Chapter Four Hundred And Sixty Four – 464
"What's that about?" Felix asked, but before Venali could answer a younger man in ill-fitting armor clattered around the corner.
"Gallant Venali! The Knight Commander has ordered us all into convocation!" The man was sweating through his mail, and looked both terrified and excited. "Someone's coming through the Pass!"
"What?" Venali stood and walked quickly to the other mage's side. "Who?"
"Dunno! But listen! They've got at least one ship!"
Venali looked to Felix, eyebrows raised. "A ship? A Manaship? It flew through the storms?"
"Definitely a Manaship, but not one I've seen. This thing wasn't even flying."
They made it through with the first ship, I guess. The crowd were all staring up at the central tower of the Redoubt, where those bells were still pealing, and Knights hustled through them toward the various stone stairways. Several Knights and Gallants were standing atop the walls and pointing to the south. Toward the Pass. "Manaship on the water, huh. How'd they get through the Pass? That was dry when I walked it."
"I'm curious about that as well," Venali admitted. "Please, Mr. Veil. Stay here and I'll return as soon as I'm able."
"What about that thing I mentioned?" Felix glanced meaningfully at the ground. "What is it?"
"A source of strength." The other Gallant was all but pulling on Venali, urging him to move. "That is all I can say, Mr. Veil. I will return!"
The mages ran off, angling toward the central tower along with a great many other armored folks. Amidst it all, the people were huddling in small clumps beneath awnings and around small braziers, holding onto each other. Pit ambled up to Felix, his jaws stained by some stolen snack. "What are we doing now? Back to the boat?"
"Menders! Menders this way! The Knight Commander bids you to join our convocation!"
The voice wasn't loud, certainly not enough to cut through the worried murmuring of the crowd, but Felix's Perception caught it easily enough. It came from the other side of the tower. "Menders, huh? Perhaps we should in on that meeting too."
"Why?" Pit asked.
"I need to speak with the leadership anyway. And I don't want them to attack my ships." Felix looked up the sheer wall behind them, judging the distance. "How high do you think this is?"
"Fifty feet, maybe. I thought you wanted to be sneaky?"
"Don't worry," Felix said, patting the smooth stone wall. "I've got a plan."
Alessa Kartez, Prioress of the Blessed Fen and leader of the Menders, mopped her brow with a damp handkerchief. The night was hot, as they always were in the Hills, but the vast waves had increased the humidity to unbearable levels of late. Even if the Troubles had not brought such bloody mayhem to their doorsteps, the wet alone would be enough to drive her insane. Now the bells had begun to toll, and the Knight Commander had summoned them to speak. Stress piled atop sweaty, sticky stress.
"Bright gods, the conditions these poor people are left in are atrocious," one of her Menders complained. "Those tents are barely enough to deal with a quarter of the injuries we saw today."
"We are all of us short-staffed and overwhelmed," Alessa said, careful to keep her voice level. They were rushing up the steps of the battlements with as much haste as her small Gnome legs could manage, but she refused to arrive anywhere in disarray and out of breath. "I am happy that the Knights chose to work with us at all. To invite us in their Redoubt is a gesture of acceptance I would not have expected."
"It was either that, or let their people die of fleshrot and nettlebane," someone said. "Their Gallants may have talents in water and life, but they are no healers."
"And now they order us to attend this meeting? To drop our cases and rush into their tower fastness?" Dahria, one of her oldest friends and most talented Mender shook her head. Her matronly features were sunken in worried disbelief. "To not even send a litter for the Prioress. It is a scandal."
"Hush, Dahria. It is fine," Alessa assured her, and all the others listening. "I've lasted through four Knight Commanders and two wars. A few steps will not be the end of me."
They hit the third landing within the fortress complex, and took a sharp left, following the young Gallant guide that was only a dozen paces ahead of them. He jittered from foot to foot, impatient for them to catch up. Alessa offered a calming smile to the boy. "It is just ahead, yes?"
"Yeah?" he said.
"I imagine you're needed elsewhere. You needn't wait on us, child. We can find our own way." The boy hesitated once more and the Prioress made a shooing motion with her hands. "Go on. We can walk down a simple corridor."
A grateful grin flashed across the Gallant's pimpled face before he took off, tearing around a bend in the hall and vanishing. Diana frowned after him. "Off to prepare for a fight, no doubt."
