[Mkguild] Story Number 9

[Mark Ewing]

Finally I've managed to get my 9th tale complete, though I need to thank
Matt for his assistance in one small section of the story. I hope that you
enjoy this tale.

 Visitors in the Night


 Oberon Snowcat


 My alarm jangled at me from its place over on my desk and I crawled out of
bed swearing at the unfairness of the world as I went to shut off the noise.
There were times that it didn't pay to wake up in the morning, and this was
one of them. Once my alarm was shut of I began getting ready for my patrol
today. Yesterday Barbara, the incompetent leader of my patrol squad, had
tried to get me busted out of her unit for a number of reasons. I had been
transferred out of her unit, though not in the manner that she desired and
reassigned to a new unit. I was actually going to be meeting them today, and
so was Daniel, the greyhound morph who was becoming my young protege. As I
put on my swordbelt I thought of a weapon that I owned but hadn't used in
more than a decade. Finally I opened my travel-chest and pulled out a plain
looking sword in a battered leather scabbard. This was the hereditary sword
of the Sundering Stone Clan from my homeland, and one of the ten treasures
of the Kelmar Clanlands. It was called the Dragon's Talon and it was
beautifully balanced hand & half long sword similar in fact to the sword
that I had made for myself when I had changed into my current form. I don't
know why the smiths and magicians who had made it like this but now it was
perfectly suited for me. I held the scabbard in one hand and slowly withdrew
the blade with the other. It was a light blade of silvery white metal that
glimmered in the light of the lamp that I had lit so that I could see what I
was doing with more detail that was possible with just my natural night
vision. In my head I heard the first traces of the sword's song. The song
was the reason that I didn't often like to use the weapon, though for some
reason that song was different than I remember. *'Akon veralatkis wruktan
praktros xraxsus jkutia.'* the weapon sang to me softly in Old Kelmar. For
some reason this time the song was appropriate to my desires so I continued
to hold it unsheathed for a moment before I sheathed the weapon and put it
on my heavy belt which I was holding in my hand. I considered the weapons on
my double baldric before I took of the double sabre and replaced it with a
single edged sword and my quiver, which was full of three and a half foot
long arrows for my monster bow. I grabbed my heavy scout pack, though I had
yet to pick up the field rations and checked that I had everything else that
I needed. A spare sheaf of twenty arrows, a basic field medicine kit, my
tent, my bedroll, my tinderbox, a clothing repair kit, three spare strings
for my bow, and assorted other odds and ends that would allow me to do my
job as a scout properly. Once I had everything I picked up the my bow and
slung it on my body before I headed out the door. For the first time in a
month I didn't have to pass Snow's Tinsmithy on my way to my normal mess
facility.

 Half an hour later I arrived in the inner ward where a small group of four
other people were gathered, I was still munching on the last of my
breakfast. I had managed to pick up almost twice as many of the field
rations as anyone else. I had also asked that the next time I came down I
they would have special double rations made for me so that I wouldn't starve
out in the field. When I reached the Inner ward I found the group that I was
to join. They were standing in an organized group under the command of a
tall fair haired man, who I guessed probably had started off his life as a
woman. None the less he showed every sign of being comfortable, cool, and
most importantly competent under the current circumstances. Once I was sure
of my personal assessment I went to join the group, that was obviously
waiting for someone. The leader of the group turned to face me as soon as I
came in the inner ward and held out his hand

 "I'm Jonah Harkort and I presume that you must be Oberon. George has told
me that you would be joining my unit today." I shook the proffered hand
before I confirmed my name and confirmed the fact that I was here to join
his unit. "Well that means that we're only missing one of new additions. I
sure hope that you can survive out there. Recently lutin activity has been
increasing for some unknown reason."

 "Trust me I can hold my own on battlefield."

 "You sound confident."

 "I should be considering the amount of experience I have in warfare."

 "Are you meaning to tell me that what George told me about you is true?"

 "That is what I'm telling you."

 "Well then you will make an excellent addition to the squad. The person who
you're replacing is currently laid up after he was hit by a lutin arrow on
our last patrol."

 "It would take more than one arrow to knock me out of a fight."

 "We'll see how everything goes when the time comes. By the way there's
supposed to be someone else coming with you."

 "Yes there is. He should be here shortly. He's a little young but I can
tell you right now all he needs is some practice." Jonah nodded slowly
before I noticed Daniel coming towards us with a smile on his narrow canine
face. I waved to him and I noticed the smile broaden as he jogged the
remaining distance to greet the lieutenant in charge of the squad. Once all
the greetings had been taken care Jonah shouted out

"Lets get moving people we have a long way to go, we're burning up daylight
here." I nodded and took my longbow into my left hand and fell into the rear
of the group as we made our way out of the keep and down through the outer
ward and eventually the town of Euper. Once we left the town behind we
turned north and headed for the Giant's Dike, a place that I had already
visited once on my own personal scouting mission when I first arrived at the
Keep just over a month ago. Now though I was going there on a sanctioned
scouting mission with a squad of others to back me up in case I ran into an
enemy.

