Shadow of the Flame (Fantasy)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Sort of Yuletide extra, why not?

This is- insofar as there is such a thing- original fantasy, although it is derived from a home-brew roleplaying game and setting.
Naturally, there are influences- I could accuse myself of stealing Tolkien's furniture and covering it in Moorcock's wallpaper, a fine mixed metaphor to be getting on with. I don't think I've been that derivative in practise, but the roots of it are there.

Anyway, chapter one.


An optimist would have called it the beginning of spring. A pessimist would have said it was the last of winter, kicking and thrashing on it’s way out. The leaden gray sky, virtually creaking under the weight of the clouds, would have cast it’s deciding vote with the pessimist. This patch of evergreen woods was only just big enough to deserve the name of forest, and to be worth driving a track through instead of detouring around. Terrible things had happened that winter, and the trail bore witness to them in it’s own undramatic way, through wheel ruts and churned mud where heavy horse had passed by.

There were people there in the woods, men at arms who had come looking for their own share of trouble and it’s opportunities. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, coming north to Kuquan in winter. It was a strange country to the southern mercenaries, and strange enough to most of it’s inhabitants if the truth be told. Scorchingly hot summers, snow- blinded winters, the land always seemed to go from one extreme to the other, as if the sky was somehow cosmically thinner and let it all through. Perhaps, they had jeered, the gods couldn’t be bothered and just let it wear down. There was some chance that it was true.

What the mercenaries had expected was to have time in hand before the campaigning season started, time to sniff around, pick the highest bidder and the least likely to get them killed. It was distinctly promising; fertile, wealthy land, with lots of minor local lords all out to nibble away at each other, a rich greater nobility turned more than half merchant, and a king sitting on a charmingly wobbly throne.

One promise after another had withered almost as fast as they could reach for them. They were in too sour a mood to relish looking back at the bad luck and twisting circumstances that had brought them here by the forest trail, to a status not very far above that of bandits. They had often enough in the past been employed to clean out such; and had occasionally managed to recruit some of their captives. At least that meant there were a few of them who know what they were doing, which was looking to ambush enough passers by to pay their way home out of a situation that had gone very sour and was getting worse.

Few had been killed in combat, but of the fifty who had journeyed north, half had frozen to death or deserted. The half that was left had some success, a few worth robbing, some ransoms and a few young women to keep them warm at night. At the moment, they had a few they weren’t sure what to do with; kill, ransom, strip and release, or just eat them. There was a little game in the wood, but not enough, and they were getting hungry.
One of them seemed to be a druid, and they were worried about him. He looked almost as afraid of the trees as he did of them. He was a shade over middle height, early twenties probably, dressed in shabby, hard-worn robes that had been slept in under a few too many thorn bushes, dark hair, bit of a moon-calf maybe. They had been fortunate taking him- caught him as he was rambling along lost in thought- but now they had him, they didn’t know what to do with him.

They had taken his staff away from him, and lashed a few branches together as a cage for his hawk, but what did that guarantee? Who knew? Who understood magic? Not most wizards, if living anywhere near them was anything to go by. Magic was strange and dangerous stuff, not for a sensible man to meddle with, and more than a few thought they should simply have his head off there and then. Partly they were hanging on to him in case they had to ransom their way out of trouble. Possibly from the wood itself.

The carrot- haired bounty hunter could almost pass for a stray mercenary in his own right. Stubbly, stinking to the heavens, and cursing fluently, he had attempted to join them. He had been a shade too fluent, and they had instantly suspected him of trying to lead them into a trap. They had stripped him down to his underwear, punishment enough at this time of year, and tied him to a tree with the rest.

The third out of the ordinary prisoner was, they thought, an orc. Or possibly a strangely coloured gorilla. Some thought it was female; most hoped not. They had found it tasting the fungus at the base of a tree, it had reacted a second too slow, and they had been able to jump it and bear it down. It had taken half a dozen of them, and they had been hitting it, her, on the head from time to time since to keep her unconscious.
She, if that was what she was, had been hung about with bags, pouches and bandoliers full of things they didn’t understand, and a bag full of peculiar metal instruments; saws, knives, long thin spikes, clamps, leather ropes, peculiar bits of ironmongery. Torture instruments, they hoped; that was part of what they understood. They didn’t want to think about anything else they might be good for.


They did not expect anything to happen, but couldn’t take the chance of missing it when it did. There were two of them waiting, behind enough covering undergrowth that they could see without being seen. They looked down the longest straight stretch of the forest track, so that they could alert the rest to passers by in time to set up an ambush.

Sandro was a freeholder’s son and heir, who should have been at home being a pillar of society. He had been levied from his father farm for the last phase of the crusade and had decided that he might as well take his chances on the field rather than return to the living death of olive growing. He had gone looking for another war, but this was most certainly not what he had intended. He was becoming thoroughly fed-up, foul mouth matching foul temper.

‘Shit on a stick. Nothing. Nothing but piss poor bastard refugees and horses only fit for eating.’
‘We might do best to eat the refugees and ransom the horses.’ His comrade Nicholae answered, trying to cheer him up. He was the younger man but the older soldier, a child of the camp also following in his father’s footsteps. They had put on everything warm they could fit under their chainmail, and then put everything else they had or had scavenged from passers by on top.
Both of them looked like mouldy laundry bundles. They would have gladly sold their armour, even, if there had still been much of a market for it- but the war was over, and there were more than enough plunderable corpses around.

‘Filthy northerners.’ Sandro spat. ‘Whose bright idea was this?’
‘You know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead…that somebody coming?’
It was, and they gave the bird- call sign to tell the rest of the band to get ready. They were tired, and bored, and starting to lose their professional edge, and they did not bother to size up their potential victim properly first.

What came into view was a horse, apparently. None of them were horsemen, or knew much about horses except not to get run over by cavalry. It was a shame, because it was a magnificent animal, seventeen hands high if it was an inch and black as death’s shirt- tail. It had the height of a draft animal, but the build of a thoroughbred hunter, and strolled through the wood with a confident poise, utterly unworried about what it might meet. It was very probably far too good to be true.
The beast’s mane, tail, fetlocks, were almost too black; a wary eye would have noticed light and shadows that did not belong and came from no apparent source, that the hoofprints in the mud seemed to be drier than they should be. A practised eye would have deduced a determined attempt to conceal the beast’s true nature and prompted the body it was attached to into hiding behind something solid, like the horizon.

The rider was muffled in many, gently flapping layers of scuffed, stained and tattered black and green, hooded, face invisible, hands invisible. Whoever they were, they were hunched over as if half asleep. Deceptively so, as they possessed the only practised eye in reach, and were perfectly well aware of the mercenaries scrambling to their ambush positions.

‘Something’s happening.’ Kraven, the bounty hunter, looked up at the sounds of the mercenaries making ready, and sensed opportunity. Fortune had been overlooking him lately; he was due a break. It was not a good year for bounty hunting; there was a vintage crop of hunt-ees, but a drastic shortage of authority to go around offering bounties.
‘Oouurgh, me ‘ead.’ They had forgotten to whack the orc on the head again, or just underestimated the thickness of the average greenskin skull; Hara was starting to come round, which did not bode well for anyone she managed to get her hands on. ‘W’eyre’z me stuff?’

‘Mmph mmph mmph.’ The druid said; they had gagged him, on the off chance that it might prevent him using any of his arts. It did make it substantially more difficult. He gathered enough of his powers to affect the plant fibres in his gag and charm them into untying themselves. They glowed faintly, and rippled, and his eyes bulged out as they briefly tensed the wrong way; a simple act of magic that would have cost him no effort if he had been free to chant and posture- which was very much the point.

It fell free, and he looked at his fellow captives. ‘Escape?’ he suggested, loudly enough to draw attention. The guard strolled over to him, hit him in the side with the butt of his spear.
‘Quiet, there.’ The mercenary told them.
‘Wot ‘ave yew dun wiv’ me stuff? Iff’n yew’ve bent me cotty…crutter…scorchin’ iron, I’ll shove it up yew so far I’ll burn yer eyes out from be’ind.’ She was quite emphatic; he thought better of prodding her with the spear- haft, or anything for that matter. What was a scorchin’ iron? Best not think too hard about that.

The ambush party made themselves ready; four pairs of crossbowmen, one to cover the other while they reloaded, and three swordsmen to do the stand- and- deliver part. They had chosen the stretch of track next along from the straight section they watched. It was a decently planned ambush, and any normal, sensible group of travellers or passing coach would have surrendered.
It was impossible to follow what actually happened; a twisting, searing blued-steel shimmer, a black blur, a red splash. The shadows and the stray lights vanished, as the shields of shade around the nightmare’s mane, hooves and tail vanished in a blaze of infernal flame.


All three mercenary swordsmen lay dead, one beheaded and bisected through the gut, one quartered, one split in half down the spine. What was left of their faces was still registering shock and horror.
Its rider stood dismounted by the hell-steed, hood pushed back; a woman, tall, beautiful and terrible; she could easily be taken for a queen among demons- which might not be so far from the truth. Fair, lightly freckled skin, a long, full ponytail of hair the colour of freshly spilt blood- easy enough to find a comparison- and brilliant red-violet eyes. In her right hand she held a long blade, curiously unstained, and in her left hand a jagged glow was forming.

Hara tensed and stretched, trying to snap the ropes tying her to the tree; the rope strained, frayed, began to tear; the mercenaries were either too stunned with horror or too busy dying to stop her.
A spray of tendrils of lightning shot out from the glow, fanning out, seeking, then converging on one of the ambush teams; bolt after bolt found them and arced in, killing them half a dozen times over.

The nightmare looked round and chose it’s own target, one of the ambush pairs paralysed with terror. In their stunned state they had no defence, and it was almost too easy; it fixed them with a malevolent crimson gaze, and thought fire into them. Unable to summon the presence of mind to deny it, they flared into human torches.

Before the lightning had ceased to strike, the lady had picked her next pair of targets and launched herself at them. The last pair tried to stand for a moment at least, get their shots off then make at least a semblance of a fighting retreat. One released his bolt, but it skimmed through the layers of her travelling outfit, failing to meet flesh.

The second tried to lead the fast- moving shape. There were two parts of the strange shadows that had not faded, but remained to become more solid. They coalesced from the black twisted hearts outwards, to form the lean, rangy, malevolent body and dark, matted fur of a pair of hellhounds.
They began alert, their eyes already, like their nightmare cousin’s, burning red before they were fully formed and focused on the crossbowmen. Briefly the hounds conferred; no need to summon the rest of the pack. The hounds leapt on the men, and jaws which had a moment ago been mist cleaved through a backbone to meet on a heart, to crush a skull and shear through the brain within. Satisfied their mistress had the situation under control, they sat down to feast.

The camp had by now worked out what was happening on the road. They were plain rank and file, common foot troops; taking on an irate sorceress and a trio of devil- spawn was not their job, and they voted with their feet.
The orc wasn’t going to let them off that easily. Hara wriggled round to get a hand on the rope, snapped it and lunged straight into a diving tackle. She bowled their guard over, seizing him and pounding him with one mighty sage-green fist until he stopped struggling. That felt better; pride was, to a certain degree, restored. Then she went looking for the pile the mercenaries had made of their kit, prior to sharing it out.

The bounty hunter followed, but was distracted by the mercenary, moaning feebly; he stopped to rifle the man’s pockets, more out of habit than expectation. There was little worth having, and he put the boot in a couple of times himself before following the orc.
The druid apologised to the tree for the use the bandits had made of it, smoothing it’s ruffled leaves. Then he went to uncage his hawk, and it flapped up to perch on his shoulder.
That hurt, but amongst other things he and his familiar could feel each other’s pain, so the hawk was careful. His pouches and his staff lay among the haphazard pile of stuff.

He picked up and wriggled into the cross belt with the pad at the shoulder, Lyron lifted off for a second then sat back down on the pad, clinging on as Aburon bent down to pick up his plain, unadorned staff. Its simple appearance was not, alas, deceptive. He could pose with it, flourish it, especially he could bluff with it, but very little more. If he had stood higher in the favour of the spirits of the wild, he might have had a sorcerous stave; if he had featured in their good books at all, for that matter.

Kraven’s kit was undisturbed, because the mercenaries had their own way of doing things, and tended to sneer at the local manufactures. His short, heavy broadsword, heavier mail than they favoured, his primitive leverlock crossbow, and the bolas they had totally failed to figure out how to use, all there.

Hara’s kit was all still there, and the first part of it that she checked, was relieved to find undamaged, was her longbow. It is a myth that elves are the masters of the bow. They achieve what they do by subtlety, by elegance, by graceful efficiency, by mastery of the arcane; no elf ever had the sheer brute strength to draw a true longbow in the orcish sense, a rudely shaped, roughly tapered heartwood thing that for all it’s rawness could be over two hundred pounds draw-weight.

Some of her kin hired out as mercenary archers, about the only time they were ever welcome, but the average orcish bow looked like the average human billet- the blank of the bow, before it was planed down to shape and weight.
Human archers tended to laugh at orcish arrows, which looked as if they had been interbred with a crossbow bolt; which was only reasonable, as a bow made on the heroic scale, like her father’s, was getting close to the draw weight of a human arbalest. Ugly, but effective; it could smash through fluted, elegant, thin elvish plate with horrifying ease- or most human plate, for that matter. For all her own sinew- backed longbow’s worth it was beyond the human mercenaries to make use of.

Right, she could knock them down, as far as picking them back up again went- she was almost disappointed that they hadn’t rummaged through her bits bag. It could have been an interestingly toxic experience. Apart from surgical tools and supplies, she had a fair pharmacopoeia in there, much of which she wasn’t sure how it would react with a human metabolism. The axe and choppa, on the other hand, she was sure of.

Looking round, all but the slain of the mercenaries had fled. There were another two bodies- one a limbless, headless torso, one sliced through diagonally, both ways- and the red-haired woman sitting there, cross-legged, apparently lost in thought or meditation, sword lying on the ground. If any proof had been needed that she was not local- apart from the comparative rarity of hellspawn- assisted massacres in the vicinity, until this winter anyway- the sword would have been it.
Symbol of the warrior’s soul, supposedly, and it was unusual enough to fit. Oversized for a bastard sword but not a true two hander, long straight tapering single edged blade, it had been hammered and folded, many times- not a Kuquani method at all. It looked like blued steel, but it had a glittering sheen to it that said it was made out of something altogether odder than that. Exactly what the skin for the hilt had come off of was not something they cared to think about.

The bounty hunter couldn’t resist; he was thinking of how much that blade might fetch if he could steal it and sell it. Hara watched him, she had her own reasons for needing someone like him- if he was any good. Aburon was fascinated, but trying not to look at the red lady directly in case she noticed. He was hiding behind a tree waiting to see what would happen. Perhaps he could- should- have run, but this was too fascinating to walk away from.

The nightmare had been peacefully grazing on the smear of crisped bone, seared flesh and molten steel left of it’s victims. It was worried about it’s mistress, though; she had these soft- hearted moods from time to time in which she actually felt regretful about killing people. It plodded, as delicately as it could, over to her and nuzzled her, fretted over her.
Running away seemed as dangerous as remaining here; it was a time to tiptoe away quietly. Then there was a commotion from further down the track, and a hellhound’s howl. Aburon thought it sounded as if it was enjoying itself.

A man came running the other way, blind and whimpering in panic, and cannoned full pelt into the bounty hunter, sending both of them sprawling at the lady’s feet. If his robes and staff were an accurate guide he was a wizard, probably an apprentice, very young, just experienced enough to recognise a hellhound when he saw one and not enough so to keep it together when it saw him.
She patted the nightmare on it’s lowered muzzle, picked up her sword and pushed herself to her feet, at last taking not entirely welcome notice of them. Those brilliant bright red-violet eyes, their gaze impossible to return, impossible to escape. They had looked on many of the wonders of the world, and sacked, burnt, pillaged and devastated a large proportion of them. She looked at the four wanderers, measuring and assessing, All of them felt as if they were being weighed in the balance, standing- in one case trembling- there; and they were right.

Only the new arrival recognised her. The fleeing mercenaries had scared him- now he knew who they were running from. His mouth flopped open, he crouched in a good emulation of a mouse before a lioness, only looking away for somewhere to run; found none- the hellhounds were circling around, covering their mistress’ back. He whimpered, certain that he was going to die, fear and misery loosening his bowels and erasing his ability to think. Hara looked at him with clinical interest; thinking of tinkering with his guts, sure there was something in there she could improve on. According to the Doctrine of Sympathy, feeding him sand or gravel could be an interim solution; it was not invariably accurate, but it was usually entertaining. Perhaps he might need his spine reinforced, as well.

‘Hara, Kraven, Aburon, Veniel, pick up what’s left of your kit and follow me.’ Her accent was unplaceable; certainly not native.
‘What the fu- how did she know my name?’ Kraven asked, incredulous. Veniel the rogue apprentice was still gibbering. Aburon had seen such things before and knew arcane and mystic knowledge when he saw it. He had more than enough troubles of his own to be getting on with, and thought of fading out into the greenwood- but doubted his ability to outrun a pair of hellhounds, even on his own home ground.

They interpreted her words- which they might well have been- as an invitation to plunder, but there was little of worth left in the mercenaries’ camp. Some food and drink was all that was really worth taking. None of the armour and clothing would fit Hara, Kraven had his already, and neither of the staff- wielding, robe clad men wanted any of it. As for scavenging, anyone prepared to consider wandering around with ten swords under their arm for resale has a serious problem in the head- not that it didn’t occur to them.

Veniel was looking nervously back and forth from the lady, apparently talking to her nightmare, to the nice, deep woods. A shadow moved from one bush to the other, a suspiciously hound- like shadow. In fact it was merely an illusion, a stalking-horse projected by the hellhounds; but for a man in his state- badly frightened and without the presence of mind to probe them with sorcery- it was enough.
Johanna sheathed her sword, apparently in a non-existent, invisible scabbard- anyone, looking, would have thought she was unarmed- and set off down the path at a brisk walk. The four of them had little choice but to follow, except to face the nightmare which had circled round to join the hellhounds bringing up the rear.

As they walked to they knew not what, they eyed each other warily. It was possible, for a skilled eye, to tell an orc’s lineage and native land more or less to the nearest five miles from the precise combination of green, brown, grey and pink in their skin; Hara was grainy, greyish-green, from what men called the Eastern Military Frontier and the orcs running free in the marshy plain and scattered woods on the other side of the fortress line called Grurshuruk’s Raze.
She was, by their semi-nomadic standards, upper middle class and well off; orcs need an awful lot of putting back together. A surgeon and physician, especially one who actually genuinely knew what they were doing, and who could provide her own patients, could do very well for herself. That made it all the odder that she was here, the best part of a thousand miles from home.

She fell back for a minute or so; sniffing the air with a surprisingly delicate nose- for an orc- she scented trouble. She reached for her bow, stopped when she realised it might not be safe, then noticed the hounds had made no move to prevent her. Very slowly, she unslung and strung it. The hounds were, if anything, approving.
That was scary. Either they wanted her to give them an excuse to go for her- although why they thought they might need one she couldn’t tell. Or, which seemed more likely, they thought it wouldn’t actually make any difference to their mistress’ safety, armed or not she was a negligible threat. Fiery they were by nature, but their confidence was chilling. Hara decided to leave her quiver very well alone.


Most people would have supposed an orc to be a natural enemy of a nature- priest and champion of the wilderness; personally, Aburon couldn’t have cared less about supposed ancient enmities. He was in enough trouble with his friends. As far as he was concerned the green- skinned peoples were closer to nature than most humans, probably closer than he was at this precise point.
He had the look of a being not used to company, a dreamer, slightly detached from reality, not quite up to speed. Clean- shaven; very unusual for a druid, but he had been taking pains to look especially human of late.

They walked in tense, eerie silence for half an hour. There were scattered signs of habitation, shacks, lean-tos, faint branching paths, a rabbit snare that Hara stood on, and a sharpened-stick trap for larger game that Veniel nearly killed himself with.
Aburon, through his hawk, saw it and sidestepped neatly; Veniel, not a woodsman- who seemed to stand on every twig he could, find every patch of slime and moss there was, and was startled by everything- was looking back nervously, and nearly blundered into it and impaled himself. Hara almost wished he had- it would have been nice to have a human to practise on. Kraven’s instincts were twitching badly; there were frightened eyes all around them.

The nightmare was strolling easily along, undisguised, long mane of solid, intense furnace-heart flame licking out at the forest around, constantly playing with the notion of inferno, tail and hooves lighter, brighter, more bonfire yellow-orange flame. A sparrow panicked, dashed from tree to tree, passing close behind the beast; Lyron started after it, but pulled up as the nightmare lashed out with it’s tail. The heat from it’s passing was enough to catch the luckless bird, cooking it instantly, feathers bursting into flame, a small sizzling thing lying by the side of the road.

This did not reassure any of the four wanderers. Aburon wondered what might happen if he protested against this casual slaying of one of nature’s creatures, and decided it might be less than smart, or survivable. Besides which, his own familiar had been about to go for the sparrow anyway. It would look a bit hypocritical, and he wondered if that was why the nightmare had done it.


Eventually the light forest opened out into scrub and rolling hills, with segments of cleared land. There were many scars visible from the winter, smashed houses, burnt hedges and demolished walls, rutted fields and shatter- surfaced roads where heavy artillery wagons had passed, the occasional grave marker topped with the holy symbol of one or other of the gods.
There were other, rawer wounds, among them those who had not achieved the dignity of a grave, gnawed skeletons with some shreds of rotten flesh still hanging off them and the remnants of their clothes and armour still about them, stuck in the militia until judgement day. There were two bare patches of earth where some effort had been made to pile them all into a mass burial pit, one had been dug through by fox and vulture.

The red- headed woman surveyed the scene with professional interest. She had passed through the area, but not been involved in the fighting directly. First battalion had swept down the western side of the county, and Fourth had left an incendiary trail of carnage down the east, one on each side of the Chura River. Her involvement with the place now was definitely a form of poetic justice.

Although this was good farming country, it was deserted- or rapidly becoming so. With her hood, scarf and veil folded back she was very recognisable, her waist-length plume of blood coloured hair visible and distinctive, a rarity anywhere; although there was one of the deities who sported a similar style.
She looked not unlike Krylanya the goddess of war, so much so that she had been mistaken at times for an imago or a waking dream of her, an avatar, even occasionally a daughter of the Goddess. It was not true, although the goddess thought it should have been, and the red lady had often enough used the resemblance to her own benefit. Certainly she was in the right business for it.

There had been a fight here where the track came out of the wood, and although there had been some attempt to tidy the field and bury the dead, it was not complete. There was enough left to try to reconstruct what had happened. Churned ground by the edge of the woods, crushed bushes on the fringe, heavy wheel ruts; something heavy had come through the wood, with cavalry escort. Some shallow graves within the scrub and gorse, most beyond; the fight had begun in the skirts of the wood, and been pushed out into the fields.
Mostly cheap, shoddy discarded weapons, a few of quality; there had been a leaven of knights and professionals, but the local force had been mainly militia.

The red lady knew exactly what had taken place, and was relating the facts on the ground to the reports she had received. It had been a deliberate risk, apparently exposing the siege train, in fact luring the locals into an ambush. The artillery had come through the wood along the track, with enough of a close escort to fight a delaying action, the locals had charged, that had been the fight in the scrub. The main body of the escort had come around the outside of the wood and hammered into them from both flanks.
The battle report had given fairly high praise to the locals; enough of them managed to fight their way free to regroup for a second attack, which the artillery only just deployed in time to meet. They had fought hard, up to the point where they became leaderless.


Hara and Kraven were looking at things on a smaller scale, the details of lance thrust and axe blow, of fire and lightning and fist of stone. Some of the bodies would have been easier to sweep up than bury. One caught Hara’s eye in particular; buried in the chest of the wolf- gnawed corpse were two orcish arrows, through from front to back- nothing unusual. Hara looked eagerly at the fletchings, stylised flame colour-red stripe, orange stripe, yellow stripe, not the personal heraldry she was looking for.

Most battles ended, or at least moved into the final act, when one side or other lost it’s nerve and ran away, and the time of greatest danger- in other words the moment of greatest slaughter, was when the winners ran riot among the fleeing defeated; it was a rare and memorably hard fight when more than a third of the killed died with their faces to the foe. This had been something of a last stand, organised by a man of high courage, but she would be surprised if there was anything even as solid as powder left of him.
After that, the militia would have broken, if they had been allowed. Some of the clumps of skeletons indicated they had been herded together and butchered. It had been an eminently professional bloodbath, and a disaster for the locals.

There was one picked-clean skeleton of a heavy horse, a spit- actually a pike- still through it, where it had fallen and, presumably, been roasted and eaten on the spot; waste not, want not- but what sort of being could do that? Talk about being in the midst of death. Some of the other skeletons looked similarly picked clean; the human ones. Not exactly comfort.
Veniel had not thought things could get any worse, and he was wrong. Aburon had been intending to pass this way anyway, and had expected it to be terrible; he was right. The air of death oppressed both the spellcasters, sensitive to these things as they were. Kraven would have been if he had known how fast it had been; as it was, he was holding on to a veneer of toughness. Hara was refusing to let herself think about it, concentrating only on looking for her brother’s mark, ignoring the details.

The red lady had taken it all in, and was looking to see if any other than the myopic or mad was willing to come anywhere near her. No, apparently; the nightmare was probably the most noticeable of them and warned them that she was coming. About two miles off there was a hill, artificially steepened, with a large ruin not so much on top as sprinkled over it. Some of the stones must have landed a thousand yards from their point of departure.
It had been Count Antar Riedell’s home and keep; as far as she knew he had died with it, but in some way or other he had certainly died.

She waited for them to catch up, and when they did she pointed at one of the fleeing fieldworkers.
‘Look at that. So scared that he’s prepared to run his heart out, throw away his tools, lose his wits, when all the damn fool really needs to do is absolutely nothing.’ She knew that, he didn’t.
‘So woss’e so scayred of?’ Hara asked. It just wasn’t orky to panic like that; one of the reasons she was still here and standing up.
‘Me. And I’m getting tired of it. At the time,’ the red woman continued, something she had thought about a lot, ‘it was a sound principle; we wanted them afraid of us, so we did everything we could to terrorise and horrify; we succeeded a shade too well- none would take anything, least of all peace, from us; the brave saw us only as devils to be stood up to and fought, the majority saw us as fiends to be fled from.’

‘You are fiends! You ate children, used human heads as ballista shot, tortured paroled prisoners-‘ Veniel shouted.
‘We put rumours around that we did all those things.’ She said, as if she was explaining it for the hundredth time, which in point of fact she was.
‘We only actually ate, oh, five or six children, and made much of it to sow the seeds of panic. Admittedly it was quite easy to find volunteers for it,’ she acknowledged ruefully, ‘but for an untried, experimental force of five thousand to take on a land of five million, we needed the deliberate use of fear as a weapon to even the odds. We may have overdone it somewhat,’ she said dryly in a good candidate for understatement of the century, ‘which leaves me with a particular problem.’

‘What, indigestion?’ Veniel said. Aburon was improvising a brief palliative for the spirits of the dead, Hara was baffled- two would have been too many and a hundred too few- and Kraven was thinking that it had worked, and wondering if he could do it himself.
‘Much worse.’ Johanna said breezily, her frontier-trained stomach never having gone through a day’s indigestion in her life. ‘Politics.’
Aburon turned round to look at the hellspawn following them. They looked resoundingly unpolitical. Veniel hadn’t suffered for his presumption, and as well toasted for a sheep as a lamb…

‘I can see where eating people might put you at a bit of a disadvantage in society. Where do we come into all of this?’
‘I suppose I should introduce myself properly now; Colonel Johanna Calvern, officer commanding Imperial Army Twentieth (Cataphract) Cavalry Regiment, Striking Phoenix, and since the beginning of last week a Peer of the Realm of Kuquan, with the title and dignity of Countess of Auvaine.’ The red lady said.
‘Oh.’ Was all the response Aburon thought safe to give. The arch- maniac herself. He should have guessed.


‘Yes.’ she smiled, for the first time since the beginning of last week. ‘King Justinian had to do something, in return for us putting him back on his throne, and saving his nation from itself.’ Necessary to destroy it in order to save it, Hara thought, doubtfully. Aburon thought of house- training puppies, and rubbing their noses in the mess they made.
‘For thinking that,’ she said to them both, ‘I commend your perceptiveness- but don’t say it out loud, because my temper isn’t what it used to be.’ She said it as if her temper was a separate part of her. Perhaps it was.

‘That’s part of the problem.’ None of them were sure exactly what she was replying to, what they had said, what they hadn’t said, or what she thought of it. She meant to be ambiguous, so she could watch them thinking about it and see what answers they came to.
‘This pile of rocks my regiment blew to gravel last midwinter is mine by royal appointment,’ she continued, ‘as are the fields, the woods- and probably most of the inhabitants- and I cannot find more than one in a hundred of the locals prepared to stand still long enough for me to tell him about it. That is where you come in.’

‘I’m looking for my bruvver.’ Hara said.
‘Strongarm, yes- most of the regiment has been withdrawn, but your brother’s somewhere about the county. He’s actually in hiding at the moment.’ Johanna chuckled. It was an unexpected sound, perfectly normal; somehow they expected maniacal laughter.

‘He was, ah, fortunate enough to attract the attention of the regimental sergeant- major. RSM Al’Lindraleathan, despite the name, is a dark orc- from Dgheresh on the peninsula- and can be quite overpowering until you get to know her.’ Not far behind as far as understatements of the century went. ‘He’s also got some crazy notion that I disapprove of the slant he’s taking in his work- so when you find him, let me know and tell him it’s safe to come out. From me, at any rate, I couldn’t speak for the Regimental Sargeant-Major.’

‘Dad got worried after ‘e join’t the army, so-‘
‘How far do you think you’re going to get looking for him on your own?’ Johanna asked her, in western peninsula orcish. ‘Normally men think they can always cheat or con or bull an orc so they pay you not much mind, but enough of my troopers are orcs that they’ll hate and fear you as well. It’s a hostile land; on your own you’re not going to be able to do anything more than give your dad- Ugulhard, isn’t it?- something to grieve over instead of just worrying.’

It was hard enough said, but kindly enough meant, and true; the average human- from around here anyway- was more scared of elves. Orcs were blunt instruments- usually; much less likely to turn your life inside out than an elf with a plan. Johanna liked them because, although the Twentieth were, like most of the Authrani army’s recently raised units, mixed, it was easier to teach subtlety to an orc than ferocity to an elf- and she had tried both.

‘Veniel; you backed the wrong side in the Grand Council, didn’t you? Seen on the rebel side of the barricades, wanted for murder of a royal guard- it could be worth my doing, for the politics of it, to send your head to the king. What do you think you could do that would be worth more to me than that?’
Johanna meant it as an offer he couldn’t refuse. Aburon thought exactly that, adding, well, they offered her an honour she couldn’t refuse, so it’s only fair. She read it out of his thoughts, and had to decide whether he was promising enough that he deserved to know that she could do that. On balance, yes- but he would work it out himself anyway. Veniel probably would try to refuse; she could fix that.

‘Aburon; you kept looking at the trees as if you expected one of them to jump out at you and slay you. Not exactly on the best of terms with your patron powers, hmm?’ and there was a world of trouble hidden behind that as they both knew.
‘Kraven; the bounty killing trade’s not flourishing at the moment, not short of enemies, are you- and very short of cash.’
‘I,’ she went on, ‘am calling in the few units of the Striking Phoenix that are left around the country and concentrating them here with me, but given our collective reputation that’s a half-solution at best. HQ Guard Squadron and some other elements- but what I do need is some people who don’t empty the landscape when they appear, who can actually talk to the locals, find information and make things happen; people who are only a little bit scary. In other words, you.’


‘What do we get out of this?’ Aburon asked her.
‘Apart from the ability to inspire bowel-loosening terror?’ Kraven actually looked enthusiastic at that. Veniel was still thinking about other problems. Hara spotted the contradiction, assumed the colonel had meant it, started to reason why, boggled, and decided to finish thinking about it somewhere else, where she had room to run away if she didn’t like the answers. Aburon recognised that she was warning them they were likely to acquire the ability whether they wanted to or not, in her service; as she already had. She was also out to see which of them was stupid enough to actually want it.

‘As Countess,’ she thought aloud, not telling them who had passed her test and who had failed, ‘there’s not much I could offer financially speaking, not until I can get some reorganisation done; part shares in a castle construction firm, maybe- it’d have to be army rates of pay. The Striking Phoenix are cataphracts, officially, so, Recon section C, sixteen copper pieces a day.’

By most standards, that was wealth. There were twenty- five copper to a silver and twenty silver to a gold piece, the old system of the Black Tower Empire that no-one had bothered to abolish with it’s fall. An unskilled labourer was lucky to earn two or three copper a day, a man with a family to support really needed five or six.
For a line trooper, that was before stoppages- the price of a string of horses and a long list of kit was supposed to come out of their pay. For Recon, who didn’t have the same kit list as the line, it would almost all be money in the pocket.

‘All right, then…’Aburon said slowly. None of them wanted to take the risk of actually saying no; it could be painful. Besides, she was right. They were adrift, all of them; and, when it came right down to it, however brutal the process had been she had taken on a kingdom of five million people with an untried, experimental unit, and won.
‘Good.’ She said as if there had never been even the tiniest shadow of a doubt- although she was a little depressed by just how much effect on them the offer of money had.

‘I don’t suppose any of you know anything about surveying?’ Blank looks, she knew perfectly well thet didn’t. ‘No? Damn. In which case, you get all the fun- I am going to have to map out this place and start planning something that could pass muster as a useful fort, while you get to go and look for the Karadin Deep.’
‘The wot?’ Hara asked. The smell of trouble had just become overwhelming.

‘From the local legends, which you should know perfectly well,’ She was looking specifically at Kraven and Veniel, taking Aburon’s knowledge for granted and knowing Hara didn’t have any, ‘it seems to be a buried magical fortress, a shelter- hold dating back probably to the First Age. Details, precise location- lost in the mists of argument. To most of the local nobility, including all three of the barons, it seemed a good idea to move into it and use it as a strongpoint to strike back from. That was two months ago.’

‘Have any of them come out?’ Aburon asked. He too could feel doom breathing down the back of his neck. Or perhaps it was just the nightmare. Just. It was true what they said about the army, his brain was already starting to rot.
‘Funny you should ask that; no.’ Johanna deadpanned. They didn’t really expect any other answer.
‘Find the problem, sort it out if you can, tell them the war’s over and it’s a lovely spring,’ She briefly surveyed the scattered remains of the castle and the grave markers nearby, reminded herself that she was supposed to be proud of them, and therefore it was a nice day after all, ‘get them back up on the surface.’

Last chance to change their minds. They looked at each other, thought of the corpses, and decided that she was probably worse than whatever was down there. On the other hand, there was the money- and there was precious little sign of anywhere else to go. The haunted mountains on the northern horizon? Problematical. The firesmoke visible to the south, of a city which had been half shattered and was choked with starving, desperate refugees? That was what Kraven and Veniel had been avoiding.

‘So where is this place, then?’ Aburon asked.
‘Apparently it allowed itself to become detectable when we approached. It’s hidden itself again now, but they made enough of a mess moving in to it that the physical sign should still be obvious.’ Johanna fetched a foot-square tablet out of another invisible pocket, pinned a parchment to it and was rapidly and intricately sketching in the surroundings. ‘That hilltop,’ She pointed at it on the sketch, ‘turn half left, should be a cave entrance in amongst a rocky outcrop half way up the side of the next hill.’


Two things;
do you want more?
Does Hara need subtitles?

[LadyTevar]

Yes, I'd like more.
No, Hara's fine, I can read her.

What scares me is that a Colonel has a Nightmare for a mount and two hellhounds for her wardogs. What does the General have, hmm? What pacts have been made to give them that kind of power?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Some of this boils out later in the text anyway, but basically, Johanna is an exception.

Behind the scenes, Col. Calvern was the product of a thought experiment; what happens to munchkins when they grow up?
When they start to learn life's lessons, and understand subtlety, reciprocity, responsibility- and then have to look back on the damage they've done along the way?

She was a mercenary and adventurer, and an outright frothing madwoman by most people's account including her own reluctant admission. Joining the regular army of the Empire of Tol Authran- more or less a direct commission- was supposed to be a semi- retirement, but they gave her her head, and it overruled her heart.

She simply could not resist the professional challenge placed in front of her, and the Striking Phoenix embody many of the wierder and nastier ideas she came across, or came up with, in a long career of applied physical and thaumaturgic violence.
For most battlefield purposes, incidentally, read 'wizard' as 'napoleonic- era horse artillery battery equivalent'.

The nightmare was someone she summoned years ago- she tired of losing horses and having to break new ones in. This is in theory simpler, cheaper and more humane in the long run. He, and the hounds, are personal to her.

[LadyTevar]

Personal friends? Or personal fiends?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

You do realise you're inviting a GM to talk about his homebrew setting, don't you?

Religion, demons and such; I do make a passing reference to the Black Towers- I am almost ashamed to use such standard fantasy furniture- but they were an out and out thaumocratic dictatorship that arose c700 years previous, and were brought down between five hundred and four hundred years prior to the start of play- the current local year is 426.

The dominant pantheon has it's place across the whole southern rim of the continent, and an intimately linked church and state in this particular nation, because they played a major part in that war.
The ancient druidic orders had been fighting a long drawn out guerilla war against the towers but never had the strength to get rid of them, and they are not part of the dominant pantheon.

Human druidism is largely a corrupt and debased version of certain Elvish beliefs- at least, that's what the elves claim. The druids have their own take on the subject, but they are a dying breed, not least because the only difference, to a devout Baron, between 'druid' and 'arch-heretic to be killed on sight' is one of pronunciation.

Johanna couldn't care less about that; to all intents and purposes, she is both offering Aburon a chance to shelter behind her authority, (his name, incidentally- his mother tried to name him after the king of the fae and got the spelling wrong), and provoke the establishment in the process- "look who I have to turn to. Where the hel were you when I needed you?"

There are fourteen gods and goddesses, and a fifteen-day week, one for each of them and All Gods' Day. Most people worship the one that is of most direct importance to their life, and acknowledge the rest.
They never manifest directly- actually can't; to do so would involve being in one place, which is only possible by withdrawing from all the rest.
They work their will through ranks of agents, and they are all part of one pantheon, so in effect the terms 'demon' and 'angel' are interchangeable; which one you use to refer to a given manifestation depends whether or not you're on it's good side.

I doubt that the nightmare (a fourth-order demon of the God of War) and the hellhounds (third- order or "lesser" demon, same god) actually have a good side, much.
They are actually a drawback in some respects; as a warrior trying to turn stateswoman, they are holding her back and anchoring her to her old life- among other factors- but for old loyalties' sake, she cannot or will not dismiss them.

[LadyTevar]

There is a lot to say for Loyalty, and it's clear the demons are loyal to her as well.

And I love hearing about GM homebrews.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Here's chapter 2. The first story arc was pretty conventional, really just fleshing out and feeling my way, and some depressingly normal things happen. It becomes much more me-ish later on, but this is the beginning. Hara does, in this one, acquire subtitles. Her accent is pretty thick, so try reading her without them, and then with them, and see how your opinion of her intelligence changes.



‘So what does ‘half-left’ mean then?’ Aburon wondered.
‘Dunno. Turn left and go halfway?’ Veniel knew nothing.
It was, or at any rate would have been, beautiful country; now it looked something like a courtesan gamely hiding the effects of an attack of the pox.
The county lay at the heart of the kingdom of Kuquan, and a strange heart it was, it’s arteries the two great rivers, the Chura and Moshar, which converged on the Grumbling Falls in the lower third of the county, in which it could be said that the voices of the gods could be heard- complaining about their ungrateful worshippers.
They said aright, if Fourth Batallion’s crossing of the weir below the falls was anything to go by- such a thunder of rage as to smash the bones of a less blasphemous crew.

If they were here now- well, the landscape would be even emptier. The Chura ran by the county capital, whose smoke was visible on the horizon in the south- west; they were in the hilly ground between the rivers, fifty miles north of the Falls, grass and gorse and small, hardy trees and a rich scattering of rocky outcroppings.
Aburon knew the land fairly well, although it was too close to civilisation for his liking; but had little idea where the hold was to be found. If the stories were true and it came from the first age, it would have been designed to protect itself by both might and stealth, defying the strikes, defeating the scrying and deceiving the senses of powers far more mighty than himself; and it had lain dormant for so long. ‘Somewhere between the rivers’ was all that was known for sure, if indeed it was not a myth entirely.

‘We’re looking for a building, how hard can it be?’ Veniel asked. He was far from comfortable about the idea. Aburon was already virtually certain that he would not trust him to use fire magic to light a candle without scorching himself.
‘All right, if it’s so easy, find it then.’ Kraven, showing a natural talent for dissatisfaction, challenged Veniel; who weighed up his chances of getting a blast of magic off before Kraven got a crossbow bolt into him and decided against it. He was- actually, both of them were- seriously considering taking the money and running; which was why Johanna hadn’t paid them in advance.

Aburon scanned the landscape; although he could feel it’s pain and it’s wounds, which it was slowly awakening to from winter like a man in shock slowly having feeling return and realising what had been done to him, numbness becoming pain and anguish, he could not sense the deephold. He released his hawk; the tiercel soared in widening circles, sharp sight scanning the landscape.
Aburon and his hawk familiar Lyron were not precisely one, not exactly, but they were joined, sharing senses and thoughts, he could see through the hawk’s eyes and feel the air over Lyron’s wings, Lyron could taste and touch and hear through him and feel the flow of his power and his connection to the land.

In fact, to be absolutely honest, he would have difficulty spotting a sheep in a field without his hawk’s eyes; so it tended to spend most of it’s time perched on his shoulder, where he overfed it disgracefully. The entrance they sought was nowhere in sight, even to a hawk’s sight; but what the hawk noticed was a jumble of rocks apparently fallen from a ridge on the facing side of a long, low hill, about one point of an octogram off to their left.

From the two thousand feet Lyron rapidly reached Johanna was visible, sketching in pen, but filling in the lines on the sketch by plucking colours out of the air; materialising the shades of the landscape in pure light without any clumsy, lowly pigment, enchanting the paper to hold it, a hawk’s eye view of the five miles in every direction- literally; a sweet spot like the inescapable central vision of the hawk’s eye expanding the detail before Lyron as his gaze traversed across the map. Johanna glanced upwards- and for a moment her eyes and the hawk’s met. Lyron cried out in fear and quickly banked away; Johanna shook her head sadly and went back to her pure, unfearing light.

The nightmare and the hounds were there watching her, as fascinated by the process as Aburon had been; it seemed to him that she had the same deep empathic connection with her demon steed and hounds as he had with his familiar. A demonic familiar? It was far from unknown, of course, but those with them tended to earn soubriquets like the Cruel, the Mad, the Bloodcrazed…and yet only Lyron looked on her with fear.
And Veniel, of course. Then again, he had been an apprentice, studying in Jotunheim, when the civil war had kicked off; so the most scared man- well, still almost a boy- was the one who knew the most. Aburon was no more afraid of her than he would have been of an earthquake or a forest fire; she had something of the same quality. The best thing to do in each case was get out of the way and pick up the pieces afterwards, true.

The land itself did not reject her touch or turn against her; in places it had had a great weight lifted from it, like the castle mound with it’s spray of blasted stone and interior brick. Lyron was afraid of her because she had the true witch-sight; she could see as far and as clear as he, and deep into the more than merely mundane. Aburon sent the hawk down to examine more closely the rocky ridge he had seen; he did so grateful to be turning his back on the red-haired lady. Kraven was still glowering, and Hara was looking over the land with a frontierswoman’s eye; she saw the hawk flying for the ridge.

'Izzat it, den?’
Is that it, then?
The shelter itself could not be seen, but it’s magic had not finished hiding the tracks of those who had moved into it.
‘It is.’
‘Before we get any further…this could get us killed in so many different ways. Do you think we should actually do what we’re told, or just, well, wander off? I mean, I’d like to live.’ Veniel pleaded with them.
‘Annoying her would seem a bad way to do that.’ Aburon told him. He tried to remember what Lyron had seen of her map; did it include details like, for instance, them? He thought that it did.

‘Soides w’ich, ‘ave yew worked aht wot yet get outer dis- assewmin’ yew go froo wit’ it?’ Hara asked him.
Besides which, have you worked out what you get out of this- assuming you go through with it?
‘That’s the part I don’t want to know about.’
‘Staytus. Lergittimarcy. ‘Less I’z missin’ summat, wizzardin’z part of dat guild bizzyness, yer? Loike ‘uman meddysin. ‘An yew izn’t.’
Status. Legitimacy. Unless I'm missing something, wizardry is part of the guild system, yes? Like human medicine. And you aren't.

‘Which means,’ Aburon, who was technically in the same situation but was an outlaw anyway, legally speaking, and they couldn’t execute him twice- ‘that if some lord or priest takes offence to you, it’s bonfire time, without the sanction of the guild to back you up.’
‘Look, cheer me up, why don’t you?’ He was about to sulk.
‘Werll, lissen, den. Iff’n yew can say dat yew iz a millertery wizard, sowldierin’ fer da Empoire, ‘ow gewd iz dat den? Better’n bein’ in da guild- yew’z unturchable.’
Well, listen then. If you can say that you're a military wizard, soldiering for the Empire, how good is that? Better than being in the guilds- you're untouchable.

A smiling orc was never a reassuring sight; but it seemed to cheer him up a little, at least.
‘So,’ Aburon asked her, ‘what do you stand to gain?’
‘I’z ‘ad a zoggin’ orrible time gettin’ ‘ere. Nuffink but iddyut ‘umanz orl da way. Arfter dat, a loicense ter kill wud dew me jurst foine.’
I had a bloody horrible time getting here, nothing but idiot humans all the way. After that, a license to kill would suit me just fine.

They walked across the saddle between the two hills, squelching across the stream that ran between them, the city lad Veniel- no more than eighteen?- tried using heat from fire magic to dry out his robe, and nearly succeeded in setting it on fire. Aburon’s hawk watched his fingers; it was a complex piece of sorcery he had attempted, without much power behind it or he would indeed have burnt himself alive, and Aburon extinguished it, and made him wetter, with his opposite elemental sorcery of water.

Hara and Kraven, who had seen competent wizards and shamen, looked at him and simultaneously and independently formulated the plan of throwing him at the enemy, on the entirely too high chance he might explode. Aburon had decided that Johanna had recruited him more or less in the same spirit that he might pick up and nurse an orphaned mole; it was unlikely to make much difference in the long run but it was the principle of the thing.

The cavern entrance was not directly visible. Obvious enough where it must be, but it wasn’t there. Aburon thought about the mixed bag of men of all kinds fair and foul who had passed into it; there simply couldn’t be some kind of gate, some sorcerous defence. How had so many gone in? How were the things it was supposed to protect against kept out? There couldn’t be; and yet there must. What could it be?

‘Hara?’ he asked the orc.
‘Wot?’
‘Got an idea. Lob an arrow at that cliff and then duck.’ She looked at him bemusedly; longbow arrows were not easy to come by- they their component parts grew on trees, but good fletchers didn’t- and although it was obvious whatever he was expecting might be dangerous, to her, he seemed to know what he was doing.

She picked up a rock instead, slung it at the cavern, and jumped to one side. The rock flew straight and true, at- and through- the hillside; and a burbling waterjet- shape of yellow-white light lashed out at her.
It followed the curve of the rock, missed her, and struck grass; which did not burn. Veniel wandered over to inspect it; it started blowing in a non-existent wind. Aburon calmed the patch of long grass down, soothing it, thinking; fear. The cavern shield-wall projected a bolt of magical fear. Without human hand and eye behind it, that was an impressive piece of work, but it might also be the answer.

‘Veniel? Don’t look now, but the hounds have come to-‘ that was as far as Aburon got before Veniel, who had been crouching to look at the effects of the fear bolt, took off like a sprinter, running up the hill and around the still camouflaged cavern entrance, not daft enough to run straight into it, up the hill above it; which gave way- phantomed- under him plunging him into the main entrance. Briefly they saw him lying on the surface of a dark, smoothly carved stone tunnel, before it phased back into solidity.
‘That’s it. It won’t take fire, but it will let scared people in.’

‘Yeh. E’z good at bein’ scared. ‘Ow are we supposed ta do it den?’
Yes, he's good at being scared, but how are we supposed to do it?
‘Just think of something you’re worried of and walk in.’
Kraven had enemies; he thought of the man he had brought to justice- all right, vengeance- at the beginning of winter, and the gang, all right, the mob, well the organisation that had been most unhappy about it. The only thing that could protect him was in all likelihood far worse. On the other hand, it was less likely to kill him right now, and he might as well take a chance. He walked towards the rock half expecting to make a complete fool of himself barging straight into it, but it let him through.



