DKMortals/SessionFiftyFive
[ST] The Blue Nag is a small alehouse and tavern near Sunset's docks. A squat single story building with a wide reinforced porch awning to block the snow, it squats on a hillock overlooking several docks. This deep in winter, the sea is a solid sheet of ice as far as the eye can see. Iceships skate across its surface in the distance, or pull up to tie off at the half-frozen docks.
[ST] The path to the establishment's door is now little more than a tunnel through a snowdrift. The hand-painted sign swinging in the breeze suggests that whoever had a hand in its construction has never seen a nag in his or her life.
[Avir] Avir pushes open the door and steps inside, struggling out of the heavy grey cloak that kept him warm outside and too warm in. Even this is awkward, one-handed. He glances around, brushing snow from his hair.
[Wheel] Wheel crowds past him, limping slightly from his wound. The once dead medics had given him a proper poultice and tied a tighter bandage. Maybe it was meant to heal things faster, but for now all it did was burn.
[Wheel] "See our man?"
[ST] The interior of the tavern is familiar - wood plank bar, rough, raw wood tables and benches, lots of people drinking. There is a saying about the Haslanti - "It's never too early for warmth." The interior, smoky, loud, and heavy with the smell of sweat, attests to this. Many of the soldiers arriving to defend the Greenfield from the supposed Fellai offensive are crammed cheek by jowl,
[ST] laughing, shouting, and drinking.
[Avir] Avir shakes his head, frowning slightly. He questioned the wisdom of sending two cripples on such a mission- though Wheel, at least, still had some use as a combatant, apparently.
[ST] After a moment, Avir spots the Dreamseer. Even in such crowded surroundings, his red conical cap stands out, poking above the milling crowd like a banner. He sits at a table at the far end of the room, back turned to Avir. Out of piety, respect, or fear, the crowd has drawn away from him. Two women sit at the table with him.
[Avir] Avir jabs his elbow into Wheel's side and gestures. He slides past a woman carrying a tray of mugs and yanks a chair over with this foot. "You're the one had a vision about the Quiet reservation?"
[ST] As Avir takes a seat, one of the women starts to rise, reaching for her belt. She is young, in her twenties, with a pinched face and short, dark hair. "And who're you?"
[Wheel] Wheel makes his way slightly slower, waiting for people to move instead of pushing through them or trying to twist around them, trying to baby his hip. Of course, when he stepped behind someone and glared at them to move, they did with alacrity. He still had the look of a killer. To these puppies, anyway. He took his place behind Avir, looming.
[Wheel] Always good to set things out striaght at first meetings.
[Avir] "Avir. From the Once Dead. This is Wheel; the same. I hear you had a dream?" He looks at the young woman irritably. "Oh, sit down." His patience for such nonsense has deteriorated noticeably in the past few months.
[ST] The older woman manages a lopsided smile. She must be in her forties, but her long, dark hair, interlaced with hundreds of clay beads, shows few streaks of gray. She has the chapped, weathered face of an Outwaller, and bright green eyes. Her thickly-furred garments and heavy gloves mark her as one who travels often in the cold. "Please, excuse Helgara. She is merely overprotective."
[ST] The Dreamseer turns to regard Avir and Wheel, his eyes opening slightly in astonishment. He is young, not yet thirty, and his face is familiar.
[Avir] "I can see that. Will you two be travelling with us?"
[ST] Before she can answer, the Dreamseer speaks. "Avir? You are known to me. I am Kragos. I travelled with you some months ago."
[ST] "You, and the painted one, and the woman with the burned face, and the panda-man. Yes." He nods, as if reassuring himself. "I remember."
[Avir] Avir looks more directly at the Dreamseer. "Yes...I remember you now. You were with us when that poor girl's brother died." They flash before his eyes: Two-Bits dead in the snow; Leopard torn apart. Selza, in his dreams, impaled on a spike. An ill-fated mission.
[ST] "Yes. My travels have taken me far in the meantime. I have moved among the Emeralds, listening to the dreams. Trying to see if the Owl Out of the East has hidden some deeper truth there." He coughs. "Excuse me. I know that he has. The only question is if we were meant to know it. And you, Wheel. Well met."
[Wheel] He nods respectfully. "What did you see that needs our aid, Dreamseer?"
[ST] "Only this morning, I dreamed that a man with no hands would come to my aid." He looks between the two maimed men pointedly. "But that is not the dream that troubled me."
[ST] "For weeks, I have dreamed of the Ashen Grove, a shadowland south of here. I see a shadow rising out of it to overwhelm the Quiet Emerald. I see Haslanti warriors in chains, dragged away screaming by ghosts, many dead in the snow."
[Wheel] So it wasn't the quiet that were the trouble. Stood to reason. Odd little people, but even if they wanted to hurt a fly, they'd lived craven so long they wouldn't know how to.
[ST] "I have entreated the local council for aid, but they say that the Fellai will march on these lands soon, and few care about such a small and quiet Shadowland in the face of such destruction." He gestures to the two women. "Only these two. Astrid is the Greenwoman of the region. Helgara is her companion and bodyguard."
[Avir] And they send just two to handle this problem? Typical Soldas bullshit. The two of them would be either unnecessary, of insufficient. "Maybe. Where were they in your dream? Maybe they just don't want to dirty their own hands." He snorts. "If they were sweet as they'd want us to think, they'd have all been dead long ago."
[Avir] Avir looks at Astrid frowningly. "Why do you care, then, if the council does not? You'll be needed to care for the Emeralds after the battles."
[ST] "I can not be sure. It is the way of dreams. Few will directly refuse a Dreamseer's request, but I have been faced with delays, earnest or faked, for weeks. Only yesterday was I told to appeal to your Once Dead."
[ST] Astrid smiles again. "I know the Emerald. I helped to birth it, in the very lee of death. If the Quiet are gone, then the Emerald will die. I will not abandon it to the shadows."
[ST] "The Quiet have nurtured it well."
[Avir] "Very well." Avir drums his fingers on the table. "What can you tell me about them? What are their relationships with the local Haslanti like? How are they affected by the Shadowland?" The thought of a village of Mortas gives him pause.
