Ayara

The problem with glove-mounted weapons was they made for lousy gloves. 

Inside a ruin, roofless yet stuffy, Ayara scrambled across uneven ground of collapsed roof tiles, beams, and stone walls  and worked with her hands throughout the brace herself or push away obstructions.  Each time, the rigid round plates in the palms squeezed against her hand and she’d wince.  Part of it was habitual concern for pressing the lenses too hard and damaging the crystals beneath.  The other part was a new, mild shock that rolled up her arms.  

Ayara’s right leg slipped out from under her as a piece of debris gave away under her foot.  She dropped and slid down a hill of debris. When she lammed her hands down to stop from tumbling across jagged stones she hissed as that shock ran up to her elbows.

“What’s wrong with you, anyway?” Renaut followed by riding a rotting life down a trickle of dust. 

After coughing to clear her throat of ages old mortar, Ayara got to her feet.  She held out her hands and looked at the palms.  Light leaked out between metal seams in the mechanical irises.  “They were damaged when we fell from the horse.” She pulled her right hand close and, squinting, peered at the workings on the palm.  “It looks like the lens is misaligned.  That’ll throw off my aim and the spells will be weaker because the housing will block some of the magic.” She sighed.  “It’ll also hurt to use them. Sadly, there’s no time to take them off and fix them. My tools are at camp, anyway.”

A breeze fluttered the edges of Ayara’s headscarf.  She turned to its source and saw a dark, open doorway.  Looking up, she realized the reason the pile seemed so tall was because the ground slanted toward this tunnel.  She approached it.

“I could give you something to dull the pain.  You might act a little loopy, though,” Renaut said.  Her sharp little feet pattered across the stone floor as she followed.

Stopping just before the entry, Renaut looked up at Ayara who lingered at the brink.  “This could be a trap.”

“Everything could be a trap.  However, this tunnel leads into another ruin, given there’s no light at the end.  I’ll take the odds of there not being an ambush waiting on the other end than of us running into orcs in the open out there.” She tilted her head up.

After nodding her head in agreement, Renaut spread out her arms, letting the draping sleeves of her robes billow in the breeze, and whistled.  She became lighter than air and was lifted up so she could sit on Ayara’s shoulder.  “Let’s go, then.”

Ayara held up her right hand and touched the tip of her index finger to the palm plate with a clink.  Blue light swelled from the lens and showed the path was clear, save for scurrying rats and dripping water that pooled along the edges. “Do you think you could wrangled yourself some local fauna to ride,” she asked the sprite on her shoulder while keeping her eyes on the tunnel.  As they proceeded, faint light emerged from the other end.

“You can grab any old horse from the enemy because they’ve already been conditioned for riding.  It takes time for us to train our animals!”

They emerged at the bottom of another large building, this one having more walls standing and even a partial roof supported by columns.  Ayara took a moment to examine the ruins and plan a route to the top that, if she couldn’t find foot- and hand-holds in the right places, would likely result in a fall that would break most of the bones in her body.  She pulled off her gloves and, as she stowed them in her belt, shook the tingle from her fingertips.  “Bonnelle told us to seek a vantage point.  I think this will do.”

With a jump she grabbed one of the aged columns.  Grainy, pitted stone scraped her skin and tugged her clothes as she shimmied up.  As she neared the roof, sneezing against a constantly falling stream of dust, she clambered across support struts.  All the while, Renaut, perched on the elf’s shoulder, muttered “we’re coming, Henri, we’re coming.”  Ayara could appreciate the sprite’s tension.  She had a brother, too, and would be equally as desperate to rescue him, even though she hadn’t seen him for several hundred years. 

As she leaped between support beams she noticed the tiled floor below had the word “marketplace” in ancient elvish written across it.  A remnant of that golden era when the Prison of Eternal Suffering entertained invaders regularly, and perhaps offered amenities like the opportunity to restock and upgrade their gear before embarking on the final leg of their campaign. 

