The Companions of Tartiël (57 page)

“This is intense,” Matt said, dusting off his hands as though they were sweaty from hard labor.

Xavier and I both nodded. “Yeah,” I agreed, “this isn’t looking good. Even though we’re wearing her down, she’s wearing us down faster, even though everyone involved is getting the benefit of fast-healing-ten.”

“I’m almost out of spells, too,” Xavier said seriously. “Any good ideas, Jeff?”

I threw my hands into the air in a gesture of defeat. “I’ve got nothing at the moment. Normally, I’d say we need to retreat, but if we do that, everyone back at the temple is going to die. Maybe if Caineye could take up a tanking position for just a few rounds, I’d have enough time to heal myself and get back into the fray. We need to seriously think about flanking Saraël, because even Kaiyr’s having trouble hitting her, and I’m attacking at plus eighteen… though it’s usually less than that, since I’m pimping out my AC. Problem is, if I lower my defense, she’s going to pound me into dust. I’m a tank, not a meatshield
^[48]
.”

I flipped my character sheet to the second page and read my character’s inventory section while Matt and Xavier threw a few ideas around. Then an idea hit me as my eyes settled on a completely-forgotten item I had kept in one of Kaiyr’s sleeves, the sleeve with the extradimensional storage space. The object was labeled, “mysterious poison canister.”

I looked up, and the others must have sensed that I had something game-changing to say, because they both quieted down immediately. “Guys,” I said, my voice betraying my growing excitement, “I… I’m not sure whether this will help or not, but I think I’ve found something.”

Xavier leaned forward in his seat and laced his fingers in front of his knees. “All right. Hit us.”

A grin spread across my features. “Well, remember back when Warteär Nomen was trying to kill Solaria and he set up that trap with the canister? We bypassed that trap when I teleported into the room, removed the canister, and stuck it in my extradimensional sleeve.”

As I watched, the others’ eyes lit up with understanding, and then hope. “That’s right,” Matt said. “We couldn’t open it but supposed it must be some kind of poison.”

I nodded and held my character sheet almost reverently before me. “Yeah. We have no clue what the canister will do, but at this point, I figure anything’s worth a shot.”

Matt chuckled excitedly, and I joined in with a giggle that quickly infected Xavier. Soon, we were all laughing and congratulating each other, albeit prematurely.

“All right, guys,” Dingo said, appearing around the corner and crossing the room to his seat. “We’re back in business, and it looks like Caineye’s up.”

*

Caineye gestured toward Vinto, and the wolf obediently dashed away from Saraël. Looking down at his belt, the druid sighed at the sickle he had never before had reason to use in actual combat. “Last spell,” he muttered, summoning a handful of flames, one of which he launched at Saraël to distract her while Wild fired another crossbow bolt at the angel, striking deep into her side even though the wound quickly became superficial and then nearly nonexistent.

Kaiyr, bloody and battered but far from beaten, rose to his feet. His knees shook momentarily, but through sheer force of will, he steadied his stance. The blademaster had lost his grip on his weapon during his tumble, but it would be a simple matter of calling it to his hand again.

He was ready to run back into the battle, but one last shred of self-preservation in the back of his mind warned him that continuing this fight would be suicide. Saraël’s attacks were too strong, her movements too quick. And, if she were truly in danger of defeat, she could easily take to the skies, heal, and return to the fray completely refreshed, while the trio on the ground could only hope to patch themselves up for the next assault.

Frustration built in Kaiyr’s thoughts as he envisioned their defeat at the hands of this fallen angel. He could see Caineye suddenly struck down by a bolt of Saraël’s lightning, followed quickly by Wild, impaled on her sword. And then… then he envisioned her “mercy,” as she allowed Kaiyr to live, but only with the knowledge that his determination had caused the deaths of his companions, of those he now considered his friends.

He wanted to surrender, to tell Saraël that she had won this fight so that she could kill everyone and have done with this whole situation. He wanted the peace of death and to be reunited with Astra and Solaria beyond the veil, as neither, it seemed, would return to him in this life.

But Kaiyr was a blademaster, and blademasters did not surrender their lives so easily. Kaiyr had long ago begun the process of tempering his body, mind, and spirit against failure, and over the course of his adventures, he had continued hardening himself against his own weaknesses. It was only a matter of realizing that he was clever enough to win here, and that was what galvanized him now. More, he suddenly remembered that he had a tool at his disposal, a tool that could mean success or disaster, but it was the only surprise he had left this day.