[Wheel] "Have the Quiet been complaining of any unusual deaths? Anything to hint what is coming?" The dreamseer unnerved him, even though he looked too young to be more than an apprentice. Dreams spoke to who they chose, and the wise listened.
[ST] Kragos holds at a hand to Astrid, wordlessly allowing her to take over as a local expert.
[ST] "Well," Astrid says, taking a deep pull from the tankard at her side and wiping her mouth. "They're Quiet same as any others, I guess. The Shadowland's not close enough to hurt the Emerald much, but it's close enough that anything that might come out of it might. How do the Haslanti ever treat the Quiet? They suffer them to have the Emerald because no others want to take the risk. A few of
[ST] them stay there to guard the Quiet in case of attack."
[ST] "To guard the Emerald," Helgara mutters softly.
[ST] "Yes. To guard the Emerald." Astrid lays a hand over the other woman's. Helgara's frown deepens.
[ST] "The Quiet have reported seeing ghosts moving about at night," the younger woman says. "No deaths. Not that it would matter to them. They'd keep right on working and begging and kneeling until the sun burned out."
[ST] "I did not dream of the Quiet," Kragos says. "Only of the Emerald. And of the Haslanti."
[Avir] Avir looks thoughtfully at Helgara. "Maybe. Anyone has a breaking point." A few rapes, beatings, murders...He'd see riots in the Quiet quarter before; men could be...cruel, to those who did not resist. He could imagine armed guards becoming the threat...And the shadows offering a very tempting deal. His stump throbs. He looks at Astrid. "Do you know the Haslanti guard? What their discipline is like?"
[ST] Astrid's smile, which has slipped from her face, returns. "Discipline? Few of us Haslanti are disciplined. We pride ourselves on our passion. But I get your meaning. They have volunteered to be there. A few of them are liable to anger. Or contempt. But they know their duty to the League. I do not think they would harm the Quiet, or last long with their fellows if they did."
[Avir] "Who volunteers to guard Quiet?" he asks idly.
[ST] "Helgara does," Astrid says, laughing softly and teasingly.
[ST] "I don't," the other woman hisses. "You volunteer to live there."
[ST] "Well..." Astrid shrugs. The beads in her hair clack together. "Then I suppose I guard them."
[ST] "Does that explain why I am here to your satisfaction?"
[Avir] "Yes." His gaze flicks back to the Dreamseer. "Are you prepared for the journey?"
[ST] Kragos nods. "Astrid has booked passage on one of the iceships for ourselves and several riding elk. The ship awaits only our presence. It will transport us down the frozen lake. We will ride from the bank to the Emerald. If the weather is good, I think we should make the journey in two days."
[Wheel] "Is the iceship staying at the other end? If things go as you seem to expect, we may need to get help fast." Or evacuate. Wasn't much he expected to able to do with a few local militia and a herd of Quiet of a shadowland boiled over.
[ST] The Dreamseer shakes his head. "Truthfully, we were fortunate to get even this. The iceships are busy sweeping the coast for the Fellai. I suspect, were it not for my office... I would have been denied."
[ST] "We will not be too isolated," Astrid assures Wheel. "The Scatter and the other Emeralds are only a days' march away."
[ST] "The Quiet are forever making a fuss over nothing," Helgara adds. "There's no need for us to do this."
[ST] "So you have counseled." Astrid says mildly. Helgara blushes slightly, looking away.
[Avir] "Did they send you, then?" He glances at Kragos. A lot can happen in a day. Or a night.
[Wheel] He shrugs noncommitally. That rather ruled out an evacuation. A days march for a small group, perhaps. With panicked civilians, especaiilly Quiet, they would be bogged down. And children were worse.
[ST] Astrid shakes her head. "I have been on a tour of the Emeralds since the war broke out. Some messages reached us as we were passing through Sunset, and the Dreamseer sought us out."
[Avir] "What did the messages say?" It was like squeezing water from stones.
[ST] "That the Quiet had reported seeing ghostly figures at night. Nothing more." Helgara narrows her eyes at Avir. "Astrid need not explain herself to you, Watcher."
[Avir] Avir just looks amused. "Settle, girl."
[Wheel] He leans over the back of Avir's chair a bit, looming. "You want our help, makes it easier if we know everything we need to."
[ST] The young woman's nostrils flare visibly. "I'm NOT-" A stern glance from Astrid stops her, but she keeps her gaze focused on Avir, her mouth tight. She looks as if she could chew nails.
[ST] "Of course," Kragos says. "We are all friends here. I regret that there is little more to tell you, my son." If a man not yet thirty feels absurd saying such to Wheel, he does not show it. "All I can promise is that my visions are real, and I believe them to be important."
[Avir] Avir nods. "We're packed and ready. Shall we-?"
[Wheel] "Of course, Dreamseer." He relazes back a bit, still studying Astrid.
[ST] "Yes." Astrid rises, dropping a sliver of silver into her tankard as payment. "Let us be off."
[Avir] Avir rises, pulling his cloak back over himself. He has to struggle with the laces before he gets them tied.
[ST] As the group exit the tavern, Morta, who was waiting outside, falls in with them. Helgara gives her a sidelong look.
[ST] "Too hot in there," Morta explains. "Too much breathing."
-----
[ST] The iceship that bears the strange little gathering north and east is a small merchant vessel. It is not nearly as sleek as the military craft that bore the scale north to where they investigated the disappearance of the Trout Queen, but the wind is high and sharp, and the vessel makes good time.
[ST] The name on the side reads THE FELLAI'S KISS, and a scuffed and flaking painting of a naked Fellai woman curls under the prow. Some intrepid patriot has gouged the side until it reads THE FELLAI'S HISS. The painted woman's eyes have been scraped away, and a forked tongue has been drawn coming from her mouth.
[ST] After a short period, the vessel turns south into the mouth of the Skrash River, slowing slightly as the sails are readjusted. The countryside on either side passes rapidly. To one unused to riding an iceship across land, the effect is disorienting.
