Death's Knight 13

 with luck, that's over - it took all day for him to fit the heater after he arrived, very stressful but now! hot water. We've had constant crap since October 2025 when we got the massive water bill and it was a leak; the water company were fast and fantastic, so was the insurance company, and the repair people but!!!! it took until the end of January this year to persuade the council to give permission to dig up a two foot square of pavement without needing to close two roads and bring in traffic lights. Ongoing also through this was the need for a part for the car, which had to come from Volvo and which they hung us about over, until they said, oh, we can't be bothered to import such a small but vital thing. Our local garage then sourced what was needful on ebay in one day. And then there was the gas people digging up the road with all that noise for days on end - a good thing to replace the gas pipes, but disruptive, and what caused our original reliable little water heater to break down, from the gas being off. And I am grateful to them for trying to repair it, and replacing it when that was impossible, but oh! it has taken such a while. Oh, and just as they finished digging up the road, the Borough Council dug up the road to put four e-vehicle charging bays in.  In a blue-collar neighbourhood which doesn't have the sort of housing which even has parking on the residents' properties and has to rely on on-street parking. 

Well, I feel better for a good moan; please pray that all the little straws on our back have gone. I'm not sure I can survive another stress situation. 

Chapter 13

 

The journey back to the city was uneventful, save the last part when the party disembarked, which proved to be a mile of hastily erected palisades, manned by city guards.

“What, are they trying to besiege us?” said Harkon.

“Trying,” said a Pollonis initiate laconically. “As we have a palisade all the way to the lake each side, they can’t stop us getting supplies, which makes a mockery of a siege.”

“Time for some sport,” said Kaz, happily. “Rynn, are you up for slipping out of the city at night and tying a pretty hair ribbon in the hair of every commander?”

Rynn sniggered.

“But the risk!” said Phaedros.

“That’s the sport of it,” said Rynn. “And to show them it could have been a knife in their throats.”

“Is it too subtle?” asked Kaz. “Should we leave little knives by their pillows?”

“Hair ribbons are funnier,” said Rynn. “Zon would have loved it.”

“He’s sniggering,” said Kaz, able to hear the response of the dead trógling who was her familiar spirit. “And of course, blue hair ribbons, for the Blue Moon.”

 

Two shadows left a culvert shortly after midnight, removing the bars at its exit which slipped back into place without showing that they were held with a bolt on the inside of the grille. In absolute silence the two shadows slid into the Selenite camp, the command tents obvious for being larger and more ornate than those occupied by the soldiery.

Lights were still shining in some of the command tents; apparently from the number of shadows cast on the walls of one, there was some kind of executive meeting. Kaz and Rynn were not about to miss an opportunity like this and slid up to the skirts of the tent.

Kaz stiffened at the first words she heard.

“... Haven’t been able to get any sense out of that blasted Darkling female about why she is here. She still claims trading, and she ate the trógling which said she was on some sort of mission for her goddess.”

“I hope you separated them to question separately,” said the voice of Lazar Kron.  “They are weak creatures and will soon break under torture, even if this Haara female holds out.”

Kaz held a rapid conversation with Rynn with hand gestures.

Putting ribbons in hairs became a secondary mission now; rescue was needed.

 

The high pitched scream of a trógling voice galvanised the two trógling women, and they homed in on the direction with their sensitive ears, making a cautious way to the tent from which it issued, inside the Selenite camp lines, with hastily erected barricades and ditches but at the edge. Kaz made a couple of hand signals, directing Rynn to follow her round to the back of the tent where the prisoners were held, a sensible precaution as there were a squad of ten Selenite soldiers outside, alert and ready. There was a deeper groan of a Darkling voice, plainly trying not to show pain.

Kaz and Rynn had been practising their use of darksense to send short and longer ultrasonic pings which they were developing into a code to communicate above the hearing of humans, and Kaz used the pattern used by slave masters in calling to trógling slaves using whistles, ‘get ready, get ready.’ It was a risk that the trógling within would not give it away, or any Greater Toróg slaves she had, like the one Kaz had slain in the challenge over Rynn.

There were a number of inarticulate pings returned. Message received and understood.

Kaz risked easing out a tent peg to cautiously peer into the large, circular tent. To one side was a wooden construction, a frame with supporting beams at an angle behind it to hold it up and pegs along the top. The half dozen trógling hung from these pegs like discarded clothes, hands lashed together to casually hang them from, and were in various states of wounded. The Darkling merchant was stretched out with her feet on the floor, but spread, tied to pegs, as the Selenite torturer began cutting off one of her lower breasts. Hraazaz was plainly of high status as she had four breasts, and her hair, currently matted with blood, was a pale blue. She held priestly glyphs, Kaz was aware that she could now sense this, and could ask to take the risk of entering a stone womb to emerge as a Greater Toróg, which would either elevate her to the original form of her people, or kill her; and the greater number of Greater Toróg features she had, the better the chance of change. 

