by Jeff Sabean
A few more minutes and the whirlpool stopped, several more schools of fish having been sucked into the pouch in the process.
“Bag of holding,” the bard explained to the astonished looks on his friends’ faces. “It’s bigger on the inside.”
“We’re familiar with the concept by now,” Heishi replied, shaking his head in disbelief. “We just never thought to use one to carry fresh water.”
“You have to be careful to use an empty one,” the bard replied, tying the bag to his belt once more. “If you have your lunch in there, it comes back out quite soggy.”
With that, he turned and started down the road again, playing a tune on his lute that made the companions feel energized and got their feet moving faster than normal.
◆◆◆
The morning passed uneventfully, the companions chatting and catching up on what they had been up to since the battle of Harmonui. They passed small farms as they walked along the river, with a mixture of humans and the rat people working the fields around their mud homes. The further they walked away from Aibara, the more scattered the farms became, and as the road turned to the west away from the river it became desolate.
The trees slowly thinned out, and what had been a lush jungle around them quickly became a desert. Piled rocks were scattered around the road, if you could really consider it a road, marking its borders and providing a bit of shade here and there to rest in. The small piles of rocks continued to grow as the afternoon wore on, and before they knew it the road was winding between gigantic boulders on either side.
Perfect for an ambush.
“This road is easy to follow. I believe our friend Ethanicus has swindled you in selling you that map, my friend,” Di’eslo said to Heishi, breaking the silence.
“Well, it was worth it just in case. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,” came the human’s reply, although it was obvious that he had been thinking the same thing. “That being said, there could be a reason why he wanted to make sure we went this way after refusing to hire protection for the trip. If I had to guess, I’d say they plan to get our money from us one way or the other, so stay sharp guys.”
The conversation seemed prophetic a short time later, as they came around an exceptionally large boulder and found themselves facing a large crowd standing in the road, weapons drawn. They were dressed in light colored, loosely fitting clothing, and had scarves wrapped around their heads and covering their faces. Although their faces were covered, most were rather short, giving the companions the impression that they were probably rat men like the dock guards, with only a few humans in the group. The weapons didn’t appear to be of exceptional quality, being pretty standard scimitars, machetes, and a short spear or two in the mix, leading the group to believe these were common highwaymen.
“Step aside,” Di’eslo stated harshly, removing his hood to reveal his heritage. Some of the highwaymen stepped back involuntarily upon seeing a shadow elf suddenly before them, but one stepped forward clearly marking himself as the leader.
“This is our road, demon,” the man stated, stopping the shuffling behind him immediately. His voice was scratchy, as if he had spent too much time having sand blown in his face, which he probably had. “You’ll pay the tax, or you won’t pass.”
“Very well, we will turn around and not intrude on your road,” Heishi interjected calmly, watching as his team smoothly stepped into defensive positions using his peripheral vision. “We surely do not wish any trouble with respectful men such as yourselves, who clearly are simply protecting your territory. We’ll just leave.”
“NO!” the man shouted, causing everyone to jump a bit, including his own men. “You have already traveled on my road, and you will pay a tax for that privilege. Empty your bags and you will be allowed to live,” he finished, the calm returning to his voice as he spoke.
“As you wish,” Heishi replied, turning his head to wink at his team. “Hankish, if you would be so kind as to empty your bag for the gentlemen?”
A flash of understanding crossed the halfling’s face, and he slowly reached behind him to untie the bag from his waist, stifling a grin.
“If I see anything other than a bag come from behind your back, you die first, little one,” the highwayman stated coldly, pointing his scimitar at Hankish.
Tiane glanced above, noticing an archer on top of the rock covering the bandits and picking that as his first target.
Slowly, the bag came from behind Hankish’s back, and he lifted it up above his eye level, which was around the middle of the bandit leader’s chest.
The archer above slowly let some of the tension out of the bowstring, clearly getting tired of holding it as he baked in the sun on top of the rock.
Without warning, Hankish opened the top of his bag, and a blast of water shot out, slamming into the bandit leader’s chest and knocking him from his feet. He let the water flow for a few more seconds, creating mud all around the surprised bandits and giving his team the split second required to draw their weapons. He felt a pinch in his right shoulder as he held the bag open, but shook it off as he concentrated on the fight at hand.
One his left, Heishi drew his katana, activating the green electricity of the blade, which crackled wickedly as if desiring bloodshed. The human raced forward with blinding speed, cutting the sword arm from the bandit leader as he continued further into the middle of the surprised bandits.
To his right, Aki slid his tonfa from their holsters on his thighs, activating the shadows that swirled around the weapons, absorbing incoming damage that would normally cut through the weapons. He walked forward into the melee, starting the weapons swinging in a figure-eight motion, the shadows curling from them and blurring the movement as he batted aside a half-hearted thrust of a short spear and followed through with a crushing blow to the bandit’s head.
From behind, he heard the twang of a bow string, and without looking knew that Tiane had dropped the archer on the rock above. There was no need to look up to verify, as Tiane very rarely missed.
