whispered to Bera. She looked up and nodded, and Al smirked as the body in the chair faintly twitched.
Bera crawled back into the box, shifting uncomfortably as she tried to make room for the three journals in the box with her. Al replaced the lid and picked up the box, the key already hidden in a pocket in his tunic, and looked back at the locked door. With a grunt of annoyance, he put the box back down and pulled out his tools. He desperately hoped everyone else was still on schedule.
xXxXx
"This wasn't part of the plan!"
Zoe paced erratically in the war room, the maps on the table scattered haphazardly and speckled with markers for both the Shields of the Plains and the Ravagers. Jonathan quietly mused to himself that they mirrored each other well.
"Zoe, calm down. We know the margrave is indisposed. That's...not ideal, but it's something," Jonathan said, as he stroked Puffpaw in his lap.
"And what if he's indisposed because he's executing our friends?!" Zoe snapped as she whirled on him.
Jonathan flinched backward as Zoe came at him, and his world began to swim. He brushed his forehead and gripped the chair as he tried to steady himself.
"Crap! John, are you okay?" Zoe asked, her demeanor suddenly softer.
"I'm...fine. I'm fine," Jonathan panted. "Those...painkillers are effective, but not perfect, that's all. As long as I don't move quickly, I'm fine."
"It would've helped if Dahlia could give you a proper dosage… We just guessed," Zoe mumbled. She glanced over the maps. They told her very little, as they were a mess when she arrived. "Too bad they left these scattered about. It would've helped to know where the Ravagers were hitting the city."
Jonathan stroked Puffpaw again, then glanced down at her. "Should we try to make our way to the basement? The margrave might not be coming at all."
Just then, the door clattered as someone fumbled with the handle, and both siblings went deathly quiet. When it opened, Colonel Peterson, his cheek lightly red and his eyes haggard, strode into the room.
Colonel Peterson stood at attention and addressed the siblings as protocol demanded. "I apologize for the delay, Sir and Madam Riddle. We are waiting for a third party to arrive before the margrave will speak to you."
"Is this third party required for a hearing?" Jonathan asked as he slowly stood from his seat. Puffpaw used the chair to jump up to his shoulders and settle again.
Colonel Peterson nodded. "Yes, sir. The third party will not be present, but they are required for proceedings to continue."
Zoe clenched her fists. "We are presenting evidence of attempted assassination. Are you seriously going to invite the asshole who wrote the contract to be here?!"
Colonel Peterson barely winced as he faced her. "Madam, the accused will not be on the grounds while you present your evidence. Normally, they would be allowed to sit in and present their case, but as you have the contract with you, and the circumstances are...tense, we are allowing you some latitude with the typical proceedings."
"Then who is this third party?" Zoe snapped.
Colonel Peterson visibly winced this time and his shoulders slumped. "We...are waiting for a healer, Madam. The margrave has fallen ill and is indisposed."
The anger in the room immediately dissipated as Jonathan and Zoe looked at Colonel Peterson with shock. "Will he…? Is he okay?" Jonathan asked softly.
Colonel Peterson returned to standing straight and stiff before he shook his head. "I am unable to discern his condition. We are waiting for the healer to know more." His eyes drifted to the side briefly before he continued. "Perhaps it would be better for you to return tomorrow."
"Uh, hello?! Assassination contract?!" Zoe nearly yelled in complete disbelief. "We walk out there, I may be walking back in with a corpse! Hell no!"
Colonel Peterson grimaced. "Then perhaps it would be better to move you to a more comfortable room while this is sorted. There is-"
"Actually, I'm rather peckish," Jonathan cut in. "Could we ask for light refreshments? And we are alright eating with the soldiers, as I'm sure no assassin would dare attempt anything with so many trained blades about."
Colonel Peterson clearly thought deeply about the request, but eventually relented. "Fine. If sir and madam would follow me, we shall presently be in the dining hall."
As Colonel Peterson turned around, Jonathan ducked a hand into his pocket and coiled a thin copper wire around his thumb. As he did so, he whispered an arcane word and traced a symbol in the air, a semicircle, and extended the bottom line to point in Zoe's direction. Zoe didn't even flinch when Jonathan's voice entered her mind.
Zoe, according to the plans, the main entrance to the basement is through the kitchen. It's right next to the dining hall. Do you think we can get in?
Zoe gave it some serious thought as she noticed Colonel Peterson glance over his shoulder at the two of them as they walked.
It's possible, she replied, but we'll need a good distraction. How do you feel about Helping Hand?
Jonathan's face twisted into a smirk as he received the reply, and the siblings shared a quick nod. The plan was set.
xXxXx
Jayce was lucky. If they had tied his hands, he wouldn't have been able to follow through with his part of the plan. Instead, they just dragged him into a dark room and threw him in a chair, and he managed to disguise his voice well enough that when he summoned a cloud of poison gas, the guards assigned to watch him barely noticed the magical command over his swearing. During the ensuing hacking fit, Jayce played it off as if the sewer rat he had to consume wasn't agreeing with him, and the guards expeditiously vacated the room.
As soon as the door swung mostly closed and the guards in the hall were nearly bent over from coughing, Jayce changed his guise again to a uniformed officer and slipped past them, marching down the hall with purpose.
He recited the steps. End of the hall, take a left, second door, that's the kitchen. Immediately swing right, door immediately ahead should be the wine cupboard. From there, a floor hatch led to the basement cellar, and he should be able to reach that hidden room along the northern wall.
Following Al's very brief coaching, he kept his eyes forward, refusing to make eye contact with anyone as he passed. Even though he passed a few people who offered him a salute, he simply nodded and continued on his way.
He opened the door to the kitchen and immediately turned, intent on heading straight to the wine cupboard. Instead, he found himself face to face with a large man in an apron with rolled up sleeves, his arms pockmarked from oil burns. The man startled briefly and then crossed his arms.