Hara looked at it, thinking hard. Orcs were not much good at fear, being a generally happy-go-lucky, catch as catch can crew, prone to making it up as they went along, taking life as it came.
Generally, you spotted something, sized it up, if it looked hard you avoided it, if it looked weak you went for it if you could be bothered, and if you got it wrong you missed a chance or got your head handed to you as appropriate. There were things that orcs were afraid of, but not their own shadows, or every star in the sky or every beast in the field, like all too many humans were.

Hara tried to think of something she was afraid of; ants? Armies of unthinking, unfeeling, unswerving reflexive gnawing killers…sort of like Orcs really, but much less amiable and open to reason. A shiver went up her spine; just right, she judged, and walked through the phantom stone which accepted her shudders and permitted her into the cavern.

Aburon only was left; his hawk was easy- all he had to do was think of Johanna. Aburon conjured up a mental image of a woman, also; a green skinned, leaf haired woman, as beautiful as a forest, as graceful as the breeze- a nymph, in short, one of the laughing daughters of the earth mother. Not something men were normally afraid of, although the tales of being captivated, enthralled, fascinated unto death by them were true enough. Hoping she was not close enough to feel his thoughts turn to her- and that the shelter would protect him if she was- he walked forward; and it allowed him in.

The entrance was barely wide enough for a chariot; that was probably what it had been intended to admit. The jumble of rock at the entrance quickly became a smooth, evenly hewn stone tunnel, downward-sloping and curving to the right. Lightless; Both the magic- wielders cast light from their staves, Veniel a sourceless yellow flame glow- he was learning- and Aburon a cool tranquil forest- filtered green, not bright enough to make archery a serious option; Hara and Kraven unstrung and slung their bows, drawing more useful weapons for tunnel fighting. The passage curved sharply down and to the right; on suspicion Hara prodded the wall in front of them directly opposite the straight stretch of entrance; phantom again- until she tapped it with her axe and got the solid ring of metal on stone.

‘Iz dis real or not?’
Is this real or not?
‘Depends how solid you reckon Reality is to start with.’ Veniel mused. All the rest thought; so that explains what happened to his brain then. ‘I mean,’ brightening up a bit, ‘hey, maybe something like this happened and the shelter just sort of…ate… them all, so we can all go home. Do you think we can find out without going anywhere closer to it?’

‘In a hurry to get back to the red woman, are you?’ Kraven taunted him. He was not big on the idea himself; so rib Veniel about it.
‘No.’ Aburon answered them both, and not without consulting first, released the hawk. Through hot, stale, disturbingly volcanic- smelling air, it had to force it’s way, flying against the stream down what it became evident was a spiral ramp.

Aburon was a druid, not a full wizard, and did not have the versatile power of the true thaumaturge, the deep understanding of magic and it’s ways; he could only sense, gauge and counter those branches of the art he himself possessed- but the link between him and his familiar spasmed as Lyron glided past the first turn, and Aburon’s hackles rose.

That was no power of his, but it was something he had experienced before, on the edges of the Spiral Forest. That elf-haunted place was infamous as the one place of wooded land in the country where a human druid dared not venture. It was a discontinuity, a place where the size of the world was not as it should be, where the timeless, trackless nature of the deep wood was more than mere impression, and time and space could become fluid. So, supposedly, could unwelcome visitors…

‘We might not get any closer unless we keep worrying and keep moving.’
‘Wot?’
‘This is an odd place. Another trap. Unless we satisfy this one, we might keep going round and round the same loop of tunnel forever, and getting nowhere. How do you reckon we do this one?’
They thought about it, then Hara started walking down the slope.

‘Is that just the orky answer, brute force and ignorance?’ Veniel asked.
‘Dead simple, innit? We ‘ad ter pretend we woz scared ta get in, roight?’
Very simple, isn't it? We had to pretend we were scared to get in, right?
‘Yes…’ Aburon started to get the idea.
‘Nah I reckon we’z gotter pretend dat we iz ‘appy ter be safe. Dat sounds roight, yer?’
Now I reckon that we have to pretend to be happy to be safe. That sounds right, yes?


Puffing themselves up into a state of relief, they strolled down the spiral ramp. Some were better at it than others, but the total was good enough. With half his mind on the hawk, Aburon followed Hara, with Veniel and Kraven bringing up the rear in that order, Kraven menacing Veniel onwards- he was no more confident, but it gave him something to do, and cheered him up a bit. They walked down perhaps two full turns of the broad spiral, no more than a hundred vertical feet in the here-and-now, and who knew far in undisturbed reality?

Certainly when they emerged from the spiral into a wide, flat cavern with an impressively carved stone gate in a featureless wall on the opposite side facing them, it felt much further underground; there was a fissure in the cavern wall on their left, and hot, baked air came out of it with a sullen red light issuing forth from some inferno far below.

There were also two corpses and smears indicating more; one apparently a ranger, the look of an outdoorsman, wearing outline-breaking, rough, shabby travelling clothes, and holding a shortbow that had not been taken for some reason.
The other corpse was a svartalf. An underworld elf; whether they had been cast out from or turned their back on the rest of the elder race depended on who you talked to. Midnight blue of skin, tied back bright white hair, venomous expression even in death, he had been stripped down to his underwear, all weapons and gear taken; he had been slain by arrow and sword. Kraven leaned forward to pick up the bow; jerked back.

‘It bit me!’ He raised a boot to stomp on it; Aburon twisted the stone under his feet, pushing him off balance with earth magic, and picked up the bow from the dead ranger; it did feel living still, pulsing with sap-like rhythm in his hand. The quiver had a dozen or so arrows left in it, fletchings of no-one he recognised; enough for skirmishing.

Kraven rolled and came up, ready to swing for Aburon, but Hara had her axe and sword out and snarled at him. A snarling orc was quite an impressive sight; the wide, fanged mouth, powerful rending and gnawing teeth leading to a gut that could digest human gristle and bone easily; orcs didn’t really do fear- at least not on the receiving end.
Inflicting it was another matter. Kraven looked at the orc, estimated his chances; they were not high. For speed and strength, it was almost impossible to beat one of these primitive green slabs of meat- at least from in front and when they were paying attention.

Hara had been around short-tempered, violent people- with orcs that was pretty much a given really- all her life, and sometimes it was good to bare your fangs. It was obvious to her that there was something special about that bow; Kraven was perceptive, as someone in his trade would quickly be dead without, but he was not sensitive, as was probably also a requirement to be a bounty hunter. Aburon was aware of that, but would prefer not to find out what the bow was capable of just yet. He was wondering precisely what it did, there was clearly some power flowing through it; he would have to find out quite soon, if not exactly right now.

‘What do we do, knock?’ Veniel was getting rather interested on being on the inside of that nice, secure looking fort.
‘Look round the side. We are supposed to be searching for trouble after all.’ Aburon, noting, fascinated, that in response to his anticipations the bow seemed to flex and tense itself. He was holding himself under close control, trying to embody calm; the bow for one was not fooled, and Lyron was back perched on his shoulder, keeping watch on Kraven.

The light flowing from the crevice made it look smaller than it was, as they approached they realised that only the top third was actually reflecting light from below; certainly several men could fit through it, probably a minotaur could without crouching, what larger beast might be able to fit through if it tried they did not want to consider. It led downward and away from the shelter, searingly hot air came from it and the ground under their feet was sharp, broken rock, steep and awkward. They all kept a close eye on Veniel, in case he tumbled and took any of them down with him.

Aburon thought they were about a mile underground; there were things at this depth he did not like the notion of at all, things that were only part of the fair and flowering nature he loved and served in the same sense that a man who rapes his brother’s wife and butchers his children in front of him is still his brother. For all it’s size it was very irregular as if it had been smashed out of the rock rather than carved or mined; it led after a hundred or so tortuously difficult yards to a small cavern, with a large hole in the floor from which the molten light shone, and another smashed- through tunnel leading upwards again.

Listening to the faint sounds of lava gushing below, up seemed much more appealing. They picked their way carefully up the same smashed- aside rock, to a level above where they had begun. There was a small roughly bell-shaped terminus-cavern, up against what seemed to be more of the wall of the shelter deep- although this one had a massive breach smashed in it which had been filled in by rubble, stone and rock. The heap was already starting to solidify; it seemed as if it was slowly being healed back into one continuous surface. Perhaps the breach had been fifteen feet high- and a slight gap at the top where walls had not yet reknit.

‘Bleedin’ ot dahn ere.’ Hara said, sounding like she was just complaining, but all of them aware of how she was running her hands over her bow, checking how it was standing up to the arid air, as if she thought she might need it soon; and watching down the passage.
Bloody hot down here.

‘Above us there is air, and sky and cloud; on our plane, where all the elements meet, there is life; below earth and rock- and beneath solid rock there is a realm of water and earth, where creatures like the outcast elf we found at the entrance use their powers to live where men may not; and in the lowest realm there is flame. Our comfortable all floats on a sea of fire, and beings live and move in that sea that we are already much closer to than I would like to be. Veniel, I am starting to agree with you about being inside the fortress. Assuming, that is, that there’s anybody left; that the being responsible for this is still outside.’ Aburon added the last bit out of mischievousness; then realised it was perfectly plausible.

‘I want to go home.’ Veniel whimpered.
‘Gotter go on ‘fore we get ter go back.’
We have to go on before we get to go back.
‘We could squeeze in through that gap at the top there.’ Kraven; he started scrambling up the mound of rubble.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The game this was based on started pretty conventionally; for me anyway. Basically a dungeon crawl. With an inside out dungeon- people on the inside, huddling in fear, monsters on the outside breaking in.

Later on we got into the politics and started playing social engineer, trying to rebuild and reorganise, stop one revolution and start another. The trick is to give enough background that the players can spot the trajectory of the plot, what will happen if they don't do something, and then hand them a spanner to be inserted in the machinery somewhere.

Awkward example, from much later. Colin the Frequently Dead was playing an outspoken young knight- he had missed several sessions, which had included a lot of deal- making, opposition- stifling, bribery and banging of heads together that had occurred trying to arrange a deal between the local humans and a band of emigre elves.

There was supposed to be a deal on extradition and jurisdiction- who got to try who- a straightforward, essential business, not glamorous, not like prying the Ruby Eye of the Earwig King out of it's socket, but it had to get sorted. Treaty was on the table, it was signing time.

Colin's character gets up on his hind legs (not literally, he was human) and speaks for the prejudices of the majority. The treaty is bollocks, the elves are long-winded, arrogant, unpredictable, callous and devious and we shouldn't give the land-grabbing bastards anything other than a dose of sharp steel if they keep sticking their noses in. Or words to that effect.

The local lord fluffs his politics skill, sacrifices foreign for domestic interest and openly admits col has a point. The elves stormed out in disgust and the war started two days later.

I do write a fairly novelistic plot, but I try to always give the players room to surprise me.


Chapter 3;

Kraven went up through the gap first, slipping over the strangely-congealed rock; the shelter was gradually healing it’s wounds, binding itself back together. With or without human intervention? Aburon followed him, hawk vigilant; Hara looked at Veniel, decided he was not fit to be left wandering around on his own, and shoved him up the slope and through the gap. She was last, as it was probably a good idea for the most monstrous member of the group to have the others do her introductions for her. Or vice versa, depending…

The wall was twelve feet thick, and the rubble was steeper on the inside. They landed, and Hara and Kraven drew and readied their bows. The room they were in was thirty feet square, of the same cool pale grey stone as the outside of the shelter; it was probably basically granite, Aburon thought, that had been magically altered and infused with greater elemental essence. It had at one time been thoroughly barricaded, but the spikes and stakes and bars and chevaux- de- frise had been smashed through by something large and terribly powerful- although an attempt had been made to put them back together again.

He ran his hands over the inside surface, determined to learn at least this. There was obviously rich magic woven into the architecture of the shelter, and done not merely by a master but an artist. The door on the opposite wall had been reduced to a hole, the ornately reinforced doors now part of the barricade, in bits. The only actual feature on the walls was a drinking fountain, magical not- well, the term ‘natural’ didn’t really have the same opposition; not locally occurring without help. It was the first time the other three had seen Veniel happy.

‘What a masterpiece. The elegance of the interaction between elements…’
‘It’s just a drinking fountain.’ Kraven sneered at Veniel.
‘If you realised it was that or try the taste of lava, you’d know enough to reckon it was a masterpiece too.’ Aburon pointed out.
‘Bollocks. What about this?’ Kraven was inspecting the half- rebuilt barricades, trying to think of a way over them that wouldn’t involve getting impaled. Then he realised there was more potential to the situation and tried to think of a way that would get someone else impaled.
Hara looked at them with an eye sharpened by years of being on the wrong side of human defences like this, and admired the professionalism of the job; it had been very hasty but quite thorough.

‘We’z on da wrong side ov summat intended ta keep out wotever smushed threw dat wall. Dat stroikes yew as bein’ ‘inside’, duz it?’ Hara pointed out. Then she yelled ‘Oi! Anybody ‘ere?’
'We're on the wrong side of something intended to keep out whatever broke through that wall. That strikes you as being 'inside', does it? Oi! Anyone here?' The room echoed, and they could hear it bounce off internal walls; followed by sounds of alarm.
‘You daft green lump- they’re going to hear that and come running.’ Kraven shouted at Hara.
Calmly she asked him ‘Wot ‘they’ would dat be den?’
'What 'they' would that be then?'
‘Ah…I get it. If it turns out to be- something…we’re with you, right?’
And if not, stuff ‘em if they can’t take an Orc.

‘Ackchewly, ‘ow dew we tell ‘em we’z on deyr soide?’ She added, thinking about it.
'Actually, how do we tell them that we're on their side?'
‘Um…Kraven, do you remember what Count Riedell’s coat of arms looked like?’ Aburon asked him.
‘What makes you think I’d know?’
‘It’s the count’s law that paid you, wasn’t it?’
It was the Count’s law that wanted to have hard words with him as often as not; which he always seemed to have to get out of by working for Count Riedell at reduced rates. Reduced to a free- well, counting danger and loss of earnings, cursedly expensive- pardon.

‘Yes.’ He glossed over the inconvenient details.
‘Well?’
‘Gorntlet ‘oldin a sunburn?’ Hara recalled tripping over the corpses of a couple of guards at the edge of the county, in a shed intended as a border post, as she had come over the hills around Mount Honeycomb.
‘Sunburst?’ Aburon corrected. ‘sounds right. One talisman, coming up.’ It was more difficult to work metal with his earth elemental power than it was soil and stone, but he could do it; he reached for one of the more out of the way spikes, less likely to be noticed, and etched and shaped it into what he hoped was a passable version of the old Count’s arms. So much for the best case situation. If things went the other way…

‘Veniel, how good are you at, well, magical shields?’ Aburon asked him.
‘I can do firewalls- against a fire elemental, would that work?’ Aburon looked at that idea with the contempt it deserved. ‘Maybe not.’
‘Let’s see what we’re up against, because we might need to wait and see, and then do it very fast.’
There was some clanging and shuffling at the entrance to the room. The four took up position against the barricades, and prepared themselves for a fight; there was a quiet pause, in which they could feel but not sense the enemy, then five knights and a dozen crossbowmen charged at sprinting speed into the room screaming the demented battle cries of men who believe themselves already dead, weapons raised for a first and final blow- all looking up, expecting something much greater than human height, to confront and die fighting against something very large and very lethal.

The one fractionally in front of the rest started to climb over the barricade, still yelling, before it sank in that there was nothing to attack. They started looking around in dazed bafflement, suddenly empty; and noticed the four adventurers.
‘So there is still someone left alive down here.’ Aburon began, trying to put the distinctly crazed- looking knight off balance and calm him down a bit. He was wearing rare and expensive full interlocking plate, thickest style, backed by a layer of mail- armour for a man who did not expect to have to run far, but to stand, give and receive mighty blows, and win or die where he stood.

He bore the baronial crest on his tabard, Baron Lucien deMarail’s crossed scimitars wreathed in vines, and the personal heraldry of a rearing horse with a wolverine on it’s back on his shield- which bore the cadence mark of a knight- banneret, a leader of knights, proven and trusty supporter of baron and king. He pushed up his visor, revealing a tired, lined, unshaven face, sunken dark eyes and straggly hair.

‘You’re from the surface; there’s still people left alive up there?’ he sounded as if he did not really believe it, trying to take in the odd crew, who bore no heraldry, two of whom served no master save Fortune, and two who served no human lord, one beholden to nothing less than Nature, one child of a frontier greenskin warchief. In feudal society, nobodies- if not outlaws. One of the other knights was practically jumping up and down with relief, the armoured weight on his limbs bouncing as if a weight had been lifted off his heart, and several of the crossbowmen were doing some kind of dance. They couldn’t care less.
‘We came down the spiral- most of the countryside is still there.’ Aburon, realising a fraction too late that that was not quite as reassuring as he had hoped. ‘The war’s been- it’s over. People are starting to wonder where you all went. I mean…’ gesturing at the shelter around them. Had they been trapped by the monster?
‘What year is it?’ the knight asked.

‘Fourteenth of the reign of King Justinian IV, beginning of spring. Only two months in the outer world.’ Veniel told them; a few of the crossbowmen looked baffled. ‘What did you expect- something so terrible it took years off your lives?’
‘Did you spot anything on your way down? Any monsters?’ one of the other knights asked. He sounded young, keen and aggressive, and the other knights looked at him as if he was mad. He might well have been.
‘A murdered ranger and a slain dark elf.’ Aburon put his own slant on it.

‘’Part from dat, ownly me.’ Hara pointed out.
[color=green['Apart from that, only me.'[/color] Something of their scent must have carried against the current, because there came echoing from the depths an explosion of rage, a mighty bass howl.
‘Wud ‘at’ be wun of ‘em now?’ 'Would that be one of them now?'
She deadpanned; this certainly was one of the things orcs were frightened of, but first impressions count, and Garthraka curse her if she was prepared to show it in front of this crew of tin soldiers.

The knights and crossbowmen crumpled, looking as if their backbones had suddenly bent in two; death was back on the menu again, and they were not going to live after all. With sullen, hollow reluctance, they reformed into a fighting line.
‘Hey…hey! Help us over this crap!’ Kraven shouted at the knights, not at all wanting to be on the side of something that nasty. Normally it would have been a fairly appealing proposition, but he was looking at how scared they were. Hara picked Veniel up and threw him over the mound of obstacles, aiming for the crossbowmen to reduce the chances of his getting killed on landing.

He was heavier than he looked, and the crossbowmen looked more than a little surprised to be on the receiving end of a flying wizard, but did manage to break his fall- four of them went down in a tangled heap with him- without his either being impaled or blowing up.
Aburon stood in hieratic pose, holding his staff horizontally in front of him, chanted a brief phrase in the primordial tongue, and moved his staff so the ends traced through the pattern of a runic charm, earth, wood, order; he did not have enough power to do more than smooth over the rough edges and sharp points and consolidate a path through the loose mound of broken spikes, sticks and rubble. Kraven and Hara followed, then Aburon retraced the rune of the levelled way in reverse, and the suppressed traps sprung up again.

The knights and crossbowmen looked at him suspiciously; Aburon had fought off the servants of feudal order on the forest’s behalf before, facing swords with magic; at this reach, in close quarters, there was nothing he could do fast enough, effectively enough to beat them to the draw. At long range, say a couple of hundred yards, the crossbow men had the edge; but at medium range, with the sight of his hawk to back him, he could destroy or deter with ice, stone and thorn. At arms’ length, no, although the way they were looking at him put him in mind that it might be necessary.

Many men and their families had fled into the forests away from Baron deMarail’s exactions; he was not a very cruel man in himself- although he made no fetish of mercy- it was mainly that he was such a dedicated supporter of his overlord King Justinian, in whose gift much reposed. All his thoughts went upwards, and he seldom considered the effects of the king’s demands on the people. Aburon wondered if any of the knights had been, say, sent into the Edricswold in search of rebels and outlaws, and found the plants and animals, the hills and streams, turn on him? Worth bewaring of; probably rather more immediately relevant were the sounds coming from outside, of a large and determined something stomping and smashing it’s way up the sloping tunnel to the breach.

The light within the fortress was magical, and indirect, apparently sourceless; it simulated a mellow late summer afternoon, and it was easy to see the faces of the crossbowmen change from hapless fear to brittle, bitter do-or-die; very likely do and die. If they feel like that, Kraven and Veniel told themselves in their separate ways, what am I doing here?
The heavy, crunching footsteps closed up to the breach, then paused. There were a couple of seconds of silence, then a thunderous crash as a mighty blow of mystic force smote the rough blocking rubble in the breach.

Aburon recognised the earth mixed with fire of the burning inner world, tinged with rage, frustration and hate; the rubble quivered but did not shatter, and part of the flare lapped through the top of the breach and rolled along the ceiling. Aburon started to summon a shield of elemental ice to resist the shower of lava rain he expected the flare to coalesce in to, but it never happened; the magic of the shelter cooled and subdued it, and a soft, feathery rain of ash fell; Aburon was left holding a disc of ice.

There was another smashing blow at the breach, but it did not lap over this time, and there was a granite-grey flash in the gap; the shelter was resisting the attack, it’s defences gathered. There was a howl of anger from without, another long pause, the four venturers could hear more men rushing into position behind them; then there came a terrible light, brighter and simpler than Johanna’s nightmare’s mane and tail, but sharing the same shimmering unnatural quality; and a creature of living flame pushed it’s snout through the gap.

Hara’s medical experience gave her a much better insight into human feelings than she liked to let on; she was watching the crossbowmen- the visored knights obviously gave away less, apart from one who was emitting a liquid brown smell- but she was surprised to see that most of them, as the ten-foot long fire lizard squeezed it’s way through the gap, actually looked relieved. What was there was bad enough; but it was better than the alternative?

Aburon and Veniel knew a large, mature adult salamander when they saw one. Veniel, to everyone’s surprise, did not run away screaming. He boggled, but he had been at least properly inducted in the art at the wizardly colleges of Jotunheim, educated in the theory and lore of the arcane. He knew his thaumaturgical bestiary, and although he had never seen one outside the pages of an illustrated guide, the giant blazing lizard was obvious enough. What the knights and men were expecting was in the locked and sealed sections described as ‘apocryphal’ because no-one had faced one for long enough to confirm or deny. The salamander could enter where it’s master could not, because it felt no personal hostility to the beings inside; it was just doing what came naturally to it.

Aburon threw the ice shield at the flame-serpent; it was aimed at the neck, but flew a little askew, striking the clawed left foreleg at the shoulder, dimming it’s fires, causing it to rear and scream; Hara, not sure what good it would do, loosed a cloth-yard arrow at it’s most solid and unwavering part, it’s glowing-coal eyes; the arrow burst into flame, but only after it had carried it’s piercing head to lodge in the beast’s left eyeball.

Kraven’s crossbow bolt grazed along it’s twisted flank, and Veniel, knowing how powerful they could become, threw a great surge of power into a chant of Negation, forcing the mystic energies he had been taught to channel and control- the bloodstream of the soul- into and through the pattern; fear gave him the courage of desperation, and the result, a beam of unrainbow light that drank in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, drained him as well. He fell, pale and washed out; the beam splashed into the body of the salamander, and burst in a plume of unflame; the fire-lizard’s flowing outer skin cooled and congealed like spent lava, fires dimming and molten life ebbing into sullen, still heat- limned lumpen basalt.

The wizards had badly weakened it, the arrow in the eye had not helped; two of the knights started to clamber forward to get to grips with it but their colleagues in arms held them back. They were faster than the reeling, wounded monster, but most had the sense not to try to reach it. The lizard could not decide who had hurt it most, who to strike back at, so it belched flame across them all. The knights raised their shields or covered their heads with their arms, the crossbowmen crouched or dived flat; Veniel was too dazed to help defend them, colour slowly returning, but Aburon, who had distinct prejudices against being burnt alive, did have the presence of mind to reach out for the drinking fountain and charm it’s stream of water into a shower of drops of ice spraying across the room to intercept the billow of fire.

It was too quick to be more than a partial success, and he got his aim wrong. Cold water and ice shot across the room, catching the beast in it’s hindquarters and thrashing tail- and spraying Kraven and Veniel; Veniel spluttered, starting to come round, Kraven, soaked and chilled, shouted at Aburon, but the beast’s reaction was a shade more excessive; it reared up screeching like stones grinding against each other, and cast it’s wash of flame too high, scorching the ceiling again, and exposing it’s underside.

The leading knight, the one with the mounted wolverine on his shield, shouted at the crossbowmen to bloody well fight, and about half of them overcame their nerves to aim in vaguely the right direction. Most of the newer arrivals did so, and a total of eight bolts struck the rearing beast in it’s softer, more vulnerable belly. Mortal weapons had little effect in themselves, but the spiritual force of their desire to kill, acting through the pattern of their skill at arms, did; the bolts burnt or broke on impact, but, like the arrow Hara put into it’s eye, the skill and intent they represented bit. The inner force went out of it; an infernal creature stood there one moment, a lump of hot, congealing rock, unnatural life departed, lay there adding it’s weight to the barricade the next.

There was a pale cheer heavily laden with relief from the front, a loud roar of acclamation from the back, as was usually the case- then a howl of anger from the outside. The humans were mostly frightened into silence, with a sprinkling of whimpers and pleas; ‘Forgive us, firelord, we didn’t mean to-‘ was all Hara caught. Then there was another receding series of stomping, crashing, rock- rending noises. Aburon feared a deception; some of the beasts of the infernal were intelligent enough to do such things, an auditory illusion of it’s stomping away in disgust, lulling them- but the attack he expected did not materialise, nor did the defenders relax their vigilance.

‘We woz lookin’ fer da baron- we ‘az a messuj fer’ im.’
‘What?’ totally failing to penetrate the rich orcish accent.
'We're looking for the baron, we have a message for him.'
‘We need to speak with the baron. We have a message from the surface.’ Kraven spoke loudly and clearly, pushing it. He never did like knights, and his temper was running high at the moment.
‘From the count?’ The banneret would quite like to take Kraven’s head off, but there would be a time and a place for that later.
‘Sort of…’ Aburon realised that going into details now might not be too good an idea. The three barons were all dependent on and infeudated to the count- but this was Kuquan.

Order and convention bound and force loosed the ties of the system, and none of them knew exactly what the relationship between baron deMarail and the count actually was; it could be anything from bosom buddies to in outright rebellion- with an outside chance of both. They would admit the ‘countess’ bit when they had an idea of how he was likely to react, all of them uneasily aware of the red-haired lady’s reputation and how awkward it might be.
For the time being, Aburon pulled out and handed over the talisman. It seemed to satisfy, but the knight did not look like a stupid man; bright enough to put earth powers and the shiny- newness of this together, maybe.

‘Tell me dis,’ Hara changed the subject with surprising tact for an Orc, ‘wot’z da point ov buildin’ summat serposed ta keep yew safe in wun of da most dangererousest…scary bitz ov da wurld yew can foind?’
'Tell me this, what's the point of going out of going out of your way to build a place of safety in one of the most dangerous parts of the world you can find?'
‘According to the Tablets of Erian of Pynirium,’ the more incoherent, unreliable and outright mythological bits having stuck better in Veniel’s head than anything resembling cold common sense, not that that was much use dealing with magic either, ‘if this place comes from the First Age, it makes sense, because then the enemy came from the sky.’

‘I’ll lead you to the count. Follow me.’ The knight with the wolverine on his shield led the way, moving slowly from the weight of the armour; most of the other knights were more lightly armoured, and were walking rather than plodding. The real drawback of heavy armour isn’t the weight, which is surprisingly manageable for short periods, it’s the ventilation; not wanting holes in a surface supposed to deflect enemy weapons, obviously, it is little different from wearing a cauldron. Men have come down with heatstroke on overcast days from their own trapped and reflected body heat. In winter, it radiated warmth away and helped the wearer freeze that much faster, not that that would be a problem here. He was rapidly running out of air and running up too much heat.

‘’Ere, let me ‘elp yew.’ 'Here, let me help you.'
Hara took him by the arm and let him lean on her. They shambled on at a faster pace, through the cyclopean corridors and past the chambers of the shelter-hold, and the people huddling there. Modesty forbade him to accept a lady’s help; but he was far from sure that Hara counted. They had descended below surface before any more than vague rumours came of the horrors the Twentieth Cataphract brought in their wake. Which could cut both ways, but was probably good.

‘What do you mean, the enemy came from the sky?’ the young, eager knight asked Veniel. ‘Wouldn’t they build flying castles, then?’ With his visor pushed up he looked as nuts as they had surmised, but it was the look of a man whose world had turned to water and ran away from him and who was holding on to the last solid part- the Chivalric Code- by his fingernails.
‘Why would you want to make it easy for the enemy to come and get you?’ he understood as little.
‘If we want to fight the fire beasts, this place makes perfect sense. We can sally forth and smite them-‘

‘’Ow many springles…spargills…turns did it take yew ta’ get ‘ere?’
['How many turns down the spiral did it take you to get here?'[/color]
‘Coming down the ramp.’ Aburon filled in helpfully, overcoming the young knight’s blank look.
‘Lost count. Thirty, forty, some such number. What boots it?’
‘Ah. Roight.’ Probably unwise to explain. The weight of all that tin must be squishing his brain, Hara thought. If I slice the top of his head off and extend his brain box a bit, that might help. Probably not good to do it when his mates are looking, they might not understand.

‘Anyway, the Chronicles of Auernhaemer of Dervsal-‘ Veniel began
‘Are pure piss and wind, or human imagination if you prefer to be polite about it. The land remembers truth, not supposition, might have been and make believe.’ Aburon was starting to wonder what the point of anybody’s being a wizard was, or of studying magic ‘properly’ if Veniel was anything like a typical product of the system. He was not making the point angrily; a professional disagreement- and partly just to see how mature Veniel would actually be about it.

‘These books are a concentrated essence of human wisdom.’
‘A record of incoherent fratricide and applied lunacy- that sounds about right for city boys.’ Kraven agreed with Aburon and Hara could happily have banged both their heads together.
‘Can we ‘ave de argryment layter? I wanna hear da story.’
'Can we have the agument later? I want to hear the story.'
‘Ahem.’ Veniel coughed, with a venomous look at Aburon. ‘According to the chronicles,’ emphasising that, ‘The early first age, all species emerged from primordial chaos. In the later first age they fought for dominance-‘

‘As neat and artificial as a square corner. The land is one, but it is not the same everywhere; you are one, but your hands are not your feet. Although your runework makes me wonder.’ One- upmanship in full flood; trying to sound, for the benefit of the knights, like rivals in the art, seekers after glory in their own way- Aburon would have been more confident if he thought Veniel was keeping up with him. ‘Each part of the land brought forth life according to it’s nature, and each life grew and changed and came into opposition with others according to the rule of the nature it sprung from.’

While they were arguing, Hara asked the knight she was holding up ‘So ‘oo are yew den?’ 'So, who are you then?'
‘Sir Palamede of Gerenden.’ He said it like it should be obvious to even an untutored upcountry buffoon.
‘Hara Strongarm. Me dad’s a war chief, we move abaht a lot.’ Let him digest that, then ‘Sew, arfter yoo got dahn ‘ere, wot ‘appened den? And ‘oo all iz ‘ere?’
'Hara Strongarm, my father's a war chief, we're nomadic. So, fter you got down here, what happened? Who is in here, anyway?'
‘The third time we have been attacked by the monster.’ He looked about ready to collapse, the memory of fear not helping. ‘The first time, it actually knocked. Came up and knocked on the main gate. Just like that.’

Absurd; the sheer normality of it being almost funny, looking back- although what it had done once inside was far from humorous. ‘There is a scry stone that could show the outside of the door, but the fool on the gate didn’t know what to do with it, so he opened the doors to have a look. We were all at the other end of our territory facing that swithering chancer deVerett and his turncoat clowns; by the time we got there the thing was running riot.’

‘So woss’ it look loike?’ 'So what does it look like?'
‘Big, very tall- it had to crouch to fit in here.’ The corridors of the shelter-hold were wide and tall, something like thirteen feet high. ‘Bit like a minotaur in shape, but too big, too fast, too smart to be anything like; solid, but wreathed in smoke and flame.’
‘Did it ‘ave wings?’'Did it have wings?'
‘Don’t rightly know. I think so. Sort of shadowy. We caught it in the middle of roasting and eating some of the peasantry we had down with us, and charged it. Nine armoured knights it smashed or blasted to dust, and dozens of footsoldiers and crossbowmen.

We fell back, to await such magical power as could let us deal with it; but the screams…there was nothing we could do but try to save them, so we waited until it seemed we had a chance, until it was looking down at one of its victims and- playing- with the poor child’s guts; and such of us as were left rushed it. We managed to hurt it badly enough to drive it away, back out of the shelter; I got it a beautiful hit on the side of it’s head with a mace that I think dazed it, but it got me; smashed both my arms and most of my ribs with one swing of it’s fist.

I was still recovering when it came back and smashed through the wall, created the gap you got in by. We had enough sorcerous and priestly power gathered to fight it that way, although it took heavy toll of them too- and they could not slay it. It is in it’s home element here, and draws strength from the rock around. We have sent parties out to try to reach the surface, but nothing came of them. We think it slew them. We have driven it off, although it cost us dear- too dear to be able to do it again, perhaps.’

[FA Xerrik]

Uh oh, methinks a Balrog could be on the loose...

Is this setting really an original creation? I have to commend you on it, you've crafted a very engrossing world with a lot of depth to it. I'm eagerly awaiting the next chapter.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I started by borrowing a lot of standard fantasy furniture and filing the serial numbers off; which is all well and if not good at least standard, but it only really works for parody.

To make anything distinctive out of it, you have to rewrite the origin myth, come up with some kind of alternative explanation, which frequently takes on a momentum of it's own and changes the thing that you thought you were borrowing. Which is good. What is a bit not so good is the wild, renegade ideas that bubble up from the imagining process and go off at strange, strange tangents.

There's a whole bunch of origin myth due around ch 6, but to take the furthest out example; orcs. One orc in particular. None of this 'corrupted elf' bit; they arose (Aburon doesn't use the term 'evolved', but de facto, it is so) in their own particular circumstances, which were largely open plain.

So that would make them in large part a plains people, hard- living and self- reliant, the largest really dependable social unit the family, and their mental lives are largely shaped by the tribal wise men's control of the popular imagination. How things got to be that way is a story in itself, but the most drastic example of them all, and my worst pun, is probably Hara's brother, the one she's searching for.

He is a renegade shaman's apprentice, dreaming of flight and open skies, who has turned his talents to, and got research funding from the war chest of the Striking Phoenix for...well, his first name is Njal. Njal Strongarm.
The line "That'z wun smorl step fer an Orc..." has not yet appeared, but eventually, I assure you, it will.

This did not actually make my players boggle as badly as the druidess encountered shortly before that, who as a round- table running gag about the difficulty of cutting an alternative pantheon from whole cloth, had developed the power to summon Mr.Men.
I have no clear idea how I am supposed to break out of the copyright trap on that one- I think "for review or satirical purposes" just about covers it- but I will say this; Mr Bump and Mr Tickle make a spectacularly effective interrogation team.

As for the big fiery thing, in the absence of Tolkien's origin myth, the justification of whateveritis threw up some pretty strange outcomes. The term I prefer, because it's where he derived it from anyway, is Baalrukh. [/i]

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Next part; and some more plot.


Chapter 4;

They had moved out of the square-set blocks of chambers around the edge, and were journeying through a zone of curved and twisted corridors with increasingly elaborate walls. There were one or two actual mosaics, of the iconography of gods and powers long since vanished and runes that appeared in no modern lexicon or liber thaumaturgicorum, and Aburon became increasingly convinced that the corridors they were in formed part of the shape of a rune in stone- architectural magic on the grand scale.
There were veins of other rocks in all the colours of the earth running through the smooth grey surfaces; blacks and browns, greys, oranges and reds, silver and gold, marble and jade, thin trails of the exotic and broad bands of the mundane, all impossibly normal in the artificial setting of a masonry wall. Probably they too formed patterns of power.

‘Iz dis plyace bigger on da insoide dan on da owtsoide?’ Hara asked the wizards, trying to think of a sensible question to put to them to stop them just gazing around slack- jawed, and that could be answered in nice short words.
Is this place bigger on the inside than the outside?'
‘Doubt it. I think we just started at a corner. It’s not built for people, though. All this room, not enough place for food and drink- and I’d hate to be in some of these corridors when the fort needs to gather its power, but let’s not ponder that right now. There must be something in here to grow food, but I bet it’s nearly pure magic- and it doesn’t look as if they can make it work. Hara, how good are you at treating starvation?’

The shelter seemed to have been designed, Aburon thought, for a handful of elite, at least one full archmage to get the power of it activated and useful, but it simply wasn’t happening. It should have taken minutes to hide the traces outside; it had taken months. The people they passed looked tired and wretched, in little frightened huddles, and far from friendly towards the knights that were leading them towards Baron deMarail. Sour and sullen stares, from those that had the energy to note their passing. Craftsmen, farmers, they were trapped in a chamber of horrors, barren, eldritch oddness, with nothing to do but go slowly nuts and try not to eat each other.

‘Bleedin’ autumn. Bleedin’ ‘arvest time. ‘Ow did dey manage ter be sew bad off?’
'Autumn. Harvest time. How did they manage to be so badly off?'
‘We were already being harried by Baron Omphraye’s men spreading poison and disease through the fields. With the chaos that led up to this, as well- the land was unsettled.’ Palamede answered her with the ambivalent tones of someone who had done his part, and watched the rest of his side fail miserably.

The land and it’s inhabitants had been a great deal more than unsettled; most of the spirits of the wild had sensed trouble on the wind long ago, and calming them down, preparing them to face it, had been one of Aburon’s chief duties for the last year.
Poison and disease in the fields, fire and sword in the forest- and he and his charms, and his colleagues of the druidic orders had deterred or driven off as many if not more of the raiders as the baron’s verderers and gamekeepers had, they being more interested in counterattack than defence- something which did not work on a man who had as much use for his followers after they were dead as he had when they were alive.

King Justinian, who should have known better but whose current favourite courtesan badly warped his judgement, had too suddenly and too drastically tried to pull an old, relaxed, relatively easy-going kingdom back into the incendiary old ways, of the land and the people a tool of war in the hands of a king anointed by the gods.
Well, the gods had refused to anoint him, and the land was almost as ready for war as he had expected- but at the grand council he called to brace the land into shape to face their southern Zarthani neighbours, fresh from a finally- victorious anti-elven crusade and ready to avenge the ancient loss of three provinces, large parts of it had been readier to face him.

He had a very high and ancient notion of what became a king, and a mediocre understanding of the other side of the coin; the rebels barely knew what they stood for, but knew what they were against- him, and his endless ever-reestimated taxes, his endlessly amended and shabbily pettifogging laws, his pomp and ceremony as if they might not notice, if he kept it up, that he was only a pale paper-ridden shadow of his ancestors’ glory.

It had in fact been Justinian I who had seized the three northernmost provinces of Great Zarthan- he had been on very good terms with his wizards, and, partly through a strongly- reputed streak of elven blood, had a bit of mystic power himself.
Veniel remembered the reaction that had taken place when their current king had sought support from the magical guilds, he had been an apprentice and spectator to it all; the civil war had nearly broken out there and then. The king had found himself required to be very generous to them, to prevent unpleasantness.
Of course, when the grand council, intended to patch together all the little arrangements and agreements, had convened, and then turned very sour, Veniel had found himself on the barricades after all- and look where it had got him.

Some had chosen to throw off his Justinian’s yoke altogether, some few, such as deMarail, had declared themselves ‘for King and one reunited Kingdom’, the upper nobility, the dukes and princes, thoroughly at home in the new, member-state-of-the-Authrani-Empire ways of trade and diplomacy and law and order, had begun adding up their genealogies and estimating their chances at the throne- a general hobby of the aristocracy, now pursued in deadly earnest- and autumn had passed away in squabbling, negociating for alliances, chevauchees and sabotage.

‘We knew,’ Palamede continued, ‘that there were devices in the fortress that could generate sustenance- our court wizard had a set of scrolls of ancient days that, unfortunately, burnt with him when the beast attacked. We travelled light, taking little with us, trying to get here first; that didn’t work but we reckoned without baron Kardren’s ability to discount the lives of his followers, and baron deVerett’s to use expendable hirelings to pin us in place, defending our own.
The damned rebels under baron Omphraye have the farther parts of the fortress, the faithless followers of baron deVerett dwell between us and them in the centre. The breeding and growing powers we counted on have turned out to be so difficult and obscure to use as to be nearly useless. They are all mere magery, of the far past even then, and our priests have little skill at making effective these heretical and wilful devices.’

‘So you feed the baron and his friends and let the peasants starve.’ Veniel accused him, looking pointedly at the heavy armour he, helped by Hara or not, still had the strength to stand up and fight in. He looked well enough fed.
Sir Palamede looked back at them as if they had come from another world. Of course the peasants were starving. It was their main hobby and diversion in life. He was not happy about it, particularly, but what was to be done about it? Feed them if possible- which for a man in his position meant finding people to hit and take their food from, and stopping other people hitting his peasantry and taking their food from them. He did not appreciate being reminded how badly they were doing.

They passed into a relatively unadorned section of corridor, most of the veins ending in rune shapes. Aburon touched one; it felt dormant, warm, looming. He had never met an elephant, but had a good idea what being in bed with one was supposed to mean. There were more armed men, in what opened out into an odd semblance of a field camp.
There was an area for each of the subordinate leaders, the baron’s sheriff- Hara’s natural enemy, being responsible for a law that had no love of wandering foreigners; the verderer- Aburon’s natural enemy, being responsible for the baron’s rights in forest, field and stream, the immediate face of the ruling class’ claim to the land and the combat leader of such scouts and skirmishers as the stiffly chivalrous baronial army could field.
Many of them had a foot in both camps, frequently cousin and comrade to the rogues, outlaws and semi- political bandits the forest grudgingly permitted. Aburon knew several of them; it was their leaders he objected to. Sir Alleyne was competent, but happiest when he was hitting something.

There was also the Baron’s cousin Edmund, who acted as his left hand in the field, or at least used to. The entranceway to his set of chambers was draped in black ribbons, for it had been his men who suffered so heavily, and in future the field would have to come to him, for the beast had taken away both his legs with a coiling, swirling infernal weapon that had blasted them beyond the reach of any healing they had here. A pure wizard, power flowing from within, might be able to help, but the shelter blocked the priests from calling down the word of their gods. There was little other than moral support that they had left to offer.

Lucien deMarail was unmarried- his wife had died in childbirth, and for some private reason he had never tried again. The man who acted as his good right arm, his brother Bertrand, was still on the surface. Lucien had not even a bastard to his name, his brother was his only heir, but he had a large share of the knight-errant in him; Bertrand was dynastically secure, married with three sons, but he had an amazing capacity for getting himself into trouble, and the solid citizens of the barony looked on him as a dangerous maniac.
The sort of man who would spend the night in a fairy ring with a bottle of rum, just to see what happened; Aburon intended to tell Lady deMarail all about it one of these days, whenever he needed to blackmail Bertrand. On the other hand, it could be said that Bertrand’s odd, slightly overdeveloped sense of chivalry was what had kept him from deposing his brother these last ten years.

Lucien deMarail was a loyalist; but was sensible enough to dig in and hide when Imperial cavalry stormed by. Bertrand was loyal- or mad- enough to assume the King’s majesty would protect him against the rampaging psychopaths-by-appointment of the Striking Phoenix. Whether it had worked or not his brother, of course, would not know. Kraven, who had been chased for his life through the back alleys of Karvalheim by Bertrand’s men, certainly did know- but the less he said about that the better for him.

In fact, Bertrand had owed his preservation to an Orcish lieutenant who had found him, an arrow through his gut, and stopped one of the squaddies cutting his throat on the grounds that
‘Iffin’ we do fer everybody, ‘oo’s goin’ ter be left ta tell da rest of’ em ter be froightened of us?’ and then Lieutenant Strongarm had robbed him of everything except his underwear, and the plates pinned to his stomach by the arrow. Then gone back for the arrow. It was called ‘making war support war.’

There was also a chamber full of priests; the strange smells and periodic atonal wailing that came from that direction made it obvious. They had lost many of their number, true; but the almost continuous funeral chants could be helping nobody’s nerves, except those convinced they were already doomed. Palamede headed for the baron’s chambers; they were a shambles, a bachelor lodging of a man on the verge of giving up interest in life. Most of the knights had brought wives and womenfolk, reckoning them safer here, and perhaps they were, but as many as three in eight were widows now.

The baron’s own audience room was probably designed as some kind of conference room or theatre; tiers of high stone steps laid down in a circle arrangement, bare, yet highly polished walls. There was a pile of furs and a canopy at the opposite end from the entrance, but no baron on them.
There were some people, a group of weeping women stitching and mending, a couple of children playing, probably the only happy people in the shelter, because they were too young to understand, and sometimes managed to escape the flavour of their parents’ fear.

Palamede shambled over to the side of the hall, sat down heavily with loud clanging of plates, and sent one of the children running to fetch the baron. There was precious little else happening, he might as well see to this- normally any casual visitor, let alone as unlikely a crew as this, would have to work their way through three or four layers of servants and underlings and subordinates, and almost certainly have been deflected somewhere along the way; but the count’s emblem, and Palamede’s interest, and their joining in- turning the tide- of the fight against the salamander, and the fact that they were from the surface, got them this far.

The chanting broke rhythm, and after a few moments, baron deMarail came out followed by a cloud of incense and chanting with three or four priests inside- their perfumed fog made it too cloudy to tell. He was a bear-shaped man with a heavy black beard, long hair for doing up into a bun to act as extra padding under a helm, a drawn-out, tired, heavy-eyed expression. Jacketed, breeched and robed, with his sword but without armour.
Palamede saluted him from the sitting position. ‘My lord-‘ waving an arm towards the venturers, ‘we have visitors a group of messengers from the surface.’

The baron looked them over. He had been hoping and praying for aid, for his brother, or count Riedell, or some field patrol of the king’s army, to come and relieve them of their siege.
Instead there were four of the scruffiest entities he had ever seen, and that was including the large green lump who probably ought not to count; one wild treeman, one scruffy thug for hire, one mad eyed spellchucker the priests were watching carefully. The other one might have more sense, but the dusty, muddy looney might not. Someone must have flushed them down here, and he was thinking in the toilet, not the hunting sense.

They were from the sunlight he had not seen in- little enough by the calendar, an ocean of fear away; a world he thought had almost forgotten them- but what a disappointment. He was also far from pleased with Palamede for bringing him such; but apart from Edmund, Palamede was the only knight- banneret, only other combat leader, he had left.
‘What are they?’ he asked Palamede, making his displeasure obvious enough, but ignoring them otherwise.
‘They bear news- under the Count’s seal- and they aided me and my men in destroying one of the great beast’s minions.’ Palamede pointed out calmly, trying neither to madden the wanderers or arouse the baron’s dislike.
Magic began with summoning and focusing the will; it was part of any competent knight’s training to summon their energy to resist sorcery and defy hostile magic, so he knew something about it. They were not powerful, but they were creatively nuts, which was dangerous enough.
Besides, he was not a baron; he could afford to admit that he was wrong and the situation was desperate verging on disastrous- and if a bunch of scruffy, if effective, oiks were the only tool he had to get the baron to face up to the problem, so be it.

‘That’s all very well, but- look at them, man! Dragged through a privy backwards by the look of them, scruffs and shambles with not an honest or orderly bone in their bodies.’
Hara stomped over to him. The priests backed away a little. Palamede had the sense not to intervene. Hara was unusually strong even for an orc, broader than the baron. She also arrogated to herself the medic’s priviledge of being outside the normal system of rank, and able- and all too willing- to speak frankly to each and all.

‘Look, fuzz- mush, we ‘ave fayced bandits, mercenaries, ‘alf-witted custyums men, robbaz, ‘alf a duzzen other flayvers of eejit, bone’ead priests, mystikk doom, flamin’ lizards and a bloody great orrible narsty fing ta get dahn ere ter save yer zoggin’ perfumed arse, and dis is da thanks and da welcome we get! Do dey remove bits of yer ‘ead, loike sense and common bleedin’ courtesy, when yew get ter be a baron?’ He could see right down her gullet.

Look, fuzzface, we have faced bandits, mercenaries, half-witted customs men, robbers and half a dozen other flavours of idiot, mystic doom, fiery lizards and a bloody great horrible nasty thing to get down here to save your damn perfumed arse, and this is the thanks and the welcome we get! Do they remove parts of your head, like sense and common courtesy, when you get to be a baron?'

‘My lord, they may be of use.’ Palamede pointed out quickly, before Hara could move on to suggesting removing them for him- or the baron could suggest, as under normal circumstances he would, removing important bits of her- like a head or so. ‘For one thing, we still do not know whom they serve, not directly.’ Which meant that the insignia hadn’t completely taken him in.
‘We serve nobody.’ Veniel shouted, principle about to get the better of him. He was about to launch into polemic.
‘We are working for Colonel Calvern of the Authrani Imperial Army, commander of the combat group the King requested be sent to aid him-scouts and reconnaissance troopers, here to look at and see if we can solve your problem. Which we admit might take some doing.’ Aburon carefully did not mention the fact that she was now his now his feudal overlord. Or how much damage they had done.