 As we walked north I did my own evaluation of the squad's personal. As far
as I could tell Jonah was exactly what George had told me he was, an
excellent soldier with a good eye for the terrain around him and his people.
Trent Longfellow wasn't so much long as he was big, the guy probably weighed
close to six hundred pounds, not really ideal for a scout, but it was to be
expected considering what animal he took his form from, a flatlands bison.
On the opposite end of the scale there was Olivia Janson, her form was that
of a stoat, a kind of weasel. That meant that she was thin and wiry, perfect
for an spellcaster like herself. She told me on one of our marching breaks
that she enjoyed her her form, before she arrived at the keep she had been a
stout woman of ample proportions, now though she couldn't get fat if her
life depended on it. The final member of the squad that I had joined was
Herbert Johanssun, he was the smallest member of the squad, even when he was
as large as he could get. He told though that he was the perfect size to
tackle the lutins because at just over four feet tall he could meet them at
their own height, where I towered over lutins like a building in Euper. Each
person used whatever weapon they felt best with. Trent was carrying a pair
of large chain flail maces with spiked metal heads, his back up weapon was
great-sword that he wore on his back. Jonah carried a simple single handed
broadsword and a shield, though he did possess a couple of throwing knives.
Herbert and Olivia were both relatively lightly armed, though they both
carried a short sword at their sides. Finally there was myself and Daniel,
He carried his bow and a side-sword, since it matched his style of fighting.
I of course, was the walking arsenal of the group with more weapons than you
could shake a stick at.

 That evening when we stopped for the night to make camp Jonah pointed where
everyone was going to sleep, and the watch rotation for the night. Since we
were able to light a fire this evening, most of all talk about our previous
experiences in warfare. When I talked about a battle that had taken place
more than twenty years ago the whole squad knelt closer to me to hear the
story. That particular story was actually pretty mild since most of the unit
that I had been attached to had managed to survive the engagement. When I
finished the story Trent went out to the watch position while I crawled into
my tent to get a few hour of sleep before I had to take the watch, Olivia
and I were probably the ones best suited for the late night and early
morning watches because of our exceptional night vision.

 Some time later, I wasn't exactly sure how long though, I awoke with Trent
shaking my shoulder

"You're turn to take the watch Oberon." I nodded slowly and then told him to
give me a few minutes. I quickly got dressed and equipped, though I left my
bow and quiver behind since they were less than useless out here in the
middle of the night. Instead I had my six throwing knives, The Dragon's
Claw, my single handed broadsword, my long dagger, and two stilettos. Once I
was finished getting all of my things together I threw on my grey cloak and
headed out into the night. For me low light of the night wasn't a problem
because of my feline eyes gave me superior night vision. When I reached
where Trent was back waiting for me he grinned slightly before he said

 "Glad to see you here Oberon. I can't see a blasted thing, its darker than
the insides of the Lieutenant's boots out here."

 "Well I can see just fine."

 "Damn all you cats." He responded with a laugh as he stood up, grabbed his
shuttered lantern, and headed back to camp.

A little more than an hour later I smelled something vaguely familiar,
though the odour was very faint. In order to get a better read on the odour
I curled up my lip and let the odour pass over a sensory organ in my mouth.
An instant later I reached down and slowly, with much care I quietly drew my
broadsword. The odour that I had detected was that of a rare drug from my
homeland, Narrelat was a drug that was used by the Racteganect, they were
assassins that specialized in attacking in shadow of night. I kept my ears
open and waited until I heard a small twig behind me crack, with a move as
quick as death itself I whirled with my sword in hand. The move removed the
head of the lead assassin and warded of the second. I reached over my
shoulder and grabbed the head of the second man with my claws extended and
jerked until a loud grinding crunch sound came to my ears. At the same time
I thrust out with the sword catching the man that I had warded off just
under the chin with the tip of the blade, the last assassin the unit I had
to grab with my left hand, I jerked his head down and used my huge teeth to
remove his entire throat. The whole series of events took less than a minute
and I was left standing with blood on my face, neck-ruff, chest, and claws.
I had to spend most of the rest of my watch cleaning myself up and
concealing the bodies of the assassins. I did manage to find a small sheaf
of papers on the body of the second man that I had killed. I would have to
wait for later to read it though, because even though my night vision was
good it wasn't that good. By the time I went to fetch Olivia I had managed
to conceal all signs that there had been a fight here. I didn't want the
others to know that they had to worry about more than just the lutins.

