Morwyn's pulse pounded in her ears as the gates swung open. There were several men on either side of the road as the companions stepped through and her heart sank when she drew close enough to get her first good look at them. Though their tabards looked to be crisp and clean, the grimy and tattered clothes beneath them belied their crude attempt at disguises. Their beards and hair were unkempt, their posture slack and undisciplined. These were no soldiers, that much was clear. They passed well enough from a distance until it was too late to turn back, and she'd had no real option other than to lead her party straight into their trap. She wondered how long it would take them to spring it. The one small spark of hope that flared as dread threatened to overwhelm her was that her allies had followed her lead without hesitation. She didn't take them for suicidal, so they must have had faith in their skill at arms.
Argoth, as always, was particularly unperturbed. As he stepped between Trux and Eronir to walk beside her, she could almost detect the hint of a smile at the edge of his tusked mouth.
She gave the two men opening the gate a curt nod and attempted to keep her eyes forward while counting them in her peripheral vision. One on the palisade. One on each gate. Two on the left, leaning against the wall of a barracks building. Three more on the right gathered around a well. At least two more standing at the foot of the bridge in the distance. An unknown number beyond.
Ten men, and likely more on the other side of the river. The odds weren't looking good.
“Remember, ten gold each to the captain. Don't try and short us!” the man on the palisade shouted with a laugh. Morwyn flinched at the sound of the gate slamming closed behind them but continued forward at a measured pace. She didn't dare to look behind and risk showing her rising panic. No matter how capable her fellows might be, they could certainly be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers.
Steady now, Morwyn, her father's words drifted through the racing thoughts clouding her mind. The most important weapon you have is your nerve. Lose it, and you've lost the fight before it begins.
Gods, she missed him. She missed them all. Morwyn wondered just how many of her family were still alive.
She clenched her jaw and flexed her hands, the leather of her gloves creaking at the tension, as she reminded herself to stay focused on the precarious present predicament. Her eyes flicked back and forth to the buildings on either side of the road as they marched forward. The latch on the side door of the barracks hung broken, the door itself swaying slightly in the gentle breeze. Another building sported a broken window on the second floor. There were many footprints in the mud on either side of the cobblestone that ran through the center of the fort, but most were faded by rain with few of them fresh in comparison.
They must have attacked at night during the cover of darkness to hide their numbers, she mused. Overwhelmed the sentries, slew the garrison in their beds. It was quick. Most evidence left behind by their attack was washed away in today's rain storm.
“We have an escort,” Trux murmured to Morwyn. “Five comin' up behind us.”
“I'm afraid my plan may get us killed,” Morwyn said through gritted teeth.
“Nonsense,” Argoth interjected in a surprisingly quiet tone. “I like the odds.”
“That makes one of us,” Eronir hissed. The elf's posture was rigid to keep his spear from being seen as a threat by the cutthroats ambling up behind them.
The tension was almost thick enough to slow her movement as Morwyn approached the bridge itself. The crashing of the river against stone below showed just how futile it would be to try and navigate without going miles around, with steep embankments and frothing rapids to either side for quite some distance. She couldn't imagine a more effective bottleneck than what lay before them. A man stood on either side of the bridge, one human, the other a massive orc that had perhaps an inch or two of height on Argoth. A monstrously large battleaxe stood against the stone pillar beside him. Neither bothered to wear the colors of the Southlander army. The human, who would've been vaguely handsome if not for his unwashed face and long greasy hair, stepped forward as they approached. His tone was congenial but his green eyes raked over Morwyn in a way that set her blood boiling.
“Welcome to Whitewater Crossing,” he said with a crooked smile. “I trust my men have mentioned the toll for use of this beautiful bridge?”
“Indeed they have,” Morwyn said in a guarded tone, unsure of where this was going. Each passing moment felt like another step toward the edge of a cliff. “We are prepared to pay.”
“Ah, wonderful. That'll be twenty apiece.”
Morwyn frowned and crossed her arms.
“Your man said ten.”
The 'captain' of the highwaymen grinned ruefully and clasped his hands together.
“Oh, did he? So difficult to find good help these days. Twenty gold each.”
