01 - The Price of Talent (52 page)

“What, you mean the leader of the bandits you lived with?” Meredith asked with some confusion. “What is he doing leading dwarven troops?”

              A very good question indeed. In my time with my bandit friends, I never knew them to have dealings with anyone else. Of course, I realized I probably didn’t know much about their dealings at all. While Devlin had discussed what sort of loot he liked to grab and why, he was not all that clear with what he did with it once he had it. The longhouse was big, but not so big that it could hold years’ worth of stolen goods, even if we were discerning with what we stole and from whom. But my thoughts were interrupted by Devlin speaking.

“Why hello! Please, allow me to introduce myself,” said Devlin to Claudius and Malvolio. “My name is Devlin, and you seem to be trespassing on my property. Moreover, I do believe you have a friend of mine locked away in my old house. So if you would be so kind as to remove yourselves from my property, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Your property?!” Malvolio said. “All lands belong to the church, cur! And if I’m not mistaken, we ran you trespassers off months ago. Run along before we do the same again.”

“Mal, please, perhaps a more… politic voice is needed here,” Claudius interjected.

              No doubt Claudius interrupted when he saw how many backs straightened in obvious anger among the dwarven troops at the statement “all lands belong to the church”. For all that he and Malvolio were backed up by their own troops, I doubt he liked their chances with lightly armored foot soldiers against their heavily armored opponents. Also, politics was somehow involved here. His mention of a treaty with someone called the “Low King” clearly played a roll.

“Devlin, as you may or may not know, these woods are a boundary between the holy empire and the low kingdom, from whence I assume these soldiers have come,” said Claudius. “Your… house… exists in a legal grey area. However, since you are human, and the fugitives we have trapped in your house are human, policing this area falls to humans under the treaty struck between the first high priest and the low king.”

“You discuss legalities with me on my own doorstep with my friends trapped in my own house?” Devlin asked. “Bold strategy. However, given our current positions here, I think I must insist that you withdraw and allow me to leave with my friends. Or do you really want to break a peace that has stood for 500 years?”

“If you would pardon me for a minute, I have matters to discuss with my colleague,” Claudius responded with an obvious grimace.

              Claudius and Malvolio then withdrew some ways and had an involved discussion. Unfortunately, I was too far away to overhear, but I bet it would have been entertaining to hear. During this conversation, the church troops were nervously eying each other and the new arrivals, clearly not relishing the idea of confronting their well-armed adversaries. For the dwarves’ part, they just stood there in strict ordered lines behind Devlin and Moira.

              After some time, Claudius approached Devlin again, while Malvolio went back to his line of troops. Claudius then addressed Devlin.

“Surely some kind of arrangement can be reached here. The two friends of yours are fugitives and wanted for the murder of church inquisitors and guardsmen. While we are perfectly happy to leave the area, we can’t do so without taking those two with us.”

“You seem to misunderstand our positions,” Devlin said, now sounding more stern. “These are my friends and they are in my house. As far as I’m concerned, the only arrangement we can make involves me leaving with my friends, you can have the bloody burnt down longhouse.”

“I’m afraid that’s not an acceptable outcome to us,” said Claudius. “And I had hoped to avoid violence…”

              And with Claudius stating the word “violence” he drew a wand out of his sleeve and blasted Devlin with lightning.

“Devlin!” I shouted, or something to that effect, as I watched him fly backwards onto the ground twitching and convulsing.

              But then I had other concerns. The whole line of church soldiers broke into a run at the moment Devlin was incapacitated. Some ran at the open end of the longhouse, clearly trying to capture Meredith and I, the other formed ranks around Claudius, one row of foot soldiers followed by a line of archers. Moira grabbed Devlin and pulled him back, meanwhile the dwarven lines moved forward and surrounded Devlin. Unfortunately, they were shortly thereafter pinned down by arrow fire from the church archers.

              Upon seeing this, Meredith and I immediately drew in magic. Meredith also grabbed the bow and arrows I had found. For my part, I can’t remember if I summoned my sword, or merely drew it. But either way it was in my hand already and ready for use.

              The first soldiers pushed their way through the wreckage of the back of the longhouse in minutes. They ran into the kitchen, only to be confronted by the barricade we had rigged. They didn’t have time to do much about it though, as their momentary slowing on the barricade gave Meredith a chance to shoot one with an arrow, while I blasted another with lightning of my own, using the sword as a wand.

              While Meredith reloaded, another group of soldiers had forced their way in. I stalled them briefly with a line of icicles I had summoned in the space between attackers. Unfortunately, these mostly rattled off the helmets and armor of the soldiers. One took a solid hit in the head and went down. But the next only paused half a step. This man suddenly found himself engulfed in flames as I instinctively blasted him with the magic I was most familiar with.

              Unfortunately, this still left two soldiers. One immediately vaulted the barrier, and I engaged him with my sword. He was armed with a battle axe, so his attacks were forceful. Despite this, I was able to parry the first few attacks he threw at me without losing my grip on my sword. While I was distracted the second soldier cleared the barrier and started to raise his sword to strike me down while I was otherwise engaged. Fortunately, this distracted him long enough for Meredith to put an arrow through his armor’s armpit seam. I saw him fall over and begin convulsing on the floor out of the corner of my eye.