[Wheel] Wheel spends the journey in a cargo hold - out of the wind, and out of the way of the sailors. He'd been told to keep his wound warm. With a laugh, because they all realized how absurd the idea was, but he'd do what he could.
[Wheel] He settles himself into the best position he could manage - half slouching on his uninjured hip against a large crate that didn't seem like it'd move without a lot of people and rope making it.
[ST] Wheel is able to enjoy himself in peace for most of the journey. The sea only lurches when it is thawed, and it is very unlikely for the cargo in an iceship to shift during transit. Most of the small crew is on deck, working busily. After an hour or so, he hears the tread of heavy boots on a nearby staircase, and Astrid's voice calls out.
[ST] "Hey, I didn't think the Once Dead took 'em as old as us."
[Wheel] "We don't. Just, a few of us make it this long." He smiles narrowly. She was looking for him, knew he was here. "Looking for me?"
[ST] She returns the smile lopsidedly, taking a seat across from him. "Maybe. Looking for conversation, I suppose. With someone who has seen the world. Even the Dreamseer looks like he just went off the milk last week."
[ST] "Ah, no offense intended, of course."
[Wheel] He chuckles, at home showing himself as the tough veteran. "He is young. As is your follower. She make a lot of trouble for you, or is it just this task?"
[ST] Astrid sighs, shaking her head, but her smile does not fade. "Helgara is... exciteable. Sincere. She dislikes living among the Quiet. And she does make trouble. But she has saved my life before."
[ST] "What of your friends? Do they trouble you?"
[Wheel] He falls into his usual half bragging, half storytelling frame of conversation, evolved over countless conversations over a bar table with the same people month after month. He'd been pulled back from that meager life, but it still stuck to him. "My friends trouble everyone. But yeah, he can get into his share of trouble." He did not want to talk about the sisters they'd offed.
[ST] She laughs, a deep, rich sound. "I'm sure. Did you die a Prince, or a Pauper? I wanted to join the Once Dead myself, once. When I was only a girl."
[Wheel] He grins. "Oh, I died a king, I did. Surprised they let me up for the Dead, no matter what the law said. THe judge almost died of outrage that I was going to walk. Well, they all expected I'd die soon enough, so I guess that comforted them long enough to forget."
[Wheel] "What happened to that dream? Mother talk sense into you?"
[ST] "She did. The Dead was different, once. No such thing as a prince or a pauper. It was all the best. It's older than the Ears of the North, you know. They started to pull off the recruits from the Dead, who kept... dying." She laughs again, eyes crinkling. "By the time I was old enough to dream of joining, they had started taking criminals. My mother tanned my hide, and told me there were
[ST] better ways to serve the League. And so-" She shrugs in her heavy coat.
[ST] "Here I am, Greenwoman to the core, goes to sleep with seeds in her hair, gives birth to Emeralds, smells like pine needles. You know the story."
[Wheel] "I think I know it a bit better than most of us. They stuck me in a smithy after I lost the arm," he says it with only a bit of a hitch. A lot of practice at that. "Though that's basically making death at a step removed. At least it is in a Raven forge." He chuckles.
[ST] "It must be... a difficult thing, to be unable to do what you wish. Perhaps that will happen to all of us, when we get old enough. The only thing is to persevere. That is the Haslanti way."
[Wheel] "It was good enough. And I was there when they needed to pull me back in." He grins. "Right in time for a good war, though I guess they would have taken their time restocking if one wasn't in the offing."
[ST] "This war... we have seen little of it here." She leans back with a sigh. "They say all of Fella marches on us. I do not know what the Quiet will do."
[Wheel] He snorts. "Hide, most like. Or hope the Fellai are smart enough to keep an army away from shadowlands. We have enough set to defend that they have to pay attention to it. Unless they strike out for forage, I'd guess the Quiet Emerald'll be safe. Till the battle at least."
[ST] "Yes," she says, "Perhaps-"
[ST] There is a sudden jolt as the iceship screeches to a halt.
[Wheel] He was lucky he'd been wounded on his armless-side hip. Or that had been inevitable, but in any case he had been loungign with his good shoulder against the crate, so his ahnd was close enough to clam to a corner like a vice-grip and keep him from pitching into the rest of the cargo. Luckyer than Astrid.
[ST] Astrid's head smashes against a barrel with a loud thump, and she falls to her knees. A moment later, she rises, wobbly, touching a glove to her head. It comes away tinged with blood.
[ST] "What the HELL?" Helgara screeches, shoving past Wheel. "Astrid! Are you all right?"
[Wheel] "You got her?" he yells as he makes the stairs she'd come down on. He didn't want to be belowdecks when something was happening. And anything that could stop an iceship sort like that was something.
[ST] "I've got her," Helgara says, her manner suddenly far more gentle than he has seen it so far. Her fingers part the woman's hair, searching for the source of the cut. "It's okay, Astrid. Shhh. It's okay, just be careful."
[ST] Morta spends the journey standing at the railing, staring out at the plumes of ice that rise from the blades of the great ship as it cuts its way along. Kragos eventually gravitates to her, and soon they are in animated conversation, as she recounts dreams either true or fantastically false, and he jots them down patiently.
[Avir] Avir splits his time between huddling near fires and walking about on deck to keep himself limber. He watches Helgara stamp about the deck running sword drills with (what he considers) a respectfully appreciative eye. "May I...?" He gestures to his own weapon.
[ST] She looks at him suspiciously for a minute, then nods and gives a grunt. "Go ahead."
[Avir] Avir draws his sword runs through a series of drills beside her. It had been a long time, he realized, since he depepnded on his own skills alone to save him; Stomp had always lurked there, or some Once Dead. Now he relied on Wheel. He halts the drill when they are both red and panting. "You are skilled," he says, smiling at her in what he is charming manner. It wasn't only his skill with a sword that had gotten rusty since he lost his hand.
[ST] She gives him a look of grudging respect, then shrugs. "I've seen better. And worse. I didn't cut off my hand, at least."
[Avir] "I didn't either," Avir says dryly. Another had performed that office for him.
