T Lain - City of Fire

“Do it,” Grawltak replied. Dark covered the land but the night was clear. Starlight and the sickle moon made it easy for the gnolls to see, but they could be seen, too. “Stay low and near cover.”

Crouching and loping in pairs, the party of gnolls moved silently toward the village. No one marked their passing.

No one noticed the gnolls on their way from the farm because everyone not in their homes was stuffed into the Stag and Stalker’s common room. Eoghan made sure everyone had something to drink—but not too much—and a few things to eat, then he took off his leather apron, handed it to his wife, and opened the cellar door.

Naull looked on from a seat near the hearth. No fire burned. She supposed they only used the fireplace on cold winter nights and those came few and far between in Durandell. Regdar sat across from her, wearing his newly-cleaned and repaired armor. She wondered why the fighter wore it now, but she didn’t ask.

Ian came down from his room just as Alhandra stepped up from the root cellar. Naull looked at her in surprise. Was she down there this whole time? The paladin still wore her armor and had her sword at her side.

I guess so, Naull thought.

Ian pulled up a stool next to Naull and leaned over.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

She nodded, even though she’d had some pretty bizarre dreams. Naull didn’t believe in precognition—well, except as a deliberate spell effect, of course—but she still felt uneasy.

Murmurs started as the half-orc followed Alhandra up out of the cellar. Most of the villagers were at the farm earlier, when they saw him strung up, bloody, and exhausted.

Alhandra’s been busy, Naull thought. She even found him a shirt.

It was a tattered white tunic and it barely stretched across the half-orc’s massive chest. He still wore his short breeches, but it looked like either he or Alhandra cleaned off most of the dirt.

At Eoghan’s direction, Alhandra and Krusk moved to one of the shorter tables nearby. It stood close to the hearth but far away from any of the exits. It didn’t appear to be an effort to keep the half-orc from escaping; placing him in that spot just made it easier for everyone to see him without shifting around much.

Naull and Regdar scanned the crowd but Ian watched the half-orc. He sat uneasily on a chair by the table. Alhandra whispered something to him and he seemed to relax slightly. One hand hovered near his chest.

“Regdar?”

Naull nudged her partner and he turned to face her.

“What?” he whispered.

“Has he got something there?”

Regdar squinted, though they weren’t more than a dozen feet from the half-orc.

“I don’t know,” Regdar answered. “His stuff’s over there.”

He pointed to a basket containing a small pack and the half-orc’s chain mail. Someone had brought it up from the cellar. Regdar propped up the barbarian’s axe and bow in the corner nearest his seat.

Opening her mouth, Naull started to say something, but Eoghan thumped a block of wood on the table. He, Alhandra, and the half-orc all sat behind it. Everyone else in the inn found a seat or a post to lean on and the room grew quiet.

“This is not a trial!” Eoghan said in a loud voice. “Our… visitor hasn’t done anything to be put on trial for.” The innkeeper nodded along the table at the half-orc, who didn’t appear to notice. Alhandra, however, inclined her head in thanks. “But we have a responsibility t’know who he is an’ what he’s doin’ here.”

Alhandra stood. “I will speak for this man,” she said in a clear voice. “He answered my questions, and though I am not of your village and have no authority here, I am satisfied he means no harm and has done nothing that would threaten Durandell or any of its interests.”

A few hours ago, Alhandra won over a hostile crowd on the verge of lynching the half-orc. Naull and Regdar exchanged glances and looked over the villagers in attendance. A few nodded already, as if that was good enough for them.

Okay, I’m impressed, Naull thought.

The hearing went well and quickly, though there were some incidents of interest. When Krusk—as Alhandra introduced him—told haltingly of the attack on Kalpesh and its likely fall to an army of humanoids, many of the villagers cried out in dismay. Because of the desert and the dangers of the canyon in between, Durandell had little contact with the southern city. Every so often, however, a traveler did come through, bringing stories of the exotic desert metropolis, silks, oils, and other goods not often seen in the small town. One of the inn’s favorite decorations was an oddly-shaped oil lamp that hung above the fireplace. It had a foreign appearance with its long neck and more than a few villagers looked up at it when they heard of the storming of the city.

No one asked how or why Krusk and a few other men and women from the city escaped. All assumed those refugees fled in fear of their lives, or perhaps in a desperate but doomed effort to find help. Ian frowned, however, and Naull exchanged a look with the half-elf. They both met Alhandra’s eyes as she helped Krusk relate the story of the battle at the edge of the desert. Naull almost let out an audible gasp when she saw the paladin shake her head, almost imperceptibly, as their eyes met. The two locked gazes until Naull shut her mouth and nodded slowly.

There’s more to this, she thought. She turned to Regdar to tell him, but then several things happened at once.

Crockery smashed against the floor as the innkeeper’s wife Lexi looked up and screamed. She’d been moving through the crowd with a jug of small beer, refilling cups as needed when, with a crash of glass and fire, a lantern smashed through one of the windows on the front wall of the inn. Glass and oil splattered across two villagers and a ball of flame erupted on the hardwood floor. A flaming arrow shot through the open door of the inn, narrowly missing a tall man in a fur tunic. It struck the far wall above the bar and kept burning.

The villagers cried out in fear, shock, and in a few cases, pain. Everyone started moving at once. A few jumped behind the bar, others tried to scramble away from the fire, some even bolted toward the door.

“Stay inside!” Regdar shouted to those few.

He started jumping in that direction, but Early, who had entered the inn only a few moments before, got in his way.

Two more fiery arrows shot through the door. One hit the far wall and snapped. The other embedded itself in a villager’s chest. She had just stepped into the center of the doorway, meaning to dash out into the darkness. Instead, she collapsed backward, a look of shock on her face. The flame on the arrow shaft sputtered and died, drowned in blood oozing up from the wound.

“Get down!” Regdar shouted.

He turned to Eoghan. The innkeeper’s look of anguish and confusion showed he might have some experience settling disputes and leading his neighbors, but none in battle.

“Get down!” Regdar repeated. “Flip up that table and get behind it!”

Eoghan obeyed and Alhandra helped him push over the table into a barricade. Other villagers did the same with other tables. Ian leaped to the side of the smashed window, slamming the inside shutters closed. An arrow, this time unlit, smashed through a crack in the wood bare inches from his hand while he fumbled with the bar. Another villager went down with an arrow in his thigh, but he managed to push the inn’s door closed with his shoulder.

“Upstairs!” Naull cried.

Too many people were packed into one room. If their unknown attackers threw in more oil, someone else would die.

There was a stampede for the stairs, and a few of the smaller folk were nearly trampled. Early scooped up a halfling man and helped him to the stairs.