"The wounds of Asmodeus have yet to heal. He continues to bleed slowly, his seeping vitae pooling among the rocks of [Nessus]. Out of these pools, new devils are born every day."
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Guide to Hell, Chris Pramas
"Start at the beginning," urges Alfira, quill-pen again poised against parchment. "The first day Tav arrived in the grove. Tell me everything you remember. Little details have a way of inspiring the most poignant lines."
"I remember…" Zevlor leans back in his chair and casts his gaze overhead, seeing not the Elfsong's wooden ceiling but a vision of ancient stone, rays of violent summer sunlight worming through its cracks, "… it was hot."
Alfira snorts at the anti-climax and does not deign to write this down.
But it was hot. Punishingly hot. Hot as the hells, he might once have described it. Except those from Elturel knew better than to throw such comparisons around lightly, now. Nor did the heat of the day merit even a low-ranking place in his ever-growing list of concerns. However —
"Let my daughter go, right now!"
"She's a thief, hellspawn!"
— Zevlor was finding it hard to keep his metaphorical cool with sweat sliding uncomfortably down the back of his armor and dripping off his tail. He inhaled humid air through his nose, rallying his failing patience, and stepped sideways, putting himself between the stolen child's hysterical mother and the hard-eyed female druid barring the inner grove's path.
"She's a child." But he had said these words so many times in the last few minutes they sounded worn and wrung of all meaning, even to his ears. "Please. Just let me speak to Kagha, I'm sure-"
"Refugees are no longer permitted to enter the heart of the grove. No exceptions. Kagha's orders." The druid's face was set with all the stubborn immovability of a badger guarding its den, but she kept her gaze carefully south of Zevlor's eyes - a reaction to the infernal sclera he had met with too many times. "Any foulblood puts a toe across this step and Maggran will bite it off!"
Outrage swept like a wave of scalding water across the small scrum of tieflings waiting restlessly at the top of the steps. They clenched fists and lashed tails, hurled curses of their own at the druids, who were quick to reply in kind. The stolen child's mother took a defiant step forward; her husband grabbed her arm to hold her back.
Zevlor made no effort to calm them. In truth, he could barely hear them. That one, incendiary word still echoed like a smokepowder explosion in his ears as he turned on his heel and marched away.
Foulblood.
Hardly the worst slur he had ever endured, but something in it had snapped the final cord tethering Zevlor's threadbare temper, and it was essential he remove himself before he made an already dire situation impossibly worse. The grove's interim first druid, Kagha, had proven herself a more mercurial leader than the altruistic Halsin had been, but kidnap - whatever the child's transgression - that was an unsettling new low, and the druid guards too many and too well-armed to fight. Trying to force a way through their line would accomplish nothing; except to put the child in more danger and execute any last possibility of extending his people's stay.
Not that he expected the other refugees - civilians - to understand this. Zevlor could feel them watching him as he dragged his aching knees up the wide stone steps, their disappointment and disapproval as palpable as the sweltering heat. He avoided eye contact with any; a bad habit he had picked up on this gods-forsaken journey - he had never minded an audience before. Being a Hellrider, and a tiefling, meant he had always been the object of intense scrutiny, and under such watchful eyes he had thrived. Now, they felt like iron brands against his already sweat-slicked skin, and no more than he deserved. He had promised these people protection, the possibility of better lives, and what had he provided, thus far? More loss, and the threat of violent death on every side.
At the grove's central hollow, he slowed, watching Asharak adjust a child's grip on a sword its young hands would be too small to properly hold for several years yet. And the child did not have years. It had hours. Twenty-four hours. After which, it would be thrust back onto the road with its unwieldy weapon, the leer of a gnoll or the cruelly laughing face of a goblin the last thing it would ever see. Zevlor turned away, running a hand through his hair in distraction, nails that needed cutting snagging on the sweat-damp strands. He tightened the tie keeping hair from his face and trudged on, leather travel boots scuffing up clods of dirt from the packed earth ground. A plan. They needed a plan. But, however hard he beat his weary brain, no new solution appeared. They were backed into a corner, surrounded on all sides.
It was Avernus all over again.
A sudden commotion from the direction of the grove's front gate tugged Zevlor's thoughts from their anxious spiral. Someone was shouting. Someone - several someones by the vibrations - were pounding on the gate from outside. Zevlor doubled back. Shielding his eyes against the sun's relentless glare, he recognised Kanon leaning over the ramparts, calling to someone below. And - Zevlor's heart pounded in time with his feet as they sped him towards the ramparts - he thought he also recognised the voice that shouted back.
Aradin: leader of that ragtag band of treasure-hunters who had come and gone a few days prior, taking the grove's original first druid with them. If he was back, so was Halsin, and Halsin's return would surely mean a return of sense and reason to the rest of the druids. Hope bubbled like acid in Zevlor's chest as he climbed the steep embankment, ignoring the protests of his stiff knees, heading for the bridge overlooking the grove's front gate.
