Lady Ruin

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A day and a half after leaving Geirrid, the Outguard entered the Nightwood. It was early morning, but the cloud cover was thick that day, and the forest interior was shrouded in gloom. The Nightwood lived up to its name, Lirra thought, for it always seemed to be dark within its confines. This wasn’t her first time here. She’d led hunting parties into the forests in search of symbionts on numerous occasions. In fact, the tentacle whip had been captured here during one such hunt.

Welcome home, she thought to the symbiont. In reply, it gave her forearm a painful squeeze, as if to say, Shut up. She could sense the tentacle whip’s foul mood. It hadn’t seen any action since the battle against Elidyr’s white-eyes a couple days ago, and she’d felt its frustration building ever since. The symbiont wanted to lash out, to strike at an opponent, to plunge its barb into soft flesh and fill it with poison. It wanted to wrap its coils around a tender neck and slowly squeeze. Tighter … tighter …

Lirra shook her head to clear her mind of the images. Stop that!

A starling perched on a nearby tree branch sang a few notes, and before Lirra could react, the tentacle whip unwrapped from around her wrist and lashed out at the bird. The symbiont’s barbed tip speared the starling through the breast, and the animal was dead long before it hit the ground.

The whip retracted slowly and wrapped itself around her forearm with an insolent laziness. Lirra had to resist the urge to smack it, as if it were a dog that had just misbehaved.

“Target practice?” Ranja asked.

“Something like that,” Lirra muttered.

The two women rode in the front of the Outguard, along with Osten, who had not left her side since Vaddon had appointed him to be her official watchdog. Longstrider and Shatterfist walked behind them, the indefatigable warforged needing no mounts upon which to travel-not that any horse could carry their weight. Vaddon and Ksana came after the constructs, with the rest of the Outguard following behind. Their ranks had expanded considerably in Geirrid, thanks to Rol Amark, who had allowed Vaddon to conscript half of his garrison soldiers. Vaddon had tried to persuade the man to allow him to have the entire garrison, but Rol had refused, saying he needed to keep some soldiers in town in case Elidyr and his monsters attacked Geirrid again.

Lirra didn’t blame him, but it meant that the Outguard had only sixty or so members. A decent-sized force under other circumstances, perhaps, but Lirra feared it wouldn’t be enough, not against Elidyr and the sort of creatures he could create. But it was all they had, so it would have to suffice.

One detriment to having such a large party was that it slowed their progress through the forest. The Nightwood was old, full of large, ancient trees growing close together, and while hunters and explorers had forged paths through the forest over the years, Ranja claimed this was the route that Elidyr, Sinnoch, and Rhedyn had taken, and so the sixty members of the Outguard made their way through the dense forest as best they could. One good thing about traveling with so many people was that it would discourage all but the largest and fiercest of predators, and so far their journey through the Nightwood had been without incident. But that didn’t mean any of them were complacent. Every man and woman kept close watch on the surrounding woods as they passed, alert for the slightest hint of movement. A number of soldiers rode with crossbows resting on their laps, bolts loaded and ready to loose at the first sign of trouble. Others kept one hand on their horses’ reins, the other never far from their swords. They all knew that Elidyr was far from the only monster inhabiting the forest that day.

Osten was one of those holding a crossbow, and he continually swept his gaze back and forth as they rode. Occasionally he’d give Ranja a sidelong glance, frowning slightly. He’d said less than a dozen words to the shifter since they’d left Geirrid, and it was clear to Lirra that he didn’t approve of the woman. Lirra might almost have thought Osten was jealous, that he viewed Ranja as a rival of sorts as it was his assigned task to be Lirra’s nursemaid. The thought was ridiculous, but she couldn’t shake it. For her part, Ranja seemed to delight in talking as often as possible to irritate the young warrior, a result she accomplished all too easily.

Osten glanced at Ranja again, and this time the shifter flashed him a smile that was a touch more feral than usual.

“See something you like, big boy? You know what they say about shifter women …”

Osten’s cheeks turned bright red. “No, I don’t, and I’d prefer you don’t enlighten me!” he snapped.

Ranja laughed and gave him a wink, but she said nothing more. Osten glared at her one more time before turning to Lirra.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

He didn’t need to make the question more specific. Lirra knew what he meant. He’d seen the tentacle whip kill the starling.