Justinian had been prevailed upon, by his younger brother Jerphanion most likely, the one whom most said should be king, to call for help to his unwillingly but very politely acknowledged overlord, the master of the Authrani Empire- the dread lord whom few dared name, even, especially, among those who actually knew his- its?- name.
Army Group South Vathlin, regarding the whole business as a storm in a teacup, had somehow been persuaded, probably without paying too much attention to the details, to deploy a newly-raised unit of heavy mounted archers, Cataphracts, to the trouble zone on the grounds that they needed to be shaken down into shape.

South Vathlin was a largely dormant command, mostly semi- active units, civil order, engineering work, companies maintaining the traditions of regiments, pomp and circumstance; they had virtually forgotten what to do with a front- line heavy combat force, let alone a bunch of maniacs like the Striking Phoenix.
They had solved the problem by sweeping through the land like a typhoon, destroying and slaying all in their way in the name of restoring order. Three months of winter had sufficed to kill somewhere between a third and a half of the men of military age of Kuquan, thoroughly, mercilessly, and with unbelievable swiftness. It would be hard to say who was more horrified; King Justinian or the Army Group.

For a cavalry unit, the Striking Phoenix contained an astonishing proportion of woodsmen; predominantly drawn from yeomen and professional soldiers instead of the usual combination of petty nobility and younger sons on one hand and gutter dregs on the other that made up the typical heavy cavalry regiment, the forests of Kuquan had been almost entirely bypassed, if not protected.
Kraven had been fortunate enough to be in hiding in a small village, deemed not worth the effort of firing more than a few fire and lightning arrows into in passing, when Auvaine city was hit, and the outlying districts whipped up into a firestorm. Veniel had been in the capital almost up to the last, then, sensibly, had picked exactly the right moment to flee on a small coastal trader.

Aburon had had problems of his own that winter; his herbal studies had taken him out of the realm of plants and into the realm of the mineral, trespassing on the province and lore of the alchemist- in the process making the interesting discovery that Nature didn’t always know what it was doing.
‘It’; not she, definitely not he, they really needed a positive term that embraced both, not the neuter term that was neither- as, each and all together, would have been the elven view; Aburon preferred to avoid that. It was up to men, up to him as a druid, to forge connections and make bridges between the things in and of themselves that made up nature. Nature occasionally objected.

Generally, the land had little interest in keeping the farmers and the nobles who farmed them alive. In some places, and in some skilled and careful hands, the land could enjoy being farmed, in the same way that some people- even some dragons if there be any truth to the legends- enjoy being tickled. It was a way that a skilled man could embed in the soil, replacing one range of things with another.
Aburon had little to do with them; there were more orderly, more pantheonic gods of the land, false gods but it was tactless to say so, that all but the most old-school of farmers turned to, or were ordered to turn to by the nobles, who worshipped the gods of leadership and war of the same modern pantheon, not the old faith- although the symbology in the fortress was older yet.

‘That is all very well-‘ which was as close as Baron deMarail could actually get to an apology, ‘but the beast is no deader than it ever was, none of the people we sent to the surface got through, and you have said nothing about what help we can actually expect. Do you bring anything besides words?’
‘Yer, roight, we, er, moight ‘ave a bit ov a prorblem wit’ dat. Sew wot’z da best way ov goin’ abaht ‘elpin yewrselves?’ Hara, who certainly had thought of it.
Yes, well, we might have a bit of a problem with that. So what's the best way of helping yourselves?'

‘Baron, you were loyal to the king, weren’t- aren’t you?’ Aburon asked him.
‘I hold to the fount of honour and the rightful lord of the land.’
‘Yes. Well. There are others here, are there not- Barons Kardren and deVerett?’
‘The vile fiends of Baron Omphraye’s dark rule got here first, and disappeared into the dark recesses of the fortress, looking for the centres and sources of power, to feed their black and unnatural arts. The ditherer deVerett, who knows not loyalty or determination, is in the recesses and breadths between us which is no more than he deserves.’
Barons could get away with being florid and over the top. And skinning any commoner who expressed the same sentiment against a member of the ruling class.

‘Sew da wun wot can’t make up ‘iz mind iz in da middle? Conveenyint. Ploise tell me yew’z got enuff sense nut to-‘
'So the one who can't make up his mind is in the middle? Convenient. Please tell me you have enough sense not to-'
‘So what have you been doing to each other? Kraven asked, bored- sounding.
‘There’s only so much ability we can wring out of this place to support us. We have more fighting men and craftsmen than this damned trap can keep alive, we need more nodes.’ Palamede pointed out, as if, as in his world it was, the most natural thing. ‘Feudal’; ‘In a state of feud.’

‘Sew yew iz bizzy foightin’ each uvva az well az waitin’ fer dat fing ter smush in agin’ an’ kill evirywun. Why am Oi decreasin’ly impressed wit’ wot passes fer ‘uman intelligenz?’
So you're busy fighting each other, as well as waiting for that thind to smash in again and kill everyone. Why am I decreasingly impressedwith what passes for human intelligence?'

Most people seldom or never experienced the privilege of having their intelligence looked down on by an Orc; more rarely than they deserved, really. Great achievements in the arts and sciences, perhaps not, but for ruthless practicality it was hard to get the better of a clued- up greenskin. Baron deMarail was not convinced he liked it.

‘That is one thing that worries me. If it could break through the wall, why didn’t it do it there?’ Aburon changed the subject again.
‘From theory…anger. It’s power must be only just not enough to smash down the shelter, unless it has some extra push, some other thing, some feeling driving it on. It can’t break through in cold blood. Maddened, probably yes.’ Veniel guessed.
‘There are other ways of raising power, preparation, summoning, focusing…how often do you send scouts to try to reach the surface?’ Aburon asked the baron.

‘Every three or four days.’ Baron deMarail told them. Mostly those prepared to chance quick death rather than slow starvation.
‘They probably saved you.’ Aburon said, thinking of how he would set up a set- piece to do it, and how he could disrupt the monster’s if it came to that. ‘Every time it had to come and kill them, it lost the thread of it’s rite. The time they bought with their lives-‘
‘Something,’ Palamede told his lord, ‘we would seem to be running out of.’

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Chapter 5

‘Orl roite, it was a good oidea, but dere is wun problem I can see. Where iz we goin’?’
'All right, it was a good idea, but there's one problem that I can see. Where are we going?'
‘Veniel, can you feel any of the forces in the cavern? Anything that might tell us where to find baron deVerett and his people.’
He closed his eyes, hummed a brief strophe to focus his mind, with both hands on his staff knelt down; his robes had once been the bright red of an apprentice, who were obliged such vivid colours for the same reasons there are so many luminous- hued poisonous animals.

Mud, rain, patching, hard wear and an attempt to wash the dye out had left him a brown, grey and multihued, mottled, faded pink mess, like a rock with leprosy. He sounded a bit like one too, as after fifteen seconds he screeched, dropped his staff, stood up eyes wildly defocused, high- pitched babbling issuing from his mouth, palms of his hands smouldering. Aburon splashed his hands with conjured water which evaporated off hissing, sputtering and steaming, and probably saved him from catching alight. Hara grabbed him and shook him until he stopped gibbering.

‘It must have been too much for him.’
‘The elementals!’ he shrieked. Hara slapped him.
‘He might be right though. This place does seem full of barely controlled, out of hand magic. It must draw some power from the runes built in to it, and some from the people within it, none of which is being used and guided properly; and there probably are elementals built in to the structure. I hope they stay there.’ Aburon looked at the walls with a touch of trepidation.

‘Wot are dey? I mean, reyilly? Oi’ve been chaysed by dem often enuff, but dey always fall ewver and koind ov crumble away.’
'What are they? I mean, really? I've been chased by them often enough, but they always fall over and crumble away.'
‘Whirlpools of magic. Freestanding embodiments.’
‘Dat was a reel ray of loight. Wossit mean?’
'That was a real ray of light. What does it mean?'
‘Weelll…Veniel, you all right?’

Nothing but mumbled noise came from him.
‘Wild scary blobs.’ Aburon tried to simplify it even further, sure Hara probably knew exactly what he was talking about.
‘I orlready knoo dat.’'I already knew that.'
‘This place should be full of them.’
‘I didn’ wanna know dat.’'I didn't want to know that.'

They were passing through a sparsely populated ring between the clusters of folk pressing together for company and mutual protection, and the edges of what baron deMarail was trying to defend as ‘his’ territory. It had made perfect sense at the time. Given the threat of the beast without, the obvious, sane, reasonable thing to do was to give up the unbelievable, mindbogglingly stupid struggle against each other and arrange some kind of peace and united front against the horror. None of the four were particularly sanguine about it, considering it had taken the locals two months and who was counting how many dead to absolutely fail to put the notion into practise.

They were by far the most sensible people to send on such a mission, being outsiders; not yet envenomed. So they were travelling alone, without any of deMarail’s men to protect and escort them. Being a little bit tainted by association couldn’t have hurt, surely?
They were not quite wandering through the corridors at random, but close enough. There was no safe, direct way of navigating through the shelter by sensing the flow of magic, to do so being the equivalent of sticking a hand into a furnace to see how hot it was, so they were following the mineral trails set into the walls; hoping that they did not greatly vary within or remained constant between the gigantic architectural runes the shelter was made of.

Aburon was starting to suspect that they did, to tie them together in linked patterns of power, and was trying to maintain at least the look of confident optimism. There were traces of inhabitants; there were few long lines of sight in the arching, twisting corridors, occasionally the long straight stroke of a rune, but there were noises, scrapings and scufflings, movement sounds, and once a loud clang that echoed down the passageways.
The light was also dimmer here, as if it clustered round people and their presence; which was almost true, as it was probably from them the dormant magic drew the power to shed it’s luminance. Occasional bright flickers, never directly seen. Even with the high probability those causing it were human, it was still scary. Considering the humans they had met here so far, it was definitely scary.

‘Wot koind ov sense ov directyon hav yew got?’ Hara asked Aburon. ‘ ‘Cos I remember dat greeny-goldy smudge dere.’
'What kind of sense of direction have you got? Because I remember that greenish-goldish smudge there.'
‘I steer by signs and wood- lore, I’m a druid, what do you expect? Besides, yes, we probably have passed something like it. All your arrowheads look alike, don’t they?’
‘Nah. Dere’s long thin pointy wunz fer goin’ throo clankyboyz, dere’s wunz fer’ killin’ game dat’s woide and flat, dere’s-‘
'No. There's long thin pointy ones for piercing armour, broadheads for killing game, there's-'
‘All right, all right. Take it from me though, a rune’s a rune. There are probably lots like it.’ He lied.

‘There’s somebody there.’ Veniel, recovering- he had been walking in a half- blinded trance- said, looking back.
‘We could find out from them where we are.’ Kraven was bored and spoiling for a fight. He liked a ruck, always had. The local kids he had grown up with had learnt to hate and resent his bullying, so he had become a solitary, always in trouble, always up to something, usually buying his way out of it by snitching on his fellows. Becoming a bounty hunter had been a natural progression.

There was a sound, a half- howl, a half- snarl; a starving hunter at last scenting prey. One came round a sharp corner ahead where a curve met a straight section; he was dressed in rags that might once have been part of a feudal livery, and not much of them at that; he came on in a wary, lost- eyed lope, a man more than half animal.
The four readied their weapons; the mage and the druid trying to think of a power they could use to incapacitate without killing, Hara thought about bits of him she could shoot without necessarily rendering him dead, and Kraven wound up his bolas; then the feral man howled again, a long undulating wail, and three more unshaven, ill- clad men came into view around the curve.

They were irregulars, no man of quality among them, armed with broken- short spears, long knives, bludgeons, shin and thigh bones, anything that could be used to beat a man down- to a state where he could be eaten? Hara didn’t like that idea at all.
‘As a professiernal newtrush…nettrick…eatin’ advisor, I fink eatin’ me wud be bad for ‘em.’
'As a professional nutritionist, I think eating me would be bad for them.'
‘Not much good for us either…can we take them or do we run away?’ Aburon did not like the look of them at all. To fight sensible men, foresters and knights, was one thing, but there was a special horror involved in fighting madmen.
‘Four of them we can beat…’ Kraven was probably right, but another six came out of hiding. ‘Leg it!’

Hara loosed the arrow she had nocked. It went into the chest of one of the first four, a man armed with a broken off spearhead and his sister-in-law’s left thighbone; he started frothing pink at the mouth. It was not enough to drop him there and then, although he would certainly die of it. That was the problem; they did not die and go away when they were supposed to.
Any normal person with an arrow through their lung would generally give up and lie down, if not die. Fighting against the strength and self- forgetfulness of the insane was never a winning proposition.

The rest began moving towards them, weaving from side to side, dodging as they came. Veniel, tired, depressed and looking for something to take his anger out on, launched a dart of flame at the leader; sharp white at the nose, red- orange billows trailing- they were crazed, but had not lost their instincts- he stepped back and grabbed the still- running wounded man, twisted his arm, pushed him into the path of the firebolt.
That killed him; it burst without catching any of the others, and they were about to charge when the smell hit their nostrils. Cooked meat. Delicious, roasted meat.

They stopped, sniffing, hardly believing their noses; then turned and fell on their flash fried comrade, stabbing him and slicing him, cutting him up brutally and ineptly, and the four ran for it, round enough twists and turns to lose them. Hara was as fit as a wilderness life could make her; Aburon was less disoriented than he looked, Kraven was a professional at chasing and being chased; Veniel was at least a gifted amateur.
They stopped when they saw a brighter gleam of light in the distance, and heard the sound of more people, clanging and rattling.

‘Dey sownd clanky.’
‘Yer…I mean yes- doesn’t mean they’re going to like us though.’
Hara stopped and listened; the footsteps, muffled but not well enough, were coming closer. She flattened against the corner, piercing arrow ready; a light- armoured scout came, as she expected, walking wide around the corner, and Hara leaned forward and prodded him in the ear with the point of the arrow. He froze; ‘Hoi dere.’ Hara thickened her accent for his benefit.

He was short, dressed in dark grey muffling over leather armour, and armed with throwing spears; Aburon relieved him of them, keeping them for later use, and told him that ‘We seek Baron deVerett.’
‘Call your friends over.’
He looked from one to the other; gave a whistle; Aburon was trying to remember what that meant in the usual signals of the baron’s huntsmen when another skirmisher and four mail- clad men at arms came round the corner at the other end of the rune, ready for a fight.
‘Cannibals! Stand and face justice, vile scum!’
Evidently nothing good, then.

‘Dey’z not veyry bright, iz dey? Shewd we let sum loight inter’ der ‘eadz?’
'They're not very bright, are they? Should we let some light into their heads?'
‘Might be a bit tricky to explain.’ Aburon opined, thinking; life- force, normally used for healing magic, I wonder if I could send a man into shock with it? Jolt his nerves a bit?
‘We’re from the surface, you tin- nutted numpty- we bring news and counsel.’ Kraven yelled at them.
The four men at arms looked confused by that. They stopped; Hara aimed at the apparent leader, right between the eyes. It must have dawned on at least one of them that they had no orcs with them when they entered the shelter. Or for that matter druids.

‘From the surface.’ Wide- eyed, high pitched voice; a picture of incomprehension. On at least one of them, it hadn’t.
‘Dere are contagey…catchable fowrms ov stoopidity, yew know. I ‘ope we’re not dahn ere fer too long.’
'There are stupidity-causing diseases, you know. I hope we're not down here for too long.'
‘Now I know why I spend most of my life away from people.’ Aburon commented.
‘Prove it.’ The foremost of the four shouted at them.
Kraven’s patience snapped. ‘Kill them, leave them for the cannibals, see if we can find anybody with a brain.’
‘How are we supposed to do that, an affidavit from the Notary Royal?’ Veniel shouted back at them.

‘Yewr oidea iz actchewly startin’ ter make sense.’ Hara told Kraven.
'Your idea is actually starting to make sense.'
‘Did you have any orcs with you? Any druids?’
They looked at each other; the scout looked at Aburon and shook his head sadly, as if saying, see what a bunch of fudds I have to put up with. Aburon looked back at him, meaning yes, well, you choose to put up with them.
‘Noooo.’ Sceptical, insofar as they had the wit for that at all, and thinking about it.
‘Well, then. Take us to Baron deVerett.’ Aburon issued it as an order, hoping that they would respond to being told what to do.
‘Move. And no fancy tricks.’

The men- at- arms pretending to escort them, allowing them that much for the sake of bruised egos, the four headed in more or less the direction Aburon had in fact been pointing in.
‘Hara?’ He asked her.
‘Yer?’
‘Notice anything…odd…about those four?’
‘ ‘Part from unewsewal bone density ‘tween der earz…yer. Dey look tew well fed.’ They did. After the overstrained scarecrows of deMarail’s peasants and conscript- soldiers, they looked virtually normal. Almost.
'Apart from unusual thickness of bone between their ears...yes. They look too well fed.'

‘I don’t think they’re quick enough on the uptake to start eating each other.’
‘Yew reckon dey’z got der whajamazoggincallit, ‘node’, workin’ proper den?’
'You think they have their what's-it-called, 'node', working properly then?'
‘I reckon they’ve got it working- but not properly.’ They were walking jerkily; heads darting round at every noise, short, jagged steps, frequent levelling of weapons- not drunk, far too alert for that, but sadly lacking in ability to judge the importance of anything. ‘Would you say they looked a touch…poisoned?’

‘Bein’ out ov der eadz moight be an improowvement. Bad doiet?’
'Being out of their heads might be an improvement. Bad diet?'
‘Wouldn’t call it bad, exactly- if it was a choice between starvation and going a bit funny in the head, what would you pick?’
‘Da poison every toime. ‘Arf ov wot we eet wud poison yew anywoy, Orcs ‘ave got stomachs dat akchewly wurk. Never met a ‘uman ’wot kewd stand a proper jar ov fungus beer. An’ incedentarly, wen I eat a ‘uman, it don’t count as cannibaloisation.’
'The poison every time. Half of what we eat would poison you anyway, orcs have stomachs that actually work. I've never met a human who could stand, or stand up after, a proper jar of fungus beer. And, incidentally, when I eat a human, it desn't count as cannibalism.'
‘What do you mean ‘when?’ Look, don’t mention that in polite company, all right? Veniel, how long ago do your chronicles say the first age was?’

‘So now you have a new respect for academia?’
‘When the land changes, the life that inhabits either moves to follow what it knows, or changes to match the land. Only men are stupid enough to dream of perpetuity and stasis- and turn themselves inside out looking for them. I wonder how far and how fast men have changed since the first age? However long ago it was.’
‘Changed enough that whatever these devices are set to do, whatever they’re supposed to create, isn’t right any more?’ Veniel considered the idea. ‘For an untrained amateur, you might be right.’

They moved into brighter areas; started to come across smaller, more subdivided chambers that actually looked designed for human habitation; some of them were populated.
The people looked healthy enough in the purely physical sense, and some of them were doing what was probably make- work, sharpening swords and copying manuscripts, whittling and carving, stitching and sewing.
They all had some of the same jolting, staring, pop- eyed look, although some were much worse than others.

Kuquan could not really be called a southern country, which meant that it was close enough that it frequently was. The continent of Vathlin was shaped like a very fat, three- legged ‘S’, with the nation of Kuquan in the near south- east, sixteen hundred miles and not one of them too far from the heart of the empire at Tol Authran, and made up the neck and inner body of a stubby peninsula, the five kingdoms of Zarthan the ocean- ringed, hot, ridged, near- barren outer body.
Kuquan was more fertile, a healthier, kindlier land of more mixed inhabitance. Most Kuquani thought the heat and the sun baked the Zarthanis’ brains and turned them into raving fanatics.

They were generally swarthy- skinned, dark haired, stocky, solid people, the natives of Kuquan varying much more, and in more than merely appearance. They could not understand why there were five Zarthani kingdoms, and the Zarthani could not grasp why there was only one Kuquan.
The inhabitants of the shelter were a fair cross- section, fair, dark, red, tall and short, fat and thin; and there were many more of them here. From somewhere within one of the chambers wafted the smell of a stew.

‘Tell me again why we didn’t try to cadge a meal out of deMarail.’
‘Because he was an annoying twat we were glad to get away from- that and he had set up camp next to monster central.’ Kraven sneered at the thought of the loyalist.
Aburon sniffed. Apart from cooking, there was a sharp tang in the air; which blurred into a multivomeral whirl of smells.
‘Veniel, can you get a better focus on that? Carefully, of course. There’s life magic in it, but other strains I can’t identify- I think that’s their node working.’

He closed his eyes, held his staff out in front of him, began to blindly probe the air with it, rolling it and angling it, feeling the winds of magic flow over the symbol of his wizardry; it had no actual power beyond his own, but the meaning was enough to make it effective.
‘We’re not getting paid to sniff around.’ Kraven berated him.
‘I don’t recall that we got paid in advance at all- remind me again why this sounded like a good idea.’ Aburon, not really meaning it but mainly trying to stop him distracting Veniel.
‘ ‘Cos we get too be orl ‘eroic.’
'Because we get to be all heroic.'

‘Never a bard around when you want one, is there?’ Aburon pretended to look for one, actually looking for any signs of strange sounds or smells that might be creation- type magic at work.
‘Bein’ reskyood from bandits koind of inflewenced moi decision as well. Den dere’s my bruvva.’
'Being rescued from bandits influenced my decision as well, and then there's my brother to think about.'
Aburon would not have dared to say no, having had experience with scary women. ‘I might have come across him, actually.’ He said.
‘Yew’d ‘ave ‘membered if yew ‘ad. ‘Ee’s barkin’ mad.’
'You would have remembered if you had. He's crazy.'

‘What counts as ‘mad’ for an orc?’ The races did not think alike. If they had they wouldn’t have been separate. If they had they wouldn’t have fortress lines between them, for one thing. Only the Authrani Empire was mad enough or confident enough to lump them all together to sink or swim as each individual pleased. Then again, that was because of who it was run by.
‘’E believes in stuff. ‘E woz a shaman’z apprentyice fer a whoile, twenny bleedin’ yeerz too young. Oi said it wud turn ‘iz ‘ead. ‘E troied walkin’ onter a clowd ter see where it wud take ‘im, an’ Oi ‘ad ter put ‘im back togevver. ‘E talkz ter da burdz, like yer ‘awk dere. E’ wroites and sketches. ‘E’z got a bit ov zap, but Dad makes ‘im practis well away from- any’were, reely. ‘E’z a bit ov a blacksmiff an’ all, orlways clangin’ an’ batterin’ away. ‘Iz moind’z goin’ta over’eat an’ seeze up wun of dese dayz. ‘E needz sumwun ter look arfter ‘im. ‘Ow da army putz up wit’ im I can’t wurk owt.’

'He believes in things. He was a shaman's apprentice for a while, twenty years too young. I said it would turn his head, but did anybody listen? He tried walking on to a cloud to see where it would take him, and I had to put him back together.
He talks to the birds, like your hawk there. He writes and sketches. He's got a bit of magical power, but dad makes him practise well away from- anywhere, really. He's a bit of a blacksmith as well, always clanging and battering away.
His mind's going to overheat and sieze up one of these days, he needs someone to look after him. I can't fathom how the army puts up with him.'

They were being stared at; most of deVerett’s civilian followers were less hopped- up and jumpy than the soldiers, but the squaddies- feudal levies, not professionals- were too jittery to actually take anything in and ask questions about it.
A good many of the people- much more than half- had never even seen an orc before, and only heard vaguely of druids; they had become if not used at least hardened to the shelter- it had not eaten them yet, although it still might- and now they had something new to gawp at.
‘Unbelievable.’ Veniel had finished his rite of detection.

‘Nothing.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘No, but like a language never heard before, like a whole new- old- way of how things should be done, like one seamless stream of one thing changing into another. Completely different. They did very well getting it going at all. Unnatural. Extraordinary.’
‘Then-‘
‘Even this,’ Veniel looked at the shaking soldiery, ‘it’s like blaming someone for only getting ten feet off the ground by flapping his arms instead of twenty.’

‘My bruvva tried dat.’
'My brother tried that.'
‘I thought this place might have, must have, some way of using it’s powers to strike back, to beat off attackers.’
Veniel shook his head emphatically.
‘Keeping so many people alive, even in this state, must be hard enough. Impossible. Forget about anything else.’
‘Let’s see what bright ideas they do have.’

If baron deMarail’s encampment was like a straggling, defeated army, baron deVerett’s was more like a run- down, seedy garrison town. The four soldiers led them past the scent and the faint, complex music of the node, towards the centre of the encampment. There must be three or four thousand people there, as against deMarail’s seven or eight hundred.
They past long rooms and alcoves full of people; there was room for them to spread out more, but they preferred to huddle together. Some of them were armed, but sensibly, knives and cudgels; there were fewer unlikely bearers of arms, no boys with sharpened sticks, no widows in their dead husbands’ mail. There were barrack rooms, full enough of family themselves, and Kraven noticed that there were few knights, few yeomanry bowmen, just rank and file foot and crossbow.

The scouts went ahead to bring warning of them; they were turned aside from the main rune- passage they were passing down and into an atrium, with iron racks and brackets on the walls- shelving, not implements- and a large crystal globe on a pedestal; dusty, unused. Veniel locked on to that.
There were half a dozen more soldiers, a priest, holy symbol topped rod in hand- of Valdemiron, chief of the gods and friend of the powerful- but he was standing behind and to the side of one fully armoured man who was taking centre place in the room, clearly making himself out to be the most important. Aburon and Hara mistrusted him instantly. Tall, thin, fair- haired, fussy; he could be the baron, none of them knew deVerett or had ever seen him.

‘I am Sir Geoffroye, chamberlain to baron deVerett. You claim to have come down from the surface?’ He sounded snotty.
‘We did.’ Aburon told him, suddenly deciding to reveal as little as possible. Chamberlain was a fairly high rank, enough to be smug, and the priest behind him made him distinctly uneasy.
The power of the god could flow through him; wizards- and Aburon’s magic was closer to sorcery than priestly tricks- were limited in the amount of power they could summon from within themselves, something that increased with practise, as the facility of using it developed with experience; but a priest channelled the power of his god, which was not, or at any rate much less, limited. Some of the powers Valdemiron made available to his servants were distinctly unpleasant.

‘Through Baron deMarail’s fanatics?’ Sir Geoffroye sneered.
‘Hasn’t he talked to you at all? Described what’s out there? Haven’t you seen the injured and the dead?’ Veniel tried to shout some sense into him.
‘We are familiar with his ruses, and his mens’ habit of squabbling among themselves on points of honour.’
‘I didn’t think he had the brains for a ruse.’ Aburon whispered to Hara. To the chamberlain, he continued

‘Do you know how many of them it killed? How hard it actually hit them? No, because I know you would be busy trying to murder them if you knew. Taking advantage of the monster’s attacking them doesn’t exactly place you on the heights of honour, does it?’
‘You dare insult me?’
‘No; I must condemn you. You openly deny that there is such a monster; and make yourself a traitor to your kith and kin.’
‘Admit that you are deMarail’s men sent to cause chaos among us.’ Geoffroye, insofar as he could manage it, snarled at them; the spirit was willing but he was about twenty years too old. The soldiers were a more serious potential problem.

‘We fought ‘e woz a toight- arsed clown.’ Hara told Geoffroye, including him in that category. ‘Bloody fing chaysed us in ‘ere, sent wun ov itz petz in arfter us. Flargin’ great fire lizard fing.
Tayke it frum uz; E’z telling da troof, yew iz stukk in ‘ere wit’ a hyuuge grate ancient ‘orror owside abowt ter brake in and eet yew all, and yew stand dere bibbling ad’ dragglin’ abaht rusez?’ To the other three she said ‘Oi fink we shud’ ave soided wit’ da monster, it’z gotta ‘ave mowre goin’ on in da intermaleckshual departyment ‘dan dis.’
'We thought he was a tight-arsed clown. Bloody thing chased us in here, sent one of it's pets in after us. Damned great fire lizard thing.
Take it from us, he's telling the truth, you're stuck in here with a huge great ancient horror about to break in and eat you all, and you stand here dribbing and babbling about ruses?
I think we should have sided with the monster, it's got to have more going on in the brain department than this.'

Going by the reputation of the Twentieth, siding with the monster might have been Johanna’s preferred option. The soldiery had caught the word and were looking round, looking for monsters. One of them pointed downwards, face extending into a look of frozen terror, mouth open, no sound coming out. Three of his mates picked him up, carried him over to the side of the room, laid him down. He continued to point. Geoffroye looked taken aback by the torrent of broad, heavily accented, pidgin- Authrani; he looked at the priest for support and backup, but got none from the priest who was too busy trying not to laugh at his discomfiture.

‘Don’t be too hard on him, Hara; he’s feudal. That means he gets other people to do his thinking for him.’ Aburon commented.
‘Den w’ere iz dey?’ she said, looking for them.
‘That’s the problem. He,’ Geoffroye, ‘is baron deVerett’s people to do his thinking for him.’
‘And so on down until you arrive at some donk in a muddy field who doesn’t know anything except the backside of a pig, who has to be the brains of the outfit.’ Kraven was a townsman, used to guilds and liberties, and at least semi- free men.

‘Actually, we should be doing that. The countess did send us down here to try to talk some sense into this shower.’ Aburon let it drop. Time to change tactics, he thought.
‘The what? Who sent you?’
‘Count Riedell is dead. He is buried under the mound of gravel that used to be his castle. The king named Lady Calvern as Countess.’
‘Never heard of her, not in the Kuquani peerage. You are her…’
‘Troops. Reconnaissance element. Reporting to her is very easy, all you have to do is stand still, because she has this ability to look inside people’s minds…’

The priest of Valdemiron went blank- faced, as if trying to hide what he thought. Bit late for that, Veniel realised; and if the lady can read our minds, she can read our opinions too. He decided to think filthy nasty thoughts about everyone he met.
‘How did this Lady of yours get to be a countess? Why are she and her forces not here?’ Geoffroye asked. ‘Presumably she is a royalist and the King’s forces are winning.’ He did not sound desperately convincing about that; tried to fake enthusiasm, not too well.
‘We iz ‘ere. And as fer getting’ ter be boss, I fink blowin’ da old cownt’s castel inter tiny bits wit’ ‘im in it moight ‘ave ad summat ter do wit’ dat. Don’ know abaht da king. Oi reckon ‘e got a bit ov a kickin’ an’ all.’
'We are here. And as for getting to be boss, i think blowing the old count's castle to tiny bits with him still inside it might have had somethignt do with that. I don't know about the king. I think he got a bit of a kicking as well.'

Geoffroy and the priest were still digesting that- muttering between themselves, and Hara and Kraven were planning a mass escape, when a light- armed man rushed into the chamber; he was wearing a quilted arming- jacket and carrying a shortsword, smeared with bluish- purplish blood. He stared around wildly, not taking the four in, reporting to Geoffroye-
‘My lord we are under attack. Omphraye’s fiends in the Crimson Passage-‘ then he crumpled from the knees and keeled over. Aburon knelt down beside him and put his hands on the man’s chest; traced the shape of the intertwined serpents over the wound, fixed the thought of the healing fountain of life in his mind, traced the runes over it and poured healing energy through them.

The wound healed; but his eyes rolled back in his head. Magical healing had the advantage of being near- instantaneous and almost universally effective, but it rearranged a man’s life force, and carried him through the dark valleys of his mind in the process, and to the limits of his senses. It also left him as helpless as a newborn baby.
It could take three days of tossing, turning delirium to recover from a serious wound, days in which the number seven tasted of elderberries and the smells of the rainbow tap- danced on your back, days in which you babbled everything your right foot had ever done before upside- down lettuce statues of your god.

Confusion, hallucinations, religious experience, utter, transfiguring helplessness; the vast majority of people would only turn to a wizard for healing if it was life or death there and then, would far more readily heal in the slow, normal way, fearing the places the surge of magical energy could take them to. Only the professionally courageous accepted magical healing on anything like a welcome basis.
‘Well, thank you for healing him, but now he can provide us with no information.’
W’ere’z da crimson passeyge? Dat’z w’ere ‘e says dey wuz.’
'Where's this crimson passage? That's where he said they were.' Hara was disappointed about not getting to have a go at stitching him up herself; she could have fixed him without driving him three- quarters mad in the process. Unless he wanted to be, of course, which was where the fungus beer came into it.

‘Right; follow me.’ Geoffroye drew his sword, flourished it- poser, all four of them thought- and strode out of the atrium, shouting for Daryon’s company to follow him. Nine of the men in the chamber and the priest set off; the one left behind was the one still staring in horror, and pointing down.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

This one does seem to be a fairly slow burner, and in all honesty I can't really blame you, the style is a bit amateurish; long, run-on compound sentences for the worst part.
Still, I would like to know what you think of this one so far.

Couple of minor asides; the Countess' thoughts when looking at the four of them; 'Those two I can make something of...given how dangerous this is likely to be, I'll take the other two as expendables.

The Authrani Empire is the dominant power on the continent, and grew out of the alliance of emergent nation-states that eventually beat down the Black Towers in the north- in the south it was more of a holy war. Vathlin, the continent, is about 2/3 the size of Asia, and a large majority of it owes at least nominal allegiance to, or is too scared to dare cross, Tol Authran. Just in case anyone was wondering.


Chapter 6

That left the four of them standing there in the empty chamber- once an archive? A watch post? Until that globe did something, it would be impossible to say for sure. Veniel wandered over, innocent- looking, to the crystal ball; Aburon followed him.
‘So far, we’re scoring two out of three in the find- a- halfwit derby.’ Aburon opined. It was the way of the land; the changing situation had changed the people in it. He had thought he had seen the nobility at their rapacious, malevolent worst, plundering the land and the peasantry; he knew now that he hadn’t- and could only hope that there was no worse to come. ‘I hope baron Omphraye turns out to be the smart one.’

‘I ‘ope not.’ Hara told them. ‘ ‘Cos if yew remembererer, wun of dem woz a loyal king’s-arse- suckin’ brahn- noze, wun of dem woz serposed ter be a nyootral- kewdn’ mayke up ‘iz mind- and da last ov dem woz serposed to be a narsty bassard, wot wanted lowcal indeprund…anemony...power sew nun ov dis daft ‘chivalry’ wotsit kewd stop ‘im killin’ off ooever ‘e wanted tew. W’ich wun ov dem wud yew prefer ter be da brainy wun?’ Just because she thought deMarail battier than a disused belfry didn’t mean she hadn’t been listening.
I hope not, because if you remember, one of them was a loyal arse-licking brown nose, one of them was supposed to be a neutral because he couldn't make up his mind- and the last was supposed to be a nasty bastard, who wanted local independence so that none of this daft 'chivalry' stuff could stop him killing off whoever he wanted to. Which of them would you prefer to be the smart one?'

‘Yes.’ Aburon reluctantly agreed with her. ‘That’s another thing. Baron deMarail’s relying on priests, and they can’t work the magics of this place at all; baron deVerett, being neutral, had no great conviction either way, so he is trying to use the node in the node’s way of doing it, using whatever comes out, and his people probably are being changed by it- but they are surviving. Baron Kardren- well, that soldier told us about his ‘fiends’ attacking. Last time I checked, no natural creature except maybe some kinds of sea slug had purple blood. Maybe they meant that literally?’

‘You think he’s using the ancient magics to warp and transform his servants into horrors? It was a place of war, they might have been that desperate. That would make sense.’ Veniel said, sure, as he was an apprentice, that he knew everything.
‘So what?’ Kraven asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Aburon asked, appalled.
‘What difference does it make? The nastier they are, the easier it would be to fight our way out of here with them- and nothing that baron Omphraye can do to them is likely to be worse than getting killed and eaten anyway.’

‘Have you ever thought of joining a brotherhood of evil?’ Veniel asked Kraven.
‘Nah. Pay’s lousy.’ He had. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t have him; something to do about being ready to sell anybody to anybody if the price was right. It was the ‘brotherhood’ thing he fell down on.
‘So what do we do about it? D’you reckon we should go to this crimson passage and see what’s happening?’ Veniel asked, unwilling to leave the globe without having a look into it at least. He started to dust it.

‘If’n dere’z any chance ov Geffrowhoozit getting’ killed, nah. Den we moight get ter talk ter sumbody ‘alf- way smart.’
'If there's any chance of Geoffroye getting killed, no, because then we might get to talk to somoene reasonably intelligent.'
‘Or, alternatively, you could have to start all over again with a whole new fresh idiot to have to talk sense into.’
‘Yer. Dere iz dat. ‘Soides, dis lot are ahr best bet sew far- arfter orl, dere are mowre ov dem. Foightin’ along wit dem moight ‘elp get dem on ahr soide. Just ‘ope we can foind sumwun wit’a moddycrumb ov sense.’ Hara agreed grudgingly.
'Yes, there is that. Besides, this lot are our best bet so far, after all there are more of them. Fighting along with them might help get them on our side. I just hope we can find someone with some sense.'

‘So how do we find the crimson passage?’
‘This?’ Veniel suggested, looking at the globe. He thought of the oldest, most archaic forms he knew of the runes he wanted, for revealing and knowing and light, and hoped it would work, and traced them over it’s surface.
Large amounts of nothing happened. ‘Sod.’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’ There was a red line glowing on the side of the pillar the orb rested on. Veniel walked slowly in the way it pointed out; the line followed him, ran between his feet and formed a small faint pool of red glow on the ground before him.

‘All right, let’s see…’ he walked slowly forward to the doorway. The pool moved ahead of him. ‘I think we can follow this.’
They set off after it; missing by five minutes baron deVerett’s head wizard who had come to see what all the fuss was about. As they marched Hara asked Veniel
‘Yew know, yew two got sew bizzy arguin’ dat yew never did sey wot dis playce woz serposed tew keep orf.’
'You know, you two got so busy arguing you never did say what this place was supposed to protect aginst.'

‘Dragons.’
‘Yew wot? I fought dey woz all buzy ‘angin arahnd Tol Authran runnin’ da Empoire.’
'You what? I thought they were all busy running the empire from Tol Authran.'True. The Authrani Empire was organised as a meritocratic bureaucracy, the structure responsible only to itself, anyone, regardless of species, nature, tendency to devour small countries, anything, could join and try to work his, her, its or whatever’s way up the ladder. Twenty- four of the top twenty- five posts were held by dragons; the one exception being the Minister of Marine, who was a kraken. They ruled with a fairly light hand; most of the member states were so scared of them little action was ever needed.

‘This was ages, aeons, ago. Hundreds of orcish lifetimes. Hundreds of human lifetimes, too. The various kindreds- humans and human- kin, orcs and orc- kin, dwarves and dwarf- kin, elves and elfin-kin- were at odds with one another, but seldom at war, for they and the world were young and new.
As the sky stands above the earth, so the dragons placed themselves above the ground- dwelling races, and endeavoured to break their will, and set their stamp upon them. The stubborn, hardy dwarves were, the legends say, the first to be attacked, for their pride had made them few friends and would compel them to stand and be destroyed.
Even now, they say, the ruins of the dawn dwarves’ great city- states are to be seen, glittering in the sun, if you choose to voyage far beyond the great southern ocean. Fire against stone; and fire is quicker and more nimble. Their power and their glory were broken, but not their pride. They fell back, in bitter resistance, to beneath the surface of the earth, and rebuilt their cities there.’ Veniel’s eyes had changed colour, and the light on his face was wrong.

‘’Ere a minyit-‘ Hara was rummaging in her pack for one of her special medical mushrooms and a jaw loosening tool. Or her axe, whichever was more convenient. 'Hold on a minute-'
‘We can save him when whatever- it- is is done with him. You wanted to hear the story.’ Aburon knew possession well enough. This looked temporary. Probably. Maybe.
Whatever was using his voice went on; ‘The children of the forests were the wisest and most alert to the sky- masters’ works and ways; and as the draconic host considered it would be a waste and a crudity to simply lay the ocean of leaves waste with flame, they endeavoured to turn the fae- kin’s subtlety against them. Through dreams and visions they gradually led the elder race to seem to see an opportunity, to seize the sky- lords’ great weapon of sorcery and turn the power of magic against it’s former masters; but the weapon cut both ways; the dragons were the masters of it and knew, aye set many, of the trials and traps of magic the elves fell headlong into. Some of them plunged so deep, they themselves became dreams entirely; and could make no touch on the waking world.
The great many became as diverse and intricate as magic itself, as many- faceted and fluid; and began to drift apart, turning within; none save the dragons themselves had the power to draw them together to act as one, and betimes used them as such, against the still wild and independent few.

The dragons counted them as defeated; and they were, save for a few who anchored their dreams to the source of dreams in the here and now. The practical few saved the many, and rerooted them within the cycles of nature; and the many, happy in their splintered fragments of power, looked to them not as saviours, but as symbols of their own failure and folly which they did not choose to remember.
They cast out and cursed their heroes, and made legends against them; and tainted them with the colour of night and dreams.’

‘Orl roight, den, wot abaht orcz?’
'All right then, what about orcs?'
‘The green races were the least formidable opponent the lords of the sky had; they began in the same state they hoped to reduce the Elves to, a heartless, homeless race of rogues, each hand turned against the rest, little use, no threat- unless and until they began to taste of the fanaticism of order that could bind them together as the most deadly foe.
So the dragons set out to splinter them and separate them one from another. They made use of the pure power of myth and legend, of which that warped by the elves’ was but a shadow, and made saints and examples out of murderers and madmen, painted a world that must be fought against, fierce, ferocious, hostile and unloving, to make creatures that thought they had to fight the world; and that was the beauty of the dragons’ scheme, for they fought each other the most relentlessly of all, and helped diminish the power of the other races.

Since then they have made legends of their own; but they are and may always remain a fractioned, quarrelsome race. The masters of magic and myth- the shamen- there is not one of whom is not a poison and a danger to those around. Look to the ogres; they preserve in their myth the nearly pure form of the madness the dragons inflicted upon the green race.’
‘Wot a load ov unbeyleevable braghekk.’ She whacked him across the back of the head with the flat of her axe. He reeled then fell, crumpling straight downwards.
'What a load of unbelievabel shite.'

‘Hey! I wanted to hear what he said about humans.’
‘Loies and faykery. If dis iz wot dis playce ‘az been fillin’ dem wiv, da soona’ we get orl dis shower aht, da better for’ em.’ She was angry; Veniel was lucky he had only got the flat of the axe.
'Lies and fakery. If this is what this place has been filling them with, then the sooner we get this shower out, the better for them.'
‘Not this place. It’s got no will of it’s own; no memory, no personality. Which is just as well, because I’d hate to have to deal with it if it did. Coming from the first age, it might be a little bit cranky.’ Understatement of the day. ‘So what did, then?’
‘Sumfin’ else, orbviously. Wot else iz dere? Not da mornster fing?’

'Something else, obviously. What else is there? Could it have been the monster?'
Aburon thought hard about it. ‘Must have been. It can’t get in, we know that- so how?’
‘Yew’z arskin’ me? I’z not a wizzard. Iff’n it woz an orgone…urgle…livin’fing, I kewd sergest a fing or two.’
'You're asking me? If it was an organism, I coul suggest a thing or two.'
‘Any help would be good help right now.’
‘Parasoite arctivity? Or sowrt ov- dat wasp fing. Or spoiders. Plantin’ eggz in deyr victims. I uwsed ter love froied giant spoider egg.’
'Parasite activity? Or an analogue of an ichneumon wasp, or spiders, planting eggs in their victims. I used to love fried giant spider egg.'

‘That would actually fit- assuming, when it broke through the shelter wall, it tried to tap into the powers of the place. If it had worked it would be running the shelter itself- it might, that would add up, have tried and been too busy to do it properly; but it would have left some traces.’
‘Ler’ me see iff’n oi’ve got dis roight. Da fing troied ter tayke owver, kewdn’t, left bitz of itself behoind, arksident or purpose down’t marrer, and wun ov dem just troied ter ‘oijack Veniel’ere?’
'Let me see if I have this right. The thing tried so sieze control couldn't, left pieces of itself behind, whether by accident or purpose, and one of those fragments of thought just tried to hijack Veniel here?'
‘Whatever way you take it, it’s smart. Makes it even more dangerous.’

‘Sew woy’z it sew gernerous ter dark elves den?’
'So why is it so generous to dark elves then?'
‘Maybe it has some of it’s own, and that’s the line of bull it feeds them?’
Hara thought about some of the, well, lies she had told her patients. Usually for their own good. ‘Kewd be. Wunder wot da troof iz?’
'Could be. I wonder what the truth is?'
‘How close do you really want to get to anyone who has enough power to put the truth to the proof?’
‘Gewd point. Wot da we do nah?’
'Good point. What do we do now?'
‘Well, right now we have an unconscious wizard.’

‘’Old dis.’ Hara handed Aburon her longbow and quiver, and picked Veniel up, slinging him over her broad green shoulders, then slinging the bow and quiver again over him. ‘’E shewd cum in ‘andy if’n we get amshrubbed from be’ind.’
'Hold this. He should come in handy if we get ambushed from behind.'
She meant ambushed, but Aburon understood. ‘The red thing’s gone. Must have vanished when you whacked him and knocked him out. We were heading in that direction.’
They moved on, then ‘So wot ‘appened in de eynd?’
'So what happened in the end?'

‘Oh, that. Basically, the dragons won. It didn’t really matter because no-one wanted to be organised by them. They had to do it all over again every generation. Eventually they decided that a war without end, without victory- no point to it. They gave up; and left us in- what it really comes down to is that we are the mess they made.’
‘Ah. Duz it reely matter?’
'Ah. Does it really matter?'
‘Not much, I suppose. Whatever we are, we are.’ He was tactful enough to say, and had sense not to add that that is why the ancient voice said “they are, and may always remain”.

‘So where’s this crimson passage, then?’
Faint clangs and screams. They listened for the source; ‘That way.’ Kraven decided.
Approaching the fight, they moved with severe care, not wanting to blunder into a nervous rearguard.
Veniel moaned. ‘Yew cumin’ rahnd?’ 'You coming round?'
‘Where am I?’
‘Wass’ da last fing yew remembler?’'What's the last thingyou remember?'
‘Runes…that bloody globe.’

‘It gor’ insoide yer ‘ead an’ yew gabbled a load of shoite, den I konked yew aht.’ Hara’s bedside manner consisted of brutal frankness.
'It got inside your head and you gabbled a lot of nonsense, then I knocked you out.'
He patted the back of his head. ‘Oh.’ She put him down. ‘I’m all right now.’ He still wobbled a bit.
The sounds of combat had died down, leaving them steering by guesswork; but then there was a sudden fresh surge of noise. Aburon looked up; there were veins of red crystal high in the walls.

‘I know where we’re going, follow me.’ He followed the glittering line, looking up- and nearly ran straight into the back of one of a block of soldiery filling the corridor. The rear rank whirled round; they looked human enough, and they were wearing deVerett’s colours. Baron Omphraye was not above such a trick; but Aburon took the risk anyway. ‘Long Live Baron deVerett- we’re on your side.’
They were leather and padding clad peasant- conscript spearmen, low in status, not too bright; they would take a while to work it out, he had delayed the killing reflex, but there were ten of them and they might decide to have a go at them later. He looked for the one in charge.

‘Lead us to the Chamberlain Geoffroye.’
‘Who are you then?’
Right, let’s see how Joe Splod reacts to the news. ‘We’re the diplomatic mission from the surface.’ That was inherently unbelievable, there was only one reason to send an orc on a diplomatic mission, and it was to be spectacularly undiplomatic; but they wouldn’t necessarily know that.

They were shocked. They had probably come to terms with being here with the notion that it was best to let tomorrow take care of itself; there was no use worrying about a future that might never come, they were down here for as long as they were down here for.
Slowly, they started to look more alive, as if realising there might be a tomorrow after all. The formation broke up; all of them were shouting and asking questions at once; then there was a scream of rage from the other end of the corridor, and a clatter of chittering.
‘Form, form, form ranks-‘ the one with the most elaborate sleeves shouted at the rest. Not before time; there were five of the enemy, one in partial plate armour howling and laughing madly, swinging a two- handed sword about his head without the slightest care for the lives of his mates; and looking at them it was easy to see why.

Two of them were more or less fully human, if you discounted their behaviour- one was wearing only a loincloth and twirling a double- ended mace; a wild, barely controllable weapon, it was easy to see the scars and marks where he had got it wrong before.
One was huge, eight and a half foot tall, but otherwise a normal spear- wielding foot soldier. He must have been there as the token normal one.
One of the others seemed to be out of focus; he was under the effect of enchantment, but what? He seemed to separate and shimmer, sometimes separating into three, phasing in and out, swelling, splitting and contracting. The last had been shape changed- or worse, merged- into a giant scorpion. None of them looked likely to give or take quarter.