A semi-circle opening, taller than Ayara herself, was nestled between the edge of the wall and the roof.  Judging by the remnants of leading which still hung in the frame, it once held a stained glass display.  Now it opened to the gray blue sky and let the wind whistle through.  Crouched on a rotted wooden beam which must have been cut from a tree so old and grand it seemed a waste for a building so large, Ayara put on her gloves before she jumped into the remnants of the stained glass.  She navigated the rusted, twisting metal to emerge from the building, feeling the scant warmth of the sun, before pulling herself up.  There was a balcony above with arching stone guards.  Ayara sat cross legged and took a moment to catch her breath, letting the cool her after the sweaty ascent. How many ages it had been since anyone enjoyed this balcony?  She looked behind, and noted there was no way to this place from inside the building, as just a little past the door the floor fell away. 

Renaut slid down the elf’s arm. “Phew! That was exhausting!” She announced as she wandered to the edge, standing beneath one of the pointed arcs carved into rock. 

“I did all the work!”

“Yes, but I had to endure it.”

Ayara crawled along the balcony floor, her knees betting cut by flecks of rock, and lay flat as she peeked over the side. They were at the southern end of the prison grounds.  Looking northwest, Bonnelle and Kornin weaved through ruins to evade a team of orcs and east of them many orcs were massed by the foot of the tower.  There, an unfamiliar troll set down a boar which began sniffing at the ground.  They must have received reinforcements.  Had they remained engaged with the enemy when those arrived, the Rude Rubies would have been crushed.

If Lt. Chrincha hadn’t abandoned them in the woods they would have stood a chance.  One moment he was rising with the group towards the prison and then he peeled off to follow some other road.  Bonnelle insisted keeping him around would be more trouble than it’s worth  but Ayara felt his loss kept them from success. 

Elsewhere, Ayara’s lost horse grazed with a giant buffalo. That was the beast they’d chased through the woods! That dreadful goblin, Tad, taunted them with Henri while on that animal. “Look south, Renaut.  I bet your brother is around there.”

“There!” Renaut tugged at Ayara’s sleeve, balling up a corner of cloth in her tiny fist. She pointed down, jumping in excitement, and making her robes flop about as she did.

Looking where the sprite pointed, Ayara saw the goblin.  His skin was green, and his long hair was crowned with orange, frizzy hair.  He might even seem cute were her not a sadistic military mastermind. He was approaching the Southern Gate, with Henri tied to the end  of a stick.

Tad

“You’re going to like the doctor.  He’s an elf, you know. I’ll bet he can help you after Gohta knocked you about,” Tad said, bobbing his head as he crept through the prison grounds.  He held the bottom of Henri’s stick in both hands, trying to keep it steady after he suffered the shaky trip to the prison.

“An elf?”

“Yes, like those friends of yours who were trying to kill us! Pointed ears and throwing magic around?” Turning Henri around to face him, Tad leaned his head back and spoke in a deep, authoritative tone.  “I’ve seen the doctor use magic, but only to help.  He healed War Master Hohza after he received a thrashing by Yurzan.  Then when we were repairing the Prison of Eternal Suffering he helped this one kid who sliced a finger off.  He needs to be more careful around a table saw; there won’t always be an elf doctor around to reattach fingers!”

“I know what an elf is.  I mean … there’s more than one around here?”

“Sure! As I understood it, you came with a whole camp full of them!”

“No, I mean before that! How many elves dwelt in this domain?”

“I’d barely been in War Master Hohza’s War Party for a day before getting assigned to your invasion, so I don’t know the Dread Lord’s secrets.  To the best of my knowledge the only elf in this domain was Toran, our doctor.”  He turned Henri around again and carefully gripped the stick as he continued his march down the shattered, grass-strewn street leading to the southern gate.  

“Toran? Your prisoner works as your doctor?”

“‘Prisoner’? No! He’s the Dread Lord’s guest and has been for a thousand years!”

“Guests are allowed to leave when they desire.”

Tad shrugged.  “I guess he doesn’t desire. He’s not fond of Yendell.  I think it looks neat.”

“How do you know what Yendell looks like?”

“A troll painted a mural of it based on an illustration from a book,” Tad answered.  “It’s on the back wall of Toran’s home.” For a moment, Tad was in a reverie as he tried to recall just a couple of weeks ago, when he’d spent that first morning at Toran’s cabin just moments before he was recruited by Hohza.  Although most of those two weeks had been exciting a new as he attended a war council, traveled into Hangman’s Forest, and even got to command teams of goblins as the prison was repaired, he didn’t feel it was worth the fear and terror of the past day.  Maybe, if they survived, he’d ask Glum about going back to the Machines Works. 

