Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 26

*Before....

Nicole asks. “How far?”
Taylor looks at us. “Three days at least, I think that they’re cutting off any aid to it as they’re searching.”
Nicole looks at all of us. “Then that’s where we’ll be heading.”
Taylor looks at her. “We send back our badly wounded from this and word.”
She nods and looks at me. “Chrissy can you do more things with that light sphere?”
I nod. “I think so, what do you have in mind?”

“More height and more light, then setting it to flash messages like a lantern bearer.”
I nod and take a breath. “I can do that, one way or another I can do that.”
I have to.
She looks at me and it takes a second before I realize that she means now and she walks with me as I get directly under it and I reach inside and I push power and will up into the light sphere and send it higher...as high as I can and brighter.
Nicole starts telling me the patterns to flash.
[Invaders, Invaders on the land, aid needed at Rowan Keep, aid needed at Rowan Keep.]
I do that over and over and as dawn starts to rise I make the light bright as I can like a star flashing in the sky.
It’s still raining and I’m drained and aching from being drained but we’re all ready to leave and there’s oily black smoke rising from the bodies.
Nicole’s in her battle leathers and she offers me a hot drink.
“You ready to go?”
I drain the hot wine. “Yes, let’s go ruin somebody’s plans.”

*And Now…

We send off three that are the most wounded with the two youngest of Lady Marybeth’s apprentices in one of the wagons and we sent some of the armor and the weapons of these things with them as further proof that things are out on the land.

The rest is stored in Nicole’s wagon and the coins as well into the box that Taylor is using for the post.

I mount up into our wagon and we’re heading out and I’m aching and hurt and tired but part of me is angry and mad enough that I want to go off and being vengeful.

I shouldn’t.

Not with the power that I just used, how I killed those things.

The feelings that I’m feeling from the others is the same. I’m not alone in this even with my friends.

Whoever this is, they’re hiring invaders.

And they’ve hurt me and mine, killed for it. Whatever this is...whatever the power play is.

The Middle-Kingdoms, in some way we’re supposed to be connected. Lady Tatiana is related to High King Boen in some way and given her age very likely an elder kinsman...kinswoman.

But there’s anger and a feeling of whoever is doing this they’re betraying all of us in a way.

Anger drives us fast for an hour then the adrenaline is wearing off and for me tiredness is settling into my bones.

Nicole pulls me down from my perch on the wagon where like her I was hanging onto her squire’sknight and she helps me sit down.

“That all took more out of you than we thought.”

“The beacon took a lot more power than I thought, light spells are not used like that and I did things that I had to force. I don’t know how long it will last.”

We look back and upwards at the repeating pulsing star of light.

“It’s something Chrissy, it’s something that no one else could do.”

I shiver. “Nic, I did things no one should do.”

She pulls me into a hug but is wrapping me in our bedding and pulls a tarp over me.

“Most of us have had Chrissy.”

“I pointed and they died Nic.”

She gives me this look. “I’ve used a bow before Chris.”

“I...it’s not the same Nicole, it was so easy.”

She takes both my hands and pulls me in until we’re forehead to forehead.

“I’ve already killed enough enemies Chris that they blur together, I’ve ended bad things and bad men with a flick of my blade. Was it easy? Yes, too easy sometimes. Was some of it fair? Yes, it was fair because they set foot on a path of being a raider or villain or rapist, race doesn’t matter...my skills, your magic...it’s all fair. These foes, they have their best too...and we might face them. You already did and lost a home...We’re not fighting to take we’re fighting to defend.”

She holds my arms in this sort of double warrior’s arm clasp and she’s holding me steady as I shake. She’s holding my eyes too as tears are running out of her eyes and mine and we’re both crying for the things we’ve done and somehow finding strength in each other from doing this.

I have never felt as deep and as close to someone as this before.

We almost breathing in synch looking at each other.

I nod against her head.

“To defend.” I breathe.

She nods against me. “To defend, too make life better in ways folks can’t for themselves.”

“To stop things like my grandfather from abusing their powers.” I say back.

“Just like your mother.”

Mother...both of them...they fought, when they came they fought.

Died.

But they both did fight.

I hold Nicole’s eyes until we’re both smiling at each other.

“Get some rest Chrissy and get warm too we need you.”

She pulls away and I pull the tarp over me and I use my wand to spark and make heat and the warmth spell to wrap me up as I shovel some cheese into me and dig out a handful of my nuts and candies and things bought at Threshold and settle in to sleep.

It’s the sleep of the dead meets sleeping with the dead.

The Goblins, The Wargs, These Things….

~Hobgoblins.~

Father’s voice?

~Father?~

~Yes Chrissy.~

~You know? You know me like this?~

~You’re my child, you haven’t changed that much Chris.~

~I’m a woman!~

~A young one but yes.~

~How!?~

~I do not know.~

I can see him out in the back lower pasture sitting on the fence watching my brothers while they ran the jousting dummies and the other targets while my old teachers were yelling at them to do better, adjust arms and the way they sit.

I’m there beside him standing and it makes me sob with homesickness.

Them, him, the sights, the smells, the colors even of the land after the first hay has been cut off the land, the three bent elm trees off in the graving pasture where I had spent time with some of the keep lads pretending it was our fort.

I look at Father and wipe my eyes.

“How haven’t I changed?”

(Sniffle.)

“You’re still you, the heart’s the same. Not every prince will play with the keep lads, not every prince takes care enough to learn enough to heal Chrissy.”

“How’d this even happen?”

“Aurora was powerful and smart, brilliant even and I have no idea my girl.”

“You called me your girl.”

“I did, death isn’t keen on mincing words.”

I have this feeling and there’s Death’s wagoner off in the distance waiting.

Which is hard on my head as we went to temple but I wasn’t really devout.

“You’re on borrowed time?” I ask.

“Words he doesn’t mince with Time… it’s a bit wibble wobbly sort of stuff.”

“Sounds like death and you are friends?”

“The ride’s coming no point in berating the coachman.”

I nod, that’s such a saying from home.

The Wagoner, The Highwayman, The Coachman… here in The Middle Kingdoms we don’t often use The Ferryman or other aspects of Death.

I look at father. “You said Hobgoblins?”

“Yes, I told you stories of them when you were little about me facing them.”

“I don’t remember.”

Father smiles. “Well that’s a given with the questions.”

I lean on the fencing and cross my arms.

“You look like your mother doing that.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Which one?”

“Both.”

“Father…”

He holds his hands up like I had seen him do with them. “Peace, peace I’ll tell you.”

“Please.”

“Well we first ran into the first hobgoblins on our march against your grandfather. We were in train and up north heading to marshal at Braithehold in order to head deep into Blackhand’s swamps.

They’re an offshoot of Goblin kind a sort of higher evolution or a related species that came from another world like we did from the ancient tales. Your mother told me they were of the races that were banished far south from us in the first days of man. We sent they south as we fought with our allies in the dwarves and the elves and she thought that they were ancestral foes of our allies. Our kind fell to the dark races pretty fast when we arrived here and the weapons of the ancients, our ancient ancestors became theirs.

I’m not sure how much they gained or gleaned from us but they’re organized and they follow ranks and warleaders.”

I’m nodding. “And Goblins?”

“Smaller, feral, tribal compared to Hobgoblins.”

“So why are Hobgoblins here?”

“Mercenaries, they fight for blood and for power through sacrifices to their dark powers they follow but for pay too. I was told they hold their own territories down in the south, build, use weapons and tools.”

I look at him. “They sound like us?”

“Many things are in truth Chrissy but Hob’s take hearts as sacrifices and eyes, tongues, practice demon worship and dark arts like necromancy.”