Ten ordinary peasant soldiers stood next to no chance, and would almost certainly come apart and flee before the horrors got anywhere near their five abreast, two deep line. They hadn’t got the bottle for this at all.
Yeomanry might stand and fire in the case of eldritch abominations, trusting to yew and the cloth- yard shaft, professional mercenaries might, knights and men at arms should- and the Twentieth would probably laugh their heads off at the pathetic attempt to make sorcerous soldiers before blowing them into tiny little bits.
DeVerett’s troops were already edging back, crouching smaller, glancing over their shoulders. Aburon drew his bow; time to find out what this does, he thought. No time to flee. Not much chance if we do.

The knight and the mace- man sprinted forwards, the scorpion behind, the giant and the blur abreast behind him; the laughing madman halted a couple of steps short of the peasants, who simply had not had time to run- and posed dramatically, sword in one hand, out of spear’s reach; and too late for Veniel to realise or counter, put forth a wave of force, a magic blow of his own that pushed them back and knocked their spears out of position, high in the air.
The back line of spearmen tried to turn and flee, screeching in fear; Hara tripped one, Kraven grabbed another by the throat and thrust him back into position, the other three got away.

The mad knight stepped inside the reach of their flailing, uncontrolled spears and sliced down with his heavy blade, aiming for the right flank man; nothing in his way, the two- handed sword bit deep into his shoulder, cutting down through the ribs. The peasant collapsed and fell.
Hara’s easiest target was the giant; she loosed her shaft, the monster tried to duck out of the line of fire, half- crouching and turning; the broadhead aimed for his heart struck in the left upper arm, chipping the bone; not enough to drop him.

The flail- man’s two opponents still had their spears levelled; one lunged forwards, the other covering him- the flail- man skipped aside of the spear, entangled it with one end of his double mace, and swung for the covering spearman with the other end; he jumped back, the mace struck the spear- haft and splintered it; the peasant dropped it, hesitated between drawing his sword and running for his life.
Veniel shouted a loud strophe, a brief phrase of magic and arcane power; a bright line of unnatural flame sprang up between the knight and flailman and the giant, scorpion and blur. It would not be powerful enough to kill upon the instant, but it did give them pause, and it would scorch and scar.

They hesitated; then with his undamaged right hand, the giant reached down and grabbed the half- man half- scorpion by the stinger, and picked him up to whirl round his head like a sling, intending to toss him over the fire into them.
Aburon drew back his bow, and as he did blessed the arrow with his beast-magic; shooting at something that was half animal…the bow seemed to concur, and the magic flowed smoothly and powerfully, absent the usual frustrating awkwardness of temporary enchantment; the arrowhead glowed shifting red-blue-purple, he loosed the shaft as the scorpion came round on it’s second sweep; and he would have missed, but the shaft deflected in flight, bending like a living thing, and struck it just below the pincer.

The animal power borne on the arrow strengthened the beast over the man; scorpions care little of friend and foe- it knew that someone had it by the tail, and there was enough of the stinger free to dip down and take the giant in the hand.
He spasmed, releasing the scorpion; it shot off at right angles, slammed into the wall, and slid down into the firewall. Its half and half nature meant that it could scream; and did.
A high, chitinous whine, it writhed and struggled and crawled it’s way, reeling, charred and partly afire, out of the firewall. The giant sat down and tried to cut the poison out with the spear in his damaged hand; he was finding it difficult and painful when Hara’s second shaft went through his temples and relieved him of all problems forever.

The flail- man wrestled briefly with the peasant still facing him for the entangled spear, but the peasant drew it free; then the maceman held his weapon forward, twirling one end, so it created a shield of spinning weight which the spearman dared not thrust through for fear of losing his weapon; the flail- wielder laughed at him through the whirling disc, feinted with it- then levered the lower, still macehead forwards in a stretched upward sweep aiming for the spearman’s groin.
Instinctively he turned away, which might have preserved the family jewels, but did not stop the blow, which smashed into and shattered his hip. He screamed and went down, only for the still spinning head to stretch forward and smash his head in.

Hara shoved the two remaining second- rank spearmen forwards with her free hand, and shouted at them- instinctively in Orcish. They seemed to get the message; thrust forward. Blindly they did; and the maceman had to step back- and the scorpion grabbed him around one ankle with a pincer.
It was too stunned and seared to think of the stinger yet; the knight stepped back and stood on the scorpion’s head, there was a crunch but the stinger was still waving; holding his heavy blade in one hand in guard position, he shot a spinning, tendrilled bolt of blue- white light at it. Veniel recognised a demonological spell, of unbinding; an expanding blur behind the thing- it shrunk to the size of a very large but otherwise normal, foot- long pure scorpion, which expired; and there was a shivering, bleeding, terrified naked man crouching behind it. He needed no persuasion to run away.

Kraven shot at the maceman, over the relatively still central shaft of his double weapon, with his crossbow; it hit right of centre in his chest, and injured but did not kill- cracked and slid off a rib. He reeled, and Hara shouted at the spearmen again; this time they had the presence of mind to realise they might win if they fought hard, and they stabbed viciously forward.
The mace- wielder tried to block but he was injured, the edge was taken off his skill, and they got through his guard- one to bury his spearhead up to the haft in the man’s guts, one to go through his throat and leave four inches of steel protruding from the back of his spine.

That left the man in armour only. Now that they had a chance to examine him properly, he looked very odd. He actually looked more like a paladin than a knight, he had powers, and there was a holy symbol at the centre of his heraldry; of Valdemiron no less, but it was inverted and distorted, a surreal caricature of the crown-and-mailed-fist.
Anti- paladin? Unlikely- he was much too crazy- looking for that. The gods were as varied in their aspects as their fallible mortal worshippers- tyranny and extortion are forms of leadership when all’s said and done- and those who championed an aspect, like the murder that accompanies war, the theft that falls hand in hand with trade, the treachery of love gone wrong, which the mortal society or the rest of the pantheon rejected, or pretended to, rejoiced in the tainted title of anti- paladin; despite being no less the worshippers of the god for all that. A true mirror-man would be more natural-seeming and charismatic.

He moved back in fighting stance, the spearmen shuffled very slowly after him, he vaulted behind the body of the giant to use as an improvised barricade; Kraven edged forwards past the spearmen, a couple of them came to fighting stance behind him and he shouted at them not to be so stupid.
Hara nocked another arrow, Aburon and Veniel had their staves out and ready, but he got the first shot off. He flourished his blade, tracing the shape of a rune with it and flicking it at her; a heavy heat- haze shimmer in the shape of a fist.
The sword business added impetus to it, but it was the wrong thing to try on an orc; aimed for her chest, she caught it in her right hand and squeezed, pitting brute force against his spellcraft; it was not as one- sided as it seemed- he was fairly powerful.

It was losing, though, eddying in and out as it tried to slip out of her crushing grip- but it did prevent her using her bow.
Aburon launched a bolt of ice at him, an icicle- dagger; Veniel shot a narrower, sharper flame dart, and he leapt out of the way of them both with a high spinning backflip.
Armour was lighter and more athletic than most people thought, but that was just silly. Show- off; that must be sorcery. As he was turning to flee- the two bolts had collided to produce, briefly, a surreal splash of frozen flame, distracting both the wizards- the chamberlain and a small troop of part- armoured hardened looking soldiery blocked his line of retreat.

‘Hold, foul- you bloody turncoat! You were working for us two weeks ago!’ Geoffroye had lost his equilibrium at least. Being neutral, threatened from both ends, they probably were very touchy on the subject of treachery.
‘Yes, you owe me back pay. Come on, cough up or I might get nasty.’
‘Doan’ know abaht iz’ brayns, but e’z got stoyle.’
[color=green''I don't know about his intelligence, but at least he has style.'[/color] Hara crushed the shimmering fist down to a handful of powder, which evaporated away. She could draw her longbow now.

He began a complex magical routine, with a sniff of brimstone about it- some kind of summoning, to raise an ally spirit or divine servant and improve the odds a bit; he was rushing it, chances were it might save them the bother of killing him; Kraven had wound up his bolas, and slung it at him; he tried to duck, but one of the stones wrapped around him and hit on the top of the head, stunning him.
‘Our prisoner; finder’s fee.’ Kraven was trying to claim a bounty hunter’s rate.
Geoffroye dodged the issue by asking ‘Is that the last of them?’

‘W’ere’s dat weerd shiggle, whadjamacallit, wobblin’ wun gorn?’
Where's that wierd shimmering one gone?'
‘We forgot about him.’ Aburon released his hawk; he had been wary of letting Lyron flap about in these close quarters where he might get lost or eaten, but now he was needed.
There was a long, gurgling scream from behind them. ‘Ah, dat’z w’ere.’
'Ah. That would be where.'

Lyron followed the noise; spotted one of the spearmen who had fled earlier lying dead- his heart had been pulled out of his body, apparently without passing through the rest of him; the surface of his chest was unbroken.
His hawk’s eye did spot the flicker up ahead of something very strange happening to the ceiling light; flashing and fluttering and changing from yellowish to bluish- it reacted to human presence, so a strange presence… ‘That must be it, he’s heading for-‘ sniff- ‘the node.’

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Chapter 7;

Leaving the mad, dazed paladin, and following Lyron, the four of them pursued the shimmering man; Veniel and Aburon for thaumaturgic reasons, to see the node as much as protect it, Kraven partly out of sheer habit, and Hara thinking that perhaps it might be better off to let the shimmer have a chance to attack the node, because it might provide some impulse to their plans to get out of here; it was basically a siege, and it looked as if the loyalists were losing, the neutrals were surviving best, and the local- rights rebels were just mutating.

Maybe, she thought, orcishly, deVerett won’t want to go, because the longer this situation lasts, the more of deMarail’s men starve and Kardren’s turn into freaks, the better it is for him. Might not want to chase this thing too fast, then. She probably could have caught it up, but apart from the politics she would prefer to have the wizards- or as many wizards as possible- there when she did.

Aburon and Veniel noticed that the wall insets grew richer, more complex and more intertwined, the closer to the node they got; past the heart- removed corpse- the walls of the shelter must be too sorcerous for the blur to phase through. Lyron was ahead of them, but there were no shadows to hide in, and it was entirely too close quarters, the thing’s powers probably could reach up and harm him, so he followed out of line of sight, tracking the flickering light.
They chased it for four hundred yards through the interlinked maze of runes, which would have been no more than a hundred in a straight line, twisting and weaving; Lyron was cautious, but when he caught sight of a new and strange light reflected around one corner, he moved in, knowing that the best time to close in on the shimmering man was when his attention was focused on something else.

The blur arrived at an ornate and sparkling gateway, stopped, then rearranged himself- himselves?- for a fight, blurring out in to five side by side, superimposed dark shadows; the light of something shifting, bright and many- coloured shone on and defined, seeming to make darker, all five of his faces; he shouted, a polyphonic wall of noise that ripped out of five throats into the node chamber, and was met with an equally compound but more painful shriek.
The blur started to move forwards, and then a five- forked bolt of lightning shot out of the chamber, paler and less blinding than Johanna’s thunderclap, but respectable, distinctly respectable; each of the forks caught one of the multiple- man in one of his chests, throwing him back, and the peal of thunder that went with it temporarily dazed him.

Under Aburon’s prompting Lyron moved in closer, eager to see what was happening in more detail; they/it was hurt, but not destroyed- it shimmered into an elongated blur and sprinted into the chamber, hungry for vengeance as well as sheer mischief now. It left a trail of phasing-in-and-out blood drops.
Lyron had been out of the effect of both spells, and a hawk’s hearing was less sensitive than his eyes, not sharp enough to be damaged by the echoes of the noise, but was not keen on getting too close; he landed on Aburon’s shoulder as they ran up.

The multiman was flickering in and out before a complex structure that must have been the node; in the centre of what looked like a fountain moulded out of black rock, where an ornamental sculpture would have been, was a silver filigree framework, as delicate as jewellery but a yard across, sphere within sphere within sphere, seven layers, on frames allowing them to rotate freely within one another, each intricate- surfaced sphere with crystal and diamond runes mounted on it, the outer two with rotating and sliding segments for additional flexibility- it was a dauntingly complex device, all the more so for the runes being so ancient, archaic and inexplicable.

Two of deVerett’s soldiers, sword shield and chainmail, were there defending the node, shaken but upright; two were crumpled and bleeding, but at least they looked alive enough to bleed; one more was clearly dead, huddled, shapeless, caved- in seeming. There was someone else there, in blue-green robes, dazed, staggering back to their feet.

The blur attacked one of the guards, reaching out for him with a panoply of phantom fists, utterly baffling him- how, what, did he parry? Whole generations of martial artists had learned, too late, that blocking something made of sharpened steel with something made of flesh and blood was not necessarily a winning idea; for every successful blade- trapper there were ten thumbless men- but there was no clear target to wield the blade on, and the soldier slashed wildly, aiming for things that phased out as the blade touched them, and phased in behind it, solidifying to flying- kick the soldier with the strength of five men; he got his shield up to it in time, but the force of it smashed him back, he landed heavily, and the blur dilated forwards to land a killing stroke.

The blue-green figure stood, coming off the ground into fighting stance, and drew a glittering green crystal broadsword and a long, narrow damascened rapier.
Aburon’s heart turned over when he realised that it was a woman. She was tall, the same height he was, with long, tied- back fair hair, a couple of summers younger than he was, clear blue eyes, intelligence and hidden strength in every line of her lean classically- beautiful face.
She must have been wounded by the sonic blast, but it didn’t show, she launched herself at the blur with a dancer’s grace, nimble and poised, it half-turned to face her, she sidestepped a multiple-shadow something that reached out for her, and shot a splash of green light from the crystal blade into the blur, spreading into the many- man like ink in water, shading him, defining him.

Some of the more tenuous parts faded away entirely; they/it reeled, the young sorceress flourished the rapier in her left hand, sweeping it round in an arc, it acquired a trail of sparks, started to crackle with lightning- she thrust it into the most solid part of the blur; arcs of lightning shot out across the stained shadow, sparks flowing from the embedded rapier. It reeled back and contracted, but it also congealed around the rapier, falling and pulling it out of her hand with five people’s dead weight.
With her crystal blade still in hand, and keeping one eye on the still swirling shadow, she walked, limping, over to one of the wounded soldiers, and knelt down beside him, starting to trace the runes of life, purity and growth over him, motioning the other standing one to watch the multi- man.

Aburon and Hara were just standing there at the entrance to the node chamber, observing, for their own individual reasons; Hara because she didn’t want to get too close to the multi-thing until she was absolutely sure it was dead; Aburon watching her in transfixed, awed fascination.
Johanna was female, but certainly not feminine; it was much easier to think of blades and butchery and burning cities, it would take a very strong- stomached man to look past that and realise just how beautiful she was, in her wild, untamed, roguish way. Or the way things were going, a very strong- stomached monster. His nymph was very feminine, all too much so, and assumed she had a woman’s power over him, able to wrap him around her little finger- although that wasn’t exactly the body part involved; mandrake- roots have to come from somewhere.

Truth be told, she had- or used to; he was too restless, too inquisitive, too busy taking charge and sorting other entities’ problems out to stay under her thumb; and when she had tried to beguile him into something suicidally dangerous- going into the Spiral Forest in search of Elvish secrets- he had decided he did not quite love the trees enough to die for them.
He was rooted watching the sorceress; she was shivering in a way that had nothing to do with her injuries, post- combat jitters- far from used to this, she was young, inexperienced, scared, but had the dedication to try anyway; fortune had smiled on her, but she was shaking almost too badly to trace the runes.

Aburon wanted to help her, took a tentative step that way, but then he saw the shadowy merge- man move. The remaining guard was too badly rattled to shout the warning she was counting on him for; he/they/it had split in two, leaving one corpse, fuzz subsiding into an ordinary, if warped, man with a rapier buried in his chest, and two smaller echo- shades, one going for her.
He called out, she stood and turned to meet it, her rapidly flickering fingers shooting a bolt of fire into the healing magic she had half- finished, converting it into a shield of living flame that flickered across the injured man, guarding and warding him; Aburon shot an arrow at it, but his aim was wild, passion fogging his brain, and the shot went nowhere, skimming uncomfortably close to her on the way.

Hara had intended to hold her shot until Aburon’s arrow had done something funky and mystic to it- no point in that now. She loosed anyway, and the clothyard shaft went into the blur- it was moving too fast, and the polyshade was looking the wrong way, couldn’t defend itself with it’s powers- it bit on something, hurt it.
It started a blurry, shadowy, engulfing attack on the sorceress, who weaved a pattern in the air with her mystic sword, slowly fading trails of hue- shifting green light that it chose not to try and penetrate, instead hurling itself at the four adventurers.

Veniel was staring too, not at the sorceress, at the node; Hara had another arrow ready, but chose to use it prodding him instead-
‘Oi! Shewt dat fing dere.’ 'Oi! Shoot that thing there.'She shouted; a rainbow ripple started to form in his hands, too slowly- Aburon shook himself out of it, and his limbic system decided to try to impress the sorceress with something elegant and elaborate; his confused mind put two and two together, came up with thirteen, and decided to attempt to transform the mini multiman into a bunch of flowers.
It was locked on to them; the sorceress began to circle her blade to collect the wavering ribbons of green light- and the other multiman dived into her, knocking her to the ground sprawling, and rolled after her.

Aburon wailed in dismay, opted for something much simpler and sent a cloud of dust and rock chips into the face/faces of the one in front of them; Veniel also dropped his spell and tried to send a pulse of force at it, similar to the one the rogue paladin had used to knock the spearmens’ weapons aside; but he dropped the shimmer too quickly, and the motion magic he formed had to fight it’s way through his own fading counterspell; it sparked out, a worthless fizzle.
Damaged, but still in control of itself and in possession of it’s powers, it threw itself at Aburon, the only one who had done it much in the way of hurt.

He tried to fend it off with his staff and fancy footwork, learned leaping through trees; Hara was pretty good at rough- and- tumble, dealing with her usually awkward patients frequently did involve unarmed combat, and the occasions when it didn’t were usually when they refused to let go of their weapons.
She dropped her bow and tried to pull they/it off him, and find some way of doing it damage on the way, trying to convince herself that it’s double or triple nature meant two or three times as many weaknesses and pressure points instead of none; Kraven stepped into the fight and swung for it, not really thinking about avoiding his comrades at all- he did albeit by sheer dumb luck, not seeming to hurt it much. Veniel stepped away, trying not to get hurt.

With two hands, it seized Aburon’s staff; with another two, it tried to fend off Hara, and with another two it reached for Kraven, trying to disarm him, relying on it’s power; from within the node chamber there was a glacial creak- hiss and a sharp twang-thunk, the last sound more like a blade hitting and lodging deep in bone; it half turned to see, and three sling- stones flew into the fight, three very careless stones; one of them hit and largely went clean through the multiman, doing little harm, one of them missed entirely, and one caught Veniel full on the chest and he went down like a man with half his ribs broken, which is to say not neatly or quietly at all.

Sling stones are not light, generally weighing about a pound to three pounds; enough to have real momentum. Too busy, nothing they could do for him; the four- way wrestling match tripped over him, Hara managing to get hold of something solid enough to twist the thing away before it could stomp on his weakened chest and drive fragments into his heart and lungs.
Somebody pulled Kraven out of the way- it was the Chamberlain, thin, snooty, ascetic face looking as if he was mentally holding his nose as he removed something unpleasant, which he was- his sword was shimmering in and out of shape and focus in much the same way as the thing, as he found an opening in the melee and plunged it deep into the multiman.

The multiman and the blade sticking in him both used shaping magic, whose normal use was to carve and sculpt and do the physical work wizards were usually very bad at, but whose abnormal use was to do the same to someone’s intestines.
It grew even more tenuous, Aburon let go and jumped back, and there was another twang-thunk, as the spinning imago of a blade arced through the air and landed in the upper chest of the thing at about collarbone level. It fell, solidifying as it did into two bodies fused together at the waist, double torso and head, warped together in adulthood, and looking it.

They looked around, there was a similar, slightly singed, corpse in the left- hand corner of the chamber, the blue- green robed woman was being carried away, at least unconscious; and apart from a few slingers- looking slightly embarrassed- and men at arms, there was a tall fair- haired man with a round- shaped head, and a highly polished sword with glowing red and blue edges, in full and expensively ornamented plate armour; very likely the baron, and a robed man, in yellow and green, with a long white beard; probably the chief wizard. Geoffroye saluted the Baron.


‘Greetings, lord deVerett, and may I present a group of visitors from the surface, who were kind enough to aid us against a party of Omphraye’s special creations that broke through in the crimson passage?’
Baron DeVerett looked like a man who was completely taken aback and refused to show it. ‘H’a-h’m. Indeed?’
‘Vorkredh’s blud, nut anuvver posh clanky fuckwit wit’ tin insoide is’ ead as well az ahtsoide.’ Hara was quite loud and the Baron probably had heard that.
'Gods'blood, not another upper-crust pomposity with tin inside his head as well as out.'
‘I keep telling you stupidity is the chief priviledge of rank.’ Aburon told her. They were both kneeling down by Veniel arguing over who got to heal him.

‘So dat explains woy we iz sew smart, den? Lewk, if yew do yer funky mystic bit, yew’ll dew mower damage tew iz’ ead dan yew’ll fix in iz’ body. ‘E’z not skrooed on stroight tew begin ‘wit, an’ iffin’ yew give ‘im dose freeky ‘allucinations, e’ll blew up or melt dahn. Well,’ judgement took over from hyperbole, ‘e’ll ‘ave eyven fyooer arras in ‘is quiver dan ‘e az now.’
'So that explains why we're so smart, then? Look, if you resort to magic, you'll do more damage to his head than you'll fix in his body. His mental stability is poor as it is, and a good, thorough mystic experience right now would drive him mad. Well, further out into the mad.'
That left Kraven to do the negociating. Aburon realised that this was not a particularly bright move. Reluctantly he conceded the point to Hara, who shooed the spearmen out of the way, opened up and laid out her bits bag, sprinkled a pinch of dust- something white and peculiar smelling- over the wound and over her hands; and picked up what looked worryingly like a knife and fork and started opening him up.

‘Greetings, Baron deVerett.’ Aburon stepped out of the mess of fight in the corridor and began- unable to stop himself looking over to where the sorceress had been. There was a small trail of blood; he hoped, he hoped she didn’t need any magical healing. She had looked right at him at one point, and he really hadn’t been that much use in the fight.
Any amount of risk would have been worth it just then, anything to impress her would have justified the hazard. If she started hallucinating, and thought of him…focus, he told himself; although he did notice that deVerett cast a similar anxious glance towards the corner in which she had been lying.

‘We are local auxiliaries of the Imperial peacekeeping force the King requested to aid him. Peace was, well, forced, but the war is over, and your lands stand empty and in need of reconstruction and reconciliation. Also you might not be taking this monster thing seriously enough at all.’
He knew how pompous that sounded, but if his choice of servants- well, with one glorious blue-green exception- was anything to go by deVerett was pompous; and what did it matter if he nearly gagged on the words if it got results. Some people felt the same way about grubs and lichen.

‘Baron deMarail sent detailed and extensive word of what he faced-‘
‘And you decided it would be good for him to fall before it? We have been down here perhaps half a day, and it is obvious that deMarail’s men are starving, baron Kardren’s are being perverted into little tiny normal monsters, and you are winning this twisted mutual siege- which is all well and good up until that thing out there decides to end the game on it’s terms.’
‘What about Imperial assistance?’ the head mage asked him. He had a strong voice that came from shouting incantations over a battlefield, but for now spoke quietly with it.

‘You don’t know our Colonel. She’s much more likely to try to recruit it. If, that is, anyone on the surface was aware of what you managed to awaken.’ Aburon hoped he was joking, but as he saw the look on their faces he knew he wasn’t.
‘She? What’s your Colonel’s name?’ the Chamberlain asked, worried of what the answer might be.
‘Countess Calvern-‘ Aburon suspected he was giving him exactly the answer he didn’t want to hear.

‘The same hellspawn blood-witch who led the Zarthani’s slew of abominations against Alavanirimire?’ The elven kingdom that had, until last summer, occupied part of the Zarthani peninsula and resisted any of the brutal but amateur human efforts to get rid of them. The final end of which, as an organised entity anyway- thanks to an army which had contained, the legends said, as many summoned demons as men- had left the Zarthani with no-one else, other than Kuquan, to fight.
Veniel knew that but was in no condition to say so, Kraven couldn’t care less, Hara neither knew nor cared, and Aburon should have been faster at putting two and two together. ‘What, then, is she the countess of?’

Aburon knew what he was going to say would be about as welcome as a democrat at a court levee. ‘After Count Antar Riedell was killed, his inexplicable majesty rewarded lady Johanna with Auvaine.’ Killing the messenger was out of fashion; he hoped.
‘Small choice then, my lord, between making our escape and remaining here.’ Geoffroye advised deVerett.
‘She’s much nicer than her reputation makes out, once you get to know her; I mean, if you’ve actually got the nerve to stand still and talk to her she can be positively charming.’ Aburon exaggerated. ‘Keep lurking down here, on the other hand, and, well, it tends to be the ones who run away and hide that she actually takes offence to.’ That, on the other hand, was absolute truth.

‘From your perspective, perhaps-‘
Geoffroye bent in close to whisper in the baron’s ear. The wizard left the node chamber by the other entrance. Aburon sat down on the edge of the node’s ornamental surround, looking back and forth from deVerett, trying to read what decision he was going to make, to Hara, who was busy with Veniel’s ribcage opened out in front of her; it looked more as if she was about to blood- eagle him, but she was fishing around with a pair of tweezers extracting bone fragments pressing them back into place, and smearing reddish- grey ooze on them.

There was something resting in the dip of the surround; a set of sheets of parchment strung together, Aburon tried to look nonchalant as he grabbed it, it might be hers.
If it was, she sketched in charcoal, making notes in a flowing italic hand; mostly professional, a couple of people, but mainly runes, ancient and modern, with guessed at intermediate stages, deformations and transformations, of each; the record of a capable, methodical, and at least partly successful attempt to create a table of translations from modern to ancient.

None of them had an exact equivalent, even symbols for the same purposed were twistedly different, but the effects of several could, if he was reading her notes aright, be counterfeited by a combination of modern runes, although it was far from easy and highly sensitive to conditions.
One extra person in the room, one cough at the wrong time, could ruin it; and there were ten times as many blind alleys as results, some of the sheets of things that worked were so choked with notes and memos to self that they had been copied clear at the back of the sheaf, accompanied by small, linked drawings of footprints he didn’t understand at all.

The green-and-yellow wizard came back into the main node chamber;
‘Ah, Shimon, how is your apprentice?’ The baron sounded genuinely worried about the young sorceress- why was she still a mere apprentice? By the looks of what she had achieved, she was talented and persistent. Probably Shimon was holding her back in order to take the credit for her work.
Then there was that the baron seemed interested in her. He was, on the surface at least, rich; he could use all his wealth and property to turn her head, and all I have, Aburon thought, is a peculiar shortbow. I can’t even carry her off to the woods, he realised.

‘She will be fine, provided that this time she actually accepts medical advice-‘
‘I’m gewd at dat. Oi, Aburon, yew’ve got alkemoisin’ stuff in yer scrip. ‘Ave yew gor’ anyfink wot I can use as bone gloo?’ A loud orky voice cut across the chamber.
'I'm good at that. Aburon,you have some alchemy kit with you, anything I can use as bone glue?'Aburon went over to the scene of carefully restrained chirurgical carnage.
He had half expected to find bits of Veniel scattered all over the place with a few choice cuts in Hara’s stomach, but what he actually found rivalled the best human surgeons, and were far and away better than his shambling attempts to put squirrels and the like back together.

She was a blindingly fast, fearless, and considering the size of her chubby green fingers frighteningly dextrous cutter- she had Veniel’s ribcage exposed, most of the ribs tied, wired or glued back together, in the case of the most badly splintered all three, in perhaps a quarter of the time a run- of- the- mill human barber- surgeon would have needed, and with far less harm to the patient.
‘What was that white stuff?’ he asked her.
‘Doan’ know da ‘ooman for it. Shewd stop ‘im cumin dahn wit’ summat.’
'Not sure of the human term. Should stop wound infection.'

‘What is it, a plant extract, something mineral?’
‘Grahnd up remains ov da ‘ealthiest, mowst disease- resistin’ animal in orl Orkdom. Little rodenty fing wot lives in cesspits. Dey must be disease’ resistin’ tew gerraway wit’ dat. Sew sumbudy da chief duzn’t loike gews in an’ catches’ em, dey get woshed in stayle beer which usually killz ‘em, and grahnd dahn an’ droied aht fer sprinklin’. Da best wunz iz da wunz wot stey aloive long enuff dat yew ‘ave ter bash der eadz’ in wit da mortar an’ thistle. Quoite a lorra’ teef dey ave tew.’ It was just the sort of joke Hara would come out with; but it might be true.

'Ground remains of the most unkillably healthy, disease resisting animal in all orcdom. Little rodent-like thing that lives in cesspits- it must be disease resisting to get away with that. So, someone the chief doesn't like goes in and catches them, they get washed in stale beer which they usually die of, ground and dried for sprinkling. Usually, the harder they die, the more potent they are.'

‘If that’s the sort of thing you’re using, then I don’t think that I would.’
‘Down’ be zoggin’ darft, I don’ erxpect yew ter ave da sense ter use proper orky ingreedyents. I dew expect yew ter ‘ave summat I can improve wit’. Show us yer gunge bag.’
'Don't be bloody daft, I don't expect you to be able to source proper orcish ingredients. I do expect you to have something I can improvise with. Show me your gunge bag.'
In fact Hara had ground pit-wabbler and proper orcish bone cement to spare; she had brought enough to fix her much larger and more accident prone brother, but she would need to resort to the human formulary eventually, and might as well start now when the circumstances should encourage cooperation. Aburon pulled the things out of his scrip that he thought might be useful, and Hara ground them to a paste between her axe and sword blades- the locals not being impressed when she pulled them out.

‘I don’ knaw if’n oi shewd ‘it anybody wit’ dis agane, it moight dew more gewd dan ‘arm. Roight.’
'Idon't know if I should hit anyone with this again, it might do more good than harm. Right.'She smeared it on the bones, and then folded the muscle back over, dribbling some dark brownish green horribly acrid- smelling liquid on the joins between them. She started stitching him back together; Hara was fast, but reconstructing a ribcage was an inherently slow process. At that, the baron only just made up his mind before she was finished. ‘Druid.’ The Baron called him over. ‘Aburon, is it not?’

Aburon bowed to him, not wanting to say ‘my lord.’
‘We have come to a decision.’ The royal ‘we’, yet? Just because he was indecisive didn’t mean that he was dumb. ‘A team will leave for baron deMarail’s encampment to discuss our course of action with him. The chamberlain will lead that. Baron Omphraye, also, must be approached. As that is part of the task your mistress sent you here for-’

‘Hara? Up for three out of three in the find- a- halfwit derby?’ Aburon said. Apart from to spite the baron, he was actually eager to go because it gave him the chance of some exploit or other he could use to impress- he still didn’t know her name.
‘If’n we can leeyve ‘im ‘ere, whoile I waiyte for ‘iz bitz ter start gettin’ demselves back tergether, an’ if we can borrer dat mad paladin as a guoyde- ‘e’z ahr prizzoner any’ow- yer, we kewd dew dat.’
'If we can leave him here, he needs time to recover, and if we can borrow that deranged paladin as a guide- who is actually our prisoner anyway-yes, I think we can do that.
They might have more news of my brother, she thought. That shimmer and the scorpion- just the sort of thing he’d come up with.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Chapter 8

They found the mad paladin in a cell improvised out of bits of wood, tied down spread-eagle fashion on the floor, blindfolded, gagged; four guards watching him, three peasant- conscript spearmen, one more professional looking soldier with the five foot maul that was the traditional backup weapon of the yeoman archer.
In here, the same light, the same temperature, the same lack of wind made it almost timeless, as witness the fact that deMarail’s knights seriously thought years must have passed, but, estimating by Hara’s surgery, a couple of hours since they had brought him in.

He was conscious, and started shouting and swearing at the guards; it was muffled, probably just as well for all concerned. He could not cast in this state; Aburon, who had been there before, bent down to remove his blindfold, Kraven stopped him. ‘First put the deal to him, then let him go. If he agrees.’
‘If we believe him, too, I suppose.’ Aburon meandered.
‘Well done, mr. Spot Obvious.’ Kraven kicked the prisoner.

‘Hey, you, listen up.’ He wriggled a bit.
‘It moight mayke sense,’ Hara pointed out to Kraven, labouring the point, ‘ter ungiggle ‘im iff’n we’z goin’ter arsk ‘im querstyons.’
'It might make sense to let him answer, if we're going to ask him questions.'She drew her sword and axe, gave the- false- impression of working out which to use; then reached down with the sword, slit his gag, and turned the blade so the edge lay across his throat.
As clunky, primitive and half- made as it looked, she had honed the edge down until it made a suitable substitute for when she didn’t have time to reach for her scalpel.
‘Start castin’ anyfink an’ oi’ll give yew anuvver mouf ter dew it wiv’. We az got a deel fer yew.’
'Start casting anything and I'll give you another mouth to do it with. We have a deal to put to you.'

‘We need a guide to get to baron Omphraye’s.’ Kraven told him. Aburon was going through the parchments again, slowly and reverently. It wasn’t even a first edition, it was a sort of pre- edition; the raw material of an exposition of ancient ancestral magic that before long every mage, archpriest and spellslinger in Vathlin would want, and do honour to the name of it’s author- which he still didn’t know.

‘And?’ the paladin was defiant, but it was the same scruffy, scuzzy, lower- class way they all were. Even Hara, who could almost pass for greenskin aristocracy. The man was still partly armoured, still in chain mail with the reinforcing bits of plate taken off, his weapons had been taken, and he had a scruffy, unkempt sort- of beard, more a congregation of stubble, that could hardly have done credit to any cause. Hara normally hated paladins, but this one seemed more her speed.

‘And what?’ Kraven was annoyed. If there was any scruffy seedy mercenary- ing to be done, he wanted to do it.
‘Considering the alternative is to get left behind when everyone else is escaping from the monster?’ Aburon was starting to wonder what he could contribute to the research project. Some of the transformations could be done much more fluidly and successfully as part of a set- piece, which fitted right in to his style of magic- so he was in with a chance after all…they wouldn’t be here for more than a couple of days more. Sod. He was only lending half an ear to this.
‘That depends- on how quickly your scheme could get me killed.’

‘It’s in a good cause.’ Kraven could not quite avoid sneering.
It was quite hard to shrug when tied down spreadeagle flat on your back, but he managed.
‘Just wot is yew a paddle- inn ov?’ Hara asked him, deliberately getting it wrong. 'Just whay are you a paddle-in of?'
‘Of freedom! Of independence. Of men and gods, without any sponging tithing bastard con- man priests getting in the way. Of the right of a man to talk to his deities without a poser in a dress telling him how he has to do it. Of a pure and honest faith without the dead weight of churches and orders to corrupt it.’ He shouted, ranted, and showed every sign of being able to continue to do so for hours, but Hara broke the skin on his neck with her blade, which he took as a hint.

‘New zoggin’ wunner ‘e endit’ up wurkin fer da evil git, newbuddy wit’ eyeny prinzipullz wud ‘ave ‘im.’
'No bloody wonder he ended up working for the forces of darkness, no-one with any principles could put up with him.'
‘Right, now that you’ve annoyed me-‘
‘No point in donating to the church?’ Aburon asked, over the top of a sheet of parchment.
‘Yew aven’t been listernin’ ter a wurd of dis, ave yew?’
''You haven't been listening to a word of this, have you?'
‘No.’ Aburon implied that he had better things to do.

‘D’yer fink,’ Hara addressed nobody in particular, ‘dat da Colonel moight be precippertated upon ter put up wiv’ im?’
'Do you think that the Colonel might be precipitated upon to put up with him?'
The who?’ he asked her.
‘We iz sowrt ov impeyrial. ‘Recon Section C.’’ she pronounced that in a very good imitation of Johanna’s accent. The rest of them stared. ‘We iz gettin’ payed at da ‘eavy calvry rayte-‘
'We are more or less Authrani imperial troops. We're being paid at the heavy cavalry rate.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that to start with?’ he tried to sit up, struggling against the ropes. Hara moved her blade up to the blindfold and slit it, giving him his second look at them. ‘Oh. You lot.’ Her did not seem surprised, or worried by the large, chunky, irregular broadsword poised to give him an extra nose. ‘I don’t suppose you would care to give me your word.’

Hara made a show of thinking about it. ‘Nah. ‘Cos dat wud mayke uz rersponsibel fer yew.’
'No, because that would make us responsible for you.'
That example of sound orcish common sense convinced him more than any shower of promises would have. ‘All right then.’
Aburon absent- mindedly shambled off in search of his kit, and Hara cut him free. The guards knew better than to object.
‘Robert of King’s lea.’ He announced himself, once vertical.

‘Hara Strongarm.’
‘Kraven.’ He wasn’t of any particular place or family, at least not one he wanted anybody to know about. Hara filled Sir Robert in on the story so far, and Aburon came back with his sword, helmet, and Kraven’s bolas.
He started putting his armour back on; Hara thought about it, decided it would do him less harm than looking scruffy and disreputable would do their plan, let him get on with it. As far as Kraven was concerned, being scruffy and disreputable was probably incurable. Hara herself in her outdoorswoman’s warm, rain- resisting waxed wool and segmented stiff leather armour, bag of medical tools, pills potions and jars, axe, sword, quiver and longbow, looked, well, orcish.

The four of them set off, then, leaving the barracks where Sir Robert had been held. Aburon had folded the parchment away for the time being, to study it at leisure later. This was almost like the beginning of a joke, he thought; there was a druid, a bounty hunter, a paladin and an orc down a dungeon…he wondered who would be in a position to laugh at the punch line. Probably the monster, whatever it was.

Perhaps it was acclimatisation, or perhaps the effect of reading the sorceress’ notes, but he was starting to at least feel as if he knew where he was going. There were few blind alleys in the place; most of the runes were overlaid and interlocked, or linked by small connecting passages.
The baron had given Hara a pass, a couple of scribbled lines with heraldry prominent, but she looked on it with extreme suspicion, knowing full well that he had overheard the ‘posh clanky fuckwit’ comment.
At one point they passed a group of deVerett’s soldiers coming back from a picket; that must be where all his professionals had gone- one squire, partial plate armour and subdued heraldry, two scale- clad foot soldiers, and three yeoman archers- Hara waved the parchment with his seal on it at them, and it seemed to satisfy.

They probably thought they had, in Veniel, some kind of hostage. Well, probably Hara would want to get him back in order to check the effect of her sawing and stitching, but Kraven couldn’t care less, except for regretting missing out on the bounty he wasn’t going to get by hauling him back to royal authority. Aburon might miss him, but he was going to be here to the last, come hell or high water- a reasonable impression of the first was probably on it’s way- because of the sorceress, not Veniel.

They passed on through the runic tunnel- maze steering by, in effect, always heading in the creepiest direction; that seemed to work, because they passed through the remains of previous skirmishes- nothing left to loot, not that Kraven didn’t try.
Sir Bob prayed over a couple of the more identifiable remains, brief and extempore, speeding their souls on the way to their just reward; he seemed to be tolerably ecumenical.
They spotted flickering lights long before they caught sight of anybody.

They were a fairly normal looking bunch of blokes, at least from a distance; but when the slightly green- tinged but otherwise normal light the four shed reached them, standing there blocking a ‘t’ junction, they noticed how…wrong they looked. Drawn, strained, vacant- eyed, miscoloured faces, odd stances, twisted, misshapen bodies.
‘Reymoind me, woy did yew soide wit’ dis lot?’ Hara asked Bob.
'Remind me, why did you side with this lot?
‘No priests.’ He said it vigorously, declaring a holy- unholy?- truth.

‘Werl, if dat woz yewer ownly croiteyrion…’ 'Well, if that was your only criterion...'The four of baron Kardren’s guard- heraldry four crossed black lightning bolts on red and yellow background- looked as if they could do with a priest. Or a necromancer. Which led to the unpleasant conclusion that perhaps they looked that way because they already had one.
‘Why do we never stop anywhere where we can scrounge food?’ Kraven asked.
‘Dey’re sayfe from moi eetin’ ‘abits, oi dewn’t wanna’ eet dem til’ I foind aht w’ere dey’ve been.’
'They're safe from me, I don't want to eat them until I find out where they've been.'
‘That doesn’t reassure me at all, considering who else there is to tuck into.’ Aburon told her. ‘Any time you want to start talking us past these guys, go ahead.’ He added to Sir Robert.

He walked up to the four guards, sword unsheathed- no surprise, considering that it was nigh on impossible to sheath a two- handed sword worthy of the name. Which still doesn’t make it look any friendlier though.
He strolled up most of the way- impossible to tell from their lack of intelligent reaction whether they recognised him or not- broke into a sprint for the last five paces, they came on guard a fraction slow, he vaulted, sorcery again, spinning, clean over them.
He landed behind them facing the direction he had come from, towards their backs, brought his sword horizontal, at shoulder height, before any of them could turn round he shoved forwards, pushing them off balance, tumbling the guards on their faces.

‘Well, come on, get stuck in.’ he shouted at the other three, bringing his sword round to smash down on one of them.
‘I dewn’t recorl taykin’ ‘im on fer ‘iz subutility, w’ich is jurst as werl, ‘cornsiderin ‘e ain’t got any.’
'I don't recall taking him on for his subtlety, which is just as well considering he doesn't have any.'
‘He seems a handy bloke in a fight, though.’ Aburon acknowledged, drawing his bow.
Kraven was already heading forwards into the fight; Sir Bob had missed the one he had tried to impale on the ground, the squaddie had rolled away too fast. The other three were starting to react, their speeds rising from their near- zombified state, to normal human, to much better than they should have been for ordinary rank and file, to superhuman.

Time magic, Aburon thought, rescheduling their life energy.
‘Somebody’s gone and rearranged their life force.’
‘Sew,’ Hara leaped to a worryingly accurate conclusion, ‘dey iz ownly ‘arf aloive sum ov da toime, an’ awl dat unewsed loife getz stowred up fer toimes loike dis?’
'So they're only half alive some of the time, and all the unused life gets stored up for times like this? Makes damn' all medical sense, but that's thaumaturgy for you.'

Kraven and Sir Bob were hard- pressed by the four ultrafast men; they were reacting like coiled springs, their stored power and energy rushing forth; fortunately it did not actually improve their skill, but any of the mad flurry of thrusts and sweeps, if they had actually landed, would have been impressively and probably terminally mighty; as it was the two did not need finesse to block and dodge, just their own speed and strength.

‘We should probably do something.’ Aburon couldn’t get a shot; he had his staff and his small, tree- surgeon axe, but he did not want to get anywhere near that flailing blur of limbs, swords and spears.
His own healing magic might be effective; it was very much more difficult and less certain to heal someone, or restore their life force to balance, from a distance than it was when you could actually touch and sense and feel the beat- or otherwise- of their heart; he would have hesitated before actually attempting to cure someone at this reach- ten yards- but to simply disrupt, to unbalance already seriously disturbed beings, that could work.

Hara had her sword and axe ready, none of this ‘I’m a healer not a killer’ nonsense- chopping their arms and legs off then cauterising was a usual way among the nastier Orc tribes of taking prisoners, for one thing.
She waited her opportunity, then one of the speed-men lunged for sir Bob who stepped out of the way, he rushed past him, stopped and turned to flank.
Hara neatly stepped forwards, slashed down at his spear with the sword in her right hand, catching it on one of the serrations of the blade, twisting so his own attempt to pull it back splintered it, and hacking down with her axe, catching the man between shoulder and neck. His accelerated life caused the blood to spurt out of the wound with enough force to leave a bigger stain on the ceiling than the floor.

Aburon managed to pick another one, track him by eye long enough to have a chance of actually striking him with a spell, and green- tinged sparkling life energy flowed into him; terminally. Everyone backed off as he stood in place and started to shake, trembling, twisting and thrashing; then he burst. Aburon had tipped the spellwork already done to him completely over the edge.
The other two turned to flee, and would probably have run impressively fast, if Sir Bob hadn’t used his magic to slam one off a wall, leaving him dazed and reeling, unable to get out of the way of the two handed sword which opened him up; and Kraven hit the other one in the spine as he turned to flee, knocking him down severely wounded, but not- probably unfortunately for him- dying.

‘I’m not hungry any more.’ Kraven said, particularly as Aburon was adding whatever he had consumed recently to the mess.
‘Yer, dey ‘ad gone orf a bit. Did yew actually ‘ave a plan?’ she asked Sir Bob.
'Yes, they were past their best. Did you actually have a plan?'
‘Subdue them and get them to lead us in.’ That was clearly not going to work. He seemed prepared to write it off as the workings of fate.
‘Someone coming. Something.’ Aburon was still shaken, and nervous; there was faint movement there. No light accompanying them, whatever they were. Something large, with faint glittering like chitin and claw- blades, something that the shelter did not react to as if it was a human. His hawk spotted the faint curdling of the air first, alerted him, he pointed it out to the others; they made ready to face it.

Hara was looking the other way. She nudged the druid.
‘Oi, Aburon, wot duz a nerkromuncher lewk loike?’
'Oi, Aburon, what does a necromancer look like?'
‘If your next line is going to be ‘anyfink loike dat, den?’, start running now.’
‘Nut much point, reely- ‘e’z be’oind uz.’
'Not much point, really- he's behind us.'

In the narrow gap that led into baron Kardren’s territory, the two corpses were pulling themselves back off the ground. Nice, fresh zombies they would make, and the puddle of exploded man would bid fair for something much worse. The more elaborate monster closing from the side looked like a threshing machine Aburon had seen once; he doubted it would be as easy to put the torch to this.
Then there was the man himself, a tall, cadaverously thin old man dressed in richly embroidered black robes. Over him the shelter cast the light of an overcast winter day, not the summer afternoon it was prepared to extend even to Sir Bob.
‘What do you seek here?’ he rustled at them; more like bones creaking than a human voice.

‘Hallo, Hilarion. Still in the dooms and tombs business?’ Sir Bob did not seem at all worried.
‘If this guy’s a necromancer, and you’re a paladin, why haven’t you killed him?’ Kraven asked.
‘As soon as the gods channel enough power through me for the job, I’ll get around to it.’
The necromancer laughed a dry, skeletal death- rattle of a laugh. ‘The gods allow him to call himself a paladin, because he amuses them. If their sense of humour was fully as peculiar as his, they would have smashed him long ago. Or perhaps they are leaving that to me…’ the thought of being an instrument of the gods set him off again; on the other hand, the zombies, the thresher- demon, the crystal sculpture on his staff and the denser, nastier parts of the shadows around him appeared to have no sense of humour at all, only venom and vigilance.

‘Hold on a moment…Hilarion Galienus ser’Arador? Vampire-friend, nightmaster, archmage of the south?’ Aburon had heard of him. The necromancer acknowledged with a nod.
‘You must have found out a fair bit of the workings of this place.’ Aburon was partly playing for time, hoping the death-mage would boast long enough to give him time to think, or Hara time to come up with something suitably Orcish.
‘It will be a shame to have to leave.’ He returned the compliment.

‘Dere’z a zoggin’ grate deff- foiery fing in da way an’ yewer juss goin’ta worltz aht?’ Hara shouted at him, not quite believing.
'There's a huge, angry, incendiary thing in the way, and you think you're going to just waltz out?'
‘It has become necessary, since my pupil lost control of the aleph node.’ That made sense, in a very ugly way. Wizards were freelances by nature, empowered from within and beholden to none for their art outside their own system of guilds which passed down knowledge, certified and indemnified practitioners, and rarely- because it tended to be explosively- had to look after their own.
Hilarion had quite a reputation, as being an extremely skilled man as well as a champion of evil; enough so to lure an unscrupulous poseur like Shimon to study under him.

‘He was getting his apprentice to do the work for him.’ Aburon pointed out-
‘You insult me by associating my name with that fool. Serra Lisanna was my pupil.’ And Aburon’s world, for the second time this year, cracked and split in half. Hara had to catch him as he slumped down, and sputtered incoherently something about fair, and noble, and bright- eyed.

‘Orl roight, den, sew wot iz yewer plan?’ Hara got on with the important stuff. Broken hearts she could fix later, something else fungus beer was prescribed for. ‘Yew carn’t ‘oide from it, yew carn’t get orl of yew ter mewve togevver farster dan it can cartch up wiv yew, an’, werl, dat-‘ the thresher- ‘moight be quoite ‘ard but sum’ow I dewn’t fink yer’ gonna foight it. Wot, den?’
'All right, so what is your plan? You can't hide, you can't get everyone together moving faster than it can catch up with you, and, well, that might be quite capable but somehow I don't think you're going to go looking for a fight. What, then?'
‘I, and certain priests of these things, have devised a rite of appeasement. A propitiation that will enable a select few to ascend to the surface.’ He stressed the ‘few.’