“The symbiont is getting a bit restless, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” She kept her tone light, in hopes of reassuring Osten, but in truth she was starting to become concerned. When the Outguard had first set out for the Nightwood, she’d thought the quiet routine of travel would relax her and help to keep her calm, which in turn would make it easier for her to control the tentacle whip. But instead the opposite had happened. The monotony of sitting in the saddle hour after hour had worn down her nerves to the point where she thought she might scream if something didn’t happen soon. When Vaddon had talked with her at the garrison barracks in Geirrid, he’d wondered aloud how much she’d been changed by hosting a symbiont. It seemed she’d been changed in ways both great and small. It was important she came to understand those changes, for the symbiont would attempt to exploit any weakness to slip past her guard and wrest control from her. And that was something she couldn’t let happen, not even for an instant. For if she did, there was a good chance her mind, her spirit, her very self, would be lost forever.

It hadn’t helped any that her mount, a piebald mare, was skittish about having a rider with a symbiont sitting in the saddle. Elidyr, Sinnoch, and Rhedyn had taken the mounts that had been enchanted to tolerate the presence of aberrations when they’d fled from Geirrid, and Lirra had been forced to make due with one of the horses from the garrison stable. Since Geirrid was surrounded by farms, the town had a number of animal handlers who could lay spells on cattle and horses to make them more tractable, and the garrison stable-master was skilled at such spellcraft. Unfortunately, he’d never had to enchant a horse to carry a rider fused with an aberration before, and while the mare tolerated Lirra’s presence, Lirra had to constantly pay attention to her mount to make sure she didn’t spook. Two days of babying her horse had worn Lirra down even further.

She sat up straight in the saddle and forced herself to take several deep, even breaths to calm herself before turning to Ranja.

“How are we faring?” she asked.

In response, Ranja raised her chin and sniffed the air. “Still on track. The scent’s good and strong, as well it should be considering that the three we’re tracking are all aberrations of one sort or another.” She wrinkled her nose. “They reek. Even if a strong rain came along, I doubt it would be enough to dampen their scent trail. How about you? Sense anything yet?”

Lirra concentrated. She felt a slight tingle at the base of her skull, and a cold flutter deep in her stomach, but neither sensation lasted more than an instant. “I’m not certain. Right now, I’d say your nose is a lot more reliable.”

Behind them, Shatterfist called out. “Speaking of noses, have you heard this one? One gnome walks up to another gnome and says, ‘My dog has no nose.’ The second gnome asks, ‘Then how does he smell?’ And the first gnome answers, ‘Terrible!’ ”

Lirra groaned. She almost wished some unspeakable horror would come shrieking out of the woods and tear her to shreds. At least then she wouldn’t have to listen to any more of Shatter-fist’s awful jokes. She wondered if she could convince her father that the warforged were still too close to Ranja and were interfering with her tracking. Perhaps then he’d move them farther back in the-

Tingling erupted at the base of her skull, and her gut twisted with sudden nausea as intense as when she’d sensed Elidyr’s white-eyes in Geirrid. More so, in fact, and she knew that couldn’t be good.

She raised her hand to call for a sudden halt. Vaddon saw her signal and commanded the Outguard to stop. He rode forward, Ksana riding at his side, until both of their mounts were at the front of the party with Lirra, Ranja, and Osten.

“What is it?” Vaddon asked without preamble.

“There’s something ahead of us,” Lirra said. “Something big. And it’s coming toward us. I think it’s an aberration of some sort … or maybe many aberrations massed together. I’m not sure. But whatever it is, it’s approaching fast.”

Vaddon looked at her skeptically for a moment, as if he didn’t trust her perceptions. He turned to Ksana, and the halfelf cleric raised her right hand, closed her eyes, and whispered a quick prayer to her goddess.

She opened her eyes. “I think Lirra is right. Whatever’s coming feels like those creatures of Elidyr’s we fought in Geirrid. Not evil in the supernatural sense, but definitely unnatural.”

Vaddon turned in his saddle to face the rest of the Outguard and made a series of silent hand gestures. The men and women under his command-including those who’d only just joined the Outguard-understood the code: We’re about to be attacked. Make ready. Crossbows were raised and swords were quietly drawn from their sheaths. Without a word, the soldiers moved their horses into a circular battle formation so that they’d be prepared for the attack no matter which direction it came from. Lirra and the others did likewise, Longstrider and Shatterfist stepping forward to join them at the head of the circle.

Ranja sniffed the air and made a face. “They definitely stink like the white-eyes and that dolgaunt friend of your uncle’s. Like rotten mushrooms covered in snail slime.” The shifter shuddered in disgust. “I can hear them too. Dozens of them, approaching from all sides.” She cocked her head as she listened more closely. “They aren’t big, but there’s a lot of them.”