The ground before Tad exploded in a flash of light.  The stick slipped from his hand as he turned and shielded his face by raising his arms.  Tad chased after Henri while gravel, dirt, and grass rained down on them. The prisoner, still bound to the stick, screamed as he spiraled through the air.  Tad dived to the ground, his back smacking against a bit on stone, as he provided a soft landing for the sprite while clutching him to his chest.

“What was that,” Tad asked, panting and aching. 

“Those friends of mine who were going to kill you to save me? I think they just found us.”

Tad bolted to his feet and ran to the nearest building to get out of sight of Henri’s friends.  The building was missing most of its second story and the door was composed of rotten wood with rusted hinge strips.  With right arm curled up to hold Henri close, Tad stood on his tiptoes to grab the ring-shaped door handle.  As he pulled the door out his bare soles scraped against the cracked stoop and jagged flecks dug into his heels.  After his struggle it was opened just enough for him to slip in.  He did and then pulled the door shut after groping for the handle in the dark.  The metal hinges, brittle with age, sounded like they were crumbling as he did.  When the door stopped against the frame, Tad sighed and slumped against the door.

“You’ll want to get away from the door,” Henri said after a moment. “Although that looked like a blast from Ayara’s weapon, I’d bet she has my sister with her, and Renaut gets aggressive it rubs off on the others and they’ll blast through that door without considering we’re on the other side. And with me being in your hands she’s probably driving everyone crazy.  Not that you’d understand.”

Although Henri didn’t glow, the boy held him out like a torch as he pushed off the door and proceeded down the hall.  It seemed a long building, and the hall was dashed with patches of light where the walls had fallen away.  He was reminded of a time when he was young, and all the light in a workshop vanished.

...

First the goblin's ears pricked from the snap of beams and metallic banging as the inventory above rolled into the growing dip in its floor.  Most of the boys toiling with Tad didn’t notice or dismissed him as needing bigger ears.  When the inventory crashed through its floor and made the ceiling above them bow and crack, raining dusty over their workspace, they stopped laughing and began screaming.  Some ran for the door, others froze in a panic, while Tad dove under the table.  He counted but a heartbeat before he couldn’t hear anything save for the cacophony of giant coils, gears, and bolts pounding the floor around him and table above.

When the calamity was over Tad found himself entombed.  All light was blocked by layers of fallen parts and the little air which still flowed stank of metal.  Tad called out.  Ort, one of the boys, responded.  Through gurgled speech and frequent stops to cough or spit he reported that a  ratchet wheel as big as a troll had landed on him.   He said he felt very cold below his legs and shortly after he said no more.  Something dripped from the table above.  When it sounded like it had formed a pool, Tad groped around in the dark to find it.  The thick, warm fluid that his fingertips found let Tad know another of his classmates hadn’t survived.  When he scuttled away, shrieking, he felt metal tips dig into his back.  Something jostled above and pushed the table.  He knew he had to remain still or else risk losing the protection he had some the mass waiting to collapse on him.

So he remained still for a little over a day, hugging his knees to his chest as he sat under the middle of the table.  Even when the pool of blood stretched to his toes he didn’t bother to move.

Eventually, a heavy thud sounded in the room.  Tad hunched his shoulders and winced as he prepared to be crushed.  Instead, the door to the hall was opened and spots of light filtered through the debris to Tad.  He raised his head.

“Is anyone in there,” a gruff, deep voice asked.  Later, Tad learned that Hohza was one of the few orcs who volunteered to help with the rescue. 

“Me! Tad,” the boy answered.  His was the only answer the rescuers received.

“We have a survivor! Kid named Tad,” a goblin hollered down the hall. 

A moment later, Glum was yelling from the doorway. “Tad, where are you? Are you hurt?”

“Underneath the work table. Middle of the room.”

He clapped his hands together and sniffed. “That’s wonderful,” he started, his voice quavering.  He paused a moment, and then:  “May the Dread Lord’s name be sung all the louder! This is a rescue operation, everyone.  He’s unhurt so we’re going to be methodical about this. Don’t want to make any more of a mess while we clean it up!”

The did work slow and methodical, with Glum talking to Tad the whole time.  Once he’d heard his boss there, he knew he wouldn’t share the same fate as the other boys. 

...