‘An’ yew’re bovverin ter tell uz orl ov dis ‘cos yew’re abaht tew mayke uz sum koind orv offer, boi w’ich we get ter be among yer few iff’n we dew summat for yew. Summat ugly, pror’bly. Wot?’
'You're bothering to tell us all of this because you're make us some kind of offer. We get to be among your chosen few if we do something for you- something ugly, in all probability. What?'
‘Very well thought through. Are you sure you’re one hundred percent orc?’ Hilarion took the opportunity to be rude to her.
‘Yew shewd cum aht ta da frontyeer sumtoime. It’d be gewd for yew ter get spit- rowsted for sayin’ fings loike dat.’
'You should come out to the frontier sometime. It would be good for you to get spit-roasted for your arrogance.'
‘What do you want, then?’ Kraven asked him, mercenary impulses showing.
‘Simple. Bring me what I originally sent you for.’ Looking at Sir Bob.

‘Sorry, Dad, shewd’ave remimblered.’ Hara, looking up. ‘We fergot ter ask yew wot yew were dewin’ dere in da first ploice.’ To Bob.
'Sorry, Dad, getting scatterbrained again. We forgot to ask you what you were doing there in the first place,'
‘Opening a hole for the shimmer- thing, it had it’s own-‘ Sir Bob got that far.
‘Now you shall do it- bring me Serra Lisanna, alive and unhurt.’ The thresher- demon, all claw- arms, growled, an unpleasantly large, deep noise, to add the missing ‘or else.’
‘What, you’re going to sacrifice her?’ Kraven, who watched public executions with as much malicious glee as the next man, and couldn’t really care less about the propriety of it. Sir Bob looked worried, intending to bluff yes and back out later.

‘No, no, no.’ he said, chidingly, a tone of reprimanding a child. ‘I need her to assist me when I officiate.’
‘That can’t be right.’ Aburon shouted at him. ‘She’d never agree, she’s not evil, she’s-’
‘Aburon,’ Hara picked him up and spoke to him, gently for an Orc, ‘remoind me ‘ow long yew spent torlkin’ tew ‘er? Precoisely new seconds, as I recorl. Yew dewn’t know ‘er. ‘Yew moight be ‘ead owver ‘eels for ‘er but yew dewn’t know ‘er. ‘Soides w’ich, ‘oo iz we wurkin’ fer at da mowment? Sumbudy mowst ov da rerst of da world rekkonz’ iz abaht as eeyvil az dey cume.’

'Aburon, remind me how long you spent talking to her? Precisely no seconds, as I recall. You don't know her- you might have fallen head over heels for her, but you don't know her.
Besides, who are we working for at the moment? Someone most of the rest of the world reckons is as evil as they come.'
That, too, the necromancer found amusing. ‘Those of us with sufficient control over the shelter’s senses felt them pass by. If I had known you were local associates of the Winged Fire, I would have welcomed you with far more honour.’

‘I know what happened to some of those you showed honour to.’ Sir Bob was looking at the thresher.
‘You still worked for him, though.’ Aburon, with difficulty, pulled himself together. He couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t. She had worked herself to the edge of madness and exhaustion, doing the nearly impossible, giving freely of her own strength, in order to keep her people alive- hadn’t she?

‘He came in handy, whenever there was a temple I needed rid of.’ The necromancer pointed out. ‘No, my pupil is not what you call ‘evil’, not yet, but she is dedicated enough and intelligent enough to face up to the fact that sometimes, sacrifices have to be made.’ Another dry chuckle. ‘Go, and be about it.’ The last peremptory; he raised and levelled his staff, there was the beat of phantom wings, and a black wind blew them tumbling back along the corridor they had come from.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Chapter 9

Dispiritedly, they trudged back. Aburon was walking like a man in a daze; Hara was genuinely medically concerned for him. Kraven had no morals worth as much as, say, a rat on a stick, and would cheerfully do whatever he was paid for, and the nastier he got to be doing it the better. Sir Bob’s principles seemed to run at right angles to reality. Hara herself was far from happy about the whole business.
‘Dat’z dat den- nut eeyven moi bruvva’z sorft eenuff in da ‘ead ter soign on wit’ dat lot.’ She said, partly to break the silence, partly to get them thinking about what they could, or should, do.
'That's that then- not even my brother's soft enough in the head to sign on on with that lot.'

‘Hey, if it gets us out of here alive,’ Kraven pointed out.
‘What’s a little kidnapping between survivors?’ Sir Robert agreed with him.
Aburon said nothing; he was looking through his pouches for the sheaf of parchment. It wasn’t there. One of Hilarion’s invisible servants must have abstracted it. Oh, gods, if he had lost it he would be as well wandering out to meet the monster.

‘Iz yew reely darft enuff ter assewme dat negglymurkhit ‘iz gewin’ ter keep ‘iz wurd?’
'Are you really daft enough to assume that necromancer is going to keep his word?'
‘No dafter than he is if he reckons we’re going to keep ours.’ Sir Bob shrugged.
‘E’ can turn yew inter’ an instyubtantyarl shaddow, suck yewer witz outer yer’ead an’ den keep yew in ‘opeless torment forevva. Carn yew dew dat?’ He was the sort of human they often got on the wrong side of the frontier, far away from civilisation, but that didn’t make them any more welcome. Hara was not lying or exaggerating. She was right, too.
'He can turn you into an insubstantial shadow, suck your rationality out and then keep you in hopeless torment forever. Can you do that?'

‘I’m working on it…but not at the moment, no.’
‘Sew wot der we get aht ov dewin’ wot ‘e tellz uz? Nuffink but ‘orrible fingz.’
'So what do we gain from doing what he tells us? Nothing but misery and disaster.'
‘Do you have a plan B?’
‘Oi’m wurkin’ orn it.’ 'I'm working on it.' She didn’t, unless it was Plan A- follow on from Johanna’s orders.

There was a strange smell in the air and ahead the lights were flickering. ‘We didn’t come this way, did we?’ Kraven asked.
Normally, relying on Aburon to navigate, they would have known; he just shrugged, surface blank, underneath feverishly trying to come up with scenarios that let- at least he knew her name now, ‘Serra’ was a title, Lisanna. Scenarios that kept Lisanna alive and brought them closer together. He couldn’t have been so badly mistaken.
‘Don’t know what that is.’ Aburon said, detachedly.
‘Let’s not find out. It might be wibbly.’ Kraven decided.

‘Oi fink it’z cumin diz way. Aburon, any broight oideas?’ Hara tried to jolt him out of his brown state.
'I think it's heading this way. Aburon, any bright ideas?'
‘Remember those wild scary blobs I was telling you about?’ he returned the favour. Magic stuff was happening; he looked a bit more alert. ‘The aleph, deVerett has the master node, but with…Lisanna…out of action it’s losing balance, the fixed defences, the standing fields must be getting out of kilter.’ He was looking intently at the flickering mineral trails in the walls.

‘Sew dis wewd be summat ter dew wit’ dat?’ a small whirlpool had spun round the corner in front of them. In response to the fire and earth pushing against it, the shelter summoned and generated water; and this was a fragment of the defences that had broken loose.
'So this would be something to do with that?'
‘Wild scary blob. Rogue elemental.’ He was sweating. ‘Power and definition, the shelter gains power and definition for it’s magic from the inhabitants, think un- watery at it, think fiery.’ He tried; which was probably not why it suddenly turned into a small mound of snow.
‘Hey, the first thing that came up was a snowman.’ Kraven, and it wasn’t.

‘It didn’t work, it’s still moving.’ The snowman was shambling towards them; it was not big, but it was dangerous- as a flurry of snowflake- shuriken shot at them. Aburon conjured a shower of dust, cancelling them out; they clang’ed off Kraven’s and Sir Bob’s armour; Hara ducked under them and forward- rolled; coming up close to the snowman, drawing sword and axe; Kraven and Sir Bob moved forward to cover her, but chose not to get in the way of her thrashing sword and axe as she broke in to a frenzied whirlwind of slashing attacks, trying to destroy a heap of snow with blades; it was taken aback, and by the time it could react she was hacking and slicing through it, scattering it to the winds- which didn’t blow here, at least shouldn’t have, but there was a gust that picked up and turned the loose snow into a blizzard.

Hara hacked down at one icicle eye, it flickered out of the way, she broke her axe on the stone; and carried on until the other three yelled at her to stop, it was scattered.
‘Have you got something against elementals?’ Sir Bob asked her.
‘Az it ‘appenz, yer. Oi keep breakkin’ axes on dem.’
'As it happens, yes. I keep breaking axes on them.'
‘Why here?’ Aburon wondered. ‘Weak spot?’
‘Who cares?’ Kraven’s opinion.

‘I do. Shhh.’ Aburon turned to a pure exercise of magic, waking up and combining his powers of life and animal and earth and vision, closing his eyes and opening his third eye; as he had suspected, this was a turbulent spot in the shelter’s defences, where a rogue elemental could form, or a man nominally at one with the earth could see out, through the defences, and catch a glimpse at least of what was trying to breach them; he launched his mind’s eye out and down, searching for threads, for taints of significance in the earth, for oddities; and was frightened but not shocked to find one.

There was a complexity, a multiplicity; but hiding behind it- no, not hiding, at it’s heart- was a pool from which threads led, threads of fire and hatred and…alertness. ‘Hara, in five heartbeats knock me out.’
He made his preparations; then dived in deeper. Through the many, catching glimpses of people- ness, alive although far from human, life and entity-hood and horrible order and, also, strong threads and shreds of hate and fear. Through to what they clustered around. Through to the lord of the underworld who planned their doom.

He saw it’s spirit rather than it’s flesh and blood; and saw doom written in it’s mind’s eye. It was a true lord and master, who led, drove and marshalled the lesser powers of the ocean of fire; but for the time being it’s lust for vengeance was such that even they were afraid of it, unwilling to come close.
It was huge; gargantuan rippling strength, black sinister intelligence and cunning, a wealth of knowledge and experience complex and turbulent, a nexus of power like a diamond flashing all the colours of flame- but no knowledge, no time, no daring to go closer- Aburon quailed at it. What, what could they do, what was it planning to avenge- then it became aware of him, and turned to study him- although a part did not. I don’t want to be cremated, he thought; and then everything went black.

‘What would have happened if you hadn’t hit him?’ Sir Bob asked Hara. He was no theorist of magic; treated his own gifts as something vaguely approximating to a sacred duty, or alternatively something to have fun with.
‘Oi’d ‘ave been sweepin’ ‘im up insterd ov carryin’ im.’ 'I'd ahve ben sweeping hium up instead of carrying him.' They had all seen his face brighten with reflected furnace- light. Five heartbeats was cutting it perilously close. Hara had whacked him across the back of his head with the flat of her sword only just in time; the blast could easily have killed them too. ‘It’z been a lorng day, I’z getting’ toired for dis.’ She slung him across her back. ‘I shewd go inter burzinez. Unkonkerous wizzards tranzplanted. I ‘ope wot ‘e saw woz wurf it.’
'It's been a long day, and I'm getting tired of having to do this. I should go into business; unconscious wizards transplanted. I hope what he saw was worth it.'

‘If this is some kind of weak spot in the defences…should we still be standing here?’ Sir Bob pointed out, from twenty feet away in the direction of safety.
‘Yew’z roight. Pror’bly not.’ Hara broke into a jog away from the rapidly- fading drift of snow. 'You're right. Probably not.'
As they moved through the shelter, they though they saw, down one side passage, a demon made completely of ice assault and devour two cannibals, bloody gobbets sliding down and defining it’s translucent guts; but they were none of them minded to stop to investigate. Saving no energy, moving swiftly, they came across one of deVerett’s patrols; Hara brandished the pass, her sword ready in the other hand. Fortunately for them they had the sense to ask questions first rather than face orcish wrath later.

They reached the node chamber. Geoffroye was there, looking likewise tired and drained; he began a question, but
‘Down’t zoggin’ arsk. Any’were I carn drop ‘im orf?’ revering to the still- unconscious Aburon. 'Don't bloody ask. Anywhere I can drop him off?'
Geoffroye showed them through the other entrance to the chamber, which seemed to lead to a support complex, a branching passage with large chambers, small chambers breaking off from them. There was one which was in use as a ward; there were sixteen other bodies there, in some state of injury, mostly wounds, some magical burns.
She laid Aburon down in one of the clear places, looked around for someone in charge; there was a small dark bearded man with a bloody apron. Hara cast a fast professional eye over his work; tolerable, nearly decent for a human, not quite up to her high standards. She also looked around for any sign of the sorceress; none.

‘E’z jurst ‘ad a bang on da ‘ead, e’ll be orl roight in a bit. ‘E saw summat scarifyin’ ‘tho, sew ‘e kewd do wiv’ getting’ pissed and babblin’ it aht. Dewn’t wurry abaht wot ‘e sayz.’ She told the surgeon, then went off to look for Sir Bob and Kraven. She found them whispering together in one corner of the node chamber.

‘Roight, yew payr, lissen. I kno’ yew’z ain’t got yerselves ony mower morrellz dan da sub- arverage ruttlesnayke. Dat zappy-toype yew iz plannin’ ter kidnap, ‘az been ‘elpin, boy runnin’ dis godzalowneknowwotz,’ meaning the node, ‘ter keep a cuppel ov’ thahrzant peepul frorm starvin’ ter deff. Nah Oi, az a medical- toype, am koind ov tuwched by dat.
An’ oi, an’ da Colonel, will be mowst un-chuffed if yew payr ‘elp ‘er bowdy ter go fer a worlk in da middle ov da noight, kleer?’ She shouted the last part at them, almost deafening them, and certainly loud enough for Geoffroye to hear. Then she went back to the ward. The bloody- apron was looking Aburon over.
'Right, you pair, listen. I know you haven't got any more morals than a below-average rattlesnake. The sorceress you're planning to kidnap has been helping, by running this gods-alone-know-what, to keep a couple of thousand people from starving to death.
Now I, as a medic, am kind of touched by that. I, and the Colonel, will be most unhappy if you pair help her bdy to go for a midnight stroll, clear?'

‘Iff’n dere’z nuffink uyrgent, I’ll give yew an ’and wiv dis lor in da mornin’. I need ter get me’ ‘ead dahn. Oh, yer. Dat wizard I patched back togevver eerlyer. ‘E’z orl roite, yew aven’t dun anyfink tew ‘im?’
'If there's nothing urgent, I'll give you a hand with your patients in the morning. I need some rest. Oh, yes. That wizard I operated on earlier, he's all right, you haven't done anything to him?
She suspected that whatever he had done, in the face of a large armed Orc he would say he hadn’t- but as long as he hadn’t cocked it up too badly Veniel was probably savable. As a matter of fact, they could probably try healing him now, she had patched up enough of the damage that he might still be in shooting distance of sanity when they had finished.


Aburon woke up not long after, with a thunderous headache and the thought that the walls were caving in. He tried to get to his feet, mind a welter of confusion; then realised that the continuous thunder was only Hara, asleep, and sounding off fit to contribute to her practise by waking the dead.
Orcs needed little sleep, he remembered; it was probably an adaptation to stop them murdering each other to stop the snoring. It took himself, the doctor, and two of the walking wounded to carry her to a side room.

In another room he found Veniel; with Hara’s stitches still in him at least. Through the throbbing he thought about it. Better half- crazed than wholly dead; better healed and slightly nuts, but able to flee, than slowly improving up to the point where got fried.
There was no doubt left in his mind that the monster was coming to kill them all, and soon. He pumped life- force into Veniel; he would be lost in the luminous fog of shifting mind- and-body, for perhaps a day rather than three, go less deep, and possibly even retain his wits. If only he could be sure of doing the same himself.

There were voices; coming from the main node chamber. Aburon went to see; there were people sitting around, Sir Palamede from deMarail’s entourage and a couple of priests, Geoffroye, Baron deVerett and three of his priests, Shimon; they were talking, basically beard- stroking; Aburon broke in to their deliberate deliberations-
‘It’s coming soon, we’re out of time.’

‘Hello again, what d‘you mean?’ Palamede hailed him.
‘Druid-‘ baron deVerett began.
‘Trooper.’ Aburon contradicted him. ‘20th Cataphract, Recon Section C. I found a weak spot in the shelter’s shield-walls, and did a little reconnaissance. It is ready to attack us. Most of it’s minions are terrified of it, but that shouldn’t matter.’ His still thudding head made it seem almost a welcome prospect.

‘You’ve seen it, you know where it is?’ deVerett asked.
‘Yes, it…it seeks revenge. Something that we, us here now, have done to it, has driven it crazed. Most of it’s own minions are scared of it now.’ Perhaps it was the effect of the thrown-together rite still, but he could almost see what was going on in Geoffroye and Palamede’s heads; knowing where the monster is, plus it’s coming to kill us, plus the chivalric code, equals…oh, bugger.

Neither of them said anything for a long time. They would have to go to try and kill it, and those who had faced it before knew that even if they could win, it would take most of their lives; and they were unlikely to win. Palamede knew, by the inexorable workings of fate and social rank, that none of the barons would risk their own hides; it would be the next layer down, the baronets, and knights- banneret, who got the opportunities for heroic demise; in other words, him.

The baron sat there glumly avoiding the issue. It was one of the priests who brought it up first, timidly; unwisely trying to cheer them by adding a note of cautious optimism. ‘If it has scared off it’s own followers…’
‘Are you coming down there?’ Palamede shouted at him. In the horrified silence, the death-bed hush, that followed somebody’s actually saying it, bringing the possibility up to fester in open discussion, you could have heard a scalpel drop.

Which was exactly what they did, as a yawning Hara came out of the medical wing. She looked around the assembled long- faces; put two and two together. ‘Sew..spot orv mornster ‘untin, den?’ 'So...spot of monster hunting, then?'
The words were flippant enough, which was very much the point; that was how the knightly code said they should react. The tone said that she was coming too. She had the reputation of the orcish race to uphold; so what would a cheerful, happy-go-lucky psychopath do at a moment like this? Dad’s going to kill me, she thought. So it doesn’t matter anyway.

‘One way or the other.’ Palamede replied. One of the priests started to ask what that meant, but got elbowed into silence by the other, who knew perfectly well that it meant it was open to question who would hunt who.
‘Can you…’ the baron began. Can you kill it?
‘It is intelligent; it has purpose. It is not a beast; a lord of fire.’ Aburon declared.
‘Therefore, tactics.’ Geoffroye pointed out.
‘If we’re lucky…’ Aburon.
‘We’z carn ‘old it barck lowng enuff fer evverywun erlse ter flee.’ Hara stated the fact as bluntly and brutally as she would have informed a terminal patient of their illness. Cold fact; deal with it.
'We can hold it back long enough for everyone else to flee.'


‘The practicalities.’ Palamede started to organise it. ‘Voulnteers to go down. Everyone else…six hours. The, ah, hunting party heads down into the deeps to find the creature, and the people follow straight out after them and head up to the surface. I can still hardly believe it’s only spring.’ Something he would likely never see.
‘Whoever from here’s coming, be at the shelter main gate in six hours, with the evacuees close behind.’ He did not trust baron deVerett not to cock it up; so he stood to leave before the baron could come up with any bad ideas, just as a dark and light blue robed woman came in to the shelter, a bandage round her head, bloodstain on her blonde ponytail, leaning heavily on her staff.

Aburon tried to put her and the black- robed man together in his mind’s eye, and came up with an impossibility. She was about to say something, then caught the atmosphere in the node room. Resolute desperation. She settled for a curtsey to Sir Palamede, catching the hearts of all the visitors with her grace and refusal to submit to her injuries; and melted Aburon’s again. She winced as she stood up, other hand holding her side; Aburon and Hara both stepped forwards to help her, but she composed herself without help and stood, poised and defiant.
‘Gentlemen, may I introduce my apprentice, mistress Lisanna?’ Shimon announced her.

‘My lords.’ She had a very clear- eyed voice, Aburon thought absurdly; a linguist’s voice, trained to make the most precise distinctions and definitions between one incantation and another, find the meaning in the tiniest shifts of tone in the most obscure of ancient dialects; she would never miscast, could pass for a native in any language she chose, would never be caught on a tongue-twister. For a moment his vision went slightly pink round the edges as he thought about twisting tongues.
‘What has befallen?’ brittly calm, as if trying to persuade herself she could face it. Let me believe it for you, Aburon thought.
‘Our visitors have discovered the beast is ready to attack-‘ the baron began, showing attention to Lisanna,

‘We must forestall it.’ Sir Palamede. He could hardly take his eyes off her; getting the girl was one of the traditional priviledges of being a hero, and he only had six and a bit hours to live, so he was trying very hard; puffing himself up, doing his best to look bold and decisive. Lisanna smiled at him, a sisterly smile but one a man in a sufficiently eager state of mind could take as he pleased. Aburon worried about that, but then she turned to them,
‘How did you discover that?’ Palamede asked, the notion only just having occurred to him.
‘Dis zoggin’eejit,’ Hara referring to Aburon, ‘ownly gowz an’ foinds a week spot, an’ troies tew zen ‘iz way inter da beest’z’ead. Knokk me aht in foive ‘artbeetz, ‘e says, fergettin ter spectrifoy orcy or ‘ooman, an’ arahnd abaht nummer fower ‘ir lewkz loike dere’z a furnace shoinin’ on ‘iz mush, sew I ‘it im afower ‘e bloo up.’
'This bloody idiot here only goes and finds a weak spot in the shelter wall, and tries to zen his way into the beast's head. Knock me out in five heartbeats, he said- forgetting to specify orc or human- and around number four he looks as if there's a furnace shining on his face, so I hit him before he could explode.'

Aburon was looking bright-faced again; he was blushing. As a court sorceress, Lisanna was more of a courtier than Aburon was prepared to let himself realise, and very good at controlling what she let show; but she was not feigning the fact that she was genuinely impressed. When she looked at him she saw an outsider, an artist and dreamer, an odd man, a man beyond the norms of her society; their eyes met, and the people and the chamber around them fell away. His eyes were dark brown, hers an unusual bright grey-green; he had seen the wild riotous colours of the tropic forests in a vision, seen all the oddities and wonders of their magic- touched county through the heightened perceptions of his hawk, and thought a pair of grey-green irises worth the rest of the world. Time seemed to bubble by them.

‘Mistress Lisanna, are you ready to resume your duties?- mistress Lisanna. Mistress Lisanna!’ the baron shouted at her. He was the one who had the wealth to turn her head, Aburon reminded himself.
She shook herself back together, looked away;
‘Excuse me, gentlemen, I have three thousand breakfasts to conjure up.’ A punster, yet. Then Aburon remembered that he had strolled off with her notes. Already I let her down, he thought, starting to feel acid melting through his stomach. Purely mental anguish. The fact that he was just as doomed as Sir Palamede, even more so because in fact he would be leading them down into the firelord’s home therefore first in, had completely slipped from his consciousness.

Shimon pointed out that ‘Summoned and conjured materials appear around the node.’, where they were sitting, which was about the sum total of his knowledge of it. He was no runemaster.
Palamede’s party stood to leave, and he came over to kiss Lisanna’s hand; she extended her left to him, her right on the staff propping her up; he was a little annoyed at this lax etiquette, but looked more closely at how pale and drawn she was- he saw the injury, Aburon saw the strength and determination that was holding her up despite it- and kissed her left hand.

‘To perish defending you, my lady, removes the sting of death entirely.’ However hard he tried, it was harmless gallantry; she responded in the same high-flown fashion- ‘To have you in my defence, Sir, removes all my fears.’ Socially she was poise and cool confidence; saving all her fire and brilliance for her art, Aburon thought.
They left to raise a small army of gentleman-voulnteers for certain death; Geoffroye and the Baron likewise, then Lisanna started to slump down. Aburon and Hara moved to catch her, but Hara got to her first. She didn’t want Aburon to fall so badly in love that- well, that was probably a lost cause. She didn’t want Lisanna to do anything stupid because of Aburon.

‘Yew’z nut fit fer dis.’ 'You're not fit enough for this.'
‘I must be. There’s nobody else.’ She knew as well as Hara did, but saw no alternative.
‘Er, um…’Aburon was almost tongue tied. ‘I, ah…my magic uses, er, I had a look at, what I mean is set piece rites. Druiding, um, we can’t do much with runes, that, ah, is to say cast solid instantifications rather than the patterns of meaning of course we can do that, ish, well, because everything we deal with already has some place in nature, so there are no pure symbols-in-themselves, it’s a way of looking at it that I think the guilds are bonkers not to realise no offence meant, and, uhrm, our way of composing and settling an extended conjuration, ah…might help here.’ The torrent of incoherent hesitation and rapid jargonic babble flooded out of him.

To Hara’s dismay, Lisanna seemed to be prepared to make allowances and actually listen to what he had to say.
‘So, for instance, when I draw forth potential and then infuse it with the way of being that turns it into grain…’
‘As easy as tickling butterflies. You couldn’t have picked something I know better.’ Plants were his specialty and his joy; and she smiled at the notion of tickling butterflies.

‘It’s all in how you attribute meaning to your components. After summoning the raw potential I’d polarise it; infuse it with a sense of wanting to be something. Give it a sense that it will like to be actual- then you don’t have to spin back and forth between one part of your incantation and another like-‘ a bumblebee that got into the mead by mistake, was what he was about to say then realised that it might not be a compliment; he was actually talking to her, she was actually listening; he did have a form of wealth after all that might mean more to her than the baron’s land and trinkets; where was he?
‘um, like an edarioni spinning dancer, you can create it and it remains stable while you form a more perfect image of what it’s going to be, you have to sort of charm it into participation, I’m sure you won’t have a problem with that, er, charming things I mean, um.’


‘Afore yew dew anyfink, Oi wanna ‘ave a lewk art yer soide dere.’ Hara told Lisanna. ‘Yew ‘arven’t ad zappy ‘ealin, ‘ave yew?’
'before you do anything, I want to have a look at your side. You haven't been magically healed, have you?'
‘No, I couldn’t- it would put me completely out for too long.’
‘Werl, I can dew a dam’ soight better job wit ‘acked abaht bitz dan yew’r own sawbonez.’ 'Well, Im a better trauma surgeon than your own court doctor. Until very recently, I had a lot more practise.'
She looked at Aburon; whose mind went cloudy. Hara was right; if the state she had left Veniel in was anything to go by, she could teach most human professors of surgery a thing or two. On the other hand, the risk- not of anything going medically wrong, but of Hara’s being up to something orcishly sneaky- was substantial.

Lisanna knew her own mind when it came to taking risks. She reached into a pocket of her robe, pulled out the sheaf of parchment Aburon thought he had lost, and smiling handed it to him. ‘I am a dancer. My parents wanted me to go to serve at the temple, but, well, and then facing this’- the node- ‘I came up with the idea of getting through to it by actually tracing out by dancing, in full figure, the shapes of the runes I was trying to ensorcel upon it with.’

So that was what the footsteps were for, he realised, marvelling at the set of parchments, wishing he had been there earlier to see it, with her grace and poise and beauty- Hara prodded him. His vision was starting to go a bit pink again. He made a show of leafing through the parchments, pretending that he had never seen them before- ‘Amazing. I’ll go through this, see what I can do to combine our ideas.’
‘Roight, cum wit’ me an’oi’ll stirtch yew up.’ That could mean so many different things, both the humans realised. Hara led her through to one of the side rooms of the ward- chamber, pausing only to shout at the medic- in- residence advice on muscle stitching and regenerative herbs, sat her down, looked for some way to screen it- Lisanna made a complex finger gesture and said a few cold, clear hieratic words, and a curtain of what was like heat- haze, distorting vision, came down over the doorway.

‘Disrowbe.’ She wasn’t of the same species, and had medical detachment in full measure. Lisanna hesitated over taking off her sword- belt, but after that it was practically speaking immaterial.
Hara examined her, comprehensive, no nonsense, brisk. ‘Zoggin ‘eck. Dat quarkk didn’ dew much for yew, did ‘e? Iff’n ‘ooman docz ‘ad tew pey for der paytientz’ cewers an’ fyooneralz demselves dey’d buck up pretty sharpish, wot yew let dem away wit’ iz jus’ crinimal… too cracked ribz roight ‘and soide lewer, bit of muskyoowlar stroine, new signirfican’ ermerage, rerkommend imsnobulisaytion an’ grahnd bowne meal porridge fer ersentyal nyootriyents den a prewgrum of exercoise ter regenderate da muskyewle az’ sewn az’, in da jugglyment ov a quorlifoied phyzzikian, da bone carn’ stan’ da stroine, ewsewal serpowrtive embrokayshuns an’ powshuns. Or, if’n yew’z gor in moind wot I fink yew ‘az, I shewd break da rerst of yer ribz.’
'Bloody hell. That quack didn't do much for you, did he? If human surgeons had to pay for their patients' cures, there'd be a lot less fakery- have to make sure they still try by making them pay for the patients' funerals too, though.
Two cracked ribs right hand side lower, bruised muscle but no significant blood loss. Immobilisation and ground bone meal porridge for the ribs, exercise and, as soon as I judge they can stand it, usual supportive embrocations and potions.
On the other hand, if you have in mind what I think you have, I should break the rest of your ribs.'

It was said casually enough; Lisanna looked at her calmly.
‘Yewer docz ‘ave der ‘eadz fewll of dis ‘dew no ‘arm’ crap. Da sernsible orcy version iz ‘minimoize ‘arm’. If dat meenz braykin ‘a paytient’z legs sew ‘e carn’t run inter certain deff, gewd, brayke away. Yew’re finkin’ ov goin’ dahn dere arfter dat fing, joinin’ da untin’ party, ain’t yew?’'Your doctors have their heads full of this unworkably absolutist "Do no harm" crap. The sensible orcish version is "minimise harm." If that means breaking a patient's legs so she can't run into certain death, good, break away. You're thinking of going down after it, joining the hunting party, aren't you?'
Hara was about twice her weight and easily more than that in strength. Reason her way out of this?
‘I have every reason not to.’ She was stalling, and Hara knew it.

‘Yer, but reezon down’ meen much w’en dere’z ‘eroic doom in da air, do it?’'Yes, but reason doesn't mean much in the face of heroic doom, does it?'
‘I’m a professional sorceress.’ Lisanna was aiming, with little idea whether it made any sense or not, for female solidarity. ‘I have a job to do, which right now means running the node, getting our people in the best possible state to leave.’
‘We met dat dark git ‘Ilarion. ‘E towld uz yew were wun ov ‘iz pyewpilz. Aburon don’t berleeyve it, but Oi do.’
'We met that dark git Hilarion. He told us you were one of his pupils. Aburon doesn't believe it, but I do.'
Lisanna did not deny it. ‘Are you suggesting I’m secretly on his side?’

‘New, carn’t immagine anywun bein’ darft ernuff ter be on ‘iz soide. Oi dew believe dat meenz yer’ nuffink loike da bundle orv sweetness an’ loight Aburon, an’ da baron if I’z not mistayken, fink yew iz. Bugger sweetness an’ loight, I’z an orc. Sew much da better. Wot I def fink iz dat yew iz enuff ov a risk- tayker ter fink of dewin it, nifty enuff ter con yersel’ inter finkin’ yew ‘ave a charnce, an’ prorbly dewtifel an’ deddicatit’ enuff ter fink yew ‘ave tew.’
'No, I can't imagine anyone being stupid enough to be willingly on his side. I do believe that means you're nothing like the bundle of sweetness and light that Aburon, and if I read him rightly the Baron, think you are.
So much the better. Bugger sweetness and light, I'm an orc. What I do think is that you're enough of a risk-taker to think of it, just good enough to con yourself into thinking you have a chance, and probably dutiful and dedicated enough to think you have to.'

It was quite a back- handed compliment; you’re too good, I have to break your legs. There was a clattering commotion then, and two hissing male voices. Hara stuck her head out of the shimmer curtain, and saw Kraven and Sir Bob trying to be stealthy, holding something that looked like a human body between them. Lisanna threw her robe on loosely, followed her;
‘Oi, yew payr, ‘ow far d’yew fink yez iz gowin’ ter get wit’ an illoozied- up drerssmayer’s dummy?’
'Oi, you pair, how far do you think you're going to get with an illusion- changed dressmaker's dummy?' Hara called after them. Kraven prodded it; Sir Bob dropped his end and did a complicated arms- in-and- out gesture, and realised they had been had. ‘Fer dat den, Oi’z gewin’ ter orffer yew da charnce ter commit ‘eroic sewicoide. Mayne shelter gayte, foive an’ a ’arf ‘owrz.’
'For that, then, I'm going to offer you a chance to commit heroic suicide. Main shelter gate, five and a half hours.'

Liz was laughing, painfully. ‘Why don’t you object to their heroic suicide?’
‘Cos dey dewn’t derserve moy medical respec’ fer keepin’ a cuppel of thahzant people from starvin’- eeyven if’n it did leeyve dem a little funny in da eadz.’
'Because they don't deserve any professional respect for helping keep a couple of thousand people from starving- even if it did leave them with some pyschological damage.'
‘There is a counter to that. To actuate it, I need to be fit to dance for the node.’ Lisanna pointed out.
Hara weighed it up, sighed. ‘I carn orlways brayke yer legz layter.’ 'I can always break your legs later.'She reached into her green bag, came out with a handful of potion bottles, opened two, mixed them together in an empty third, handed her a fourth. ‘Rub dat on w’ere it ‘urtz.’'Rub that on where it hurts.' As Lisanna started that, Hara jiggled the mixture together, added a couple of fragments of something else. ‘Drink dis.’ 'Drink this.'

Lisanna closed her eyes and tossed it down. To her credit, she did not cough. Even most orcs did.
‘’Member, if’n oi foind yew cummin’ alowng wit’ da ‘untin’ party, I’ll ointrewdewce yew ter moy knee- ‘ammer.’
'Remember, if I find you coming aong with the hunting party, I'll introduce you to my knee-hammer.'
‘Baron deVerett would never allow it, in any case.’
‘Didn’ fink yew woz likely ter arsk ‘im.’ 'I didn't think you were likely to ask him.' Don’t think you’re telling the truth now.

‘I suppose, when this is over, I will be as before conjuring for the baronial court, and Aburon will go back to his woods, we’ll probably lose touch. A shame; he obviously has skill and courage, he seems very…’
‘ ’E won’t be comin’ barck. ‘E’z da ownly wun wot knowz w’ere da beest livez, sew ‘e’ll be goidin’ an’ leadin’ da volunteers fer deff.’
'He won't be coming back. He's the only one who knows where the beast lives, so he'll be guiding and leading the voulnteers for death.' Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, Hara thought half a heartbeat after putting her foot in it. Where’s my knee hammer.
‘Oh.’ Was all Lisanna said, at least out loud.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Chapter 10

Hara thought about what she could usefully do for the next five and a half hours; Lisanna moved too fast to catch. a)get a new axe; b) get their rich crop of injuries as ready as possible to be transported; c)keep Kraven and Sir Bob out of trouble. Putting them all together, she went off to look for the dynamic duo, to help her carry bodies.
She found them apparently scavenging for food in one of the barrack blocks; ‘Sir Bob, carn yew dew dat layin’ on ‘ands fing?’ Sir Bob, can you do that laying on of hands trick?'
‘Oh,yes.’ He replied airily.
‘Carn yew ‘eel peepul wiv it?’'Do you actually use it to heal people?'
‘No.’ In fact he could push people’s hearts out of the back of their spines.

‘Roight. ‘elp me dewin’ dis den.’ 'Right help me do this then.'
She directed them in the lifting and carrying; quite likely to get killed as well, she dived for a few hours into the simple, satisfying and absorbing business of setting bones, draining infected wounds, sewing sword and claw slashes, with them safely under her eye. She got a nifty heavy- headed single- handed axe by the simple expedient of relieving someone who had run out of arms to wield it with of his. d), stop Lisanna doing anything stupid, pretty much went by the board.
In fact she had walked back into the node chamber to find Aburon sitting on the lip of the ornamental surround, scribbling furiously on the back of the parchments with his enchanted inkwood pen.

Sweetness and light? Aburon had seen her impale somebody-something, anyway. No, the illusions of his that Lisanna had a problem with were entirely different. He was about to go to hunt a lord of the underworld; looking a little of a mooncalf was the least of his worries, but he was almost puppyishly eager to show her what he had come up with; she was actually embarrassed to see how much sense it made, and what she had been missing the potential of all along. He was delightfully easy to work with; by the normal- sadomasochistic porcupine- standards of wizardly cooperation his willingness to share ideas was more of a miracle than anything they were likely to come up with through using the node. Between them they came up with a hybrid node- charming routine. Baron deVerett had come up with the idea of gathering his people through calling them to eat. No pressure.

‘So what do we actually conjure up?’ Aburon asked her.
‘is your green- skinned friend about? She should have a good idea about what to give for breakfast to people who’re going to run for their lives-‘ she was being facetious- but then realised that, rarely for her, she had made a mistake. ‘Actually,’ she carried on quickly, ‘you must have noticed that most of our own people seemed a bit, ah, jittery?’
‘deMarail’s are starving, Kardren’s are being warped out of human. You were doing much better than they were.’
She did not blush and curtsey at his complements, although they meant much more to her, from a colleague in the art, than the flowery nonsense of Palamede’s courtly gallantry.

‘It was the best of a difficult situation; also it, ah, shielded them from the full import of the situation. There is a way to rebalance them, and we have to do that now.’
‘Will this work?’ He handed her a couple of densely- written sheets of parchment.
‘As far as anything is predictable with the node, yes- you haven’t written steps for yourself.’
‘I can swing through trees, and do what the rites require, but I can’t dance.’ He said, slow grin spreading across his face.
‘Of course you can- follow me. I’ll lead.’

The pooling of their experience, the draft, the dance, the rite, were the happiest hours of Aburon’s life. He had virtually forgotten that they were supposed to be his last; between them they conjured a sort of thick multicoloured wool- fluff that was apportioned out, to the huddled baronial followers, most of them with their possessions slung about them.
As they ate of it, they ceased to twitch and stare; but a coldness sunk in, and they huddled together. They were ready to flee for their lives. Geoffroye, with two young priests, Shimon- surprisingly- and a dozen knights and men at arms came into the chamber, saluted the baron, many less than respectfully. deVerett was not going. Geoffroye went over to Aburon.

‘Well, trooper? Are you ready to guide us?’ Tone brisk and brash, knightly arrogance. He was fooling nobody.
‘Ah. Oh. Right.’ The bubble burst, and doom reared up in front of him again. He handed the parchments to Lisanna, looking away, face stiff as a death- mask, he could not look her in the eye- dared not, for if he had he could not have gone. One of the knights had gone to look for Hara.
‘Sew, iz we orf ter do dis stoopid ‘ero crap nah den?’ 'So, are we off to do this stupid hero nonsense now?'she asked as she came out of the ward, Kraven and Sir Bob in tow.
He just nodded, dry- mouthed. Veniel had shambled out of his sick bed, and was about to follow them; Aburon didn’t want him, still part zombified, although if there was ever a good time for him to explode, it was up against the firelord. He steered him back to the surface group.
Without further ceremony, they set off.

It was an odd feeling being a doomed champion. The newly- rebalanced, alert, and newly frightened people looked to them, but seemed not to dare look at them. The baron was organising a group of soldiers to protect the column of workers and artisans and families, and beckoned Lisanna over to order her to join that. Aburon looked past everyone in front of him, hoping that something, anything, would go right, or wrong, so it didn’t have to happen; but he moved forward as if his feet had a will of their own.

Aburon was joined by Hara at the head of the group, as they left for the no-mans’ land between deMarail and deVerett.
‘When you say ‘this stupid hero crap’…’
‘It ain’t nercessarily dum ter be orl’ ‘eroic, but it iz if’n yew dewn’t ger annyfink aht ov it.’
'It isn't necesarily and inevitably crazy to be a hero, but it is if you don't stand to gain by it.'
‘What I want out of this is…’ he couldn’t say it, or didn’t.

‘Oi’m in dis ter woind da bardz up. D’yew reeloize dat dis iz goin’ ter beccum a leg- end? Dey’z goin’ter be singin’ abaht dis fer genemeratyuns. Savin’ thahzants boy gewin’ ter foight a zoggin’ grate foire-lord. Wit orcz in. Dat’ll reely konfewze dem.’
'I'm in this to annoy the bards. Do you realise this is likely to become a legend? They're going to be singing about this for generations. Saving thousands by going to fight a bloody great baalrukh- with an orc in. That'll really confuse them.'
‘What, you reckon they’re going to be baffled by an orc hero?’
‘Anyfink wot givvz’ em ‘ed-aches. I nevver loiked mirnstrellz.’'Anything that gives them headaches. I never liked minstrels.'
‘They’ll probably just write you out, or decide you were a wood- elf, or something.’ He was cheering up slightly, which was the point of this from Hara’s point of view.

‘Den I’z goin ter return from da dedd an’ clayme roightfel revenge in da nayme of orkdom.’
'Then I shall have to return from the dead and claim my rightful revenge in the name of all orcdom.'
‘Might be the best way of getting out of this.’ He knew, this time, exactly where he was bound; seemed to see a red thread in his mind. ‘No other bright green ideas? No twistedly sneaky Orky plan?’

‘Werll…I ‘ad da nowtion ov koinda ‘angin rahnd da back, an’ lobbin’ oice arras ar’ it, wot yew kewd gin up ov cewrse, ‘cos I fink dis iz gowin’ ter redyooce inter a zoggin’ grate boll ov konfewzion, an’ I reckon I carn run farster dan dis lot, sew w’oile it’z eetin’ dem, I leg it.’
'Well, I had the notion of hanging around at the back and firing ice arrows at it, which you can of course be responsible for, because I think this fight is going to reduce itself to a giant ball of confusion, and I reckon I can outrun most of this lot. While it's munching them, I can flee.'
‘It does have a reason. Well, a motive. If we could find that, we might be able to come up with a more subtle solution.’
‘Yew’ll ‘ave abaht an eyeblink ter foind it aht in.’'You'll have about an eyeblink to find it out in.'

The cannibals had more sense than to harass them, and deMarail’s guards had been warned they were coming. The absence of yeomanry worried Hara; she would have liked a little company in the firing line. Presumably they had more sense.
Kraven and Sir Bob were certainly having second thoughts.
‘So what’s all this about then?’ the anti- paladin asked Kraven.
‘Going to smack something up.’

‘Then what was all that ‘heroic suicide’ Hara was wombling on about then?’ Sir Bob was not as mad-by-design as Kraven.
‘She and the druid both take this way too seriously.’
‘We’re going to give our lives by holding back the fire- lord, until those who, cowards that they are, do not desire to achieve immortal fame through death make their escape.’ One of the knights told him.

‘Ah. Weelll…that is good, solid, paladin- y stuff…’ Sir Bob did occasionally have to pose as a hero; and did it by a combination of so-mad-they’ll-never-expect-it and so-shady-I’d-better-not-get-caught-doing-it.
‘It’s probably rich. While that’s happening, if it has a hoard-’
‘Now that’s a plan.’

They passed on through the corridors, like a collection of the already dead; the light flickering over them was an omen to behold, but not to think too hard about, it changed from summer afternoon to summer storm.
A group of deMarail’s scouts and skirmishers met them; he had fewer people to organise, and more organisation than the haphazard deVerett to do it with, so things were ugly but well in hand, scarecrows in rags under heavy mailed- fist escort.

Sir Palamede and deMarail’s contribution to the monster hunt met them outside the centre of their encampment- himself, four other knights, three yeomen and a handful of spearmen and crossbowmen. They looked so shaken, so ready to come apart, that they might be little use except as bait.
The priests tried to bless them; but as they were effectively in a temple to ancient and alien gods, their rites had little power if at all. They were here, and ready, perhaps because their minds had been concentrated by the though that they were going to die; the commoners and the less- valiant or more sane rest of the fighting men were less sharp, and were as far behind them as it would take for them to come to terms with the situation and organise themselves.

Still, none of them wanted to wait until the evacuees caught up. That would be too much, pushing their nerves too far; better to go now. Geoffroye and Palamede faced each other, combatant and courtier.
‘We never saw you on the fighting line.’ Palamede taunted Geoffroye.
‘That’s because you never achieved anything of importance.’
There was a fair amount of milling around, of not wanting to wait to die, of get-it-over-with; also the knights of each side, most of whom had fought in their lords’ crazy, confined micro-war, were sizing each other up.

Aburon was trying to come up with a plan; looking at them to try to get a sense of what they were good at, he noticed one in odd, mixed armour, plate limbs, helm also, but not matched to the arms and legs at all- different style- and merely mail over the body. He did not notice anyone who looked like his sorceress, and was not sure how he felt about that, happy or sad. Getting incinerated protecting her was one thing, but if she had chosen to defy her lord and come with him, there was a chance- would have been a chance- that between them they could have faced and dealt with anything. Probably he was fooling himself.

Palamede and Geoffroye were arguing about who got to be in charge; Geoffroye that his troops made up the largest part of the force, Palamede that he was the more experienced and better fighter.
‘You will need,’ Aburon pointed out, ‘to follow me through the minion city. Once we reach the firelord’s domain, I expect it will have it’s own ideas.’
‘No-one mentioned any minions.’ One of Palamede’s knights- sounding happy, actually. Something to start with and work up.

‘The beast has an extensive following, some of the residents of the sea of flame- through whose domain we cannot pass; others who live in less hostile environs, through which we can make our way. Goblins and kobolds, dark elves and all their attendant panoply of minor monsters, others- manticores, minotaurs, medusae most likely- they, also, live in fear of the firelord’s anger. We will meet few of them on the way. If fortune takes us for her own, to the extent that we need a way back…no.’

‘Our priests can-‘
‘Your priests have just tried to bless you and failed. It’s down to inner strength now.’
Palamede thought about it. Geoffroye thought about it. It was the last and greatest honour of their lives they were competing for. Neither was willing to relinquish command.
‘w’oile we iz flibblin’ abaht, dat fing-‘ Hara stage-whispered to Aburon. 'While we're frittering time away, the monster-'

‘Could be moving this way. Faster we move, more chance we have to forestall it.’ He looked at the knights. ‘Follow me or get left behind.’ Sweet streams and squeaky squirrels, part of his mind shrieked at the rest, what am I doing? What has to be done, he told himself. He started moving, heading past the argument for the main shelter gate. Hara followed him.

‘Wot iz yew doin’? Oi meen, lewk serious, orl roite, but ‘ow far iz yew goin’ ter go afore lettin’em cartch up?’ Hara asked.'What are you doing? I mean, look deterined, yes, but how far are you going to go before letting them catch up?'
‘You weren’t joking when you said the monster had more going on in the brain department.’
‘Ow, Vorkredh, Garthraka an’ Uglush prertect uz…I didn’reely meen it.’
'Oh, gods of War, Wilderness and Idiots protect us...you realise I didn't really mean that?'
‘If we get down there a couple of seconds before they do, at least with an eyeblink to spare…’
‘Nut tew farr ahedd, den.’'Not too far ahead, then.'

They were almost out of the chamber when the plate- limbed, mail- bodied knight put a hand on Palamede’s shoulder and pointed them out to him. Palamede was about to thank the knight when it occurred to him that he didn’t know who it was, and a horrible thought occurred to him- but then Kraven and Sir Bob hurried off after Aburon and Hara. In practise they were just trying to catch up to ask what in the name of sanity, freedom or- much more important- profit they were doing, but it looked as if they were being heroic. He moved after them, and Geoffroye followed, so as not to be left behind.

Aburon set a brisk pace; although in his travelling gear, likewise Hara with all her medical accoutrements, less the, actually nonexistent, knee- hammer, they were lighter on their feet and could keep up a faster pace than the armoured men following them. They left the encampment, reached the main shelter gate; it was swung open for them, for a second Aburon closed his eyes as their line of sight opened on the cavern, not wanting to see what if anything was there; nothing.

The knights clanged and rattled up behind them; men of all ages, some- like Geoffroye- far from young, but all fit, or at least had been once, and although they were tiring fast the last thing they wanted to do was admit it. Palamede was trying to talk to the mail- clad knight, but he was bringing up the rear, and Palamede was leading. Aburon waited until they had roughly collected together, and then set off again, passing out of the main shelter gate into the hot, dry, emptier air of the cavern.

He led them down the fissure in it’s side, walking resolutely- when all his natural instincts were to run screaming for the surface then collapse like a jelly. A druid, a proper druid, would probe deep into the earth- from the surface- and then bribe, moral- blackmail or coerce a likely group of heroes into facing the monster, also while himself remaining on the surface. On the other hand, when Baron deVerett had addressed him as ‘druid’, hadn’t he rejected the title, contradicted the baron? ‘Trooper.’

There was a set of loud shouts and clangs, and then they had to leap to the side as one of the knights, in full plate, came tumbling down the rocky slope. Aburon raised a ridge of rock to stop the tumbling, thrashing armoured man, who slammed into it and lay frighteningly still. Hara, avoiding his gorget, unbuckled his gauntlet and felt for a pulse in the wrist instead; none. She gently tried moving his head; as she had feared, a broken neck.

