The Companions of Tartiël

by Jeff Wilcox

  The blademaster launched himself from the rooftop in a leaping charge at the dark being snarling in exertion and anger. Holding his soulblade in both hands, he rocketed toward his foe and swung in a scything arc that caught the first rays of the suns shining down from between the leaves like a pair of holy lances.

  Still laughing, the Nemesis-like creature flapped his wings and dusted off, dodging Kaiyr’s attack to hover high in the air. “Yes,” he chuckled. “You’ve become quite a thorn in my master’s side, elf. I was told to return that lady over there as a warning to all of you. Getting further tangled in our business is going to be… messy. For you.” With another cackle, he turned and beat his wings against the air even as some of the elves on the ground scared up a few bows and arrows. As their weapons twanged, the creature soared away and out of range. “For your sake, I hope to never see you again. But then, it might be fun tearing you limb from limb.” His words and laughter faded from hearing as his form likewise disappeared through the trees and into the sky.

  A hush fell over the crowd. Kaiyr crouched in the same position in which he had landed. Astra leaned against the chimney to support her wounded body. She, Caineye, and Wild stared, slack-jawed, at where the creature had been hovering in the air.

  At last, Kaiyr straightened, twirled his soulblade once, and released it. Then, turning, he fixed Maran with a steady gaze that bespoke icy vengeance. “I gladly accept the task set before me.”

  *

  The minions of Sayel, however, were not yet done toying with the companions. As the trio, bedraggled and exhausted, helped the elves organize themselves, one of Kathir’s lieutenants arrived, covered in long lacerations.

  “We… need help at the den,” he gasped, shaking weakly on all four paws from lack of blood. “Damn. That man… he was one of them, after all.”

  “We’re there,” Caineye said, looking at Kaiyr and Wild with an expression that told them in no uncertain terms they would be coming with him, grieving, fatigued, wounded, or not. Both of them nodded back; they would have come regardless.

  They sped through the trees, having told the wounded Terth’Kaftineya to stay put and rest. Kaiyr carried Wild on one shoulder so they could all travel faster, the trees rushing by in a speed-and exhaustion-inspired blur. When at last they neared the den, Kathir and Mateus, along with five others, appeared, blocking their path. All of them carried wounds of battle, but also something that ran much deeper.

  “You sent one of them into our midst!” Mateus growled, stepping forward menacingly. “Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

  Wild winced. “Damn. So that acolyte was faking it this whole time. Is everything all right?”

  “Of course it’s not all right!” Mateus roared his last word trailing off into an angry howl that rattled the leaves on the trees around them.

  “Be silent, Mateus,” Kathir said calmly, though his voice betrayed his grief and weariness. “It is not their fault, but the fault of those who would visit such harm upon us.”

  Kaiyr frowned. “What happened?”

  Mateus looked like he wanted to leap forward and tear the blademaster’s head from his shoulders, but a look from Kathir, the alpha male, stopped him. Turning back to Kaiyr, the Terth’Kaftineya leader took a stabilizing breath. “The man you ‘rescued’ attacked the den. Some of them managed to get away, but… not many.”

  Caineye’s heterochromatic eyes widened in alarm. “That was where your females and cubs stayed, wasn’t it?”

  Kathir bowed his head. “So it was. He killed many of our kind this day with dark power. He may still be there, but we dare not approach, for his strange magics are still active, and we have already lost too many to his slaughter.”

  To everyone’s surprise, it was Wild who stepped forward. He pulled his crossbow from its holster on his satchel and laid a bolt in the channel. “I led him here, so I’ll take him out. I killed a dragon with this thing tonight. A traitorous priest shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  The Terth’Kaftineya let the group go to the den without further incident, and they soon found themselves watching while Wild lay in the bushes, his crossbow leveled at the opening of the cave where the wolfish creatures had made their den. They could hear the “acolyte” inside, humming a merry tune to himself as he dragged something—some many things—around for several minutes.

  The man did finally make an exit, pausing at the entrance to the den to glance around for looming danger. Wild murmured a little go-to-hell curse and pulled the trigger on his heavy crossbow.

