D&D 06-Treachery's Wake

by T. H. Lain

  The glow came from around a corner ahead of them. Lidda nodded. She could smell the salt of the harbor. As they rounded the bend, she saw the iron bars of a grating, and just beyond the bars, the light of morning was rippling atop the surface of the bay.

  Krusk set down the head and grabbed the bars. They weren't meant to keep people in, so he had little difficulty bending two of them apart. He opened them just enough to squeeze himself through, then, pausing only to pick up Flint's head and without so much as a glance to where he was going to land, he stepped through.

  Lidda followed behind him. The freezing water of the harbor took her breath away, but it was at least clean.

  The druid saw her companions splash into the water near the piers. She pulled hard on an oar, spinning the rowboat around. Malthooz lay in the bow of the craft, his head cradled in the folds of Mialee's robe. Vadania knew that he didn't have much time left. She'd been holding them in the shadow of the cliffs, but that offered only limited safety. She hadn't expected to see them plunge out of a sewer tunnel, then again, she hadn't really expected to see them again at all.

  Fire raced along the docks, backlighting Vadania as she laid her back into the oars. The spreading flames from Mialee's fireball had ignited one of the neighboring ships. In no time, the whole area was in chaos as captains and crew struggled to get their vessels away from the advancing flames. A thick black cloud hung in the air above the city. The inferno fed on tar-soaked planks and pilings.

  "What have we done?" the druid muttered to herself.

  "Only what we had to do," Mialee responded behind her.

  The staff still rested in the bottom of the boat. Vadania kicked it and the thing rolled to the stern. The druid shuddered as she thought about what it might have done in the wrong hands, what it might still do. She'd already seen enough of the artifact's twisted magic, and she suspected that was only a hint of its real power.

  By the time they reached the rogue and the barbarian, the two were at the end of their endurance. The icy water had reduced them to simply struggling against the weight of their armor and weapons in an effort to keep their heads above water. Lidda's lips were blue, her skin pale white from the frigid chill of the harbor. Even Krusk's normal gray complexion looked waxy and pale.

  Mialee hauled the halfling woman into the rowboat and set her down near Malthooz, but between herself and the druid, they could not get Krusk over the side without threatening to upend the craft and dump them all into the bay. The shivering half-orc simply clung to the transom as Vadania rowed for the far shore.

  "Flint's dead," Lidda said through chattering teeth.

  Vadania glanced at the frozen head, still clutched tightly in Krusk's hand and bouncing against the gunwale. The news was no surprise. She nodded grimly.

  The port of Newcoast still burned. No boats followed in the company's wake. Ships milled in the harbor or headed toward the open sea, but none seemed to pay any special attention to them.

  At last, the bow ground up on the gravel along the southern shore of the harbor.

  "It will take a while for the news of our escape to spread through all this confusion," Mialee said as she stepped out of the vessel and struggled to drag it farther up the beach. "That's if it ever does."

  "I guess that depends on how deep the lines of deception run," the druid replied. "Who knows what and who cares?"

  Mialee and Vadania helped the halfling to her feet, and the three of them carried Malthooz to dry land. Krusk, shivering and stiff, waded in and collapsed beside them.

  Malthooz opened his eyes as the four of them hovered over him. He smiled when he looked at Lidda and Krusk.

  "I knew that youd make it," he said as his eyes fell on the symbol of Pelor around Krusk's neck.

  Krusk fingered the wooden disc. He lifted it over his head and set it down on Malthooz's chest.

  "I brought you this, too," he said, swinging the guild master's severed head before Malthooz's wide eyes.

  "That's a fine gift," Malthooz whispered.

  "You grab his legs," the barbarian said to Vadania and Mialee as he slipped his arms under Malthooz's shoulders.

  A word from Malthooz stopped him.

  "Leave me be, Krusk. I will go no farther today."

  Vadania looked around them. Farther up the slope were the edges of pastures and farm fields. A man stood there, watching the port burn. He glanced at the companions then went back to his work, unloading bales of hay from a rickety wooden cart for the flock of sheep that hovered in the meadow around him.

  Malthooz beckoned Krusk with his finger to come closer. The barbarian knelt close to his friend's face, his ear hovering just over the half-orc's mouth. A few words passed between the two of them, but none of the others could hear what was said. Vadania turned away. It wasn't her business.

  Krusk stood up and moved away. Vadania and the other women watched as Malthooz's head sank back down to the ground. A smile spread across his lips as his gaze fell on the head, and a look of serenity came over his brow. Then, with a rasping sigh, he was gone.

