D & D - Tale of the Comet

by Roland Green

  "As I said," Jazra began, "it was the night Fworta crashed . . ."

  She was glad that she had seen more magic at work, and learned the fate of the survivors since that night, or her voice might have quavered. As it was, she was able to tell the story in detail—and she was sure that her memory had been even more retentive than usual, that night.

  "Well," Ohlt said at the end. Then he said "Well," a second time. No one else spoke, so he made to try a third.

  "If you say 'well' again, I'm going to scream," Elda said. "Or do something drastic to one of your vital organs."

  Jazra took a deep breath, but Ohlt found words first.

  "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

  "You did not ask. And you did not mention Drenin Longstaff, or Asrienda, in range of my hearing, after I had begun to follow you.

  "Oh." Ohlt seemed to shake himself, like an animal climbing out of water. "Were the other monks Rael soldiers too, or illusion spells like your robes?"

  "Holograms," Jazra said, a bit taken aback by the sudden change in subject. "They are like illusions, but not quite the same. We are careful to make them harmless."

  "That would be as well," Hellandros said, and looked ready to go on. Ohlt held up a hand.

  "If it is well with everyone," Ohlt said evenly, "we are going to take Erick down to the path by the grove, as M'lenda suggested. We can make better time if we work in relays; Rael and human in turn.

  "On the way, Jazra will tell us everything she knows about—"

  "Is Drenin's grove a year's journey away?" Jazra cut in.

  "It would take that long?" Hellandros asked, looking as if he did not wish to believe, but had to.

  Jazra nodded.

  "Then tell us all we need to know," Ohlt continued, addressing Jazra directly, "to decide whether to join your company or not. If we decide to part, we will swear ourselves to secrecy about the Rael, and try to help you in other ways.

  "If we decide to go with you, then we will ask you to lead the way to your band's camp. We do, after all, have enemies better fought together. This day surely proved that."

  There were Rael aboard Fworta who would have repaid such bargaining with a blaster burst. To Jazra's mind, such Rael might as well have been servants of the Overseer. She hoped they were few among the survivors.

  "That is fair enough," Jazra said. "Only, do not ask us for any of our weapons."

  "No one can keep a secret when everybody and their cousin is asking you where you found that magical fire-thrower," Brinus said. "Jazra, we are not fools."

  Indeed, they were folk who had, for the first time, faced constructs in battle, and not only survived, but prevailed. They were light-years from being foolish.

  Still, Jazra did not know what Hellandros had done to the dwarf's axe to make it able to destroy a firestorm. She wanted the answer to that, and a thousand other questions that nobody had yet asked.

  They would have to be asked, and answered, swiftly. The fate of a world might depend on the answer to any one of them.

  Night clung to Aston Point when the last of the fires from the bat monster went out.

  Most had been extinguished by panicked townspeople hurling buckets of lake water. A few had to be left to burn themselves out, because there simply weren't enough hands to do the work. The mist made the smoke cling to the scarred town, but the damp, cool air also helped stifle the last embers.

  Seldra Boatwright led the first patrol, made up of the first four members of her new Aston Point Watch. They moved along the northernmost street of the waterfront. Half the area had burned the night of the comet's fall, and the other half was too tumbledown to shelter anyone except the starving and the desperate.

  Seldra's companions were not the three she would have picked if she had been free to chose, but she had to take what offered itself, and what had offered itself was:

  Gredin, whose father had protested loudly, but not long. When he saw how determined his daughter was, he kissed her and started rummaging about in some long-unopened chest. He found an old, but sound suit of leather armor, a broadsword the right size for Gredin, and other soldier's gear. Fully garbed and armed, Gredin looked to Seldra as if she were dressed for a festival costume dance, but at least she was alert, fast, and strong for her age.

  Little Bilton, daughter of Big Bilton, was two years younger than Gredin, and half a span taller. She would surely reach her father's height by the time she was grown, nor would she be much weaker. Already Seldra pitied any man who put a hand where the girl did not want it. He would not live long enough for her father to deal with him.

