[Vfw-times] MK Winter Assault Intermission aprt 2

[COkane8116 at aol.com]

12/24 11:30PM

Thalberg forced his eyes open as he clawed at the wall to rise to his feet.  
The slash had forced him to his knees, and then his vision had gone dim as he 
lay there slumped against the stonework.  Turning his head to the right, h 
could see the four guards lying upon the ground, blood splattered over their 
flesh and across the carpet.  He couldn't tell if any of them were alive just 
from a glance.  Duke Thomas, and the mysterious knight of Yesulam who'd 
attacked them, were nowhere to be seen.  With a terrible gnawing fear he 
suspected that Thomas's head would soon be decorating some Lutin General's 
banner.

Glancing at the four prone forms, he peered at the blood, and then passed 
them down the hallway.  His memory was acute, even if his mind had been 
wavering in and out of consciousness, but he knew that Thomas had been 
standing farther back away from the guards.  If he'd been killed, where was 
the blood to indicate where he'd fallen?  A sudden thought struck him and he 
breathed slightly easier as he dug his claw tips into the masonry.  Perhaps 
Thomas had been wanted alive as a present to be brought back to Nasoj?  If 
that was so, then perhaps he could still be rescued.

Turning his head in the other direction, back towards the Follower Cathedral, 
he tried to move one foot forward, but found he had no strength left in his 
legs.  Collapsing, he fell to the floor with a pained hiss and a muffled 
whump, the thick folds of his ceremonial robes protecting him from the 
impact.  However, his back sent a dull crushing ache through his mind.  The 
wound was not terribly deep, or otherwise he would already be dead, but it 
was still agonising.  Reaching forward with one green-scaled hand, he gripped 
the stones and pulled himself close to the wall, and towards the bodies of 
the four guards.

The woman was clearly dead, as half of her organs lay upon the goat's 
motionless form.  Reaching out his hand, Thalberg pressed his palm against 
the narrow face of the goat, and could feel warmth still within the flesh.  
His grin crept up a bit, though only imperceptibly.  As a reptile, he lacked 
detailed facial control, but what little he did have, he preserved as often 
as he could when alone.  Turning to the other two figures, he could see that 
the spaniel's skull had been cracked from the kick, and he doubted very much 
that he would live long enough for even magic to save him.  The stoat however 
had managed to tie a ribbon around his severed limb before passing out.

Crawling closer to the musteline, Thalberg gripped the ends of the ribbon in 
his hands, and with a tug, made sure that it was tightly bound.  Perhaps he 
would survive, but only if the Steward could reach the Cathedral in time.  
Patting the dog on the side of his cheek, he gripped the stone work and began 
to pull himself along the floor down the hall, one aching foot at a time.  
Hand over hand, he tugged and clawed, scratching the stone at times as he 
drug his immense weight behind him.

He briefly considered climbing on to the carpet, but dismissed the notion 
almost as soon as he had thought of it.  His clothes would catch and drag on 
the carpet, and he was just as likely to drag the carpet to himself as he was 
to drag himself towards the Cathedral!  And Thalberg needed his clothes to 
keep him warm, otherwise he might slip back into torpor and never come out 
again.  And if that happened, any hope of saving Thomas could be lost.  He'd 
served the Duke for too many years to allow any pain or discomfort stand in 
his way to protect him.  Grunting, his thick tongue pressed up against the 
long roof of his mouth, he continued forward one hand after another.

The hallway twisted and turned before him, as if it were being warped by 
unseen hands.  Yet Thalberg knew that it was just his own eyes and delirium 
playing trick son him.  With each painful tug he drew himself forward upon 
his belly into that miasma, that ever changing hall.  Beneath his claws he 
could almost feel the floor move, undulating beneath him like a snake, 
writhing like a mass of earthworms in a fisherman's pail.  Blinking, he tried 
to abjure those fearful images, tried to force the hallway to solidify and 
remain still before him.  Yet that only drug up further images, images of 
things that he knew were not really there.

He could hear the laughing voices of children running through the halls.  
Thalberg let out a sullen groan as he drew himself forward, watching the 
shapes of those little boys and girls materialise before him.  Dressed in 
brown knickers, except for one young boy whose fabric was made of vibrant 
blue, the children were kicking some soft leather ball through the myriad of 
halls of the Keep.  There was one other lad, much taller than the rest, and 
older, who appeared to be rather nervously watching the boys, the one dressed 
in blue in particular.