[ST] "So who did?" She leans back against the railing, breathing heavily, but doesn't remove her gloves or lower her hood. Sweat could freeze in winds this cold.
[ST] "You get it cut off for stealing? I hear that's how you get to be in the Once Dead."
[Avir] "No. I actually died a pauper- volunteered, if you can believe it." He couldn't, anymore. Memory is an strange thing; he can see the face of the youngest wolf as she approached him, pale and nervous, but everything past that first burst of agony is a gone. Fluttering in a ghost's jar, he supposed.
[ST] "A foolish thing to volunteer for," she says, as charming as ever. "Seems a good way to die."
[Avir] "Very likely. Her name was Luyu- the one who took my hand. You know women." He grins at her. "What about you? Why defend some remote Emerald? Can't be love of the Kneelers."
[ST] "I go where Astrid goes," she says. "Even into the lap of the fucking Kneelers. They're so useless."
[Avir] "Loyal." He hefts his sword, and they begin a practice duel. Better to move than to freeze. "What's the history there? If you don't mind my asking."
[ST] She throws herself into the duel with gusto, striking Avir's sword harder than she might, numbing his remaining hand with each blow. "She saved my life five years ago. Fair Folk raided our Emerald. She came by to check it. I was the only one left. It's been me and her since."
[ST] Helgara redoubles her efforts, trying to force him backwards, her face flush.
[ST] "Who's that old guy with you? Lose his arm the same way?"
[Avir] Avir grits his teeth and devotes himself to the battle for a few minutes, finally- finally- knocking the blade from her hand. Some puppies were like that- needed to challenge everything. He flexes his fingers; they tingled unpleasantly from her hammering blows. "Wheel? No, I don't know how he lost the arm. He's old Once Dead though- actually made it to retirement. I imagine he went right some day he shoulda gone left."
[ST] She grunts, rubbing her sore wrist. Jerk. "Wow. Guess he really is dumb, huh?"
[Avir] He smiles crookedly at her. "Maybe. But see? Not such a death sentence." He sheaths his sword slowly; he wouldn't struggle with it in front of her. "Get a drink with me below?"
[ST] To port, the iceship passes a massive iceholt barge, the Smiling Sun. Drills set up around it in a circle bore at the ice. Racks of fish sway in the breeze. A heavily swaddled child waves at the passing iceship from the barge's massive deck.
[ST] Helgara looks at him, chewing her lip. "It's cold. Okay."
[Avir] He offers her his arm, and smiles to himself when she rejects it with a sneer. He follows her down the stairs. There were enough cold nights to come.
[Avir] They end up in a small, warm interior parlor. Avir swipes some bottled liquor and mugs from some no doubt innocent sailors' stash. He was Once Dead; it was their patriotic sacrifice. He passes a mug to her and leans against the wall with a sigh.
[ST] Helgara gives it an experimental sniff, and downs it in one go, still glowering.
[ST] "Where is he, anyway?" she asks. "The one-armed grandfather?"
[Avir] Avir raises a brow, smiles sweetly, and imitates her. He pours them both another glass. "Owl only knows. Probably found some snug spot to spend the trip in."
[ST] "Astrid said she was going to talk to him." She gulps the glass down quickly. "Stupid. Just makes you colder, they say. Feels warm, though."
[Avir] "Huh. I suppose they're of an age. Talk about old wars." He tilts his down his throat; his stomach burns pleasantly. "Yes..yes, it does. Other ways of getting warm, anyway." He shifts a little closer to her.
[ST] She stares down into the cup. "Old wars. Sure."
[Avir] "Got brothers or sisters fighting?"
[ST] "No one."
[Avir] Stupid. The Fair Folk raid, of course. Drunker than he had realized. "Me neither. But - to victory, eh?" He pours them half a shot- much more and he judged matters would get dicey- and clinks glasses.
[ST] There is a sudden jolt as the iceship screeches to a halt, pitching both of them forward alarmingly.
[Avir] Avir yelps as his stump knocks against the table. The bottle rolls of the table and crashes against the floor. He swears.
[ST] "Astrid!" Helgara shouts, staggering to her feet. She sways a little as she darts out of the room.
[Avir] Avir swears again. Figuring out what hell was going on was more immediately important than pursuing Helgara, so he runs unsteadily up the stairs out onto deck, hand on his swordhilt. His gaze sweeps the scene.
[ST] Avir looks across the deck hurriedly. Morta and Kragos have kept their feet, holding tightly to the railing. Everywhere, sailors are bustling on deck, hurrying to- lower the gangplank? The ice in every direction seems featureless and smooth.
[Avir] "What happened?" Avir snaps at Morta. Now that he had seen there were no winged dragon things, his patience is thin for the interruption of what had previously seemed a promising evening.
[Wheel] "What?" he half yells, half asks Avir and the world, economic with words in a crisis.
[ST] Morta turns and points at the iceship captain, a squat little man swaddled in heavy furs.
[ST] "He said this is where we get off."
[ST] A frown mars Krago's features. "He was supposed to bring us further south. I don't understand."
[ST] "The wind is slow," the Captain says. "I can't afford to waste any more time with you. We need to turn her around and get back to it."
[Avir] Avir glares at the captain, tapping his swordhilt. In his heart, he sympatihzed; he would've rather contributed to the war effort than nursemaid a bunch of Quiet himself.
[ST] The captain nods. "My apologies, Dreamseer. I wish we could do more."
[ST] "Idiots!" Helgara shouts as she and Astrid come on deck. "Fools! You could have killed her! I should gut the lot of you!"
[ST] "Enough, Helgara," Astrid insists. "I'm fine."
[Wheel] He stares at the man, incredulous. "Get moving and be glad we don't commandeer the ship."
[ST] "Listen," the captain returns. "I'm doing this as a favor, and no more. We don't have the time. If I'm not back in the Greenfield by tomorrow, Lord Stone'll have my head!"
[Wheel] "You're saying you're shirking military duties to take us?"
[Wheel] He fingers the grip of his hammer, as if looking for an excuse.
