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Raal
waits until they have gone and then begins to quietly move through the trees.
“How could it have gone so wrong?” he asks himself, cursing his luck.
As he reaches the path, he hears a rustle in the undergrowth and readies
an arrow, his nerves taught with exhaustion and frustration. Ulrich drags himself onto the path and collapses on the
track. He hears Raal above him,
“Ulrich, Ulrich, are you alright?” “Yes,
I’m fine. Be with you in a
second.” A veil of darkness
obscures his vision and he passes out. Raal
drags his friend back to the horses at the river and he explains to the guard
what transpired. The guard suggests
that they head back to Norek and bring reinforcements. Raal agrees wholeheartedly.
They tie Ulrich to one of the horses and head back to Norek. When
they reach Norek, Ulrich visits Biryn’s temple, alerting them to Biryn’s
plight. Brother Kan heals Urich’s
leg and suggests that they go to see Humar Winnoy, the Military Councilor
immediately and Ulrich promises to keep him informed of their progress.
Brother Kan shakes his head after Ulrich has gone.
“That Biryn always was a headstrong fool, always shooting first and
asking questions later.” Raal
meanwhile visits another Norinth post and meets with Captain Benwe, who is very
alarmed to hear of Captain James’ plight.
When Ulrich returns he orders twenty five of his men to saddle up.
Ulrich mentions the Military Councilor, but Benwe shakes his head.
“The council’s stupid inaction is one of the reasons that these
cursed bandits have managed to evade capture so far.
Now that we have their location we’ll trap them like rats in a lair.” Sevenday,
25th Sicklemon Raal
agrees to meet Benwe back here in a couple of hours and goes down into the city,
just starting to awaken. Once again
he makes contact with the Guild, arranging a meeting later and letting them know
he has something to deliver. Benwe
provides them with fresh horses and they gallop off towards the city gates.
The guards on the gate appear very surprised to see them all and
Ulrich’s suspicions are triggered. Claiming
a faulty strap on his saddle, he dismounts and asks the guard what is so
unusual. “Oh,
nothing much, it’s just that Captain Benwe rarely takes his men out of the
city. After Captain James, you say?
Well they’ve never been the best of friends, but it’s good to see
that there is honour still among the Norinth.” Ulrich
relaxes, the betrayal of Captain William had made him paranoid.
Captain Benwe smiled quietly to himself as he watched the young man
remount his horse. He would have to
kill him later, but for now he could be useful. As
the dawn’s light filtered through the trees, Ulrich, Raal, Captain Benwe and
his men made their way down to the river that they had ridden through only hours
before and with such fateful consequences. Raal
was starting to feel unlucky. If he
could just stay in the city, not out in this gods-forsaken forest.
He glanced back to where Ulrich was riding a few horses back.
Both were thinking similar thoughts.
Riding in with the cavalry was not exactly Raal’s favourite mode of
entry, but since friends were involved, he was making an exception.
Anyway, these were bandits weren’t they? Robbing carriages all the way along the cursed Alunn road?
Well they must have racked up some loot. Another
thing bothered Raal, all this hanging about with the constabulary, it was making
his skin itch. It was bad enough
hanging out with that do-gooder Biryn, but at least he seemed to be coming
around. Captain Benwe ordered his men across the stream in threes, his six archers fanning out along the near bank just like Myth :) Ulrich
rode up to the front and pointed out the rocks to their left where the ambush
had come from. Framing it perfectly
as the sun rose, was the stone archway where Biryn’s plan had gone
disastrously wrong – again. Captain
Benwe, swung down from his horse, ordering the rest of the men to do the same. “We’ll
leave the horses here, the house is half a mile up this track you say?”
As Captain Benwe speaks those ice-blue eyes harden under the shadow of
his visor. Ulrich noticed the
professional fighter’s gait about him. Aged forty-eight with sandy hair and a muscular
build. He stands at 6'8" and is a Jameri from East U-Lyshak.
