Ed Gentry - Neversfall

Taennen stared at the corpse of the wizard with whom he had spoken only a short while before. Haddar's broad chest served to miniaturize the man's body. Khatib's face was pale, his blood lost through a slit in his throat. The wound spanned the breadth of his jaw, leaving a flap of skin hanging wide open.

Taennen stood silently and took the corpse from Haddar when the soldier offered it. Loraica ordered Haddar to have his leg examined. Haddar saluted and shuffled away, his head hanging low.

Taennen felt the damp coolness of more blood along Khatib's lower back, and his fingers found a wide, deep gash there. His digits explored the cavern of their own will, Taennen's bile rising. Though he had never felt particularly close to the wizard, the man's death, so cowardly in its execution, angered him, and he felt a pang of loss for the comrade whose excitement about the workings of the tower he had found so engaging just moments before.

"They breached the tower," Jhoqo said, staring hard at Khatib's body.

"This…" Taennen started. "This can't be."

Jhoqo reached over the wizard's cradled body and patted the younger man on the back, but Taennen shrugged it off. "No. I mean, he was safe. He locked himself inside the top of the tower," Taennen said, taking a step back.

"What?" Loraica said.

"The tower. The room at the top can be magically sealed. I was with him when the attack started. He locked the door behind me."

Jhoqo looked puzzled. "So someone broke in and killed him."

"No," Taennen said. "He said someone would need to know the proper way in once it was locked. There was a passphrase." He lowered his voice and looked to Jhoqo, forgotten hurt resurfacing. "He said you told only him what it was."

Jhoqo's lips twisted tighter into a frown. "He must not have locked it, or perhaps the damnable invaders had a more powerful arcanist with them."

"If that's so," Loraica said, "we are in a lot of danger without Khatib."

"We will avenge him. Do not doubt that," Jhoqo said. He stepped in close, placed his hand on Khatib's head, and whispered something so soft that even Taennen could not hear.

"Get me the counts, Durir," Jhoqo said. "Terir, liaise with the Durpari dorir to ensure that the healing needs of everyone are met as well as we can accommodate."

"Aye, sir," Loraica and Taennen both barked.

"Sir, permission to follow the invaders," Adeenya said.

Jhoqo looked at the woman for several moments but said nothing.

"Not to engage them, sir. To scout the area, to figure out where they are coming from so that we might launch an attack of our own when we muster our forces," Adeenya said. She stood straight and tall, her face solemn, as though she were not asking the impossible.

"Reconnaissance, then?" Jhoqo said. "Very well. Take a small contingent of both forces. Do not be seen, Orir, and do not go far."

"Aye, sir. Thank you, sir," she said.

Jhoqo nodded and took a step before Adeenya stopped him.

"Sir, one more thing." "Yes, Orir?"

"Sir, the halfling. He told us he was a woodsman who knew this area. He might be able to help," Adeenya said.

"You want me to release a prisoner, Orir?"

"Not release, sir. Just make use of a resource on hand in a bad situation, sir."

She was clever, no doubt about that, Taennen thought. Jhoqo could not deny her request of a useful resource given the circumstances. Taennen had not realized until that moment how brave Adeenya was. And clearly it had worked. She had done the impossible.

Jhoqo squinted at her a moment before chuckling a little. "Very well, Orir. Take the halfling, but I hold you responsible for the safe return of the prisoner. We hold their safety in our hands, after all."

Adeenya nodded. "Yes, sir. Thank you sir." She saluted and turned to gather her forces.

After Jhoqo had walked away, Taennen looked to his friend and said, "Somethings not right, Lori."

"Agreed," she said solemnly. "Let's check the tower."

Taennen placed his hand on Khatib's forehead, uttering a prayer to the Adama. He set the wizard's body beside the half dozen others laid out in the yard, ordering a nearby

Durpari soldier to give the man a burial proper for his order and position.

"No rank. He was a wizard."

"Yes, sir," the Durpari soldier said grimly, then added, "Bad day for magic users."

Taennen looked down at the bodies. Two of them were Maquar clerics. Taennen swore and turned back to Loraica.

Taennen walked beside Loraica to the central tower. The courtyard was alive with activity, but the air was heavy with caution and fatigue. They had been surprised and significantly damaged in a fortress that they had believed was theirs. The attackers had come in undetected, despite the measures available to prevent such an ambush.

As he pushed open the door to the tower, Taennen faced Loraica. "Kill anyone you don't know."

Loraica nodded and drew out her heavy falchion. Taennen crept up the stairs, listening after every few steps for the sounds of anyone moving around at the top of the tower. His pace increased as he continued. They reached the top of the tower to face the door he had seen for the first time earlier that day. The door no longer sparkled with the glow of possibility and mystery. Instead it hung open, dull and uninviting.

"I saw him close it," Taennen said.

Loraica knelt on one knee, examining the door and its jamb. "It doesn't look like it was forced. They must have figured out the passphrase," she said.

Taennen shook his head. "Khatib said one had to know it ahead of time."

"Do you think the invaders tortured the phrase out of the last regiment?" Loraica asked.

"If so, then why not occupy the citadel? Why keep to the woods?"

"They are wildmen, sir," Loraica said. "You saw them fight, Lori. They're no wildmen." She conceded the point. "They did seem too organized, didn't they?"

Taennen nodded.

"What is all this?" she said, motioning around the room.

Taennen smiled, thinking of Khatib's enthusiasm for the crystals. "This is the heart of Neversfall."

"Well, how does it work?"

"It needs a brain."

"It doesn't have one?" she asked.

"He's being buried right now," Taennen said, leaving the room. "There's nothing here to see. Coordinate with Marlke, Lori. I'm going to get a count of our losses."

Evening was consuming daylight as Adeenya stalked the plains. Even with Neversfall within sight behind her, she felt conspicuous and naked in the open. The Aerilpar was nearby, promising no end of dangers, yet that was where the tracks of the invaders seemed to lead.

She sought not only an end to the attacks and revenge for her dead but answers to a personal mystery that took precedent in her mind. Not long after the battle had ended, Adeenya discovered that her pendant, the magical device she used to communicate with her superiors was missing. The attackers who groped at her were not interested in her body but her pendant.

She remembered their probing hands and wished she could hack them off. How could they have known about the pendant? What did they want with it? True it was magical, but its power was not difficult to come by. Other than her own soldiers and the sly wizard Khatib, no one had known about the pendant. Khatib was dead, which left only her own soldiers under suspicion, and Adeenya did not want to travel that road. She refused to believe that random chance had allowed the attackers to find her pendant. She would be all the more wary until she could figure out for certain how they had known.

"Here, Orir," Corbrinn said, interrupting her thoughts. "Two dozen or more."

"More than two dozen? You're sure?" she asked the halfling, who crouched on the ground before her examining tracks.

Corbrinn stood and nodded before continuing toward the forest. "At least two dozen left the citadel on their own feet," Corbrinn said. "Some of these are deep, too heavy. Those are from the ones carrying fallen comrades on their shoulders."