The orc to his left growled and stood up, laying one hand on the haft of his axe.
Morwyn regarded the man warily as the silence waxed on for several long seconds.
Argoth suddenly stepped forward, his arms spread wide in a friendly gesture. Morwyn nearly began to protest, but Trux tugged on her sleeve, giving her a small shake of the head and mouthing the words too late.
“Seems you've got us at a disadvantage, mate. We're but four weary travelers that need to cross this bridge and we don't have the coin for twenty each. Ten, well, that we could scrape together. Twenty is askin' a bit much, don't you think?”
Morwyn's mind raced as she tried to figure out Argoth's angle before she realized that she was too focused on what he was doing, not her own job. She turned around and gave an exaggerated sigh to her other companions while looking over their shoulders. Half a dozen men stood in a semicircle behind them, hands straying to the handles of their various weapons. She cracked her knuckles and briefly flashed six fingers. Eronir rubbed the tip of one ear while Trux gave her a wink.
“Oh, I don't think twenty is too much at all! This bridge is quite a feat of engineering, and maintenance costs have gone through the roof. Wouldn't you agree, Yarr?”
“Yarr,” the orc replied, taking a step forward to come face to face with Argoth. The tip of his axe cut a winding trail in the mud as he dragged it beside him.
“Easy there, Tiny. Just having a conversation with this gentleman here.” Argoth put both his hands up in an odd gesture, as if he were gripping the hilt of a weapon in front of him pointed at Yarr, yet his hands were empty and the other orc stood mere inches in front of him.
“Come to think of it,” the brigand leader drawled as he stepped away from the bridge to flank Argoth with one hand on his sword, “Why don't you fine folk hand over everything you've got? We can do this nice and easy and send you on your way.”
Morwyn's hand drifted beneath her cloak to the hilt of her sword. She watched the six brigands behind her allies inch forward as she tried to gauge where the leader's footsteps and voice would place him in relation to her. Eronir stood still as a statue, his face unreadable. Trux's eyes followed movement on the bridge behind Morwyn. More men approached from the far side, their boots thumping on the stone as they crossed. The world seemed to freeze for a moment and all Morwyn could hear was the sound of her own breath starting to heave.
“Have it your way, then,” Argoth said with a shrug. A jet of pure darkness exploded out from his empty hands as a two-handed falchion, as black as the void and humming with violent energy, burst out the back of Yarr's midsection with a spray of blood. The impaled orc grabbed feebly at the blade in his stomach, not understanding what had happened. Argoth leaned forward slightly and grunted as he heaved upward, ripping the blade through Yarr's torso and out the side of his neck, nearly cleaving him in two.
Argoth let out a blood-curdling roar of manic delight and all hells broke loose.
“KILL THEM!” The leader of the brigands screamed, stumbling backward in shock. His men charged forward toward Eronir and Trux as Morwyn drew her sword and spun around in one fluid motion, slashing down with an overhand cut where she thought the captain stood. He was further away than she expected and the tip of her blade whistled in front of his nose by several inches. Her following two-handed rising cut was met with steel as the man drew and parried sloppily, but it was effective enough to keep his arm attached. A crossbow loosed from behind her, followed by a grunt of pain and the clashing of steel and wood.
The captain backed up into a low guard, which Morwyn matched for a heartbeat, until she saw his gaze flick behind her. On instinct she ducked and spun on her heel in the mud as a blade ripped through the air where her neck had been a moment before. One of the other brigands had slipped past Eronir, who was fending off three men with his spear. Another lay on the ground, gurgling as he clutched a bolt that protruded from his neck, while the sixth ran behind a nearby barrel and crouched, his crossbow raised. The crossbowman loosed and the bolt skated off of Trux's pauldron with a metallic screech before whizzing off into the distance.
With no time or space to attack with her sword, Morwyn sprang up from her crouch and shouldered her attacker in the chest, knocking him back where he slipped and fell with a jingle of mail and a curse. She made to run past him just as the captain made a wild slash at her unguarded back, the impact sending her stumbling forward, but the dwarven mail held strong and blocked the cut. She regained her balance and whirled around to face the captain just as Argoth bellowed and barreled into the knot of men rushing across the bridge to join the fight. For half a second Morwyn was confused as the captain was no longer there, then she caught sight of him ducking between two buildings across the road. She made the split second decision to let him go. Eronir and Trux needed her. The three remaining men from the gate were rushing them now as well.