[Wheel] Which he was, in a way. An internal excuse to himself rather than a justification to the law.
[ST] "I'm saying I WILL be if I'm not back by tomorrow!" He takes a step back, clearing his throat. "No one else even wanted to bring you this far, not for the sake of some dreams about the Quiet! But I s-says, it's never good to deny the wishes of the Owl."
[Avir] Avir eyes Wheel. "We appreciate your dutiful attention to your religious duties." He tells the captain, puting a hand on Wheel's shoulder. "Time for some exercise, looks like."
[Wheel] He growls, but lets himself be backed down. Good man. Wouldn't do to appear to relent too easily to a slight. "You want to get going fast, get your sailors to offloading out pack."
[ST] "Yes, seems like a good plan." He clears his throat again. "My apologies for your injuries, Greenwoman."
[ST] "It is nothing," Astrid says. Helgara glares death at him.
[ST] "Scalp wounds bleed a lot," Morta advises. "It's not as bad as it looks."
[Wheel] Wheel sets himself a leaning perch at the ship's rail, glowering over the process of their disembarking.
[ST] The iceship turns about and flees before it can vanish naturall in the distance, leaving the small party and their elk standing on the ice. The flat white expanse stretches in every direction.
[ST] Astrid's scalp has stopped bleeding. A clump of her hair is tacky with dried blood. "Goggles on if you've got 'em," she advises. "You don't want to snowblind yourselves."
[Avir] Avir takes them from his pack and puts them on. "Right you are."
[Wheel] He nods, setting his over his eyes. Hard to adjust goggles one handed, since the nosepiece was only flexible leather.
[ST] The party sets out, the elk surefooted even on this slippery expanse. It should not be surprising. It is what they were trained to do. A chill wind blows over every bit of exposed flesh.
[Wheel] He had a layer of thick wool over his plate, and layers of padding under it, but the metal was still chill. He knew how to wear it and keep it maintained in arctic conditions - he'd lead long range wilderness patrols for years back when, but nothing made it comfortable.
[Avir] When he sees that Helgara is set on sticking solicitioiusly cose to Astrid, Avir slumps forward in his saddle and snoozes lightly, his arm tucked into his jacket to keep it warm. He other hand rests lightly on his swordhilt. He is swathed from head to foot in a heavy grey cloak lined with fir.
[ST] Helgara fusses over the wound in Astrid's scalp like a Greenfielder nursemaid thrice her age until a weary rebuke from the woman sends her into sullen silence. Morta whistles a soft tune as she rides. Kragos is silent, brow furrowed in thought.
[Wheel] "Don't look. Somethings moving on our left." He says it loud enough to reach Avir's ears, the others not really needing to know at the moment.
[Avir] Avir nods slightly; if Wheel had not been looking for it, he wouldn't have seen the gesture. Avir yawns, stretching his shoulders and settling more comfortably in the saddle. Under his cloak, his grip on the sword his tighter. He calculates how easily he could reach a prayer strip; fast enough, he decides at last.
[Wheel] "Shit," he says with equanimity. "Its an Ice Hollow. Bet a month's rations."
[Avir] "No bet," Avir says, ears straining for sound.
[ST] "What's going on back there?" Helgara snaps, turning around. Astrid slows her mount beside her.
[Avir] "Get to our right. Wheel think there's an ice hollow." He turns to Krago. "That goes especially for you, Dreamseer."
[Avir] He wondered if they could just give it an elk, and share the extra burden around. Hard to fight hungry ice hollows on the snow.
[ST] "Shit," Helgara mutters. "That fucking Captain. He should've KNOWN better, the southern half of the lake is always infested with Hollows before the Iceholts come through."
[ST] "Careful," Astrid cautions. "Where there's one, there's sure to be more."
[Wheel] It'd see them moving, maybe it'd hold off for a moment. Ambush predators didn't like being noticed before they made their presence known. He wheels his elk to get between the group and where he thought it was, unsheathing his hammer and guiding awkwardly with his knees.
[Wheel] He half eased out of his left stirrup, readying to jump free of the Elk and let the Hollow have it if it rushed him first. Might give him an opening if it took the easy meat.
[Avir] "Maybe you should have brought it up with him then." Avir knees his Elk to a point in front of and a little to the right of the group. Astrid was right. Morta also moves into position, until the civilians are inside a equilateral triangle.
[Avir] He dismounts and sheaths his sword; he knew better than to try to fight with his poor seat.
[ST] Astrid finishes her sentence suddenly gives a piercing scream, blood shootin from her mouth as she claws at the air. Her elk stars with a snort, bolting forward, and she crashes to the ice, screaming in pain. Streams of red blood appear to flow through the air behind her, slowly resolving into a shape as the red-tinged form of a second Hollow appears, within the boundary the Once Dead
[ST] have established.
[Avir] "Shit." Avir runs to her.
[ST] "ASTRID!" Helgara screams, wheeling her elk around, the Hollow behind forgotten.
[Wheel] He leaps from the mount, glad he'd been prepared to move, if for the wrong reason. "Watch the left!" he roars, but he needed tot ake the one in the middle or no one would. Everyone had eyes, but he was the killer of them. Big thing, probably wouldn't want to move from its feed. The hammer whistled down, aiming at its head close to the body, betting it wouldn't give the body up and so couldn't didge fast there.
[ST] The ice hollow makes a weird, trilling chirp like a cross between a cricket's call and cracking ice. Its legs flex against the ice, and it springs back out of the way of Wheel's blow, dragging Astrid with it. Her blood trails out behind her, steaming on the ice, as she screams.
[ST] Morta fumbles at her side, loading her crossbow. Squeezing the elk so hard between her thighs that it grunts, she rises in the saddle, sights, and takes aim.
[ST] The bolt caroms off the creature's icy carapace, skittering away.
[ST] Astrid lunges forward as the creature backs up, and falls to the ice, blood pulsing out of a hole in her back. Helgara leaps from the back of her elk, standing astride the body.
[ST] "You can't have her! You CAN'T!" Her screams of rage are almost inhuman.