“You never said that, I don’t think father.” I can’t remember that ever being mentioned.

“You were a child, tales of heroic battles were the order and not how militarized dark creatures could raise the slain.”

I look him in the eyes and he’s serious.

“Why did they fight for grandfather?”

“Power.”

“Power?”

“Rory preached for power, for might making right and that it and it alone was the natural order and that the false constructs of man, dwarf, elf and the powers of light and the gods needed purging.”

“But there’s always someone more powerful? I mean if he was that powerful he should know this much?” I’m pretty vexed by this.

“He did, that’s why he was so feared he was as powerful as he thought he was.”

“Really?”

“Ancient weapons and magic that no man had ever wielded not even The Witchkings of old and according to our casters and clerics he was going to open a fell gateway.”

“A what?”

“A gate, a great door to another world where he would flood Titan with horrors to deal all of us a fatal blow.”

“And that’s why mother turned?”

“Her and others but yes that and other things.”

“Other things?”

“He wasn’t a good person Christiana, Aurora’s life was hell, even siding with us and dying was preferable she said to living with him and under him.”

“You loved her?”

“I did.”

“Like my other mother?”

“No.”

“Which one?”

He shakes his head. “That’s none of your business.” He looks at me and he’s serious and as much as I want to know...Maybe it’s better not answered.

“So what do we do?”

“What you have to, fight, live, hurt, love.”

“Father…”

There’s a chill and the wagon is close.

“Chrissy, there’s some things that I can’t tell you. There are some things that are the point of living.”

I look at The Wagoner… he...it...is in blackest heavy robes, hooded against weather or what some would think it so with the hood and shoulder mantel deepest black oilcloth. There’s no light inside that hood and the only thing that shows his aspects to the God of Death is the silver gilt blackened steel gauntlets decorated with roses and wheat sheaves.

He looks past me to father like he can’t see me and father gets onto the back of the wagon like he used to when he’d come in from the land with our tenant farmers.

“Do you have to leave?” I ask.

“Well there’s still work for me princess and it’s not safe to walk here I’m told.”

(Sniffle.) “I miss you...I miss you all so much…” My throat hurts from trying not to sob.

“I know and I’ll miss all of you too. But we want to see what you and your sisters will do.”

“No pressure.” (Sniffle-smile.)

“You’ll do fine.”

I’m searching for something to say as the wagon moves away and then a shocking jolt wakes me up.

A dream? A visitation?

I look around and wipe tears from my face and the sand from my eyes.

I’m in the wagon and under the tarp and there’s yelling.

Nicole had joined me at some point and there’s this sound?

Singing? Sweet singing but inside of the melody I can feel malice.

What?

Nicole’s throwing herself out of our spot and she’s beset by large hooked deadly looking talons as there’s this half hag and half bird creature trying to take off her head.

She bobs and weaves lashing out with her sword and it grabs her shield and picks her up and flings her off the wagon with a hard thud. She went a good score of feet with that and she’s stunned.

This thing, Harpy I think they’re called turns on me and I lightning bolt it.

I see my power wrap around it and it just fizzles out?

Oh… she’s not touching the ground.

She lashes out and I throw up a shield.

It… She screams and bashes against it hard.

The men are just standing there slackly.

As is Jessa and one of the healer apprentice girls.

I can feel the sound hitting me too and seeking to pull me into the melody and yet the inside noise the hate, malice, the want of...of our flesh is too strong and drowning the song out.

There’s four of them.

A fifth is down killed by Taylor the one man not swallowed up by this charming song of theirs.

I use my wand and magnet force and fling my blades out at the one in front of me hard.

She drops screaming.

Another swoops at me and I pull my sword.

Sword fighting another fighter is one thing, fighting a beast is another especially with one that’s intelligent is another thing, it has moves, strategy, it’s own technique.

My blade makes sparks off her claws and the forelegs both as hard as metal.

I’m getting hurt by her wings too.

Have you ever been attacked by a courtyard goose?

She’s much bigger and much stronger.

I miss a thrust and her talons hit me tearing into my robes and she hurls me off the wagon popping my shield with raw force.

I throw up another sphere and clench hard on the power and let the sphere roll over the sod and I right myself with an act of sheer will.

I reach through and send a small jolt of power towards Jessa who was wrapped in the wings of one being kissed and fondled. She jumps and screams and she’s suddenly herself and she punches the Harpy in the face as she shoves her away with a scream of rage and fear and disgust.

The Harpy is none too pleased and jumps up to take to the air and use her talons.

Jessa jumps her in a tackle like from barrel ball and drives her into the ground and starts fighting with a fury of fists.

Being used, charmed, taken and touched without consent is throwing hawk into a rage.

I roll from mine diving at me as she comes down hard and tears into the ground and jolt the ground sending out a wave of power that jolts others out of their charms.

I roll again as she strikes my bubble and shatters it again and I swing my sword harder putting my power through my muscles and nerve and actually move the sword too with magnet force and I take off a leg at the knee.

She screams and blood is spraying and she takes flight going up, up and away from us trying to flee.

Several crossbow bolts fill her torso as our fighters are now fighting.

I’m running over to her as she’s clawing at her chest gurgling out blood and I swing hard again taking her head off.

And my sword breaks from the force I used as hit bone.

She wails and there’s a flare of magic and she turns to dirty looking salt.

I look up from my half blade seeing Nicole doing the same and another one falling apart in dirty salt.

Jessa has her hand axes out and she’s quite angrily losing it.

Well more than angrily.

I can feel her emotions just how bad this has triggered her.

It feels like it was going on a long time but it really wasn’t it’s just that bloody and bad and violent and messy.

Jessa’s coated in it before there’s a blow that finally turns it to dirty salt and the blood falls off of her as it changes.

Then she turns from what she just did and fought and she’s throwing up her food.

We’re all looking at each other and I exhale a long ragged breath.

“Is everyone okay! Check for the wounded and check yourselves for wounds these things were filthy let’s not risk infection!”

I’m shouting because I need to it’s getting people moving and I’m trying to lead. I was raised to do this somewhat being the 3rd son and all.

I head to Nicole and look her over. “Are you alright that was a bad throw.”

She is rubbing her side. “Bruised I think, i don’t think that anything’s broken but this isn’t going to help us any.”

“Agreed and I think that my signal might have warned them to someone being in the know and these things were sent at us.”

Nicole makes a face. “We had to set that beacon though there might be more of those things out there and there’s folks at risk.”

“Hobgoblins.”

She looks at me.

I look back at her. “I had a dream or a visitation or something but my father had told me of them in stories when I was little and I’m remembering them now.”

“Is it bad?”

“Bad enough, inhuman and all those dark things that goes with them just being them, armed and raised in military like clans and they have sometimes casters too mostly to dark powers where they sacrifice trophies to.”

“Trophies?”

“Body parts.”

“Oh blood and bloody ashes that’s the last thing that we need.”

I head to the wagons getting a sack and a wooden spoon and I start gathering the dirty harpy salt. Nicole is looking at me.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I have at least one idea but I did see books back at Sanctuary and mother’s tower that had titles of subjects like components and magic.”

“What would you use that for?”

I’m sniffing it. “Well for one with a few additives i think it’s ready made smoke or flash powder.”

She raises an eyebrow and she comes over and smells it. “Well damn you’re right all you’d need is charcoal…”

I look at her. “We have charcoal or what we can use for it and I’m sure that I could spark it easy enough.”

She looks at me. “Why do they transform when you kill them though?”

I shrug. “Seriously I have no idea it must be a supernatural thing like when vampires are slain and turn to ashes.”

She grins. “Well you’ll have to look that up when we get back.” She turn to the others. “Gather this as best as you all can we’re taking every ounce of this with us.”

