Hofstaring's Flood Part 2

In battle we control our fear through our training. The terror is always there but it is muted and only inaction or idle thought brings it tearing to the forefront of your mind, rising like bile in your throat. Some are able to catch it at this point, forcing it back down or willing their thoughts elsewhere. Others panic and fall apart before your very eyes. Being hunted does not allow us this fallback. In all my years I have never known fear such as I felt that night. I have faced such things that some have deemed more terrifying, but always there were others to share my fate and alleviate my dread. This fear was both more personal and more primal.

Three of us had immediately set off at a run to the north, back the way we had come, although a destination was not a consideration. I had a vague notion of sanctuary at the Lunar supply depot at Herongreen, but that seemed so far away as to be a witless and inappropriate joke. Looking back now, I can still feel the overwhelming reversal of emotions that I had undergone in the last hour: from the comfort of feeling like a conqueror among friends to the childlike emptiness of being lost and alone. I had known we were in enemy territory, but now the hostility of the land began to take on physical form, made greater by the shadow of encroaching night.

I forced down my rising panic. The noise of our flight had drowned out all else, and I needed to get some inkling as to my situation. I halted and strained to listen, but all I could hear was the rush of my breathing amplified in my ear and the beating of my heart under my cuirass. Think! We are pursued, but we are ahead of our pursuers. Those to our front we will deal with when they come, but first to escape those at my rear. I have a mobility spell, but only enough to give me the edge on a normal man, and I am currently exhausted. Think!

In the dark, I had already lost my erstwhile companions. So be it. My chosen path was mine and mine alone. I could not allow myself to be guided by the will and whim of others at this time. I began to remove my armour. The chill of night hit my sweat-soaked back in a cold rush, but I welcomed the shock of cold, and knew that all too soon I would be burning with the heat of running. I kept my waterskin, my tinderbox, my flint and steel and my swords, but all else I ditched. I stuffed as much of the dried fruit and hard tack as I could into my mouth as I ditched kit, chewing frantically and forcing it down. I rolled my cloak into a bundle which sat upon my shoulders and listened to the night once more. At first only the deafening silence, and then, all too slight, a low growl and a whispered phrase.

I cast my spell and felt the rush of fire to my legs. Once leaden and chilled from battle fatigue and exhaustion, the effect of this insignificant spell was magnified by the enervating effect it had on my spirit, and I began to run. Behind me, well within javelin range came the shouts of men and the snarling of wolves. In my flight they sounded like demons of the underworld, and once more I had to force down my panic. If these were werewolves on my tracks, I had not the magic to defeat them, nor the pace to outrun them. I had to climb. To climb rocks to mask my scent and to hide my vulnerability. I turned what I thought was west, ducking through the pine forest. The branches cut my face and arms, but fear is a potent antidote for pain, and I kept pushing for the high ground.

Somewhere to my right, where I thought north to be came the sound of fighting – the high pitched squeal of an injured wolf and the cries of human assailants. Then the growls and cries reached a crescendo as their quarry was run down, to what end I dare not think. The sound of this slaughter carried through the still night and up the slopes of the mountains with a pitiful clarity, but this clarity served to sew some confusion among my immediate pursuers. I could just make out a precipitous salient, protected by high spurs, leading up into the steeper, purple mountains. My magic was expired and I had not the energy to fuel another. There was a stretch of some fifty metres from the edge of the trees that I had emerged from and the steep sided salient. I got about halfway before a dark lupine silhouette burst from the forest. It let out a series of yammering barks as it charged me down. I knew that my short, stabbing Lunar sword was the weapon with which to meet it, and cursed my lack of a shield and spear against this charging enemy. The wolf was not particularly large, but was all but berserk. In the few seconds it took to close with me, I had a fleeting thought that if this was a lycanthrope…

It wasn’t. it’s jaws closed around my left arm, thrown instinctively across my face. It’s raking claws opened a series of ragged tears down my sides, but my vitals were guarded by my ribs. I rolled backward under the creature’s weight and with a desperate but considered thrust I plunged my own blade into its stomach and twisted it upward. The blood, onyx in the night, made the grip too slippery to hold when the animal twisted away. I am gifted with a clearness of thinking in combat, and the moment the blade was pulled from my hand, I rolled away to the side, fumbling for my scimitar. A flash of pain tore through me as my bitten arm grazed against the bare rock, but I was up and bringing my blade to bear. The wolf was dying, and unable to continue its assault. It clawed weakly at the hilt of my sword, but I was not waiting around. I was bleeding and unable to cast healing magic on myself. I had to make for the rocks whilst my strength held out…

The site of the stand against the Telmori, by day

A voice ahead in the darkness – harsh, accented. The flood of relief was tangible after the vague spark of recognition. The speaker was a Lunar, probably Carmanian from the accent. Through the fog of my pain I heard the voice again.