  Epilogue...The companions hustled away from Newcoast as the ocean was blazing with the orange light of the setting sun. Black smoke still obscured the eastern sky. It hung like a blanket in the thin, still air. She was glad that the whole place hadn't gone up in flames. She turned onto the trail that led to the Deepwood with the rest of her companions, the weight of Wotherwill's staff bouncing in the center of her shoulder blades.

  None of them had any way of knowing how long it would be before the evidence of their fight with Flint and her forces would lead to their pursuit, or if it ever would. They had even less of an idea who might take up their trail. Corruption ran to the highest levels and the deepest coffers of the city government; that much was more than apparent. Between the city authorities and the guild, the only thing that would be certain was mistrust.

  It was assumed that they had no allies at this point, no one to turn to if they were caught. None of them were eager to protest their innocence. They wanted to place as much distance between themselves and Newcoast as they could.

  They made no attempt to conceal their passage. Distance, not stealth, seemed their best friend. They wound their way, in the early evening hours, across the rolling farmlands and into the edge of Deepwood.

  Krusk carried Malthooz's shrouded body on a makeshift litter that he dragged behind himself. He showed little emotion. Vadania knew that he mourned in his own way. The druid studied Krusk as he trudged along. He wore the symbol of Pelor around his neck again, even though Vadania knew that Krusk had no interest in converting. She didn't know whether the wooden trinket eased his pain, or if he saw it as a talisman against evil spirits. The others left the barbarian alone in his silence, each of them dealing with their friend's passing in their own private way.

  They traveled for three days, back to the beach where the splintered remains of Treachery still rested half-buried on the beach. Bits of the hull littered the high water mark, heavy and swollen with sea water, almost indistinguishable from other, unrelated pieces of driftwood. Most of the vessel remained in place—a little more battered, a little more deeply settled in the shifting sand.

  Krusk set to work immediately. He attacked the wreckage with his axe, taking revenge on it for all the unresolved wrongs of the previous weeks. When he had finally swung his arms to exhaustion, he gathered the timbers and piled them on the sand. With rope from the fallen rigging, he crafted a makeshift raft in the dying hours of the day.

  Vadania and the other women watched the barbarian tie the last knot on his raft, then they helped him carry the wrapped form of Malthooz to it as the tide peaked around its forward edge. Krusk wedged the tattered head of the guild master under Malthooz's feet. He started to lift the symbol of Pelor from his chest but let it fall back again. Instead, he turned away and fetched a burning brand from the fire.

  As he returned to the raft with the torch, Krusk saw Vadania adding something else next to Flint's head—Wotherwill's st
aff.

  Krusk growled, "That thing is a desecration. Take it away."

  Vadania stood her ground, so Krusk stepped forward and reached for the staff.

  "Leave it, Krusk," Vadania commanded, and she stepped in his way. "This isn't only about you. It's for all of us."

  Krusk's eyes narrowed on the druid's face. His hand tightened into a fist. Seeing it, Mialee and Lidda rushed to the druid's side.

  "Don't do this, Krusk," Lidda hissed.

  The rogue folded her arms across her chest and stood next to Vadania. Mialee stood to the druid's other side. Together, the three women formed a wall against the barbarian.

  The druid held out her hand, but Krusk shook his massive head. Vadania stepped forward and lifted the symbol of Pelor from around Krusk's neck. She wrapped the cord of the trinket around the wizard's staff.

  "This is how it must be," she said, backing away from the raft.

  Still scowling, Krusk stepped forward with the burning brand thrust ahead. The flame sputtered weakly in the sea breeze. Vadania reached out her hand and placed it on the torch, just ahead of Krusk's. She intoned an arcane phrase and the small yellow flame grew into a white blaze. Together they touched it to the planks and the flames raced across the raft. With a mighty shove, Krusk pushed the mass of wood into the receding tide.

  They watched in silence as the blazing raft floated out on the waves. The orange flames that engulfed it melted into the reds and pinks of the sunset. Eventually the flames and the sea met in a confrontation of steam and smoke, and the remnants of the raft swirled from their view.

  None of them said a thing as they returned to their tiny campfire. One by one, the women curled into their blankets and fell to sleep.

  Krusk stayed up longer, gazing into the fire and reflecting on the events of the past few weeks. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, he rose and opened his own bedroll, but he didn't lie down. Instead he withdrew a slender wooden club, the one he'd fashioned for Malthooz. He held it for a while, remembering another night when he sat up late by a fire, making the weapon.

  Krusk turned and set the club on the waning coals. He watched until the embers ignited the weapon. It flared brightly, sending tiny tongues of flame and glowing sparks upward into the dark sky, but it quickly burned down into a flickering line, then crumbled among the embers.