We gather the salt and we check each other for wounds as well and we’re seeing to the cuts and the cleaning of the wounds or Lady Marybeth is as well as her apprentices.

We even find a few odds and ends that were worn by the Harpies, I had to wash them clean of filth but there were a few threaded beads that looked fancy and some earrings too that are nice but mismatched and there was a couple of very old looking bronze bracelets with pictures in enamel and one, the one Jessa fought had a pouch tied to her with more coinage like the Hobgoblins had only richer with thirty coins of kingdom gold.

I finish that and we get it stored on Nicole’s wagon where we have a chance to keep it from the stores and the cooking things and as we’re done that I set my broken blade in there and I look at one of the Hobgoblin blades.

It’s different than I’m used to a sort of curved saber but a heavy one with a chopped off tip. It looks like a butcher’s cleaver but a little thinner at the base and well this is not as long as what I was using and the blade widens as it goes towards the tip and the whole blade is thick and heavy on the back end with a one sided edge.

I swing it a few times, getting the feel for it and Taylor is watching me as he’s locking the post chest again.

“It’s called a Falchion.”

“Oh, I’ve never seen one?”

“I’ve seen them here and there, it’s sort of war knife meets short sword it’s popular with rogues in some places. A no nonsense close quarters blade.”

“I can see that.”

We lock eyes for a minute. “You were unaffected by the Harpies.”

He nods. “I was lucky.”

I raise an eyebrow and smile. I’ll just leave it like that, I mean I was attracted and nearly lulled as well and I think it’s because of that I have been with both Megan and Alaan.

I know my powers helped me feel the truth and intent and that saved me.

But I’m in no position to judge either.

Though I’ve never actually “known” a “lad” as a friend before.

Oh there’s a sort of unspoken thing in some keeps where some men keep their virtue towards their wives and to wards potential wives by sleeping with “lads”.

It’s one of those unspoken things.

I mount the wagon with the falchion and I start cleaning it and trying to get the Hob off of it while we start heading out and muse a little on if I changed back.

I really, really enjoyed being with Alaan.

So would I still have those feelings if I became my old self?

Part of me thinks so.

I mean I’m a woman now and I slept with Megan so...maybe I like both?

Maybe I always did and I just had the opportunity.

Once the falchion is scoured clean I sharpen it and then I oil it and fit the sword and sheath onto my sword belt and I adjust things several times to where the draw feels comfortable.

Then it’s more riding and waiting and resting as we’re moving as fast as we can and trying to get to the monastery as quick as we are able.

Nicole calls for me a few times when there are places where it looks like we might have mudded to a stall and I start to use magnet force to push us as we’re going through and that’s an exercise in control and extending my power into not just my wagon but the other two as well and pulling.

The third bad spot I happen on an idea and that’s to push our wagon through and let myself anchor to the metal in our wagon as we’re clear and let the draft horses on our wagon help pull the force I’m extending out to the other wagons like invisible tethers.

The fourth bad spot I switch it up again as I sort of reverse that and have my force keep a line of force and distance between us and the wagons behind us so they end up pushing at us as we hit the mud and anchored between the wagons behind us and the one I’m on their draft horse push us through and then I switch it around so we’re pulling again.

Taylor once we’re through makes marks of the bad spots in his book each time.

Then I’m doing other things.

Keeping us warm as is possible and heating pots and water and food for us as we’re literally cooking some on the go and serving out hot food mostly soup as we’re going.

Our breaks are short too as much as we can handle without sickness or exhaustion settling in with us.

And I make light as we’re going into the dark of night and we’re still going.

We pass several places that might serve as rest spots but Taylor has a place in mind with Nicole and Lady Marybeth.

Jessa stayed with us for maybe three hours before she geared up and she went ahead of us to scout.

I’d be worried is she hadn’t been leaving marks and caches of forage and hunting game as she’d been going for us.

Those damned Harpies did a number on her.

Everything I know she came from a land where women were chattel and she was badly used without her consent for a lot of her youth.

Well she’s still young but still.

I can only imagine the kinds of scars she bears inside.

Still though regardless of what she’s dealing with inside she’s still a damned good ranger.

And she meets us at this place called Neville’s Bucket.

It’s this few little buildings like a steading only it’s in the side of this fairly big hill and I can see that it’s a mine.

I lead us in with magelight and there’s folks waiting for us.

Jessa’s in the doorway of what looks like maybe a common house or a very basic inn?

Drink in hand and she’s dry and clean and she’s smoking a pipe.

“Oi Welcome to the bucket folks we’re ready an waiting for ye.”

And she’s a little drunk.

It’s heavenly too as we’re getting help from the locals here. We’re in a mining steading and they’re mining Jade.

Yes gemstone jade.

It’s from what I can gather much harder than it looks and it’s not that these folks are rich either but I can tell they must be getting and finding and selling some of the stone.

Apparently they find it in stones but not like in seams but in long buried stones from when Titan was young and much of what we know as land was either covered in ice or in waters.

And the earth and the stone from their mines actually went to building this place in using the material and such.

We’re settled in this common hall, it’s where they meet buyers when they have jade to sell and it has enough room that we’re warm and dry and there’s a large fireplace here as well. It’s also where they hold court in case of criminals or wrong doings and celebrate things together and hold temple on Godsday.

There’s some tables literally made for us with barrels and boards and there’s food set out and some pots with candles beneath for some of the soup and things that they want to stay hot.

We’re all happy and thrilled and our horses are too as they’re led into the mine which has ample room for their own draft horses to work in and they’re getting fed and stabled and rested.

Nicole’s more than certain that the scent of their horses in there will set ours at ease.

But with the dangers on the land we set guards with those of the young ones here at “The Bucket.”

I’m getting side eyed at first by folks and that lasts all they way until we’re supping with Old man Neville himself and his family in his house.

The food is good with a large feed of baked beans with deep sweet brown sugar and salted pork fat and onions and there’s a platter of stuffed wild squab that Jessa had caught and a rabbit stew that she also provided and some decent bread was well.

Then there’s heavy deep beer that I hate and love.

Oh it’s bitter but in a good way and there’s this sort of linger of molasses on it and I’m tasting toasted grains of some kind as well. It’s powerful and strong but to me it’s also thick in my tongue and it seems to have this almost film it’s leaving on my teeth.

The first one went down hard and thankfully there was food to go with it.

The second had me ale warmed enough that I could get past the taste.

By the third we were telling stories.

And after Nicole and Taylor and Jessa get done talking of things with me and what I did at Palfrey's Corner and things since like the Hobgoblins and fighting the Harpies I’m seen in a better light.

I look to Old man Neville and his wife.

“If there’s anything that I can do to repay your kindness and generosity I would be more than happy to.”

His son Neville junior looks at me. “Aye what kin ye do?”

“Dishes, warm things, dry them, boil water fast, I’m good with doing the washing, I can weld.”

His father looks at me. “An ye’d be willin?”

I drink the last of my third drink. “Aye I would.”

It’s a bit like Palfrey's Corner again and I’m taken to the tubs for the water and the wash and they have soap and a lot of clothes. There’s always washing in any place and it’s always an ongoing chore.

I look to the women that I’m with. “Get your lines in here strung for drying and I will be right back.’

I go to my things and get some of the tools that we have with us. My water heater tool and then and a steel prybar from our stores and a few spring clamps I borrow from Nicole’s squire’sknight tool box.

They watch as I heat and I boil the water in the tubs until it’s roiling and they add the soap and the clothes and I use the steel pry bar and spin it back and forth in the water like the laundry back at the castle does mixing it all and “agitating” the clothes and the bedding.