Morwyn's eyes went wide as she saw Trux kneel and reload her heavy crossbow by hand, her biceps straining against the string with the butt pressed against a wide metal plate on her belt. In a flash, the dwarf slapped a fresh bolt on the crossbow and loosed it into the face of her previous attacker as he peeked around the barrel for another shot. Trux then flung her crossbow over her back on its sling and drew a pair of long daggers from her belt, looking around wide-eyed with the excitement.
Eronir was a blur of movement as he danced with his spear to keep the other three brigands out of reach, landing glancing blows here and there but nothing substantive enough to incapacitate them as they worked to flank him. Morwyn charged past Trux and caught one under the arm with a powerful thrust, feeling the tip of her blade split the mail armor and plunge deep into his torso. As she fought to wrench her blade free, Eronir took advantage of the momentary distraction to plunge his spear inside one enemy's guard, piercing through the man's hand and into his neck, then using his enemy's own weight to yank the spear back out. The unscathed man in front of Eronir backed up a few steps and glanced over his shoulder, seeming to consider whether or not to run, when the three from the gate joined him.
Morwyn remembered the man she'd knocked prone only a moment before she saw the blur of Trux leaping atop him with a battle cry as she plunged both of her daggers downward. The two fell into a vicious grapple, vying for control of the blades, but Trux clearly outmatched the man in both strength and skill. Morwyn whirled back around and took up a high guard beside Eronir, her crimson blade steady despite her exertion. The elf beside her was not even breathing hard, though a nasty cut on his arm on the inside of his bracer left his green tunic dripping red.
She didn't dare turn to see how Argoth was faring, but the clashing of his otherworldly blade against his opponents' steel was unmistakable. It almost seemed to scream rather than clang. She swore she could hear him laughing over the din of battle, but the sounds were getting closer. He was giving ground, against how many men she couldn't say.
Morwyn and Eronir spread slightly apart in order to keep the four- no, five attackers from flanking them between the buildings. Morwyn scowled as she saw the captain had rejoined his men at the back of their loose formation. Coward.
A second passed, then another, then the enemy rushed the two defenders with a war cry. Two with axes and shields charged Eronir while another swordsman and axeman came for Morwyn. The captain, she noted absently, hung back a few steps to see how the melee would go. She didn't have time to consider him long, as the man with the axe reached her first and swung low to try and clip her forward leg. She stepped back quickly, remembering the last time she'd failed to do so, and met the haft of his axe with a side cut to counter his follow up slash to her shoulder. Neither she nor her blade had the strength to withstand a direct blow from the axe, so she angled her blade and flung it upward to skip the axe up and over her head, then stepped forward and punched the man in the face as hard as she could with her mailed off-hand. She felt a sickening crunch and couldn't tell if it was his nose, her knuckles, or both.
He stumbled back just as the swordsman reached her and made a wild overhand slash at her left side. Morwyn grabbed her own blade with her left hand and parried the attack directly with no time for finesse. She skated her blade around his then threw her right elbow over his arm to pin it to her side before throwing all of her weight down on the joint. The man screamed as his shoulder was yanked from its socket and hammered at her head with his other fist, dazing her for a second before she released her grip on his arm and backhanded him with the pommel of her sword, caving in the right side of his face with a gush of blood from his mouth and nose. She blinked away the stars from the impacts to her head and raised her sword for a deadly overhand stroke to finish him just as a crushing blow struck her in the stomach, causing an explosion of pain and flinging her to the ground.
The axeman, furious and spraying blood from his shattered nose and broken mouth, bellowed unintelligibly as he raised his axe for another swing that would surely cleave her skull. Morwyn struggled weakly to crawl away backwards, but her entire body felt sluggish and disconnected and she couldn't draw a breath no matter how hard she tried. As the axe rose above her in preparation for its fatal arc, Morwyn realized something that was not possible before that moment.
She was happy.
Not for the death she'd dealt to these evil men, nor for the glorious death she'd never wanted.