The tent was well-lit by lanterns, a disadvantage to the Toróg and tróglings. Indeed, a lantern was set to shine directly into the eyes of the Darkling, whose eyelids were taped open, and were bloodshot.

Kaz slid back.

If she brought the tent down, it would alert the guards outside.

If she fought the guards outside, it would alert the whole camp.

Inside, there was a torturer and a scribe, taking down anything that was said, presumably either using a translation spell, or knowledgeable of the Toróg language, in either case probably a high-ranking initiate or glyph-priest of Librax, the Selenite counterpart to Polos.

The torturer was taking no notice of the scribe, and Kaz moved round the tent to be behind the Libraxian. Her knife made a quick slit in the tent, and the next thing the scribe knew was that he had a knife at his throat. Silently Rynn followed Kaz in, and made short work of tying up the scribe’s hands with some of the blue ribbon they had brought, and equally tying his feet to the desk on which he worked. He would have a hard time struggling out of the tent to rouse the alarm. His own kerchief made a gag.

Kaz moved forward.

“How about picking on someone armed, you bloodmoon bastard?” said Kaz.

The torturer whirled round, saw a trógling, and laughed.

Kaz had only her knife; she had no intention of letting the scribe speak of her sword of light. It was an ace in the hole to be preserved for as long as possible as a secret. The torturer advanced on Kaz, grinning. “I don’t know how you got away when we took your mistress, but you’re about to be gutted,” he said.

“Your profession is vile; I’m going to kill you,” said Kaz.

Perhaps it was that the light in the tent shining on her heavy knife added a golden sheen to it, that the torturer did not immediately recognise it as iron; or perhaps he just dismissed the idea that a trógling might wield an iron blade. Whichever the reason, he did not react to her weaponry, and swung at her with the vicious knife he had been using to carve off Hraazaz’s breasts. Kaz swayed effortlessly out of the way, feinted, and as he attacked again, parried.

His blade, sharp but brittle, shattered.

He grabbed another knife and came at her, but Kaz ducked, swayed, and came up under his attack to slit open his belly.

He screamed, and Kaz muttered an imprecation. She had planned to run her knife up under the ribcage and into his heart, but she was less practised with a knife than with a sword. Rynn leaped to the door of the tent, grabbing some sickle-shaped knife which she knelt to hold at ankle height in case of soldiery running in. 

There appeared to be no interest from outside; the torturer’s scream had been sufficiently high pitched that the guards ignored it.

Kaz finished him off and went over to Hraazaz.

“Your presence... is timely... Kaz of Alethos,” said Hraazaz. “But I fear, not timely enough... unless your healing is as formidable... as your fighting. I... I have lost too much blood.”

She was badly wounded in many places. Kaz pulled the tape from her eyelids, allowing them to droop.

“Cut down the trógling, Rynn, and put out some of the lanterns,” said Kaz. “Alethos! Is she close to death?”

“Yes, my love, her spirit is close to the Hall of Waiting,” the god’s voice spoke in her mind.

“Hraazaz, you are a priestess?”

“Yes...”

“Alethos, please get Rogaz in line with this....”

“What are you up to?”

“Sweet Moon, blue light, gift your daughter growth this night.

Thou Rogaz, Luna Blue, gift your daughter with growth true,”

Hraazaz’s eyelids flickered.

“You know the ritual....”

Kaz was using the digging cantrip frantically, and excavated a hole deep enough for Hraazaz’s body, cut her down, and eased her into it, casting healing spells as she did so, putting the Darkling’s breast back on to seal it back down.

“It’s not rock, but it’s what I have,” she said, using a cantrip to solidify earth into a dome above Hraazaz, a thin enough layer that it was like a muddy crystal, and showed that blue light burst out of Hraazaz’s body.  Hraazaz screamed. Kaz turned her attention to healing the trógling.

“Scream a lot, you six, and pray silently to Rogaz for your mistress,” said Kaz. “Rogaz, I implore you, accept their worship, and give them initiation for their love for Hraazaz.”

 

“Your trógling has a cheek! She is not even one of mine, yet she calls on me with my ritual!” cried Rogaz-Luna. “And demands I initiate trógling!”

“She isn’t one of yours but she is trying to save one of yours, and she has my support and I will loan her and you power for this one is surely long prophesied by your people?” said Alethos.

“‘Born lesser, only the least will drag her from the Red Moon to become one with the Blue,

Born again from earth not stone to rise as heroine anew,’” said Rogaz-Luna sulkily.