"Perhaps. If this new arrival intends harm, then we should all prepare for the eventualities of battle." Alessa looked to her Menders, thirteen strong women clad in the formal robes of their order. All of them were weary, but none of them hesitated to throw themselves into the chaotic aftermath of every clash that had occurred over the past week. She walked a touch faster. "I only hope the Knight Commander's fervor for protection does not arouse conflict where it can be avoided."
Dahria made an agreeing sort of noise from the back of her throat, and all the Menders followed the Prioress down the short, curving corridor. They passed three intersections, but their goal was the central tower, where the Knight Commander held court beneath the shroud of her impressive wards. All Redoubts had such protections, a feature that made their fortresses all but impregnable, and held deeply secret. In the past, Alessa had made quiet inquiries on their wardings in the hopes of providing the Priory with similar protections, but all she had ever received for her trouble was a scathing rebuke from the previous Knight Commander. Perhaps she could have pressed in the decades since, but the wisest course was almost always cautious.
A hand suddenly extended before the Prioress, halting her in her tracks. "Prioress. Wait. Something is in the hall before us."
Alessa tucked a lock of white hair behind an ear, peering through the curtain of protective hands. Ahead, sprawled on the square-cut tiles of the Redoubt hallway, was a russet-colored puppy. She clucked her tongue. "A Dire Hound pup, unless I miss my guess. Injured too, it looks like. Hardly a looming threat, Dahria."
"Why is it here, though?" the Mender asked.
"Dire Hounds are popular pets. Could have wandered off from one of the refugees. Or perhaps a Knight or Gallant has a soft spot for the creature." Alessa ducked beneath her subordinates' barring arms, eyes locked onto the limping pup. Mana surged up from her core, spinning tightly behind her eyes with a tingling sensation. "He has the Bleeding Status Condition, though it is Minor. Hi there, little one."
Slowly the Prioress approached the Dire Hound puppy, extending a bare-hand for the creature to sniff. His growl cut off and he snuffled at her hand, taking a single, appreciative lick before butting his entire head into her palm. The Prioress let out a single, breathy chuckle. "Yes, it's alright. I don't mean you any harm. Fine Fettle."
Mana swirled from her core of lambent light, flowing from her channels with a puff of deep and comforting warmth. Instantly the hound's wound stitched itself closed, the blood ceasing its flow, and the pup experimentally extended its hind leg. When it touched the ground without issue, the beast barked once before jumping right into the Prioress' arms.
"Oh!" she cried out, half-surprised and half-delighted. "Why hello there."
"Prioress! Is it hurting you?" Dahria stepped forward, concern in her face warring with wary amusement.
"No no, of course not." The Hound was half her size, but she couldn't help but hug him a little tighter. He was adorable. "I think he doesn't wish to be left alone, however." Uncannily, the beast nodded its head before burying his snout into the crook of her elbow.
"Do you wish us to take the creature?" Dahria asked.
"No, it's fine. Let us just continue on our way. We cannot hold up the Knight Commander any longer." The Prioress swept forward, ignoring the sputtering protests to put the hound down or transfer him to one of them. Instead, she marched down the curving corridor and right up to the pair of armored Knights that stood to either side of a heavy, steel-strapped door.
WIthout a word, the sigils within the Knight's breastplate flashed, releasing some sort of lock in the door allowing it to swing inward. "Go ahead, Honored Prioress."
"Thank you." With the Dire Hound pup still in her arms, Alessa stepped into the Knight Commander's inner sanctum.
"I can't believe you had me cut you, Pit."Felix stood within Pit's forest core space, the sound of insects and chittering creatures sounding off in the distance. "
"It worked, didn't it?"
"It did. Just don't ask me that again. I don't like seeing you hurt, especially not for one of my plans."
"You worry too much. The tiny lady healed me." A ripple of pleasure trilled across their bond just as a sharp wind rustled the trees around Felix. "Oh and she's good at petting."
Felix rolled his eyes. "Glad you're having a good time. Now just focus on the meeting, please."
"Fine."
"Calm down, little one. You're safe," the Prioress muttered to the hound in her lap. It was clear the pup had been traumatized by something, as he kept jolting at whenever anyone moved a bit too fast or suddenly around them. "I will protect you," she said.
