Qwernt said:
Huzzah, Lazybones is back!
Bad guys this time... I like it.
Woot, first poster!
Here's another update. I'm leaving for a week's vacation starting Wednesday, and naturally I have a ton of projects to wrap up tomorrow before I go. But if I get a chance, I'll see if I can wrap up another update (I'm about 3/4ths done with the next chapter) before I leave.
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Chapter 2
THE MISSION
“You’ve got two hundred swords; clear out your own damned dungeon,” Corath Dar said. A dozen crossbows shifted toward him, the steel heads pointed at various important parts of his anatomy.
“While my companion’s words are hasty, I fear that his sentiment is accurate,” Licinius Varo said. “You are sentencing us to execution, just by a different method.”
“That is no less than what you have earned,” the colonel said. “This way, at least, you have a chance... if not to survive, at least to offset some of the weight of your crimes in the next life.”
“Ah, but the fate of my soul is already set—is it not, Valus?” Varo replied.
“This world will be well rid of your soul, regardless,” the priest said.
“What about these?” Dar asked, holding up his manacled wrists.
“Set them loose,” the colonel said. As the jailors stepped forward, the officer lifted a hand. “Not him,” he amended, noting the half-conscious elf.
“It’s going to be a real bitch if we have to carry him,” Dar said dryly.
“The Mad Elf will be attended to in a moment,” the colonel said. He gestured to another of the riders, an officer of lesser rank, who dismounted and went over to the soldiers holding the elf, digging something out of a heavy leather satchel at his side.
“Are you just going to send us in as we are, without weapons?” Velan Tiros asked, rubbing his abused wrists as he was unshackled. The soldiers had formed a half-circle around them, facing the slope that led down into the graveyard.
“Fear not, Marshal,” Lord Sobol said. He alone seemed to be unaffected by the thick air of tension in this place, and in fact seemed to be taking amusement from the entire scene with the prisoners. “Your army will not be sent into battle unarmed.”
Four soldiers came forward, each carrying the end of a heavy tarp. The tarp was burdened with a collection of assorted weapons and pieces of armor. Behind them a fifth soldier was leading a packhorse loaded down with a number of old leather packs.
With a loud clatter, the soldiers dropped the tarp in front of the prisoners and withdrew. Dar was the first into the heap, drawing out a longsword that had clearly seen better days. The crossbowmen tensed again, but if the fighter noticed it, he didn’t show it.
“This stuff is junk,” he said, smacking the blade with a fingernail.
“I am sure that a fighter of your talents will make the most of what is available,” Lord Sobol said.
Varo reached for the handle of a mace, only to be pushed aside as the half-orc barbarian drove toward the pile. He tossed aside a few miscellaneous items, then drew out a chain shirt that he slapped over his shoulder. He walked over to the soldiers that were unlatching Zafir Navev. The men guarding the warlock started turning in alarm, their weapons coming up, but the half-orc ignored them, yanking the heavy manacles and attached chains even as the last lock popped open. Navev cried out and clutched his wrist as the heavy bracer sliced the flesh. Ukas jangled the assembly in his hand, snapping one of the warlock’s manacles through one from his own set. With the two sets thus joined, Ukas swept the impromptu weapon around in a trial arc that would have broken a few skulls had not the soldiers hastily dodged back. Satisfied, the half-orc tucked the ends of the chain into the clout of his breechcloth and began to tug the armor shirt over his ample torso. The garment didn’t quite fit, but the barbarian merely grunted, grabbing onto a seam and tearing a number of the links apart.
“Our companion will be useful in encounters where subtlety is not necessary,” Varo said in an aside to Dar. The fighter grunted in assent, as he adjusted the straps of a breastplate taken from the pile.
Velan Tiros had taken another breastplate, but was having difficulty managing the weight. Varo moved to help him, but the old man turned away from him, pulling the armor over his head and tightening the straps himself. The result was almost comical, as the heavy armor hung loosely from his emaciated frame.
“What of bows?” he asked the colonel.
The officer shook his head. “No missile weapons.”
“That will put us at a tactical disadvantage.”
“Ah, come now, Marshal!” Lord Sobol said from behind him. “Surely a commander of your caliber will be able to adapt to the situation. What is it you military types say... ‘respond to the evolving battlefield?’”
Tiros did not reply, but merely buckled a swordbelt that might have been as old as he was around his waist.
“Just for my edification, what’s to stop us from just walking across that valley, wait for nightfall, and just keep going?” Varo asked. Dar bit off a curse; clearly he’d been thinking the same thing.
“A reasonable question,” the colonel asked. “First off...”
“First off,” the nobleman interrupted, “we’re not going anywhere, priest. This little army is going to surround this valley, and we’re going to stay until you come out of this pit. If you try to make a break for it, Valus here will demonstrate the persuasive power of a
flame strike.”
“Second off. Any of you feel a ticklish feeling over the last week, the feeling like someone’s watching you? Well, you are being watched. The Duke is taking an interest in you... and likewise the Guild,” he added, with a telling glance at Navev. “Do not think you can skulk off and evade your fate.”
“Why do I get the feeling I am not going to like ‘third off’?” Dar asked, stabbing two daggers into sheaths tucked into his belt.
“Third off,” Lord Sobol said, with a wry grin, “We’ve been dosing your meals with crystal death powder during this expedition.”