*

“So,” Dingo said, looking at me. “You’re thirty feet away from Saraël, who is moving to attack Caineye. What are you going to do?”

I looked at Matt and Xavier, both of whom grinned and returned the gesture. Then, looking at my character sheet, I said, “First, I shout to Caineye as I pull something from my sleeve.
Master Caineye! Get out of the way!
”

Even though Xavier knew what was going on, his character didn’t, so he played it out as though he was ignorant of the danger. “I’m going to use the amulet to speak back.
What is it?
”

“I’ll use the amulet, too.
I am going to throw this canister at Saraël!
”

Shaking his head and gesturing sharply with one hand, Xavier snapped, “
Throw the damn thing and get it over with!
I say, not using the amulet. I’m immune to poison, remember?”

“Wait, wait,” Dingo said, cutting in, his expression perturbed. “What canister are you talking about?”

We all directed blossoming grins at him, and he shrank back. Since it was my turn and my action, I explained, “Remember the canister Warteär Nomen tried to use on Solaria with that trap?”

Dingo paused, thinking. Then his palm came up and slapped into his face. “Oh, no,” he groaned. His reaction was all I needed to gauge just how effective my ploy would be.

I nodded emphatically, a grin splitting my face. “Oh, hell, yes!”

He sighed and cupped his chin in his hand. “I can’t believe I forgot about that poison.”

“Frankly, we did, too, until we realized Saraël is about to kick our collective ass. I just found it on my character sheet from when Kaiyr stuck it in his sleeve.”

Dingo sighed again and flipped through his notebook, looking for the poison he had designed for use with that trap. “Oh, jeez,” he muttered, finding the stats for it. “I can’t believe this. There’s no way she’s going to make this save.”

I wound up my arm as though I were a pitcher on a mound. “Well, Dungeon Master, I pull out my canister-o’-hopefully-angel-doom and give it a whirl.” I dropped my d20 on my desk. “I’m pretty sure I hit Saraël’s square dead-on with a thirty-three, since I’m only thirty feet away. What happens?”

*

Caineye batted away Kaiyr’s warning with a wave of his arm, which was covered in his own blood from having taken Saraël’s enormous sword in his shoulder. “Throw the damn thing and get it over with!” he snarled as Saraël advanced on him menacingly.

Kaiyr hesitated only a fraction of a second longer. He knew this was his last chance to catch the angel off-guard. If Caineye was willing to sacrifice himself to stop this creature, then so be it; the blademaster could only hope the druid’s spirit would be more willing to return to life than Solaria’s had been.

Winding back, Kaiyr grasped the delicate, glass cylinder carefully, took aim, and let fly. The crystalline canister soared end-over-end in its path to the angel.

Saraël turned almost lazily to regard the incoming threat. Despite it having belonged to one of her servants, she did not recognize the object, and so she smashed it to pieces with her sword, her expression indifferent when she realized it was not an arrow fired from a bow. It was the worst possible thing she could have done.

The shattered cylinder released its gaseous contents right into the fallen angel’s face, a green cloud spreading out in the air to cover the fallen divine being. With a shriek of agony that crumbled several nearby buildings and made Kaiyr’s and Caineye’s ears bleed, Saraël thrashed about as the gas seeped into her body.

It was over in moments. Caineye, deafened, scuttled back on all fours as Saraël laid waste to the ground around her in her death throes. Her veins stood out black against her pale flesh, and within seconds, her body turned to black crystal and began disintegrating into dust that settled over the ground.

A supernatural wind, borne of released divine energy, rushed from the fallen angel’s dying form. Wild found himself picked up and hurled a hundred feet away, while Kaiyr and Caineye managed to withstand the storm’s force. Vinto flattened his ears and bowed against the gale, though he was pushed back several paces.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over, and the pile of grayish dust that was Saraël dispersed on her own divine wind before that, too, halted.

Wild darted back to rejoin his friends. “What happened? Did I miss anything?” he asked excitedly as Vinto padded over to him and licked the dust from the halfling’s face. “Haha! Stop that, Vinto.”