              This was all I could spare of my attention as I was still dealing with an axe wielding soldier. After a few more parried blows, I moved in to counterattack. My first few thrusts were parried by the axe wielding soldier with some effectiveness. Unfortunately for him, he had to back up into the barrier to do so. With his back at the barrier, I aimed a series of strokes at his head. This kept his head up and kept him from focusing on where he was stepping. His last step hit the barrier and tripped him. This loss of balance caused him to drop his guard for just long enough for me to run him through.

              With my opponent taken care of, I looked over to make sure Meredith was ok. I was glad to see that she was not only ok, but that she had readied another arrow for the next wave of attackers.

“Good shot Meredith, you may have saved my life,” I said. “How’d you learn to shoot so well? You got him right in the armpit join!”

“Um, well… I may have been aiming at his face…” She said a little embarrassed.

“Oh, I see…” I said, realizing how lucky I had been. “Still, good save!”

              I figured saying anything less encouraging wouldn’t be helpful given the circumstances.

              Over the next 15 minutes or so, a few more soldiers were able to break through. One went down to an arrow from Meredith. I hit one more with another fiery blast. With two soldiers down from being lit on fire, the longhouse was beginning to smell nauseatingly like burnt meat. The last wave of soldiers jumped the barricade at the same time, and Meredith flubbed the shot with her arrow. Fortunately, while I was parrying blows from both soldiers, she used her magic to knock one out. This distracted the other long enough for me get under his guard and stab him though the neck.

              With this last soldier down, we found ourselves without foes. Meredith and I ran to the window to see what was going on, though I made sure to keep an eye on our barricade for more intruders.

              Outside, I saw Devlin behind the line of Dwarves, he was sitting up, but still shaking from being hit with lightning. Moira was standing in front of him, using her height advantage over the dwarves to shoot arrows at the church soldiers. She was shooting damn near an arrow every second, with few missing their marks. Her prodigious skills as a hunter clearly being put to good, if grisly, work.

              The Dwarves were holding a line. They were clearly well trained at fighting in formation as the church soldiers were having a hard time trying to break their lines. They used large shields to form a barrier and would coordinate axe strokes with their shields so that the only opening in their line had a battle axe swinging through it. This kept the church soldiers from breaking through, and open to Moira’s bow.

              This situation also explained why no more soldiers were trying to break into the longhouse, their surprise attack having failed, they were unwilling to get out of formation to rush the house because it would make them an easy target for Moira. With no progress being made on either the house or the dwarven troops, Claudius and Malvolio, now in the back of the line of troops using magic to deflect arrows, began signaling a retreat.

              It only took them a few minutes to leave the clearing and get into the cover of the trees. When they did this, the Dwarves formed up battle lines next to the main entrance of the longhouse. Seeing this as our chance to escape, Meredith and I started tearing apart the barricade at front of the door. In a few minutes we were able to get it open and get out of the house.

              Once we were outside, we ran over to where Devlin and Moira were standing. Meredith immediately knelt down next to the still seated Devlin and I could feel her channeling magical power.

“Tyr, nice to see you again,” Said Moira with a smile. “I had hoped we could find you before spring. I was not looking forward to having to till fields by myself.”

              As she said this Devlin seemed to shake off whatever lingering effects the lightning had on him. I could feel Meredith stop channeling magic, apparently having done what she could for Devlin.

“Nice to see you again kid,” Devlin said, while standing up and dusting himself off. “Though I had hoped for a more heroic entrance than getting zapped before the fighting even began.”

“It was heroic enough, Devlin,” I said. “Without your and Moira’s arrival, Meredith and I would have been in quite a bad situation.”

“I could see that,” he said. “Sorry it took so long for us to come to the rescue. But since you took your sweet time escaping and making your way here, our spies on this clearing had grown a little lax in their duty.”

“Hey, we had to escape out of Caer Sud all by ourselves,” I said. “We had no idea if you would even be here.”

“Speaking of ‘We’, who is this lovely lady you’ve brought with you?” Moira asked.

“Oh, sorry, her name is Meredith. She and her father looked after me after the disaster that happened at my parents’ farm.”

“Nice to meet both of you,” Meredith said, looking a little embarrassed about suddenly being the center of attention.

“We’ll have proper introductions later,” said Devlin. “I can tell you both have quite a story to tell. Unfortunately, it will have to wait. I don’t know how long it will take for your Priestly friends to bring more troops here, but when they come, you know they’ll bring cavalry and crossbowmen. I think it would be best if we were well on our way by then.”

“So, uh, where are we going?” I asked him.

“Why, we’re all special guests of the Low King,” said Devlin with a smile. “He’s a close personal friend of mine, probably won’t mind taking in another couple of political refugees. What do you think Baynor? Do you think your Uncle will mind?”

“Bah! You don’t even give me a proper introduction!” Said a dwarf who had come forward out of the group. “And whether the Low King lets your friends stay or not is his business. Saving them was mine, but it was a special dispensation to you. I’m not comfortable interfering in your foolish human squabbles. Nothing but trouble will come of this.”

“Tyr, Meredith, this is Baynor, captain of the Low King’s elite guard, who you have the privilege of being rescued by.”