"Who the hell are you?" the man asked. "I know all the officers by name and I can't place yours."
Jayce offered a quick and smart salute. "Recently promoted, sir. I'm here to fetch a bottle of wine for Margrave Zimmerset's guests in the war room."
The cook gave Jayce a once over and then rubbed his chin. "Can't say I've heard a request for a promotion party recently…"
Jayce shook his head. "I specifically declined, sir. I know how hard you all work to feed us and it didn't feel right to put you out just for a few drinks. We went to a tavern instead."
The cook nodded and his face cracked into a smile. "Ah. Thanks for that. Right, room's over there."
Jayce nodded his thanks and followed the cook's thumbed directions to the wine cupboard, a room just big enough for three racks of wine bottles and a floor hatch. Jayce had to press himself against the side wall just to close the door, which gave him the privacy he needed to slip downstairs.
The wooden steps creaked and protested as he jogged his way down, as he fully expected the only being he would meet down there to be Al, working on the lock. He glanced around as he descended, and while he could easily spot the lamps that lit the place when less sensitive eyes were about, he could not spot a single person.
Then his eyes focused on the spider that had just dropped from the ceiling and hung just a mere inch from his nose.
Completely forgetting himself, Jayce yelped in panic and stumbled backwards, which resulted in his heel striking the previous step and pitching him up the stairs. His arms flailed and he only just managed to catch himself before he cracked his head into the wooden slats that made the steps, and he glared at the spider that continued to hang in midair on a strand of silk.
"Fuckin' spiders," he hissed. He reached up and squished it between his thumb and forefinger, and was quite repulsed to note it popped when he did so. His face screwed up in disgust as he inspected the viscous red liquid that coated those two fingers, and he briefly thanked his luck that he was wearing gloves under the magical disguise.
"Disgusting," he gagged. He looked around for something to wipe it on and, finding nothing, simply held out his hand to the side as he stepped more carefully down to the main floor of the basement. Unfortunately, he had lost track of north in the middle of his stumble, so he began retracing his steps and attempting to remember which way was north based off of his route from before.
Just as he began gesturing through the various turns to help him figure it out, a blade flashed and pressed up against his neck. Another hand had grabbed his forehead and pulled back, exposing the skin for a deadly slice.
"You better be who I think you are, or you're about to die," Al hissed.
"It's me, jackass!" Jayce hissed back as he dropped the disguise. "Who else would be here?!"
Al retracted the blade and sheathed it on the back of his belt. "You were flailing about like an idiot, so I just assumed you were one of the real officers from upstairs."
"Ha ha, very funny," Jayce grumbled. "Now which one's the north wall? I got turned around."
Al, clearly annoyed, motioned to the wall in question with both arms. It was buried behind shelves, barrels, crates, and open boxes filled with root vegetables nestled in moist dirt. With a determined nod shared between them, they began to move anything between them and the wall and they inspected the brickwork, hoping to find some sort of clue to a secret door. Thankfully, a clue was soon found, a hidden tri-pronged keyhole in the wall, and Al gave a soft whistle to grab Jayce's attention.
"Found it!" Al said excitedly. He pulled out the special key and turned to look at Jayce when he noticed the half-orc was about to wipe his hand on Al's back.
Al twitched away. "What the hell?!"
"I got bug guts on my hand, okay? I don't wanna rub it off on my coat!" Jayce, clearly strained, said back.
"Well I don't want it on me, either!" Al spat as he danced another step away. "Knock it off! This is the door!"
"Right, yes, great, and while you do that, I'm gonna look for a damn rag," Jayce growled to himself. He glanced about again, half worried about another spider dive bombing him, when he heard the lock in the wall rattle and strain.
"Dammit!" Al nearly yelled as he punched the wall. "The key's not working."
"So? Pick the lock! Ain't that somethin' you can do?" Jayce asked.
Al clenched his jaw and glared at the lock, as if he could make it bend to his will through sheer force of anger. "Not this one. There's a magical component to the key, one I apparently didn't grab. Knowing how paranoid the margrave is, I'd bet you anything it's still on him."
"Fuck…" Jayce grumbled. "And how do we do that? Ain't he in a meeting?"
Al shook his head. "He's practically a corpse in his office, as far as I know."
Jayce stared at Al in disbelief. "Bullshit. What happened?!"
Al threw his hands up between them. "It wasn't me! He looked old and rotting in his skin, all yellowed and bruised all over. I swear I never touched him."
"Well, we already knew some assassin was after him…" Jayce mumbled. He nearly touched his face in thought when he remembered the gunk on his hand. "Ugh. Al, you swear you ain't got a rag or somethin' to wipe this off?"
"If I had one, I'd be stuffing it down your throat," Al growled. "Shut up while I try to figure this out!"
Jayce glanced up and down the wall again, and with nothing else to go on, he held out his hand. "Give me the key. If it needs magic, maybe I can force it or somethin'."
Al gave a tense sigh, but he handed it over. "Here's hoping it works, and doesn't trigger a trap."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jayce grumbled. He looked over the key first before trying it in the lock, and the runes caught his eye. Once again, he was at a loss, so he shrugged and slipped the key into the keyhole.
It fit perfectly, but when he tried to turn it, the gears behind the wall began to rattle and groan, clearly unable to move. He placed his other hand over his first, and just before he could summon the blue-black flame, the runes lit up and the key turned freely.
His dirtied glove was suddenly clean.
"What'd you do?" Al asked, clearly curious.
"Ain't sure," Jayce mumbled, but he turned the key. "Whatever that spider juice was, the key seemed keen on it."
Al rolled his eyes and tried to keep his disgust to himself. Thankfully, the sliding wall was enough of a distraction, and the two of them flinched when several magical sconces suddenly lit with orange flame. Directly in front of them was an alcove, speckled in blood, with a pair of manacles hanging from the ceiling on a hook. A table covered in thin picks and knives, as well as a single journal, sat off to the right side, while the left opened into a short hallway that flanked a dungeon cell. As both Jayce and Al looked around in shock, a hand stuck itself through the bars and weakly clawed at the floor while a voice called out to them.