  *

  “Boom!” Matt exclaimed upon seeing his d20 stop on the maximum number. “Headshot!”

  “Oh, jeez,” Dingo muttered. In his game, prior to the rest of us much later convincing him otherwise, Dingo used a “called shot” rule which let someone specify what part of a body they were aiming for. As you can imagine, it can and eventually did lead to some incredible cheesiness of which neither Xavier nor I partook, even though it wreaked havoc on the party on occasion. But in this case, it worked in our favor. “Well,” he said, “roll your damage. A called-headshot counts as a critical, so since you critted on that roll, triple your damage instead of just doubling it.”

  Matt got out his d8 and d6, rolling the former three times and the second one twice. “Two-dee-six sneak attack,” he said by way of explanation. “Plus three for Precise Shot after being multiplied by the critical. That’s… thirty damage.”

  *

  The young “acolyte” toppled over into the forest loam with the halfling’s bolt transfixing his skull. “That’s the last cleric of Alduros Hol I ever trust,” the halfling muttered to himself. Then, tipping his head side-to-side, he added, “Good thing Caineye’s not a priest.”

  The group didn’t hesitate longer than it took to make sure the wretch was truly dead before storming the den.

  “How… could he do this?” the druid gasped, and his words were echoed by a whimper from Vinto. Blood covered the walls, floor, and ceiling of the small cavern in wide streaks. Body parts jutted from the wall where they had been thrown so violently that the bones had been embedded in the stone. Terth’Kaftineya, in death looking like slaughtered wolves, littered the ground, which was slick with their entrails and fluids. Caineye fell to his knees in horror.

  Wild grimaced at the sight, knowing that he was in part to blame for the deaths of these magnificent creatures. But his halfling curiosity still got the better of him when he spotted of a glowing light from around a bend, farther in. Without thinking, he rushed ahead, leaving the other two and Vinto staring bleakly at the carnage. Kaiyr vainly tried to comfort Caineye, but he had little energy left in him to do so after the toll the night’s events had taken on his spirit.

  Rounding the corner, Wild skidded to a halt at a most curious sight. A magical portal stood open at the back of the cave, and beyond, the halfling could make out the slightly hazy image of a swamp. He ignored an angry shout that echoed through the cavern, instead staring into the portal. Peering closer in the pulsating, violet light, he could also see the form of a great, dark spire in the distance.

  When Wild returned to the others, Caineye was sitting near the gathering stone of the Terth’Kaftineya, holding the blasted end of a paw, just about as large as a pup’s paw would have been. Tears streamed down the druid’s face.

  Wild sighed and headed out into the late dawn, bending over the acolyte’s still form, the bolt still through his head. Without a word and without remorse, Wild commenced in stripping the man of everything he had except his knickers, then pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill and began writing a very nasty letter to whomever this man had served in life. When he finished, he pulled out another bolt from his case and drove it through the parchment and into the corpse’s back, then dragged the body past the oblivious Kaiyr and Caineye. The portal, it seemed, was closing, and it took him some effort to heave the body high enough to get it over the lip of the magical gateway. But it went through and landed with a silent splash just a
s the portal snapped closed for good.

  “Come on, you two,” said the halfling, taking charge where both Kaiyr and Caineye were too exhausted in more than one way to take up the role. “We can’t stay here. We’ve done all we can for now, so let’s get you both back to the inn and cleaned—”

  “Shut up,” Caineye growled at Wild, clutching the pup’s paw to his chest. “Just shut up, both of you!”

  The others, even Vinto, rocked back in surprise at the druid’s uncharacteristic outburst. But Kaiyr could sympathize, especially considering he had spurned Caineye’s comforting hand only hours earlier. “I will stay with him,” the blademaster said, too quietly to be heard by anyone but Wild. “Go and rest, Master Wild.”

  The smaller man shook his head. “No. You’ve had a rough night, too. You should go. I’ll stay with him.”

  “Let us both keep him company, then.”

  The two companions turned toward Caineye’s hunched-over form as the druid wept tears of sorrow for the loss of such lives. Both of them noted but did not mention aloud that suspiciously, none of the bodies in the cavern had been pups. They stood there in silent vigil over their friend.

