#119 - A Matter of Allegiance

The Journal of Wynn Dennavar 

Zarantyr 24th, 999 YK

I struggled for words to describe the things we faced. I thought I had seen enough corrupted horrors during the Last War, but even the Mournland-twisted monstrosities that emerged from the dying Cyre hadn’t been this deliberate in form and function. That purposefulness was more unsettling than any accidental corruption of nature.

Bear-Izzeth loomed over one of the tall, pale creatures as it clung to the crumbling edge with its thin arms and shoulder-tentacles. It resisted Bale’s attempts to blast it over the side then, without any compulsion to do so, dropped out of sight in a controlled fall. It was running for reinforcements.

Only the “beholderling” (for it was diminutive compared to the only similar creature I had heard of before) remained. I heard a dissonant crash as Clarion fell, then a more muted but still weighty thump from Magnus. Even though we still wore guises of animate armor, we had all gotten used to identifying each other by our unique sounds and gaits. When I rounded the corner, the beholderling had floated out of sight, possibly to escort the tentacle creature to its masters.

I had seen magically-induced sleep before, so I awoke Magnus quickly as Cypher got Clarion back on his feet with artificer's magic. We ran for the stairs before any one of the hundreds of enemies below could gain on us. Nothing further barred our way to the stairs.

The top floor of Glyphstone keep was overwhelming by how much I couldn’t see. The light from my torch illuminated little more than a few side-doors along a wall that stretched far beyond its range. We had escaped the background roar from the gnoll camp and each footfall was swallowed up by the massive space with barely an echo.

Cypher led us along one wall for a ways, then we stopped and gathered together, letting Cypher’s homunculus and Aleae scout ahead. They reported a wall of blackness that separated us from the throne room, and sounds of battle on the other side. From their talk, this curtain of darkness had previously been a physical curtain hanging from the ceiling.

Cypher ordered his homunculus into the darkness then produced a sketch-like map of this level—the Great Hall, or top-most level of the dungeons of Glyphstone. The homonculus reported to Cypher that a battle had just ended, and now more than half a dozen foes in the throne room where we were headed, some “without skin.” Not long ago I would have immediately concluded skeletons or warforged, but that intuition wouldn’t help here. Now I had to factor in foes with carapaces, scales, stone, or metal. Worse, Cypher reported that our allies—the hobgoblin Irakas and her comrades—lay fallen.

If Irakas was slain, we had already failed. But if she still lived, we had only a moment to think while our enemies felt safe. After the briefest of discussions, we separated. Aleae, carrying the Scepter of Glyphstone, and Cypher would sneak around the side and try to reach the throne unseen. The rest of us would go directly to Irakas’s aid.

Bale moved apart from the rest of us and shrouded himself in magical darkness. Magnus, Clarion, and I passed first through the curtain of darkness. As we did so, the curtain stripped the illusions from us so we appeared as ourselves again. We didn’t need them anymore, and our natural forms would be more imposing than identical suits of armor. Bear-Izzeth, who hadn’t been able to add more than a growl to our discussion, had his own plan and ran parallel to the curtain without passing through.

The throne room was even larger than the chamber we left, lit by a sourceless violet-tinged glow. Parallel to the left- and right-hand walls were tall rows of heavy stone seats, like stands at a colosseum. A huge bronze statue shaped like a hobgoblin in ancient armor stood before a set of stairs leading up to the throne. The rest was an open field well-suited for pitched battle.

Our foes stood around the base of the stairs and the statue. I immediately recognized our opponents as knight of the Order of the Emerald Claw, supported by a pair of skeletons and one true Karrnathi zombie. It was far from home and grossly misused fighting for them.

Though they were founded in my homeland, no self-respecting Karrn would show the Emerald Claw any support. Even in their heyday during the Last War they were an insubordinate order, and survived disbandment by retreating underground to hide amongst other cults and terrorist groups, gathering allies to further their nefarious ends. Seeing them in Breland was an unpleasant surprise, but shed some light on the dire situation here.

We were far off, and our foes carelessly distracted by their recent victory that they first noticed us when a rain of arrows from Magnus and Clarion struck their cleric. That one would be a Blood of Vol priest, and likely the necromancer commanding the zombie. I’ve known more than a few decent Seekers (as the followers of the Blood of Vol call themselves, as in "Seekers of the Blood"), so I wouldn’t have held that against him if it wasn’t for his irrevocably damning allegiance to the Emerald Claw. That zombie of his would be a nasty threat: heavily armored, slow, but extremely tough. I’ve never had to fight against one before, and did not look forward to it.