[ST] The hollow surges forward, legs churning up the ice in its haste. Sunlight glints off its rosy form brilliantly as it darts its head towards Helgara's chest. She batters the strike away with a scream.
[Avir] Avir charges at the hollow attacking Helgara from the rear, chopping at its legs with his sword.
[Avir] The strikes bounce off the thick chiton of the legs, and he swears.
[ST] Morta loads another bolt, aiming for where the red-tinged thing's eyes should be. Eyes were always soft.
[ST] The bolt bounces off the hollow's proboscis. It doesn't even seem to notice.
[Wheel] He runs after it, stealing a moment to search wildly for the second he was sure was bearning down on them somewhere close. He comes in on the thing from the side, overwinging so that the head of the hammer would hit it on the far side from him. If it jumped away again, he'd have a chance to hit it square, and even if it stayed where it was, the blow wouldn't lsoe much by his hand hitting it's shell first.
[Avir] Stomp, Avir thinks longingly. He needed another Stomp. He raises his sword two-handed, and brings it down again and again on the creature's second half. Damn. Fucking. Bug.
[ST] As Avir hacks away at the insect, Helgara holds her position. Blood the color of water flies through the air, splattering freezing on Avir's face.
[Avir] One leg crumples entirely beneath his first hammering blow; with the second, it flies away entirely, and pale pinkish fluid seeps out.
[ST] The hollow rounds on him, squealing. It tenses its remaining legs, the severed stump geysering blood, and springs, trying to overbear Avir and take him to the ground.
[ST] Morta gives a shout of alarm as the bill of the second hollow jabs into her thigh and withdraws in a gout of blood. It too becomes faintly visible, chittering as it appears.
[Avir] Avir jumps to the side, allowing the hollow to rush past him, chittering.
[ST] "That, actually, hurts," she grunts. As her elk staggers back, she aims at the hollow from point blank range, letting fly with another bolt.
[ST] "Oh," she says, as the bolt bounces off its skin yet again.
[Avir] He turns and attacks the hollow that gotten Astrid again; he concentrates on its rearmost leg. There was some humor, he decides, in a cripple bent on crippling something else. He batters the weak joint.
[Avir] The limb seperates beneath his blows. The whole thing smells faintly like raw seafood. He grits his teeth and braces himself for its attack.
[ST] The hollow lunges low, slamming into the ice so hard that it caroms off and up, its short hooked forelegs darting for either side of Avir's head.
[Wheel] He wheels and charges the one attacking Morta. Avir could handle the cripple. Morta used a bow. She needed space, and he was the only one in position to force the thing to give it to her. He waded in towards the thing, swinging at it with heavy plows placed to drive it away from her.
[ST] Wheel's attack may not have struck home, but it does get the hollow's attention. The thing rounds on him, bracing its chitinous legs against the ice. Then, it charges, head lowered to impale him on its proboscis.
[Avir] Avir gets out of its way again; its missing limbs are beginning to tell against it. It loses its girp on the ice, remaining legs scrambling against the ice as it slides away. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wheel go down- the recent injury had made the difference. He swears something fierce. He had to finish this damn thing. He had to have blood apes; he saw, now, what a fool he had been to go without.
[Wheel] All the hours, days, he'd spend carefully crafting and customizing his armor, and now he needed it and he wasn't wearing a fucking helmet because it'd freeze his head off out in the open winter. The probiscis eters almost dead center in his next, drving downwards to exit below his right shoulderblade. His back armor did its job, and the thing bent stiffly, grating down his back. The Hollow screeched at this, pulling bac
[Wheel] His back armor did its job, and the thing bent stiffly, grating down his back. The Hollow screeched at this, pulling back, and it whipsawed aroudn tearing the wound open further. His chest felt hot and wet. Like a lot of blood was on it, only it wasn't good because it was his. And it would freeze soon. He tries to focus on that.
[Avir] He had to finish his. And then kill the one attacking Wheel. Somehow. And then feed that airship captain to his blood apes. He leaps atop it as it scratches at the ice, finding a grip on its cold futiley waving stumps, and works his way up its long, segmented spine. His legs gripped tight around its body, he raises his sword, and brings it down against the joint attaching the head to the body.
[Avir] He snarls wordlessly at it as it tries to throw him off, rearing up six feet in the iar on its back legs; he holds his sword, buried deep in its spine, in a deathgrip. It squeals and falls on its side as one of its remaining legs buckles and collapses. Avir throws himself free, yanks his sword out, and chops its head off with a yell.
[ST] Morta gives a gasp as Wheel staggers back, blood spraying across the snow. Wheel was old. He couldn't have that much blood left in him. She cries out, hoping to attract the attention of the hollow, winging another bolt at its backside.
[ST] As Avir puts down the hollow near her, Helgara turns, rolling over the bleeding Astrid, her face white. "Astrid," she cries. "Please, please, please don't die. Please."
[Wheel] If he still had a hand for it he'd grab the fuckign mouth-thing sticking out of his neck and trap the bug near him. Screaming in frustration and pain, he wrenches his body around as he brings the hammer around and down, tring to trap the priobiscis in a bad angle between the neck opening in his armor and the back plate. The thing wasn't very flexible, especially trying to bend within the flesh of his neck. Its all he ca
[Wheel] The thing wasn't very flexible, especially trying to bend within the flesh of his neck. Its all he can do to get the hammer over his head and on course. Then he loses his feat, falling. But that only torques the probiscus more. He can feel it scraping and writhing through him. It isn't even painful anymore, just wrong.
[Avir] Avir sees Wheel stun the thing, and feels a momentary stir of optimism. The thing in his stomach wiggles with glee. Another one close to death."Helgara," Avir says hoarsely. "I can save her, if she doesn't bleed out. But we have to kill this thing before then."
[Wheel] He hears feels somethign crack through his hammer. Can't look to see, but the thing was screaming in pain. He grinned through the blood, and started to lever himself up from the frozen ground, slipping on the puddle of his blood.
[ST] "NO!" Helgara screams, throwing aside her sword, a sob tearing through her as she clutches the dying woman close. "I can't, I can't, I can't. I CAN'T."