‘Who did he worship?’ Aburon asked no-one in particular.
‘Huran, of course, but-‘ Palamede answered; Aburon motioned Hara out of the way, and extended his ridge of rock around and over the fallen knight, moulding a post with a holy symbol of war-god Huran- a stylised axehead- at the head of the burial mound. He turned to set off again; Hara grabbed him.
‘I iz a frontier- toype, I iz gewd wit’ rokkz. Yew iz an erff-preyst toype, gewd wit’ rokkz. Dey is calvry- toypes, tryin’ ter gew speloogie- cave doivin- in fewl clank; dey iz not gewd wit rokkz, an’ yew iz goin’ ter ‘ave ter slow dahn.’
'I'm a frontierswoman, good with rocks. You're an earth-priest, good with rocks. They're cavalrymen, trying to spelunk in full plate armour; they are not good with rocks, and you're going to have to slow down.'


He nodded, drainedly. ‘The idea of going slowly to get killed-‘ but he knew what she meant, and moved off at a more measured pace.
They passed through rough- smashed rock, lava- glowing fissures on either side, before they came to something that gave Aburon pause; in a human fortress, he would have described it as a sally- port.
It was a zone where the rock had been strengthened and reordered, into greater strength and rigidity. It was also an elemental shield, apart from through the passage where they had just come. The wall of the minion city. He looked back; to see that several of the knights had parts of their armour off from the heat, to let themselves breathe.

Except the mail- bodied knight, who was just taking his helm off now; and did so to reveal a stunning black- haired, hawk- faced woman. She unbound and tossed her hair, looking Palamede in the eye; unbending, black fire.
‘Lady Dervorgilla.’ He acknowledged her, outwardly coldly. Aburon was already within the city of fiends; he looked back, instantly jealous- widow in her husband’s armour, or what was left of it after he had been split in two; challenging, defying Palamede to send her back- but there was more to her defiance and his frosty reception than that. She was part of the reason he was doing this, and he did not want her here; silly sod, Aburon thought, she wants you enough to come with you, die with you.

Palamede had been afraid of something like that; he, his own deceased wife, Dervorgilla and her husband had all known each other in their young days, it had been an open question who would marry who; but effectively on the orders of current- baron Arquin deVerett’s father Convarrian deVerett, Palamede- a fireball, a ranter and a rioter, and just a shade dangerous to his superiors when he was young- had been firmly prevented from marrying Dervorgilla, because of what they might encourage each other to do; so she had been yoked to a calm- tempered, peaceable man and he had been given a sensible, quiet, down- to- earth bride. Now they were both on their own, and still young enough, and by the look of her definitely crazy enough.

Aburon was jealous, and a little bitter that Lisanna had not chosen to come with him; but thinking practically, he knew that he did not want her to die, or even to face the high chance of death that they would even if his half- baked plan had time to be used- and besides, Shimon, wheezing and very quiet, was here.
Bastard baron, it occurred to him, getting rid of his current wizard so he can promote Lisanna, so she can be at his side all day long. If Hara can come back from the dead to noise bards up, he thought, I certainly can to- the thought of spectral fingers squeezing a heart occurred to him, shortly after followed by wondering just how diverse the beast’s minions were.

‘This is the wrong place to stand and have an argument. From now on-‘ looking ahead- ‘we will be on carved rock; so now is the time for speed.’
Hara drew and readied her bow. Most of the knights had sword, axe or mace and shield, Palamede a two- handed sword, Dervorgilla, surprisingly and perhaps characteristically, matched him in that. It was not a woman’s weapon, which was probably why she carried one, twelve- inch grip and forty- two inch blade, needing high strength and dexterity to wield.

She reminded Aburon of a she- bear he had known, had actually had to heal after she had been wounded and one of her cubs killed in a hunt by the baron’s men; he had with difficulty stopped her from going to hunt them- but the leading knight, who like many men did have a little love for nature but showed it by sticking swords and spears into their favourite bit of it, had incautiously, courting a lady, sniffed the wrong flower, which, warped by magic, had squirted highly toxic pollen into his face. Aburon didn’t exactly qualify as sweetness and light himself.

Dervorgilla was a big girl, about Hara’s height but not her bulk, and seemed to be coping with the heat, the weight of her kit and the broken ground better than the rest; she walked- stalked- to the front of the group beside Palamede; before either of them could spoil it, Hara prodded Aburon, who moved off into the minion city.
The cavern ahead of them, wide and sloping down and inwards, had two improvised- looking lateral branches, and a large passage in the opposite face opening out into a Y- junction; down one of the side passages was visible a rough den or lair, the main passage faded out into darkness. Aburon and Shimon were shedding light from their staffs, it was bright enough, barely- thanks to Shimon’s power mainly-to shoot by, and Hara’s half- nocturnal vision was good enough to spot an incautious moving shadow.

She shouted, it turned radically enough that the humans noticed movement, and Aburon seized part of the cavern wall and smashed it into a shower of sharp- edged rock shards leaping at the shadow; the spray caught it, and it screeched as it impacted, as much from anger at being seen and attacked as actually from injury, and launched a curving scimitar- slash of deeper blackness at Aburon; expecting deception, he shot a bolt of red- tinged hostile life energy at it.
He was right; it was a summoning cloaked as a strike, it dropped to ground and materialised as a giant spider, but the life charge caught it just as it had begun to live, and warped it out of balance; it materialised twisted out of shape, rear longer than fore legs, all it’s eyes different shapes; it tried to move forward to attack, shambled, and collapsed, tiny system unable to actuate it’s muscles. The eight- legged equivalent of a heart attack.

Hara loosed an arrow at the lurking night- elf she saw clearly; aiming low, below hip level, to take in the leg, capture and interrogate. It vaulted over the arrow’s path; but Dervorgilla saw the arrow fly and sped off after it, Palamede, cursing, followed.
The drow ran down the wrong passage, leading away from the beast; Hara and Geoffroye held back the rest of the knights, Aburon loosed his hawk to follow; Palamede and Dervorgilla could see nothing once past the first twist, clanked much more, and he at least was a lot easier to track by smell, than the dark elf sentry.

To even the odds a little, Aburon could not cast light, except from his staff, but he could detect life, a spell relayed through his hawk; which would then glow. Courage overpowering sense, the two were just realising that they had left themselves open when they acquired a faint red- orange aura each; and so did the being with the repeating crossbow ten yards ahead of them, lying in wait.
The first bolt was aimed between Dervorgilla’s eyes; Palamede tried to push her aside, out of the line of fire, but she had already dived and twisted forwards, the bolt passing through her hair; ratchet-lever, reload, aim again- contemptuous of the humans, the sentry did not use his own strongest suit, speed and guile, until it was too late.

His second shot glanced off Dervorgilla’s plated arm; she brought her heavy blade up in a scything arc from low left as it was turning to flee, cracking up through the ribcage into the breastbone and shoulderblade. Palamede’s sword crashed down through the already dying night elf’s right shoulder to meet hers in the middle of it’s body. She smiled a cruel smile at him;
‘I can think of better things to share than corpses.’ With one hand she tried to pull her blade free- the other grabbed him by the cross straps of his pauldrons and pulled him towards her-
‘Oi, yew payr, stop ‘oidin in da dark dere- yew iz goin’ da wrong way.’ Hara’s shout interrupted them.
'Oi, you pair, stop hiding in the dark there- you're going the wrong way.'

‘The straightest path to the firelord is down the other fork of the junction.’ Aburon added.
They came out, glowing still; Aburon led off down the passage at a jog, especially pushing it now that they had slain the sentry. Shimon was trailing behind, blue- white light flickering as he wheezed along. He was an academic, a theorist; too slow on the draw.
They all followed Aburon’s pale bright green light, and he followed the feeling in his head, the redness. At times they passed torches on the wall; galleries of dwelling- holes, branches into large used caverns; switching into different tunnels.

If the count of those who lived here bore any relationship to the size of it, they were in dire peril. Which they were anyway, of course. Aburon led them through the passage- maze of the city, ramps and slopes and stairs, broad, hotter, dryer; as he had sensed, the lesser evils around them in their thousands were all cowering, unwilling to get into the line of fire. Those that were mad enough- gobbos, kobolds- were also too disorganised to move quickly.

There was another attempt to stop them; just as the broad main passage they were following- natural rock, but excavated to shape- took a steep turn down and to the right, they saw the glow long before they saw the creatures. Four salamanders; smaller than the one they had faced earlier, but still enough- the first thing that Palamede did was to wrap an arm around Dervorgilla’s waist to stop her charging at them devil- may- care.
Sir Bob had worked his way up to the front of the party, thinking that it would be good for him to kill something; he bounded forwards, charging up his sword with the same power he had used to smash back the spearmen when he and the rest of the party had just met; it was actually a local variant of the same power Serean empty- hand men used to break bricks with a single finger.

The salamanders were, in some measure, the firelord’s police; they kept the less infernal creatures in line, relying on the fear they knew most had of them. They were not expecting a crazed bearded madman to leap into their midst. The leading salamander opened its mouth to breathe fire on him; it’s speed was a compromise between the fire and the rock- actually not as fast as a skilled man.
Sir Bob spiked his blade straight down through it’s head, martial power sheathing it and preventing it from being ruined by the fire-flesh of the salamander’s skull and brain. It crumpled and began to cool. The second reared up on it’s hind legs, and grabbed Sir Bob by the shoulders, his armour started to melt and run, it leaned forwards to bite him.

Aburon had a plan; a disc of ice had worked last time, so- he allowed the magic to aim for him, and it flew straight and true, seeking it’s elemental opposite, smashing it in the throat; it fell to the ground, choking on and clawing at the cool, inert rock plug that had suddenly appeared in it’s magma windpipe; it half succeeded, but only ripped it’s own neck apart as it did.
Shimon had been incanting; with his eyes closed- as likely to strike one of their own as one of the enemy. Hara stepped back behindhim and aimed him, pointing him physically at the third salamander. One of Geoffroye’s knights, unwilling to be left out of the hero game, had darted forwards at it- the beast cleared it’s throat at him, a globe of lava- phlegm; the knight raised his shield to stop it, but it smashed through the shield, through his arm, and burnt into and blew out his chest.

He collapsed, dead, molten rock in his veins, parts of his armour melted, padding on fire and smoking. Shimon was starting to repeat himself; Hara prodded him; his eyes opened, and dazed by the power he had summoned, he followed the pointing green finger. He threw something that looked like a half- visible knot of iridescent light, tumbling and sparkling; it curved down in an arc to take the salamander in it’s back, splashing it and twisting it into a lumpy, irregular abstract sculpture, with fore and hind legs in the wrong places and a drawn- out, tapered half- head issuing a gurgling, hissing scream. It was not instantly slain; morphed beyond survival, it was in tortuous pain, and writhed and screamed as it cooled to death.

Hara patted Shimon on the shoulder, readied her sword and axe and moved forward to help put it out of his misery; the fourth blasted a wash of flame at them, Palamede and Dervorgilla ducked out of the wash, one of the knights caught it full in the chest and dropped, writhing and screaming, trying to unbuckle his searing- hot breast plate; one of the men at arms, just behind, raised his arms to shield his face and had them melted and fused together.
Aburon and Hara also dived for cover, the jet singing them, no more. Palamede leaped forwards from a sprinter’s crouch, trying to be in front of and therefore shielding Dervorgilla when she attacked it; she actually went to the side, for one of the fast- cooling lumps of the twisted and misshapen one, spiked it through with her sword; it cooled and congealed as she swung it and brought it down, solid rock, on the beast Palamede suddenly realised he had no way to hurt without disarming himself by having his sword melted.

Aburon solved that problem by sheathing his sword in elemental ice for him. Salamanders were simple creatures, elemental opposition was as immutable as anything in magic, but they were not smart enough to employ and expand upon their natures, instead being so trapped by them that the same trick would work each time, every time. They could hardly help being faithful to the firelord.
Dervorgilla’s first swing bounced off it’s back, and she turned the follow- through from that into the backswing for a second strike, low and flat, that thumped into the side of it’s head, beaning it with a chunk of it’s dying brother. It reared and half- turned, and Palamede swung his blade, ice crackling off it, up into it’s unprotected belly, smashing his killing charge of ice through to touch it’s spine. He pulled his sword out quickly, Dervorgilla smashed hers off another lump of the twisted one breaking it free, and this time he embraced her.

‘Oh, lass, if we get out of this alive-‘
‘We will be together, and our blades will meet in baron deVerett’s heart.’ Exactly why Convarrian had not allowed them to marry.
‘Oi, woy didn’ yew carst dat oice fing on my sword?’ Hara asked Aburon. 'Why didn't you give that ice enchantment to my sword?'
‘I want him in a mood for glory hunting. He will buy time for us to be smart.’
‘Yew gettin’ jellyous?’'You're getting jealous?'
‘Well, dammit, yes.’ Aburon admitted. ‘Lucky sod.’

Hara was looking round behind them. Faint light had caught her eye. ‘Wot wewd yew do iff’n she woz ere?’
'What yould you do if she was here?'
Aburon knew enough to follow her line of sight; and the knights were keeping an eye on Aburon. There was something there; Dervorgilla turned, jogging back to face it, and as it came round the first half of the double- twist they were in, she started to swing for it; a blast of orange- yellow light in her eyes dazzled her, she felt something duck under her guard, and there was a glittering green crystal broadsword resting against her nose- briefly, as Aburon ran to Lisanna and picked her up, and whirled her round.

‘Oh, Lisanna, I didn’t want you to come and get killed but now you’re here I think we might actually have a chance.’ He was grinning ear to ear; not particularly caring about how she had managed to make it down to join them, nervous- happy that she had.
‘W’ere d’ Oi pewt moi ‘ammer?’ 'Where did I put my kneehammer?'
Looking with a less pink- edged eye than Aburon, perhaps she had intended to come down here all along, but the occasion she had found to do it was not good news.
‘We’d better.’ She was too driven to smile, for the moment. ‘The baron sent four scouts up to the surface; only one came back, with demonfire- scars, talking of nightmares and hellhounds- we’re all just milling around, panicking, going nowhere.’

‘Ow, zog, we fergot ter point dat bit aht.’'Ah, damn, we forgot to point that bit out.'
‘Our colonel, your new countess,’ Aburon realised he should have gone into more detail much, much earlier, ‘rides a nightmare, and is escorted by a pack of hellhounds. Managing to pick a fight with their own overlord and best source of help- you need smarter scouts.’
There was an almost seismic growl from around the bend in front of them; it knew they were coming.

‘Speaking of smarter scouts; Hara, Lisanna, time for that eyeblink.’
‘What?’ Palamede asked Hara.
‘Goin’ ter ‘ave a lewk ar’ it, see iff’n ‘e kan work aht wot it’z problem iz.’
'Going to have a look at it, see if he can work out what it's problem is.'
Aburon brought up the compound of forces he had used to find it, life, animal, earth, vision; from virtually outside it’s front door…ah.
‘Slight change of plan; Geoffroye, follow me, Palamede…take the other one on the right.’

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Partial update this time, for two reasons.
One, I re-read the middle section of this and decided it wasn't epic enough. That is undergoing revision. Second, I write in Word and copy across usually, and the forum doesn't recognise text styles.


Chapter 11a;

‘You’ve never once mentioned,’ Palamede asked him, ‘Exactly what you think the creature- creatures?- are.’
‘Because I didn’t want to scare you ahead of time.’ Aburon grinned a death’s-head grin; he had passed out somewhere into a zone of unabridged necessity, far beyond fear. Lisanna took a tighter grip of his arm.
‘All right then, wizard, what is it we face?’ Dervorgilla asked him sharply.
‘I’ve told you often enough in plain language. A firelord.’ General blankness; he paused, glancing over his shoulder through the rock- there was something not right about the other one he had glimpsed. ‘If I were to put that into classical Chyrvoni, it comes out as Baal-Rukh.’

‘You mean…we’re about to- storm-‘ one of Geoffroye’s men asked, trembling- ‘a pair of Balrons?’
‘You might be.’ Aburon felt that someone else was walking and talking through him. He couldn’t believe he was being this cool, or this crazy; if he had suddenly sprouted a pair of Balron wings he could not have been more surprised at himself. If Palamede was mad enough to charge salamanders, then as a wizard he could do this. ‘I plan to stroll in and look it in the eye.’

He proceeded to do exactly that. The knights- so much for fearlessness- were cowering and backing away, and Palamede and Dervorgilla were trying to encourage them forwards; Lisanna was looking at him as if a touch of it’s fire had come the other way and got into him; Hara was starting to think of which bits of his brain had gone wonky and where to hit him to jolt them back into alignment, then realised that by being here she must be just as mad; he, moving about as fast as a man going to be executed, strolled round the last bend into the lair.
It was a large high domed room, surprisingly littered with, of all things, sculpture. Symbols and likenesses, statues and friezes- and two very real lords of the ocean of molten rock.

They too were a creation of the first age; whether they were a natural product of the hellish land that was the sea of fire, some twisted form of the dragons’ own flesh and blood sent to hunt those who retreated beneath the earth from them, some mirror image created by ancient human sorcery to protect them against the sky- lords, no longer mattered; they were too powerful not to throw off any obligations laid on them, and by now they were themselves.

They were born, as diamonds were; in the heat of the deeps and the killing pressure of the mountain- roots their essences were hammered and baked into being, but each essence needed to be brought out, brought up, by an adult of the species; and discounting the gigantic height, the smoke-and-fire wings, the strength and speed and relentlessness of a rockslide in every dark flame- lit muscle, the volcano- heart eyes of alien, unhuman wisdom, he understood with all his instinct for life that he was looking at a parent and child.

The larger one was grooming and tending the smaller; it was fainter, somehow it squatted limply, the fires burned less brightly- a severely hurt child, a child that had half the side of it’s head caved in by a carelessly wielded mace, a child that may or may not ever recover it’s wits. He looked at the parent, and the sequence of events became absolutely clear to him.

A playful child, not yet knowing it’s own strength or others’ weakness, sensing confusion and motion and interesting things happening, going to see this new and interesting thing it could perhaps play with- and it had been met as the foul spawn of hellacious evil that from man’s point of view it was. The equivalent of a four or five year old human child. If, say, ants did that to a human, what would the parents do? Make a holocaust among the ants.

From within the shelter it could be fought off, at a high- very high- price; but not once it had breached the walls, not this time. The process of building a rite to do that had probably been slowed down more by looking after the child than any scouting party. It, the parent, looked down at him; he looked back at it. He was almost sure that it had something of the same gift of seeing inside people’s heads that dragons- and Johanna- had; so he thought without saying,

think of all the thousands of families you're about to do this to. There must be some better way.
No, it told him. Too many thousands of thousands of you will come and go while my child draws out this half-life; you will forget. Only if I plant such a stain on your race's memory, such a horror that will never be forgotten, will this never happen again.

Men's minds do not work that way, Aburon told the baalrukh. First they will seek vengeance for what you have inflicted in the name of your own retribution. Death will be the only winner.
What I have the plan and the power to raise of the might of the deep earth will make human will and want a moot point. And when I have done, perhaps Death will find that He is in my debt.

Will any of that bring back your child's spirit? Aburon had visions of volcanoes- not too far from what the Balron intended. What did it need to do it? A lever, a place to stand to move the world- the shelter’s nodes. Oh, hellfire, he thought- also not too far from what the Balron intended.
It will not. It’s resignation to that scared him. The cold, empty acceptance of that, that fuelled the need of retribution, removed the point of empathy, the only chance he had of making it understand the pain it was about to inflict.

Your own followers are hiding in fear from you.
They believe me crazed with rage and grief, ready to lash out at anyone and anything.
They're not right, are they? You know exactly what you're doing, what you want to destroy- it just happens to be almost everyone. The overwhelming majority of whom were not involved and do not deserve this. Is there no limit to vengeance?
To vengeance, perhaps. it admitted. Not to what must be done, for prevention's sake.


(fixed a couple of typos)

[LadyTevar]

Wow.

So... what do we do now?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Glad you appreciate it. Looking it over, there are a couple of typos, I'll try to fix them.

The group's original plan had been to attack the baalrukh, with no realistic expectation of making it die, but definitely to hurt and provoke it- then flee. Downwards.

Get it to chase them, as they fled through it's own realm and away from the refugees, and hope whoever was last out, probably Lisanna, had the sense to take the node core with them- or destroy it- and seal the fortress.

Then try to give the thing the runaround, down in the deep caverns, get past it and break back for the surface- although they didn't really expect to make it that far.

Now that the refugee's scouts botched their first contact with the Countess, and the mass of them are too terrified to move in any direction, even safety- and Lisanna is down there outside the cavern with them- that plan could be said to have well and truly collapsed. From this point on, they are definitely winging it.

Having the wit and flexibility to talk to the monster, on the other hand, really was a massive point of departure from the norm. The knights and their followers are too keyed up to do anything other than fight or flee, but the core group kept their heads well enough to be subtle, and that leap of empathy deserves some kind of positive return, surely?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

All right, the rest of chapter 11. This pretty much continues straight on from the baalrukh's last comment.



Aburon tried to think of an answer to that; he looked at the blank- eyed, dimly glowing young baalrukh, and wondered- what would it take, to undo the damage? Repair and rebuild and revitalise?
Did he, and Hara, and Lisanna, between the three of them, did they have the structured subtlety to do that? Could he afford to promise that it was possible, when the sinking feeling in his gut was telling him that it wasn’t?
How would it react- considering that it would have done it itself if it could, and knew how far beyond most men’s talent it would be?

Behind him, there was a clanking of metal and a rumbling of feet; and then incoherent yells of battle-rage.
Lisanna vaulted, and Hara grabbed Aburon and dragged him out of the way of the knights. Palamede hiself, with Dervorgilla at his shoulder, nearly cannoned into them.
‘I thought it had eaten you, what the hells?’ Palamede shouted at him.

Aburon looked round at the baalrukh. It was looking past him, at the thirty or so armed men that had invaded it’s son’s sick room; if we take a foot of it each, the druid thought randomly-
‘Look, you have to kill it. I understand why it’s doing what it’s doing, but it plans a truly epic revenge that we must not let happen. The life of Auvaine, very possibly the life of Kuquan, is in your hands. You must destroy it.’

‘Um, what if we…don’t do it?’ Kraven asked him.
‘Earth and fire and blood and death- this will become a magma- ridden, ash- drenched, broken and shattered lifeless land.’
‘Stop quibbling, you’re here now, you’re going to be a hero, there’s no bloody choice.’ Palamede had seen the beast- had got entirely too close to the small one. He believed it.

Geoffroye had opted for the scream-and-leap method; running in with a greenish-yellow shimmer about his blade, fast for an old man, he had picked the small one for his target. He was ahead of the pack, and when it drew it’s weapons the adult Baalrukh was focusing in on him.
It had the traditional combination from myth and legend, and Aburon was gratified to see that the stories were true; someone must have made it back alive from facing one after all.

It had drawn a sword matched for it’s height and strength; the blade was eighteen feet long if it was an inch, and must have weighed four hundredweight if it was an ounce. It was a long, tapering single-edged blade, and it glowed a furnace-like orange-red. None of the magi were sure if that was thaumaturgy or just honest heat.
It’s other hand uncoiled a whip of braided wire, dull red at the hilt, eye-searingly white hot at the tip. The whip hummed through the air as it lashed out towards the chamberlain.

The coil lashed around him; Geoffroye smashed the tip away with his shield, it bounced over his head, then the loops and coils just kept coming. He reached his blade out and tried to swat it away, but it wound it’s way around him and then the Baalrukh hauled it tight.
The old man in his armour had time for half a scream before he was roasted, crushed and whipsawn apart, all at once.
The rest of the knights and soldiers hesitated, knowing they could not go back, thinking little of their chances if they went forwards.

The two priests and Shimon were there; the priests were quicker of wit, and they raised a whirlwind of the mind, a screaming, shimmering vortex of fear and confusion- and threw it at the Baalrukh.
It was part of the magic of the god of war, to inflict the stress and panic and fear and grief of war, and it looked as if it was working.
No, Aburon thought, there’s too much of it, it’s too smart to fall for that, it’s faking it- opened his mouth, and wondered what on earth he was playing at. Why stop them?

Hara pulled Aburon and Lisanna back as the men-at-arms saw their chance and went forwards; Aburon shook himself loose and tried to plan. In it’s claws what would he do? Surrounded by small creatures, some more dangerous than others, but of the mass about half were clearly harder to kill. The knights, for what good their armour would do against it’s weapons, more importantly their spiritual disciplines against it’s magic.
The logical thing for it to do would be to start at the bottom and the top; kill off the leaders and force multipliers, then kill as many as possible of the easily destroyed rank and file to buy room and time. Easy kills first.

Countermoves? Lisanna was spreading an air enchantment, a wave of trapped pressure around the blade, on Dervorgilla’s sword- how much good would would a glamour do, stretched thinly enough to cover them all? He shouted at the priests, and Shimon, to do the same.
The men were moving forward, slowly, and then one of the knights found his spirit, screamed and charged.
Crap, Aburon thought, as the Baalrukh started to react. It’s first move seemed defensive; the floor of the chamber ahead of the men at arms erupted, spraying clouds of grey-black dust and ash into the air- but he recognised a shimmer of air magic in there.

A phenomenon he had heard of but never seen; within the choking cloud, or what was supposed to look like a choking cloud, the particles of ash would rub together, turbulence driving them to build a static charge- which would then arc.
The men would make their preparations and try to push through the cloud, preparing to defend themselves against heat and suffocation, and be caught out by a completely different form of attack and killed.

Lisanna tried to dispel the cloud by using air of her own, pushing it away and thinning it out; the monster was too powerful for that to make much of a difference, but an indirect defence- Aburon decided to play with the floor himself, raised parts of it and drew them out into thin bars- lightning rods, to catch the arcs and steer them to earth.
The baalrukh growled at him, but it had many targets- in a way, he did feel sorry for it, considered that it had it’s reasons- but he had at least as much reason to fight against it.

The men at arms were moving sideways, around the cloud; the knight who had charged forward paused and crouched defensively as the baalrukh’s whip snaked out; but that was not the real attack- the blade swept down on him, stopped short a dozen feet above his head, but the wash of heat seemed to continue on the line of the stroke and drove into the man, roasting and melting him and splashing him back on his brother knights in a cloud of molten fragments.

The two priests were now doing their best to bless the fighting men, but they were struggling against the almost equally alien magic of this place- both of them were trying the same thing, to feed them with superhuman, insane courage.
The baalrukh noticed, and the whip curved round into the air above them, and started to shed droplets of liquid fire; two men went forwards into the cloud, the restbacked away from the fire- and then the lightnings flared.
One man reeled out of the far side of the cloud, and collapsed. It was a shame the war god’s magic stopped short of granting superhuman skill and judgment.

‘Even once we get to it, what do we do, hack at it’s ankles until the rest of it falls over and comes within reach?’ Palamede said.
‘You know what? Good plan. Cover me.’ Aburon said, and turned to the yeoman archers who had been mad enough to come with them, and Hara. Ice, he thought, and conjured deep- blue glacial ice, sheathing their arrowheads. They understood at once.
That made it no easier to aim, and two missed, one falling short and one over, two hit the beast in the body, ice flashing to steam instantly as they struck, and leaving cool, frostburnt patches- Hara had aimed for the softest part. The wings. It howled in rage as that arrow struck, and reduced part of it’s right wing to extinguished ash.

Hara looked at the Baakrukh, grabbed Aburon and dived to the right, two of the archers had the presence of mind to do the same, and Lisanna sidestepped and drew her sword through the air, trailing a wash that hardened into a wall of shimmering green light.
The firelord had no need to do something as clumsy and imitative as breathe fire; instead, it thought fire into the rock under their feet. Not to entomb in magma- although it could, it had no time to spare; instead to superheat and shatter.

A hissing scream, and then a horde of razor- sharp fragments burst from beneath their feet and shredded the two archers who had not moved into fountains of tissue and bone.
One of those who had moved was wounded, Hara caught a couple of fragments, and at that she was probably in less pain, being an orc, than Aburon who she had landed on. She rolled off him, he looked at Lisanna in utter panic in case she had been hurt, but the wash of green light was fragmented and rippling, it had taken most of the fragments.

She collected that again on her sword, and rather than reabsorb it, slung it at the baalrukh; it coiled it’s whip back and trailed a curtain of fire in the air to absorb the ancient magic.
It had been fending the knights off with it’s huge furnace-fresh sword, flickering with unbelievable speed to face each of them in turn, leaving a wash of heat- haze as it danced through the air.

One man tried to duck past the blade, but it flashed back towards him and severed him as if he was parchment, splash of heat and flame from him pushing the others back- except Dervorgilla, who darted in and slashed upwards, a golf swing of a blow, at the half- crouching Baalrukh’s wrist. She wasn’t sure what to expect, for it to bleed, or splinter, or just bounce off; the pressure wave around her blade hit and did the damage, a shower of basaltic splinters and a flare of volatile lave and heat from beneath the crust?
Did it mirror, did it embody? A creature or a force of magic, or to some degree both?

First and foremost, what it was was annoyed. The huge blade flickered upwards and it batted her away with the pommel, heavy and slow, pushing her rather than splashing her, and she tumbled to the floor, dazed and battered.
There was only one of it, it couldn’t be everywhere at once. Only one attention span. He hoped.
The whip was lying on the ground, Lisanna had the idea, pointed at it, Aburon got it at once; the cavern floor around it twisted and fractured, reaching out in claws and prongs and tangles to trap the whip and hold it, Lisanna tried to blast cooling air over it to sap it’s power.

Shimon, still half dazed, tried to help his mad apprentice and her strange friend by attacking the monster directly; he finished his incantation and blasted out a spell of spinning twisting colour- which the firelord prepared to match and overpower- that dropped it’s shaping appearance, and muted half- way into it’s true colours of a bolt of kinetic power, which shot into the firelord’s chest, it bellowed and ripped his whip out of the ground, and decided that two could play at that game.
Fast, sharp stalagmites rushed out of the ground, crossing through in the bodies of two knights and a man- at-arms that went for the blank- eyed squatting child; they hung pierced on stone spears.

The shards and splintered rock came together, and started to approach form; four stone hounds, dark, splinter-faceted and savage. It should have thought of that, have done that long ago.
One of them turned to attack the remaining pair of archers, leaping on to one and smashing him to the ground, driving his head into the rock with a clawed foot, snapping out at the other and taking him in the thigh; the other three came for the magi.

One leapt for Lisanna, and underestimated her; straightforward speed and power, but she sidestepped at the last moment and it leapt past her through thin air, slashing outwards with both blades at it as it passed, crystal sword catching it under the throat, lightning-sparkling rapier crackling along it’s flank. It collapsed, and crumbled.
The hound that threw itself at Aburon got slightly further; he tried to forge an axehead from ice on his staff and swing for the earth-beast, but it was too fast- he managed to block with his staff, and it started to bite. It would break the staff and release the power-

Two objectives in one; the baalrukh was plaing with fire, now, drawing waves and tendrils of heat in the air, preventing the knights from moving through them, or at least forcing them to struggle through; and singling men out and crashing the blade and it’s lethal wash of heat down on them. Aburon tapped what little force he could from his staff, and fed it into himself; the strength of a wild animal- it was enough to push the staff away from him, hurl it back with the help of a pulse of motion from Lisanna, and the ice was still the pattern, he had kept them separate enough for that- it detonated. The staff’s trapped energy came apart, in a flower of cold and ice, and the hound splintered apart in a shower of supercool fragments.

That made a hole, made options. Palamede vaulted forwards, took advantage of the distraction to get to sword’s reach of the firelord and swing for it, aiming as high up as he could; three of the knights managed to join him, but their shorter lighter blades could not reach it’s body nor bite so deep as to do much harm. His blessed greatsword scored along it’s upper thigh, biting enough to draw ichor and a growl of hurt.

Hello, eternity, he thought, as he drew back for another swing and realised it’s attention was focused on him; four hundredweight of blazing metal that he was hopelessly out of position to dodge or block; Dervorgilla dived low for him, rugby- tackling him and knocking him down out of the path of the massive sword, heavier than most of the knights, that it was throwing around as lightly and dextrously as a rapier; it crackled by over their heads, the beast changed direction slightly and cut through one of the knights at waist level and swung upwards without pause to cut another through the shoulders; they fell, smashed, burning, dead before the bits hit the ground.

The third hound, the one that had gone for Shimon; he was holding at bay with motion magic; not in the least serene, pushing against it, physically forcing it back- he was not a warrior, not fast enough and nasty enough to think of narrowing that motion cast down until it was a shattering, rock-breaking impulse, and the baalrukh was not about to force the issue.
He wanted them, the priests, to go to Shimon’s aid; why use half a dozen explosions when one could be made to serve?

Lisanna sent a multiple- forked spreading lightning bolt at it, main line dancing back and forth between the branches, now here, now there, keeping the balron guessing where the actual attack would be- it coiled it’s whip up to sweep them out of the air, but it missed enough that a tendril reached it and it bellowed in pain.
Palamede moved to get behind it and scythe upwards at it’s leg, all of it’s thirty foot height they could reach; it raised it’s foot to kick and crush him, and Dervorgilla, more or less recovered now, slashed at the soft underbelly of it’s foot, gashing it open; it reeled, stepped back.

The priests were still gathering their power, Aburon launched a bolt of ice and Lisanna a pulse of shaping magic, which it met by drawing a corona of flame in the air with it’s blade- which would otherwise have descended on Dervorgilla- that both their spells vanished into. The blade continued down to sling what was left of the fire-sheet at one of the knights, splashing over him and the man- at- arms flanking him.
Sir Bob managed to control his limbs well enough to do what Shimon should have, and blast the stone dog with kinetic magic; it broke the beast’s back, and Aburon was about to finish it off when he heard the movement in the air, and threw himself to the ground.

The whip scythed out after him, and he was too slow in reacting, stunned and baffled by all that went on- Shimon dropped his staff, as the whip wrapped round him and reduced him to a human torch.

One of the priests had decided to die a hero, and had called on Huran to channel enough power through him, to do harm to the creature, that it would surely blow him apart as well; he launched a spinning axe- shape of divine rage, and slumped, his mind gone and his soul taken to it’s reward; the baalrukh raised a black disc of utter void for the spell to disappear into- some of it managed to spill around the edge, enough to do harm.
The monster snarled, and launched a retribution- a splash of the shaping magic that it used to carve the sculptures littered around the room. The two priests, the living and the dead one, were hurled together in a slaughterhouse splash of organs.

Dervorgilla leapt for the dazed, injured child, drawing it’s attention; the whip coiled after her, she leapt over it, the balron flicked it so a coil of it rose and fell on her, she got her sword to it in time and the white- hot line glanced off the pressure- wave around her blade; those men at arms that had avoided the first whip- stroke were hesitating, one of the knights tried to push them forwards, the great blade descended on him and cooked the two halves of him as he fell.
A splash of flame from the strike scarred one of the men at arms, the balron sent a wave of the power of movement, kinetic force, at four of them; it stunned and knocked back three, caved in the chest and stomach of the one it was centred on.

The whip flickered out, coiling over the three dazed soldiery, and the firelord allowed it’s magic to run along the line of it; as it writhed and twisted it scattered droplets of fire over them, and they screamed as they turned into human torches.
The balron made as to kick Palamede again; this time Dervorgilla moved for the other foot, and Palamede raised his blade to impale it’s mighty hoof as it came down- which it was expecting, and remained poised in mid- air while the whip flicked round and wrapped itself round him.

The firelord swung him bodily, smashing him off the side of the cavern; he collapsed, limp, twisted, with molten lines scored in his armour.
Dervorgilla howled, and tried to run up its body to take it in the gut; it dropped the whip and grabbed her as she began to lean her weight on her blade, before she could get it more than eight inches into it’s stomach, pulled her off and threw her to land, crunchingly, by Palamede.

Crap, Aburon thought. There were some men still alive, wounded and maybe dying, but- ‘I don’t think we can take it.’
‘Yer’ ownly jurst wurkin’ dat owt?’'You're only just working that out?'
Grabbing Shimon’s staff, he thought about what to do, what would work- he fired a reddish-brown stream of energy, earth and animal and healing, at the younger baalrukh.

It was not enough to undo what had been done, nowhere near, but it was enough to jolt the creature out of it’s dazed state- back into a state of pain and broken thoughts.
It howled, a terrible, volatile shriek of something escaping from the earth; the elder baalrukh looked at it and looked at them, for the first time visibly wondering what to do.

‘Iz dis da roight toime ter’ run fer our loives?’ Hara asked, rhetorical question that it was. 'Is this the right time to run for our lives?'
Aburon was already moving; the rest followed, away from the fire and death.
Hara, Aburon, Lisanna, Kraven and Sir Bob were running for their lives, and the lives of around five million other people. They moved fast. They would not have made it alive through the svartalf quarter of the underground city; so Aburon led them through the cheaply, rudely carved goblin and kobold districts. Some were stirring.

Hara disliked goblins intensely. They were considered affiliated to the orcish race, orc- kin, but it was as if you had removed all the good bits of an orc, their brutal honesty and rough common sense, their loyalty to each other and their ability to improvise, their independence and unwillingness to bow to any empty abstract nonsense, their physical strength and durability, and all you had left was the bag of pus, bile and petty malevolence that got called a goblin.

Four of them tried to block their path at one stage; three chittering, hopping, jibbering nonsense bunnies with crude short spears and one maniac whirling a ball and chain the size of his own head. Aburon smashed a conjured stone fist into the ball- and-chain gobbo, which lost it’s grip on the oversized mace, it flew into the side of one of the others; Hara drew sword and axe and slashed down with vicious speed at one with the sword, crunching it’s worthless little head, across and up with the axe into the side of the other, and stood on both of them, heavily, as she passed.

Kobolds were almost as bad; but most of them had the sense to get out of the way. They made the final approach to the elemental shield and the outer edge of the city at a dead run; hoping to move too fast to get caught and shot by swartalf ambush. A couple of bolts did zip by, but none were magical, at least not of the homing kind.

Now they were on broken rock; and scrambling. Passing the burial mound of the broken- necked knight, it seemed something close to a century ago. Or a sentence- a death sentence. Up the last part, all but winded, to the main entrance cavern.
‘Can you go and break the news to them?’ Aburon asked Hara. ‘I’ll talk to the colonel.’

As Aburon and, following him Lisanna, went up the ramp, Hara knocked on the main entrance gate- then decided it might be as well for an actual human to do the talking. She motioned Kraven and Sir Bob over to the arc of vision of the scrying stone. Aburon and Lisanna ascended without difficulty; the ramp seemed to set no traps for them on the way up. They left the entrance to early morning light, misty, sun just clear of the horizon; and two patches of mostly- eaten charred human remains within a hundred yards of the entrance. There were another couple of scorchmarks; one escaped, one completely devoured.

Lisanna had been flanking Aburon; she now moved half behind him, letting him lead.
‘Please tell me we haven’t just escaped certain death, in order to face certain death.’
‘Colonel Calvern isn’t really that bad.’ Aburon sounded less than certain; he tried to remember what her eyes looked like- better or worse than the Balron’s? Wasn’t her regiment called the Striking Phoenix? Just a difference between earth-and-fire and air-and-fire, then?
‘I mean, the way you stood up to the Baal-Rukh, it…we- you were magnificent.’

‘That was a whirlwind. When I understand what happened, when it sinks in I shall want to lie down in a dark room and quiver for a few days. So few survived, so few will, and you place our faith in that.’ Meaning the eaten scouts.
The thought; I was there too, can I share your darkened room? occurred to him to say, but she was in a strange mood; now was not the time. ‘I spoke with it. Anything would be better than what it has in mind.’

He felt the touch of cold metal, and Lisanna the touch of crystal, against their necks. ‘Then again, perhaps she has a point.’ The unplaceable, half- foreign, citizen-of-everywhere-and-nowhere accent, the twisted sense of humour; Lisanna was stock- still, Aburon turned round very slowly.

‘Good morning, Countess.’ Johanna was dressed, this time, in something that befitted her rank; full plate armour in Authrani style, complex and interlocking, those parts of it that were not mirror bright shimmered with the colours of the rainbow, or flickered in flame; there was gold leafwork on her gorget and a fiery phoenix- emblem spread across the breastplate that looked not a mere small image, but unerringly like the real, full size thing, seen in the distance- from which it could perhaps be summoned?

The fact that she had got to sword’s touch, in one of the most visible and audible armours on the continent, without a glint or a whisper of warning told them something about how she had earned her reputation. She wore no helm, and her long, bloody mane spread out in the faint breeze that was thinning the mist, her eyes glittered. Her reading the story from his thoughts was like being run through with the finest adamantine rapier as opposed to the crude clawed punch of the balron.

She was an impressive but far from reassuring figure. More than half a head taller than either of them, with her blued steel- seeming blade in her right hand and an elaborate red crystal bastard- sword in the other, and her eyes were worse than it’s. They had lasted some time, and done some damage, to the balron; Against Johanna- he quailed at the thought.
Lisanna had stepped away, not too far to back Aburon up, far enough to be out of first cut’s reach. Facing the firelord she had possessed the calm of inevitability- against Johanna she was starting to shake.

‘I see.’ Johanna nodded- she knew it all from his mind. Lisanna would have turned and ran if she had dared, but she suspected that there were lurking hellhounds in the mist- and what she had faced earlier was starting to sink in. Her fingers were straying towards the hilt of her sword; the monster at least had the mass, the bulk, the unnaturality to seem appropriate.
Johanna seemed less offended by Lisanna’s fear than she was by most other people’s; turned to Aburon-
‘Introduce us.’ A slight formal element probably intended to ease Lisanna’s nervousness.

‘Um, Lisanna, this is Colonel Johanna Calvern, commanding officer 20th Cataphract, and Countess of Auvaine. Colonel, this is Serra Lisanna,’ he realised he didn’t know her family name, ‘Baron deVerett’s- court sorceress, now.’
Lisanna estimated her chances of flight, decided to brazen it out, took a rigid, mechanical step forward, face frozen like a mask apart from one darted glance at Aburon- he was as scared of what Lisanna might do to annoy the Colonel as what she might do to Lisanna.

Johanna sheathed her crystal sword in an invisible scabbard, took Lisanna’s hand. Aburon held her other hand. Lisanna’s grip tightened on his, and she could not meet Johanna’s gaze; her eyes slid away, to freckles, to gold leaf patterns, to iridescent plate edges, to diamond- glitter showers of colour, to the phoenix, to meet it’s gaze; Johanna could see into her regardless. It was easier for Lisanna to face a monster in the name of her people than to look a human in the eye who was more than half a monster.

From her tenseness, evident horror, lowered head, an outside observer might have believed that he was sacrificing Lisanna to a priestess of the phoenix. From Johanna’s evaluating smile, of an art dealer finding a work of minor but measurable value, he was suddenly afraid that he might be. Johanna released Lisanna’s hand, left her standing there near enough in shock, took Aburon aside.

‘I like her; try not to get her killed. And well done- a good job of scouting. I wish more of the people I met had the guts to look me in the eye like that.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I’ve been talking to the locals. What’s left in the shelter represents entirely too high a proportion of the governing class to be allowed to be fried. Without them, I’m running a yeomans’ republic, not even taking into account Ura-Harugach’s grander plans.’ She thought about it for a moment.

‘We left our wounded behind, and we only got away because we made a child cry.’ Aburon said, bitterly.
‘And you waited until now before talking about it, because you didn’t want the rest of the group to realise that and start feeling as dirty about it as you do.’ Johanna pointed out. ‘If you know that much, then you know what answer you’re going to get.’
He nodded; he knew.

‘Recon, especially recon-C the way the regiment’s organised, often is a filthy job. You did it exactly the way it should be done; found the problem, analysed it, made contacts, tried to deal with it, reported back to main force. And trust me; sometimes, at three in the morning round a guttering fire looking for your dead mates’ faces in the flame, the only comfort is the knowledge that you, personally, did as well as you could.’

She gave him a moment to think about that, then continued ‘There’s more I need you for. Go back down. For the next two days, your mission, and the others’, is to stop the inhabitants of the shelter doing anything excessively stupid such as attempting that rite of appeasement. I will see if a louder voice makes a baal-rukh any readier to listen to argument.’ She dismissed him; Aburon collected the shuddering, now- feverish, post battle shocked Lisanna, and steered her towards the shelter entrance.

(typo edit)(typo and subtitles)

[LadyTevar]

Ahhh... I was wondering when they'd get to the Countess.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Consider her responsiblities; first and foremost comes the regiment. She has to take charge of interpreting the lessons of the war, building on what they got right and banging heads together for what they got wrong.
The Twentieth Cataphract "Striking Phoenix" are a very peculiar bunch; considering all the attachments, they're effectively an eleven batallion regiment.

Then there's the old saw, "Better to struggle with a stallion, when the problem is how to hold him back, than struggle with an ox when the problem is to drive him on". The Twentieth have a lot of internal tensions and rivalries, the personnel roster was pretty much designed for that, to explode-hopefully, outwards.
In peace they are a real management challenge, and she doesn't want to leave them alone for too long, never mind explaining and justifying their actions to army group command.

Then there's the political fallout from the campaign, the probable sequelae and endless discussions over that, the wizards' guilds to square over the Striking Phoenix' extensive use of field magic, even the bloody regimental accounts.

A baalrukh under her garden is not her first priority, merely her biggest problem. She was given the county as a punishment, anyway, clean up the mess she had made.
She's not actually kidding about the yeomen's republic. There are only three barons subordinate to her, and they're all down there. There are a handful of baronets and bannerets, but not enough to stretch. Her actual opinion of the barons is not particularly high, then or later, but she needs them, for the time being.

Actually, she's a coin toss away from saying "the hell with it" and appointing the baalrukh as her seneschal. Probably would, if it wasn't for that little hangup about volcanoes.

Anyway,

Chapter 12

The very scared young squire who opened the shelter door to them had the look of a sacrificial victim; he was even surprised to see- looking up because his eyes were at the level of her chin- Hara, and gave a most un- knightly display of fear, ‘yipe’-ing and jumping back like a scared pup; the entry chamber beyond as lit by a few candle- flickers and crackles of sorcery only, enough for Hara to notice a handful of knights, a rabble of militia she could probably deal with by shouting ‘boo’ at, baron deMarail, and a cloud of incense with priests in.

Sir Bob had actually been badly hurt by the salamander, was barely holding himself up. Kraven was starting to think that, sixteen copper pieces a day be damned, this hero business involved way too much effort, pain and general stress for far too little fun- which he defined as being able to break stuff and kill things. If outer form really had followed inner, he would have been the cultureless thug and Hara the urban sophisticate.

Baron deMarail probably thought no more highly of them than he always had, but had the sense- and remembered looking into an orcish mouth full of sharp, stained teeth ready to bite his face off- not to show it; they were not exactly about to receive a heroes’ welcome, nor was deMarail about to go overboard on bewailing the dead, not when he had got rid of one of his worst rivals and troublemakers in the process.

Aburon had been very rude about his intellect, and so had Hara; but both of them knew that it was not the man, but the order he was sworn to, that possessed the intellect of a brain- damaged fighting cockerel; within the limits of his society and his code, he was bright enough to be very dangerous. Especially to himself and his subordinates.

As far as the non- welcome went, Hara was about to get irate about it until she reminded herself that they had not, after all, won. They had little faith in those they had sent, if this was how they prepared to welcome whatever came back. There was a vaguely optimistic- looking bard in the background, hovering just in case there was any good news to sing about; the look on their faces convinced him that this was not about to happen well before they opened their mouths.
‘What befell?’ the baron asked Sir Bob, the most likely candidate for feudal respectability- how little he knew.

‘Lots of knights fell.’
‘And they sort of stopped being.’ Kraven added.
‘Didn’ zoggin’ work. Da baalrukh killt’ orlmowst erverybudy, an’ we legged it up ‘ere ter give yew da bad noos, an’ see iff’n we can borrer any mower knoights.’ Hara added that last bit on her own initiative, looking scornfully at those who had not been there.
'Didn't work. The baalrukh killed almost everyone, and we escaped and came back to give you the bad news, and see if we can borrow any more knights.'

There were probably about five or six thousand people in the mile or more square fortress, about the same strength as the Twentieth who would have had the place uprooted and flying by now, of which number there were less than thirty wizards and priests, and perhaps a thousand fighting men, of which a hundred and fifty were men of rank, knights and squires.

Somewhere around three to four hundred of the fighting men had been killed, or in a hunger- enfeebled state died of wounds, fifty or sixty of which had been knights. The ten knights and three spellcasters did not represent an especially grievous loss of numbers, but they did in quality, being those who had the courage remaining to go and look for a horrible monster to fight.

Most of those here- all deMarail’s men had only the courage of indifference left.
If they had been able to summon the courage of desperation, if they had come down to help fight the monster- at the mention of whose name most of them quailed- they would at best have made as little impression as those who had, who had not been armed well enough to harm the baalrukh’s rock- hard flesh and rock- breaking bones- and at worst not even have tried.