“Bastard,” Dar said, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. An inch of metal slid free; several spears were lowered, and Valus lifted his holy symbol in readiness.
Varo stepped in between them, his eyes narrowed. “So the antidote is another reward for our service, I presume.”
“Indeed. I would say that you have about four days before you start to feel its effects. Maybe a full week before the shakes start in earnest. The end result is quite... unpleasant, as I am told.”
“I am half minded to see how many of you I can take with me,” Dar said, standing easy, but with his hand still resting on the hilt of his sword. The half-orc grunted, as if ambivalent to whether he got to bash heads here, or in the dark tunnels of the legendary dungeon an arrow’s flight away.
“Consider your options, mercenary,” Valus said. “The Dungeon of Graves is said to contain a king’s fortune. And the Duke has sworn that you may keep the excess of what you bring out, minus the standard treasure-tax of seventy-five percent.”
“How generous of His Grace.” But he let his hand slide from his hilt.
Two of the soldiers had unloaded the packhorse during the exchange. “We have provided enough food and drink for six days, along with lamps, rope, and other things you will need,” the colonel said, indicating a half-dozen worn leather packs.
Varo had gone over to a leather satchel laid a bit separate from the other supplies. “Parchment, quills, and ink,” the colonel said, as the cleric bent to examine the bag. “The Duke would like a map of the complex.”
“Looking for another summer chateau, is he?” Dar asked. “A nice, quiet place where he can get away from the stresses of the capital?”
“I require my vestments, my sigil, my other relics,” Varo said. “Without them, I am far less effective.”
“Your unholy devices were burned,” Valus said. “You will do without their taint.”
“No healing at all? Do you wish to even make a pretext of letting us complete this mission successfully? Does the Duke want the Dungeon of Graves sacked, or not?”
The other cleric just sat his horse stoically for a moment. The others had paused in their preparations, and were watching the exchange, obviously interested in its outcome. Finally, Valus drew out a small case of polished ebony from one of his saddlebags, and tossed it to the other cleric. “Very well. We spared these from the flames.”
Varo caught the oblong box. He popped it open for a moment, and scanned the interior. He looked up at Valus for an interval, then packed the case into the satchel, and slung it over his shoulder.
“Let’s get this over with, then,” Tiros said. Something subtle had shifted in the marshal’s attitude. He still looked a bit ridiculous in the oversized armor, and the tightly-cinched swordbelt dangling at his waist. But there was something else, too, a hint of an old fire that burned in his eyes as he walked over to the packs.
One of the soldiers picked up the lightest of them. “Here you go, Lord Marshal,” the young man said quietly, helping the old veteran slide his arms into the straps. As Tiros was adjusting to the weight, the young soldier squeezed his arm before they separated, so quickly that none of the others noticed.
“What about elf-boy?” Dar asked.
Two soldiers still held onto the elf, who was now conscious and standing on his own two feet, if a bit unsteadily. Another two men stood behind them, their swords drawn and jabbed into the prisoner’s back. The officer that had dismounted earlier had fixed a heavy bronze collar around the elf’s neck, which the elf was trying unsuccessfully to dislodge. The collar bore no obvious lock, and now appeared to be a single unbroken band of metal.
“Every general needs an adjutant,” Lord Sobol said. The officer that had installed the collar upon the elf came over to Tiros, and gave him a bronze ring.
“What is this?”
“The collar contains a binding enchantment,” Valus explained. “It was created by the Guild. The ring is the focus. If the elf gets more than twenty feet away from you, it will start to feel a great discomfort. If it persists, at about forty feet it will start to feel an agonizing pain, sufficient to incapacitate it. The ring will also protect you from it; any pain it inflicts upon you will be reflected tenfold through the collar.”
Tiros looked down at the ring in disgust.
“I would wear it, if I were you,” Lord Sobol said. “You’ll need him, in there, and if you don’t wear it, you’re like as not to get a dagger shoved up your ass while you sleep.”
The marshal put on the ring. The guards holding the elf released him and backed away; the elf merely stood there sullenly, his body tensed as if ready to explode in any direction.
“If he breaks again, a hundred royals to the man that puts a bolt through his heart,” the nobleman said.
“You don’t have much daylight left,” the colonel said.
“Well then. Let’s go find some trouble and kick some ass,” Dar said.
“May we meet in the next life,” Varo said, with a mocking bow at Valus.
The half-orc rattled his chain and followed. Navev looked sullen, but he went with the others. The elf followed Tiros, his long fingers still probing at the collar around his neck.
The six doomed men started down the slope, moving into the outer reaches of Rappan Athuk.
Behind them, the riders watched, as the foot soldiers began to fan out in squads around the perimeter of the vale. The sounds of sergeants shouting orders vied with the quiet gusts of the afternoon breeze. Those that remained began organizing a camp, unloading the pack horses and getting entrenching tools out of one of the wagons.
“Do you think they will find the others?” Valus asked.
“I do not want to think about what they will find,” the colonel said. “Doomed bastards,” he added, in an undertone.
The noble heard him. “Doomed bastards, I like that,” he said with a chuckle. “Good fortune, Marshal Tiros!” he shouted after the departing figures, already fading into the hints of mists that clung persistently to the valley floor despite the afternoon sun. “Good fortune, Company of the Doomed Bastards!”