A moment later, he heard feet pounding on the hard dirt, then a clang as his brother was launched from the shield Di’eslo had angled for him, flying over their heads and landing in the center of the bandits, his jeweled daggers flashing in the sun as he dropped low and hamstrung two bandits simultaneously.
Hankish closed the bag, not wanting to waste all their fresh water now that the distraction was complete, then stepped to the rear to stand behind Di’eslo. He tied the bag to his belt again, and noticed that his fingers were slick as he tied the leather strap to secure it. Thinking they were just wet from the rushing water, he slid his lute from where it was strapped on his back and began to play, planning to increase the attack speed of his companions while slowing their attackers, but as he went to strum the first notes the fingers of his right hand would not cooperate.
“That’s what I get for being the distraction,” he wailed as he finally looked down and saw the arrow sticking from his shoulder. It had sunk all the way to the fletching and was barely protruding in the front, which was why he hadn’t noticed it sooner. The loss of blood was starting to make his arm feel cold, and he grumbled as he attempted to pull the arrow back out the way it had entered using his left hand.
“Allow me, little one,” Di’eslo said, brushing his hand away. “This will hurt, but only for as long as it takes me to remove it.”
With that, Di’eslo slid the arrow out enough to get to the shaft and cut it cleanly with a small blade he produced from somewhere behind him. When the fletching dropped to the ground, he grasped the arrow where it protruded behind Hankish’s back and jerked it as hard as he could. The little bard dropped to his knees, his face going white as the nausea washed over him, but he somehow maintained consciousness.
The shadow elf cleric placed his hand over the wound, and a blue light began to glow in the area, seeping into Hankish’s shoulder. Immediately, the torn muscle and flesh began to knit itself together, the healin
g waves spreading relief through the bard’s shoulder and down his arm. In no time at all, he was standing again, fiddling with his lute to support the fight as best he could.
Out in front, the rest of the group were taking full advantage of the confusion the bard had created, slipping through the midst of the bandits and creating chaos by attacking once and continuing to the next target without finishing the last. Heishi’s blinding speed was allowing him to make a single cut and be gone with his victims unable to see more than a green blur as his blade whipped through the throng of attackers.
Even in the confusion, occasionally one of the team would take a serious hit from a blade, and when that happened Di’eslo was ready, sending waves of healing energy to his friends and keeping them moving.
Zatus, not one to engage in melee due to the short reach of his arms, stood beside Di’eslo sending blasts of rainbow-colored light into the brawl in front of him, stunning those who were recovering from the shock of the initial attack and attempting to organize. Before the stunning blasts wore off, one of his friends would cut the villain down.
Tiane had sent a half dozen arrows into the attackers, taking out two additional archers who popped up on the other side of the road after the first dropped and killing two more swordsmen on the road. When his friends got too deep into the fight in front of him, he sighed, returning the bow to his back and sliding out the handles for his kamas. With a thought, the blades popped from the handles and burst into green flames, and he ran into the fight, screaming bloody murder to distract those around him, who were immediately finished off by the wild-eyed sniper.
In under a minute, the road was cleared of ambushers. The companions had taken a few hits, but none were serious, and Di’eslo had healed them as fast as they had been injured.
“We should search them for anything of value and then leave this place,” the cleric stated, looking at the score of dead bodies cluttering the dirt road. “There may be more of them, and without our little friend’s distraction the next fight will not be so easy.”
“Easy?” Hankish scoffed. “Easy for you to say, you weren’t the distraction...”
Chapter 10 – Rattanda
After the fight with the bandits, the team had continued traveling for several hours until the setting sun had stopped them. There had been no other signs of bandits, leading them to believe that they had already passed the ambush spot used against those who did not pay for protection. Not wanting to press their luck, the team had set up a hasty camp on the other sides of the rocks lining the road, with the open desert in front of them, and had not started a fire for fear of drawing attention.
That night had been uneventful, with nothing but the occasional scorpion passing by in the dark, and the next morning they had started early while the air was still cool. It took some time to loosen up their cold limbs, as deserts seemed to be the same regardless of what world they were in: hotter than the blazes of hades itself during the day, and so cold you want to set yourself on fire to warm up at night.
As the sun came fully across the horizon, the warmth put them back in high spirits as Hankish played his lute and sang raunchy songs to lighten the mood. They moved much more quickly than a normal group thanks to the quickening given by the music the bard played combined with the extra stamina boost that allowed them to travel longer in between breaks.
Those factors combined brought them to a pass in what had become a large hill, or a small mountain depending on your point of view, late in the afternoon of the second day. When they reached the top, they stopped and collectively gasped at the sight before them.
As far as the eye could see was desert, with gigantic sand dunes breaking up the flat space. The humans from earth had seen deserts like this when they had spent time in the middle east, but as far as they could tell they were somewhere in Mexico in this other version of their world, and desert just didn’t fit into what they expected of the region.