I use the clamps to help fish the clothes out and with an idea that just came to me as I’m sipping a brandied tea the ladies are sharing around I run a light charge through the wet cloth and make a sort of burst of opposing energy like the water in the cloth can hold the electric and let it sort of be like magnet force and I literally shove it out with a burst of blue white sparks and steam.

The cloth is damp but it’s like it’s been wrung.

They’re gaping at me.

One of the girls looks at me. “Lady sorceress can ye do it all?”

“Yes, all of yours and all of ours that needs doing if you can gather it all… and I’ll need another iron or steel bar that I can use for each of the tubs.”

As they leave I finish my tea and I “Wring” the rest of the clothes and hang them to dry and I use my warmth and drying spells to move the heat from the fires through the clothes and to move the damp air outside from lingering.

I do another batch up in a clean tub and then I’m using my power to not just make the fire hotter by burning power into the flames with words but while I’m alone I work enough phraseology with the words of power to put magic in the fire to burn it not hotter but longer as well.

I’m writing it down as they’re all coming in with things that need doing and I’m more than happy to spend two hours doing all of that for them and for us.

Then as everything is set and drying I’m asked by Neville junior if I was able to see to the forge. They have a field forge, one of the types that farriers have and there are a few extra tools and work spaces around. Nicole joins us and she looks cleaned up and dressed in some borrowed clothes.

“Are you sure that you can do this, you used magic all day Chrissy?”

“I’m tired but a lot of that today was with my adept powers and that’s a lot less taxing than me using true spells.”

Neville junior looks concerned. “Iffa this is too much I kin understan it, you’re on a mission now and we’re under invasion as ye Ranger has said.”

“This I can do but can we use this to see to our things as well?”

“Aye it’d be an honor?”

Nicole goes and gets our men to bring what’s needed to be tended to and fixed and she also brings some of the Hobgoblins gear and things.

The welds are easy since I’ve done this before and there’s some things that are easy to repair it’s just that it needed either a mage like me or a good guild trained smith or a skilled farrier that was travelling.

I even get their grinding and sharpening wheels spinning which is really easy since both are fastened to their moorings for the pedal drive by steel screws and plates.

Some of the men-at-arms join us in repairing our gear and oiling it, mending armor and mail and sharpening things.

Nicole has the Hobgoblin gear and she’s cleaning it and she’s using parts of it’s parts to fix our things as well.

Neville junior is more than willing to trade some of his stores for work and we trade with him some of the Efreeti steel knives and daggers and Nicole goes over this steading’s weapons with him and she’s fixing some and edging others and they’re mostly spears for hunting and two really poor crossbows that need mending with screws to make sure that they’re solid and then getting the balancing right.

It’s the work of a soldier and an officer when the locals need to know more to save themselves and you cannot stay.

It’s close to midnight when we’re done and heading for our baths in the tubs.

We’re met by a few of the local ladies who thank us repeatedly and they brought us sweets and tea and brandy.

I eat, I eat and fill myself and I get a little drunk all over again as I slip into the hot water with a grateful sigh.

That’s when I let myself go.

Sleep and drift and relax...I even meditate a little while I’m in the tub before I get to the business of getting myself good and clean and scrubbed off.

Once out of the tubs Lady Marybeth takes her turn looking tired but she offered Nicole and I a salve for sore muscles. It’s minty and frosty smelling and that in more than enough of a temptation that we use it.

Like us she has been busy all evening both seeing to the minesteaders as a healer and brewing and topping off their stores and speaking to several of the younger girls here in the ways of a midwife with childcare.

Bed is shared with Nicole and I and it’s one of the locals and it’s a rope and peg bed with a layer of quilts and I use a little power to pull and keep a concentrated ball of heat with me from the baths to sink into the sheets.

I wrote a few bleary notes while waiting for Nicole and then we fell asleep together.

It was one of the best sleeps that I can remember having.

I vaguely remember Nicole getting up twice moving the bedding to check the guard rotations.

She lets me sleep.

I do and I don’t.

The second time she gets up I roll over where she was and stick my hand out and make a candle flame for her to see.

I dump the heat of it into the floor and her boots.

I go back to sleep while she’s gone and I conjured another one when she came in and I pulled the heat from it into the bedding.

“I could marry you.”

“Mmm...good, I could use a good battleknighter to pilot The Rampant when I get it back.”

I know she doesn’t like women in that way but it’s still flirty and friendly banter.

And we’re that close we snuggle until we’re called for breaking our fast or Nicole is.

I have to get all of the stuff she does for command into my head.

Seriously I need to know these things and she’s good at it.

I do sleep in.

It’s eighth glass by the time I wake and the smell of food and the need to go and pot moves me and I get up and use the jakes and then meet everyone in the common house.

We’re all eating and getting ready to go and it’s a good day to do it too with the sky having cleared from the rainy weather and I get some strong, strong kaffet and drink it down and find a corner to meditate as Old man Neville sets us a fine table.

Egg bread where the bread is soaked with egg and some milk and fried, blood bread which is much the same only it’s blood from some of the kills Jessa had made only with ground offal in the blood and herbs and onion and both are fried and there’s leftover beans and fried eggs as well as they have apparently a very good set of coops here and molasses.

I get a good hour of meditation in and power gathered inside as we’re doing all of this and then we’re setting off.

I see Nicole arguing a little with Old man Neville and she presses a few coins in his hand and it looks like she ordered him to take them. I saw a few golds and in truth the stop, the food and everything was worth it, worth every copper.

I know a man has his pride and his honor but where we’re going there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to spend it anyways.

And despite what’s facing us we’re in good spirits as we’re setting off.

Jessa stays with us for a few hours riding until she gets itchy feet again and leaves ahead to scout for us.

Scanning around I see my Beacon light is gone.

The riding is better and we’re going as hard and fast as we can while everyone is fresh including the horses and I get comfortable and try slipping into meditating again.

It’s hard, especially on a bouncing wagon.

I need to put that out of my mind and that takes some time in itself.

More like thinking of the ride and the ruts and the bumps and feeling them and equating it all to all of my lessons of being on horseback to have that boneless easy sway in the saddle and to just feel it all and ride with it all but be able to ignore it too.

My memory trick ends up being more than useful for that but it still takes me the discipline and thought to line the two experiences together and to let the feelings and experiences flow together as one experience lets me have the tools to achieve what I need for the other.

Breathe in, hold it, breathe out and hold it, reach inside and see the light the ball of lightning inside of myself.

Breath is life, life is magic, with no life there is no magic, breathe and feed it...hold it the breath and let it burn...exhale and squeeze the power tighter, compress it, make it more.

All of these things are meditative things.

After a time I’m doing more.

Breathe in and feed the magic, feed the life make it flare brighter...breathe out and inside of compressing it with will use that breath like a wind and turning my spark inside like a ball blown by the breeze.

Breathe in and picture the writings, picture the spells that I know lit by the mana colors of their forces, air in whites and blues and silvers, golds and yellows for light and reds and oranges for fire...long elegant spell letters forming within my mind and I made them appear, so I make them move and flow and turn to land on my spinning spark of power and I spin them into myself making them more and more a part of me as I breathe in and out and I’m spinning it all like a ball of yarn or more like how colors become part of a sphere of blown glass.

Adding color to my blue white spark until it looks like it’s kissed around the edges by light like the bands of color when light is shone through crystals.

I feel us stop and Taylor is looking at me.

“We’re breaking?” I ask.

“Yes, what were you casting?”

“I wasn’t I was meditating.”

“Oh well it was pretty.”

“Pretty?”

“You sort of shone, glowed like if you were looked at just right and there were a prism of colors or something with that.”