Lirra could hear them now as well. Thudding footfalls on the forest floor, harsh, labored breathing, and muttering voices. She felt the tentacle whip’s coils slacken around her arm as the symbiont prepared for action, and the thought-voice whispered with glee: Finally!

Seconds later, the first wave of creatures came at them. Though she’d never seen them in the flesh before, Lirra recognized the things at once, thanks to the briefings Elidyr had given the Outguard on aberrations, the daelkyr, and their servants. These were dolgrims, creatures created by the daelkyr during their long-ago invasion of Khorvaire. To create a dolgrim, a daelkyr took two goblins and fused them into a single being using its flesh-molding powers. The resultant creature was a loathsome thing, three-and-a-half feet tall, squat and hunchbacked, with four spindly arms and no head. Its face was located on its chest, and it had a pair of toothsome mouths, one set atop the other. The skin was oily and white, though a number of these dolgrims bore garishly colored tattoos upon their flesh, as if to differentiate themselves from their brethren. They wore dark leather pants as their sole clothing, and carried four weapons, one for each hand: a morningstar, a spear, a light crossbow, and a shield, though some dolgrim wielded greatswords instead of spears. According to Elidyr, the creatures possessed two brains, though one personality was primarily dominant, and sometimes they held conversations with themselves, which explained the muttering Lirra had heard. While the creatures weren’t particularly smart, their dual brains did allow them to wield all four of their weapons in a coordinated attack, which made them foes to be respected.

Many of these dolgrims were different from the standard breed, however, and Lirra knew that her uncle had added his own special touches to these before sending them out to attack. Some were covered with bony spikes, while others were encased in insect-like armor. Several possessed claws long and sharp as sabers, and a few had discolored foam-which Lirra had no doubt was poisonous-dripping from their twin mouths. As dangerous as the creatures had been before, they were doubly so now, thanks to Elidyr.

Vaddon shouted for the Outguard to attack, but he needn’t have bothered. The dolgrims were upon the soldiers so swiftly that it was all they could do to defend themselves. The Outguard’s horses had been trained for battle, and many held steady, but they hadn’t been trained to deal with unnatural creatures like dolgrims, and some whinnied, bucked, and threw their riders. Those horses tried to flee in panic and were quickly dispatched by the dolgrims, though a few of the creatures fell beneath pounding hooves before all the terrified horses had been dealt with.

The creatures seemed reluctant to attack Lirra. She swiftly dismounted and smacked her horse on the rear to send her on her way. The mare had been a thorn in Lirra’s side for the last two days, but she wished the horse good luck as she turned to face the nearest dolgrims, sword in hand, tentacle whip uncoiling of its own accord, eager to draw blood. Lirra didn’t chastise her symbiont for acting on its own. Now was precisely the time to allow the whip the freedom to act on its own.

The whip lashed its barbed tip toward a dolgrim-this one covered with spikes-and struck the creature in the eye. The dolgrim howled as poison flooded its system, and it dropped all four of its weapons as it staggered backward, dying. Meanwhile, Lirra swung her sword at a different dolgrim, this one gnashing foam-flecked teeth. It swung its morningstar at her, but she batted it aside easily and dodged to the side as the dolgrim followed up with a spear thrust to her abdomen. Before she’d bonded with the tentacle whip, the strike might have hit home, but she was faster now and more agile, and while the spear tip tore the cloth of her tunic, it didn’t draw blood. The dolgrim attempted to follow up its strike with a blow from its shield, but Lirra was ready for that. She commanded the tentacle whip to grab hold of the dolgrim’s shield hand by the wrist, and then she took the opportunity to jam her sword into one of the creature’s eyes.

The dolgrim shrieked in agony and fell away from her sword, blood spraying from the ruined socket where its eye had been. Lirra turned away from the creature before it could fall to the ground, selected another target, and set upon it.

Ranja assumed her full bestial aspect and leaped off her horse to engage the nearest dolgrim, while Osten remained on his mount, swinging his sword as the creatures came at him. But given the dolgrims’ diminutive stature, his sword missed as often as it hit, and the creatures were able to come in close and attack his horse, using their weapons or even their teeth to wound the animal. The steed screamed in pain and started to go down under the assault. Osten vaulted out of the saddle in time and managed to land on his feet just as a pair of dolgrims rushed at him. His horse fell to the ground and was overrun and slain by dolgrims who then quickly moved on to other targets.

