The Companions of Tartiël

by Jeff Wilcox

  Saraël drew herself up to her full height and shook out her multihued wings. Flares of excess divine energy crackled and sparked from the motion as she gathered her power about her like a royal cloak. “Those who have died to fuel my restoration should be honored to have made that sacrifice. My ascension will honor their passing.”

  Perhaps it was merely because of his proximity to Saraël, but Kaiyr’s hair seemed to move as though of its own accord, writhing with the cold wrath stirring slowly within the blademaster. The mote of white-gold light hovering about his right hand, however, was most certainly his own doing. “You did not give them a choice,” he countered, passionate, his words evoking a lion’s roar. “You gave them neither choice nor chance. Do not speak of ‘absolute justice’ when you yourself do not understand its meaning!”

  “By killing these innocents in order to sap power from their lives, you’ve proven that you think your ‘justice’ is more important than their lives,” Caineye said. “You’re killing the very people you’re supposed to protect, the people you want to worship and serve you. That doesn’t make any sense!”

  Saraël stared down at the group for several heartbeats. Then she spoke quietly, as though full of regret and understanding. “You mortals cannot comprehend the ways of the divine. There are greater forces than you and I, and their rules are alien to you.”

  Kaiyr shook his head. “Perhaps we do not understand your ways. So be it. Such is not important to us. However, a life taken is still murder, and you are responsible for innumerable deaths. You, Saraël, are evil and will find no allies amongst the mortals, nor, I suspect, amongst the gods.”

  A smirk quickly flitted across the fallen angel’s features. “Are you not also a murderer, mortal? I understand you suffered a great deal of anguish concerning the deaths of a number of children not so long ago.”

  Caineye and Wild both took an involuntary half-step away from Kaiyr, who had reacted explosively the last time that subject had been breached. The blademaster, however, merely bowed his head. “I did,” he said softly. Then, raising his gaze to meet Saraël’s, his tone became deadly and unmoving. “That, however, is what separates us. I feel guilt for my error and sorrow for the deaths of those children. You do not feel for those you sacrificed in your own name.” His soulblade appeared in his hand, and with its tip he scored a line in the street before him. “You, Saraël, are an enemy of all that is good and of all that lives.”

  The air now thrummed with power as Saraël’s emotions began to boil at the impudence of these mortals who dared to stand in her way. “I will give you—”

  “Silence!” Kaiyr roared, and for just a moment, the energy gathering around the fallen angel sputtered as though reconsidering its course. “You will give us nothing, for we shall not accept it! We shall stand between you and your ‘absolute justice,’ and we shall hold you accountable for your transgressions. Come at us if you must! We shall not back down, and we shall not kneel before you! You may try to strike us down, but you shall find no victory here today!”

  XLIII.

  Xavier and Matt gave me impressed nods for my off-the-cuff monologue. “Nice,” Matt said. “Very, ah, resolute. Now she’s going to beat us into the ground.”

  “Pah,” I said, puffing out my chest. “Bring on the angels and gods! We’ll take them! Go, level-ten characters!”

  Dingo chuckled and shook his head with the others. “Well, guys. You know what’s next.”

  “Initiative!” I practically squealed, taking up my d20 and dropping it on my desk. It came up an 18. “All right, I killed it! Twenty-three!”

  Xavier and Matt rolled their dice, and after Dingo gathered all our initiative rolls, he rolled for Saraël and wrote down the numbers on a sheet of scrap paper. “All right. As usual, Kaiyr goes first, followed by Saraël, then Wild, and finally Caineye.”

  “Who rolled a three,” Xavier grumbled, rolling his eyes.

  “All right,” I said, sizing up the battlefield on the grid. Tonight we had broken out the pewter figurines; sometimes we used dice to represent ourselves, but Dingo had a collection of D&D-sized figures, and I had a few of my own. This seemed like a good time to use them. “The first thing I’m doing is casting divine protection, so for the next five minutes, all of us get a plus one morale bonus to AC and saving throws.” We all took a moment to jot this down and adjust the appropriate statistics. “Then I move closer to the enemy, but I’ll hang back, oh, twenty feet.”