I smile and nod. “It sort of looked like that in my head. I was adding in the spells that I’ve learned with the rest of my power.”

He nods. “I can see why that might be something, to be truthful I don’t know what though. Did it do anything?”

I get up and stretch before hopping off of the wagon. “I think so, I feel not just rested but I feel magically like I’m more solid.”

He gets down himself. “More solid?”

“Mmm...like when you’ve worked out in exercise and training in arms and you know that you’re getting stronger and more solid, it’s just like that only with my magical self.”
He nods. “Well you have been doing a lot of heavy lifting with your power and all that work and all the things with the wagons. I suppose you’ve literally worked out and trained.”

I’m nodding. “And learning new spells is a lot like learning new fighting tricks like a wrist turn or footwork it all adds to the whole of things that I can do and the forces that I can use.”

Taylor looks at me. “Forces eh like what?”

I look at him. “Real spells are this language from the first of times, it’s the first of all languages and so the words and even letters name things. So it’s like when you learn to put power into them it does something and you literally have to describe in detail with a spell what that power in the words mean.”

“Sounds hard and dangerous.”

We start walking to the cook and supply wagon. “It is you have to get the meaning right or it will do something else, or it will fail or you might say something else entirely different and not have meant too and whatever that was meant to be happens.”

“And you pulled these spells of yours into you?”

“Sort of, it’s like memorizing them but more than memorising them it’s like getting to know the things that I can do reliably in an intimate way.”

Taylor nods. “So like knowing something bone deep.”

“Exactly, and I just added what I know into my meditation to make it feel all closer and tighter.”

I walk to the cook and the cauldron is filled with water and I use my heating tool and get it boiling and once I have that going I feed power into the hot metal to generate more heat.

Break is soup and it’s greens from Jessa’s foraging and some of the game squirrels that she had caught as well and a few fastly dice potatoes and onions and some herbs and chives and we get it made in short order and share it out with bread and rolls and Nicole breaks out a cask of that black ale from Neville’s Bucket that she must have bartered for.

Which is good thinking as it’s pretty sweet and there’s a lot of energy in drink as well as just a little bit of alcohol to take the edge off.

Serious I’ve read how some folks used beers and such to found the basest and hardest work in some realms. Painkiller and liquid bread this helps with the break and I help by getting groups of the men-at-arms to take off their boots and I use my drying spell to dry them from all of the sweat that they’ve made over a whole lot of leagues.

After the rest we’re off again and instead of meditating I’m using the same trick but I’m studying my grimoire and the lexicon book and I’m writing down things in my notes.

A piper’s arrow draws our attention from Jessa and we stop.

I’m looking around and using farsight and I see Jessa coming and she’s not alone either there’s two others with her that are moving through the land like she does slipping fast and skilled from cover to cover. Sometimes i can see them in the cover and sometimes I lose them until they make for the next patch until they’re close enough that they jog the rest of the way to us.

Nicole’s off the wagon and she asked Taylor to break out the second cask and to pour.

I put away my things and I see Nicole looking grim but at the same time she greet both men with warriors arm clasps and hugs. “Well met Rangers, you have news?”

The older one nods and I can see that Jessa is letting him speak instead of her and I think that there might be a ranking or maybe a seniority system in the rangers.

He sits on a tailgate and shucks off his boots and sighs. “My pardon Squire but it’s been a long few days and that’s been doubled since we’ve gotten this far. The country’s crawling with Hobgoblins and other things.”

Nicole’s waves off his apology and she passes him a tall jack from Taylor who passes another to his companion. “No formality here Martin Foxglove, we’ve had our own fights just getting here too.”

He nods and he drinks long and gratefully.

Nicole also says. “I’m sorry for the loss of your man.”

He nods. “Simon was a good lad, he was on watch when we first encountered the Harpies and three sang him to sleep and he fell from his blind keeping watch and by the time he got to his feet they ensorcelled him and he offered no fight as the three we encountered took hold of him and ripped him to bits.”

We all bow our heads and some of us sketch symbols for holy faiths.

Taylor asks. “Did you kill them?”

The one with him nods. “Salted all three of them.”

He’s different, blonde, a scruff on him of not shaving but that looks out of place on him like he shaves regularly. Tall and handsome a good build and he’s handsome, he’d pass easily for nobility in some places if not for the faded well worn leathers and the weapons he carries as well as the longbow and the muted grey green and brown mixture that is a ranger’s cloak.

Blue eyes that stand out even in the hood of his cloak.

He is very handsome and the fact that he has been through things as well makes him more attractive.

Nicole waits until Lady Marybeth joins us and Martin and this other are drinking their ales down and getting them refilled with the ease of men who’ve both drank and are both tired and hungry and thirsty.

Once we’re all gathered he starts.

“We rode out as far and as fast as we could and as soon as we encounter the first of the Hobgoblins we sent birds but with the Harpies in the air we know they’d not get through.

So we had to make the choice, either find out exactly what was going on or come home and tell Lord Caldwell what we’ve found out.”

Nicole nods. “We sent up a beacon and sent people back.”

Martin looks right at me like he’s already guessed. “We saw that, I think it was high enough most folks did and anyone that’s served the realms or in merchant caravans will know that lantern code and spread the word.”

Nicole asks. “Have you found out about the attack?”

He’s nodding. “The Druid’s Keep in Rowan.”

Taylor takes out the Hobgoblin’s drawing and passes it to Martin who unfolds a matching one, definitely the same artist had done both.

He folds it and he puts it away. “And we were heading there until a large problem stopped us and had us trying to decide if we should risk going back or wait for you to arrive.”

The younger ranger says. “With the beacon we knew someone was coming.”

Martin nods and gestures at Jessa. “Then Hawk showed and that’s how and why we’re here now.”

Jessa says smiling. “Well except for one thing.”

Nicole looks at her and makes a face. “I’m not going to like this am I?”

Martin shakes his head. “There’s a bridge and the river isn’t really passable or at least not in any way that won’t take us days out of the way. The Hobgoblins have at least two score there holding it with beasts and tents and other things.”

I ask. “Other things?”

Martin looks at me. “They brought a troll.”

Oh...well I’ve only heard stories but essentially trolls and giants are why battleknights exist.

Nicole asks. “How big?”

Martin sips his second drink. “Eleven feet I’d say at a guess when I’ve seen him and he’s wearing armor.”

Nicole asks. “Armor?”

“Cuir half plate and he’s got a really big battle hammer.”

She nods and exhales.

“Well let’s get settled and someplace under cover then and plan how we’re going to take that bridge because there’s very likely a siege coming to Rowan.”

I nod and add. “I can do a farsight spell and I might be able to cast it on others.”

Martin looks at me. “Your mother could and I’ve done it before so try on me.”

I step up and touch him casting the spell over his eyes and I can feel that there’s trust there and I layer the spell over his eyes as it’s much more like an lens acts than something that changes in the eyes.

He nods and he looks around blinking and I feel him doing things with my spell?

“What are your doing?”

“Concentrating, when you focus on objects your eyes try to adjust like a spyglass, Aurora’s spell if this is the same way will do that for you like adjusting a spy glass.”

“Oh...Well I just learned this by myself, I never studied with mother.”

“Well your mother travelled and learned as well so you’re still in good company as to that. Everyone has to start somewhere. Though Rowan might be a good place to start.”

“Druids?”

“Druids and other folks, they just keep the place it is a lot more than just it’s name.”

“I’ll confess I know very little of Druids or Rangers sir, they’re a definite rarity in The Middle-Kingdoms.”

Martin nods and the other man says. “You have woodsmen and huntsmen there though not the same thing.”

