Birthright: Promises to Keep, Chapter 2

[ewancummins]

CAMP, LATE

THE EVE OF THE DEAD
ROALD

Roald, having relieved Foerde and taken up the watch, sits a little beyond the circle of the campfire, his back to a tree, eyes wide open.
The snow ceases falling but the wind continues blowing, so that flurries swirl across the open ground on three sides of the camp.
Roald spots something flying over the low ground, across the fire on the far side: like a big snow flurry, but moving against the wind.

The night-thing wavers at the edge of the fire-circle, a little distance beyond the lean-to.
It looks bone-pale, shrouded, with a skull like a bird’s beak thrust upward.
No face in the whiteness of the deformed head, but two black holes open where eyes should be, with twin motes of witch light dancing in the hollows. The thing looks at Roald and glides back a few feet, making no noise.

[ewancummins]

FILBERT, OUTSIDE THE HOUSE OF THE MASTERS



Having exited the stone and timber building and climbed up the wall to the kitchen window.

Peering through the thin gaps in the slats, he sees shadows and light playing in the kitchen, but cannot tell what's going on.

Just then, something rattles and thuds from beyond the shutters. It sounds like a commotion deeper into the kitchen. Again the rattling and thudding, and this time he hears wood cracking.

Filbert takes out his tools and jimmies the latch open. He stuffs the tools back in his bag, pulls open the shutters, and crawls through...

[ewancummins]

SAFANA, IN THE HALL

VIEW CONTENT:

She regains full use of her body...

[Varrus the Ethical]

SEEKERS, CAMP.

Roald draws his sword and starts kicking people awake. "Get up, we have visitors!"

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

SEEKERS

"I'll take third," Renn says, tending to his bow.

Turning to Roald, he says, "I wonder if there is sorcery involved in us getting so lost. Are we being deliberately misled?"

[ewancummins]

THE FIGHT IN THE CAMP

Foerde bends over the girl, Moll, speaking a prayer to protect her.

Six more ghost-figures appear around the camp's perimeter, rushing in to attack.
Cormac fires a hasty shot at the peak-headed one near the lean-to, and misses.
Gatt hurls a burning log-end at another of the attackers, missing the creature but widening the lit area.


The attackers fight with reckless savagery, like wildcats with obsidian teeth, ripping and leaping about and shrieking.

Horses neigh, rear up, stampede. Reese falls on his face with something wrapped round one leg and goes skidding along the ground after the animals into the darkness beyond the camp.

Renn stabs one of his enemies in the guts and runs the steel three feet through the flesh. No ghost, this one.

The campfire gutters when an enemy casts a hide over it, then flares up higher than before when Gatt tears the cover free and kicks the burning wood with his boots.

Cold iron tells against obsidian, and the strong arms of Roald, Renn, Foerde and the others force the attackers back from the circle of firelight.

Catching their collective breath, the party members may count four dead or unconscious enemies on the ground, cut down by sword and knife or shot in the back with Cormac's arrows.

Roald and Renn hold the peak-headed enemy at swords point, having forced this one down onto his knees.
Now that the fight has stopped and they can really look, the men see what looked like a bird's beak thrust up is actually a white-enameled helmet with a high dome. A cloth mask depends from the lower part of the helm, hiding the enemy's face-- apart from his eyes, which glare in the firelight like the eyes some wild beast.
The figure's white cloak hangs in bloody tatters, showing a battered shirt of leather fixed with brazen knobs.
A broken spear with an green-black glass tip lies a little distance--but still out of reach-- from the helmeted foe.


One of the others, an elf woman with her winter cowl and cloak ripped away, lies with her long black hair smoldering in the campfire and blisters forming on her face. A nasty cut made by a sword (Renn's) runs across the elf-maid's face , widening her mouth into a crazy, bloody grimace. Blood burbles up through her teeth and her breath comes in wet, ragged wheezes and gasps.
Gatt kneels down and pulls the elf woman away from the fire.