Crawling at the stones, the painful visions of memory gouging his heart, 
Thalberg tried to reach out, desperate to stop what he knew to be coming, to 
unleash a warning to the children to stop them from their play.  He could 
feel the floor cold even through the folds of his garments, bitterly cold as 
that day had been, and so to was this day.  They should never have been 
allowed to play ball inside the ever-changing Keep.  Yet there he stood, 
watching them, knowing it was foolishness, but unwilling to speak his 
thoughts to stop it. 

He let out a terrible bellow as he saw the boys kick the ball around a 
corner, and towards where the open staircase led off the promenade.  The ball 
skittered off one balustrade, and lay on the edge of the stairwell, resting 
on the thick, embroidered carpet and waiting for a boy's foot to send it 
careening off again.  Thalberg, bellowed in terror as he tried to reach the 
children, the injury to his back pressing him firmly to the ground like the 
alligator he was every time he tried to rise, as if crawling upon his belly 
were punishment for just standing by and letting the tragedy occur.

Two of the boys, the blue clad one and a friend, both went for the ball at 
the same time.  But the one in green, a smart looking boy, with bright blond 
hair, and pudgy face, slipped on the stones and cried out in surprise, 
grabbing the blue tunic of his friend, before toppling both of them down the 
staircase. The young man then darted forward, racing down after the tumbling 
children, but his efforts were in vain.  When he reached the bottom of the 
staircase, the blue-clad boy's arm was twisted in a way it should not have 
been, and the other boy lay with his head cracked open along one side.

Thalberg, beat his fist upon the ground, a thick sob coughing up from his 
chest as the images began to melt back into that ever shifting hallway.  Why 
hadn't he spoken up, he could have stopped it all?  He would not keep his 
thoughts to himself, no matter who he had to speak them to, or what the 
consequences of his opinions might be.  He closed his eyes, trying o wipe 
those children from his memory, but though they had faded from sight, they 
still remained clear to him, as clear as if it had just really happened.

He'd told the Duke he shouldn't send so many men with the librarian, he'd 
been most insistent about it, but again, he'd just stood there and went along 
with the foolishness.  Now his liege was taken by that knight, suffering some 
unknown fate, while he crawled like a simple reptile through halls he wished 
to forget.  Could he ever forgive himself should Thomas die?  Thalberg did 
not know, but he doubted that he could.

Grunting, he threw out his claws once more, dragging himself around the last 
corner before the Cathedral.  The wide double doors were closed, probably 
barricaded as well.  Yet he had to reach them and get those inside to open 
them up.  He was the Steward of Metamor, he would do everything he possibly 
could to save Thomas's life, even though it was his fault he had not done so 
sooner.  

Yellow eyes watching those double doors twists and warp, he reached out his 
other arm, dug the claws into the space between blocks, and dragged his belly 
and tail over the stones.  His breath came heavy, and he could feel the 
soaked garments cling to his back, rubbing against the cut, and intensifying 
the pain he suffered with every motion.  Yet he kept his eyes focussed on 
that door and the evanescent braziers on either side.  No fever dreams would 
distract him now, no painful memories would call him to days of old.  He 
would reach those doors.

One block of stone at a time, they grew closer, and yet they also seemed to 
twist away from him, as if some higher power wished to deny him his one 
chance for redemption.  It was true that he was a Lothanasi, though he only 
attended the important celebrations, as his duties took up much of his time.  
And even so, he rarely offered supplication to the gods, preferring to rely 
on his own council as his father had instructed him and his younger brother.

With a sudden pang, that stairwell was before him, and the two falling 
children tumbling head over heels to the veranda below.  He reached out one 
green-scaled hand, as if to catch them and draw them back up, but they fell 
away, crashing to the bottom as before, as they had every time he'd turned 
his thoughts to that day.  The young Thomas lay there in his blue silk with a 
broken arm, while Thalberg's own brother lay, his life seeping out as quickly 
as the blood flowed from the crack in his skull.  His council had advised him 
to allow the boys their fun despite the possibility of accident in the halls 
of the Keep.  His own council had advised him not to argue the point further 
after Thomas had declared for the third time he was sending three of his men 
with Fox Cutter.  How trustworthy was his own council?