"What's going on?" he asked Kanon the moment his boots hit wood, but it was Aradin who screamed up the answer.
"Goblins are on our tail! Open the gate, Zevlor, now!"
Hope dissolved. Zevlor could feel the poisonous pool of it burning his throat as he choked, "You led goblins here? Where is the druid?!" and cast a desperate gaze across the sun-seared environs stretched out below. But the light revealed no cantering bear, or massive wood elf outline lurking amid the scattered scrub - only a cloud of dust and dirt at the edge of the valley; the sort kicked up by a score of small, bare, fast-moving feet. Zevlor's heart stopped pounding and sank into his stomach instead as the nightmare he had dreaded the last tenday took life before his eyes.
Goblins. And no mere scouting party, either. An organised raid - complete with armoured boss, half a dozen booyahgs and archers, one hulking bugbear, and a slathering warg - rounded the corner towards them.
"By the nine hells," Zevlor breathed, despair constricting his lungs and darkening the edges of his vision. Were it not for the hard curve of wood he could feel through the thinning soles of his boots, he would have thought he was falling. How much more could the gods find to throw at him?
Then, the screams of the humans cowering below and the tieflings frozen on the ramparts behind shook his military training into place, and he was snatching up a guard's crossbow and a bolt from a barrel and shouting, "Open the gates!" even though he knew it was too late. The goblin archers were already taking position on the high outcropping of rock in the valley's centre, and Zevlor could hear the telltale whistle of wood and feathers through air. He ducked on instinct —
"If you'd like," interrupts Alfira quietly, "you can just… just skip past what happened to Kanon. I've already heard the story of the fight from a few different people. And I'm sure you don't want to relive all that."
Zevlor blinks, momentarily disconcerted to find himself not in overbright wilds but the Elfsong's cool, dark interior. His eyes wander to the parchment scattered across the other half of the table - still blank; the bard has yet to write down anything he's said - then to Alfira herself. Her face is pale. The quill-pen trembles slightly in her fingers. He thinks it might be shewho would prefer not to linger over old friends' deaths.
"As you like," he says, and takes the opportunity to wet his throat with a draught of forgotten ale.
"Just skip to the good part," coaxes Alfira, "when you first saw Tav," and waits in expectant silence for Zevlor to set down his mug and close his eyes.
"I heard her before I saw her," he says, and lets memory once more saturate his mind.
The unrelenting heat. The goblins' foul war cries and the thunks of iron on wood as Aradin and what remained of his band huddled together under one crude shield. The metallic scent of spilled blood steaming in the sun. The hell that only hopeless battle could be. And the voice that suddenly cut through the clamour, high and clear as a church bell, bright and bold as the sun overhead. Its words were unintelligible, but something in the voice itself seemed to steady Zevlor's unravelling nerves and bolster his sinking spirit. He lowered the crossbow a fraction, scanning the environs for the source of the rallying cry…
…and blinked, unwilling to believe his eyes. A figure in leather and ring-mail had appeared atop the rocky outcrop opposite, a short bow in one hand, a rapier in the other. With the sun arrayed behind her, catching the steel and making it shine, she looked like something plucked straight from Elturel's High Cathedral - an artist's interpretation of Divine Aid depicted in stained glass.
As Zevlor watched, stunned to stillness by what must surely be a mirage, the figure darted towards the goblin archer perched on the edge of the rock and executed a precise lunge. Her thin blade slid through the creature's throat and out the other side in a wide arterial spray. Spitting dark blood from her mouth and smearing it off her lips with her sleeve, she kicked the twitching corpse to the ground and spun, rapier ready, to face the next goblin scrabbling up the rock. A long, pale tail whipped around her ankles as she pierced it through the eye, and Zevlor thought he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
Then more figures appeared alongside her - two, three, four more - all wielding weapons and stumbling down the rocky outcrop at varying speeds. The goblins, caught unaware from behind, howled their shock and displeasure. And time, which had paused politely while Zevlor processed this miraculous turn of tides, restarted in a chaos of motion and noise. He ripped his gaze from the new arrivals, tightened his grip on the crossbow, scanned the ground for the nearest goblin and took a more confident aim.
It passed in a blur - as did most battles in the ex-Hellrider's experience. He had a vague impression of fumbling for crossbow bolts, of his finger tightening on the crossbow's trigger - once, twice more? - of a flurry of footsteps that turned out to be the Blade of Frontiers leaping unexpectedly from the ramparts to the rocks to join the fray. Then, a ringing silence. A stillness that hung heavy on his limbs, vibrating with adrenaline. Zevlor swivelled in place, seeking another target, and found only the raiding party's corpses littering the blood-and-grease-stained ground.
It seemed impossible, unbelievable, but…
"That was the last of them," he said aloud, and realised he was panting. Dropping the crossbow unceremoniously, Zevlor heaved himself across the bridge and fumbled with the wheel to raise the gate. "Get inside," he called down. "All of you," he added, searching the survivors for the figure from the rock, half-expecting to find her vanished; gone as mysteriously as she had come.