“No, I guess I wouldn’t risking someone to rescue them,” Tad answered, some ways down the hall, now.  He crawled under breaks in the wall, in case this maniacal elf was still intent of blowing him up.  “Why haven’t they come in if they’re so desperate to rescue you?”

“They’re probably worried it might be a trap. This building is almost less secure than being out in the open,” the sprite remarked as a gust howled down the hall. “Why else would anyone come in here?”

Outside the building was the clatter of armor and tromping of feet.  The walls around him and remnants of floor above rattled as weight tested their aged limits.  It seemed like too much for an elf, but Tad learned the night before that a sprite’s magic could allow just one to take on an army.  Ducking behind a mound of broken wall, Tad looked at the door he’d entered from.

Someone politely knocked, and that was immediately followed by a boar’s gleeful squealing.  “Maybe they’d come here to help me!”

Ayara

Crowded on either side by reliefs, the one on her right the formless mush of a wraith and on her right an elf, although the figure’s proud nose had long since worn away, Ayara stood atop the façade and looked at the fractured street below.  Gathering outside was a mob of monsters, including one massive troll who wore boulders like gloves.  The lot had been lead by a hideous old boar who waddled along, sniffing the grass like a hunting dog.  “They were looking for him,” she whispered to Renaut, who was perched on her shoulder.

“They were called in,” Renaut said from Ayara’s shoulder.  “Haven’t you noticed those devices the monsters carry?  They can talk to each other over long distances with almost no delay.” She slid down the elf’s arm and landed on the her belt.  “Do you have my leaf weapons here,” she asked as she crawled along the pouches.  “Now that you’ve wasted our chance to catch him alone we’ll need to really go in ready for a fight.”

Ayara huffed as she turned her head down to look at the sprite.  “That one just in front of you has the leaves.  Also, I was being cautious.  We both agreed it could have been a trap.  Besides, if I’d rushed down there we just would have been caught in the open by that squad,” she whispered.

Goblins with knives held in their mouths began to climb the walls.  The gangly, three fingered beasts moved with with surprising deftness, even if it did lack any elven grace.  They didn’t seem to be intent on her, though, but if she didn’t push further along what remained of the building’s roof, if not delve inside the building, they would surround her without knowing it.  Although it hurt to grip the stone wall with her gloved hands, Ayara managed pulled herself further up before dip into the building.  “Your acorns are in there, too,” she told the sprite.  If they moved quickly, they could perhaps find Tad, kill him, and retrieve Henri before the enemy learned she was here. If they moved too slow, they’d need every weapon at their disposal.

Back in the shade of the stone ruin, Ayara felt the sharp cold of the Land of Darkness.  She crept down, sticking to the shadows, as she heard soldiers running about below and on the sides.  As she did, Renaut found her way into the pouch and whistled to bring her leaf weapons to life.

Ayara crept along, following snatches of conversation between Tad and Henri.  Their conversation seemed almost jovial.  Perhaps Tad was a master of manipulation and won his prisoners over with sweet talk.  That made him especially dangerous. 

“Wait a moment,” Renaut commanded. 

Ayara froze. Her belt writhed as Renaut used the leaf weapons to emerge from the pouch.  Each leaf was treated with razor sap along the edges and tethered to one of the sprite’s fingers by spider silk.  With each finger acting as its own elongated appendage she was able to move herself about on a dance of daggers.  Like a spider reaching out with its long legs she tested the floor before descending.  “Where are we, anyway?”

“I think it’s the entrance to a temple,” Ayara answered.  The reliefs on the façade depicted the races of the Map, save for a sprite which would be so small it was the first to weather away. Such a display was standard for a temple of Primarch.  However, for such a long entryway she saw no sign of an actual temple ahead.

Renaut took a few steps on her makeshift legs silk and feet of bladed leaves.  Below, something oinked with excitement.  She leaned over the edge of a hole in the floor, suspended by the webbing, and proceeded to make a series of guttural grunts. 

“What’re you doing?”

“Talking to that boar down there.”

“You speak boar?”

“I speak animal.”

“They all use the same language?”

“We’re talking, aren’t we? And you can understand the orcs and trolls well enough, can’t you? ”

She’d understood their cries of anguish and screams of fear well enough the night before.  Maybe even a few curses.  She rolled her eyes and looked away as the sprite continued her conversation. “What are you talking about, anyway?”