Martin adds. “There are no housed Rangers east of the mountains that I know of.”

“Why?”

He gathers his things looking to head out again. “Politics.” that’s all he says as he and his nameless friend jog off with Jessa nodding to us and going with them.

I look at the others. “I said something wrong?”

Nicole shrugs. “I’ve no idea. Ranger’s take oaths and they work with the rulers for the betterment of the folk and the land.”

I nod. “That wouldn’t go over well in a lot of places home. You work for the nobility not with them. There are a good many folks of title that get very upset if a commoner says or acts like they’re an equal. Those oaths before service to a house or crown would be seen as an affront.”

Taylor says. “I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy our trip east.”

Nicole nods. “Well if it wasn’t for Lady Tatiana there would be a whole lot of the same sentiment going on with houses and kingdoms here as well.”

I sigh. “I think my father and mother agreed with the lady’s sentiments which made the attack or things about it much easier.”

Nicole nods. “At least maybe the purse strings, from what you have said it was a rich realm.”

I nod. “Grain and grazing, lots of cattle and dairy and other farming but we have a lot of orchards. Mother...Aurora even helped establish some of them. And we were quite central with decent roads so trade was very good.”

Taylor whistles. “That does sound rich and very tempting to folks that didn’t agree with your father’s politics.”

I nod and follow as Nicole is getting us ready to move again and she’s giving orders to cloth wrap bits of tack and take some of the cooking oil and grease to the wagon’s parts and then she moves some things of ours and get’s the arbalest cranked and loaded and the box of javelins at the ready.

The four Hobgoblin bows are given out to the best shots we have and they’re on the supply wagon and Nicole has me using my own Farsight to keep one eye on the sky for Harpies.

It’s a few tense hours before Jessa and Martin and the other ranger come back and we move really slowly through the countryside with our tracks being covered as best as we or well the rangers can.

We crest a hill and I can see smoke miles and miles away.

Jessa says. “We found a dry patch of birches on their side and fired a thin line over to their side of things.”

I tilt my head. “Grapple arrows?”

She laughs. “No they’re not real. But a line looks plausible enough and add a fire to that from a few pitch arrows and that makes for a good diversion to get us all closer.”

“Smart thinking.”

“John’s idea.”

“John?”

“John Holt, the other Ranger. Y’know the lad that have the women here includin you have bin making eyes at.”

“Well he is good looking.”

Hawk shrugs. “If ye like men then he’s good and fair looking I kin admit that much. I like him more as a Ranger though and as an archer he’s got one hell of a reputation in the legion.”

“Legion?”

“Aye, Rangers are a legion not a guild or a company as some others or nothin as fancy as an order.”

I nod. “I’m learning more and more.”

We get close, as close as we can get and with the spyglasses and my farsight spells we’re scouting things out as best as we can from the enemy camp.

We set up our own as well with us dropping out supplies and building sides onto that wagon with cover for our shooters.

We get the Squire’sknight ready to go as well as the arbalest.

I’m busier than I thought with all of this following Martin’s orders.

I have tools and magnet force so I build without hammers by forcing in nails and such to make the cover we need. I also raise our tarps and fix them to trees that our rangers cover with dirt and grass and fallen leaves so from the air it looks like ground and we even have lean-to’s that are holding up flanking blinds.

It’s all done quietly and tensely with look outs and again I’m heating food and water for fireless camping as maps and strategies are done out.

Taylor is our best climber.

There was oddly no debate on this from the rangers and I am to go with him and the Rangers a few miles away and use my grappler to get them across to the other side where they’ll wait until we ambush.

We’ll use the Harpy-Salts that Lady Marybeth made into flash and smoke bombs and an explosive called thunder-powder and I’ll fling them over to the enemy with magnet force and ignite them.

We figure that by my magnetizing wire we wrap around each spice jar we used from our stores in different feelings that I can ignite them from afar.

Of course we tested it until we got it to work first.

And I write a new spell as we are figuring that out with timed lighting...or timed candle flame.

Essentially I replaced power going into keeping it burning like in the usual casting with keeping the spell running in stasis and then when it runs out of the time it will cast before it flares to life.

And then we’re off.

A few prayers from the faithful for The Light and The gods to look after us and I’m running through the woods trying to keep up with Taylor and the rangers.

I’m bared down in my gear too, tunic and pants, weapons belt and a leather jacket for scant protection and the grappler and my wand with me.

I’m boosting myself with my nerves and muscles to keep pace and I’m trying to be as quiet as possible but it seems that my few times hunting with other nobles and my father have ill prepared me for moving like the rangers...or Taylor.

We slow over places where I might end up making noise. John points out places for me to step through things with an arrow and holds branches and such away from me in a way that I might have made them crack or snap with noise.

He even smiled at me once and mouthed. “Better slow than loud.”

That smile was worth seeing.

And definitely wormed it’s way into my head.

I had to force a bit more concentration than I should have after that.

We find a copse of trees and set up and it’s tense and scary but I fire off the grappler and I land it’s free end into a secure tree. Then Taylor is across first and he is so fast across it’s a little bit amazing and there’s a few tense moments when he vanishes into the brush and he comes out and moves the free end to a lower spot and Martin moves out grappler end to a higher spot in a tree and he and John and Jessa all slide across.

At Martin’s whispered suggestion he has me push them across faster with magnet force against their gear and then once they’re over Martin frees the end and I wind it back.

They’re off.

And I’m alone heading back and heading back isn’t heading back but moving so I catch up to Nicole and the others as we’re moving towards the bridge.

It’s hard going and trying to be quiet, I’m scared to death of messing this up and I’m still trying to make speed and I’ve done nothing like this before in my life.

I think that my brothers did things a few times with poachers and bandits but this isn’t like that it’s an armed hobgoblin war camp.

We meet at the edge of the trees closest to the bridge and I meet with the rear guard first and then again it’s me.

The spelled jars of Harpy-salt explosives and I get them lined up and I hook my wand to my belt out of the way and reach out with my magnet force.

And I wait.

Our ranger’s strike first.

I use Farsight and I see a hastily made tower of timbers have a guard topple from it and then I can see another armored Hobgoblin take flight a good two yards backwards as an arrow takes him and there’s more.

There’s this loud deep war horn sounding off like I’ve never heard and the sound is to be honest quite frightful.

Their camp is rallying and coming to arms very fast.

I start slinging the explosive jars up and over the river the flash first to hide the Thunder powder explosives and when those hit I hear screams and I have to swallow things down and then the smoke bombs.

Once the smoke is off we move.

Our wagons first and that’s as fast as we can and someone on the other side is screaming something and there’s arrows falling hard and fast in loose flights over the river towards us.

I use force and fling as many away from us as I can and soon we’re at the bridge and they have troops coming across.

Our bowmen are firing from a flank and trying to hit as many as they can and they’re soaking up a lot of our fire with their armor and their shields.

Then Nicole fires the arbalest while in her Squire’sknight and that huge crossbow punches through and she reloads and fires and she reloads and fires and she reloads and fires and...there’s a brittle sounding ricochet sound as the troll deflects it with his huge hammer.

Oh gods and the light…

Have you ever been in a room with ten foot ceilings? He’s taller than that...grey skinned and it’s an almost slate color and his whole body is covered in thick looking skin and muscles massive shoulders and long almost too long arms with thick talons at the ends of them and his head is covered in thick ropey braids with bones and coins and skulls and all manner of decorations...even from here I can see his feral orange eyes and the skull is heavy and brutish with thick ridges and a massive square jaw with jutting tusks like a creature that eats mostly mean and that crunches and crushes bone.

All of this in half plate of oil boiled and hardened leather and a huge battle hammer with a double ended head on it that looks far more like a blacksmith’s anvil.