  Little Bilton carried a club, a dagger, one of her father's hammers, and wore an old helmet. Seldra suspected that she could take on most of their likely opponents—drunkards and looters—with just her bare hands.

  The last, Kalton Praug, wore the carved wolf's tooth amulet of the Swords of the Patriarchy. No one doubted that he was in Aston Point to spy on Drenin Longstaff, Aston Tanak, the temple, and any other religious activity likely to offend the Patriarchy—which included a great deal. Nor did anyone like him. He was too dour and fanatical.

  But he had volunteered for the watch, and the Swords of the Patriarchy knew how to use their weapons, which in Praug's case were a short sword and a long dagger. He wore no visible armor, and from the way he carried his steel, he was left-handed.

  Seldra led as they stepped out from behind the last building. She raised her hand. It was the most elementary of the signals they had learned over supper: Halt.

  Four men stood around the bow of a large rowing boat drawn up on the gravel beach, just this side of where the shore rose into rocky cliffs. One was tying it off to a tree projecting from the rocks. The other two stood around—or over, both being much taller—a third man, who looked vaguely familiar.

  Before Seldra could take another step, light suddenly poured down over the scene. Her night-sight vanished like a feather in a forge, and she heard Gredin cry out. Then feet hammered on gravel, as Kalton Praug dashed forward.

  His eyes were wide open, and he moved with a sureness that said the light was no surprise to him. As he ran, he drew his short sword, and snatched at something on his back. Seldra now saw that it was a small buckler—which Praug slipped onto his right arm.

  The nearest man was the one who had looked familiar. Detrius Phailmont was a carpenter and yard hand for Kunrel the carpenter. He was also a retired thief, who had come to Aston Point to retire a long way from wherever people were looking for him.

  From the company he was keeping, it looked as if he might have had second thoughts about retirement. The three men with him were the three Gyotsi adventurers who had been with Randu Dahan the night he died, and had been planning to take turns with M'lenda before she guided them inland in search of treasure.

  Apparently they now had other plans, in which Detrius played a part.

  Detrius took one look at the onrushing figure of Kalton Praug and squealed like a pig caught in a fence. He ran, and he might have been wearing boots of magical striding, from the speed of his disappearance.

  The other three Gyotsi rounded on Praug. Seldra strode forward, to summon them to submit peacefully. They were not folk she wished to fight to the death, with only one seasoned fighter, and him going very much his own way.

  The watch was not much of a team. Praug ran between the two Gyotsi on the beach, and thrust upward into the back of the man with the rope. The man wore armor, but lost his balance and fell at Praug's feet. Praug stabbed downward at the man's unprotected throat, and at the same time slammed his buckler down on the man's arm.

  The other two Gyotsi had already charged Seldra when their comrade went down. For a moment, she had to give ground to be safe, then they caught up with her and she had a moment of doubting that there was any safety on this beach tonight.

  She hoped the two girls would have the sense to run.

  They didn't.

  Gredin ran in on the unprotected side of one of Seldra's opponents, a
nd slashed the man across the belly between his breastplate and tassets. He grunted, coughed blood, turned toward her—and met another slash across his throat.

  The last of the Gyotsi was fast on his feet. He ran around behind Little Bilton and threw one arm around her waist, putting the other, with a dagger in it, across her throat. Clearly, he meant to escape by taking a hostage.

  Little Bilton did not bother to use a weapon. She simply rammed both elbows and one foot backward. The man screamed like one being gelded—which was not too far from the truth, as Seldra saw when the man fell writhing to the beach. He was doubled up, trying to hold groin, ribs, and leg all at once with only two hands, not to mention screaming in agony with no breath in his lungs.

  Little Bilton put an end to these futile efforts by kicking him smartly in the head. He lay senseless, and Seldra only hoped that his neck was not broken. She needed a prisoner, and who could tell? This she-ass's get might be worth ransoming to somebody in Gyotsol.