But there she was, kneeling in the dirt, inspecting the splayed body of an unusually armoured goblin. She looked up at Zevlor's words, nodded once in his direction, then clambered to her feet, saying something he could not hear to her milling companions, and the five of them shouldered modest packs and made their way to the open gate. Aradin and his lot were already through, calling curses and complaints loudly enough to echo up to the ramparts above.
And the sheer gall of the man, mixed with the lingering dregs of horror and the adrenaline still pumping in his veins, the anxieties of the day - the tenday, really - and the realisation he finally had someone else he could blame for some of them, set Zevlor's blood on fire. He threw himself down the ladder, never mind his knees, and caught the human before he'd made it to the grove's stoney shade.
"There are children here, you fool!" and to scream was cathartic; but Aradin, too, was running on battle fumes and he spun on his boot to face Zevlor, unfazed.
"We was running … for our lives," he panted.
Zevlor, pulse pounding in his ears, barely heard the words and did not care - "And you let them take the druid too?! Unbelievable!"- it felt too good, after days of decaying composure, to finally let himself lose control.
Then someone was standing beside him, and a voice he did not know but recognised immediately froze the rage whole in his chest, like a devil entombed in ice.
"What's unbelievable is how we beat the goblins. You're heroes! Both of you."
Zevlor turned his head, and his eyes met hers for the first time.
Their sclera was white, rather than infernal black, but the blue of the pupils was nevertheless too deep and oddly spiralled to be human alone. And close up he could see the tips of short, stubby horns peeking out from her chaos of dark, blood-stained hair. She took up position between him and Aradin, a hand outstretched to each as if to congratulate them - or, Zevlor thought more likely, to keep the two fuming men apart; however broad her smile or friendly her words, there was a glint of wary steel in the not-quite-natural blue of her eyes.
"And who the hell are you again?" snapped Aradin, and Zevlor fancied he could hear the slight, unnecessary emphasis the human, eyeing the young woman's tail, put on the word hell - fuel for his fury's fire.
"Show some respect," he spat, stepping closer, hand a hair from Aradin's shoulder in unmistakable threat. "This woman saved your pathetic life."
Aradin met him toe-for-toe, unabashed.
"Well, I didn't ask for any goddamn help."
"Please, you were begging me to open the gate. Anything to save yourself, you coward!"
They were a breath from each other now, and Zevlor could see the human's eye twitch, his fists clench at his sides. He wanted a fight, and Zevlor, in his current state, would have been happy to give it to him; had a hand on his arm not brought him up short.
"That's enough," said the stranger, and her voice was no longer light, but as sharp and commanding of attention as a drawn blade. "More violence is not going to bring back any you've lost, but it might lose you more. Stop, and think."
And just as it had on the ramparts, something in her voice cleared Zevlor's mind. He drew in a breath, and it seemed to contain a higher proportion of cool air than the grove had offered all day. Fury dwindled to embers in his chest.
"You're right," he said, exhaling slowly. He took one, minute step back. "There's too much at stake."
A glance at the young woman's face registered her approval. Zevlor felt inexplicably sated, as if he had passed some sort of test. Aradin snorted.
"Worried about your precious hides, the both of you," he snarled, shaking off her restraining hand.
"Enough," said Zevlor; though without rage to empower it, his voice was merely tired and worn. "Squabbling is pointless. The goblins have found us."
And the grim reality of this pronouncement snuffed out even Aradin's thirst for combat.
"At least we agree on that," he grumbled, and gave both tieflings one last dark look before stomping away to join the remnants of his band, then limp together slowly towards the shelter of the grove.
Zevlor's eyes followed them as they walked, but his mind had moved on from Aradin already - racing to process the last half hour and its ominous implications for his camp. If there had been any feeble chance they might escape unnoticed from the grove when their time was up tomorrow, that was long gone now. The goblin leadership had set their sights on this location. If the druids forced them out, they faced a slaughter. It was as simple as that. Zevlor closed his eyes, breathing hard. His limbs felt impossibly heavy. His brain throbbed against his skull as it raced compulsively for options, alternatives, some kind of plan.
Until a gentle squeeze of fingers brought him back to the present. The mysterious new stranger still had her hand on his arm. Zevlor's eyes snapped open.
She was watching him closely, cobalt eyes flicking from one part of his face to another, and Zevlor, who could not remember the last time he'd glanced in a mirror, wondered what she saw. Too many lines, he supposed, most from worry, though more than a few were simply age; hair that needed cutting; fire-toned skin, roughed by years of military lye soap; equally fiery eyes and horns of a size he once boasted, though such obvious infernal traits had ceased to be a point of pride. The woman's gaze drifted and Zevlor felt suddenly hot under his armor in a way he could not blame on the sun. He was hyperaware of sweat soaking through the legs of his trousers, the smell that lingered on him - the bitter copper of old, overheated mail.