[Avir] "Put your hand on the fucking wound then!" Avir snarls at her. He runs between the panicking elk, slipping on the ice as he comes up behind the creature. Its carapace is ...cracked by the blow from the massive hammer. Avir slides up close and hacks at its limbs again. This was gruesomely familiar.
[Avir] As before, the limbs buckle and then sheer off- the whole thing scrabbling uselessly like an insect. Avir backs away from the flailing legs then gets in close to its neck and beheads it again. The priobiscis remains stuck in Wheel's neck. "Don't pull it out," Avir warns him wearily. "You'll bleed more."
[ST] As Avir hacks the thing to pieces, a number of fist-sized crystalline globes come spilling from its belly, rolling over the ice. The hollow was about to roe.
[ST] Kragos has leaped down from his mount. Together, he and Helgara put their hands on Astrid's grievous wound, attempting to hold it closed.
[Avir] "Close your eyes. Hold you wounds closed. I'm working on Astrid first," he tells Wheel. He turns to look at Morta. "You keep watch on the tundra for others of these things." He glares at Kragos and Helgara. They would be..more difficult.
[ST] Morta reaches into her bag for needle and thread, gritting her teeth as she tends to the gash in her leg. She hisses when the needle goes in... and then her eyes widen as the point goes too deep, stabbing into something, puncturing it. Blood begins to pulse out in sudden jolts, covering her pale fingers.
[ST] "Oh." She says quietly. "I think I did it wrong."
[Wheel] He tries to growl at him, but it's just froth in the blood at his throat. He clutches it hard enough to be choking himself, only relaxing in the moments his lungs hurt worse than his neck.
[Avir] "FUCK!" Avir yells. "Hold it! Don't do anything else! Damn it fuck!"
[Avir] He stomps over behind one of the creatures, raise his cloak over his head, and sticks his finger down his throat. The sessulia ripples uncomfortably over his skin as his stomach rebels. He can feel the sharp little pricks of its kinfe-feet as it crawls down out of his throat. It plops down into his cupped hands; it's fat now, fatter than when he summoned it. Its two antena wave at him, wriggling like a puppy in
[Avir] his hands.
[Avir] He almost vomits over it again. Instead, he carries it over to Astrid, shielded in his cloak from the cold and prying eyes both.
[Avir] "Turn away," he tells the Dreamseer and Helgara curtly. The bundle in his arms moves.
[ST] Blood puddles around the woman, steaming. Helgara looks up, tears running down her face. Both her hands and the Dreamseer's are covered in blood. They do as he asks, uncertain.
[Avir] He lets the bottle bug at the woman's wounds. Her eyes stare into his; he hopes they are unseeing. It chirps happily as it works, flesh molding under its feet. The wounds close. Astrid's eyes blink and at the sudden horror in them he sees that she sees. He leans in close as the bottle bug heals her. "Shhh," he mumurs to her.
[Avir] His back blocks the views of the others; when the wound is a pink line, he wraps the bottle bug up again and trudges over to Wheel. "Eyes closed," he says tightly.
[ST] Astrid stills as Avir leaves her. Behind him, Helgara clings to her, sobbing. "I'm sorry. I
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't keep you safe."
[Avir] He pulls the priobiscis from Wheel's neck in one yank. Blood pours out, liberally spattering Avir. Wheel feels something else replace it; something alive and squirmy, that strokes the inside of his neck.
[Avir] The bug hums cheerfully as it knits flesh than withdraws slowly from Wheel's neck. It crawls over to his other wounds. Avir does Morta last; the bug is sleepy now, and its antenna waver as if it is drunk; but it heels Morta's wounds. It crawls down Avir's throat when it's finished without even an invitation.
[Avir] It vibrates contentedly in his stomach. He almost vomits. "All done," he announces to no one in particular.
[Wheel] His eyes were half open, not really seeing. His awareness was flickering, barely taking in the sky and the cold. Something was happening to his neck. Warm and good. Like a woman nibbling at his adam's apple. Something moved. Avir told him something else. it all blurred together.
[ST] Soon, all the wounds are healed, though Wheel and Astrid continue to sleep, their bodies exhausted from the brush with death. A cold wind howls over the ice.
[ST] "We should get moving," Kragos says.
[ST] "Will Astrid be all right?" Helgara looks at Avir now with plaintive need, not hatred.
[Avir] "Yes," Avir agrees, and then nods to Helgara. "I think she'll be fine. If we can get the two of them strapped on to the elk, we should move out." He doubted they would withstand a second round with such creatures.
[ST] "Let's get to it, then," Morta says. "Those things hurt."
[ST] Helgara reaches down, stroking the cheek of the unconscious Astrid, then levers her up with Krago's help, strapping her into position over her elk's saddle. She'll be sore when she wakes up. But she WILL wake up.
[Avir] "Yes." He and Kragos and Morta all have to work together to get Wheel back up on an elk; the man's armor was ridiculous. Avir is panting at the end of it. As they make last minute adjustments, he watches Helgara's tenderness with Astrid curiously.He had taken them for a mother-daughter relationship at first; now he wondered. Perhaps there was on place for him there. He mounts his elk last. "Lead on," he gesutres
[Avir] to Kragos.
[ST] The column heads south, moving away from the scene of slaughter. Only a few minutes after they vacate the scene, more hollows, drawn by the scent of blood, arrive to lap it from ice and hollow carcass alike. They have not flourished by being dainty eaters.
[ST] Within a few hours, Lake Halasu ends, and the elk step from a sheet of ice to the bank. Small, skeletal trees sprout on either side as the column moves on.
[ST] "We should stop soon," Helgara says. "I don't want to be too close to the lake, but they need rest."
[Avir] "We'll push on as long as we can," Avir says. He glances behind him. He didn't see any hollows, but then, he wouldn't.
[Avir] He urges his elk on a little faster. "Do these Quiet have any institutional enemies?"
[Avir] "It may not have been an accident. Letting us down among a nest of those creatures."