From his attitude with the soldiery Ulrich had already decided that he was an
arrogant prick and didn't mind showing it. He dressed in the Norinth watch
armour - leather breastplate and greaves. The breast-plate itself was
painted white with the Norinth logo painted in blue.
The archers seemed to have a different relationship
with him than the common foot-soldiery. They
seemed to move without instructions from him, obviously men who had worked with
him many times before, and in terrain such as this. Both Ulrich and Raal were watching the movements of the
Norinth and silently taking notes. They
had both had years of soldiering, but rarely this sort of heavily-wooded
terrain.
Within minutes the entire party was up under the
archway, the archers taking position again.
They moved quietly up the trail, with only the occasional faint jingle of
chainmail to give away their position. The
dawns light sees a very different seen back at the Wilfin Manor.
The rest of players are locked inside the front room of the mansion, they
had checked all the exits and examined the bars on the window over and over,
most of them finally succumbing to sleep. Sira,
in particular slept fitfully, his surely broken leg was agony against the hard
floorboards. Years of training from
the monastery were put to use just trying to get any sleep at all. Lysar had already had a look at the leg and tried to set it
straight as best she was able without something to use as a splint.
“If
only they hadn’t taken my tonfa from me, I’d show ‘em.”
His martial skills had been growing daily but tonfa inspired the
necessary caution in an opponent. Biryn
and Lysar were already awake arguing quietly about whose fault it was and
Asheren
was still sleeping, exhausted from the magic he had expended the night before.
Biryn was concerned about the fate of Captain James and the guard who had
been taken elsewhere along with all of their weapons the night before. The
brigands had attached iron cradles to the wall around the doors, obviously so
they can bar ‘house-guests’ At
about six feet around the room a narrow shelf encircles the room, The shelf was obviously intended for tasteful knick-knacks,
but now holds only men’s dirty clothing.
After
some time there is the sound of marching men and as they all force themselves to
their feet and they then hear the scrape of the bar on the door being removed.
As the doors at the far end of the room rattle, they all tense.
Olgir
strides into the room, followed by two men wielding loaded crossbows.
The huge man stands at seven feet and at least four feet across.
He more than filled the already over-sized chainmail he wore. A mace at his wrist dangled loosely, the spiked ball at the
end grazed against the leathers at his side. “Well
none of you lot are looking too good this morning, I’m sorry to tell you that
the dwarf has already gone. Although
he did ask me to pass on his regards.” Olgir
spat on the ground at their feet. “Where
is Captain James you great hulking mammoth?” asked Biryn. Olgir
turned to face him. “I think
Eissa may open her gates a little early for you, Paladin. “Captain
James is being ‘looked after’ by some of my men, he’s learning what
happens to people that get on our bad side.”
Olgir paused for a moment. “But
you lot have done us a service! Without
you we would have just taken the shipment straight to Norek, fortunately we had
some friends who could put us up for the night.”
He smiled, without any warmth at all.
And now they have a job for you. If
you would care to join me.” He
motions towards the door. Biryn
stepped forward again. “Look,
we’re not going another step until we get some answers.”
Olgir reached to his belt and unhooked a heavy looking pouch.
He gives it a patronising shake. “Come
on Paladin, be reasonable, haven’t you got hungry little monks at home?”
As Biryn shakes his head firmly the other players are not so reticent. “Come
on Biryn, let’s at least hear the man out,” says Lysar. She gave Biryn a look which implied that this might be their
only chance for escape. “Don’t
be so stiff-necked.” Biryn
seemed to accept what she said and turned away, as Olgir lowered the sack, he
suddenly turned and punched the sack out of his hand.
The impact tore the bag from the giant’s grasp and the coins within
were flung across the room. A few
crashed through the window, but the rest went spinning off across the floor.