Longstrider and Shatterfist lost no time in engaging the enemy. It was, after all, what they’d been created for. The two warforged waded into the sea of dolgrims with devasting effect, Longstrider’s spiked feet slashing flesh, snapping bones, and crushing bodies with his spinning kicks while Shatterfist’s hands reduced dolgrims to so much oily white pulp with one blow after another. The creatures shrieked as they died, their cries high-pitched and grating, sounding more like yowling cats than unnatural aberrations.

Vaddon and Ksana dismounted and smacked their horses on the flank, sending them pounding into the ranks of the dolgrims, in hopes that the animals might escape or, failing that, at least kill some of the creatures before dying themselves. The two fought back to back, Vaddon’s sword flashing almost faster than Lirra’s eyes could track, Ksana’s halberd matching him strike for strike. Despite Vaddon’s age, he fought like a warrior in his prime, his blows precise and economical, guided by years of battlefield experience. Ksana fought with a fluid grace. The cleric’s face was calm, almost beatific, as if she were praying instead of fighting for her life.

How long the Outguard fought against the dolgrims, Lirra couldn’t have said. She fell into a state that she was well familiar with from her time on the battlefield, a state wherein she ceased thinking consciously and gave herself over to her training and experience, letting her body do what it needed to in order to survive. The state was quite peaceful in its own way, and since her symbiont was happily occupied with slaughtering dolgrims, the pressure she felt from the aberration’s constant attempts to escape her control and subvert her mind had lessened. In many ways, this was the most relaxed she’d felt since bonding with the tentacle whip-and wasn’t that a sad commentary on her current state of existence?

But Lirra had fought in too many campaigns not to recognize when her side was outnumbered, and before long she realized that the Outguard was losing this battle. A number of their people had fallen to the dolgrims, though thank the Host those closest to her remained alive, if not altogether unscathed. Still, if they didn’t turn the tide soon, the dolgrims would overwhelm them and they would all perish here, their life’s blood soaking the soil and feeding the Nightwood’s trees.

Lirra heard the thought-voice whisper.

You know this is only a distraction, right?

The whip stabbed another dolgrim in the eye, and the creature screamed briefly before the symbiont’s poison stole away its life. Lirra followed the whip’s action by ramming her sword into a dolgrim’s upper mouth, angling upward to pierce the creature’s brain. As she yanked her blade free, she realized the tentacle whip was right. She’d been a fool. How many times on the battlefield had she commanded a squadron of soldiers to attack as a distraction or delaying tactic so that she could maneuver the main attack force into position? Elidyr might have trained as a scholar and artificer instead of a professional soldier, but he had a keen mind-albeit an insane one now-and would have had no trouble devloping the simple strategy of keeping his foes busy while he prepared to achieve his true aim: repairing the Overmantle and releasing the daelkyr lord from Xoriat. And Lirra and the others had fallen for his stratagem like green recruits fresh out of basic training.

Lirra continued killing dolgrims as she thought furiously. They couldn’t continue fighting a losing battle against these creatures, not if they were to have any hope of reaching Elidyr in time. But given the dolgrims’ superior numbers and their implacable savagery, there was no way the Outguard could prevail against them. Not unless something could be done to tip the scales in the Outguard’s favor. But what?

You’d need a way to attack a number of dolgrims all at once, the thought-voice suggested.

Lirra continued hacking away at one dolgrim after another, the tentacle whip sometimes helping by keeping the creature’s extra hands busy, other times simply by injecting poison into their bodies.

The thought-voice spoke again. You don’t just have my abilities to draw on. Remember what your uncle did back at the lodge.

She remembered Elidyr holding forth a hand, the air distorting around them as he unleashed a newfound power, a wave of vertigo passing over her, accompanied by weakness and nausea. She recalled her uncle’s words: Did you enjoy that? It’s a little taste of Xoriat chaos energy.

Was the tentacle whip hinting that she had the same power? She hadn’t been touched by the daelkyr as Elidyr had, but the power of Xoriat had been flowing through the portal while the Overmantle had been active. Perhaps the chaos energy had affected her more than she’d realized. Then again, perhaps her symbiont was toying with her, building up her hopes for its own amusement, just so it could see them dashed when she attempted to use a power she didn’t possess.

Lirra didn’t see what other option she had though. She swung her sword in a wide arc before her in order to push back the nearest dolgrims, and then she thrust out her free hand-the tentacle whip lashing the air to keep more dolgrims at bay-and, without a clue how she might release a power within her that she didn’t know for certain she possessed, she concentrated. At first, nothing happened. But then she became aware of a stirring deep inside her, as if she was tapping into a vast reservoir of power that she hadn’t known existed. The air around her hand began to waver, and then she felt a sudden surge of energy rush through her arm and blast forth from her hand.