"Please, please spare us. We've given enough. Please. Just let me go home. I won't tell anyone. I promise," the voice begged. "Please, just let me go home…"
"Sound like anyone you know?" Jayce whispered to Al. Al shrugged, and then nodded for Jayce to step into the hallway while he checked over the grizzly tools and journal on the table. Afraid of what he would find, he stepped gingerly down the hall, and made an attempt to peek around the corner before he was fully in front of the bars.
What he saw was a young elf man, shockingly pale even in the orange firelight and wheezing on the floor. Repeatedly, the man tried to pull himself closer to the bars, but he seemed to completely lack any strength to do so. With a shuddering hand, the man reached for Jayce, who had come to stand directly in front of the bars.
"Please...please sir… Please let me go…!" the man sobbed.
Jayce kneeled down and looked over the elven man with pity. "What in the hells happened to you?" he asked, barely able to speak above a whisper in his shock.
"They-they bleed us, like pigs," the man wheezed, his face screwed up as if tears would fall upon his cheeks, but none appeared. "Then they cast a spell that makes our bodies feel as if they are on fire, and we scream. The screams. It will be my turn today, they already bled her, so it's my turn. Please, please let me go! I can't take this anymore!"
"Hang on a damn minute," Jayce cut in, and despite his fear, he tried to keep his voice calm. "Her? Where is she?"
The man wheezed and sobbed, again without tears, as he strained mightily just to roll to his side. His arm shook as he held it limply toward the far wall, where a larger body lay, tucked up against the wall and facing the stones. Dark hair fell across yellow, mottled skin, and Jayce nearly recoiled from the fear of plague.
"The fuck happened to...her?" Jayce wheezed, once he was able to find his voice. The man did not reply, and simply sobbed.
Was that Dahlia? Was he too late?
"Hey! Al!" Jayce called out, softly in case others could hear. "I think I found her!"
Al jogged over, tucking the journal inside the borrowed wool coat for his delivery disguise. He flinched away as soon as he saw the sobbing elf on the floor. "Uh, pretty sure that's not-"
Jayce slapped his arm and pointed at the other body, at which point Al's face pulled back in shock. Wordlessly, he raced over to the cell door and began pulling out his tools, and he was relieved to notice the lock was much simpler than the previous one.
Even so, his hands began to shake from the implications of the journal. Dates, weights, pints, physical assessments...notes that detailed the easiest veins to bleed, based solely on trial and error, theories on how to prolong the "vintage" beyond a few months, and most worryingly, the troubled ramblings of whoever wrote it, panicking about the ever increasing need for more and more of the magically infused blood.
The pressure pick fumbled right out of his hand as the terror caused him to shudder, and he wiped a cold sweat from his face. He waved the irritated Jayce away as he grabbed the pick and tried again, inwardly frightened mentioning anything he learned to his companion would cause the man to go on a rampage.
Again, the pick slipped, and the tumblers clacked back to their resting position. Al swore under his breath and looked up just in time for Jayce to shove him out of the way.
"Move! Let me try," Jayce hissed, his arm already wreathed in that oily flame.
"No!" Al yelped as he tried to grab Jayce's arm. To his shock, the limb was exceptionally cold and his skin prickled from the sensation. He immediately dropped it. "If you blast the lock, it'll make a hell of a lot more noise than that sobbing sack over there! We have to smuggle out a person, remember? It'll be much harder if we have to do that while fighting off Shields!"
Jayce huffed and crossed his arms, his limbs clearly tense and begging for action. "Fine. One more shot, and if that ain't what it takes, I'm takin' over."
Al grumbled to himself but kneeled down to give it one more try. He gave a prayer to the heavens that he would succeed, and that they would avoid unnecessary bloodshed.
With a heavy clunk of the last tumbler, Al's limbs went slack as relief washed over him. The metal hinges screeched from a lack of care as Jayce pushed past Al to identify the other body, and Al scrambled to keep his footing.
Jayce paused just a step away from the body. An elf, clearly a woman as neither she or her cellmate were clothed, her limbs heavy and curved as if she had lived a life of comfort. Her yellowed skin was dark and bruised where she laid on the cell floor, her eyes closed and her breath shallow. A stench of rotting fruit brushed his nose, sickly sweet, as he realized her shallow panting was the likely cause of the odor. What was wrong with this woman?
His hand seemed to resist his own attempts to reach out to her as his fingers brushed her shoulder. She did not react, or even flinch, and Jayce held out hope that this wasn't his friend after all, that she had been spared this fate.
Then she turned, her eyes fluttering open as they stared blankly into a formless world. That beautiful green. It was her.
Jayce's hand hovered over his mouth, agape in disbelief as this woman clearly fought to form words to speak.
"Who's there…?" she wheezed. It was her voice.
"Da...Dahila?" Jayce breathed. There was no other alternative; this was Dahlia. What had they done to her?
She limply moved a shuddering hand to her lips and stuck her fingers into her mouth, only for a moment, before she rolled over far enough to lay on her back. She offered a weak smile, her eyes barely open in her exhaustion. Nearly half of her body was bruised.
"I...wanted to last...long enough...to tell you something…" she whispered. "I'm glad...you came…"
Jayce suddenly found his resolve and scooped up her head and shoulders. "Of course I came! I owe you so much! I wasn't gonna leave you to...whatever this is! We're all here for you!"
"How many...bones...do you have...in your hand?" she huffed, a strange smile stuck on her face. She seemed to be numb.
Jayce's face screwed up in confusion. What was she talking about? Was this a clue to her condition? "What? I, uh, dunno. How many?" he asked.