One of the priests was whispering in the baron’s ear. That probably meant something terrible was about to happen.
Sir Bob felt thus, and was tactless enough to say so. ‘You don’t want to go around listening to priests.’

‘Since the foul deVerett has lost his grip on the arcane and blasphemous magicks of this place, we have been able to hear the words of the gods again.’ In other words, once it had been able to restore itself to physical health, the baalrukh would be able to smash through with little difficulty at all.
‘This blasphemer knows nothing- is still deafened by the echoes of the one and only time the gods spoke to him, and that was to tell him he was an idiot. We know what must be done.’

Sir Bob moved to unlimber his sword; Hara stopped him. He was in no state to start a fight, especially not when an arrow or a bolt of crushing force in a side corridor later would do as well.
The loud- mouthed priest was not a follower of Valdemiron; from the grass stains on his knees it was possible to tell he was of the earth, but what? Ayral? Gargath? Something more usually associated with sacrificial blood and entrails than grass, anyway.

‘Izn’t yew eeyven a bit worried by da zoggin’ Baalrukh?’
'Aren't you even a little worried by the damned Baalrukh?'For all her intellectual contempt for the human upper class, Hara did recognise that to get ahead and stay ahead, they had to be at least credibly sneaky. Not as much as in Orcdom, but still, while she was prepared to believe deMarail had been crazy like a fox most of the time, now she was thinking he had gone as crazy as a caged loon. 'We troied yewer divoine magick, it didn’ wurk.’
'We tried your divine magic, it didn't work.'
‘Has a wizard in a black robe passed this way?’ Sir Bob asked.
‘No wizards; a priest of Valdemiron, from the Fordston temple complex, in baron Kardren’s retinue.’

Sir Bob put two and two together and decided not to tell them the answer- that it was almost certainly Hilarion in disguise. His cause was an odd and marginal one, and made for strange allies, none stranger than the horror- breeding experimenter with the deceased who ran baron Omphraye Kardren’s magical affairs for him.

No-one who preferred the living to the dead really liked Hilarion, and neither did most of his undead friends, but he was definitely competent, and he had disguised himself as a priest to pour poison into deMarail’s ear for a reason. Sir Bob wondered if there was still time to get in on it, whatever it was. Hara was suspicious but didn’t know the local background well enough to guess what was up.

‘Sew- w’eyre iz everyboddy den?’'So where is everybody, then?'
‘Baron deVerett’s men have gone back to the centre of the shelter.’
‘Roight. I’z got paytients ter see dere.’
'Right, I have patients to see there.'
She did not like the atmosphere here at all; men, by which she meant males as well as humans, often did very strange things when doom appeared, including shoving each other into it.

It was quite likely that they were prepared to deal with their theoretical enemies, the local rights and black magic for all crowd, to attack deVerett’s neutrals.
‘So what do you do now?’ Sir Bob asked deMarail. His shoulders weren’t killing him, except metaphorically, but if the salamander had been just a bit luckier, scored and scarred a bit deeper, he would have been helpless to resist it’s biting his head off after all.

deMarail thought about his answer for so long that they knew it was going to be a deception. ‘We must coordinate and consider whether to go in a mass to fight the baalrukh-‘ from the look on the faces of his knights that was a complete non- starter of a plan- ‘or simply flee in such a profusion that it cannot catch and kill us all.’
‘Nah.’ Hara pointed out. ‘Da ramp yew’z ‘ave ter go up. Prertected by da magic of dis playce, innit? Worlk aht, an’ az yew gow up da spoyral…shplut. Gotter’ dew sumfin’ furst.’
'No. The exit ramp's protected by the magic of this place, is it not? Walk out, and as you go up the spiral...splut. You ahve to secure your way out first.'

The baron’s instinctive response was that if an orc thought so, it must be wrong; but as he pretended to consider it, he realised that she might actually have a point. ‘We will consider this.’ The priests did not look too unhappy about her intervention; she was fairly sure they had a ‘sumfin’’ in mind, and it might well involve trying to cut a deal with either Hilarion, the baalrukh, or both.
‘Dew yew moind iff’n we’z ‘ang abaht ‘ere fer a whoile?’ She wanted to see how ready the baron was to get rid of them, whether he thought they might be co-optable, maybe find out more. ‘Dere moight be mower loive ‘uns cummin’.’
'Do you mind if we wait here for a while? There might be more survivors coming.'

‘I suggest that you go back to your lodgings with baron deVerett. We have much to discuss among ourselves.’ There was some shuffling of swords that served as a hint. Sir Bob was about to see how far claiming hospitality would get him when Hara elbowed him. ‘Wurry abaht da ‘ospitaloizaytion layter.’
‘Roight, den.’ She told deMarail. ‘We’z ll be barck.’
'Worry about the hospitality later. Right, then. We'll be back.'
They all felt the priests watching them with itchy zapping fingers as they walked, posing like aggrieved, undervalued heroes, away- and once they were out of sight ran for it. Hara helped Bob hold himself up.

‘Why didn’t we do anything?’ Kraven asked them.
‘Because something ugly was about to happen, and if we’d asked any harder it would have happened to us.’ Sir Bob pointed out. ‘Ouch. I wonder if it’s too late to do that kidnapping job?’
‘Ow, hell-foire an’ buggeraytion- da nyootral, deVerett, e’z goin’ ter be finkin roight nah ‘dat e’z run aht ov wizzards, sew ‘e’ll be stuck wit’ da oidea dat wotevver da preeysts wornt iz da ownly way aht, w’ich it orlmost certyinley ain’t…’
'Oh, hellfire and buggeration. The waverer, deVerett, he's going to be thinking now that he's run out of wizards, he has no source of mystic support and advice other than his priests, and so he'll be stuck with the idea that whatever they want is the only way out, which it almost certainly isn't...'

Humans, for some inexplicable, mysterious reason, believed that orcs were evil; so they got more than their fair share of evil humans come among them looking for house room, for allies or followers to do ugly and filthy things.
Some tribes, the ones whose strength and reputation went up and down like a bumblebee, looked at this as an opportunity to catch the humans divided against themselves and bitch them up a bit.
The Strongarm clan had a string of would- be evil warlords’ skulls strung up over the chief’s front door. Not that they had anything against the idea, in principle; they just preferred to do it in their own way, at their own time, on their own say- so. The rest of the bodies were where Hara had learned most of her human anatomy from, actually.

‘Hilarion’s planning something.’
‘ ‘E wown’t moind ewzin’ da preeysts, speshully nor’ iff’n it getz ‘em killt orf an’ all. Nah, oi reckon dat ‘e, da baron dat iz, kewd be mayde ter see sense, iff’n we carn tell ‘im wot ‘Ilarion’z reely up ter, and give ‘im an orlternyative.’
'He won't mind using the priests, especially not if he can get them killed doing it. No, I reckon that he, the baron that is, could be made to see sense if we could tell him what Hilarion's really up to, and give him a credible alternative.'

‘We know he’s up to some kind of rite of appeasement.’ Kraven stumbled over the last word.
‘Yer, ‘an ‘ow many orppertyoonities fer da Baalrukh ter brayke in an’ kill everybody iz dat goin’ter invorlve?’ Who would actually know? ‘We’z koind ov run aht ov wizzards an’ all. Sir Bob- bugger, yew’z not fit fer dis. Back ter deVerett’z w’ere oi can ‘ave a lewk art yew, an’ ‘ope Aburon an’ Liz turn up.’
'Yes, and how many opportunities for the Baalrukh to break in and slaughter everyone is that going to involve? We're kind of out of wizards as well. Sir Bob- you're the closest we have, but you're not fit for this. Back to deVerett's where I make a proper examination, and hope Aburon and Lisanna turn up.'


Aburon was leading Lisanna by the hand down the ramp. Her hand was icy cold; her face was a mask, her eyes virtually blank. Aburon was badly worried by her state. For present, for future, for politics and trouble, he, or at any rate his side, would need her; he had no intention of ever letting her go- but thought, sickeningly, that she already had inside, one shock after another pushing her back on herself, till she thought that there was no-one she could trust; not even him.

For that matter, could she? She was terrified of Johanna, clearly. He was not exactly her natural ally, either; an enemy of the court she served, often enough- and although, perhaps, as he was…as he had fallen for her, as they should be able to make some kind of happy harmony between stone and wood, at the moment she was fragile. At the edge of the entrance- cavern she sat down; almost collapsed.

He sat beside her, holding her hand; she was looking blankly at the fissure in the cavern side, the one the young baalrukh had ascended by, her free hand made a series of elegantly dextrous gestures- her skill was not impaired by her lost, dazed detachment at least.
Two small figures of flame formed; a chillingly accurate baalrukh, standing and snarling, and a ferocious- eyed broad- winged phoenix. With her own fire magic she puppeteered the two of them through their paces, the phoenix diving on the baalrukh, the baalrukh trying to claw the phoenix out of the air; and an outward spreading ring of fire around them, with little images of trees and houses and men burning and dying in it...then she turned to look at him.

He remembered how he had felt when the necromancer had claimed she was his student; what a damned hideous thing to find out that they had in common. Assuming she had. Dear woods, he thought, I might actually be evil after all.
‘Lisanna, I’m scared of her too.’ He didn’t, couldn’t want to lie to her; but he could certainly start with the most convenient truth.

‘I don’t see anything else that’s going to work except fighting fire with fire. We tried- and we hit it’s weaknesses with our strengths; it didn’t have time to summon it’s minions, it didn’t have the time and room to use the full scope of it’s powers, and we did hurt it- but we didn’t drop it.
If we’d stayed to try to do more, well you felt it’s power when it swallowed up both our spells with the same fire- stroke; if we had fought to the finish, it would have been our finish, not it’s.’

Actually, he did have a little guilty doubt whether or not if, if they had all made such sacrificial gestures as the priest who had challenged that last fatal surge of power through himself, they might have been enough to slay it or at least weaken it to the point where the knights, who had tried so hard and achieved so little, could have finished it off.
Before- well, before he had found out that there were two of them, one of them maimed, and the situation had become complex enough that it seemed that there might be a less brutal, less infanticidal solution.

Up until that point it had seemed worth it, but, especially after Liz had put her life at hazard beside him, there was a way back. She was probably feeling that she had let the dead down by surviving- a not uncommon feeling, and something the reanimated dead were particularly vehement about; it was always those who had lived where they had died that they were most eager to attack. She could easily do herself in with her persistence and sense of duty; was still sitting and staring at the fiery puppets.

‘Liz, there’s nothing wrong with what we were forced to do. We aimed for victory, we tried as skilfully as we knew how, it didn’t come off, and this is not the end of it; this is when we prepare for round 2. We will round up what support we can, including-‘ he gestured at the dancing figures, noticed that the baalrukh- figure was slowly growing in size;
‘Er, Lisanna-‘ she had been listening with half an ear to him, mainly lost in her own thoughts, going over it and over it again in her mind’s eye, wondering what else she could- should- have done. She looked round slowly, then darted round, dropping her connection to the tine figures; the phoenix faded away almost to nothing, but the baalrukh- figure remained, slowly swelling and growing.

The fight had been exhausting; the amount of magical energy a wizard possessed grew with power, but so did the efficiency with which it was used; insofar as there was any measure at all, the Baalrukh probably had no more mana than the pair of them put together, but they would have to spend eight times as much as it did to achieve an effect of the same scope.
They had burnt a lot, even to hurt it, never mind get through it’s counterspells, and really needed more time than they were likely to get to recover it; drained as they were, and distracted as she was, for possibly the first time he could beat her to the draw.

He summoned a shower of shards of ice, that fell on and impaled and quenched the malevolent fire- doll; it hissed and sizzled and, nearly, died- but not quite.
Liz fired an inverted- rainbow bolt of antimagic at it, intending to finish it, but it picked up one of the fast- melting shards and threw it into the path of the nullbow; they cancelled each other- and restored some of it’s heat through weakening Aburon’s ice. It jumped back, to have room to gather power and grow; Lisanna drew her crystal sword and moved in on it,

Aburon, not wanting to catch her in a direct effect, closed his eyes, reached past her for the floor of the chamber and used his earth power to undermine the rock it stood on, and raise that around it up to trap it, a burial mound again but for live prey; it as a dangerous procedure, quenching it’s heat with earth, but it seemed to work, the stone moving into it too fast, too much, to be turned to magma, entombing it until only it’s horrid horned and fanged head showed- it snarled as Liz lunged for it and impaled it on her crystal sword; it faded away with a diminishing bellow of anger dropping to a faint whisper. Aburon, for style’s sake, finished off the rock mound with a holly leaf on top.

‘If only the real thing was as easy.’ He was about to verge on hysteria- now he knew where wizards got their maniacal laughter from; from doing things so dangerous you had to be a maniac, so likely to kill you you had to either cry or laugh- when Lisanna grabbed his arm.
‘Where has the phoenix gone?’ it was nowhere in sight; but there was a bright, yellow-white glow coming out of the fissure.
‘Right, a measured retreat I think…’ He steered them, backing away, towards the shelter entrance, and kicked it, backheeling frantically while he kept a watching eye- or a watching hawk, rather better- on the light. With commendable bravery under the circumstances, the door was opened; and there was an armed welcoming committee, consisting of a handful of knights and entirely too many priests.

Lisanna was instantly on her guard; a servant- a wizardly retainer, the court sorceress no less, although that hadn’t really sunk in, that with Shimon’s being powdered in flames she was in charge- in an enemy court, led by a man who was quite capable of ‘doing the right thing’, in other words killing his enemies whenever he had them in reach and politeness, courtliness and hospitality be damned.
Aburon, and his hawk, were watchful also; he did not like the earth- priests of the conventional pantheon and their bullying style, beating the land into submission; and they seemed to hold far too much of deMarail’s attention.

Aburon knew that deMarail could convincingly fake regret for his lost knights, so he wasted no time on commiserations. What would a loyalist, believing it was his positive chivalrous duty to smite evil, do when it didn’t work?
Fall back on the bloody treachery that lay behind the code and start dealing and compromising, very probably with said evil; that was how it usually happened, after all. He thought Liz was starting to look like a fox towards the end of the hunt; harried enough to do something utterly mad like turn on the hounds.

‘Is there anyone else?’ one of the priests asked them.
‘All slain. We hurt the monster; but had insufficient sorcerous power to destroy it.’ He was looking, glaring, at the priest, with the stare of someone who had looked into the abyss; the priest did have the elementary sense to look away.
‘Interesting,’ the baron opined, ‘that of those who went forth, only the countess’ followers- and yourself, milady’, meaning Lisanna, ‘survived.’

‘Around her you rapidly sharpen your survival instincts. In any case we are, after all, scouts. We went to see, and to destroy if we could- and come back to prepare to try again if not. When we have to face it again, which side will you be on? If at all.’ Perhaps not wisely, Aburon returned insult for insult, contempt with contempt.
Distantly, Lisanna registered the fact that for a man who lived a life outside of most of human society, Aburon was very voluble and articulate. He had not told her about his nymph, and had enough of a sense of self- preservation that he probably never would.

The priests were her professional enemies, the baron the rival of her lord; although to say so was to propose an end to civility and an open, and probably not survivable, disagreement, and her courtly reflexes took over, and she bowed- reminding herself of her cracked ribs, Hara’s potions were wearing off- to the baron; there was a time and a place for seemingly pointless etiquette, especially when it helped avoid all too literal points- sword-points.
‘I regret to be the bearer of ill news, lord baron, but your men and my lord’s lie smashed and slain. Sir Palamede gored and your priests besorcelled it, but to no avail.’

deMarail was not slow; he had some idea of his fellow baron’s romantic inclinations, and even such a prize as a court wizard would not be worth the enmity her death would arouse. ‘We will record them among the honoured dead.’
‘It will be necessary to face it again; I hope that we will not forget that we came so very close to actually destroying it-‘ her voice would have cracked if she had let it, she didn’t- ‘and between us we could have triumphed over any lesser evil.’
‘I am not sure that what we see awaiting us on the surface counts as a lesser evil.’ One more of the numerous priests said.

‘Oh, that’s just the Countess. She’s not really evil; she is powerful enough to seem that way. If there is any one individual who can tip the scales against the baalrukh, it’s her.’ Aburon could hear Lisanna think ‘so what do we do with her afterwards?’
‘Perhaps,’ she actually said, before Aburon could get any further into trouble, ‘we should leave you to your grief and return to our own encampment.’
‘My sympathies for your losses.’ The baron dismissed them; Lisanna bowed herself out.

There were many more strays, lost people, wanderers between the camps, than before; the cannibals must be enjoying themselves. Lisanna and Aburon were many times half- approached, almost asked for help or guidance; but they were always turned away from at the last moment, grim, deep in thought, deep in trouble.
She barely noticed the much warmer welcome they got at deVerett’s lines, where they knew her and were glad that she had survived and could work her miracles for them again; they looked to her with a hope that he thought she had virtually abandoned; she acknowledged it with outward appearances, the same too- considered, fragile grace she had displayed to Lucien deMarail- with nothing, he feared, but horrified, heart- sick emptiness within.

When they reached the central node chamber- Veniel was up and around, although dazed, Sir Bob was showing signs of surgery, Kraven was sulking, Hara was looking angrily at deVerett as if it would take just one more bit of nonsense for her to swing for him and consequences be damned- the baron leapt up from his stone bench seat and ran to her, and would probably have embraced her, but her poised, distant demeanour checked him. He stopped a pace short- just before Aburon could join Hara in swinging for him-
‘We are overjoyed to see that you live.’ He started in the most expansive tone, and faded away into puzzled matter- of- fact.
‘Until we are clear of the shadow of the flame, my lord, we are all balanced between death and life.’ Precise and cool and definite. ‘I must divine and meditate, before I can see clear what has to be done.’

He was looking frantically at her, trying to find some spark, something but brittle ice in her face; failed. Disappointedly, he nodded. Aburon and the baron watched her walk to the court wizard’s chambers; slam the door shut. Aburon looked around and finally noticed what was making Hara so annoyed; priests. Several of them looking like cream and canary fed cats.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked Veniel.
‘Oi wornt a wurd wit’ yew abaht wot yew did ter ‘im.’ Hara, to all appearances, snarled at him; and tipped him the wink.
'I want a word with you about what you did to him.'

‘Well, the middle of someone else’s court isn’t exactly the best place. The wards?’
‘Juwst da ploice.’ 'Just the place.' She patted her sword hilt; stalked off. Aburon followed her, into the moribund ward; the place where they had left the dying to finish their lives. Perfect. His powers of life made this place a horror, a chamber of nightmares, but what was one more?
‘We have orders from the countess,’ he began, ‘to prevent- exactly what I think you’re going to tell me is about to happen.’

‘A preeystly ritchewal ov ‘oops, sorry, didn’ meen it?’ Wud dat be wot da cowntess duzn’ wornt ter ‘appen?’
'A priestly ritual of "oops, sorry, didn't mean it"? Would that be what the countess doesn't want to happen?'
‘Fewer, bigger words, but yes, that’s exactly what she thinks the shortest way to getting killed would be.’

‘W’en we ran aht of wizzards,’ a pretty bizarre way of putting it, ‘da preeysts sowrt ov wernt a bit berserk. Startit’ taykin’ owver. Runnin’ arahnd loike a revolyuttyon. Rahndit’ op a lotter da knoights, kornsecrayted a big bit ov da playce, an’ dey’z finkin of gettin’ uz orl krispy- froied any toime nah. Termorrer mid- day, any’ow.’
'When we ran out of wizards, the priests basically went berserk, started running around like a revolution. Runded up a lot of knights, consecrated a large part of the shelter, and they're thinking of having us all incinerated any time now. Tomorrow mid-day, anyway.'

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Wednesday. Update day, and human sacrifice for fun and profit.


Chapter 13A

‘Right, we’re all here, all vertical, and we’ve got an awful lot of work to do if we intend to stay that way.’ Aburon told the assembled venturers; it was true, Aburon, Hara, Veniel, Kraven, Sir Bob; although the one he really wanted to be there was missing.
‘You got out. Why were you crazy enough to come back?’ Kraven asked him.
‘Would you be able to stand leaving thousands of- well, not exactly innocent, but thousands of people to die?’ Aburon asked him.
‘Hell yes.’ Kraven believed that this ‘conscience’ thing was a reason for other people to hire him and pay him money. He had heard vague rumours about what it was like to have one. ‘How did you do it?’

‘Getting out was easy. So was getting back in, actually- the shelter seemed to recognise me.’ It had been himself and Lisanna, and if the shelter was prepared to extend any special priviledge to anyone, it would surely be those who had danced for it. ‘That’s not the problem, it’s getting past the countess’ hellhounds that might be tricky. We didn’t try that part.’
‘What’s going on?’ Veniel asked.
‘Are you fit?’ Aburon asked Veniel. ‘You missed out on your dose of doom, ready to make up for it?’
‘No.’ Answering both questions. ‘What happened?’

‘Yew know anyfink abaht borl- rongs?’ Hara asked him. 'Do you know anything about baal-rukh?'
‘A what?’ He was not too badly hurt to scream that.
‘Dere’z wun- werll, wun an’ a ‘alf- ov ‘em wot lives abaht a moile dat way-‘ pointing down- ‘an’dese iddyuts,’ meaning the inhabitants of the shelter, probably, ‘mayde da little wun a bit speshyul, sew da big wun wornts tew dew fings tew uz. Fings invorlvin’ vorlcaynoes.’
'There's one, well, one and a half of them who live about a mile down, and these idiots managed to give the little one brain damage, so the adult wants to do things to us. Things involving volcanoes.'

‘Why couldn’t you just have let me die?’
‘We didn’t want to deprive it of it’s fun.’ Aburon summoned up enough energy for gallows humour. ‘We do have to stop the human idiots-‘ he had never been nice to a priest of the established pantheon yet and wasn’t about to start now- ‘who are about to see how far being nice to it gets them, before their rite of appeasement opens a way for it to get in here, sieze the node and, well, foom.’

‘I’m ill!’ Veniel protested- Hara slapped him on the back.
‘I’m yer doc, I’ll tell yew wevver yew can get aht ov dis or nut.’ She pretended to think about it. ‘Nah.’
'I'm your doctor, I'll tell you whether you can get out of this or not. No.'
‘I’m shattered. You’ve got a lot more mana left than I have,’ Aburon told him, ‘so I can blather and pose and generally act my pointy hat off-’ he didn’t wear a pointy hat, and Veniel looked baffled for a moment until he worked out that it was a metaphor- ‘but we’re going to need you to do most of what zapping needs to be done.’

He was not sanguine about having Veniel, unstable, unbalanced, unwise Veniel back him up; but unless and until Lisanna made her choices he was all there was. He was also tired, drained, and scared- but it would have been worse to sit down and have time to think about it all than it was to move on to the next act of the nightmare.

‘Did da cowntess say anyfink erlse importyant?’'Did the countess say anything else important?'
‘Apart from ambushing us? She scared the life out of Lisanna. Agrees with you about not letting her get killed, but- she told me it was our job to stop the rite, and she was going to have a word with the baal-rukh.’
‘Sew we carn tell da baron dat ‘iz boss worntz da roite not ter ‘appen. Foine, long az Oi’ve gor an excuwse.’
'So we can tell the baron that his feudal superior wants the rite to not happen. Good. As long as I have an excuse.'

‘She crept up behind us in full plate. Lisanna- I think Liz looks at her as not being much better than it. And the colonel went out of her way to make it worse. What was that about?’ He resigned himself to the absence of immediate action. It was going to be worse, then.
‘Da boss murst trurst ‘er. Narstier da choice seemz, da farster she’ll mayke ‘er moind up. Sew iff’n she’z goin’ter see da loight erverntually, pewsh ‘er inter doin’ it nah. ‘Soides, yew’d wornt ter join a soide dat seeyms narstier enuff dat it’z goin’ ter win, yer?’
'The boss must trust her. The nastier the choice seems, the faster she'll make her mind up. So if she's going to see the light eventually, push her into doing it now.
Besides,you'd want to join a side that seems nasty enough that it's going to win, yes?'

Aburon decoded the orcish, worked out what it meant. It made a brutal sense. But there was something that it didn’t account for.
‘Then what in the name of the great spirit are we doing here?’
‘Arctewally, nah yew cum’ ter mention it, yew ‘az gor’ a point. Da cowntess or da borl-rong…’
'Actually, now that you come to mention it, you have a point. The countess or the baalrukh...'
‘And that’s probably the scariest notion of the lot.’ Aburon sounded much more light- hearted about it than he felt. ‘What can we do?’

‘What happened to the, the bright metal and diamond-‘ Veniel asked.
‘Now that’s an interesting thought. Hara, check my logic on this one.’
‘You’re letting an orc do your thinking for you?’ Sir Bob asked.
‘Of course.’ Aburon replied, grinning at Hara. ‘Only a dangerous maniac would be about to do what we’re going to have to do. Once we work out what it is. Who better than a member of a race notorious for being dangerous maniacs? At least she has the benefit of being closer to a state of normality, under the circumstances, than we are.’

Hara gave a remarkably human curtsey, not entirely mocking; ‘Arctewally, I’z not sewre iff’n dat woz a cormpliment or not.’
'Actually, I'm not sure if that was a complement or not.'
‘Neither am I.’ Aburon said. ‘Look, the node stopped the priests from being able to link to their gods; if there was anyone able to hear through that, we haven’t met them yet. Now they can talk to the gods, and we have all their powers- but the shelter’s got a lot more fragile.’
‘I could still talk to the gods.’ Sir Bob declared. ‘it didn’t stop me.’

‘Oi cewd fink ov reeyzonz fer dat, an’ dey ain’t nuffink ter do wiv’ yewer bein’ blessed.’- meaning he wasn’t exactly talking to the gods as much as to random voices in his head.
'I coud think of reasons for that, and they're nothing to do with your being blessed.'
‘Which is possibly just as well.’ Aburon said, forestalling the argument. ‘Easily three quarters of the arcane power here comes from the gods, rather than from within like yours and mine.’ He said the last bit specifically to Veniel. ‘Sacrificial tendencies notwithstanding- do we gain more through the power of all the priests than we lose through the shield- walls of the node?’

‘I was out of it for that bit, explain?’ Veniel asked him.
‘It can’t get in, if the master node is active- maybe.’ Sir Bob told Veniel. ‘If it does, and the priests suffer a sudden attack of sense, then if their powers aren’t blocked by the node, we could take it- maybe. Fat chance of them trying.’
‘That’s not going to work. I really shouldn’t be telling you this, I feel like someone on trial, anything I say can and will be used against me…when you’re fighting a wizard, or a priest, even more a priest really, it’s not place that matters, it’s time. We did a hell of- well, that’s not right, much better then, against ura-Harugach than we would have if he had come for us, because we had the initiative; we were on the offensive, and time was on our side. Not that it seemed that way.’ Aburon told them.

‘Yew’re sayin’ we gor’ orf loightly?’'You're saying that we got off lightly.'
‘It didn’t feel that way, but- yes, we did. If he had been on form, if he hadn’t been fretting over his child, he could have met us half way, rolled a wave of flame over us-‘ Aburon snapped his fingers. ‘charcoal. Lisanna, and I, and Shimon, and those two priests of the war god- I didn’t even know their names- we were stretching ourselves to the limit trying to hurt him. Give him time to rise as high above a defensive, reflexive performance as we had to, and we are lost.’

‘Orl roite, nah yew’re jurst derpressin’ me. Wot duz it meen- loike, wot der we arkchewally do?’
'All right, now you're just depressing me. What does it mean- what do we actually do?'
‘One of two things. Restart the node, which will keep the priests from their deities and ura-Harugach from us, or try to work with the priests, get them to use their powers against ura-Harugach when he does come. Which d’you reckon is less likely to get us killed?’
‘Ah. Nah dat iz a problem. Oi down’t loike da preeystz, down’t trurst em murch- ain’t it Liz we need fer da nowde?’
'Ah, now that is a problem. I have no love or trust for your priests, and isn't it Lisanna we need for the node?'

‘Good luck to her. If they hadn’t worked it out before, they will now- they’ll have to hold a special consistory to see who gets the priviledge of assassinating her.’ Sir Bob warned them. ‘Or just take turns.’ He was almost certainly right. The priests would have been going not- so- slowly mad, blocked off from hearing their gods by the ancient magics of the node, the defences it organised and marshalled; now that they were able to commune with the gods again, they would certainly be prepared to kill- they would probably say ‘smite the blasphemer’- whoever got in their way, threatened to block them off again. ‘She might be safer if we did hand her over to Hilarion.’

Aburon opened his mouth to object, then started thinking about it. The thresher- demon might actually be less dangerous than twenty frothingly angry priests- but he doubted it.
‘Int’rerstin’ prorblem, innit? Loike ‘avin a sword an’ sheelyd dat ‘ayte eeych uvva. Wiv’ da preeysts we kewd tayke it, wiv’ da nowde we kewd keep it orf, but dere ain’t no wey we carn dew bowrf’. Oi’d prerfer ‘er, but I ain’t sewre abaht da plan.’
'Interesting problem, isn't it? being able to defend or attack, but not both. With the priests, all of them, we might be able to take it, with the node we can stand it off, but no way we can use sword and shield at once. Personally I'd prefer her, but I'm not sure about a defensive plan.'

‘But they’re the servants of the gods, and the gods are wise and good-‘ Veniel objected.
‘Yes, the gods are wise and good, but they’re too generous; they allow all sorts of greedy, ill- favoured, thieving, deceiving scum to claim to be their servants. I think we can make this assassination thing work for us. We set up a sequence of traps and pick them off-‘
‘You’re not fit to trap a mouse.’ Kraven said, and he had a point. Much of the muscle on Sir Bob’s shoulders had been burnt away and Hara’s peculiar technique for dealing with it- cut a bit of muscle out of somewhere else that could afford to lose it and tack it on in place- had yet to take full effect. Sir Bob tried to raise his sword, and failed.

‘Roight, ow’z yewr armz wurkin’?’ Hara asked Sir Bob. 'Right, how are your arms working?'
He swung them back and forth. ‘Aaahh! Ow, ow, ow.’
‘Rersponsivenerss funktionin’, sernsaytion returnin’, very nifty wurk iff’n I dew say so moiself. Sew wot iff’n it ‘urtz, dey wurk, dewn’t dey?’ She knew perfectly well that he wasn’t fully fit, that it took much longer for a human body to pull itself back together than it did an orc, no matter what fancy alchemy you rubbed or squirted into it; but he could, to some degree, function.
'They respond, you can feel them, very nifty work if I do say so myself. so what if it hurts, they work, don't they?'

‘When’s tomorrow noon?’ Veniel asked. ‘When all this doom is supposed to happen?’
Twitching, seared nerves throwing him off, Sir Bob began a divination to find out; ‘It’s a bit after noon now-‘ had taken Aburon and Lisanna more time than they had thought to get back down into the shelter and through it, ‘twenty hours?’
‘Nut sew bad. D’yew wanna gew an’ arve a wurd wiv’ yewr korpz- raysin mayte? I knew e’z part ov dis zoggin’ stoopid plan, but I don’ fink e’d be darft enuff ter gew throo wiv’ it iff’n ‘e knoo ‘ow zoggin’ stoopid it arkchewly woz.’
'Not so bad. Would you like to go and ahve a word with your necromantic friend? I know he's behind this bloody stupid plan, but Idon't think he'd be pushing it if he realised how bloody stupid it actually was.'

‘What, wounded and alone?’
Hara thought about it. Three just looked more impressive than one. When trying to talk somebody into something, unless you really were a hero, it was always better to be a ‘they.’ Even in orcdom, there was tradition or experience or shamanic destiny to call on, as well as a bunch of your mates with sharp objects.
‘I don’t think there’s a third way out of this.’ Aburon said. ‘If anyone down here has his own ideas of what ought to happen, it’s him- and I don’t like it. I also don’t want to put her at risk.’

‘She ain’t shy orv riskz. She duz seeym ter be a bit shy in gerneral at da moment, d’ough. Jurst ‘ow bad did da boss scayre ‘er?’
'She's not shy of risks. She does seem to be a bit shy at the moment, though. Just how badly did the boss scare her?'
‘Badly enough that I’m worried about her. How are you supposed to fight yourself, and win? I hope she’s all right.’

Lisanna had, or at any rate had inherited, a set of bone- carved runes of divination; and she had been able to pass an hour or so in rest and meditation before her unsettledness had driven her to them. Shimon’s chambers were unfriendly to her, his paraphernalia scattered about- she could close her eyes and see the white- hot coils twisting themselves around him…she knew that way madness lay; but wondered if it might not be as well to dive right in and get it over with. It was her heart she had to empty rather than her mind; to leave aside all such phasms and phantasies, and consider, with cold reason, what had to be done and what, therefore, to start doing about it; and hope the answers pointed the same way her heart did.

She believed Aburon; had heard it’s replies to him, not his to it. Her own elementalism consisted of air and fire, his of earth and water- with it earth and fire, she had as much a sense of it through that as he did- but had been slow to think of it and slow to use it. She believed him but did not trust herself when it came to him. He was a rogue, a venturer, an outsider; legally, in fact, an outlaw. Shimon had had a few likes and dislikes of his own, but much of what he did, and meant by what he did, was simply and professionally to serve. Dazzled by his craft, she thought, he had preferred to offload the responsibility of how and why to use it to his lord; and he had diaries, lists and names, a paper record of what he had done and was to do; and tracking down and destroying druids was part of it.

She had inherited that responsibility. She had defied authority before; her parents had been devout, god- fearing farmers, not unprosperous, but so dead set against her learning the free, wilful- and so many of the priests said, heretical- arts that had fascinated her since she had been in petticoats, that there had been little difference in it for her between studying at the most spotlessly noble and upright branch of the guild for a hundred miles, and apprenticing herself to a foul- hearted monster; at least, so she had thought until she had got there. Her parents had painted them all black; so when she came to look for one to be apprenticed to, she had discounted, as her parents’ paranoia, rather too much- and found one who really was as black as he was painted. She had learned grace under pressure the hard way; under pressure.

She could do with a little of her parents’ faith now; she was not so far away in time from the silly young girl who had dreamt of knights in shining armour- before she had met them, and realised how tarnished it usually was inside. She had been forced by necessity to become a cool- headed, practical woman, and a talented actress, and the two sides of her compromised on wanting a man who knew something of the sorcerous arts, someone who lived in the same world as she did, who understood- and in the midst of all of this, there he was; almost…the few hours when they had worked together on the node, when they had held each other in their arms and danced under the diamond light, had been a breeze blowing from the gates of heaven.

It counted as something more than a simple technical hitch that she had come to rest in the service of her rightful lord and chieftain, who’s version of order, whose peace, had not only no place for him in it, had a very definite idea whose job it was to put him in his place- six feet under; and he was a nerveless, driven force of good and she was a cowardly apprentice of evil, and she was for the feudal order and he was a murderer, and…and the gods could be very cruel.

Picking up the runes, thinking of where to start; the first question that formed in her mind she did not dare to make to do with him- simply,
‘Can we trust the countess?’ she asked the bones, and infused them with the power that would make them a genuine mirror of destiny; and threw them. The answer was not encouraging.
Absolutely; to be herself. She will follow her own path, and as to what that may be- she has cheated destiny before this; ask someone or something with the power to pierce her defences through to the truth.

Lisanna gathered the bones; ‘The baal-rukh?’ Threw them to fall where they may; inevitability.
Ura-Harugach has made it’s decisions. No amount of honeyed words will soothe nor mere art deflect it.
Very well, then; she expected little else- the second hardest question second last; this was more than she wanted to know, but she must; scooping them up, infusing them asking, hushed, ‘And I? Will I be true to myself?’ She shut her eyes as she cast them, resisting the temptation to palm one or two of the most potentially unfavourable; and sensing with her art, through closed lids, where they fell.

No, they answered her. She felt a small slice of hope shrivel inside her. You may not reconcile your separate sides, separate duties. You serve too many masters, and must fail one; do so with style and grace, however, and you may be forgiven. Cold comfort there, she thought. My art, my lord, my people, my- she dared not say the last before the bones in case they gave her an answer too soon. With difficulty she brought herself back into the state of mirror- pond calm, ready to receive the ripples of fate, as Hilarion had taught her.

As the bones lay in her hand, they had not relaxed. They were shaking of themselves; for a moment she thought she had not been able to calm herself properly, but she knew her talents better than that. In the second moment she drew her crystal sword and slashed it in a circle, behind and over her head, and was not surprised to feel it bite. Something behind her snarled, half a hiss; she rolled forward, drew her rapier, turned to face it; decided she would rather face it with her eyes closed.

Someone had summoned it- created it, probably- with the phrase ‘eldritch horror’ very much in mind. She had got it before it fully materialised, but had hurt it, not stopped it; it was a tall, loose- outlined, gnarled grey pillar-on-tentacles, with many mouths that seemed to lead only to void, gnashing and dribbling, and no eyes; feelers, grasping tendrils, reaching; she looked at it calmly and intently, knowing that it’s appearance was intended to disconcert, to blast sanity and paralyse with fear, refusing to submit; it canted it’s upper body at a quizzical angle- more worried by her cool calm than she was by it’s foulness. Both were artificial.

It reached for her, she wove a mesh of green light in the air with her broadsword that spread forward and grappled with the tentacles, it wriggled trying to get through it to her- one that did she slashed with the rapier, pulsing a charge of flame down it, purifying fire; the tentacle shrivelled and it howled in pain, an ululating, soul- shivering howl- which could only work for her. It didn’t seem to have a brain in there.

It drew back, formed it’s tentacles round each other in one flabby grey rope, to burst through her shield of green light and rend her; and the door behind it flew open, an arrow splashed through it’s upper body, a burst of white light shrivelled it’s tentacles, and the floor buckled, sending sword- sharp stalagmites arching up through it, pinning it; that would be from Aburon. Veniel threw a wash of flame over it that lapped round- she had to duck out of the way, roll to one side; it reached for her, around the green shield- wall, Aburon stretched his stone- making and shaping powers to the limit to protect her, and riding on the back of the disruption from Sir Bob’s second white- flash holy-ish unbinding, petrified the tentacles, crashing them to the floor.

Heedless of the tentacles, Hara smashed into it with sword and axe, cutting and hacking through the half- real, half- solid flesh; even Kraven lashed out at it with his broadsword; Veniel used a tighter, more coherent bolt of fire that did not spill; it changed colour, adapting, focusing against the fire- and Aburon lunged into it with a lance of ice that it had turned it’s defences away from, was vulnerable to.

The tip went deep and then the length of the icicle shattered, breaking into a thousand fragments of deadly chill inside it’s unnatural body, it quivered and wrapped what tendrils it had left around itself; Lisanna gathered the floating green light and threw it at the pillar- demon with her broadsword, blasting it’s side open to reveal it’s kernel, its seed- which she plunged her rapier into, and rippled a charge of lightning down it that burst it; with a scream from the pit, the demonic would- be assassin faded out, blasted into insubstantiality.

‘Oi’d loike ter fink dat dat woz ‘Ilarion rersponsibel fer dat…’ 'I'd like to think that Hilarion was responsible for that...'
‘Too much time and energy wasted on being horrific instead of being effective. Showy and pointless- must have been priestly work.’ Sir Bob gave his opinion, which they could have dismissed as prejudice- but thought he had a point.
‘He knows that sort of display doesn’t work against me. He trained me to look horrors like that in the- whatever they have- without flinching, after all. Also, one of his would have been more direct, more straightforwardly lethal; more effectual.’ Lisanna said, incidentally admitting to Aburon that she had been the necromancer’s apprentice.

‘I doubt it was Ura- Harugach either. In a calmer mood, I think he would be capable of deceiving us by going out of his way to do something that wasn’t like him; but it’s not his time for that, and this is not like him. Sir Robert, I’m afraid you’re right.’ Aburon gave his opinion, showing no sign that he had heard what Lisanna had meant.
‘Anywun wot’z been ‘ead ter, werl ead’- ter- knee, wiv a borl-rong ain’t goin’ ter need new parntz arfter dat fiddly fing, an’ anybuddy but summwun wiv’ der own ‘ead up deyr arse, loike a preeyst, wewd know dat. Dey do cum in orl flayverz of looney, tho’. Dey carn’t orl be dis mad. Serpowze we go’ an troy an’ foind iff’n any ov dem iz scayred ov wot da rerst iz up tew?’
'Anyone who's been head to, well, head to knee with a baalrukh is not going to need an underwear change after that fiddly thing, and anyone but someone with their head up their own arse, like a priest, would know that.
They do come in all flavours of lunatic, though. Suppose we go and try to find out if any of them are scared of what the rest are up to?'

‘Sewing confusion and dissention in the ranks of the established pantheon? I like that idea.’ Sir Bob said.
‘You would, wouldn’t you? No, this is the work of one or two corrupt rogues, who must be stopped for the good of the whole.’ Veniel.
‘Either way, it’s the obvious thing to go and do. Catch you up in a moment.’ Aburon said. They started leaving, out to the main chambers, to go and search for priests.

There were just him and her left in the room. ‘Lisanna- again, I’m not sure whether I’d prefer to have you with me because I think that together we can win, or as far away from me and trouble as possible.’ He smiled, an eccentric, contained- craziness smile that reassured and worried her; reassured her that he could deal with trouble, worried her that he was going looking for it. ‘The node. I think if you stand ready to take up their challenge, sever their connection to the gods, and where they can’t sneak up on you and get you behind closed doors, you will be safer than going with us to face them- and if, say, if Lyron comes back on his own, that’ll be a sign that we need the help that you can give us by blocking them, by running the node up to power.’

‘I hope it won’t come to that. Aburon…’
‘I’m sorry about your floor, by the way. I should catch them up.’ He half- turned to go.
‘I, I did apprentice myself to Hilarion Galienus ser’Arador.’ She admitted it with an unintentional now-do-with-me-what-you-will look on her face, defiance as if she was on trial.

‘Have you ever used your wizardry against an ordinary, innocent living person, instead of abominations like that?’ he asked her, thinking- actually, hoping- he knew the answer. Not that his hands were entirely clean in that regard.
‘No, not really, I have used sense magic, I’ve given them power for their own purposes which might not always be for the best, and I’ve healed them, and tried to spread some inner light, but-‘
‘Then you have learned from him; but not what he intended to teach you.’ He left to catch Hara, Sir Bob, Veniel and Kraven up.

She didn’t particularly want to be safe and out of trouble, and was much less concerned about innocent people than Aburon was; in fact, he counted, according to the Baron, as one of the guilty ones. Still, he had a point. Wandering up to someone and asking them why they had tried to kill me, she thought, is not the most diplomatic move possible. What did her duty advise? Protect her lord and his people- unfortunately, in that order. Do what her lord asked of her, nothing about explaining to him what was and wasn’t wise or possible. It could tell her nothing of use. She went to the node chamber.

They hadn’t gone far; Sir Bob was holding his sword, limply, not quite better yet.
‘I can move my arms but they hurt like hell. Anything else you can do?’ he asked Hara.
‘Swoller dis.’ She handed him a potion bottle. ‘Yew did werl enuff in dat, eeyven wivaht’ yer armz.’
'Swallow this. You did well enough in there, even without your arms.'
‘If I had been able to wrap the power round the blade, I could have hit it much harder than just a little zap.’
‘W’en will’n yew be aybel ter dew kewl stuff loike dat agayne den?’
'When will you be able to do useful stuff like that again then?'

‘Once this starts working.’ He said- shortly before doubling up and coughing a small stream of green flame.
‘Farst- actin’, nevver fayls. Orf we go.’'Fast acting, never fails. Off we go.'
Aburon saw the green flame flash from round the corner, ran round it, bow at the ready, nearly crashed into Kraven.
‘You nearly ran straight on to this.’ Kraven waved his sword in Aburon’s face. ‘First, I’m going to wait until you get us out of this mess, then I’m going to kill you.’ He was not happy. The green fire had come uncomfortably close.

‘Where are we going?’ Veniel asked.
‘Good question.’ Aburon ignored Kraven for the time being, but they did have a problem there. ‘There are the three barons and their entourages, and the people around each of them, and the place where this sacrifice is being set up. Hara?’
‘deMarail’z a fayrly churchy toype. ‘E orlso strukk me az an ‘ero w’en everryfink’z goin’ orl roite, an’ a weasel w’en it ain’t. No ‘elp from ‘im. ‘Iz peepul maybe, but Oi down’t see it.’
'deMarail's a fairly churchy type, but he also struck me as a fair-weather hero, glory-hound when things are going well, weasel when they aren't. No help from him. His followers, perhaps, but I don't see it.'

‘I’m not happy about Kardren’s campment either; they aren’t religious types unless you count demon summoning, and I don’t see us getting anything other than a sharp, pointy welcome there.’ Aburon said. He was listening to himself, but they had already ruled that one out.
‘Haven’t we just walked away from deVerett’s people?’ Veniel said. ‘Doesn’t that just leave the temple?’
‘Yer, so wot’z da plan? Strowll in an’ lewk fer anywun un’appy?’ She sounded deeply sceptical. 'Yes, so what's the plan? Stroll in and look for anyone unhappy?'

‘Bugger sensible, and bugger possible. I’m tired of what is and isn’t sensible and possible. So what if there’s no way it ought to work. Let’s start with what we need to make happen and then see about how to make it possible. Yes, that’s the plan.’ Aburon said it with perfect calm in his voice, but he was seeing images of that horror-demon, what those fools had tried to do to Lisanna, and what would happen to them all if they got their way.
‘Yew down’t sahnd erxarctly tergevver. It ain’t sernsibel or porssibel dat we’z still aloive, but we iz. Oi ‘elped Sir Bob wiv’ arlkemmy.’
'You don't sound exactly together. It's not sensible or possible that we're alive, but we are. I helped Sir Bob with alchemy.'
‘Hara, you don’t have any-‘ he was still talking when she lobbed a pill into his mouth. He should have recognised a leading question when he heard one.

‘Bir’ ov a pikk- yew-up. Nevver moind wot it iz, shewd be foine fer ‘umans, rezin- cowted, prorbly dizzolve in yewr gut, keep yew on yer feet fer anuvver day er sew.’ Experimentation was an essential part of the medical process, after all.
'Bit of a pick-you-up. Don't let yourself worry about what's in it, should be fine for humans. Resin coated, probably dissolve in your gut, keep you on your feet for another day or so.'
‘And if it doesn’t?’ Aburon swallowed it and asked.
‘Werll… it’z da ‘in’ dat’z da doubterble part. Insterd ov ‘in’ yewr gut…’
'Weelll...it's the 'in' that's the debatable part. Instead of dissolving 'in' your gut...'
‘Riiight. If I start melting from the middle outwards, come and shovel me up.’

They followed him as he searched- sniffed- for holy ground. The area ahead of them felt- alive, but in a wrong, twisted out of shape way. Since communing with the lord of fire, he seemed to feel things in the air; to know what something felt like, and he did mean something. The shelter was not breathing, as it had been; it lacked the impulse, the flow of energy from the node, none of it deliberate but the very fact that it was doing something kept the rest semi- alert, more nearly ready.
In it’s current dormant state, the priests could reach through the shelter walls to commune with their gods, and the balron, when it had healed itself, could claw it’s way through them without much in the way of trouble at all. That much was obvious to a wizard, who thought about magic; it was not necessarily obvious to a priest, who felt about magic.

Hara had caught on to something, he thought, sword and shield; and if only he could explain it to them. Lisanna, who had become somewhat to her own surprise the mistress of the node, would be able to act as their shield, if they would cooperate, but Aburon fully intended to find whoever was responsible for that demon and forcefeed him to something nasty, like Ura- Harugach. He was in a strange, fey mood at the moment.

The area ahead was being put to bad use by priests; a little closer and there were smells of incense, sounds of sacred- also scared- prayer. A turn, and they were in a round antechamber, through the passage on the far side they could see a large colonnaded hall; who knew what it had been originally for. The antechamber was occupied by one acolyte, of Ikhran; the craftsman’s god. An interestingly neutral choice, although perhaps it was just his turn. He did have backup, three half- dressed, part- armoured knights or squires.

‘Halt and declare thyself.’ The most plated knight shouted at him; a big, fair- haired, highly nervous man.
‘Troops of the countess.’ Aburon declared, matter of fact.
‘No, you’re not, you’re wizards.’ It seemed as odd to the acolyte that a man with command of the mystic arts would declare himself to be rank and file; as absurd as an ordinary squaddie claiming to be a tree.
Aburon had done that; but had only converted others from animal to plant, usually foresters whom he felt could do with a dose of their own medicine. He was not at all sure how a tree would go about changing itself back, and there was no longer anyone he trusted to do it for him- that was, whom he trusted and who had the right powers.

‘We are wizards; and troops of the countess. Who leads you?’
‘Well- there’s Bonze Kaderik.’ The priest of Ikhran.
‘I don’t think he’s behind this. No Hurani? No Valdemironi?’ Sir Bob asked him, menacingly.
‘Why do you want to know?’ the leading knight, with most of his armour on, said.
‘Da cahntess ain’t been ‘ere fer lorng. She worntz ter know ‘oo she’z deeylin’ wiv.’
'The countess hasn't been here for long. She wants to know who she's dealing with.'