  When at last Caineye did rise nearly an hour later, the tears were gone from his mismatched eyes, blue and green. Instead, they were replaced with a hardness that Kaiyr knew lay heavy on his own features.

  In unspoken agreement, the three of them, with Vinto trailing behind Caineye, left the den behind. None of them said a word on the walk back to Andorra, and each of them walked alone, several paces away from the others.

  *

  All of us sat in stunned silence about the dorm room Xavier and I shared. I stared at our bunked beds for lack of anything else to properly zone out on. The roleplay that had just concluded had been so intense that it left all of us feeling drained: physically because it had involved a lot of thinking and shouting and interrupting at the right times to achieve the desired effects, and emotionally because we empathized with our characters. Dingo had just told us that we were going to call it quits for the night, since we had just concluded what was essentially a chapter in our adventure. We had all deflated less than a second later.

  At length, Matt scratched his cheek and shook his head. “Day-umn,” he drew out the word, and he spoke for all of us.

  “I have to say,” Dingo said, setting his Dungeon Master’s Guide on top of his other books, “this is one of the best groups I’ve ever played with. Definitely. You guys are amazing.”

  Coming back to life at the chance to be an ass, I beamed. “Well, of course we are. I’m here, after all.” The rest of the room groaned in response, eliciting a chuckle from me. Then I shrugged. “I’m in agreement, actually. Matt, Xavier, Dingo. This was some intense roleplay. And excellent teamwork against that dragon.”

  “I wish I hadn’t used half my spells earlier that day,” Xavier said, tossing his character sheet onto his desk. “It would have made it a lot easier.”

  “Tell me about it,” I grumbled, pointing at my inventory. “I totally forgot about my wand of cure light wounds. Not that I’d have been able to use it without dropping my AC by six, but still. You really saved the day, though, both of you. I was totally sitting there, holding off that dragon, thinking, ‘Gee, I wish someone would blow this thing to smithereens for me.’”

  “It was divine intervention,” Matt said, bowing in mock reverence. “I live to serve.” We all laughed again.

  “And you,” I said, rounding on Dingo and pointing a finger at him. “You suck. Completely. I am so going to rape you with a telephone pole tonight. Thirty-six elven children….” I shook my head.

  Dingo just copied my grin. “Take that, O mighty blademaster. Seriously, you totally walked into that one.”

  “It was still Caineye who reminded you about it,” Xavier pointed out.

  I nodded. “Yeah, but Kaiyr’s not the kind of guy to spread blame around if he can help it. To him, he’s the one who killed them, since he dropped the Holy Hand Grenade down that hole and toasted those elves.”

  Matt shook his head. “Thirty-six elven children, Kaiyr. What a bastard you are. What a terrible person.”

  After we shared another laugh, Dingo rose and gathered up his books. “All right. I need to get going. I’ve got a paper to write before tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Dude,” I said, “it’s one-thirty in the morning.”

  “Night’s young. Anyway, I want all of you to level up. You’ve all earned level four. I’d actually like to level you up twice for all that…”

  We dissuaded him from doing so; most parties jump at the chance to gain levels, and thus, power. But although we had worked hard to defeat that dragon and keep our characters sane from all the hardships they had endured, we wanted to savor the experience of being fourth level before moving on to fifth. Then, after rolling hit points (my total became 35), Dingo and Matt returned to their rooms, and Xavier and I hit the sack, but not before sharing a lengthy conversation and reliving the highlights of the night’s session.

  XX.

  “So, Xavier,” I said a couple days later as the two of us sat in the CUB, eating a Saturday dinner of pizza (for him) and Quiznos (for me). It was pretty dead in there, still being late February, and we had gotten there pretty late. It was D&D night again, and the two of us had spent a few minutes leveling up our characters before quelling our hunger. “I’ve been curious, but you and Matt call Kaiyr ‘Master Kaiyr’ all the time….”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding and dropping his pizza onto his plate, where it landed with a tidal wave of grease. “Mm, it’s probably because you call us ‘Master Caineye’ and ‘Master Wild.’ It just kind of seemed the thing to do.” He fell silent, and we both took a minute to return to our food.