 The next day was pretty much the last though I did find some signs that
there were enemies in the area. However, we didn't run into anything of note
until the third day, I was on the point when I held up my my hand to give
the signal that we should all stop and get down. I carefully slid and arrow
out of my quiver with my right hand and nocked it, while I concentrated on
the information that my senses were giving me, then the wind shifted and I
quite easily smell the funk of lutins up ahead. I half stood, to get
clearance for my bow and drew and released in a single motion. In the trees
beyond what I could see I heard a scream, followed by a hailstorm of lutin
arrows. I crouched behind the bole of a large tree, though it probably
wasn't large enough. I felt a sudden spike of white hot pain in my left
thigh and glanced down to see a black fletched arrow sticking into my leg. I
grimaced in pain at the arrow and yanked at the shaft, removing it in a
single motion. The pain that followed was somewhat different, but it was
something that I had felt many times before. I looked down at my leg again
and noticed the fact that the white and black fur was stained crimson with
my own blood. I dropped my pack, pulled out a field dressing and slapped it
onto the wound before I drew my long-sword and stood up once more and
glanced over at Jonah, who was also hiding behind a tree. Both Herbert and
Olivia were both hiding under the heavily armoured form of Trent, he was
covering them with his massive form. There were at least a dozen arrows
protruding form his armour, though it didn't appear that any of them had
actually managed to penetrate his armour. Daniel was also hiding behind a
tree, though every so often he would jump from behind his hiding place and
unleash an arrow of his own at our unseen attackers. Jonah looked at me and
then gave me a silent signal that we had to attack our enemies in order to
get them to stop shooting arrows at the rest of the squad. I dashed forwards
with Jonah beside me, as I ran I had to use Claw to deflect more than a
dozen arrows before we entered a small clearing from which the lutins were
shooting arrows. I dashed towards the nearest archers and began hewing at
them with the Claw. There was no finesse in this fight, instead it was a
simple matter of brute force and wide sweeping blows, I had just cleared out
the last of the archers and was going to go join Jonah when the Claw shouted
in my mind 'Behind you!' I whirled, taking my left hand off of the Claw,
drawing my broadsword and sweeping it through the skull of another lutin
that was trying to sneak up behind me while I sliced through the upraised
blades of the two who had been trying to get behind me before the Claw had
given me the warning about them. With their weapons taken care of I quickly
disposed of them and turned back to go help Jonah, and that was when a lutin
mage made its presence known. A blast of pure energy struck me and flung me
back into a the bole of a very thick very sturdy tree and I knew no more.

 Some time later, I'm not exactly sure how long though, I awoke to find
myself looking up at the ceiling of some place.

 "How are you feeling Oberon?" I heard a voice ask me. I turned my head and
looked to the side to see Jonah standing there with a pair of smaller
figures one who I recognized as Sir Saulius the Knight.

"Art thou well Adòn?" I tried to sit up, only to have a searing pain lance
through my chest from just over my heart. I fell back with a grunt, I
managed to hiss out a rather strong oath in Kelmarhastarat

"Du sung chu'tang roc sung krachendra ko sung tachoda gtrik." Sir Saulius,
who I was able to recognize, cast a inquiring glance at the other rat, who I
didn't know, but the second rat, this one of brown fur and wearing a set of
chain mail, shrugged his shoulders. I looked closely at the second rat and
realized that this was someone that I had never seen before, though from the
way that he stood I could tell that he was a very dangerous person. This was
someone to be treated with a great deal of respect. At that point Sir
Saulius repeated himself by asking me once again,

"Art thee well?"

"I've had better days Sir Saulius." I managed to say without causing too
much more pain. The knight gestured to the other rat.

"My squire, Charles, was wondering if thou wert well enough to answer a few
questions about what thee saw. Canst thee do so, or shouldst we return
another time?"

"I should be able to answer a few questions. I haven't lived as long as I
have without having to accrue my fair share of injuries like this in
battle." I grunted, this was taking more out of me than I expected for a
simple hit in the ribs. The second rat, the one named Charles, stepped
forward, paws clasped behind his back.

"Thank you, Adon. Tell me, how many Lutins were there in the force you ran
across?"

"I think there were roughly thirty to forty of them, as well as at least one
mage, I hate mages! We managed to take out most of their archers and I don't
know how many more Jonah and rest of the unit managed to kill, but my own
score was around eight." Charles grimaced and his tail flicked form side to
side.

"How many were left when you were struck? Do you recall?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, though I suspect that there were still at least
twenty, if not more, still remaining."

"I see. And where were they headed? Had they made camp, or were they moving
through the area?"

"That I can tell you, as far as I could tell this unit had set themselves up
in the area to ambush us, I was lucky to pick up their odour before they
attacked. Therefore I would suspect that they have established themselves in
the area and are trying to strike out at any force that comes into their
area of operations." Charles nodded thoughtfully, and exchanged a glance
with Jonah and Sir Saulius. The knight had nothing to say, and Jonah was
still in a bit of a shock. The rat returned his attention to Adon.