A dozen dolgrims were caught in the line of fire, and Lirra could sense the chaos energy rolling over the creatures like a wall of flame. They staggered backward, swaying on legs suddenly grown too weak to support them, dropping their weapons and falling to the ground, where they lay twitching and mewling like newborn kittens. The Outguard defenders wasted no time wondering what had caused so many dolgrims to collapse all at once. They moved forward swiftly and killed the creatures while they were disabled. Not the most honorable of combat techniques, perhaps, but imminently practical given their current situation.

Lirra was able to release two more blasts of chaos energy, each less potent than the first, before she could do no more. The power simply wasn’t there for her to draw on anymore. Still, it did its work. By the time she was finished, thirty or more dolgrims had been slain, and twice that number had fled in terror of the wild-eyed woman who commanded the power of Xoriat itself. Those few dolgrims who had the discipline-or perhaps simply the bad judgment-to stay and fight were easily dealt with by the Outguard.

One dolgrim remained alive, however. While the others were being killed by her companions, she selected one at random-one that had not been reshaped by Elidyr’s flesh-molding power-and kneeled down next to it. The creature stank, just like Ranja had said earlier. Rotten mushrooms and snail slime. The dolgrim lay on the forest floor, arms and legs quivering as it struggled to overcome the debilitating effects of the chaos energy and get back on its feet, whether to fight or, more likely, to flee. Lirra sheathed her sword and kneeled by the dolgrim’s side. She commanded the tentacle whip to lower its barbed tip to within an inch of the creature’s right eye, and as an extra touch, she told the whip to allow a bead of poison to form on the tip. The dolgrim looked up at the barb with wide, terrified eyes, its breathing rapid and shallow.

Doing her best to ignore the creature’s stench, Lirra leaned her head close to its ear.

“Can you talk?” she asked.

The dolgrim opened its upper mouth once, swallowed, and then tried again.

“Y-yessss …” it hissed.

“Good. Now listen to me very carefully. All of your friends are dead, dying, or gone. You are alone. The only chance you have of surviving is if you answer my questions quickly and completely. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

The creature’s speech sounded clearer, and Lirra knew she had to hurry before the effects of the chaos energy wore off.

“A man named Elidyr sent you to kill us. Tell me how to find him and you get to live.”

The creature opened its upper mouth to reply, but it lower one spoke first.

“Don’t listen to her! She’ll just kill us when we tell her what she wants!”

“If you don’t answer, you will definitely die,” she said, making sure to keep her tone icy cold. “Answering me is the only chance for survival you have. And the longer you take to start talking, the slimmer that chance gets.”

The lips of both mouths moved silently then, and Lirra had the impression that an internal debate was taking place within the dolgrim’s mind. She’d recently come to learn what that was like, and she waited for the two minds inside the creature to reach a decision.

“Two miles northwest is a clearing with a rocky hill in the center. At the base is an entrance to a series of caves. Elidyr is inside.”

Lirra started to give the dolgrim her thanks, but before she could speak, the tentacle whip pulled back its barb to strike.

“No!”

Lirra reached out with her right hand and grabbed hold of the tentacle whip before it could sink its barb into the dolgrim’s eye.

“I gave him my word that he could go free if he cooperated!”

So he can run and tell Elidyr that we’re coming? the thought-voice asked.

Lirra hated to admit it, but the whip had a point. Can you give him a low dose of poison? Enough to render him unconscious but leave him alive?

The symbiont seemed to consider for a moment, and then Lirra felt its reluctant agreement.

She spoke aloud to the dolgrim.

“I’m going to put you to sleep for a time.” She took in the surrounding area, noting all the dead, both dolgrims and soldiers. The bodies of those dolgrims who Elidyr had transformed were starting to liquefy, just as the creature formed from the combined white-eyes had back in Geirrid. The bodies of the normal dolgrims, however, remained intact. “I’ll move you to a safer location so that any predators drawn to this place will not find you. With any luck, you’ll awaken safe and sound.”

The dolgrim’s lower mouth said, “See? I told you she was going to kill us!”

Don’t betray me on this, Lirra thought to the tentacle whip, or I’ll start keeping you on an even tighter leash! And don’t sting him in the eye!