"A handful…!" she giggled, and her body went limp in his arms. She breathed a sigh, and she laid still.
It took a second for Jayce to process what happened. He gently shook her as he said her name, twice, then a third time, a lump rising in his throat. He shifted her just enough to press his ear to her chest, and he listened intently, his breath held. At first he wondered if he could hear her heart, but then he realized it was simply his own pounding through his skull. He panicked briefly, then took a breath to calm himself and tried again. This time, a soft but rapid heartbeat whispered through her chest. He rolled his head back in relief and turned to Al, who was attempting to rouse the elf man, who had passed out.
"Al!" Jayce called out. He was hurriedly removing his coat as he called. "Dahlia's dying! You got a potion or something, or somethin' to wake her?"
Al immediately patted down his pockets as he did a mental calculation. "Shit! No. Used my last one on you."
"Sonuva-!" Jayce hissed to himself. He ripped off his coat and awkwardly wrestled Dahlia's limbs into it, mentally apologizing for any additional bruises he might be giving her delicate skin. Once the buttons were fastened and she was covered, he picked her up and held her, cradled in his arms. She was heavier than he expected, but he quickly dismissed it.
"Al, change of plans. We need to get her out as fast as possible, and signal to Jaen. She ain't got time for the slow'n'steady route and fadin' fast."
Al grimaced and flexed his hands as he began to pace. "Dammit! We assumed she'd be able to walk, or at the very least use magic! Gauth is three blocks away, and you'll have to carry her through the compound before you can even reach him!"
"That's why we need a plan, Al! My hands are a little tied up at the moment!" Jayce snapped. He tensely rolled his neck as he tried to restrain his anger, and Al winced when it popped. "We got any way to talk t' the siblings? They gotta be able to do somethin'!"
Al shook his head. "Best I can offer is Bera was taken out with the rest of the food scraps right before I came down, so she's likely already headed to Jaen."
"Then let's hope that mischievous streak of theirs holds out," Jayce said, his jaw clenched with determination. "Let's go."
xXxXx
Jonathan sipped at a cup of tea, the picture of a noble, while Zoe brandished a tin platter like a goalie's shield at his side. An errant glass of brandy came flying at them and Zoe easily knocked it to the side before it could brain her brother.
"Still going well?" Jonathan asked, his eyes rolled back and lightly glowing with a purple tinge. Zoe snickered and tapped his shoulder twice. It was an old code; once for no, twice for yes, and if she was curious what was going on, three for "tell me what you see".
As Jonathan was currently sharing the consciousness of his familiar, he was blind and deaf to the world around his body, but his voice and tactile sense remained. It was the only reason why he remained so incredibly calm in the middle of an all out tavern-style brawl between the soldiers on break in the dining hall. It had started when a "randomly" thrown bowl of gruel and cheese struck a rather boisterous talker in the middle of an epic tale of heroics. At first, it seemed as if things would deescalate when an officer got involved, but then another projectile, this time a full mug of goat's milk, landed directly on the officer attempting to break up the fight.
Of course, this was all made possible by a clever combination of Mage Hand, with the mug of milk near the ceiling of the room, and Catapult, which Zoe affectionately called "the yeet spell". The latter of the two was a bit of a drain on Jonathan, but he felt the application was a worthy cause.
The true purpose of the distraction was to hide Puffpaw as she snuck into the kitchen, where nearly half of the staff had emptied into the dining hall to help the officers regain order. Her job was simple: Either she would find a way into the secret basement to check on their companions' progress, or cause enough chaos to fully empty the kitchen to make the way for their escape. As quiet as the morning fog, Puffpaw slinked her way through the kitchen prep tables and between boxes of ingredients, completely unseen by the frantic kitchen staff now scrambling to keep up with the daily meals. Following her master's instructions, she made it to the wine cupboard with ease, and, finding it unlatched, used her pointed head to wedge the door open and slipped inside.
The cupboard was empty, as both she and Jonathan expected. Unfortunately, the path to the cupboard had taken her further than Jonathan could reach with his Mage Hand, and so she was faced with the puzzle of lifting a cellar door with nothing but her paws. Determined to, at the very least, give it a try, Puffpaw stretched to limber herself up, yawned out of habit, and reached a paw toward the hatch-
Which then opened.
With a yowl and an angry hiss, Puffpaw leapt several feet in the air, a whirlwind of bladed paws, and landed perfectly two feet away, her ears flat and her fur on end. Al's face, frozen in startled shock, watched her apprehensively for several seconds until Puffpaw deemed Al worthy of continued existence and sat on her hind paws. A low growl in her throat made it clear she didn't appreciate the introduction, and her tail twitched to drive home her point.
"Speak of the actual devil," Al laughed nervously. Puffpaw's ears flattened and the growl became louder, so Al cleared his throat and continued. "So, uh, not sure how this familiar thing works, but can you let Jonathan know we need a distraction? Now?"
Unbeknownst to Al, Jonathan fought very hard to not suddenly burst out laughing.
"Dahlia's near death, and there's another prisoner who can barely move," Al explained. "We can't get them out while the kitchen's full."
Puffpaw threw up her nose and her tail and flounced out of the room, just to make it obvious that she only barely deemed his request worthy of her attention. Once back in the kitchen, she leapt up to a prep table covered in flour and bread making supplies, and, once she confirmed no one was watching, she knocked a bowl of flour right onto the floor.
The flour exploded across the floor, as the bowl had landed on its side. The loud crash and clatter got the attention of nearly everyone in the room, and Puffpaw raised her heckles and hissed with gusto before she bolted and leapt onto a nearby drying rack. The landing wasn't graceful, especially since it was a wrought iron circle hanging from the ceiling, but she managed to span the diameter and cling to it as it swung on its chain. The kitchen staff that remained raced for her, several of whom slipped and collapsed over the streak of flour, as she taunted them with yowls and the occasional unhooking of a drying collection of herbs or meat.