Nicole jumps off the wagon in her Squire’sknight and she charges him.

Even in her Squire’sknight she only comes to just past his navel.

His first swing is a smashing blow down and overhead to crush her and she side steps it and we all see the bridge shake and stones fall from it into the water.

Nicole swings her shield using its weight to help her turn and she wings him in the side there’s this sound and I know that she hit only his armor.

He’s that huge how thick must that be?

And oil boiled and hardened leather is pretty tough stuff.

I’d watch more but I’m running to the arbalest myself and the wagon and there are Hobgoblins getting closer to our side braving the fight between Nicole and The Troll.

I cut loose and fire lightning at them.

The power arcs out and makes almost a snap and thrum through the air and three I drop and the four one throws a hand axe at my head making me drop for cover and then our men-at-arms are fighting in hand to hand combat.

Our four bowmen are trying to keep more from making it across to our side and I see Nicole shield bash one off into the river and I see her slice through another as she’s swinging at the Troll.

Though we all hear the clang of her sword on his hammer ringing out over the battlefield.

I pull my wand and I start hurling my blades at the forces right on top of us.

I put a lot of power into it too and drop three more as the blades punch through in blue steaks.

A fourth nearly takes off my head with his falchion and I think it’s the one that threw his axe at me.

I drive the wand into him and send a burst of lightning and he blocks it with his shield and there’s a flare and a pop and I set it ablaze where I hit it and he swings his blade at me again and I shove hard with a wave of magnet force and deflect the blow and pull my own falchion.

Somewhere inside my head I make a shield of opposing magnet force as opposed to the bubble and I use it like a charger to deflect his swords strokes and he and I are going at it sword and “shield.”

He’s better than I am.

And he’s not some warchief he’s just a soldier only he’s a real soldier and he’s fought and marched and likely seen more of this world in his own way than I have.

I have to use everything I’ve learned and magic to deflect blow after blow and to make myself stronger and faster. I don’t dare blast away with lightning as everyone is too close and I might hit people around me.

I fight and fight and fight until I literally start memorising what he’s doing, how he’s using his strokes and the way he moves or was taught to move and I finally get an opening and I step into his sword strike and take his fist and pommel to my shoulder and I drive my falchion in under the soft place under his sword arm.

I twist and he dies and I shove him off of me and onto one of his companions that is fighting below the wagon and that distracts another and I drive my sword into his eye as his head turns to face me.

They’re better than some of our men too so I lightning bolt the safest one that I can from my vantage point and turn the arbalist on its swivel and shoot through another one.

I drop down and I fight with our men-at-arms now that we’re outnumbering the Hobgoblins that are here on this side of the river and it’s not fair, it’s not honorable or sporting and honestly it’s the only way that we win clear of the fight.

I’m not sure what you would call it but I help run two through by the end of the fight and then I just somehow with the pushed reflexes see falling arrows and I
shove them away from us with a yell.

I’m panting and I can see Nicole still fighting the Troll on the other side of the river from us having lured him over with their fight and there’s nothing but bodies on the bridge right now and blood flowing into the water.

I take a breath and grab a skin off the wagon and drink long and hard and then push more energy into my body to keep going.

I climb up and reload the arbalest. “Get us across now!”

Someone gets in the wagon seat and we’re racing over the bridge and I lift both wagons enough that the Troll’s hammer holes in the bridge don’t fetch us up and yet the ride is still a nightmare ride over chunks of stone and dropped bodies.

Some of them crunched as we drove over them.

One screamed a death cry, still alive but we ended him.

I can see the Troll’s handiwork as he hit his own forces...side long blows left crumple sideways bodies...a downward stroke looked like they exploded, like hit with a siege weapon like a trebuchet.

Nicole has left plenty of blood on the bridge too, severed bodies from her massive sword just cutting through them like nothing.

To be honest even a Squire’sknight will kill you outright if you get hit and are a man or something of the same size even if you’re wearing platemail armor.

Once we’re over I see the Troll and I cut loose...both hands with lightning as he’s distracted by getting pelted with arrows out of the smoke.

It hits him and his armor and he bellows and screams in rage as I’m hurting him.

Hurting...I can feet him mass just soaking up the power and I am burning his armor fairly well where the contacts of my bolts are striking him.

I’m running out of power and magic that I might need and stop with the lightning bolts and I grab the handles for the arbalest and I fire a javelin into him.

I score a hit through the meat of his shoulder right up at the top of his bicep.

He rage snarls and throws a dead horse at me and the wagon I am pretty sure we can’t lose this and I scream with the effort and the pain as I dig deep and I shove a shield up and I try and tilt it and it barely works.

The shield flickers and fails as it takes the force of the dead horse and it turns enough that the body ends up in the river.

I drop to my knees and everything hurts, everything burns like I have been electrocuted or like what i normal person feels like when they’ve been electrocuted.

Distracted by me the Troll is open for Nicole who literally ran her Squire’sknight up to him dropping her shield and she stepped a foot into the crook of his knee as she grabbed a gauntlet full of braids.

And no big blow, she doesn’t run him through...no, she got high enough and him low enough that when his head pulls back she uses her sword and she slits his throat.

My vision is blurring in and out but I see his battle hammer drop from lifeless fingers and the next thing that I see is her taking this huge stroke and taking off his head.

I can hear cheers, I grey out with everything just blurry images and no sound and I see that I fell onto my side and then things just go black.

………………..

I wake tasting honey and brandy heated and being trickled down my throat and I let it slide down. Don’t fight the medicine drilled into my head. I open my eyes a crack and pay for it with the flare of a migraine.

I see Martin there sitting with me and Lady Marybeth who’s giving me sips and Martin looks at me.

“I’m going to give you some of my power Christiana.”

I swallow and that’s about all that I can do but her takes my hand and puts it onto his bare foot and he starts to sing.

I don’t know the language but it reminds me of dwarven but more of a lilt to it and definitely different words.

His eyes are closed and under the lids they move as if he is dreaming and the edges of his mouth are slightly upturned like this is something that makes him happy.

And I feel power, mana flowing from himself into me like shining water into an empty basin.

I close my eyes too getting lost in the song and I see things, things he’s singing about in this really nearly mystical way.

Forests deep and thick and so covered from above it’s like spelunking in green lit caverns.

Groves covered in moss so deep and green I want to fall asleep in it for a year.

Moose...riding moose with a woman but it’s through a swamp covered in algae and small plants and the trees there are thinner than other places he’s shown me but they are covered in these drapes of hanging moss.

She...she has lobeless upswept pointed ears.

I see the view of dwarven farms and homes in a village from above it with this whole descending almost ladder of the land of homes and gardens and pastures...then a side view from being in one of those village farms and seeing actual clouds and not fog so impossibly close.

Herds of running white elks watched from a tree.

Wolves in a wood near a wintery plain playing with cubs.

A water fall shimmering in the sunshine and it’s falling mist making rainbows and it’s so high I can’t see the top of the water.

His song fades and I’m crying.

I feel better not anywhere to being rested enough but better, normal...but...I’m crying because every part of me knows he showed me real parts of Titan.

The world is beautiful.

Martin looks at me. “That’s all I can afford to give you Christiana.”

I’m blushing because this was so intimate feeling. “That...that’s alright...Martin, I think you might have saved me.”

He smiles. “Well then I’m just returning the favor.”

“My mother?”

“No your father.”

“.......” I...well that was unexpected. “You knew my father?”

“We fought together against Rory Blackhand and I was still a very young man then and so was your father but his sword saved my life several times during that campaign.”

I can’t help but to smile. “Well then I am more than glad to be among friends.”