Sevett sticks a torch into the fire and sprints to the edge of the camp, where Reese lies face down. The northerner shouts-
''He's banged up. Got dragged."


Ned and Hob move closer to the edge of the firelight, weapons still at the ready, and call softly for the horses and the mule, trying to coax the animals back into camp.

[Varrus the Ethical]

Roald picks up the glass spear and says in Elvish to the prisoner. "Just so you don't get any ideas."

To Renn he says. "Watch him while I attend to my Squire, Captain."

He approaches Reese, careful to keep the conscience elf in view and bends down to check on the boy, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Reese?"

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

Renn nods and keeps his sword held leveled at the male prisoner.

"You speak Common, knifey? I don't speak your elf tongue, but I'm a bloody damned wordsmith with this blade."

[ewancummins]

Roald picks up the glass spear and says in Elvish to the prisoner. "Just so you don't get any ideas."

To Renn he says. "Watch him while I attend to my Squire, Captain."

He approaches Reese, careful to keep the conscience elf in view and bends down to check on the boy, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Reese?"

Sevett helps bring Reese up from the cold ground.

The boy's head hangs limp, but Sevett supports it with one hand.
Reese drools spittle and blood in a red slurry from his mashed lips.
Cuts and scrapes cover his face. His hands, too, as Roald sees when he checks.
Frozen mud smears the front of the boy's tunic.
A halter rope lies on the ground besides him, wrapped around his left ankle.

Reese still breathes, though his pulse feel a little weak and jumpy.

[Varrus the Ethical]

SEEKERS, CAMP.

Roald lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Oh, thank Haylen!"

He cuts the rope tangling Reese's foot. "Thank you, Sevett. Take him close to the fire, he's had a rough night."

"Foreade, Cormac, I would be grateful if either of you attended to my Squire. He's taken a beating."

He pats the boy on the shoulder and turns away, returning his attention the the elf.

"You are lucky he survived, sidhe. His life is far more valuable than yours," he says in Elvish.

[ewancummins]

CAMP

The helmeted one raises its hands--very slowly with Renn's blade so near its chest, and pulls off its helmet.

The enemy revealed: an elf woman with a face like a sculptor's dream in white marble, bright green eyes, coal-black hair bound in a short top knot.

"I speak your language, defilers."

[Varrus the Ethical]

CAMP

"Good, saves me the work of translating," Roald says. "You are either very bold or very stupid to attack an armed party this deep in enemy territory. Given the results, I think we both know which it was."

[ewancummins]

CAMP

"Good, saves me the work of translating," Roald says. "You are either very bold or very stupid to attack an armed party this deep in enemy territory. Given the results, I think we both know which it was."

The elf woman shrugs.
"The others of your kind we have hunted down and slain proved easier game."
A nasty smile spreads over her wide, expressive mouth.

[Varrus the Ethical]

The elf woman shrugs.
"The others of your kind we have hunted down and slain proved easier game."
A nasty smile spreads over her wide, expressive mouth.

Roald smiles back, his eyes colder than the winter chill. "Ah, yes. A few easy kills and you think you're the next Manslayer. How very... human of you."

"Captain, bind the prisoner's hands."

[RocEter]

The Camp

"Gheallie Sidhe." He says as he walks over to the Reese, he kneels and chants a healing a prayer over Roald's squire. "He will live, Roald."

Standing, he starts walking towards the elf woman. "You and I have much to discuss, Sidhelien" He says to her in her native tongue. He takes the scarf the covers the lower half his face and drops on his cloak while walking towards the elf woman. Kneeling in front of her, so she can better see his beast like face, he grabs her chin with his mail covered hand. He turns her head to the side and inspects her burn.

"This wound will become infected and fester, if not properly attended. Fortunately for you and your friends, I can prevent that from happening. You can tell us what we wish to know, and I will see to your wounds or you could not and I will leave to the humans." The beast man says, continuing to speak in her native tongue.