Not that she fared much better, this newcomer. Though she had clearly made an effort to wipe the goblin gore from her face and hands, she showed - and wafted - all the signs of at least a few days spent living rough on the land. Still, Zevlor straightened his spine and set his shoulders, determined to correct his poor first impression, as he addressed the grove's unexpected saviour directly at last.
"Forgive that display. Aradin's a blowhard, but that's no cause for me to join him. Thank you for your help out there." He tried to smile and found his face had quite forgotten how. He dipped his head respectfully, instead. "I'm Zevlor."
"Tav," she said, and it took him a moment to realise the single syllable was her name.
There was another brief pause in which she continued to stare at him, her expression uninterpretable, though it sent a frisson of something not-unpleasant across Zevlor's skin. Then she blinked. Her face cleared and her hand fell from his arm. She waved it at her companions, edging closer now the confrontation was clearly resolved.
"And this is Gale, Lae'zel…"
She rattled off a series of names, none of which stuck in Zevlor's brain. An idea had hatched there, inspired by this uncommonly helpful stranger and her auspicious - and reward-worthy - arrival.
"Well met," he managed when silence confirmed introductions had concluded. He gave the others one polite nod, then returned his attention to Tav and cleared his throat. "But I should warn you, visitors are no longer welcome in this grove. Whatever your business is, I'd see to it quickly. The druids are forcing everyone out. This attack will only strengthen their resolve."
One of the others, a thin, pale elf, gave a dramatic roll of his shoulders and murmured something Zevlor could not understand as Tav said over him, "Have there been many attacks like that?"
"There have been several attacks by different monsters. The druids blame us outsiders," he gave Tav - the only tiefling of her group - a knowing look, "for drawing them here. They've started a ritual, to cut the grove off from the outside world. We can't stay, but we'll be slaughtered if we leave. We're no fighters."
Once, it would have galled Zevlor, Hellrider Commander, to sound so pathetic in front of anyone, let alone a stranger, but death's first act was to rob potential victims of all reticence, tact, and pride. Still, he averted his gaze as he spoke, focusing on a point by her ankles where her tail flicked eagerly from side to side.
"We?" she repeated. "There are more of you? More - more tieflings, I mean?"
The way she pronounced the word was strange beyond the roll of her accent, as if it were a curse she was too well-bred to often say. Zevlor's gaze flicked from her tail to her horns to her too-blue eyes. She was a tiefling, no mistake. Curious. But curiosities were a luxury he could not currently afford.
"Yes. We're refugees from Elturel." He laid the bare bones of their story out quickly. "We took shelter here after gnolls attacked us on the road. We were bound for Baldur's Gate, and it was too late to turn back. Elturel had no place for tieflings after the descent."
"Elturel," Tav parroted again, but her eyes had gone wide, and Zevlor knew she understood. "Well," she said, after a moment's laden silence, "if you made it out of Avernus, surely you can survive anything?"
She offered Zevlor a weak smile he did not even attempt to reciprocate.
"So I'd hoped, but we've lost so many already. And more will die if we're forced out again."
Another short silence draped uncomfortably across them, filled by the distant chanting of the druids from the inner grove. The sound made Zevlor's tail twitch with anxiety. He felt sweat beading at the base of his horns and fought the urge to swipe it away. Tav was clearly contemplating. She fiddled with the rough strip of leather tethering her rapier and short bow to her waist. Zevlor held his breath.
"This ritual," she said finally. "Is there no way to convince the druids to stop it?"
Zevlor sighed. It was not an offer, but it was an opening. And the best he was likely to get.
"I've tried. Kagha, their new first druid, won't even see me. You though... I know it's not your business, but she owes you for saving this place. Perhaps you could persuade her. For more time to prepare if nothing else."
Behind Tav, a female elf - or half-elf, possibly - shifted her weight restlessly from leg to leg; a green-skinned creature the likes of which Zevlor had never seen made a hostile clicking sound. He ignored both. Their group's dynamic was inarguable - there was one clear leader here.
"I'm … we're really just here looking for a healer," said Tav apologetically, rubbing a spot by her inner eye.
"Goblin got you?"
Momentarily distracted, Zevlor did a quick professional scan. Her chest and shoulders were clearly constricted by a leather and ringmail cuirass at least one size too small, her tail dragged and she winced when she shifted her weight, her boots the wrong sort for this terrain, but she bore no visible bandages or any other obvious signs of injury. And as she offered no further explanations, he had no choice but to let this second curiosity go in order to keep their conversation on track. She had not refused outright, after all.
"The druid Halsin's a renowned healer, but he didn't make it back from Aradin's expedition. If it's not too serious, you could try his apprentice, Nettie. She's with the other druids in the inner grove." Zevlor gestured in its general direction. "They've withdrawn there to prepare this damn ritual of theirs," he added, unable to disguise the words' bitter taste.