  “I don’t trust Astra,” he said suddenly, wiping his mouth on one of the six billion paper napkins that I’d nabbed from the napkin dispenser to restock our room.

  “No? Why not?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. She just keeps popping up at the most inconvenient times, she won’t tell us anything about anything… and she’s what, level twenty-two?”

  “Yeah, after her level adjustment,” I sighed. “I’ve been meaning to talk to Dingo about that one. It’s really not necessary to toss an epic-level character in with a party of level-fours.” I leaned my elbows on the table and frowned. “It’s kind of been bothering me, really. I mean, she’s mostly a threat to the party and a sort of power trip for him, I think. Like, I think it’s great that she’s so awesome and can do everything for herself, but why the hell is she coming to a bunch of lowbies to solve her problems?” I mock-shouted, waving my arms emphatically. “Seriously, there is nothing—nothing—we can do that she can’t do better, faster, and with infinitely more finesse. And most everything we can’t do at all, she can. There is no reason why she should have ever bothered with us in the first place.”

  Xavier nodded but didn’t add anything, instead letting me rant until I ran out of steam.

  “I mean, I understand that he basically took her character sheet from a game he had been playing her in, then tossed her in here as an NPC. But it wouldn’t be too terribly difficult to dumb her down to something closer to our level. Even the basic nymph without PC class levels would be a dire threat to our party.”

  “After we all went blind from looking at her,” he agreed.

  “Yeah. I guess I respect Dingo for the fact that he hasn’t used her to control us or to do everything for us, but it’s still frustrating having her there and knowing she could annihilate the entire party if she so desired. Hell, what happens when she nat ones

  [34] a save against charm monster, or worse, dominate monster? It’s bound to happen sometime.

  “On the other hand, I don’t distrust her the way you do. I do distrust Luna now, and if she appears again, I suspect we’ll come to blows. I only hope she’s somewhat lower level than the original Astra.”

  Xavier snorted. “Yeah. But you know you’re in love with Astra
!”

  I chuckled at that. “I’ll have to admit, Kaiyr’s starting to like her. I mean, she goes against everything he stands for, considering Kaiyr’s lawful good, and Dingo told us she’s chaotic neutral. Still, she seems more like a troubled woman to me, rather than malicious. Plus, I can’t think of any good reason for her to get herself nailed to a cross just to get at us. I’m sure we’ll find out more as our characters all grow to trust each other.” I looked at his empty plate. “Ready to go?” He nodded.

  XXI.

  “The ship is here,” Astra said from behind Kaiyr as he sat alone in his rented room, lost deep in thought. He started, not having heard her enter and close the door behind her. “Sorry,” she said, seeing his surprised expression, “I didn’t mean to startle you, Master Kaiyr.”

  Kaiyr mused momentarily on how vulnerable Astra seemed to him now. Always, she had shown her most stalwart side, always ready for action, always with a clever quip on the tip of her tongue. Now, standing before him, she seemed unsure of herself. It showed in the way she stood angled slightly away from him, afraid to face the ever-serious blademaster’s scrutiny head-on. She had purchased some new clothes in town but had not been able to find suitable high-heeled boots in the fashion she preferred, and the loss of the extra height made her seem even frailer.

  Suddenly, she clasped her hands to her arms, covering the star-shaped scars that marred her skin. Caineye and Kaiyr had repaired most of the damage the nails had done to her bones and muscles, but the reminders of such wounds would be with her for a long time. “Please,” she said, her voice a whimper, “don’t look at me.” She stooped down, vainly trying to obscure her scars from view.

  “My apologies,” Kaiyr replied, his voice devoid of emotion as he turned back to face the wall—and his thoughts—once again.

  Over the past week, Andorra had begun taking its first steps to recovery. It would be many years—centuries, in fact—before it could ever fully repopulate its original boundaries, and those things and people it had lost would never come again. But the three companions, along with the remaining Terth’Kaftineya, had spent most of their waking hours helping the wounded, organizing supplies, and working on the demolition of the structures the elves had built while affected by Sayel’s Curse, as the group had taken to calling it.