Directly in front of them, the road they were on led into a small village about two miles away, with buildings that appeared to be built with bricks made of the same sand that surrounded them. They were still too far away to see details, and they didn’t spend much time looking at the village because what really caught their attention were the pyramids behind it.
There was a gigantic one in the middle that rivaled the great pyramids of Egypt with a smaller one to each side of it. The center pyramid was crafted of a solid black stone, with the two smaller structures built from brick the same color as the desert surrounding them. Everything else was clearly built around these three structures, and the sight of them made the companions pause to gawk.
“There’s only one explanation for this, Top,” Tiane all but whispered to Heishi, never taking his eyes from the pyramids.
“If you say aliens, I’m going to push you down this hill,” his team leader replied, also not looking away.
“I was going to say common ancestry leading to similar structures, but if you wanna call it aliens, who am I to argue with you, boss,” the sniper deadpanned.
“Once again, I do not understand what you are referring to, but if Fion is still alive, he will be in there,” Di’eslo stated, breaking the spell that had fallen over them upon seeing the pyramids. “We will not find out standing here, so we should continue.”
Nodding in agreement, the companions began down the other side of the hill, stumbling on rocks in the road occasionally as their eyes continued to be drawn to the structures. Hankish picked up his tune where he had left off upon discovering the city, and they covered the last few miles in no time at all, coming to stand at the edge of the town.
“I’ve been meaning to give this to you,” Heishi said reaching out a hand to Abugraic as they stood staring down the street to the town.
Abugraic accepted what was being offered, then looked at the nondescript silver ring with an emerald band that ran through the center of it. He shrugged as he looked back into Heishi’s eyes, not understanding why the man was giving him a ring.
“Put it on and it will show you what it does,” the human explained. “I found it in the blacksmith shop I, ahh, inherited when I killed that chondri my first night in Terminus. I’ve only used it once or twice, and have been thinking that it would be a better fit for you than for me anyway considering your...profession.”
Abugraic slipped the ring on his hand and concentrated on it for a minute, then his eyes lit up as he came to understand that the ring was imbued with the power to add poison to whatever he touched with it.
“Aye, lad, that woulda come in handy with the elf’s friend a while back to be sure!” he replied, slipping back into the dwarvish brogue as he referred to the untimely death of Queen Gabrielle’s sister which ended the Battle of Harmonui. “Not that I be knowin’ anything ‘bout that, o’ course,” he added as Di’eslo turned to look at him.
The team began to walk again, and on closer inspection of the city, the buildings were similar to those of Aibara, although they were made from the lighter colored sand of the desert as opposed to the darker mud used on the port city. These also sported canvas awnings outside each building, providing shade where the vendors had set up their wares.
“That’s a lot of stuff to be moving in and out of the buildings every day,” Aki noted as they passed the first set of vendors. “Especially for a city that is this far out of the way.”
“My guess is they leave it out at night and the buildings are solely for sleeping,” explained Di’eslo as they walked. “In a society such as this where a king rules with an iron grip, it is no wonder that his citizens feel secure leaving their inventory out at night. Who would steal something if they know their god-king will kill them mercilessly for it?”
“Fair enough,” Aki replied, his eyes continuing to scan the marketplace for threats. “Where are the people? Is this seeming strikingly like Aibara to anyone?”
“Aye, we should keep a watchful eye open...” Di’eslo began, then stopped as an odd-looking creature stepped into
the road in front of them, seemingly from nowhere.
She stood just under four feet tall, just a bit taller than Zatus, and was wearing a dirty tan robe that looked appeared to be the garb of a priestess. A hood covered her face as she stopped the companions, and in her right hand she held a gnarled staff with a smoky orb on the top which she leaned on as she stepped. Her feet were visible sticking out beneath the robe and were filthy with sandals barely protecting them.
She slid the hood back with hands the texture of old leather, clearly from decades, if not longer, of life in the desert sun. Her face poked out as the hood was removed, revealing a rat woman, her skin shriveled and taught on her skull so Di’eslo had to look closely to discern that there was, in fact, skin on the skull. Grey hair was pulled back into a tight bun behind her head, which seemed to stretch the skin on her face even more. Her ears stuck out from the side of her head, the ears of a rodent, and her snout was elongated, with grey whiskers twitching on either side.
Her ears and nose were pierced in multiple places with bones and small hoops of a brass colored metal, and the bone piercing protruding from beneath her nose was adorned with a solid black crystal. She wore necklaces that looked like polished bone, probably fingers from the size of them, with an occasional gemstone in between bone fragments.
“Who are you that enters the domain of the sacred King Rattanda?” the old woman asked, shaking her staff at them as she spoke.
Di’eslo slipped his own hood off for effect, the shadows curling around his skin and seeping out from under his cloak as the sun hit his face, causing the ancient woman to take a step backward before regaining her composure.
“We have traveled far to gain an audience with your king,” he began quietly.
“I did not ask where you came from,” she stated, her eyes looking directly into his crimson orbs. She had no pupils, just milky white eyeballs, and she shook her staff at him again as she spoke. “I say who are you?”