Tav's head, which had turned in the direction he indicated, snapped back swiftly at the mild oath, and for one gut-twisting second Zevlor was certain he had mis-stepped; offended the young woman and cost his people this final, flimsy chance. Then, she nodded.
"I'll find Nettie, then. And I'll speak to Kagha while I'm there."
This announcement inspired an outburst of dissent from behind her; the male elf and the green-skinned being registering their protests, while another, a human in the garb of a magic-user, argued back. Zevlor, throwing the last of his pride to the wind, raised his voice to be heard above them.
"We'd owe you a great debt," he said shamelessly. "If we're forced to leave now, we won't make it to the city."
"We're going there anyway," - Tav's voice carried hints of its earlier steel; her companions fell silent - "so it's no trouble to find this Kagha and ask. I don't know that she'll be more disposed to listen to me than to you, but," - she shrugged - "I'll certainly try."
Relief had become so foreign a concept to the ex-Elturian he did not immediately recognise its symptoms. The rush of warmth through his veins, the unknotting of muscles in his shoulders, the lightheadedness, he initially attributed to the heat. He heard his voice distantly: babbling more entreaties and, at Tav's continued agreement, some inadequate and incoherent thanks. But it was not until she had finally stepped around him and headed for the hollow, trailing companions, that Zevlor fully grasped what had happened.
He had got what he asked for. She would help him. His people had one more chance.
But this world was a hell as deadly as any level of Baator, and no sooner was one devil slayed than two more sprang up to take its place. New anxious unknowns wormed their way to the front of Zevlor's mind. Would she keep her word, this young woman he knew nothing of but a name? And even if she did, would Kagha deign to listen to her, tiefling as she was?
He turned hurriedly, watching the strangers walk away. Only Tav's back was visible as she chivvied her companions into the shade, and he could see the crude hole cut too low into the leather of her cuirass and knew the base of her tail must ache. A twist of green briar was caught in her tangle of hair, and the rapier slung to her belt still dripped a trail of blood. New furrows creased Zevlor's brow. His first impression of her standing high over the battle had been divine, but, somehow, he doubted Kagha would see her that way.
The new arrivals rounded the corner out of Zevlor's sight, taking with them his short-lived relief. Reality resettled its weight across his weary shoulders - he could feel them sag as he made his own slow way back amid a creak and groan of protesting knees. They had twenty-four hours - now, a little less - to prepare for their hopeless journey, and he could not waste any of them waiting for word of a long shot with so little chance of success. A blessing unlooked for Tav might have been at the gate, but the gods' blessings could be rescinded at any time. Elturel had taught him that.
Alone in the secluded stone chamber he had requisitioned off the refugees' main camp, Zevlor put himself to work - making notes on their skirmish with the goblins, updating their shrinking supply list to account for the used ammunition, re-organising watch rotations after striking off Kanon's name - but his decades-honed discipline was cracking under the strain of the day, and more than once he caught himself frozen, quill dripping ink onto his map, as he imagined the scene that might be playing out even now in the inner grove. How much time would it reasonably take Tav to find and speak to Kagha? And how long after to send him word? Zevlor could not guess. And, he reminded himself fiercely, ought not to try.
Minutes crept by like days, Zevlor's nervous tension wound tighter with each, until the stone door to the chamber rolled open abruptly and he shot up from the makeshift desk like an arrow from an overdrawn bow.
It was Tilses.
"She's let her go. Arabella. Kagha, that is," she related chaotically, hands on her knees as she fought for breath - she had evidently run. "One of those new strangers from the gate made a case for her, talked Kagha down. Her parents have her now."
It took Zevlor several racing heartbeats to understand what this meant. Then he remembered - the stolen child of the morning. The fight at the gate had driven that particular unpleasant development entirely from his mind.
"That's…" he fumbled for words. "That is good news." Underwhelming praise, he knew. But the harsh truth was without a stay of their impending ejection, the child's doom was only temporarily delayed. He cleared his throat. "Did any of them mention whether Kagha agreed to reconsider the ritual?"
"They haven't come out yet. The strangers, I mean." Recovered enough to stand, Tilses rolled the stone door closed behind her, then crossed at her self-enforced military pace to the back of the chamber where Zevlor waited in tense anticipation for her to relate the rest. "Once Kagha gave her the go-ahead, Arabella ran out of their cave right away and found her parents. I heard the story from Komira. Apparently, Kagha threatened to set a snake on her, and only called it off when that new tiefling - Arabella didn't know her name - said something about the druid's god, Sylvanas. The girl couldn't remember exactly what she said."
"I see," said Zevlor, disappointed and trying very hard not to look or sound it. Tilses took up her self-appointed position beside his desk, but Zevlor did not think his shot nerves could take any more ingenuous commentary or well-intentioned questions just now. "Do me a favour, Tilly," he said, not looking at her, "and keep an eye out for the strangers. I want to know when they emerge from the inner grove and what they do next."