He tried to bellow in anguish, but his throat only allowed him to cough 
weakly.  He turned his mind towards the gods, gods he had neglected in his 
pride and stubborn persistence.  Reaching out his claws once again, he called 
out to them as well, seeking strength to continue forward, and safety for his 
liege from whatever evils that knight may think to visit upon him.  He did 
not know how it would be possible, but he even asked for the Keep's help 
itself, hoping that she could assist in the thwarting of that man.  Yet, he 
could not remain focussed solely on even the gods for long, they would have 
heard him anyway.  He needed to reach the Cathedral doors.

Yet when he opened his eyes, he saw that the doors were there before him, as 
if he had been picked up and deposited before them.  Balling his hand into a 
fist, he beat upon the base of them, a dull thud resounding back along the 
hallway.  He would not question the good fortune given to him, but offered 
thanks up to the gods, never once considering the irony that they had helped 
him to the house of worship for a rival faith.

He continued pounding for nearly a minute before the door was opened and a 
sword point thrust into the air above his head.  Glancing up, he could see 
another knight bearing the escutcheon of Yesulam.  For a moment he felt a 
brief flare of panic at the sight.  Had they come to claim Metamor as well, 
for their Mother Ecclesia, and cast out all those that were not of their 
faith?  He cast that fear aside almost as it fell upon him, for he was not 
looking upon the fair face of some young, idealistic knight.  Rather he was 
staring, past the heraldry, at the a face that had lost almost all vestiges 
of humanity, leaving the knight with the tapered muzzle of a rather large 
deer.   "Thalberg?" he heard from the cervine throat, before the doors were 
pulled wide, and several armoured men bearing sharp weapons ventured into the 
hall, while several soft, gentle hands gripped him beneath his arms and drug 
him inside the Cathedral.

He could see Father Hough flanked by a raccoon dressed in a simple priestly 
cassock standing just a short distance off.  The young boy gazed at him with 
concern. "What happened, good Steward?"

"We were coming here," Thalberg said quietly as he lay there, the gentle 
hands pulling at the folds of cloth on his back to expose the wound.  He 
winced as the fabric dragged over the cut again. "A knight attacked, and took 
the Duke."

"What?" several voices exclaimed. "Is he dead?" "What about his guards?" 
"Where did he take him?" "Is he alive?"

Thalberg just coughed in anguish. "I don't know."

The raccoon knelt beside him and examined the wound.  Thalberg stared at his 
face hard, but could not place him.  With a soft whisper, he placed his paw 
upon the exposed scaly back of the Steward, and began to chant very softly.  
A litany of some sort, but different than any the Steward was familiar with, 
in the old tongue favoured by the Followers, but there was a power in those 
words, which came to the alligator's realization with some surprise.  
Thalberg felt a warmth spread through him then, as if he were wrapped in 
blankets soaked in hot water.  With a bit of a start, he realized that the 
pain in his back was gone, though he still felt terribly weak.

"You should live, Steward Thalberg," the raccoon said then, offering him a 
slight grin underneath his furry mask. "Now who was this knight that took the 
Duke?" Thalberg could sense the many Keepers who crowded close to see and 
hear what he had to say.  A few were cut and bruised, but it appeared that 
they were safe here at the Cathedral as Thomas had hoped.

"He was-" Thalberg peered closely at the stag that had greeted him at the 
door. "He was a knight of Yesulam."

There were several gasps and shouts of "Impossible!" from the crowd.  Yet 
Thalberg shook his head. "I know what I saw, and I think I know his name."

"Who was it?" Sir Egland asked, leaning in closer. "And how could a knight of 
Yesulam come all this way, and why would he be interested in the Duke?"

"One body was missing from the Patriarch's camp after it was slaughtered, a 
body of a knight had been carried off.  It is possible this is the same man." 
Thalberg ventured quietly, letting his voice drop so that the proclamation 
did not carry beyond the acute hearing of those closest to him.

Egland and the rat Saulius looked at each other with sudden apprehension. 
"Bryonoth?" Egland whispered, his skin suddenly shivering.

"I think so, he spoke as a Flatlander.  His accent was unmistakable," 
Thalberg said before he was given over to that racking and wheezing cough 
again.

"But why would he take the Duke?" the raccoon asked, his face bemused.


"I don't know, I just know that it was him."

Egland stood erect and looked down at Father Hough and the raccoon. "I'm 
going after him and I will rescue the Duke."