No one seemed to care when Puffpaw looked over to peek if Al and Jayce had moved yet, and she saw Al clearly as he ran for the back door. He was closely followed by a hunched fat man who was gripping a large sack that was tied around his neck. Puffpaw was curious, but Jonathan told her not to worry; That was simply Jayce, magically disguised as someone large enough to hide a person riding on his back.
Puffpaw was about to jump down and run out the back when Al ducked back in, back into the wine cupboard, and soon returned with a naked man, hastily covered with an errant cloak someone had left hanging by the back door. Another elf, lithe and tall, but with a sickly pallor and clear weakness as he struggled to run. Al motioned to Puffpaw to draw the kitchen staff away, and with Jonathan giving her the thought of running into the clusterfuck in the dining room, she leapt past the grabbing workers and obliged.
xXxXx
The cobblestone streets of the Opal Ward were quiet, partly due to the lack of foot traffic, but mostly due to the restrictions on carriages through the streets. No speed above a cantor was allowed as the nobles traveled in comfort, and those on foot had shaded sidewalks to shield them from the elements. The streets themselves were nice and wide, often dotted with central gardens or fountains to split the lanes, and the amber-colored leaves of the autumn trees danced on the wind between these embellishments. It was a place of peace and calm in its opulence.
At least it would be if a certain golaith stopped charging down the streets like his life depended on it.
Gauth's feet assaulted the cobblestones as he launched himself forward with fervor, his "disguise" of a cloak almost entirely useless as it barely covered his arms or back. The decorative garden hedge in the center of the street was barely an obstacle as he cleared it like a runner's hurdle and kept running, his angle generally northeast on the northward street. A horse screeched and whinnied as he cut close, and the driver of the carriage harassed him with many choice words as the driver fought to regain control of his steeds. Gauth paid him no mind and skid to a stop at the end of the block, where he immediately turned around and stared at the street.
The cloud's shadow drifted toward him and finally touched his boots.
He threw up an arm in triumph and yelled at the sky in his native tongue. "You see that, Kord?! Even a lowly earth-walker can outrun your chariot on a day like today! Bring your storms, bring your rain! I will face them all!"
Gauth then placed fists akimbo and laughed heartily at the sky, to which several passerby clearly wondered if he was insane.
Fortunately, Gauth had the excuse of being an outsider, and so he was easily dismissed from their attention when he began to calmly retrace his steps. Six blocks at a solid run, and he barely felt winded. He would have to try a longer race next time. He couldn't become complacent while he traveled, or he had no hope of defeating his siblings when he returned home.
He couldn't forgive that bitch for becoming chief. He knew she had murdered the elder in cold blood, but he couldn't prove it. She made it very clear that his strength meant nothing against her cunning.
Of course, it was hard to explain all that when he still had trouble with the "common" tongue. Why was it common when only weak people spoke it? Gauth sighed as he walked and started tracing letters in his palm. He had to learn to read as fast as possible so he could face that demon woman on level terms. As weak as they were, these people were definitely smart, perhaps more so than that false chief. Their math and their science was proof of that.
His thoughts naturally drifted to his new teacher, and he worried for her. His tribe would care for their elderly, and of course their own senses would start to dull or fade completely with age, so he was familiar with the limitations of the blind. However, without a community to bolster and care for her, Dahlia had to face her blindness alone, and she did so with confidence. That took a strength he could only hope to have, and he desperately wanted to be strong.
Gauth made it up to Q, his favorite letter, by the time he returned to the cart. Recently purchased, it was strong and sturdy, and pulled by two large horses with thick limbs and barrel chests. They were siblings, a mare and a colt, named Eple and Kake.
Gauth smiled broadly as he came up to the horses and wrapped his arms around their necks from below to pull them in for a hug. They nuzzled his face and chuffed their affection into his ear, and he had to chuckle from the resulting tickle. He pulled away and looked them both in the eye.
"Now both of you," he said softly, again in his mother tongue, "you must be ready. When my friends arrive, we will have to run very, very quickly. The cart will be heavy, but you are strong, and you are family. You will work together like a single steed."
Eple chuffed again and lightly whapped her muzzle into Gauth's shoulder. He responded by smiling and petting her mane and forehead, which she appreciated.
Kake quickly got jealous and tried to grab Gauth's attention by also nudging a shoulder, but Eple whinnied at him. Kake, clearly the submissive of the two, backed off and only mostly patiently waited his turn.
Gauth snickered and moved to pet Kake. "You remind me of my niece and nephews. They don't mess with her, either."
Kake shook his head with vigor and Gauth couldn't help but laugh. He liked to think these creatures could understand him.
Just then, a sound caught his ear, but it was quickly gone. Gauth glanced behind him, down the alley, and up the street, but he saw nothing that could have caused it. What was it, anyway? It was already far enough out of his mind that he couldn't recall what it sounded like.
Then he heard it again. His name. Someone was yelling his name! Who was it? It was louder, clearly closer, and he looked around again. Who was yelling his name?
"Gauth, you idiot! Look down!"
Startled, Gauth nearly jumped away from Bera, who barely came up to his knee. He regained his composure as quickly as he could and kneeled down.
"Bera!" he said brightly, barely remembering to switch to Tal'Dorein in time. "Is the plan going well?"
"No!" she squeaked, clutching three black books to her chest. "The margrave is ill or dying or something very nasty and so he couldn't talk to the siblings and I have no idea where anyone is but we need to start moving toward the Keep as soon as possible!"
Gauth rubbed the back of his head, confused. "Isn't the next part to signal Jaen?"
"Ugh! Crap! I forgot!" Bera whined, her head drooped in shame. "How do we do that?"
Gauth pointed down the street. "That way is the Hall of Reason, and after is the Margrave's Keep. We pass, drop off the books, and keep going." He then thought of something and pointed to the books in Bera's arms. "Are those the books?"