She was happy to have given her companions, and the caravan, a fighting chance.
She would never know what lay in store at the end of their journey, but she had given her life in service to others instead of herself. For the idea of something better. Something they believed in so strongly, even if she didn't understand it. She found meaning in her death that she hadn't yet found in life.
Thud-thud.
As she watched the crescent blade of the axe begin to descend, Morwyn wondered why the ground was shaking.
Thud-thud.
The brigand's blood-splattered face screamed silently as he threw his whole body into the blow.
Thud.
A massive black and red form collided with the man above her, sending him flying sideways with enough force to shatter his arm and send the axe whirling to the side. He tumbled in a heap, eyes wide in shock, first blinking slowly and staring at her, then looking up to the dark shape above him. Argoth, covered head to toe in gore, his chest heaving with exertion, placed one foot on the side of the man's head and threw his weight down with a sickening crunch. The brigand twitched and flailed for a moment, then curled up and went still.
Through the shock Morwyn felt a pair of hands grab her shoulders and try to lift her up. She heard someone shouting her name several times before she finally fought through it to pull in a shaky breath. The world came crashing back, and with it came excruciating pain.
“Morwyn! Get back in the fight, we need you-”
Trux's shout was cut short as a bolt from a crossbow struck low in her side, finding a gap in her armor and sinking all the way to the fletching. Her eyes went wide with surprise and she fell back on her knees, clutching at the wound. Morwyn struggled to sit up, favoring her stomach. Though several links fell from a small split in her mail, she hadn't been disemboweled after all. She searched numbly for her sword in the mud and blood that surrounded her on all sides. When her fingers found the hilt, she felt a surge of strength flood through them as her body dumped every ounce of adrenaline it had left into her bloodstream. The scene came sharply into focus, and with it, the clashing of blades and the screams of dying men.
“Trux, stay still! Don't pull it out, I can help you!” Morwyn almost didn't realize it was her own voice with the force of her own shout. She rose shakily to her feet and leaned on her sword for a second before raising it once more as she took stock of the battlefield.
Argoth swung his black blade in massive whirling arcs to fend off four men while Eronir leaned against a nearby wall, gripping a gushing wound in his thigh with one hand while fumbling with a small glass vial with the other. If Argoth wasn't fighting defensively to protect the three of them, she was certain the fight would already be over. Gritting her teeth and hoping that Trux had listened to her, Morwyn jogged forward, clutching her stomach with her left forearm.
“Argoth! On your right!”
The big orc didn't reply, but he shifted his stance slightly to the left and adjusted his pattern of swings to avoid hitting her by mistake. Without giving the brigands a chance to capitalize on the slight pause, Morwyn lashed forward with a quick cut toward the nearest man's knee, splitting it wide and causing him to fall over. With all pretense of form gone with the wind, Morwyn slashed down at his throat and met his arm raised in defense, lopping off the hand as the tip of her blade rent through his face instead of his neck. Blood from his severed stump sprayed across her face, nearly blinding her.
Sensing the tide was turning, two of the men harrying Argoth hesitated as if about to flee. He sank his blade into one from neck to navel with a brutal overhand slash while the other ran headlong toward Morwyn. The brigand threw his sword at her and tried to rush past, though ducking his sword only served to bring her side cut lower than intended and caught him in both thighs. Another quick cut from the opposite side, this time to his neck, ended his screaming before it began as his head lolled back, his throat severed.
The final man, the captain, had already backed up several paces and was out of reach of both Morwyn and Argoth as he weighed his chances of escape. He was bloodied, but not severely, while Morwyn was barely on her feet and Argoth bled from a dozen or more wounds. A throaty laugh broke the momentary silence.
“You can run, but you'll just die tired.”
Argoth's words lingered in the humid air wrought with the stench of blood and death. The captain, sensing the truth in his words, looked frantically between the two of them as he dropped an empty crossbow to the ground and took his sword in both hands.
“I'll give you money-”
“Don't beg,” Argoth growled. “Won't do you no good.”
Morwyn shifted to her right, flanking their enemy.