"Thou shalt have myself as a companion," Saulius declared hotly, rubbing the 
hilt of his sword with one paw.  He was joined by at least ten other soldiers 
standing close by who insisted upon going.

Father Hough shook his hand and held out his hands. "We cannot send all of 
you, we need you for the defence here.  I'm afraid if we spare too many men 
for this, you may still fail, and the hordes of Lutins will crash in her and 
slaughter us all."

The racoon nodded his assent. "Father Hough is right, I would only send as 
many men as is absolutely necessary."

Thalberg coughed again and then gripped the hem of the racoon's robe. 
"Thomas's guards, some are still alive."

Hough grimaced. "Eight men then.  Egland, you and Saulius should go, as you 
both knew Bryonoth.  Six others will be drawn by lot, four of which should 
carry the guards back here so that we can heal them.  I know it is not many, 
but it is truly all that can be spared for this."  The boy spread his hands 
apologetically at that.

Egland shook his head, the massive antlers that rested atop them slicing the 
air neatly. "Four should be enough, as long as we do not walk into a horde of 
hundreds of Lutins.  And even if that happens, I think we could outrun them.  
Though the thought of showing such cowardice pains me, we cannot save the 
Duke if we are dead."

Thalberg did not hear any more after that, as the sullen pain in his back, 
and the terrible exertion he'd undergone to reach this place had taken their 
toll on his mind.  With a hopeful sigh, he allowed himself to drift into 
unconsciousness.

****


"And remember, if it is Bryonoth, he was once my friend, I hope he still is," 
Egland said as his hooves fell softly upon the carpet just outside the 
Cathedral entrance.  He had grown used to walking upon them in the last two 
months.  His adjustment to life at Metamor was hardly complete, though he had 
long since resigned himself to it.  There were just so many things to become 
accustomed to, so many differences, that he suspected it would take a year at 
least before he would be comfortable calling himself a true Keeper.

Yet a Keeper he was, for he had given his allegiance to Duke Thomas after the 
Patriarch's death.  Sir Saulius and Sir Andre had made sure that he would not 
lose his knighthood, and he too was among the knight errants now locked in an 
animal's form.  Even so, he clung to the memories of the past and of the 
faces that were gone now.  Yet here, on this most terrible of days, when his 
new home was besieged by ghastly forces from the frozen North, two of those 
faces had returned.  First Bishop Vinsah, now masked as a raccoon revealed 
himself to stop the evil spirits from wreaking havoc in the Ecclesia 
Cathedral, and now Bryonoth had apparently stolen away with the Duke!

He breathed quietly,, the weight of his mail shirt bearing down on his 
slender shoulders, but thick chest.  He was not sure if he truly minded being 
a deer morph.  The antlers as he'd discovered frightened his foes just as 
much as his blade did, and the diet of fruits and nuts that he tended to 
favour was one that he had preferred while in Yesulam.  His body was lithe, 
and he found he could run faster than before, despite the fact that his feet 
had been replaced by narrow cloven hooves.  He did often fall on his tail, 
but he was finding his balance much easier in the last few weeks.  

Yet his biggest regret was the difficulty he had in playing his viola.  His 
two thick fingers and thumb with large black hoof-like nails made the sort of 
delicacy he had once mastered impossible.  In fact, his nails were so thick 
that he tended to press two or three strings down at a time whenever he 
attempted to sound a note.  Dream Serpent, the gentle fop of a tree marten 
with the strange name, was helping him relearn the art of making music with 
his chosen instrument, and so far they had made fair progress, but he felt a 
child again, a vulgar brute, whenever he picked up that fragile bit of age 
polished wood and set the bow to its delicate strings.

And then, just as his thoughts turned towards the other more intimate lessons 
that Dream was teaching him, and new friends that the ever-smiling musician 
had introduced him to, they rounded one more corner and found the carnage 
left behind by his friend.  Four bodies lay strewn in drying blood, smeared 
across the floor in Thalberg's crawl to the Cathedral.  Quickening his pace, 
Egland reached the bodies, and stepped past them, holding his sword tightly 
between his thick fingers. "Take them all back to the bishop, he can heal 
them."

"Not her," a young man said, indicating the woman who was laying face down in 
the pooled crimson. "I'm afraid she's dead."

"Take her anyway," Egland groused.