Bera nodded. "Yes. Never met or heard of a man who could keep track of two accounts without records to keep them straight. This should be everything the rebels are looking for."
Gauth scooped up Bera and placed her on the driver's seat of the cart with the same ease as lifting a small bag of grain. Bera resisted the urge to swoon as Gauth climbed up next to her and snapped the reins.
"Ha! On-word, Eple and Kake!"
Bera was caught off guard, amused as the horses neighed and began a quick trot down the street. "Apple and Cakey?"
Gauth wagged a finger at her with a patient smile. "No. Eple and Kake."
Bera half turned in her seat to look at the giantkin. "I thought their names were Mayflower and Buddy."
Gauth rolled his eyes. "You should name horses after something you love, not just as something to call them. I have no word for apple turnover, so I named them Apple and Pastry. Eple and Kake."
"Duly noted," Bera smirked. That was a nugget of information she would tuck away for later.
After a block, the street widened significantly to the large city square just in front of the Hall of Reason, over which the silver statue of Bahamut presided. His metal wings glistened like impossibly clear mirrors, casting reflections of bright light wherever the sun touched them. Gauth was impressed with how different it looked in the daylight hours.
He pulled the horses close to the front steps and bid them to stop, as the stablehand had been kind enough to teach him the day before. Once the cart had settled, he turned to Bera.
"Hand me the books, and watch the cart," Gauth said, his hand out for the black bound books. "I'll be back quickly."
"Please," Bera said, clearly anxious, as she handed over the journals. "With all the changes to plan, they might need to run quickly, which means we need to get there as soon as possible."
Gauth nodded, took the books, and hopped off the cart. A short jog had him at the top of the steps in no time, and he barely acknowledged the guards who stepped in his way.
"I have a delivery for, uh, Shield Jaen," Gauth said with diminishing power as he realized he never asked Jaen how they should be addressed. Hopefully, his outsider status would allow his awkwardness to be ignored.
"You have a delivery for the attendant to the Scalebearer?" the guard on the right laughed. "Right. And I'm the margrave. Move along."
Gauth allowed a little bit of his anger to simmer in his blood as he stepped far too close to the guard for the other to be comfortable. Literally towering over the man, he leaned down and growled, "Let me speak to Shield Jaen or I will throw you through those doors to open them."
The second guard, on the left, faltered and whispered, "Hey, uh, Ben, maybe it would be better just to let Warden Jaen take care of him."
The first guard nodded and gulped, then moved to open the door. Gauth nodded a begrudging thanks and stepped back into the audience hall of the Hall of Reason.
As luck would have it, Scalebearer Piersym was in the front hall, presiding over two men, one of which seemed to be quite down on his luck and the other some merchant of goods. Accusations of thievery and prohivative prices were flying between them as Gauth tried to catch Jaen's attention from the door. Thankfully, Jaen was looking for him, and as soon as Gauth held up the books, Jaen leaned over to whisper something to the Scalebearer.
Reluctantly, Scalebearer Piersym nodded, and Jaen marched over and nodded to Gauth. Gauth passed over the books and smiled, but then glanced about for anyone paying attention to him before he leaned down just enough to more comfortably whisper.
"Jaen, Bera has said the margrave is dying, and the plan has changed a lot. We are leaving now, but I think you should follow."
Jaen took the books and gave a determined nod. "Thank you. The Scalebearer is already aware, so leaving shouldn't take too much effort. Just need to...deal with the children in the room first, of course."
Gauth glanced up at the two men who were bickering while Scalebearer Piersym did his best to mitigate. "Do you want me to punch them?"
Jaen let out a short, humorless laugh while he flipped through one of the books. "As much as I'd like you to, it would be better for you to leave without pissing off my boss. Thank you for this, Gauth, and if you end up leaving before we arrive, thank your friends for me, too."
Gauth nodded and promised he would, and raced outside. Bera had produced a small chanter and was piping a blisteringly fast tune to work through her nervousness. The grace notes that accentuated the changes in rhythm or musical phrases were constant as Gauth climbed back into the cart.
"I thought you would want to be quiet," Gauth smiled, just before he snapped the reins and encouraged the horses to a cantor. "I thought you did not want to be noticed."
"I need something to distract me, okay?!" Bera snapped. She tensed, breathed, and went back to her tune, clearly unwilling to continue the conversation.
Gauth nodded. That was fine. He could understand the fear of battle. Only the truly deranged skip that step. Like that false chief. His jaw went tight as he remembered that day. Soon, he would return and put that bitch in her place.
Just down the street, they could see the Margrave's Keep, deceptively quiet despite the chaos that was clearly happening just inside. He slowed the horses and began a leisurely trot around the square, just in front of the Black King, where they could keep an eye on the front of the building.
"See anyone yet?" Gauth whispered.
Bera leaned out and looked across the square, but her gaze was suddenly diverted to a side street. "There! Over there! That's Al!"
Sure enough, a glance in that direction revealed Al, waving his hat from a much smaller side street between two of the estates. Gauth immediately clicked his tongue and pulled the horses toward his friend, his head on a swivel for nearby guards.
As soon as the cart came close, Al jumped in and reached for Jayce, who ducked out of a shadow and passed over Dahlia, dressed only in Jayce's long black coat. Once she was pulled to the front of the cart and settled in, Jayce hopped in as well, and helped Al cover the two of them with a burlap tarp.
"That was her?" Bera asked, visibly relieved that at least those two had returned.
Al nodded. "Yeah. She's sick, or something, and...I have no idea what she went through but by the gods it was depraved."
"Any sign of John or Zoe?" Jayce's voice cut in from below the tarp.
Bera looked toward the Margrave's Keep, where a contingent of Platinum Dragon Paladins, led by Jaen, were entering the grounds. "No, but Jaen's finally arrived with backup."