  Dingo nodded. “Cool. Now, this is going to seem a little weird, out-of-game, but you feel as though your life’s energy is being protected while you’re that close to her. I’m not going to remind you later, so keep this in mind: anyone who starts their turn within twenty feet of Saraël heals ten hit points.”

  “Oooh,” I said, pointing at him. “Like leftover power, excess divine energy that she didn’t lose when she fell from grace. I like it.”

  “You might not,” Dingo said with a grin as he took up his d20, “because she’s got the same benefit all the time. And it’s her turn.”

  *

  Drawing his spiritual power about him, Kaiyr released some of his energy, clothing himself and his companions in a barely-visible halo of milky light. Then, as an enormous sword appeared in Saraël’s hands, the blademaster rushed forward to meet her in battle.

  The chill morning air reverberated with the initial clash of steel on soul, and it would later be said that anyone walking this street in the minutes just after sunrise would be able to hear the echoes of the mortal-versus-divine battle that took place here.

  Saraël’s eyes blazed with self-righteous power and anger that did not diminish when Kaiyr stood stalwart against her onslaught. “You… will… kneel… before me!” the angel growled across their locked weapons, her breath cold in the blademaster’s deathly calm face.

  “Master Kaiyr!” Caineye called from behind.

  Knowing what was to come, Kaiyr slipped out of the contest of strength with the angel and leaped to the side, his midnight-blue hair and robes swirling about him and concealing his form as he whirled in the air, drawing a line of blood down his foe’s arm with his soulblade at the same moment. Just afterward, a spear of magical wood rocketed past Kaiyr’s head, drawing with it a spray of Saraël’s blood when the missile grazed her shoulder. At the same time, Wild’s thrown dagger sank into the angel’s side.

  Saraël did not pause to consider her wounds, and even as she turned to strike at the elusive Kaiyr again, the companions saw her injuries swiftly closing themselves; the gash in her shoulder began to seal itself, and her body ejected Wild’s dagger with almost scornful speed.

  “Well, that was rather insulting,” the halfling snorted, concealing himself behind another pile of rubble and hoping Saraël would forget where he was hidden. “Also pretty useless. Let’s try this next.” Pulling out one of his enchanted daggers, he held it in a fan of other blades he drew from his sleeves. Then, as Saraël and Kaiyr exchanged a deadly series of strikes and parries, the halfling popped from his hiding place and launched the handful of daggers at his adversary. Several of them struck home, but Wild had no time to celebrate, as the angel turned her wrathful gaze in his direction, and from her outstretched palm she launched a bolt of white lightning. Wild dodged the blast but was pelted with pebbles as the bolt destroyed a hundred-foot stretch of road.

  Saraël kicked the blademaster, and Kaiyr stumbled back for a moment before regaining his feet. He managed to keep his defenses up but realized too late that he should have thrown himself into an attack instead. The angel, her toes lifting from the ground as she uttered words of divine power, gathered her energy and focused it into herself. Then, much to the companions’ alarm, she divided herself into two beings identical to her original form.

  Kaiyr, Caineye, Wild, and Vinto found themselves suddenly on the defensive as the two divine beings, each powered by six rainbow wings, darted around the battlefield, launching bolts of lightning at the puny mortals.

  “No, Vinto
!” Caineye shouted as the wolf snarled and snapped at one of the Saraëls as she flew by. The druid was recovering from a near-miss that had numbed his right arm and leg. “Stay back!” Muttering the words of a spell, Caineye threw his good arm up to the sky and growled, “Let’s see how you like it, bitch.”

  *

  “I call down a bolt of lightning using call lightning storm,” Xavier told Dingo as he pulled out five d6s and rolled them on the table. “She needs to make a Reflex save against a DC of… twenty-three.” He paused to count his damage dice and for Dingo to roll the saving throw.

  “Well,” Dingo said, “she failed. How much damage am I looking at?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Okay,” the DM said, noting the damage on Saraël’s sheet. “She seems hurt, but the damage appears to be superficial.”

  Xavier looked puzzled, so I clarified, “She’s got electricity resistance ten. All angels do, man.”