“I’m offering some tasty elven snacks from the camp in exchange for him leading those soldiers away so we can rescue my brother … or at least I would be if you’d stop interrupting!”

She continued for a little longer.  

Ayara crept to the edge, where the second floor had fallen away, and looked down.  The boar turned his head up and uttered a series of squeals and grunts before trotting away, leaving a trail of urine behind.  Renaut cursed. 

“I have an idea what his response was, but could you tell me just to be sure?”  Ayara crept along the wall.  Why hadn’t any of the soldiers come inside the market?

“He said the Dread Lord Withering Sorrows will snap our bones so they can suckle on the sweet marrow inside and that we’re uglier than a turd from a troll who ate a rotting bearwulv.” Renaut raised her arms as she resting on her leaf weapons like a throne. “I’m going to make bacon out of you,” she yelled after the boar as the trotted away.

That communication device Renaut had mentioned was getting used.  Directly below, she heard a voice which sounded tinny and hollow, despite being near.

“Tad? This is Palical. That elf just slipped into the building with you, be careful! We’re almost in there!”

“You saw her come in here,” a squeakier, more present, voice asked. Then he repeated himself but with a hollow sound to it. He was directly below, hidden behind a pile of rubble.

“Give me my brother,” Renaut yelled as dropped below and charged the pile of rubble.

The goblin peeked his head over the top of the pile and yelped in surprise.  Diving back down, he flung a block at the sprite, who leaned to avoid it.  At first Ayara thought it was a brick, but it reflected light against its slick black surface and a red jewel seemed embedded on it.  Fearing it to be some sort of weapon, Ayara blasted at it with her gloves.  The slab danced in the air as the floor beside it exploded.  Adjusting her aim, Ayara landed a second shot which exploded the object into black pebbles and a lone jewel that bounced on the ground. 

With an ear-splitting squeal the boar charged Renaut.  Although some of the bladed leaves grazed its hide, the animal managed to knock the sprite aside as it rushed by to climb the mound ahead and disappear behind it to join the goblin.

Ayara kept an eye on the rubble as she jumped to the floor below and scooped up Renaut in her hands.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” The sprite pulled tugged at the spider silk to pull up her leaves.

The goblin rode his boar down the hall.  As the animal’s galloping hooves faded away, Ayara peeked over the pile of rubble to verify no one was there. “We lost them.”

“Then lets go after them!” Renaut pointed the way with one of her leaves. 

At the other end of the hall, behind the pair, the front door of the hall crashed down.  Ayara and Renaut whirled to face the boulder-toting troll as he squeezed through the entryway. 

“Are you here, Tad,” he bellowed while looking about. Goblins rushed past him, passing beside and between his legs, while a orcs were gathered behind, waiting for him to get out of their way. 

“It’s too late!” Ayara looked to the floor above.

“Get those filthy invaders! String them up by their toes,” a scraggly goblin shouted as he climbed across the troll’s shoulder and shot an arrow at her.  Renaut managed to slap the projectile away before it struck Ayara.

“I’ll hold them off while you find a good position!” Lost in a flurry of her rolling blades, the sprite shot towards the goblins swarming into the hall.

Ayara ascended the wall to the ledge and watched the melee at the entrance.  The lead goblin dropped to the floor, tossing aside his bow and snatching up a dagger from his belt.

“Careful, Gint. You know how dangerous these sprites can be.”

“I can handle this,” the goblin replied. He studied Renaut’s movements for only a moment, watching as Renaut cut down his allies, before pouncing at her.  He twisted in the air, narrowly avoiding slices from Renaut’s leaves and hacking at the threads connecting them to her fingers. While those leaves dropped to the floor, one of those still controller by her cut a gruesome gash across his chest.  He stumbled back, looking down in shock as he made a gurgling scream. 

“Help the boss,” a goblin shouted.  They descended on Gint, tearing off his armor to address his wound while others watched Renaut with weapons ready.

Seeing her opportunity, Renaut reiterated and joined Ayara. “Clear them out,” she commanded in a shriek.

By blasting the walls with shots from her gloves Ayara was able to clear the entryway.  She lie down as Renaut fussed with her remaining leaves.  “We need a plan,” Ayara said, panting.  “We’re in no position to strike them as it is.”