“This way, brother; we are at the summit.”

It was clearer to me this time; Carmanians. I wracked my brains to think who they might be. The majority of our forces were Heartland Corps. We had some Redlanders with us and some Bog-Orlanthi mercenaries from Far Point. Must be a sorcerer; we had an entire company of the Crescent-Come School, there to initiate the ritual which would consecrate the Hill to the Red Goddess. I had hated the Carmanians before now, with their haughtiness and unnatural practices. Still, this wasn’t the time or place for such prejudice. Brothers indeed! I could hear my pursuers gathering in the dark below me, louder now and more numerous. I heard a howl of rage, presumably as the dead wolf was found, perhaps the foul familiar of one of the degenerate Telmori.

I was bent over, my scimitar in my right hand, whilst my left sought purchase on the rocky slope. As I neared the top, a shadowy figure broke cover in the darkness, scrambling down the last few feet and reaching out to me. He unceremoniously hooked his arm around mine and pulled me to the top. I clamped my mouth shut, but could not quell the grunts of pain that welled within my very soul. Then, I was amongst others, all of them speaking whispered Carmanian. Hands were checking me over, and it was all I could do to remain on my knees. I heard a harsh but muted phrase, and an exquisite flood of almost liquid warmth seemed to wash through me. I could feel the pain from the wounds on my chest begin to dissipate and as I ventured a small twist of my torso, the agony that had been there was simply not.

“Thank you, thank you” I gasped.

“Not now, Quiet!” came the reply – definitely Carmanian sorcerers. His companion was apparently his aide, wearing chain armour and balancing a scimitar across his knee. He patted me on the shoulder and in the dark I could just make out a grin, highlighted by several missing teeth. He held my shoulder and stepped up and past me, moving to the ridge of the salient which concealed us from below.

The sorcerer paid me no apparent attention after his healing spell. He too looked to the downward slope. I pulled a bandage from my belt pouch and began to try to bind my wounded arm, never an easy task, but the pressure brought yet more welcome relief from my wounds. My companion showed no annoyance at the noise I must have made; noise that I myself was oblivious to because of the rush of blood thundering in my ears.

A short utterance from the bodyguard, and the Carmanian stepped forward, beyond me. I tensed myself, torn between a desire to keep running and gratitude for my immediate deliverance. Suddenly, a ravenous snarling flew from the dark. Many voices roared in anger and the hush of stealthy movement gave way to a sudden, violent charge. In the same instant that the fear rushed back into my tired limbs came a venomous shout and an explosion of bright red light that raised itself high into the night sky. To my eyes, it appeared as if a crimson woman of surpassing beauty had raised herself from the very ground and as she hunched and bore down on the attacking Telmori she assumed a terrible visage of both consummate ecstasy and festering death, both aspects compunded by the haunting and alien howl that she seemed to eminate. The sorcerer had unleashed a huge Lune, and in the wake of the panic which it caused, he began a litany of spellcasting. I could not see the devastation he was causing though the screams from our assailants left me in little doubt as to its efficacy. I confess that I was ill at ease with this magic use, in spite of the undoubted fact that I now owed my life to this sorcerer. What price would I ultimately pay for falling in with demon-worshipping Carmanians? Was my plan of escape compromised?

The clash of bronze echoed through the night, and I sprang forward, ready to do my bit in the line. The battle was illuminated in the red glow of the Lune which had forced several of the assailants to retreat, and apparently begin to fight amongst themselves. Three Telmori were trying to fight their way up the slope with their spears held low and thrusting upward at us. The Carmanian bodyguard was fighting entirely defensively, and the sorcerer was preparing more magic. I lunged past my comrade’s left, and slashed my crescent blade across the face of one of our attackers. He screamed and dropped his spear as his hands instinctively clawed at his wounds, and he turned, half-running, half falling down the hill. Emboldened by the sudden change in odds, the Carmanian advanced on his immediate attacker and cut his leg from under him, the gleam of a bladesharp spell resonating in its razor-sharp path. With two out of the fight in short sequence, their battle partner turned and fled. The sorcerer held high some large crystal, reflecting the glow of the elemental, and shouted a harsh, magical command. The loss of red light was almost immediate, as it swirled and eddied back from the melee and into the crystal which stored it. The sudden loss of night vision threw my orientation for a second, but I was able to follow the guttural command in accented New Pelorian, “Come, we must go!”…