  “Shit,” Xavier said, rolling his eyes and plopping his chin into his hands.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “None of us has Knowledge (the planes), so we wouldn’t know in-game, either.”

  *

  Caineye stared, speechless, as Saraël, seemingly little the worse for wear even after the coruscating strike from above, fixed him with a cutting glare.

  “Master Caineye!” Kaiyr shouted, seeing his companion freeze. His warning spurred the druid into action, and Caineye dodged out of the way of Saraël’s two-handed sword just as the angel would have cut off his head.

  For his attention to his allies, Kaiyr almost paid dearly. The second Saraël dived from above, and the only warning Kaiyr had was the slight rustle of feathers and his own warrior’s instinct. As he ducked and rolled to the side, the blademaster felt the impact of the angel’s holy blade. Its steel tore away his left sleeve and knocked loose a shower of mithril links from Kaiyr’s chain shirt.

  Recovering from the blow, the elf rose and hopped over a low swipe. As he landed, he struck out with his soulblade, scoring a scratch on this Saraël’s arm. Without further ado, she winked out of existence, leaving just one Saraël again.

  Massaging his wounded arm and thanking the powers that be that his armor had protected him, Kaiyr muttered, “Exactly what is this creature?”

  Saraël had no answer to give him, as she was busy harrying Caineye and Vinto. Caineye held his ground well, relying on his armor and sturdy shield to deflect the angel’s attacks. But then, without warning, she reached out with her green wing, its tip suddenly lengthening and becoming as hard as steel. The wing-turned-blade ripped through the druid’s armor and drew blood from his shoulder. More insidious, however, was the divine energy that burst from the wound, sapping Caineye’s mind of energy.

  Disoriented, Caineye could do nothing but fall to one knee while Vinto came to his master’s aid despite the druid’s orders to remain out of the fight. The wolf latched onto the angel’s main sword arm and tore at it with teeth and claws, but her divine skin refused to break, and with a scornful laugh, Saraël battered the wolf aside, sending him bouncing across the ground.

  Wild jumped out of the shadows again and fired another crossbow bolt at the angel, but this time she was ready. Beating her wings once, she created a gust of wind that knocked aside Wild’s shot and carried her several feet into the air.

  Suddenly, she let out a keening screech as Kaiyr’s glassy blade protruded from her chest. “I am your enemy, foul creature,” the blademaster snarled into her ear as his weight dragged both of them back to the ground before he ripped his soulblade from her body.

  Kaiyr would have kept up the offensive, but his foresight saved him yet again. Despite the seemingly telling blow he had dealt her, Saraël stood straight and rounded on him, claymore and all six wings flashing in to strike down the impudent mortal. Even as he defended himself against the onslaught, Kaiyr witnessed the gaping hole he had cut into Saraël’s body begin to heal, the skin knitting almost instantly.

  And then he could see nothing, for as he danced out of the way of Saraël’s blade and turned to reciprocate, the angel’s red wing descended in a glittering arc. The bladed appendage sliced a line down the blademaster’s face, starting at his forehead and traveling down his right cheek.

  “Kaiyr!” Caineye called, rising from his crouch as the blademaster screamed in agony. Flipping a splinter of wood into the air, the druid cast the last splinterbolt spell he had prepared for the day. The fragment elongated into a sharp spar that launched itself at the angel, ripping through her yellow wing and eliciting a grunt of pain.

  Saraël turned her attention to the new threat, now that Kaiyr was down, but she made that assumption too soon.

  Kneeling and clutching at his eye with his right hand, the blademaster glared daggers up at his hated enemy. “You… bitch!” he roared, bounding up to his feet and, still covering his bleeding eye, hacking almost wantonly at Saraël’s unprotected back.

  Surprised that the severely wounded elf would fight so ferociously, Saraël was not prepared for the vicious assault, and Kaiyr nearly chopped to pieces the wing that had taken his midnight-blue eye. But then she recovered, and with one great sweep of all of her wings, she sent the blademaster flying backwards to land in an unceremonious heap on the ground ten paces away.

  “Master Kaiyr!” both Caineye and Wild called even as the obstinate Kaiyr pushed himself up from the ground.

