Lords of RPG

CLEARING THE WAY

Vax’s request had to some extent already been fulfilled. T’na knew that it would be needed and that they would have items he might want…knowledge he might want…he had been sneaking out here and there to areas the other soldiers weren’t watching, to kill the Targs and Swaldunis who had survived, to harvest parts off fallen dragons, and to look for anything “telling”…anything that gave a clue to what this had all been about. As usual, he hadn't really gotten permission or asked for it.

Vax finished his speech and then his instructions and T’na got to work faster than even he was used to. Possessed might be the word. The opportunity to kill swaldunis, the ability to watch their magic fade away by his own hand, it fascinated him...made him feel hungry. The coastline, the invasion zone was two days long at a good pace. The zone closest to their tents was already clear. But that left the rest…weeks to check everyone and everywhere that needed cleaning…and of more than one type.

In his tent packing supplies as Vax was turning to look for him, T'na decided to take an extra few minutes to send a message out through the network he had created as Steve. Nothing centralized, just a system of messages, like the thieves cant, letting people who knew what to look for, where to find it.

The message was simple. If able and not helping the infirm, bring the fallen to the pits dug by the falling dragons or to the levies and earthen walls built to defend the land.

Ekz headed south and worked his way up the coast quickly fulfilling Vax’s request. After three days he was at the northern edge of the invasion zone and covered in the stench of death. Almost all of the kills had been mercy, but a few…they had not. They were assassinations.

Placing the signs so the network could see the message had not been his priority until now. Equal priority to bringing the bodies of the fallen to the already dug pits. The pits dug by falling dragons, the pits created by explosions, the walls and earthen embankments created as defenses. They were all burial zones now and updating the signs was a priority he was trying to delegate now.

There were almost no helpers…almost everyone living was injured or helping the injured. At the northern edge of the battle zone, near the coast, on small cliffs, still scalable, but intimidating nonetheless, T'na was doing what he could, just dragging the bodies into the pits, when he saw a small form scurrying through a small scar in the land a few dozen yards ahead. Prey drive kicking in, Ekz moved forward and to the left, a flanking maneuver, as he drew his sword and clenched that part inside that was the magic, the force he had been trying to nurture and learn.

The scurrying form was actually a squad. Four young goblins, rummaging through bodies, taking some items, but not others. Things that were useful, not as much things that were valuable. They weren’t warriors yet…hadn’t seen a drumming, or whatever right of passage the goblins up here had Ekz thought as he circled them, slowly closing in on his prey.

“I think I heard something…” the one little gobbo said as Ekz stepped out of the shadows into their field of view just a few yards ahead.

“Because I wanted you to hear me.” Ekz said while lifting his left hand and launching a bolt of fire at the one in the back, hitting him square in the chest and leaving a bowling ball-sized crater in his chest cavity.

While the other three’s jaws dropped, Ekz threw another firebolt, killing the now furthest back. Rushing forward, Ekz closed in on the remaining two young goblins.

Both reached for their bows and got them out but had not yet drawn arrows when Ekz got to them. Grabbing both at once, there was a popping sound and the slight smell of sulfur. As the air cleared all three of them were up four hundred feet and a hundred feet out…leaving them over 600 feet over the ocean.

Ekz kicked the larger one sending him off tumbling and then rubbed his swan's feather, while murmuring a few words an old elf had taught him a lifetime ago, slowing his and the one remaining goblins fall to a feather’s pace. Turning towards the coast, in the middle of the night, slowly falling and safely landing on the sandy shore of an area he had already cleared.

“Go back and tell them: Bury these dead…bury them all…do it in the night…before the next moonfall…and burn your own.”

The young goblin, no more than seven years old looked confused and scared, but also focused. It took a moment for Ekz to remember he himself looked no more than a couple of years older than this young goblin. Having someone your age, do everything he had just done…it required a quick change in strategy…not that he had planned one.

“Tell them Ekz said to! Tell them I’ve returned and those that aid me will be rewarded!” With a flash of his yellow eyes, a quick nod, and a sneaky hand movement, Ekz moved a mound of loose earth from the edge of the pit inward covering the bodies inside. “And bury these dead!!!”

It had only been a few hours, but in that time the sun had come up, barely breaking the horizon and the small gobbo had dragged all the bodies in the area to the small pit dug by the explosions of something. The small goblin looked around…scared to leave but scared to stay. The bodies were all in the pit and the smell of sulfur had faded. All by itself, in the middle of the foggy battlefield the small lonely young goblin left with a message to deliver…and a shadow following, watching and occasionally clearing the way so it could pass unhindered.

Vax waited as long as he could, but still they had not seen T’na, not since his instructions a while ago. By all reports and they were days old, all the Swalduni were dead, there had been no survivors. The dead were buried, the injured that were stable enough to travel were on the ships and those that weren’t…were dead. They had to go…Eldermont needed its king.

Without a word and barely a nod, Vax signaled Hamish and the anchor was raised, the sails were hoisted and the Eldermont navy began its journey home.  A scuffle on the makeshift pier seconds after the ship’s departure, a popping sound, and the smell of sulfur announced T’na’s return.

What looked like a sickly halfling in a slightly oversized hooded cloak appeared in a cloud of smoke in the middle of the upper deck on Hamish’s ship. “Sorry I’m late…I tried something unconventional…it’ll take a while, but maybe, just maybe, the dead will be buried after all.” Said a voice they all knew from a body even the speaker wasn’t used to yet.