T Lain - City of Fire

“Who are they? What do they want?” Eoghan panted from behind the upturned table.

His wife, who had scrambled behind the bar after dropping her tray and collapsing, made her way to his side. Both husband and wife looked pale and shaken.

Regdar shook his head and took stock of the room. Nearly all the villagers were upstairs, spread through the rooms. He saw Ian crouching by the closed window and swore.

“The window in our room! Ian, it’s open.”

The half-elf nodded and said, “I need to get my weapons, anyway.”

He looked over at Naull and headed toward the stairs.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Early’s shout made Ian stop at the base of the stairs, but Regdar signaled for him to keep going.

The cry was directed at Krusk, who was moving toward his weapons and armor. The half-orc didn’t even pause as Early moved toward him. Alhandra tried to step between them but the big man raised his sword threateningly.

“He’s still a prisoner, isn’t he?” Early shouted. The big man looked grim.

Krusk yanked his chain shirt down over his chest but Early put a hand out when the half-orc reached for his axe. Krusk’s right hand balled into a fist.

“Stop it!” Naull cried out.

They both looked at her.

“We don’t have time for this,” the wizard said. She turned to Regdar and asked, “What do we do, boss?”

For a moment, Regdar looked flustered, then he shook his head and pointed to the innkeeper.

“Eoghan,” he said, “get every container you can find filled with water. Is the back door locked?”

Eoghan shook his head in shock, but stood up. He started toward the back, then stopped and turned.

“I’ll get it, dear,” Lexi said, almost as if she was talking about a pie in the oven, then she struggled to her feet and hustled toward the back of the inn.

Eoghan nodded and began handing out jugs and pitchers to the few villagers who still remained on the ground floor.

“Get some of the water upstairs. Thank Pelor the roof isn’t thatched,” the innkeeper said. He knew the wood slats would burn quickly if more flaming oil went up there, but they could only do their best. With a puzzled look on his face, he turned toward Naull and asked, “Why’ve they stopped?”

It was true. No more arrows thunked against the door or the walls. They still heard howling outside, but that was all.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

After seeing to it that Early moved away to help one of the fallen villagers, she’d helped Krusk get into the rest of his armor.

“They want me,” Krusk said.

His axe balanced deftly in his big hands and a dark expression clouded his face. He moved toward the door. Nearly everyone stepped out of his way, but Alhandra intercepted him.

“No, Krusk, you can’t.”

“No more running,” the half-orc rumbled.

The paladin started to argue, but a loud baying from outside the inn cut her off. It was loudest just outside the front door, but answering yelps and howls seemed to echo from all around. Then it all stopped, suddenly.

“Come out, half-orc!” a canine voice howled from in front of the inn. It sounded almost like more baying, but the words were clear. “Come out and give us what we want! Come out, or we’ll burn you out, you and your new friends!”

Barking laughter rose again, and through the slits of the shutters and cracks of the door they could see many small fires in the courtyard. Torches, lanterns, all moving, all dancing just beyond the wooden walls of the inn.

“Send him out!” the howling voice continued. “We only want the half-orc! We don’t need to roast all of you in your little wood oven!”

Barking laughter followed.

“I don’t think he means it,” Naull said grimly.

“What?” Eoghan asked anxiously. “Whatever that is, it’ll burn my whole place down!”

Regdar turned to the near-frantic innkeeper and said, “That’s not what she meant. Whatever that is, it’ll burn this place down whether we send Krusk out or not.”

The half-orc paused in his tracks. He was halfway to the door, but Regdar’s words stopped him.

“Yes,” the barbarian growled, almost to himself. “They burned Kalpesh… they’ll burn here as well.”

“Then what can we do?” the innkeeper almost wailed.

The look on the fighter’s face told Naull he was wrestling with that question already. Regdar shook his head and moved to the door, peering carefully through one of the cracks. Something thudded into the wood and he leaped back.

“I can’t see them; it’s too dark. I don’t know who they are.”

“They’re gnolls.”

The assemblage turned and looked at the stairs. It was Ian. Soot stained his bandaged arm. Their attackers had fired flaming arrows into the top floor, too, but the half-elf and the villagers extinguished the small blazes.

“I saw them through your window, before we shut it. There’s at least a dozen of them, maybe more. They all have bows and torches. They’ve dragged a couple of hay bales from the stable out into the courtyard and set them aflame.”

Regdar cursed.

“At least they haven’t set the inn on fire, yet,” Naull observed hopefully.

A few of the others nodded, but Regdar frowned.

“Why not?” he asked. “I mean, with us yelling and arguing in here, they could’ve soaked the walls with oil and put a torch to us all. Instead they launch a few fire arrows and this—” he pointed to the scorch mark and the smashed lantern. “What did they do upstairs?”

“A couple of arrows. One caught on your bedding,” Ian shrugged. He understood where Regdar was headed. “We put it out with the water from the basin. No problem.”

“So, they don’t actually want to burn us out. They want Krusk,” he nodded at the half-orc. “But they want something else. Otherwise, they’d just fire the inn and catch him when we ran for it. Whatever they want, it’s something they can’t get if they burn the inn to the ground.”

Alhandra looked deliberately at Krusk, who returned her gaze and shook his head. Naull caught the interplay, as did Regdar. Ian actually stepped toward the half-orc, but he put up his hand up when Krusk growled and raised his axe.

“Krusk, no,” Alhandra said. “You have to tell them. No one here wants to hurt you, but they have to know.”

For a moment the half-orc looked defiant, but then his face collapsed into sorrow, then acceptance. It amazed Naull to see how expressive he was. When he looked defiant or angry, he looked most like the orcs they’d fought and killed, but now he just looked like a sad, ugly man.

Reaching into his chain shirt with one thick hand, he drew out an oilskin packet. Naull nearly smacked her forehead as she recognized the flame symbol on the outside. She had meant to ask Krusk about it when things settled down, but they never did.

Whatever it was, the half-orc valued it highly. When Ian leaned in to get a closer look, the half-orc started to move the packet away protectively, but at a word from Alhandra he stopped and held it up.

Without the flame emblem it would have looked almost exactly like the packet in which Naull kept her important papers, such as their contract with the village. It was a little bulkier, as if a few more things were stuffed into it, but otherwise the same size and shape.

“What’s in it?” she asked.

Alhandra started to answer, but Krusk shook his head brusquely.

“It’s what Kalpesh… and my friend,” he said haltingly, “died for. They can’t have it. No one can have it. I must protect it.”

“Why? If they were willin’ to burn down a whole city,” Eoghan suddenly cried, “they’ll sure as the Nine Hells burn us alive for it!” Lexi, back from securing the rear door, tried to restrain her husband. He shook her off and continued, “What’s so important? Why can’t we jus’ give it to ’em, so they’ll go away?”