The whip did as she ordered, injecting its poison into one of the dolgrim’s spindly arms. The creature stiffened, then his eyes closed and he fell limp. Lirra placed her fingers on one of the dolgrim’s wrists, and she felt a pulse. A strange pulse, actually, since it seemed to have dual beats. Then she remembered: two hearts. She released the dolgrim’s wrist and stood.

Ranja, in human form once more, came over to stand beside her, and Osten hurried to join them. The shifter looked down at the unconscious dolgrim.

“Nicely handled,” Ranja said. “You know, I think you’d do well in my profession.”

Osten frowned. “What does questioning a dolgrim have to do with being a scout?”

Lirra fought to keep a smile from her face as Ranja sidled up next to the young warrior.

“If you’re truly interested, perhaps the two of us can have a private conversation about it later,” she suggested.

Osten’s frown deepened into a scowl and he stepped away from the shifter. Ranja seemed amused, but she didn’t tease Osten any further.

Vaddon and Ksana came over then, the two warforged following after. All of them were splattered with foul-smelling dolgrim blood-Longstrider and Shatterfist, especially-but none appeared to be seriously wounded.

“Did you learn anything useful?” Vaddon asked, and Lirra told him what the dolgrim had said. She also told him of her mounting suspicions about the creatures Elidyr reshaped for his own purposes.

“It’s as if his power to rework flesh has its limits,” she said. “I wonder if his creatures would decay on their own, given enough time.”

“Let us hope that’s the case,” Vaddon said. “If the distorted monsters my brother can now create have a limited lifespan, that’s a huge advantage in our favor. But enough talk. We need to get moving. Our horses are gone, so we’ll have to proceed the rest of the way on foot.”

“We can’t leave yet!” Ksana protested. “I need to tend to our injured first, and we can’t leave the dead unburied. Not only would it be dishonorable and an affront to the gods, our dead deserve better than for us to leave them for the scavengers to feast upon!”

“Honestly,” Ranja said, “as bad as the dolgrims smell, I doubt even the hungriest of scavengers would come near this place.”

Lirra gave the shifter a look that said, you aren’t helping. Then she turned to the cleric. “I would never make light of your beliefs, Ksana. You know that. And I would never wish to dishonor fallen comrades, whether I served with them for years or, in the case of our new garrison recruits, only a short time. But even as we speak, Elidyr is working to repair the Overmantle. For all we know, he may have already finished. We have to reach him before he can activate it again and reopen the portal to Xoriat. And that means we can’t afford to waste any more time.”

Ksana’s normally placid face clouded over with anger, and she gestured sharply toward a mass of dead soldiers. “You consider them a waste of time? Has your spirit become so poisoned by the corruption you carry with you that you’ve lost all common decency?”

Ksana’s words stung, but Lirra did her best not to let her feelings show. She started to answer, but Vaddon put a hand on her shoulder-it was the first time he’d touched her since she’d joined with the tentacle whip-to gently silence her.

“Lirra’s right,” he said, “and you know it. Sometimes hard choices have to be made on the field of battle. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced them. We’ll leave the dead for now, and if possible, we shall return to give them a proper burial. As for the wounded, quickly tend to those who cannot travel. The rest you can heal as we march.”

Ksana looked as if she might argue, but then she let out a sigh, nodded, and left to inspect the wounded. Vaddon raised his voice so that the rest of the surviving members of the Outguard could hear him.

“We march in five minutes, people! Make ready!”

Vaddon then turned back to Lirra. “Good enough?” he asked.

“I suppose it’ll have to be.”

He nodded then walked off to make sure his soldiers followed his orders. She turned to the two warforged and gestured to the dolgrim she’d questioned.

“Longstrider, carry him a safe distance away from this place and tuck him into a tree. Not too high, mind you. Shatterfist, you stay here and stand guard while we regroup and prepare to move out.”

Longstrider nodded, scooped up the dolgrim as if he weighed nothing, and strode off into the forest. Shatterfirst looked around at the carnage that surrounded them.

“As I understand it, humans sometimes use humor to lighten the mood after a tragic event has occurred. Perhaps I could-”

Lirra, Ranja, and Osten turned to the construct and shouted in unison.

“No!”

The warforged crossed his stone and metal arms over his chest. “Fine,” he huffed. “Look, this is me, standing guard.”

A few moments later Longstrider returned, and the Outguard was ready to march. From a group of around sixty soldiers, they were down to just over twenty. A hard loss, especially after only a single encounter with Elidyr’s forces. Lirra wondered what else her uncle had in store for them. She supposed they would soon find out.

Vaddon gave the command, and the Outguard started marching.