It was a mark of Tilses' dogged dedication to her Hellrider training that she neither questioned nor complained, simply fired off a salute and marched immediately back the way she had just come. And if Zevlor felt a twinge of guilt at the abrupt dismissal, he paid for it tenfold over the next few hours as Tilses, obedient to the letter, brought him regular reports of everything the new arrivals, and their tiefling leader, did.
The tales were incredible.
They had rescued another child, this time from harpies. They had formed an alliance with the Blade of Frontiers. Tav herself had talked Kanon's sister out of killing their only goblin prisoner, and the camp's apprentice wizard from spiriting his family off into the dangerous wilds. She had defended yet another child from a confrontation with Aradin's gang, and Zorru against her own companion - the green-skinned female who turned out to be one of the mythic githyanki his scouts purported to have seen. Had Zevlor not known Tilly to be an almost painful paragon of honesty, he would have suspected her of embellishment. But her accounts were later confirmed in their every detail by the Blade of Frontiers.
Wyll, who had arrived in the grove a few days prior, had been instrumental in assisting Zevlor's scouts in culling a few of their surrounding threats. The young man had his own mission, however, and his own affliction for which he sought healing; and which, he explained to Zevlor when he visited that afternoon, the new arrivals apparently shared.
"Mindflayer tadpoles … in people's heads?"
"It doesn't seem to be catching," said Wyll, with an uncomfortable smile. "And everyone's agreed there's something unusual about them - none of us seem to show any symptoms. But we're each armed with a contingency plan, just in case." And he tapped the phial affixed to his swordbelt with a thong. "Wyvern poison."
Zevlor shook his head slowly. He knew, objectively, this was the worst thing he had heard all day, but there was simply no room left in his brain for more horrors that did not affect his people directly. So he asked without segue:
"Did Tav or any of the others mention whether Kagha will allow us to stay?"
He saw the answer in Wyll's averted gaze. And though he had told himself to expect it, Zevlor's heart still plummeted and lodged hard somewhere in his gut.
"I know she tried, but … Kagha couldn't be budged." Wyll crossed his arms uncomfortably. "You know I'd help escort you myself, but I have to find my quarry. It's important. More hinges on it than you know. Tav's agreed to help me, then we're going to search for Halsin. He was researching the tadpoles, and Nettie seems to think he might have discovered a cure."
So, that was another possibility struck from Zevlor's diminishing list, though not a very likely one. Wyll was skilled for his age, but it would take a hundred blades to give them a fighting chance past the horde of goblins, gnolls and, apparently, mindflayer ships lying in wait. No, a fight on the road inevitably meant slaughter. Which left only one remaining viable solution Zevlor's military mind could see. It had prowled the back of his baser thoughts since Kagha first announced her ultimatum; but he could not execute it, and dared not ask the wholly law-abiding Wyll. Now, though, there was someone... someone with access to Kagha … someone who could creep up on goblins and plunge rapiers through their throats with thoughtless ease. Only… was it right to ask her? And, more to the point, would she possibly agree?
These were the new devils persecuting Zevlor as the sun slunk away for the day, and he was still wrestling them into a coherent plan when he emerged from his secluded chamber for supper into an only marginally cooler hollow lit by pools of flickering torchlight and the flame under Orka's cookpot just visible behind the refugees' solemn queue.
Nights were always a tense affair among the tieflings. All of them, even the children to some extent, never knew which one would be their last. And tonight, what with Kanon's notable absence and the knowledge they would be thrust back onto the road the following day, the undercurrent of dread was especially charged. Men, women, and orphaned children received their rations and shuffled away in private clumps and pairs. Zevlor winced as he watched them. It had been a major goal of his, when they first set out from Elturel, to bring them all together as one people, one family; to restore that innately necessary sense of belonging they - he - had lost. To see them reduced to these splintered factions was particularly depressing. Though he, too, was guilty of it. He kept his distance, lingering on the outskirts of the camp until everyone else had been fed, then sidling up to accept what was left. Usually precious little. Amongst their many, many problems was scarcity of foodstuffs, and while their own numbers might be one less tonight, they had five more mouths to feed.
The new arrivals, and Wyll, could hardly be refused supper after their assistances of the day, but they seemed cognizant of the low rations and had the good grace to wait till the last tiefling but one had taken their portions from Orka's pot. As Zevlor approached, the strangers accepted their bowls with varying degrees of thanks - all except the pale elf, who sniffily declined, and Tav, who Zevlor did not see. This put a wrench in his tentative plan, and he was considering his options - whether to wait for her to appear or seek her out - when the strangers traipsed away, leaving him alone at the cookpot with Orka and the last queued tiefling, apparently unable to extricate herself from one of the old woman's long-winded yarns.