“What are we doing, Argoth?” she asked, uncertain why he hadn't killed the man yet. The orc cracked his neck and yanked a crossbow bolt from his left shoulder with a spurt of blood. Two more sprouted from his upper back.
“Two on one ain't very honorable, is it?”
Morwyn looked over to Argoth incredulously, unable to fathom a response at that moment.
“Right you are,” the cutthroat captain agreed, glancing rapidly between the two of them. “As wise as you are strong.” His flattery fell flat as he flicked his sword to face them in turn. Morwyn raised her own blade in warning, struggling to hold her stance.
“Argoth, Trux and Eronir are bleeding out. We don't have time for this!”
The manic grin on Argoth's face softened slightly at the words and he seemed to come back to his former self, if only slightly.
“Finish him, I'll see to the others.” Argoth released his grip on his eerie black blade, but rather than fall to the ground, it dissipated like shadow before a flame and was gone. The hulking orc reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out several vials, turning his back on the captain as he did so, dismissing him as he walked over to their gravely wounded companions. Morwyn shook her head in disbelief, shifting once more to place herself between her enemy and her allies. A glint came back to the captain's eye and he chuckled darkly as he began to circle her, probing for weakness.
“Well now, there's a sporting chance, one on one with the fair lady. Not like the orc. I've never seen such a monster.”
Morwyn matched his steps, her blade trained on the man wherever he moved.
“Not an option you afforded us,” she spat. “If I had my way, I'd let him tear you apart.”
His first attack was a test, an overhand right, telegraphed and easily parried without leaving him exposed. Their blades met and rebounded smoothly and they reset to their guard positions. Unlike his men, the captain was a trained swordsman. She'd been lucky he'd been caught off guard at the start of their fight, or she might not have fared as well in those first chaotic moments. She still felt the dull throb of where his blade had slammed into the mail on her back, but it paled in comparison to the ache in her abdomen. His second attack was much faster, a thrust that transitioned into a high cross cut, which she barely managed to parry before stepping back to create distance.
Morwyn knew she was more wounded than he was, and as such she didn't have the strength to wear him out or extend the duel and hope for an opening. One advantage that she had was reach- her longsword was at least six inches longer than his weapon, and as they were roughly the same height, it extended her threat ever so narrowly over his. It was a slim margin, but significant.
She pressed the attack with a high downward cut aimed at his head, which the captain blocked with a high parry as she expected. Rather than step forward into the next attack, she took half a step back as her sword rebounded from his and used the momentum to whirl the blade to the side to strike at his hand with all the strength she could muster. She saw his eyes go wide; the change in distance and momentum was unexpected as he was readying to parry a strike to the body. The tip of her blade split through his hand down past the wrist into his forearm, and the man dropped his sword with a hoarse scream of agony.
Morwyn hopped back the rest of the step and held her high guard for a moment, panting heavily. The captain fell to his knees and looked up to her with pleading eyes.
“Make it qui-”
A flash of her blade cut off his sentence, and his head.
Morwyn gradually lowered her sword in the silence that followed. She heard Eronir and Argoth whispering heatedly behind her and she turned in a daze to see what was happening. The elf, no longer gushing blood from his thigh, knelt beside Argoth over the still form of Lady Trux. Morwyn staggered forward, dropping her sword as she fell to her knees beside the dwarf as well.
“We need to take the bolt out, Eronir! If we don't she'll die!” Argoth's forced whisper was just as menacing as his bellowed battle cry, if not more so.
“If you do that, she'll be dead before the potion can seal her wounds!” Eronir shot back, holding one of Trux's limp hands in both of his. Argoth reached over his shoulder with some difficulty and yanked out the bolts that had pierced the armor on his back and threw them to the ground in frustration.
“It works for me, why won't it work for her?”
Morwyn placed a hand on Argoth's forearm, as much to calm him as it was to steady herself.
“The bolt is deep inside her, Argoth. Not just a flesh wound.”
“What fuckin' difference does that make? Magic is magic. The potion should do its work!”
Morwyn shot the men a pleading glance as she stripped off her mail gloves, slick with blood, and dug into her haversack with trembling hands.