“Well, that says it clearly enough,” said Alethos. “I have her spirit in my hands, wavering at the gates but it still has attachment to her body so I’m not going to complain if you rebuild that body.”

“You’re less of an old grouch than I thought you.”

“I oppose the interloper moon and her filthy brother too.”

 

Kaz was glad of her stored power, and that she had grown enough in her spiritual core to be able to channel it, or three of the six would have died. The other three were hurt, but from fighting for their mistress more than from systematic torture. They stood, after healing, and looked at Kaz and Rynn with amazement.

“Rynn? Is that you? Is that not the one who killed Torg to win you?” whispered one.

“Yes, Tan, this is my friend, Kaz,” said Rynn. “She’s going to be goddess of trógling one day, but I think you belong to Rogaz.”

“It’s a bit scary,” said Tan. “We didn’t want to leave Mistress Hraazaz when it was offered, and she has treated us all very well since. The one who betrayed her was a new one, replacing Zon. The one replacing you is loyal as well.”

“She will need it,” said Kaz. “Carry on taking turns to scream and wimper; this could take some time. Rynn, scout outside, I don’t want any surprises.”

Rynn slithered off and Kaz took up vigil over the crystalised earth.

“I’ve heard of the ritual,” said Tan, tentatively.  “Our mistress was considering undertaking it. She planned to do so at the solstice, but she was summoned to come to this place to be here as soon as possible and work with... with you. She was sore about it! And then, the Selenites jumped us in a tavern, and killed Gort and Trurg, her bodyguards, and brought us here and started asking questions about where we were going and why. They had a prophecy, something about beware the daughter of the blue moon.”

“Incoming!” Rynn slithered back into the tent. “It’s Lazar Kron himself!”

“A valuable hostage,” said Kaz. “We’ll take him alive. Tan, there’s some rope here, hold it taut with Rynn to trip him.”

 

Lazar Kron strode into the torture tent, and measured his length on the cold ground, biting his tongue as his chin hit the earth. A knife filled his vision.

He looked up past it.

“You!” he said.

“I wouldn’t say any more if I was you,” said Kaz, quietly. Lazar Kron opened his mouth and managed a strangled ‘Guards!’ before Kaz hit him scientifically on the temple with her knife’s haft.

Kaz drew the hilt of her light-sword.

There was some discussion outside the tent over whether the inquisitor had called or not. Interrupting him when he did not want them would not be popular.

“Skyrock, cloak, sword,” said someone. This was a Selenite game for choosing when one made a fist for skyrock, a flat hand for cloak, or a curved shape for the Selenite curved sword. Skyrock broke sword, sword cut cloak, and cloak wrapped skyrock, in memorial of the spell invented by the Selenite cult heroine, Thea Drex, whose cloak floated like a roof and was hardened to protect those under it from rocks summoned from the sky by one of her companions, sheltering those who were faithful. Two were quickly chosen, and came cautiously into the tent. Tan and Rynn tripped them up and Kaz hit them on the heads while they were still stunned. Rynn organised the tróglimg into pairs to listen and man the trip-wire, whilst Kaz tied up and gagged Lazar Kron and his guards.

“This wasn’t necessarily the best place and time to do the rebirth ritual,” said Rynn.

“She was dying; without help from her own goddess, I didn’t think I could save her,” said Kaz. “And I had a feeling that a direct touch from Rogaz would push her over the brink into rebith, anyway. The weight of the touch of gods is considerable; and Rogaz, even maimed, is a major goddess.”

 

“Your tool is not perhaps as foolish as I thought her,” admitted Rogaz.

“My beloved is shrewd and instinctive,” said Alethos. “How is it going? I would like them away from there before daylight.”

“It normally takes a full day round.”

“I do not like to intervene directly to lift them out.”

“I will gift my new initiates with the spells of earthwalking, and remove my daughter; let your children leave by such means as they may.”

 

Alethos relayed this to Kaz, who sniggered.

“We’ll wait for Rogaz.... somewhere near the river would be good. And we’ll use that false runic circle again, around the hollow that is likely to be left. As soon as I’ve knocked out the Libraxian. . I think I recognise him; I think he’s Quirinus Lex, who used to work for Ralthur Kron and is a spy, but it’s not an excuse to kill him.”

 

Shortly after, the glowing  crystal sank into the ground, and Rynn patted Tan on the back as he led his fellow slaves after it. Kaz drew the convincing runic circle on the ground and slid out at the back of the tent, leaving two unconscious guards, an unconscious scribe, and a dead torturer. Lazar Kron floated stiffly on a stretcher spell, and Kaz sent Rynn up the downpipe with him, a strip of cloth over his eyes in case he was feigning unconsciousness, and went in search of the rebirth crystal.