The younger tiefling's pale blue tail flicked low around her ankles. Something in the motion caught Zevlor's preoccupied eye. He was just wondering which of his refugees this was - he thought he might have seen the patched dress on Bex - when she turned and —
"Oh! There you are," said Tav, her voice a perfect mirror for Zevlor's surprise. "I was looking for you earlier. Commander," she added belatedly, and, after a second's hesitation, thrust the bowl she was holding like a peace offering into Zevlor's stunned hands.
He took it on instinct, still chagrined at not immediately recognising the person who had occupied his thoughts most of the day. But, under the circumstances, Zevlor thought he might be forgiven. It was amazing the difference a wash, a thorough brush of her hair, and the shedding of her ill-fitting armor made. Tav cocked her head slightly. Zevlor realised he was openly staring. And that she had spoken to him and he had still not responded. It took him several more awkward seconds to register what she had said.
"It's just Zevlor," he corrected.
"Oh. Of course. I'm - I'm sorry." Tav's face, revealed to be a light wisteria once cleaned of goblin blood and grime, flushed the colour of stormclouds. She looked and sounded every bit as wrong-footed as Zevlor felt, though he couldn't fathom why. "Um… the other soldier. Tilses. She said - or - that's what she called you."
"We were Hellriders together," he explained automatically. "I was Tilses' commanding officer. She's had some difficulty adjusting to a more civilian form of address."
"Ah."
Behind her, Orka was saying something in her low, croaky mumble and pressing a replacement bowl against the fraying corset of Tav's borrowed dress. She turned and took it with enthusiastic thanks, and it dawned on Zevlor for the first time since meeting this new young tiefling that Tav was pretty. The natural upturn of her lips, the cobalt eyes that stood out like jewels against her smooth, clean skin, the curve of her modest horns now fully visible crowned atop her tamed mane of raven hair. Quite pretty, in fact. All his admiration for the young woman so far had been predicated on her passionate defense of people she did not know, but as she offered Orka a final thank-you and took a few pointed steps to the side, catching Zevlor's eye with a smile, his stomach turned over and a prickle of nerves nothing to do with the subversive subject he planned to broach crept down the back of his neck.
He stepped forward to join her. The tin spoon in the half-full bowl still clutched in his hands rattled as he moved. Zevlor looked down at it, inhaling curls of onion-and-garlic scented steam and his numb brain began to thaw.
"I heard what you did for the child," he said by way of proper greeting, pleased to hear himself sound more cogent. "Children, in fact. Half our camp owes you something, it seems. Thank you."
He looked up, attempting a grateful smile, but it must have come out more a grimace because Tav's freshly polished face fell.
"I don't know that it will matter much," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes. "I've been looking for you to tell you. I mean, I'm sure you've already heard, but… I couldn't get Kagha to change her mind."
"Yes, I did hear some of the story." This grim reminder of their impending deadline and what would happen if he could not forestall it, fell across Zevlor's back like a lumpy, overstuffed pack. He set his shoulders against the familiar weight. "But if the druids are this far gone, we're hardly better off here. I still can't believe Kagha would threaten a child like that. It seems we can risk violence here or face it for certain on the road. Quite the choice, isn't it?"
"I don't think it's all the druids," said Tav fairly, swirling her spoon through her bowl. "Most of the ones I spoke with seemed unhappy with Kagha's decisions."
"Perhaps," Zevlor agreed dubiously. Remembering his own food, and Orka standing nearby, he scooped a spoonful into his mouth and swallowed. Then, explained: "Halsin, the archdruid before Kagha, was a much kinder leader. I think most of the druids are of his mind, but…" His grimace had nothing to do with the stew's lingering taste. "It's Kagha's influence. Without her twisting things, I believe the other druids might see sense."
"So what's your plan, then? Assassinate her?"
Perhaps it was Zevlor's own wishful thinking, but a true, shrewd question seemed to lie under the trappings of the joke. He flicked his gaze to either side. They were at least twenty paces from the nearest ears except Orka's, and he knew hers to have a limited range, but he still took a few surreptitious steps away from the cookpot, stopping under the tattered awning where Ethel, the local trader, occasionally set up shop. Tav took the hint and quickly followed.
"It's a low thought," Zevlor murmured over his bowl. "But I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it. But the druids are too powerful. They would slaughter us if we tried to stage a coup. We'd have to get close to Kagha, within striking distance. I can't manage that. But …" He met Tav's gaze meaningfully. "They've already let you pass once."
An almost palpable chill blew across the young woman's pretty face. The deep blue of her eyes froze and hardened in a way Zevlor recognised. He had seen it before. He had worn it - that shield against the expectations of a world that thought it knew you, knew everything people with horns and tails were capable of. He knew before Tav opened her mouth what her answer was going to be. And sure enough...
"I"m not a murderer for hire."
The blade of her voice was flat and cold. Zevlor flinched as though struck.
"It doesn't sit well with me either," he hastened to say. "And I'm still hoping Kagha can be swayed from this madness, but… we're running out of time."