The cleric straightened from over a fallen hobgoblin, holding a circular, bronze amulet he had removed from her. Though she lay crumbled at the bottom of the steps and wore only leather armor, blood did not pool beneath her as it did her two compatriots. Where she might yet live, they were clearly dead. I had little doubt this female was Irakas, and the item taken from her body probably had some connection to Glyphstone.

The cleric gestured with his mace as he turned to face us. I felt the column of fire he summoned behind me and heard Magnus return defiant threats as it fell over him. He we rushed them closer together, I have no doubt the fire would have blasted me as well.

Then an ice storm took them by surprise. Hail blasted one skeleton to pieces and hammered the zombie and crossbowmen. The cleric weathered it well, but now realized the three of us weren’t the only foes in the throne room.

Behind him, Irakas rose unsteadily to her feet, severely wounded but determined to fight. For a moment it looked like she was going to jump on the cleric’s back heedless of safety and strategy, but then reconsidered and grabbed a weapon off the body of a dead Emerald Claw knight.

As a soldier tasked with saving her, I’d have wanted her to retreat: she had allies approaching, and if we lost her, Glyphstone would lose its rightful ruler and we’d never be able to stop Trazzen from unleashing his plans on Breland. But as a subject of a different crown, I have respect for a ruler that will take to the field personally for her holding.

My great-grandmother Syardis had faced this situation before. My father told the story often: the battle at White Arch Bridge when she had saved the life of Kaius I himself from Aundarian assassins, and for her deeds he gifted her the Risian Fang. My years in the Last War hadn’t been a time for heroics, but I had the chance to live up to her legacy now. Even if Irakas wasn’t my queen, she was needed here.

As I approached, one of the Emerald Claw knights turned his heavy crossbow on me. I readied to dodge the bolt, but he swung it around and fired towards the back of the throne room–Cypher or Aleae must be close.

The White Arch Bridge

The cleric gained the high ground on the stairs. I alone was nearly there, as the others were slowed firing on our foes from a distance. The cleric intoned a spell and pointed his mace first at Irakas, then me. The hobgoblin woman froze in the thrall of his spell, but it washed over me without effect. In the next moment I was up the stairs, the cleric down under the Fang’s blade, his blood smeared across the steps as I shoved him even further up them and away from the hobgoblin queen.

Cypher ran up from behind me with Simel’s rapier drawn, moving farther up the stairs and pinning the cleric between us. The maneuver reminded me that although the warforged is an artificer and a curious one at that, he was also a soldier of Breland and understood battlefield tactics.

I stabbed through the Seeker cleric as he began to rise, midway through another of his incantations. His limbs went slack and a moment later he was only dead weight dragging down my partisan. Irakas appeared alongside us, and snatched the disc on a necklace from his hand even before he hit the ground.

But instead of relief or elation, I felt dread that quickly mutated into horror. I had just killed a Karrn cleric for a hobgoblin of Darguun to aid Breland, and I had used my great-grandmother’s own weapon for it. What more could I do to shame Syardis’s legacy?

Irakas began to speak to me in her goblin language, a greeting, honoring tone of voice I could recognize but was unable to react to. I knew what I had to do. The cleric’s body slid off the end of the Fang, and I opened my forearm along its blade. The edge cut like a shard of ice. Sudden cold bit down to my bone, breaking the unnatural compulsion to end my life. Irakas halted her speaking and a look of confusion passed over her face. I yanked the Fang out and blood that felt scalding hot in contrast ran down my arm.

I felt sick and dizzy. Though the wound wouldn’t kill me, the manner of it left an unnatural ache. Not knowing if Irakas could understand me, I told her Aleae had the Scepter of  Glyphstone and pointed toward the far corner where she and Cypher had been. Blood sprayed off my fingertips.

Embarrassed, I retreated down the stairs to help mop up the battle. The cleric’s spell had played on my loyalties, corrupting them. The knights of the Emerald Claw were not my countrymen, and helping Breland would maintain the peace between our nations. Only good could come of stopping Trazzen. Yet it had been very easy for the man's magic to overcome that common sense. It was hard to shake some of the old patterns of thinking that had kept us soldiers sane during the war.

There was little more to help with. Corpses of the Emerald Claw lay as still as Irakas’s fallen comrades. A few scattered bones was all that remained of the skeletons, and the true zombie a charred shell of armor. That I neither noticed nor thought about the rest of the battle meant I did trust my allies, and they proved that trust. We won here.

All that remained was to put the scepter in Irakas’s hands. Where was Aleae?