"Thou wouldst not dishonour the memory of thy fellow Keeper by leaving the 
body of this lass for foul Lutins to pick over?" Saulius added pointedly, his 
whiskers twitching as he gazed down at the cooling corpse.

The man shook his head at that, reaching down and gripping the woman's body 
underneath her shoulders. "Of course not.  The living need our attention 
more.  How many other Keepers will have their bodies defiled by the Lutins in 
this awful attack?"

"Too many," Egland muttered, his tongue pressing firmly against his teeth as 
he worked his jaw side from side in displeasure. "But we have a chance to 
keep that body safe from such debasement, and so we shall."

The man nodded, and began to drag the disembowelled woman back along the 
hallway, while the other three guards were checked over for injuries beyond 
the obvious ones.  The goat stirred when shaken, and though still groggy, was 
helped to his hind hooves, and managed to walk back towards the Cathedral 
with minimal assistance.  The stoat did not respond, but his flesh was still 
warm.  The spaniel however, did not appear to have much life left in him, but 
two of the soldiers carried him back to Cathedral anyway.

After the guards had been carried back, Egland began to inspect the area, 
while Saulius sniffed along the floors and walls, his whiskers twitching 
feverishly.  The other two soldiers that had stayed with them, a large lizard 
morph tightly bundled in thick cloth and leather and a rather lightly clad 
polar bear whose presence made Egland a bit nervous, were watching either 
side of the hall to insure that no party of Lutin's surprised them.

The bear though, gave out a startled cry, a deep rumbling sound that turned 
all of their heads. "What is it, Cassius?" Egland asked as he darted forward, 
always staying on the carpet to muffle the fall of his hooves.

"I think those are the Duke's clothes," Cassius pointed with a single claw at 
a pile of torn and shredded garments, of a rather fine cloth.

Saulius approached them, even as the lizard morph Egland had heard given the 
name Copernicus stepped forward, bright eyes gleaming in the dim light.  He 
turned the mace he'd taken from the Lutin warrior in his thick hands, a 
macabre trophy from a fallen foe who had foolishly led an attack against the 
Cathedral.  Leaning over, the rat sniffed at the clothes a few times and then 
nodded. "They bear the scent of a stallion, our precious liege.  Yet, they 
hath not any more than but a trace of blood upon them."  His narrow muzzle 
drew up in a disgusted moue, "Leastwise aught than Lutin."

Egland peered down at them from over top of the rat's kneeling form, and 
gently kicked them with one hoof. "Strange, what could cause this?"

"He probably shifted to his full horse form," Cassius interjected. "I've made 
that mistake myself a few times, and I always shred my clothes like that when 
I do."

"But why would he shift?"

"To run faster perhaps?" Copernicus suggested, his thick tail swaying back 
and forth underneath the thick wool he'd wrapped about it.  Egland regarded 
the lizard for a moment as he considered that, pondering for a moment how he 
could be so effective when laden with so much cloth, but he had proven 
himself quite nimble.

"It would be a good idea.  I cannot imagine a man dressed in armour could 
outrun a horse, especially not one as healthy as the Duke," Cassius added, 
his deep voice resonating through Egland's bones and making his neck fur 
stand on end.  Before his change, Egland had been impressed in many ways by 
the sheer power that flowed through every sinew of the wolverine knight 
Andre's body.  Yet now, he was unnerved by the presence of this bear for many 
of those very same reasons.  It was that part of being a deer that he did not 
find appealing, bearing the instincts of prey.

Saulius glanced up at them, his nose twitching. "'Tis oil here as well."

"Do you think that you can follow that trail, Sir Saulius?" Egland asked

'Thou dost know I can, unless the Keep moves."

Egland nodded and motioned for Saulius to lead them on. "Then let us hope 
that the Keep should hold its form long enough for us to follow this trail.  
Cassius, stay at Saulius's back.  Copernicus and I shall watch the rear."

"Let us move quickly, " Copernicus suggested. "If Thomas was fleeing, then 
we'll have a long trail to follow."

Saulius nodded, and then set up a rather quick pace, only stopping at 
intersections or doorways to determine which way the Duke had gone.  With his 
heart filling his throat, Egland offered prayers once again that they would 
find him safe, and Bryonoth as well.

End part 2
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.integral.org/archives/vfw-times/attachments/20010907/5ccd67a2/attachment.htm