  Seldra was hugging both girls and feeling them tremble with the after-battle unease, when Kalton Praug strode up. He looked as pleased with himself as a man who has spent an entire night in a house of pleasure—if one could imagine

  Praug even standing downwind of such a place.

  "One slain, Lady," he said, bringing sword and buckler together in what had to be a salute.

  "It might have been one of us slain, you witling," Seldra snapped. "Never cast a light spell again without warning me. I was blind almost long enough for those two bastards to take me, and then where would the girls have been?"

  Praug's face and voice were flinty. "Did I disobey a command of my sworn captain?"

  "If you're in my patrol, I'm your sworn captain."

  "I accept that, but you gave me no orders about bringing light upon those dark of soul."

  "I do now. Wait for my command, and try to take prisoners."

  Praug sounded even harsher now, if that were possible. "You cannot command me to spare Gyotsi. Outside their land, the Patriarch condemns them to death. Any sworn to the Patriarch must slay them, wherever found."

  Seldra sighed. She had forgotten that the Patriarchy, where they worshiped the All-Father, regarded the Gyotsi as the vilest heretics.

  Seldra nodded. "I accept this as your duty, if you accept my other orders. Do you?"

  Praug swore by several avatars of the All-Father, some of whom Seldra had heard of. She was ready to sigh again by the time he had finished, this time from boredom.

  Then her legs told her that she really ought to sit down. The after-battle unease was striking her. It somewhat consoled her that the Gyotsi had been no friends to anyone in Aston Point, and would no longer be on the trail of the companions who had gone inland under Fedor Ohlt.

  If they had left any trail that mortals could follow.

  That thought made her shiver even more than the chill of the night, or the after-battle unease.

  The Overseer.

  Somehow, it was hard for Fedor Ohlt not to think of the distant mastermind of his newfound enemy as an evil mage, brooding in his stronghold while his host of ghouls and golems ravaged far and wide.

  Indeed, the whole tale Jazra had told him as they hiked to the grove, where they left a surprisingly alert Erick Trussk to await help, reminded him of such legends. Jazra finished her tale as they headed deep into the forest, to the Real camp.

  The Kir, who had created the Overseer, had cast some spell on it, just before they perished at its hands. The Rael stumbled across the sleeping Overseer, and awakened it with their magic, only to find that they had conjured up their own doom.

  A doom which they were resisting with the fervor and skill of the mightiest of paladins, or the holiest of clerics . . . if Jazra was telling the truth.

  Ohlt thought she was. Partly because he wanted it to be true. The alternatives were entirely too gruesome to contemplate. She had been plain about what might happen if the Secondary Director aboard the comet—which she maintained was a sort of ship, named Fworta—repaired something she called the gate. The Director would conjure hordes of golems, large and small, flying and crawling, onto the face of the world.

  Of this world. One of many worlds, each whirling in circles around stars, which were not points of light, but great balls of fire, like the sun itself.

  He was not sure whether he wanted this part to be true or not, but if the rest were true, it made sense for there to be many stars, and many worlds.

  He also believed Jazra because of the fight the Rael had put up. He had seen some of their other weapons close up, and in spite of the darkness they had struck him with both awe and curiosity.

  The four Rael together could, with enough magic, or fire, or whatever it was in their weapons, stand against a host of a thousand picked knights. Ohlt prayed that they would stand instead

  with the knights, against the enemy from the stars.

  Of course, Ohlt had no thousand knights. Only six oddly chosen companions, who, he hoped, knew enough to keep both their world, and the secret of the Rael, safe.

  Ohlt staggered, and felt a slim but strong hand on his shoulder.

  "I think we can rest," Jazra told him quietly. "Or even make camp."

  "Rest," he said, "then a little father before we make camp."

  Jazra called out the order in Common. All the Rael now knew at least a few simple commands in Common, which meant less need to shout in Rael. Also, the other Rael had followed Jazra's practice of disguising themselves with garments from the fallen Doomed or the humans' packs. From a distance, the casual eye and ear would see no strange race in the little column.