  *

  Xavier, Matt, and I sat back and heaved a sigh of relief when Dingo hopped up and announced that he needed to call a bathroom break. Although the battle in-game had taken only a few minutes so far, we had been playing out the battle out-of-game for nearly an hour.

  “This is intense,” Matt said, dusting off his hands as though they were sweaty from hard labor.

  Xavier and I both nodded. “Yeah,” I agreed, “this isn’t looking good. Even though we’re wearing her down, she’s wearing us down faster, even though everyone involved is getting the benefit of fast-healing-ten.”

  “I’m almost out of spells, too,” Xavier said seriously. “Any good ideas, Jeff?”

  I threw my hands into the air in a gesture of defeat. “I’ve got nothing at the moment. Normally, I’d say we need to retreat, but if we do that, everyone back at the temple is going to die. Maybe if Caineye could take up a tanking position for just a few rounds, I’d have enough time to heal myself and get back into the fray. We need to seriously think about flanking Saraël, because even Kaiyr’s having trouble hitting her, and I’m attacking at plus eighteen… though it’s usually less than that, since I’m pimping out my AC. Problem is, if I lower my defense, she’s going to pound me into dust. I’m a tank, not a meatshield

  [48] .”

  I flipped my character sheet to the second page and read my character’s inventory section while Matt and Xavier threw a few ideas around. Then an idea hit me as my eyes settled on a completely-forgotten item I had kept in one of Kaiyr’s sleeves, the sleeve with the extradimensional storage space. The object was labeled, “mysterious poison canister.”

  I looked up, and the others must have sensed that I had something game-changing to say, because they both quieted down immediately. “Guys,” I said, my voice betraying my growing excitement, “I… I’m not sure whether this will help or not, but I think I’ve found something.”

  Xavier leaned forward in his seat and laced his fingers in front of his knees. “All right. Hit us.”

  A grin spread across my features. “Well, remember back when Warteär Nomen was trying to kill Solaria and he set up that trap with the canister? We bypassed that trap when I teleported into the room, removed the canister, and stuck it in my extradimensional sleeve.”

  As I watched, the others’ eyes lit up with understanding, and then hope. “That’s right,” Matt said. “We couldn’t open it but supposed it must be some kind of poison.”

  I nodded and held my character sheet almost reverently before me. “Yeah. We have no clue what the canister will do, but at this poi
nt, I figure anything’s worth a shot.”

  Matt chuckled excitedly, and I joined in with a giggle that quickly infected Xavier. Soon, we were all laughing and congratulating each other, albeit prematurely.

  “All right, guys,” Dingo said, appearing around the corner and crossing the room to his seat. “We’re back in business, and it looks like Caineye’s up.”

  *

  Caineye gestured toward Vinto, and the wolf obediently dashed away from Saraël. Looking down at his belt, the druid sighed at the sickle he had never before had reason to use in actual combat. “Last spell,” he muttered, summoning a handful of flames, one of which he launched at Saraël to distract her while Wild fired another crossbow bolt at the angel, striking deep into her side even though the wound quickly became superficial and then nearly nonexistent.

  Kaiyr, bloody and battered but far from beaten, rose to his feet. His knees shook momentarily, but through sheer force of will, he steadied his stance. The blademaster had lost his grip on his weapon during his tumble, but it would be a simple matter of calling it to his hand again.

  He was ready to run back into the battle, but one last shred of self-preservation in the back of his mind warned him that continuing this fight would be suicide. Saraël’s attacks were too strong, her movements too quick. And, if she were truly in danger of defeat, she could easily take to the skies, heal, and return to the fray completely refreshed, while the trio on the ground could only hope to patch themselves up for the next assault.

  Frustration built in Kaiyr’s thoughts as he envisioned their defeat at the hands of this fallen angel. He could see Caineye suddenly struck down by a bolt of Saraël’s lightning, followed quickly by Wild, impaled on her sword. And then… then he envisioned her “mercy,” as she allowed Kaiyr to live, but only with the knowledge that his determination had caused the deaths of his companions, of those he now considered his friends.