Biryn was disgusted to see both Asheren and Sira go scrabbling across the
floor after the glint of gold. Olgir
grabbed Biryn by the throat, his other hand swinging the mace smoothly and
easily up into it. “I would not
do such things if I were you, Paladin.” He
drags him out of the room and into another wrecked room.
This had obviously been a dining room.
In the centre was a long, low dining table with at least twelve chairs
scattered around it. A rough map of
Jamian filled the West wall, Biryn was dragged past into it and into the
entrance hall he had glimpsed the previous night. What he only made out as some sort of mosaic resolved itself
into an enormous picture of a bustling seaport.
Biryn remembered that the owner of this house, Lady Wilfin had moved to
Lethys a few years before leaving the house to her son, since then little has
been heard from either the son or Wilfin Manor – now Biryn could see why.
He
was jostled from his reflective moment as he was swung around the brass banister
at the foot of a huge staircase sweeping up to the balcony overhead.
The distance to the front door was a tempting fifteen feet and Biryn was
sure he could make it, but he would not leave his friends, including Captain
James. As they make their way up,
Olgir still had a firm hand on Biryn’s arm and he knew the other two were not
far behind. When
they reached the balcony they turned left and Biryn was dragged along to the
room at the far end. Olgir, reached
forward, opened the door and pushed Biryn roughly inside. Biryn
recoiled in shock. Captain James
had been tied to the bottom bunk and had clearly taken a beating. He could see his chest rising and falling but the hoarse,
wheezing coming from him, meant cracked ribs and possibly a punctured lung.
His face was black and blue, and where his shirt was torn open there were
lash marks of some sort across his chest. Something
inside Biryn snapped. The giant
face was close to his, looking over his shoulder and Biryn could smell his fetid
breath. With a snarl, he snapped
his arm up and back, smashing into his nose.
Olgir staggered back, through the narrow doorway, crashed into the two
bowmen on the balcony and smacked straight into the balcony rail.
He moved his hands up to his nose as Biryn lowered his shoulder and
charged straight at him. Time seemed to slow for Biryn.
He saw the crossbows come up as the two men recovered from their initial
shock. Olgir’s hands came away
from his bloody face and his eyes widened in shock as he saw Biryn coming
straight for him. Then the two
bodies met and they both crashed through the balcony falling to the floor below.
As Biryn fell he twisted away from the giants huge flailing arms, landing
badly. He stumbled, but Olgir fared
worse, crashing onto his back on the tiled floor.
Shards of mosaic flew up, and Biryn heard the wind rush out of him.
Biryn
tried to make a lunge for the mace, but a crossbow bolt chinked into the tiles
in front of him, he ducked back under cover of the balcony and sprinted for the
front doorway. As he passed under
the stairwell he heard the snick of a crossbow and another bolt smashed into the
tiles. Behind him he heard
Olgir’s roar of anger as he climbed to his feet and as he glanced back, he saw
the other crossbowman, reloaded and sprinting to the end of the balcony.
If he could just reach the door… The
sunlight streamed in through the glass window to the right of the door and Biryn
headed for that. Summoning reserves
he never knew he had he offered a brief prayer to Eissa and sprang straight for
the window. Another snick from
behind him and then the world exploded. His
outstretched hands punched into the glass, lacerating the knuckles, then the
bolt hit him in the lower leg, obliterating all the pain for a second until the
chips and shards of the heavy glass struck him in the face. He
landed on the stairs outside and rolled down them to lie at their base. Asheren
was trying frantically to get the door open as soon as they all heard the
splintering woods sounds and the dull vibration of someone very large hitting
the floor. What was Biryn doing
now. He was a foolish young man.
But again Asheren focused on the bar behind the door, willing it from
it’s socket. It shook alright,
but it would not budge. Asheren focused again and held his palm out in front of him.
The others all had their ears to the door and all heard Olgir’s roar of
rage. Suddenly the bar worked
itself loose. “Let’s
get out of here” said Asheren pushing on the handles. Chapter 4 |