Al dropped from the cart, only saying, "I'll be right back," before he raced off to intercept Jaen. Bera chewed on her thumbnail as she watched.
"What was that?" Gauth asked.
"What happened?" Jayce asked, his face barely visible as he peeked over the edge of the cart.
"Al just ran off to talk to Jaen!" Bera whined. "And you get back under there and canoodle with your woman, Jayce!"
She was going to continue berating him for exposing himself, but when he went bright red and started refuting all canoodling of any kind, Bera sputtered through a restrained laugh and buried her head in her hands.
"And she's fuckin' unconscious, okay?! That ain't right," Jayce protested.
Gauth placed a heavy palm on Jayce's head and gently pushed him back down, out of sight. He was also amused, but he kept his comment to himself.
"Oh mother have mercy…" Bera giggled. "I needed that."
"Everything will be fine," Gauth said with a smile. "Al will return with Jonathan and Zoe, and we will run, and we will not stop until we are far from Westruun."
"Good. Good. So...Al is coming back alone," Bera said, slowly shrinking in her seat with worry.
Al raced back over and leapt into the back of the cart, his head whipping about as he looked for the siblings or their cat. "Anything yet?" he asked.
Gauth shook his head. "No. Why did you talk to Jaen?"
"I found a journal that detailed the blood ritual," Al said simply. "I handed it over."
"So what was going on?" Bera asked, desperate for any distraction.
Al glanced at the tarp and, praying Jayce wouldn't take it out on the messenger, explained. "The margrave found a ritual that transfers life force from one person to another, but he couldn't figure out why, when he should have been getting years, he was barely getting months. He started grabbing elves because they had the longest lifespan, but apparently that didn't improve things much."
"Vintage," Bera gasped.
Al nodded. "It was a bit more on-the-nose than that. The ritual includes drinking blood."
Bera gagged at the comment and Gath's jaw clenched as he thought through what Dahlia must have experienced. Gauth turned to look at Al at the back of the cart. "And you said the margrave is ill?"
"Or dying," Al said. He shrugged. "Hopefully Dahlia can explain when she gets up. She's good at that kind of thing."
"If she gets up," Jayce's voice cut in. "She's in bad shape. And let me out! I can't fuckin' breathe!"
"Shut up in there!" Al hissed. He turned to Bera. "You said the other day that you could help keep someone from dying, right?"
Bera flattened her hand and wiggled back and forth in a clear motion of "maybe". "I spent a lot of my early years as a caretaker for my Paw-Paw. He was nuttier than a squirrel and would often get hurt acting like a yipper a third his age."
Gauth was clearly lost as Al bit back a snicker at the comment. Just then, Jayce threw off a corner of the tarp to breathe, and they were all assaulted by a nauseatingly sweet smell.
"Ugh! What is that?" Al gagged. "You leave rotting fruit in your bag?!"
"No," Jayce gasped, "Dahlia's got some weird smell to her. It's gettin' trapped under the tarp."
Bera perked up. "Does she have the sugar sickness?"
"The what?" Jayce asked, the tarp wrapped around his head to help mitigate the fact that his green face was technically exposed.
Bera rolled her hand as she tried to come up with an explanation. "Um, does she get really sick if she doesn't eat for too long, or she gets sick if she eats too many sweets? Does she bruise easily?"
There was an uncomfortable pause. "Pretty sure that's a no," Al said.
Bera sighed. "Sorry. It's just, Paw-Paw would get sick and smell funny occasionally, and it was a pain in the butt because I'd have to run to town to find nacholite and mix it into water or cream so he'd actually drink it, and it would take about a day for him to get to normal, and that smell wouldn't wash out-"
"He turn yellow?" Jayce cut in.
Bera mulled it over. "Yeah, sometimes. Why?"
Jayce pulled the tarp back a bit to reveal Dahlia's face. "Because she's fuckin' yellow."
Bera nearly recoiled from the clear jaundice, revealed in the midmorning light. "That looks terrible! What happened to her?"
"Only she can tell us," Jayce said, clearly with a tinge of guilt. "You think that nacholite brew will help her?"
"We have company," Gauth said quietly, and Jayce ducked back under the tarp with Dahlia. Bera immediately twisted in her seat to face forward and began nervously twiddling at the chanter again. Two figures walked up to the cart, suspiciously free of any cats. Gauth's knuckles tense around the reins as they approached.
The first man was clearly Jonathan, his face visible but fallen, either in submission or a ploy to avoid detection. The second man was dressed in a clean and crisp officer's uniform, his dominant arm hidden behind Jonathan's back. On the officer's face, a light pink mark on his cheek, and a glare of intense determination.
They came to a stop just ten feet from the cart, and in the ensuing silence, they could hear fighting break out in the grounds of the Margrave's Keep.
The officer looked over them all. Gauth, Bera, and briefly Al, who refused to make eye contact. "This is them?"
Jonathan winced, and then nodded.
The officer gave a nod of his own and turned to the group. "I have a knife to your friend's back. This has gone far out of hand, but I am willing to trade this man's life for the elf."
"Wait, what?" Bera asked. "What?!"
"It's simple," the man hissed. "Give me the woman you stole from us, and you get your friend back."
"And then you kill her," Gauth growled.
"Loose ends," the man grumbled, clearly unhappy with the whole situation.
"What's the point?!" Bera cut in, barely able to keep her voice below a squeak. "You just murder a woman in cold blood in the middle of the Opal Ward, or you murder a man! And then what?! Race back to the Margrave's Keep and hide? That place is overrun with Platinum Dragon Paladins! Margrave Zimmerset is finished, no matter what you do!"
The officer winced hard and suddenly snapped, his grip on Jonathan suddenly shifting to wrap around him to place the blade as his neck. "I know! But embezzlement is a far lesser sentence than hemomancy! We still need the margrave! The Ravagers are pounding at the gates as we speak!"