He nods and extends a hand. “Come, we have to get moving.”

“Wait what? I thought that we won?”

“We did, here...and we sent a few scurrying off to their leaders but we need to get going.”

“How far to Rowan.”

“Three hours from here and all of it uphill.”

I force myself to get up steadied by Lady Marybeth who says to him. “We need to rest.”

Martin says. “We’ve rested, our enemy is still out there and they’re going to redouble their efforts if they are able.”

She looks at me. “You lady mage are staying in the wagons and that’s an order.”

“Aye lady I was told never to argue with a healer.”

She nods. “And I outrank you.”

Martin gets a pair of socks on and his boots and stands and grins at me. “Actually Lady Marybeth, The Princess outranks you.” he winks at both of us. “Though it’s still good sense to follow the advice of a healer.”

He leaves and she’s staring at me before she blushes and attempts a curtsey.

“No..no...Lady I’m unlanded here, my home suffering attack and the same evils as here. I’m just a ward of Lady Tatiana’s. Though I would ask you to keep this quiet please. I think that it’s best that our foes don’t hear too much about me considering they murdered my family and my mother Aurora.”

She nods. “Absolutely....and...you’re still keeping to the wagons.”

I nod and she helps me out of the tent and the fighting is over and there’s fires burning the foes and the stench is...it’s bad and there are crows everywhere and burned tents and dead horses and dead Wargs and burning piles of salt here and there.

I see five wagons and three don’t look like ours and they’re piled with things from here including sacks tied to the sides with blood dripping from them and one...one has the head of the Troll because I can see his face pushed against the cloth and everyone looks bad...dirty, ashy, bloody, most of us have bound wounds and I am not the only one in our wagon.

Nicole’s giving orders and she gives me a quick wave as I’m loaded into the healers wagon with some of the others.

I see her Squire’s knight grimy, covered in burns and blood and it is badly dented and it looks damaged just by the way she had sat it on it’s chair and how it’s strapped in.

Gods and light it looks like she had to be pried out because the strapping is the only thing keeping the rigger’s cage door shut.

Oh...oh dammit it hurts when we start moving...my head feels better but not the rest of me. I think I have a hundred bruises and my “shield” hand is bandaged and splinted.

It feels broken.

And I think that Lady Marybeth put some painkiller in my drink because I’m fairly sure that it should feel worse.

Twice I’m nearly sick to my stomach with the ride and I keep myself pre-occupied helping our wounded especially with the jolts and for the first while we’re just traveling and we are getting close when I hear swearing.

As we’re passing through we’re passing through a small township.

A Keep town...oh dammit.

There’s ruins everywhere homes burned to the ground and everything they had gone.

I can’t help it but to lean out from the wagon and see it all.

Devastated, not just burned but there is blood on walls and stone, places where the blood trails look like folks were dragged out from their homes.

A wall with a pile of bones under it and what can only be Harpy-chalk run down the walls and over the dead desecrating them.

I can see further away in the town what looks like where these bastards have been building things for a siege….thankfully I see what looks like fresh flames starting up there in earnest and I can smell lamp oil in the air burning and I see John Holt coming back to join us from there.

We just pass from the town and he steps into walking with the wagon that I’m in.

“I’m glad you made it.”

“So am I, I have too much to put right to die.”

“Well as much as that’s true it would have been a terrible waste.”

“Are you flirting with me Ranger?”

“I suppose I might be, I think meeting a woman that’s not too helpless in the wood and good with spells and a blade and incredibly brave has affected me.”

I blush. “I think I’d be affected too let me know when you meet her.”

We share a smile and there’s this feeling that just seems wrong and really, really wrong.
Off to the west a few miles from us is a series of shapes on top of the hill closest to us.

I use Farsight and it hurts, it really hurts but I can see and it is Hobgoblins on horses and with them I can see filthy and snarling Goblins on Wargs.

I shout. “Ware, the enemy is coming!”

John says. “Well it looks like they’ve figured out that we’re not the rescuing army and just a few.”

I hear the war horns that they use.

And then we’re racing.

Running the horses all out and it’s our archers and the Rangers literally keeping us alive as the Goblins and their Wargs are closing in with terrible speed trying to run us down before we make the Druid’s Keep.

I’m powerless right now to help other than still trying to keep our badly injured in the wagon with me still alive.

John, Martin, Hawk...all stepping up like every story you’ve ever heard of ranger folk as longbows hummed and arrows struck Warg after Warg down trying to keep them from closing the distance with us and I start seeing arrows firing out from up and above us as we’re getting closer to the walls.

There’s more and more coming and they’re so fast.

I see John run out of arrows, then Hawk and Martin…

Then I see the ties on Nicole’s squire’s knight snap as she stands it up and walks it off of the wagon freeing up all of that weight and I heard her scream this war cry as she punches a Warg to death and swings her sword through another in a cleaving blow.

They come at her these horrible beasts and one leaps and she catches it and throws it at another and she uses her rigs momentum and footwork to make one turn after another evading charges and lunges and offering out backhanded blows and deadly sword strokes and they’re fighting her starting to circle as they’re looking to get past her defenses and through the open hatch door and to her inside.

I scream. “Nicole!”

I’m getting held back from doing something insane like trying to join her.

John, Hawk, Martin though they draw weapons… a long knife and a longsword, twin hand axes... and a long knife and a warhammer with a small axe wedge instead of a spike.

All three of them step off the wagons in unison.

Dropping their Ranger cloaks away as they do.

John’s the closest and even though it’s quietly said I literally feel him say.

“I Invoke the Oath.”

I’m getting out of range but I still can feel something open in him and something else pour into him.

Those feelings like Martin shared with me...but more.

Every wolf defending its pack, every mother defending her young, every stag with its antlers set to do battle...all rising up in the three of them.

All three fighting with twin weapons, all three dancing and moving and fighting the invaders with all the grace that nature itself has when it’s fighting for it’s very life.
They are so fast and axes are used to slice like claws and striking deep and fast into soft spots in the skulls or ears, dancing knives slither in and kiss deeply into veins and arteries and plucking out eyes with little flickers of the wrist. A longsword gleams untouched at all by the gore and passes through Goblin flesh like a heated knife through grease.

And Nicole in her battle knight turning and spinning and driving fist’s home with blows backed by a moving ten foot high behemoth of plate steel, wires, gears and bearing spheres...hundreds on hundreds of moving pounds of war machine hitting like a siege ram and in its other hand a sharp battle sword in the style of a knight’s longsword only well over a hundred pounds of sharp steel.

We pass through the gates and they down close...arrows from above rain down only aiding our fighters and us, those they stepped off to save and buy time watch as the four of them cut every last Goblin and Warg sent after us.

Every last one.

I’m crying because… because they did this, because somehow they did it and they won and hurt or not I’m falling to get out of the wagon and running to meet them.

“Hawk! Nicole!”

I jump and land and hit Jessa who hugs and she holds us both up and Nicole.

Nicole has just gotten past the gate and she’s turned her Squire’sknight around and she raises her hand and I hear her yell. “Close the gates, close them all!”

Jessa and I limp to beside her and look at where she’s looking and it’s down the hill at the remains of the town and while we were fighting the Wargs and their Goblin riders the Hobgoblins rode their troops back down to where they had their encampment.

And there’s a line of troops marching with the riders and we can see the heavy shapes of huge forms in the distance.

We just stand there watching them coming in as the Keep’s doors and gate close and come down.

We slowly turn and the place is full, people have evacuated to here as best as they could and all around our ragged band of fighters and rangers are scared people, the old, the frail, the young.

I say it without even thinking about it. “Light and The Gods, We can’t fail here.”