"You say they were there to ambush you. Were they there long? How well
provisioned were they?"

"I couldn't really tell I was kind of busy, but from what I was able to
tell, from the way that they were positioned I would estimate that they had
chosen their position roughly an hour or two before we got there."

"Thank you. And one last question. Can you describe where it was you found
them?"

"It was in a clearing just above a narrow draw where the trail was located,
the bush in that area is relatively dense so it will be difficult to sneak
around in terrain like that, though there is a chance that you might be able
to get through there without being spotted." I answered and then sunk my
head back into the pillow I muttered once more "I hate mages." Charles
laughed in an understanding manner.

"Rest Adon. We will deal with them now. Thank you for your help." Charles
turns to leave. Sir Saulius smiled at me and then lowered his head.

"Rest well, warrior." He then too departed leaving Jonah alone with me.
Jonah looked down at me and shook his head

"You should be dead after what hit you back there."

"What do you mean sir?" Jonah rolled his eyes before he pointed out

"Oberon you were hit with a Red Lightening Spell, that should've killed
you." I looked around for my armour and sword without raising my head from
the pillow before I spotted both.

"Jonah would you be so good as to hand me my sword?" He nodded and picked up
the sheathed weapon and handed it to me. I looked at the weapon and even
drew it an inch out of its scabbard to confirm that it was the Dragon's
Claw. As soon as I felt the song of the sword I asked Jonah,

"How in the world did you manage to get my sword back into its scabbard
without touching it?"

"You'll have to ask Olivia she was the one who took care of that." I started
to chuckle but a shot of pain ran through my chest radiated from my ribs
over my heart

"Oberon you have to take it easy for the next few days, that shot of magic
really took it out of you." I nodded slowly before I slumped back into the
pillow and let my fatigue take me away.

It was more than a day later when I finally managed to wake up. This time
Olivia and Daniel were both in my room sitting in chairs looking at me with
concern on their faces. I sat up, and this time it didn't hurt as much as it
had when I had first woken up the day before. Daniel was the first to speak

"Oberon are you ok? I had heard that you had been more gravely wounded than
we first believed."

"Relax kid I'm a lot tougher than they think, I've been through a lot worse
and come out of it ok so this is really nothing more than a scratch on my
battered old hide." Olivia shook her head before she rolled her eyes and
sighed

"Men! You will never admit that something is serious even if you had both of
your legs chopped off at the knees." I chuckled slightly at her comment, but
that caused my chest to spasm so I had to lie back to get my breath back
once more.

"Olivia I was meaning to ask you something."

"Go ahead Oberon."

"How did you manage to get my sword back into its scabbard without touching
it?" She shook her head for a second

"It was a real pain in the tail. I had to use a stick to hold the tip up so
that I could slip the tip of the weapon into the scabbard. Where did you
manage to get your hands on a mithral rune sword Oberon?"

"That weapon is three thousand years old, its an heirloom of my family that
has been passed down from father to son for hundreds of generations." I
could see from her face that she was considering that information before she
replied with the question.

"Your people have had access to mithral for that length of time?"

"Yes when the sword was created we had just recently discovered mithral, not
only the ore but also how to purify and forge it into usable items, most
notably weapons and armour." Olivia nodded before Daniel said

"Please Oberon you have to take better care of yourself, you aren't
imortal." I laughed softly at his demand before I managed to reply

"I may not be imortal Daniel but I'm a proficient warrior who understands
that there are some risks to our profession." The greyhound morph shook his
head before he asked Olivia if she wanted anything, he was going out to
collect something to eat. "Daniel can you pick up a little something for me
as well?"

"Sure thing Oberon." He shouted back as he left the room leaving me alone
with Olivia. She shook her head before she asked me

"Where in the keep did you find that kid?" I chuckled once more

"He is a bit of an enthusiast isn't he?"

"You could say that."

"I ran into him when I was assigned to a different unit of scouts, they were
nowhere near as good as you people."

"Then why did you bring him with you into our unit?"

"He actually showed some promise, something that the rest of the members of
that unit were all lacking. His only problem is the fact that he doesn't
have a whole lot of training, but that is something that I've been taking
care of ever since I joined his unit." Olivia nodded slowly and sat back in
her chair and looked up at the ceiling while waiting for Daniel to get back
with the food.

Two days later we embarked on a carriage back to Metamor Keep while the
scouts from Glen Avery were still out dealing with the lutins that we had
located for them. As I climbed into the carriage, the woman who had been
responsible for my treatment in the village told me

"As soon as you reach the Keep I would like you to pay a visit to Brian Coe
so that you can have those wounds of yours looked at." I assured her that I
would before the vehicle moved out of the town and towards the Keep. I just
hoped that this injury wouldn't have me being laid up for too long.
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