The officer twitched and whirled around, the short blade swinging through the air as Al came up behind. The blade thudded deeply, a perfect strike, just under Al's arm and between his ribs. Al felt his muscles seize as something clamped around his heart, choking him from breathing.
He knew it instantly. Poison.
Bera yelled Al's name as he hit the ground, his limbs twisting inward and cracking into uncomfortable positions. Gauth launched himself from the driver's seat as Bera, horrified, whispered something under her breath, and the air suddenly took a tense chill as the man, Colonel Peterson, flinched away and roared in pain. His eyes went wild as they locked with Bera, and he immediately shifted to his back foot.
Jayce peeked over the edge of the cart as Gauth lunged at the man, and aimed his palm at the officer. Before Colonel Peterson could actually bolt, Jayce let loose a blast of blue-black flame, and managed to strike the man in the thigh.
Colonel Peterson stumbled back a step as his leg was forcefully moved, and he used the momentum to slip just to the side of Gauth's blade, brought down with fury on the place where the man once stood. The axe threw chips of stone upward from the force of the blow, forever marring those stones in the street.
Colonel Peterson used the momentum to stumble backward and scramble away, his mind filled with irrational fear of Bera's voice. Gauth tried to rend his blade across his enemy's retreating back, but Colonel Peterson was just too quick for the axe to find purchase. Instead, Colonel Peterson managed to escape nearly halfway across the open street.
Jonathan, now freed from Colonel Peterson's threat and clear from the fight, braced his arm and let the magic flow from his core to create three spinning pinpricks of light around his wrist. As he clenched his fist, the three points of purplish light snapped into the shape of lethal darts and fired directly into Colonel Peterson's back. Three small explosions shook the man and nearly threw him off his feet, but deft footwork kept him from losing his footing.
Al gasped and fought to breathe, his body refusing to actually take in air as if his lungs had collapsed. Bera glanced at him and set her chest, her vocals diverting air just slightly as she screamed, "You coward!" at the retreating Colonel Peterson. Again, that strange, whining note seemed to physically strike Colonel Peterson, and, unfortunately, it seemed to shake him out of his fear. His eyes were murderous as he whirled around toward the cart.
Jayce was prepared. The second Colonel Peterson's eyes were visible, he gripped that little pebble in his pocket and hissed a command into his fist, his arm flaring with the oily fire as his limbs went cold. A thunderous ringing literally shook Colonel Peterson as he, again, roared through the pain and launched himself back toward the team, and the raging goliath who was waiting for him.
Gauth charged to meet him halfway and ripped his blade through the air horizontally, goring the man through the stomach. Blood and bile splattered in a crimson arc across the street, and people nearby began screaming and fleeing the scene. It was practically unheard by the giantkin. All he saw was the man who hurt his best friend, and he wanted that man dead.
Colonel Peterson was unable to stop, even as his vision went white with pain. The momentum was far too great to reverse or divert, nearly blind and his ears ringing with magical sound, he struck at Gauth twice, his dagger shifting position in his palm as if it was attached in some magical way. His strength faltered as his blade came down, and Gauth literally slapped it away as if he was nothing more than an annoying child. Again, he shifted the blade in his palm and backhanded it toward Gauth's ribs, but again, the giantkin slapped it away as if he was a mere novice.
As his feet finally touched the street, three more darts of light exploded into his side, throwing him to the ground. His breath was leaving him, his eyes unfocused. He immediately played dead, rather convincingly with the gaping stomach wound. His only chance was to be left for the city to clean up, rather than attempt to escape when he could barely feel his legs.
Then Gauth's foot crushed the man's skull to the street.
Bera threw herself at Al, his back arched and his face pulled into a manic smile while his eyes held a look of panic. She quickly looked him over, and then dove at Colonel Peterson's body to rifle through his pockets. She produced four small vials, three of which had a clear liquid, and the fourth with a lightly blue tinted one. With a small prayer, she dumped the contents of the fourth vial into Al's mouth, and slipped the other three into his pocket. She began deftly massaging Al's throat to encourage him to swallow, and eventually his body relented and accepted the liquid.
A few tense seconds passed, but Al gasped and his body relaxed, his limbs flopping around him. Panting, Al turned to Bera and wheezed, "How...did you know that was the antidote?"
Bera grimaced and motioned for Gauth to pick up Al. "You don't want to know. John! Where's your sister?"
"Hopefully catching up," Jonathan said quickly, his eyes rolled back and glowing a strange purple. "She's...been saved by a Platinum Dragon Paladin, so she'll catch up. Let's go!"
Gauth kicked Colonel Peterson's body and scooped up his friend to lightly toss him into the back of the cart before climbing into the driver's seat. Jonathan, barely able to keep his balance, also climbed in and immediately fell to his side as his world continued to swim. It did not help when the cart lurched forward as the horses were suddenly kicked up to speed, and Gauth had them at a full gallop as they raced through the streets of Westruun.
Just as the horses found their gait, Zoe, with Puffpaw clinging to her back, sprinted from the edge of the Margrave's Keep. She leapt low, choosing to extend her jump as far as possible, rather than give herself height. Her hands just barely gripped the edge of the cart, and she pulled her feet through her arms to extend her landing by collapsing her knees as soon as they hit the opposite wall of the cart bed. It wasn't enough to reduce her speed, so she twisted to slam her shoulder into the cart wall, rather than her face. Finally able to breathe, she caught Puffpaw, who had circumvented the entire clumsy entrance by leaping into the air the second Zoe had grabbed the edge.
Finally assembled, the group raced to the northeast gate of Westruun, far from the Ravagers, far from the Opal Ward, far from the Shields loyal to the Margrave. Even those guards at the gate were unable to halt them, as they had arrived, and passed, when the gate was open to allow a herd of plainscow to enter the safety of the city. Just as planned.
They left Westruun, and the shadows of the clouds, far behind them.