[ST] "Any what?" Helgara grunts. "They're Quiet. All they make is enemies. All they attract are hate, or pity."
[Avir] "Hate enough to try to kill us too?" He looks at her. "It can't have been popular- a Greenwomen choosing now of all times to protect a Quiet Emerald."
[ST] "She has always cared for the Quiet. She respects them for tending the Emerald. She would always tell me that there were other types of strength than that which the Haslanti valued."
[Avir] Avir supposed raw obstinancy was a kind of strength. "This quirk- did it make her enemies? Lord Stone, perhaps?"
[ST] "We were below his notice. He has lots of enemies. What does he care about us?"
[Avir] He shrugs. That was a point. This whole mission was almost insignificant.
[Avir] "I'm sorry. That she got hurt, I mean. She must be like a mother to you."
[Avir] He glances at her.
[ST] "She is not my mother," Helgara says tightly.
[Avir] "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- ah, this looks like like a likely spot ." Prospects gloomy there, Avir concludes, as he turns his elk into a stand of tall, spindly trees. It was somewhat defensible, and a rocky spur looming from the landscape offered some protection from the wind.
[ST] "Yes." She seems glad for the change of subject. "Let's stop here."
[Avir] Avir glances at Kragos. "You've been quiet," he observes as he loops his elk's harness around a tree branch. He unhooks the lead of Wheel's mount from his saddle and guides it deeper into the grove.
[ST] Among Astrid's posessions is a large aghar. As soon as the Greenwoman is resting comfortably, Helgara rushes to erect the tent. Kragos looks at Avir, as he cuts the straps binding Wheel to the elk.
[ST] "I knew, when I first began to get the visions as a child, that my path would not be... typical." He shakes his head. "But I cannot fight. Were it not for the dreams, I would be as useful in battle as one of the Quiet."
[Avir] Avir helps him pull Wheel out of the saddle and walks the old man to a spot against the tree. "An interesting comparison. Do the Quiet ever become Dreamseers? Or do they have other religious practices?"
[Avir] An interesting comparison, but not a wise one.
[ST] "From my experience, they put little stock in dreams." He pauses, as if thinking it over. "A pity. I have had the opportunity to have a dreamtelling with them on several occasions. Fascinating dreams, falling on deaf ears."
[ST] "That is why they are what they are, perhaps. They have ignored the wisdom of their dreams."
[Avir] Avir shakes his head. "They're a strange people, no doubt about it. There's one among the Once Dead, if you can credit. Hardly lifts a blade, and never to shed blood. I still don't know what the Tomb was thinking to let him in. Is that why they weren't in your dream?"
[ST] "I do not know." He lowers his eyes. "The other dream... the one I spoke to you before. It continues. The sun, burning everything away. I see cities of the dead, bodies stacked like firewood, children taking up burning weapons."
[Avir] "Is this the Wolf War? Or some later conflict?"
[Avir] "Can it be stopped?" Some dreams were meant to warn, that they could be prevented. Others, Avir knew, the gods sent only to record the turning of fate.
[ST] "I do not know. It is unclear to me. I pray that it has been sent for some reason, that there is something to be done. But I do not know what."
[Avir] "Then I hope we have sweet dreams tonight," Avir says heavily.
[ST] "Or, at the least, helpful ones."
[ST] "I dreamed that I stood on a waterfall, holding a child in my hands, and that it kept crying. My hands were wet. I could not hold the child. I was afraid it would fall. I could feel myself, slipping too." Helgara finishes telling her dream uneasily, casting a glance at Kragos.
[ST] "You will face a difficult decision. It is one that you have put off for too long."
[Avir] Avir is tired the next morning. He is tired from having spent a third the night awake at watch; he is tired at the snap and glare Helgarda gave him when he offered assistance collecting wood, when he had no ulterior motive at all; and he is especially tired of the fear in Astrid's face when she had briefly woken in the night and seen him standing alone at the campfire.
[Avir] So when Kragos turns next to him, he tells the truth. "I dreamed of kissing a naked, beautiful woman. In the dream, I loved her. I felt a pain stabbing at my chest, and the woman became my mentor, who died many years ago. Blood poured from his chest, and he tore out my tongue. Then I dreamed of a daughter, who held me and fondled me unnaturally and told me what I must do. She gave me an amulet and her fingers were
[Avir] claws. Then I dreamed that I was eaten by monsters." Blood apes, in fact. The very blood apes he intended to summon at the soonest opportunity.
[Avir] Avir glares steadily at Kragos. He seems to have aged a decade since the first time they meant. "Tell me," he says, voice almost mocking. "What does it mean?"
[ST] "Ah.. I..." an uneasy silence falls around the campfire. "There are... many... possibilities."
[ST] "Most of all, it suggests... a divison within the self. A fear. You are a man haunted, perhaps by great sin. In time, it will destroy you. Unless it is dealt with. An amulet..." Something passes over his face, but he pushes it aside.
[ST] "In any case, dreams are often only warnings. It is not too late. Of this I am certain."
[Avir] "Then tell me. Should I take the amulet?" He leans back against a tree, cushioning his head with an arm. "I have had this dream many times- or ones nearly like. Sometimes I take it. Sometimes I do not." He was eaten by blood apes regardless.
[ST] "I do not know. You must find out what the amulet is before you can make the decision." He remembers an amulet in his own vision, a strange, red, whorled thing, dangling on the end of a cord, dripping blood. He will not tell the man. Not now, not with all of them watching.
[Avir] But when he took the amulet, he had two hands. Avir cocks his head. "I...see. Thank you, Dreamseer."
[Avir] He had to pity the man; inflicting his nightmares on him.
[Avir] He glances at Morta. He had been mad to share the dream; but he also knew that only her reaction truly mattered. The others he would not see again after hte mission.
[ST] Morta's face betrays nothing. She had dreamed of a crying lamb which followed her across the snow, and came to life again every time she butchered it for food.
[Avir] "I'd like that lamb," Avir laughs. He falls silent again as he realizes none of the others seem to share his amusement. Dammit. Well, he had given up on Helgara anyway.