  Ohlt sagged against a tree. He had just realized his head was on his chest when Jazra rushed up to him, from farther along the trail.

  "What is it?"

  Jazra pointed ahead. "Two of the Doomed, I think, but tell me what they are. I have not seen anything like them."

  She was trying hard not to tremble. As he would have done with a human woman in such a situation, Ohlt took her hand. She looked at him in surprise, and the surprise was mirrored on his own face. Holding Jazra's hand, he realized that the Rael had six fingers—and why hadn't he noticed it before?

  Because even a god could learn only so much new in a single day, he supposed.

  They were hobgoblins; as large, hairy, sharp-featured, and generally formidable as any of their race, and both of them were dead.

  Ohlt knelt to study them. There was a clan of hobgoblins close enough to Aston Point to trouble the peace of humans, elves, and dwarves, from time to time. Other clans and tribes inhabited the deeper Khaim Mountains. Ohlt did not know enough about their clan markings of dyed and trimmed hair and arm-rings to tell if these were locals or travelers.

  He quickly began to doubt that they were Doomed. He couldn't be sure unless he wanted to disturb M'lenda or Hellandros, but the only bit of Overseer gear between them was a blaster that one had apparently used on the other. The other had, before that, used a club on the first one's ribs, a wound that took a bit longer to die from than a blaster hit, but not much.

  "Hobgoblins do a lot of stealing from everybody, including one another," he said. "I hope they aren't all running around the mountains looting blasters and granites."

  "Grenades," Jazra corrected him. "No, I can see how that would make a bad situation worse."

  Ohlt picked up the blaster, shook the needles and mold off it, and handed it to Jazra. "See if this works?"

  Jazra held up the weapon, then plugged into the butt a small box she took off her belt. A small green light flashed on.

  "Fine, and seventeen charges in it." Jazra said, holding out the blaster to Ohlt. "Do you want it?"

  Ohlt did not hesitate. "Yes. If it can't do anything else, it will be a final shot to keep me—or you—from being Doomed."

  Butt-first, which seemed to be the weapons etiquette for blasters, Jazra handed him the pistol.

  s a •

  At dawn, the two sirines Gerua and Sneyla found a strange ship
wrecked in shallow water just off their island. It resembled a gigantic seagull—large as some merchant ships—made of pearl.

  They were curious about it, but the many sharp corners where it was broken, and a taint in the water around it, made them cautious. They finally decided that nobody aboard it could still be alive to rescue, and the water would have spoiled any food. The metal might be turned into weapons, if they needed any, and could trade fish for the tools to make them.

  It was Gerua who thought aloud that the fallen bird-ship might have something to do with the fire in the sky they'd seen the night they fought aboard Fairy Rose, and for some nights after.

  "If we are to have more shipwrecks like this, I would be happy to know where they come from," she told her sister. "Perhaps we should swim over toward some of the human settlements. We may be able to find someone who knows more than we do, who will talk to us."

  "Who knows?" Sneyla said. "If they are men, we might not even have to pay them with fish or kill them to silence them."

  Gerua hugged her sister. It was good to hear Sneyla talk like that again. It meant that she would not mourn forever.

  Eight

  They got a later start than they had planned the next morning. From Jazra on down, they were all too tired for anything short of a firestorm to make them move quickly.

  Looking back the way they had come, Jazra doubted that they had much to fear from the Overseer's combat vehicles. Even air-cushion vehicles wouldn't be able to handle the steep slopes and close-grown trees.

  They still had to fear attack from the air, if the Secondary Director had been able to piece together more than a single drone. Also, given enough time and material, the enemy could put a spider drone behind every tree over a wide arc, between Fworta and the camp. The Rael might still survive by standing on the defensive or fleeing outright, but they couldn't strike back.

  Jazra and Ohlt were leading, as the trail wound upward along a slope so densely forested that the trees would have shut out

  the sun, if there had been any. At a turn they called a halt, jazra took off her helmet and wiped her face, finishing the work with a square of cloth—some sort of natural fiber—that Ohlt held out to her.