“I can help her, I think. But it will be close. I need both of you to keep your heads, or she doesn't have a chance. Please.” The silence that followed assured Morwyn that they understood just how critical the next steps were. She withdrew her scroll case from her haversack and fumbled it into the mud. Eronir picked it up and wiped it on a clean corner of his cloak before handing it back.
“You... have magic of your own?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
“Of a sort,” Morwyn murmured distractedly as she gingerly retrieved the scroll she was searching for from the case. She touched the back of one hand to her aching head and it came away bloody. She felt nauseous. “But I need to concentrate... to read the incantation. Which will be difficult. Eronir, I need you to hold her down while Argoth draws the bolt from her wound.” Trux, strangely silent and nearly delirious, shakily turned her head to look at Morwyn. Her skin was as pale as the parchment of the scroll, offset by the bright crimson blood of her enemies splattered across her face. She nodded weakly, then screwed her eyes up against the pain.
Morwyn unfurled one of her two precious scrolls of healing and blinked away the sweat and tears from her eyes. The words swam on the parchment and made her dizzy for a moment.
“Gods damn it, why did the scribe have to write in Elvish and in cursive?” she swore, then rubbed her eyes and laid the opened scroll on Trux's chest. “Just before I finish the incantation, I'll place a hand on her forehead. When I do, pull the bolt. It'll hurt her, but trust me, the damage it does coming out will be mended if we do this right. Don't be gentle. Yank. It. Out.”
Eronir nodded. Argoth growled his understanding. With no time to waste, Morwyn began to read the magic of the scroll.
It always felt strange when she dipped her fingers into the fabric of the universe. It was different than when she was younger. Different than when Rennock spoke in her mind. She'd learned to unlock the magic imbued in scrolls out of necessity several years prior. Prepared magic felt like meddling in the affairs of a stranger; it was difficult to harness at the best of times, and now, Morwyn was not at her best. It was all she could do to keep from screaming in frustration as the incantation jumbled in her mind, refusing to straighten itself out. She struggled through it as best she could and slowly felt the warm glow of the healing magic seep from the scroll into her hands. It was tenuous, but when she neared the end, she placed a hand on Trux's brow. Argoth gave a sharp tug and the bolt tore free, with it a gush of blood from the hole in the dwarf's side.
When Morwyn finished the incantation, nothing happened. One heartbeat passed. Two. Then the corners of the scroll began to crumble to gray dust and Morwyn began to panic.
“No, no, no! Fuck!”
“What happened?” Argoth demanded.
“The spell failed! I didn't read it right! Gods damn it. I have one more. Press your hand on the wound, Argoth. Hard as you can!”
“Morwyn,” Eronir spoke, his voice firm but deadly serious. “I don't know magic, but I do know the language. Will it help if I read it for you, and you repeat after me?”
Morwyn withdrew her last healing scroll, wishing she'd had the coin to purchase more.
“I don't know, but we're out of time and I don't have any better ideas.”
Eronir took the scroll from her shaking hands and laid it firmly over the failed ashes of the first. He held one end down while she held the other and began to read the incantation. Following along and hearing the words spoken properly certainly seemed to strengthen her wavering connection to the magic but Trux's fleeting vitality made it difficult to anchor. Morwyn pressed her palm against her wounded head and continued on, probing for a lifeline into which she could pour the magic.
There! Weak and fading, but there was a connection. As she and Eronir read the last of the incantation in unison, she thrust the magic deep into Trux's failing body and felt a familiar rush of warmth envelop her hands. They began to glow with a soft golden light as she pushed Argoth's hand aside and clamped both of hers over the wound. She could feel the flesh begin to knit from the inside out and could sense the halt of blood. The dwarf's fluttering pulse steadied somewhat and she took in a shuddering breath, a bit of life returning to her cloudy eyes and a touch of color returning to her pale cheeks. When the spell had run its course Morwyn sat back, hardly daring to breathe until Trux let out a wracking cough and spat a glob of blood out onto her chest.
“P-Potion...” Morwyn muttered to the others. Argoth quickly uncorked a vial and poured the contents into Trux's crimson mouth. “Me too,” she continued as she began to sway.
As soon as the shimmering golden liquid touched her tongue, blackness enveloped her vision and Morwyn passed out.