‘So do I. An orc? A deserter? A follower of the old faith? A hireling thug? A runeslinger? I’faith, it seems to me that we have greater cause to question you.’ The knight shouted at them.
‘You’re more religious than the priests.’ Aburon declared.
‘I am Sir Andray of the Greater Amrun. My cousin Sir Dafyd was killed in the edricswold. A vine crept between the plates of his armour and crushed him to death.’ The knight said; Aburon vaguely remembered who he was on about. There was a family resemblance, in fact.

‘He fought for his cause and I for mine.’ Aburon did not attempt to deny it, but to explain in terms a tin- skull could understand. ‘Have you met the common enemy? No? We have, and you are not the one we need to speak with. Any personal differences we can settle between us when doom lies less heavily on us all. Show us in.’
The knight was minded to object, but the acolyte said ‘Follow me, my children.’ Led them in.
‘Iff’n oi’m wun ov yewer children, oi downt wornt tew meet yer uvver ‘arf.’
'If I'm one of your children, I don't want to meet your other half.'

‘It’s just a figure of speech.’ Aburon said, to soothe the confused acolyte more than Hara, who knew perfectly well. The chamber opened out into a broad, colonnaded hall, with a few people, some in robes and some in arming- jacks and bits of armour, wandering up and down, some deep in conversation, others in contemplation, some trying to listen in to both; along the walls of the hall were many doors, and there was complex bronze and silver- work set into the floor in the centre of the hall.
‘Spare node chamber?’ Veniel speculated.

‘Could be. I think we should split up; we look less threatening that way.’ Aburon suggested. He wasn’t happy about it himself, but what they needed to do was talk and persuade, and being mob- handed didn’t help that. It was a risk, but a necessary one.
‘Oi down’t fink Oi wornt tew lewk lerss frettenin’. ‘Ere, Sir Bob, yew know da ‘ooman godz, ‘oo iz Oi goin’ ter get on berst wiv?’
'I don't think I want to be less threatening. Here, Sir Bob, you know the human gods. Who am I going to get on best with?'

He thought about it. It was a poser; none of the gods were exactly orc friendly, and the most obvious, Valdemiron of leadership and Huran of war, were downright xenophobic. ‘Krylanya, maybe, war-goddess, not Sulidain your fees aren’t high enough, Chelet- family?’
‘Farmily, werl…nah. Tew wishy-worshy. New meddysin? New ‘ealin godz?’
'Family, well...no. Too wishy washy. No medicine? No healing gods?'

‘Urphalion for arts, Ikhran for crafts, depending on which way you look at it- but most of the gods encourage their servants to develop healing power, which they use on their own faithful, and anyone else only for lots of money, if at all.’
‘For me it’s simple.’ Aburon said. ‘None of them- but especially not Gargath and Ayral. I’ll go and talk to anyone but them.’
‘Roight, yew dew dat den. See yew barck at da erntry-fing.’ 'Right, you do that then. See you back at the enrty hall.'

She went to look for the priests of any of the gods Sir Bob had mentioned; not actually knowing one from the other, it might be tricky. Sir Bob himself thought about who didn’t especially want him dead; also tricky. Veniel had confidence and faith in all of them, and went with a cheerful smile knocking on doors, buttonholing passers by. Kraven had faith in none of them.

Aburon knew that what he was doing was daft, came pretty close to what his enemies- the priests- would ideally like to see him doing; but somehow thinking clearly didn’t seem to be his thing today. He felt a thick green fog of overconfidence in his head. Enough so that, when he heard the sound of sinister chanting- low and hissing rather than loud and joyful- he went looking for it. What he found he did not like- a handful of knights around priests of Ayral and Gargath.

‘Normally I’d try to do something creative, like dropping the ceiling on you or turning you into watercress; but you have managed to awaken something that doesn’t care about the differences between one human and another, and I must speak with you about that.’
‘Who are you- what are you, to come bursting in here and say such things? What-what, eh?’ the Ayralli asked him.
Aburon could feel the orcish whateveritwas churning through his blood; he felt on top of the world, usually a prelude to falling off- but declared that ‘I am Aburon Zatara, druid of the edricswold, trooper of the imperial army, challenger of the fire in the dark. Have you the first idea of what you are attempting to treat with? I have faced it, I have heard it’s words, I know what it seeks, and you cannot do this.’

‘The true gods,’ meaning that the spirits and powers Aburon worshipped were not, ‘will protect us.’
‘How many archpriests do you have? How many of the truly blessed? Did any hear as much as a whisper when the node was running?’
He did not answer; both of them knew it would be No. Aburon’s ball of ice was still glowing. Somewhere, not far at all, not very distant- in a side room off the main hall, perhaps- a child screamed.

‘Is that how you intend to treat with the monster and serve your gods- a child for a child, a mind for a mind? You cannot dare to do this foul thing, to maim it’s child and then offer one of our own in sacrifice- it is so out of scale- one among million to the only one of it’s kind- that it is mere insult added to injury- in addition to being a vileness in it’s own right. Are you chivalrous men, or torturers in your betters’ garb, to permit and conduct such an act- whose is that child?’

He had leaped to a conclusion, and he was right; the knights’ reluctance to meet his eye gave that much away. The priests, on the other hand, were glaring at him. To directly call a man, a warlike man not accustomed to thinking of himself as in the wrong, on something he is already himself ashamed of having done- it might, just might, snap them round; but after and over his dead body. They had followed the priests because there seemed no other way, because they were tired and frustrated and embarrassed, because unlike Palamede they had not quite enough courage for a hero’s end. Not that he had got one.

‘It is what must be done and we will brook no further delay- take him.’
Aburon blasted a pulse of magic at the acolyte between him and the door; plant power- turning the acolyte’s heart to heartwood, not quite as good at sustaining human life. The acolyte was smug in his sanctity, a fattened soul without Aburon’s field lean- ness, or speed on the cast, he had thought of a counter, and begun to raise it- too slow. He fell clutching at his chest, but he didn’t leave a big enough opening for Aburon to duck through; too many armoured men, too quick behind him.

The knights took Aburon prisoner by sheer weight; essentially, as the chronicles would say although not meaning it in so many words, they fell on him. They were about to start sticking daggers into his dazed, squashed form when one of the two senior, surviving, priests stopped them.
‘Hold, good sirs- perhaps this man at odds, this self proclaimed priest of nature- perhaps he may make a fitter sacrifice.’ Muffled by someone sitting on his head, he began to protest; but only got a couple of clear syllables in the interval between being let up and being smashed unconscious with an axe- hilt.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I was aiming for an every Woden's-day update, a day behind. Second last chapter here, so if anyone wants to place any bets on any of the characters' short term survival prospects, now would be the moment.


Chapter 13B

‘You’re really trying to tell me that you only have two gods?’ The priest of Ikhran asked Hara, astonished.
' ‘Ow meny dew yew fink yew need? I’ll bet yew dat yer carn’t worlk ‘cross dis chaymber an’ bark wivaht getting’ yersel invorlved in ‘leeyst wun inter- doctrimanolongical argryment.’
'How many do you think you need? I'll bet you can't walk across this chamber and back without getting yourself involved in at least one inter-doctrinal argument.'

She looked around; he was harmless and inoffensive, and she was unlikely to get herself into too much trouble with him; besides which, he was thinking of it, and realising she might be right. It was busy, full of priests, half of them not entirely back in this world yet, busy enjoying the mysterious return of what had been taken away from them, wandering around blissful and distant, like her kin after a really good batch of fungus beer, Hara thought uncharitably.

‘But…but…what are they gods of? You can’t reduce life to just two things; even Ikhran has aspects, in fact we have many, blacksmith, redsmith, carpenter, mason, jeweller, weaver; we even have a military aspect- heavy artillery’s ours, not Huran’s.’ Hara looked interested at that.
‘Yer, yew kan.’ She said. ‘Strugglin’, an’ endyoorin’. Dewin’ fingz, an’ not ‘avvin fingz dun ter yew. Dat’z it, an dat’z orl we need.’
'Yes, you can. Struggle and survival. Doing things and not having them done to you. That's it, and that's all we need.'
He looked completely baffled. ‘But, but what about-‘

‘Wotevva it iz, wun or uvva, or bowf. Yew’z owver- speckleayted. Wewdn’ yew loike ter dew wot, sey, ‘im-‘she pointed out a man in angry, clashing bright red and green striped robes; they hurt the eyes, but then they were meant to, he was a priest of Vyr- rage and hate, revenge and revolt; they were not pleasant people as a rule, and Hara managed to spot a discoloured splotch on his robe, where something grey had been smeared- demonic ichor, maybe? From the look on his face, maddened, he was her instant prime suspect.
She continued before the relatively inoffensive crafter- priest could pick her up on it- ‘or maybe ‘im- dat guy in da yeller an’ blakk, carn dew?’ That was a priest of Erfodrion, trickery and deceit; she had inadvertently picked two of the nastiest in the pantheon.
'Whatever it is, one or other, or both. You're over- specialised. Wouldn't you like to be able to do what he- or perhaps him, the man in the yellow and black, can do?'

‘They do say that one of Erfodrion’s powers which he grants his servants is the ability to make figments of the imagination become solid, directly- but that’s missing the point. We can do it better, more reverently, and gain more joy and inner fulfilment in the doing.’
‘Oi serpowze dey orl dew deeymonz? ‘Oo’z big in da terntacel loine?’ Hara thought, thinking about figments of the imagination becoming solid. It must have taken a pretty warped imagination.
'I suppose they all do demons? Who's big in the tentacle line?'

‘I’ve summoned an octopoid demon myself, to work on the pilings of a bridge across a swamp. Some priests think they have a use for tentacles, some don’t; it’s largely personal preference. Except for underwater work they’re a bit pointless, really.’
‘Yer, werl, Oi sowrt ov got rowped inter’ dis boy arksident, an’ I’z met mower wizards dan oi ‘az preeystz, an I’z still tryin’ ter sowrt it aht in moi ‘ead; we’z got shaymen, wot ain’t erxarctly eeyver az far az oi carn tell. Moi bruvva woz a shaymen’z appryentis fer a whoile.’
'Yes, well, I sort of got roped into this by accident, and I've met more wizards than I have priests, I'm still trying to sort it all out in my head. We have shamen, which aren't exactly either as far as I can tell. My brother was a shaman's apprentice for a while.'


‘Did something particular happen to you involving tentacles?’
‘Yer, sumfin’ wiv lotz ov dem troied ter eet a frend ov moine, an I ain’t perticewlarly ‘appy abaht it. We’z not terntacel peepul, reeyly. Spoikez an’ proingy bitz an’ clank, yer, but slithery jurst ain’t uz.’
'Yes, something with lots of them tried to eat a friend of mine, and I'm not particularly happy about it. Apart from anything else, there's the style of the thing. We're not tentacle people, really. Spikes and prongs and plates, yes, but slithery just isn't us.'

‘Someone might have overreacted a bit.’ The priest admitted. ‘You don’t understand. For- long enough to make most of us feel that we might have been cast out, that our souls were in jeopardy and part of our being was gone, we heard- nothing. We could neither speak for the people to the gods, or the gods to the people; we felt so useless.’ A priest of Valdemiron would certainly have put that the other way around. ‘The worst I could do to you is trick you into pitching your medical tent in somewhere with really foul fortune.’ He shrugged. ‘Others, with more aggressive powers-‘

‘Yew dew know, w’y yew iz still stukk ‘ere?’
'You are aware of why you're still stuck here?'
‘Yes, there is a terrible beast, awakened and prowling around outside the shelter; the more militant cults are arguing about what to do about it.’ He wasn’t involved in that; looked perfectly happy to be left out. Actually, heavy artillery might have been a reasonable solution.

Hara looked around for Aburon; he had been the one who had decided to talk to it, after all. She wanted to get him to talk to whoever it was; her idea of ‘look for anyone unhappy’ didn’t make as much sense now as it had done earlier; most of them were bouncing off the ceiling, heedless that it might soon cave in on them. Aburon might carry some conviction; she didn’t know how good he was at impressions, but they should be more likely to believe the Balron’s words from him than they would be from her. He was nowhere to be found.

‘A looney mayte ov moine wernt dahn an ad a wurd wiv’ it. Drooid. ‘E kew terll yew orl abaht it. Yew saw ‘im cum in, I ain’t seen ‘im since…maybe da terntacels got ‘im.’ She started worrying. Who was it he said he wasn’t going to talk to again, Gargath and Ayral?
'A lunatic friend of mine, a druid, went down and had a talk with it. He could tell you all about the other side of the story. You saw him come in, I haven't seen him since...maybe the tentacles got him.'

Kraven was sulking in a corner; the closest the pantheon came to a god of moody, psychopathic loners was Elnur or maybe Vyr, and he wasn’t particularly fond of his own kind either. He was watching, and taking note- who talked to whom. He was noticing a distinct absence of Ayral and Gargath.
They trod on each other’s toes as often as not, being mainly plant and mainly animal respectively, but if they were actually on the same side and cooperating for once, ouch. He had been asked to track down a rogue acolyte of Gargath who had strolled off with the temple funds once; he had got his man, and two broken legs from the earthquake the rogue had thrown at him, healing which had cost all but a few copper bits of the reward money.

Technically, someone who had sinned against the temple should have been barred from using the powers of the god; but perhaps Gargath had been feeling particularly generous that day.
He hadn’t seen Aburon; but there was Hara, walking over to him. He hated orcs; but then again, he hated everybody, really, so why bother making an exception.
‘Yew iz jurst sittin’ ere? ‘Az yew spottit’ Aburon?’
'You're just sitting here? Have you seen Aburon?'

‘No. Sir Bob went that way, Veniel’s over there.’
Sir Bob was spoiling for a fight, but fortunately most of them were ignoring him; except for one priest of Urphalion who was trying to convert him, without much success. Veniel was gushing, head almost as far in the clouds as most of theirs, but he was giving away much more than he could be taking in, by the look of it. Hara went over to him and prodded him.

‘Yew loike dis lot, roight? Yew get on wiv’ dem, yew down’t woind dem up?’
He nodded. ‘Den gew an’ lewk fer Aburon. I fink ‘e moight be feelin’ a bit odd. Moight ‘ave gort ‘imsel intew trurbbel.’
'You like this lot? You get on with them, you can talk to them without putting their backs up? Then go and look for Aburon. I think the stress might be getting to him. He might have got himself into trouble.'

He shambled off, she was worried about which side his heart was on- and not just for stabbing purposes. He liked the priests, and being caught up in high- grade treachery like the run up to the civil war was infectious. She didn’t trust him not to ensure himself by being a bit on both sides, but there was no-one else for it.
She went over to Sir Bob. ‘Can I borrow a couple of your scalpels?’ he asked her. ‘This just isn’t subtle enough.’ He lifted the two- handed sword, let it fall back on his shoulder.

‘Dere’z a toime an’ a playce ter start dat sowrt ov fing, an I down’t fink dis iz it. ‘Az yew fahnd anyfink ewsefel aht? Newbuddy bowstin’ abaht terntacle- fingz, or wurkin’ aht ‘ow murch a foiery whip wud corst dem?’
'There's a time and a place to start a riot, and I don't think this qualifies. Have you found out anything useful? Nobody boasting about tentacles, or trying to work out how much a fiery whip would cost them?'
‘The foul- earth types have summoned something, they sent out a demon- they called it an angel, lying scum- to have a look at Ura- Harugach, and got back a handful of dust. That’s when they decided they were going to agree to be nice to it, and go along with Hilarion’s plan.
Most of the ones who don’t like the idea are just keeping out of it. No-one wants to start a religious war to go with the civil. I mean, you can take symmetry too far.’
Generally speaking, whether you called something a demon or an angel depended on whether you were in it’s bad books or it actually liked you. He called pretty much everything a demon, and rightly too.

‘Rerlurktance but new arctewal rersiystance, den.’
'Reluctance but no actual resistance, then.'
‘Yes. A nice bloody murder might turn them against each other, and it would be a just and righteous thing anyway.’ He suggested.
‘I fought yew woz crayzy but not dat darft. Down’t tell me I woz wrong. Deyre ain’t no way ov yew dewin’ it wivaht yew gettin’ da blayme, speshully not cornsiderin’ ow reddy dey iz ter blayme yew any’ow.’
'I know you're crazy, but I didn't think you were daft. Don't tell me I was wrong. There's no way of doing it without you getting the blame, especially not considering how ready they are to blame you anyhow.'

He knew that she was right, technically, and managed to control his enthusiasm. The priest of Urphalion who had been trying to talk to him buttonholed Hara instead. ‘Would you be interested in hearing the holy words of the Lord of Dreams?’
‘Dunno. ‘Ow did ‘e rearct w’en yew kewd tork tew ‘im agane?’
'Don't know. How did he react when you could talk to him again?'
‘Unlike some, he is not a vengeful god; he was happy to hear from us, that we had returned to him. Come, broaden the paths of your mind.’ Hara was about twice his weight, he could not make her follow him by physical means; and he must be in some potent dream if he thought he could convert an orc. Maybe there was use in him.

‘Wot dew yew meen, sum? Iz yewer godz farmerly- Erfodrion an’ yewer god, iz dey relayted?’
'What do you mean, some? Is your pantheon a family- Erfodrion and your god, are they related?'
‘Brothers, but-‘ he looked around, the priest of Erfodrion was out of earshot, bullying an acolyte of Sulidain- ‘not friends. We stand back to back, it is said, only in order to face in different directions.’
‘Werl, maybe yew carn dew a bit ov erxpandin’ deyr ‘orizonz. Dew yew know wot da plan iz?’
'Well, maybe you can do a bit of expanding their horizons. Do you know what the plan is?'

Veniel had been gone for a while; he had found out what the plan was, walked in on the high priest of Huran instructing his acolytes on how to sacrifice a druid. Arguing had been useless, particularly as they had recognised him as one of those who had entered with Aburon; Hara’s worries about him double- agenting ended when they shot a cloud of choking, paralysing dust at him- and missed when he ran for his life.
An ordinary man might have fouled his breeches, he, as a wizard, could vent his power through his talent, and leave a trail of blazing footsteps behind him that joined into a curtain of fire as he ran for his life, screaming.

Hara made out enough of what he was screaming to know that things were about to get ugly. Kraven was on his feet; Sir Bob was already by her. ‘Roight,’ she said to them, ‘we carn start a rammy ‘ere an’ nah, wiv orl ov em lewkin ar’ uz an’ reddy ter zap uz, or we carn run fer it an’ come back layter.’
'Right, we can start a brawl here and now, with all of them looking at us and ready to fry us, or we can run for it and come back later.'

She intended to rescue Aburon; but the odds were not just ‘impossible’; they were actually impossible.
‘I like a fight; but not a losing fight.’ Sir Bob decided. ‘Nice of Veniel to leave a trail for us to follow.’ Kraven thought about lurking here, noticed others noticing him and remembering who he had arrived with, decided he couldn’t get away with just hiding, all three ran for it.

They had to vault over the trail of fire Veniel left behind him, and then follow it until they found him exhausted, leaning against a wall.
‘Verry noice ov yew, ter burn orf orl yer power an’ leeyve yerself nuffink ter do w’en we cum back dis way.’
'Very nice of you, to burn off all your power and leave yourself nothing to do when we come back this way.'
‘Staff…’he wheezed; he still had it’s stored power. ‘What was wrong with them,’ he said when he had recovered his breath, ‘that they would do such a thing?’
‘They’re priests. How much more do you need to know?’ Sir Bob shrugged. ‘Go and reactivate the node, block off their magic, and once they’re helpless again, come back and do them in.’

Veniel would have continued to argue, but the facts staring him in the face didn’t help. They left before they could be pursued. On the way, Hara pulled out a thick, folded slab of parchment from her pouches, found an empty bit, jotted down a note; pep pills unsuitable for humans, decrease sense of self- preservation and judgement. Then again, at least the lucky sod could get a few hours kip.


At the node, Lisanna waited fretfully, pacing up and down, unable to relax physically or mentally. She was going over the procedures in her head, the propitiations and awakenings, the pre- enchantments and the conjunctions she would need to coax to life, the contradictions and blind alleys she would need to avoid.
She kept drawing and sheathing her crystal sword, fidgeting with it, uneasily aware that it would take around an hour at the least, and that was with no mistakes, to raise the shelter- wards to the point where they could keep summoned demons at bay, during which the summoners would be well aware of what was happening; and perhaps a full day to make them alert and alive enough to ward off a Baal-rukh.

Their previous state had taken two months of fumbling and accidents to reach, with enough mistakes made and burdens caused to ripple through the system that it had been far from it’s best; but now, in the midst of all this- how much time did she have? Not a day. Sixteen, seventeen hours at most, not quite enough.
With Aburon’s help it might, just, be possible; but then they would be trapped again- and besides, she felt deeply worried about him. The bones took people in different ways; for Shimon, they had virtually closed down any guessing or foretelling talent of his own, he was unable to see and predict- even to make common or garden guesses- without them.

For her, the divination magic worked the other way, giving her increased sensitivity to the currents of fate, even without the bones in her hand; it was far from true foresight, because although she moved in that direction, she knew, could sense, she would not enjoy the gift when it came into full fruition. Now she had the terrible example of what it had done to the Countess, who was also good at avoiding being predicted.
In the near term, she felt deeply worried. They would almost certainly try to kill her again; it would at least provide an end to uncertainty. Provided they did it less than openly- didn’t simply walk up to her, call her a blaspheming heretic, and mob her- she might even survive. A black cloud lay across the future nonetheless.

deVerett was almost as restless; he came into the node chamber, passing from another fruitless council meeting with his knights to his bed; she saw him coming, noticed him quailing at her temper- driven flourishes of the crystal blade.
‘Greetings, my lord.’ She bowed to him, as protocol dictated.
‘Sorceress.’ He acknowledged her. ‘Have you reached any decisions?’
‘Yes. In the chambers I inherited from Shimon, you will find the petrified tentacles of the demon which tried to eat me about two hours ago. I believe it to have been summoned by some servant of the gods, in order to dispose of me.’ She said, level- voiced.

‘Dear gods.’ He swore. He did believe her; she was quite a believable person, and when she wasn’t she lied and misrepresented with such unruffled grace, and as much of a sweetening dose of plausible truth as the situation would bear, as to make most want to believe her.
‘Not to me.’ She said, coolly pointing out the obvious.
‘Why? What did you do to provoke them?’

‘The ancient magics of the shelter, controlled through the node, create interference that prevents them from channelling the power of the gods. Those functions include feeding our people, and keeping the Baalrukh out. I don’t believe they object to such things specifically, just to being severed from their gods again. I do not object to that, specifically, just to their desire to get me out of the way.’ She said, calmly and pragmatically.
‘This is very nasty- tentacles, you say? What did it say, did it speak?’ He was looking for an angle, an agreement he could make, some way to dispose of the problem without swords.

‘It simply materialised behind me and tried to pull my head off- the countess’ scouts helped me dispose of it. After facing a baalrukh, it was rather inoffensive by comparison. That does not mean,’ she said, trailing green light from her broadsword, ‘that I am not offended.’
‘There must be some less deadly solution.’ DeVerett was supposed, by his rank and place, to be a warlord; but he was a remarkably evasive one, who preferred to fight if, and only if, almost everything was on his side.

‘My lord, the whole reason you have a court wizard instead of a chaplain is that any priest is bound and beholden to a higher power, not necessarily to you. They will do what they feel to be right, regardless of your will, and I will do what I must.’ He could not, neither in natural justice nor feudal right, deny her a right to defend herself, and he was well aware of that.
‘Do nothing rash.’ He admonished her, and turned to one of his train of attendants. ‘Find me the most senior priest you can, and ask him to come to my chambers to see if we can agree on a peaceful way.’

‘My lord,’ she wasn’t letting him get away that easily, ‘I would appreciate it if you could detach two or three knights to protect me.’ He nodded, and was about to order it, when she added ‘Also, if the priest you sent for comes this way, you may need them to hold me back.’
He was about to caution her against it, then decided it would be pointless; he told off two knights to defend her, and went to bed.
They did not particularly like their job; she was pacing up and down, stopping to scribble frantically, leaning on the ornamental surround of the node, charcoal on parchment, plans and notes that they might not live long enough for them to matter, occasionally jumping up on it to check something with the node’s sub- circles, turn it perhaps half a degree, perhaps sketch a rune in glowing air and let it fade, a thought moved on from- behaving in a manner quite disturbing to a pair of decent, upright, clean- cut knights.

The bunch of maniacal oddballs who came back about an hour and a half into that had no problems with it at all. The two knights drew swords and turned to face them, relieved that it was not the enemy they were expecting.
‘Don’t be silly, they’re with- where’s Aburon?’ Lisanna said as she caught sight of them, preparing herself for the worst.
‘Da preeystz nabbed ‘im;’ Hara told her, quickly. ‘Dey woz goin’ter orffer a kid- a bayby, dat iz- ter da boll-rong az a sarcrifoice, an’ ‘e troied ter tell ‘em ‘ow styoopid dat wewd be, an’ dey decoided ter uze ‘im an’ orl.’ She let that sink in, then ‘Dere worn’t nuffink we kewd do, dat wewdn’ ‘ave got orl ov uz killt deyre an’ den. Iff’n yew karn foire dat fing up nah-‘
'The priests kidnapped him. They were going to offer a little kid- a baby, that is- to the baalrukh as a sacrifice, and he tried to tell them how stupid that would be. They decided to sacrifice him as well. There was nothing we could do that wouldn't have got all of us killed there and then. If you can fire the node up now-'

‘He is alive?’ she wondered, briefly, why Lyron hadn’t come back.
‘Yes.’ Sir Bob told her. ‘There were about fifteen, twenty priests with itchy zapping fingers keen to change that. If you can turn them off, then we can go and get them while they’re nice and powerless.’ he suggested eagerly.
‘The fastest, the very fastest I can take this from doing nothing to being able to shield us from divine influence is around an hour, during which they will know exactly what’s happening. Do you think we can hold off a demon horde?’ the pair of knights blanched; even Hara went almost apple- coloured.

‘If it’s going to happen anyway, damn them and press on- but I believe you intended to sow sedition and dissent?’
‘Yer, werl, deyre seemz ter be ownly too cultz wot’z arctewally invorlved, arctewally goin’ ter dew summat. Da rerst’d prefer ter keep deyr ‘eadz down. We ownly ‘ave ter wurry abaht da erff- yoypes, Gargath an’ Ayral.’
'Yes, well, there seem to be only two cults actually and actively involved, the rest would prefer to keep their heads down. We only have to worry about the earth types, Gargath and Ayral.'
Lisanna sat down on the lip of the node’s surround and thought about it. ‘It is very tempting,’ she said, mainly to Sir Bob, ‘to shoot for revenge and damn the consequences; I want Aburon back- but I don’t think a head on clash would make that happen.’ Her face was interesting; without obviously changing expression, it seemed to harden, as she forced herself to be practical.

‘Oi’z imprerssed. ‘Ow cum yew lernnt ter dew foire, an’ loightnin’, and squidgilaytion, ‘wen yer ‘ead’z mayde ov oice?’ Hara meant shaping magic, and she meant to ask why Lisanna was so calm.
'I'm impressed. How did you come to learn fire, and lightning, and squashing power, when you can keep such a cool head?'
‘You’re not so very different from that yourself. It comes from having to be cool and controlled, too often.’ Lisanna replied.
‘Yew’ve gor a looney bruvva an’ orl?’
'You have a lunatic brother as well?'

‘All right, what do we do? Wait until they relax, then whack them?’ Sir Bob suggested. ‘They’ve got a fair amount of muscle, as well as magic. A lot of the knights have suddenly got religion again. We could probably take the priests-’
‘Two archpriests and half a dozen acolytes.’ Veniel interrupted and told them.
‘Roight, dat’z wun fer yoo an’ wun fer me, an’ too acoloitez fer everybuddy erlse-‘ Hara suggested to Sir Bob.
'Right, that's one for you and one for me, and two acolytes for everyone else.'
‘I can take care of one of the archpriests. How many knights?’ Lisanna asked.

‘Ah. At least fifteen.’ Sir Bob told them. In fact, by the time they got there, it would probably be more than that. ‘Didn’t we intend to bushwhack the Baron and tell him what Countess Calvern wanted from him? We could see if he can do something.’
Hara looked around. ‘Yew goin’ ter be orl roite on yer own, or dew yew wornt ter cum wiv’ uz?’
'Will you be all right on your own, or do you want to come with us?'
‘No.’ she said, judiciously. ‘You shout at him now, and I’ll go along and soothe him later. If, perhaps, sir- I don’t know your names-‘ she pointed, with the crystal sword, to Veniel and Kraven, ‘forgive me- could I possibly ask you to assist in protecting me?’

‘Yer, yer, tayke ‘em. Dat way we’z lerss likely ter orl get killt w’en dey start annoyin’ im inter’ soidin’ wiv da preeystz.’
'Yes, yes, take them. That way we're less likely to all get killed when they start annoying him into siding with the priests.'Hara decided for them, oddly as she was prepared to take Sir Bob. Then again, playing good-psycho, bad-psycho was a favourite pastime of hers anyway.
When they were ready, Hara led off, out of the node chamber, looking for the baron.


They found him in an antechamber, opposite and down from the node; there were armed men nearby, two guards on the door; they thought about stopping Hara, thought better of it when she bared her teeth at them- and she was after all a soldier- envoy of the baron’s own overlord.
The chamber was fairly well appointed; a litter- bed which the baron lay in, sword within reach but in his nightshirt- down here they were always out of phase with the natural day. There was one priest talking to him, of Valdemiron, and he gave the impression of listening strainedly, polite seeming but letting it all flow in one ear and out the other, waiting for him to go away.

‘Down’t bovver ter get up.’ She told deVerett. ‘We’z got sumfin’ we needz ter tork ter yew abaht, an’ yer noightshirt’z goin’ ter dew as well as anyfink-but yew,’ looking at the priest, ‘carn gew an’ kommune wiv’ yer god as sewn as yew loike.’
'Don't bother to get up. We have something we need to talk to you about, and your nightshirt's going to do as well as anything- but you, priest, you can go and commune with your god as soon as you like.'
The priest showed no inclination to leave; looking outraged at the intrusion as if mere normal social mechanisms would protect him.

‘You can pray to him, or we can send you to visit him.’ Sir Bob told the priest, tapping the hilt of his sword.
The priest looked to the baron; saw no help there- he had been very boring; thought of raising a spell, he was still sitting on a stool by the bed- Hara picked him up by the seat of the pants and the scruff of the neck and bodily threw him out. He twisted in flight just enough to slam into the opposite wall shoulders instead of head first. Fixing him up would not be one of her priorities.

‘Arfter leggin’ it from da boll-rong, Aburon an’ Liz wen’ up ter da surferce tew report an’ ger’ advoice from da colonel. Den da preeystz troied ter kill Liz, an’ wen we went orf ter, werl, ter try an’ get dem squarbblin’ a bit, dey decoided ter rowst Aburon an’ orl. Dat wud be ahr prorblem reeyly, ‘cept fer dat da cowntess, ‘yewer fyoodal serpeyrior, duzin’t wornt dat ter ‘appen.’
'After running away fro the baalrukh, Aburon and Lisanna went up to the surface to report to and receive advice from the colonel. Then the priests tried to kill Lisanna, and when we went off to, ah, try to get them to fall out among themselves, they decided to murder Aburon as well.
That would be our problem really, except for that the Countess, your feudal superior, doesn't want that to happen.'

deVerett had, if nothing else that suited him for the job of leader and ruler, the inner calm of a man who can steer his course through a middle ground; if the mad orc woman and her friends wanted to assassinate him, which some of his advisers had been seriously suggesting they might, they would probably have started doing it already, and the commotion would bring his soldiers soon enough. They may after all have something interesting or relevant to say.

‘And you think this is worth breaking into my bedchamber for?’ he said, in a humour- the- nutter tone that Hara trampled straight over.
‘Breykin’ in. Yew’ az it’ da stunty roight on da ‘ead. Dat’z jurst wot’z goin’ ter ‘appen in abaht’ firfteeyn’ahrs, w’en yewer preeystly maytes let dat fing in ter froy evirywun.’
'Breaking in. You've hit the dwarf right on the head. That's just what's going to happen in about fifteen hours, when your priestly friends let the baalrukh in to fry everyone.'
‘You’re assuming,’ he pointed out, in a humouring vein, ‘that the priests’ rite of atonement and quelling will fail.’

‘Yew’z assewmin, dat sumfink- sumwun- wot’z lorst, or’z lewzin’, ‘iz own, iz wun an’ ownly, kid iz goin’ ter be calmed dahn w’en we giv’ im wun of ‘undredz we’z gor’ lyin’ arahnd spayre. At berst, fyutoile. At wurst an’ mowst likely, addin’ insult ter’ injury. Not calmin’ at orl.’
'You're assuming that something, someone, who's lost or is losing his one and only child, is going to be calmed down when we give him one of hundreds we have lying around spare. At best, futile. At worst and most likely, adding insult to injury. Not calming at all.'

‘The priests have declared that it may well be a holy task to rid the world of this evil, but one beyond our might; we must fall back from it, by hoodwinking it such as we can, and gather our strength. If we let a few of them lure it while the rest of us run away-’ Why so many people needed him as an ally when this was his normal standard of behaviour baffled Sir Bob; Hara thought it was reassuringly normal, but it was hard to tell whether he actually meant it or not. Probably not. He would decide what he meant later.

‘Ahr plan B woz tew get dem orl tew zap it. Iff’n we carn’t torlk sense intew dem, stop it, but iff’n we kewd, turn it inter an amshrub-‘
'Our plan B was to get them all to blast it. If we can't talk sense into the priests, stop the rite, but if we can convince them, turn it into an ambush-'
‘Hara, keep thinking that way and they’re going to send us in first.’ Sir Bob reminded her.

He had been orthodox, once; but the priests’ eternal refrain of ‘stuff holy duty, it’s too dangerous, get the paladin to do it’ had worn his conscience down in the end.
‘Ow. Roight.’ And not be following that close behind, she added to herself. ‘Da fing wown’t ‘oodwonk. ‘Member dat shoiny blowke wiv’ da big choppa, Palamede?’
'Ah. Right. The thing simply won't hoodwink. Remember deMarail's leading knight, the one with the greatsword, Palamede?'

‘Sir Palamede was a skilled and valiant gentleman.’ One well worth his enemies’ celebrating being rid of, in other words.
‘’E woz da wun wot gor’ uz inter dis mess by ‘wackin da little wun in da ‘ed in da furst playce. It wornts ter start it’z revengyin’ wiv’ uz. ‘Ere, in dis playce. It’z persernel. Yew invoite it in an’ werll, I daht we’z goin’ ter ahtrun a toidal wayve from da ocean ov’ foire.’
'He was the one who got us into this mess by damaging the brain of the little one. It wants to start to start it's revenge with us, here in this place. It's personal. You invite it in and, well, I doubt we're going to outrun a tidal wave from the ocean of fire.'
‘Are you suggesting that it will take advantage of our summoning it to attack us?’

‘’Az yew ever been summwunned? It ain’t erxarctly an’ invitaytion we’z goin’ ter irsyoo ter it, mower a sort ov an ‘oi, yew.’ Nut da berst pacifoyin’ gerstyer ter start wiv. Nor’ dat we kewd arktewally keep it aht.’
'Have you ever been summoned? It's not exactly a polite invitation we're going to issue, more like being dragged in kicking and screaming. Not the best pacifying gesture to start with. Not that we could actually keep it out, either.'
In theory it was impossible to summon a mortal creature, with existence in the contingent world; in practise, it was simply very difficult. Whether a baalrukh actually was summonable or not…very few people would ever be mad or desperate enough to try to find out. Either way, Ura-Harugach would probably resent it.

He could have kept arguing; but it sunk in that this was something an orc was scared of. He could query that; but he wanted to see how far she was going to go with this. Besides…the agents he had sent down last month seeking a deal with ura-Harugach (“I’ll help you kill everybody else”) had come back in small paper bags. Almost out of it’s mind with worry and anger, and thoroughly heedless of the political niceties, was not a viewpoint he had been thinking from, but it made as much sense as his earlier notions of it.

‘And then we tell it that we maimed it’s son and heir because we thought he was a foul spawn of ancient evil, and we don’t choose to pay for it and do you mind if we flee now? Wouldn’t get us very far even with King Justinian, would it…’ The baron probably was a bit of a sponge, in bearing the imprint of the last person who talked to him; but Hara thought he was at least in part pretending to agree to get them to shut up and go away.
He was in the middle, so the balance of power in many things, and must be driven nearly out of his nut by people trying to talk him into this, that and the other. She was stopped short of sympathy by the notion that he must have agreed to all sorts, mad as well as wise, through that non- policy. Such as giving house room to the priests that were about to make this happen. He was simply playing games- even now- trying to lure them out, out of sheer habit, with that reference to the King.

‘Anyfink’ wiv any sernse wud ‘ave yew flayed afower yew gor’ az far az ‘son and heir.’ Yew ler’ dis’ ‘appen, we’z orl get killt.’
'Anything with any sense would have you flayed before you got as far as 'son and heir'. 'You permit this to happen, we all get killed.'
‘The priests,’ he explained, ‘now that they have recovered their power, have convinced the people that the words of the gods are their only safe and secure guide. It’s not a matter of them needing my permission. Several knights feudally bound to me have nonetheless joined the group at the temple; and it would not be wise to force them to make a clear choice, between the gods and me.’ At least he had some remaining shreds of sense of humour; but he was probably right.

‘They bloody well would. Time to start killing priests, then-‘ Sir Bob meant that they would start, from his point of view, lying to the people, and as for killing them, he was looking forward to it; one, or two, at a time, great.
‘Dat ain’t da choice. Da choice iz getting’ killt by a bunch ov loowney preeystz, or stayin’ aloive, apporlergoizin’ ter da godz, an’ arskin’ dem ter pikk smarter preeystz nerxt toime. We kewd go arfter dem wunce, an’ ownly wunce, da cowrt sowrcererss getz’ da node back up an’ functionatin’, an’ da anciyent magick stopz em’ torlkin tew da godz agane. W’en der zap stopz zappin’, den we kewd ‘it em. Prorblem iz, it taykes an ‘ahr fer dat ter wurk, an’ dewrin dat toime, orl ov em- nut jurst da too we’z arfter- iz goin’ ter cum an’ zap uz. Loikely ter get a bit charred doin’ dat.’
'That isn't the choice. The choice is being killed by a bunch of lunatic priests, or staying alive and you apologising to your gods, and asking them to pick smarter servants next time.
We could attack them once, and only once, your court sorceress gets the node up and functioning, and the ancient magic again blocks them off from their gods. When they lose their powers, then we could hit them.
Problem is, it takes an hour for that to work, and during that time all of them, not just the ones we're after, are going to come and try to stop us. We're likely to get a bit charred doing that.'

‘So, Baron, if you get that wretched little nerk back in and tell him that we can stop them, all of them, talking to the gods if we want, and we will-‘ Sir Bob swallowed his pride for this bit- ‘if, and only if, they try to kill your sorceress again. Don’t mention the hour.’
‘That, I think, I can do. They are not a whole; they will be unhappy, but that is, just, politically possible.’ DeVerett agreed.
‘Kan yew keep ‘em under kontrowl?’ Hara asked the baron sceptically.
'Can you keep them under control?'

‘Under normal circumstances, barely. Now? No.’ Too big a force, too fragile a balance; too likely to lose and hello, theocracy- well, briefly; impossible if by some chance there was a tomorrow and he still had to deal with them.
‘So who else have you got with a grudge against the churches, who could pitch in with us, when it comes to breaking up the rite?’
‘You actually want help? Well, that’s not politically practical. This is the work of planter and shepherd; the other cults, particularly that of the chief, are, admittedly, less confident of success.’

The cult that spoke loudest in his ear, Valdemiron, who Hilarion had- falsely- claimed to represent; and had been allowed to, perhaps, because the bare- faced cheek of it had been leadership, of a sort. Would deVerett welcome an opportunity to attack one of the cults, with the blessing of the other- if he could blame it on an outside influence like them? ‘Some of the knights, and most especially the yeomen of the rest of the warriors, may be prepared to take arms for this, as individuals.’
Sir Bob thought about it. ‘I’ll go and-‘

‘I,’ the baron interrupted him, ‘will do that. The countess’ troops have told me what must occur- but I cannot lead my troops, against the established faith, under my banner. I can allow you to speak to them, and advise them that I will not hold it against them if they choose their own way, but it cannot be open strife, civil against religious. Myself, even unofficially, they may heed; not a rogue and a renegade.’
Sir Bob was about to object, but Hara broke in with ‘Maykes senze.’ 'Makes sense.'

‘I was,’ the baron added archly, ‘in the middle of trying to get some rest. Fifteen hours, you say? Permit me to spend at least half of them in bed, or I may commence to disapprove of your plan.’
‘Yer. Big day termorrer. Wun way or da uvver.’
'Yes, big day tomorrow. One way or the other.'


They left him then; there were more than a few guards standing around, but the baron shouted after them to let them go- ‘and bring back that bloody idiot priest-‘ which seemed to do the trick.
‘Trust him?’ Sir Bob asked Hara as they were on their way back to the wards.
‘Werll- on prirncerpel, nah. Da prirncerpel bein’ dat ‘e’z an unrerloierble, trerchery- ridden, lyin’ git. Moind yew, it never ‘urtz ter ‘it a problem from bowf soides. An’ da preeystz ‘ave puwshed ‘im ter get ‘im ter dew wot dey wornt, ‘e ain’t spoineless enuff ter loike dat, ‘e’z got a fing goin’ fer Liz an’ all, which shewd ‘elp, an’ e’ down’t perticulerly wanna die, sew…gewd charnce.’
'Well- on principle, no. The principle being that he's an unreliable, treacherous, mendacious fool. Mind you, it never hurts to hit a problem from both sides. That and the priests have already applied pressure to him to get their way, he's not spineless enough to actually like that, and he has an attraction to Lisanna as well which should help. That and he doesn't particularly want to die, so...good chance.'

They went back to the node chamber. Lisanna was still pacing, uneasy, unsettled; it showed. Kraven was lounging in a corner; if he had been a veteran, he might have been asleep; as it was, he was pretending. Veniel was crouched by the node, looking up at it; if he had hair, he would have been a perfect picture of dog- like devotion. The two knights were trying desperately not to get involved, standing there like cast statues, wanting to avoid this crew of oddballs.

‘So you managed to remain on speaking terms with my lord the baron, then.’ She greeted them.
‘Werl, we didn’ terll im- werll, not agayne- wot a twonk we fought ‘e woz, an ‘e didn’ sey wot ‘orrible lower- clarss oikz ‘e fought we woz, sew we got on orl roite. I ain’t sewer wot’ e’z up tew, but we got wot we wornted aht ov’ im. Deyre iz anuvver fing.’
'Well, we didn't tell him- not again- what a twonk we thought he was, and he didn't say what horrible lower class oiks he thought we were, so we got on all right. I'm not sure what he's up to, but we seemed to get what we wanted out of him. Actually, there is another thing.'
‘Hilarion.’ Lisanna pointed out. ‘Actually, if we do nothing and leave him to take the ceremony- the baalrukh might take long enough to finish him that the rest of us might be able to run for it after all.’ The last thing she would do, she said it herself to forestall anyone else coming up with it, and so they would have to argue against it.

‘’Fowre or arfter we rerskyoo Aburon? Loike Oi sayd, I fink e’ll change ‘iz moind w’en ‘e foindz aht wot’s loikely ter ‘appen.’
'Before or after we rescue Aburon? As I said, I think he'll change his mind when he finds out what the likely consequences are.'
‘So who’s going to tell him? Sir Robert, you have dealt with him more recently than I have, and he may not have a friendly word for me in any case, so if you would care to?’ Lisanna suggested.
‘What do you mean, may not have a friendly word?’

‘Well, you tried to kidnap me, on his orders.’ She pointed out. There was more to sort out, like what to do in the case of wandering priests; but he admitted that that was checkmate by getting up, brushing some non- existent dust off his armour, and leaving for the black wizard’s chambers, straight away.
He made his way past the strays and cannibals and lost souls, to the edge of baron Kardren’s territory; and found another team of guards blocking the haft of the rune he was following. A long, straight passage; one red- eyed skeleton, one reasonably soldierly- looking type, two non- fighters looking as terrified of the skeleton as of anything that might come their way.

Soon fix that, he thought, breaking into a jog; the skeleton looked pleased to see him, inevitable death’s- head grin getting even wider; he stopped about ten yards short- he had some skill with such things, in the species of magical un- life most called demons, in the magical post- life most called the undead; and the skeleton reacted when he broke into an incantation of unbinding, hauled the two peasants out of the way to get at him, pushed bonily past them, raised an archaic- looking scimitar and charged; they hesitated about following, Sir Bob preferred not to be put to the test but had courage when it came down to it, stood there and rushed the incantation, patching up errors with power, finishing it when it was less than four feet away and beginning to swing for him- it’s eyes flared and faded as he shot the rayed sunburst at it, and the bones separated from each other into a loose shower that rattled over him into a tumbled heap behind, the skull bouncing off his mail- covered stomach.

The three looked slightly more enthusiastic now; the professional pushed the two conscripts towards him, urging them on- he ran the last couple of steps and with his martial art magic made to vault over them; but something- something from behind, some random push of the gods’ playing with him again- knocked him off balance and he tumbled, spinning in the air- he passed directly over them upside down, and as he sliced at them, they sliced at him; he and one of the conscripts nearly achieved a mutual decapitation. Would have if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet. The conscript fell, skull cleaved open; and he landed in a tangled, screeching heap, forehead near enough split open and nose- well, gone. Lucky he still had both eyes.

Feebly, he tried to stagger up to some position he could defend himself in; the conscript was for running but the professional wanted to finish him- if you want to get your fun out of me, he told the gods through the red mist of pain, help me now- and the professional looked over his shoulder; and saw the pile of bones beginning to reassemble itself. They ran; turned a corner and were gone; and the reassembled skeleton limped towards him, made it about half way- and collapsed into a heap of dust. Right enough, he thought, just before he slumped into unconsciousness.

‘Do you think he’s all right?’ Lisanna asked Hara, about two hours after Sir Bob had gone on his way.
‘Jurst wunce, Oi wish sumwun wewd jurst, woddayacorlit, speer da breeze, torlk fer da sayke ov torlkin’. Instedd ov inniment dewm ervery- orl da zoggin’ toime. Oi serpowze yew’z gor’ sum koind ov mystikk fing wot sayz ‘e ain’t?’
'Just once, I wish someone would just, what's the idiom, spear the breeze, talk for the sake of talking instead of imminent doom every- all the bloody time. I suppose you have some kind of mystic thing which says he isn't all right?'
‘I don’t see you and me swapping cake recipes, I might find out rather more than I want to.’ Lisanna quipped. ‘Yes, I do have some kind of mystic thing which says he’s in trouble; mainly intuition. The idea of his being out of trouble strikes me as odder.’

‘W’y did yer ler’ im go den?’'Why did you let him go then?'
‘He seemed the most reasonable person for the job.’ Lisanna avoided admitting, but then Hara knew anyway, that she really didn’t want to come face to face with Hilarion. On the other hand, perhaps circumstances would never be better to do what would surely happen anyway.
‘Oi see wot yew meen. ‘Im an’ ‘reeyzonabel’ down’t go tervgevver dat werl eeyver- lert’z ger’ arfter ‘im.’
'I see what you mean. Him and 'reasonable' don't go together that well either. Let's get after him.'
‘I’ll go after him.’ Lisanna said. ‘If something happens to me, I’m going to need you to come and rescue both of us.’ She left her knights behind; they would be a hindrance, she was faster, and surer in the face of the horrors she expected, than they.

For a long time, Sir Robert, once of King’s Lea, now unpleasantly likely to be forever ‘of’ a benighted hole in the ground, lay dazed, bleeding, in shock and barely holding on to his life. After all, he had been stubborn to the point of dangerous madness for all of it, why stop now?
Something tried to wake him, to pull him back; he struggled back to the land of the living, more or less, to find someone leaning over him, blonde and blue- green; not the most unpleasant way to wake up, it even seemed as if his nose was back, the pain was gone- and then the world turned into a spinning, wobbling mass of shimmering weirdness as the stretched- out back of his head catapulted forward to meet his mind and jumble it.

He barely noticed that he was being picked up and carried- by the third-time-lucky skeleton, reanimated by Lisanna’s powers- back the way he had came, to deVerett’s zone.
Lisanna headed deeper into Kardren’s enclave; she was probably safer here than she was with the priests who had reappeared in her own lord’s entourage, any of the courtiers here would know and welcome her. Safe from everyone except her own teacher, who would be wise enough to heed her and the bones of divination; and undoubtedly cruel enough to demand some price for his aid. She would not refuse that, if it meant that they were to be alive enough for it to matter.