Caineye sat up and glanced around, his hair disheveled from Saraël’s death. “Oof. I really don’t feel so good. Where’s Master Kaiyr? Is he all right?”

Wild looked over at where he had last seen the blademaster, but the elf’s body was splayed on his stomach, his robes torn and tattered and his armor nearly rent in two halves. A feeling of dread built in the halfling as he saw his most stalwart companion’s body lying so broken on the ground. “Caineye,” Wild said around a rising lump in his throat, “I… I think he might be—” He stopped, hearing a most disconcerting sound coming from the blademaster’s direction.

Wiping his eyes even though tears had not yet budded there, the halfling rushed to Kaiyr’s side as Caineye pushed himself to his feet and followed. “Maybe he’s still alive—I think I hear him wheezing!” Wild called over his shoulder.

But when the halfling arrived next to Kaiyr, the blademaster rolled over onto his back—and laughed. It was a low, slow chuckle that Wild had mistaken for a wheeze, but it gradually rose in a crescendo to pealing laughter straight from the serious elf’s belly.

Now tears spread to Wild’s eyes. “You’re… you’re
laughing
,” he said almost accusingly as Caineye joined him. “That’s… that’s rather… heh… heh, heh, hahaha!”

Kaiyr’s desperate mirth proved to be infectious, and after Wild fell on his rump and rolled, giggling, on the ground, Caineye caught the condition as well, his baritone chortles joining Kaiyr’s as he offered the blademaster a hand.

Kaiyr took it and rose as Caineye took the blademaster’s arm across his shoulder, supporting the wounded elf. Vinto nosed Wild’s hand to get the halfling’s attention, but the chilly wetness only made him laugh harder for another minute. “What’s so funny, anyway?” he asked, rolling to his feet.

Kaiyr glanced up at the sky and shook his bloodied head. “We won. We defeated an angel attempting to ascend to godhood, and we survived.”

The midmorning sunlight suddenly brightened and lost its queer, amber hue, giving the three friends cause to look up. The transparent dome that had for weeks on end covered this section of Ik’durel vanished, taking with it the symbols of sealing that had loomed over them in the sky.

Caineye hiked up his grip on the stumbling blademaster, whose eye had stopped bleeding thanks to a few last moments in Saraël’s vicinity, though the fallen angel had died before the eye could grow back. “Come on,” the druid said, taking up the lead since Kaiyr was in no condition to do so. “The others must be wondering what in the Nine Hells happened to us out here.”

“Yeah,” Wild agreed. “I need a nap or three. Or six. Or a hundred.”

Kaiyr looked at Caineye with a quiet smile on his features. He opened his mouth to say something, but the druid grinned and chuckled. “Don’t worry, Kaiyr. If you fall asleep on the way home, I’ll just carry you the rest of the way.”

A last, tired laugh escaped Kaiyr’s lips. “Thank you, my friend. And thank you all, my friends.”

Together, the four of them took the first step away from the battlefield.

XLIV.

Dingo, Xavier, and I sat down in my room on Tuesday of finals week. We had not had time to wrap up the campaign after the last battle, having played until four in the morning. So, the four of us had departed with the tentative promise to meet later and finish what we had started four months ago.

“I wish Matt could be here to do this with us,” Dingo said as he dropped his notebook onto his lap. He hadn’t brought his table or rulebooks along; today there would be no die-rolling, no sword-swinging, and no monster-thrashing. Today was a day for us to bring things to a quiet close.

“I have to say,” I put in before Dingo could launch into the session, “and I know I’ve said this before, but this is the most phenomenal campaign I’ve ever played in, guys. Xavier, you’re a terrific roleplayer. Even though you only started D&D a couple years ago, and you’ve only been in a handful of campaigns, it’s been a blast.”

He accepted the praise graciously and nodded. “Thanks, man. I’ve been working hard on roleplaying with you guys. And you’re the best I know.”

“Ha,” I said, “thanks, dude.”

Dingo glanced between the two of us. “I have to agree. You two, and Matt, are some of the best roleplayers I know, right up there with Andy and Carlos.”

“So,” I said after a few more minutes of chatter, “what happens after the end of the battle?”

Dingo shuffled his papers while he collected his thoughts then began: “Well, the first thing you notice is that the dome overhead disappears entirely, which we covered last session. You make it back to the temple, where everyone is relieved and curious about everything that went on.”