He paused. Tav remained silent. Zevlor reached up and self-consciously brushed away strands of non-existent loose hair. For some reason he could not define, this new young woman's disapproval hurt him more than anyone else's in his own camp. He wet his abruptly dry lips and added, "Leaders have to make tough decisions," his words almost a plea.
Tav blinked. The cobalt ice in her eyes melted to liquid again, and she said, more softly, "I suppose they do."
She considered Zevlor closely - the prickling sensation down the back of his neck increased - then released him from her intent gaze. She stared instead over his shoulder, whether out at the scattered groups of refugees or inward at her own inscrutable thoughts, Zevlor could not say. They stood quietly for a few minutes, Tav spooning stew absently from her bowl to her mouth, Zevlor clutching his spoon but unable to bring it to his lips. Her no had been vehemently final, which meant there was really no more for them to discuss. He ought to excuse himself, retreat back to his chamber, pour over his maps and notes for an option he had missed, but his feet were as stiff as his fingers. He could not seem to move them.
Finally, Tav spoke again.
"I can't imagine how hard it's been, keeping all these people together. Coordinating food and supplies ... bedding, laundry ... assigning jobs and overseeing them all. It's like running a small village, I suppose."
Zevlor's brow furrowed. He could not see where this was going, but, "Not far off that," he agreed.
"You know, I've never seen so many - so many people like - like me in one place," she said with difficulty. "I've traveled a lot the last dozen years, and met maybe a score all totaled, and never more than two together. It's … it's incredible, your camp."
Tav closed her mouth abruptly, cheeks darkening the colour of storm clouds again, and Zevlor was thankful his own fiery skin tone swallowed any hint of his gratified flush.
"It's not uncommon, your experience," he assured her. "Elturel, before the descent, was the most enlightened city on the Sword Coast - perhaps in all of Faerûn. Tieflings were not the only marginalized race to make their way there in large numbers, seeking fairer treatment, more opportunities, better lives. It was my intention to keep us all together ... to try and recreate what we had in Elturel in Baldur's Gate. But I don't imagine enough of us will make it there. If any."
A lump formed in Zevlor's throat. He gathered a spoonful of tepid stew and hastily swallowed it down.
"Oh, I don't know," and something in the way Tav said it made Zevlor look up, then drop his spoon into his bowl. She was smiling - the sort of glowing smile he'd seen on clerics who had communed with their gods and come back blessed. "This is always the part of the story where things seem darkest, but ... something almost always happens to turn it around. I think you've a better chance than you think you do." She set her bowl down, and when she straightened her posture reminded Zevlor vividly of the way she had first appeared to him across the ramparts. "We're leaving to look for Halsin in the morning but... I think I will get up early and talk with Kagha again before we go."
"That's ... good of you," said Zevlor, slightly dazed by her change of aspect. "But ... ours is not that sort of story, I'm afraid. And I don't see how merely talking to Kagha will have any more effect than before."
"Ah, but there's a difference, you know," said Tav, her voice brimming with all the same nerve-soothing, spirit-buoying notes he remembered from the battle, "talking to someone and talking with someone. A conversation is like music - you can just... strum and see where the strings take you, or you can play the proper notes at the proper time. Atmosphere, build-up, the proper application of questions - you'd be surprised what they can achieve. I'll read up a bit on the druids' order - they had an interesting library in the inner grove - and talk to Kagha in the morning. And if that doesn't work..." - she smiled again and placed her hand on Zevlor's arm - "we'll figure something out. Don't worry."
And in that voice the words were transformed from meaningless platitude to something like a benediction. Tav squeezed Zevlor's arm, and warmth seeped through his armor into his skin, his very veins. A tangible weight seemed to slide from his shoulders. He felt suddenly light. As though he wasn't bearing the burden of everyone's lives all alone anymore. As though after ten-days of sinking through layer after layer of hell, someone, something, some benevolent or whimsy-minded god, was offering him a hand.
Of course, Zevlor knew no way to express all this. He heard himself say, "Thank you," and it sounded stilted even to his ringing ears. But if Tav was offended by this unenthusiastic response she gave nothing away.
"Of course," she said, giving his arm a last squeeze. "Good night, Zevlor."
The roll of his name in her accent made Zevlor shiver in the grove's stale evening heat. It echoed in his head as he returned to his chamber; not to work, but, at last, to sleep. For hours. The longest he had slept since Halsin's departure, and for the first time since he could remember he did not wake in a pool of nightmare-induced sweat.
"So, you already knew, then?" Alfira prompts into Zevlor's thoughtful silence. He looks up. There's a poet's ochre fire in her eyes. "Knew you were falling in love?"
To her surprise, Zevlor shakes his head slowly.
"I knew I felt something," he admits. "But I wouldn't have called it that. Rather the opposite. It felt like ... finding sure footing. Like I had stopped falling for the first time since Elturel."
And that, Alfira hastens to scribble down.