The beast settled down, soothed by her words or gentle petting. She didn't blame the pup for being uncomfortable, though she was surprised; it had not reacted in the slightest as they had passed through the harsh wards the Knights always produced. While the powerful tingling had thrummed through her entire Body, sizzling just under her flesh, the Dire Hound pup hadn't twitched. To see it now so anxious was both surprising and not; they were surrounded by powerful, Journeyman Tier Knights and Gallants. To remain impassive under such circumstances would have strained credulity.
The convocation was filled with Knights and Gallants both, at least thirty of them in full armor. They were seated around a depressed area of the room, each sat upon tiered benches leading down toward the center, where several armored individuals stood beside a thin crystalline growth.
Knight Commander Lavin. The Knight acknowledged the Prioress with a simple, perfunctory nod as she scanned the room. You look as tired as I feel.
The Knight Commander was a Human woman, common among the Knights, and only of middling height for her kind. Aside from a single braid of golden thread over her left shoulder, there was little to identify the woman from another Knights. She gestured at one of her armored fellows, and they stood with great speed.
"Now that everyone is here, we may begin. As you might be aware, someone has just piloted Manaships from the Caleph Pass." The woman who stood had auburn locks tied into a series of complicated braids. The Prioress knew her as Knight Covain, second only to the Knight Commander herself.
"Ships, plural?" someone asked.
"Yes. Scouts have confirmed that, as we speak, ten modified Manaships are in the process of being hoisted through the Pass." Covain shook her head, disbelief clear on her face. "Scouts have also confirmed that each ship is packed with soldiers, bearing a strange emblem upon their breasts. One we have not been able to identify as of yet."
"Hoisted? And what, exactly do you mean by 'modified'?" Dahria asked.
"They are somehow dragging the Manaship across the dried stretches of the Caleph Pass. How is unclear, as our scouts have been unable to get any closer. And by 'modified' I mean only that these Manaships are not operating the same way a normal craft would; they sail upon the water, not the sky."
"Strange," Dahria said, again pitching her voice so that the entire assembly could hear her. "Are they damaged?"
"By the storms you mean?" Knight Covain shook her head. "Not that we saw, but there is only one ship fully within the waters outside the Caleph fortress. Our scouts' Perception Skills are good, but they are not infallible. That they have arrived through the Pass at all would suggest they have found some way of bypassing the deadly stormwall on the other side, not to mention the monsters."
The murmur of light conversation rippled across the assembly. While the Menders' concerns had been with the people in Bogfeld, the Prioress was not unaware of the goings on along the Caleph Pass. She knew of the storm that never seemed to abate, as well as the dangerous monsters that dwelled on the Expanse side of the Stormeater Peaks.
"That is another thing. How did they escape the notice of the monster Den?" Asked an older Gallant, a woman with silver streaked liberally through her dark tresses. "I assume that if these visitors had been followed by a swarm of those Hatchling creatures you would have mentioned it. That you haven't is both encouraging and alarming. Who are these people?"
"A question we plan to see answered," the Knight Commander said, taking the center stage from her second in command. "Knight Tandagh, where is the traveler that you brought to us?"
An Orc spoke up from the side, hands folded neatly behind him. "Ma'am. He is down below, kept occupied by the festival."
"And he traveled through the Pass as well?"
"He did. We found him today, just outside the Caleph fortress."
"Is he associated with this new group, then?" the Knight Commander asked.
Tandagh looked a bit uncomfortable with bearing the Knight Commander's scrutiny so long, but he soldiered on. "That is...uncertain, ma'am. If he is, then it can only speak to the quality of their character. This traveler helped us defeat a Bog-Lure and its Sprouts we found just outside the town walls, and then proceeded to pilot the slip through monster infested waters. Gallant Venali can attest to it, but he was nothing but helpful."
"A glowing commendation of these strangers, if he proves to be part of them," Knight Covain said.
"Unless he was a plant, designed to worm into our good graces," said another Knight, an older man with sagging jowls. "Can we not question him?"
"A good idea. Gallant Venali?" the Knight Commander said, and a man with slight, almost delicate features stood from a mass of others. "Go find this Silas Veil and bring him back to us."
"Ah."
The sound was soft, but the impact was felt throughout the entire convocation. Knight Commander Lavin looked up, meeting Alessa's eyes with a deep frown. "The Knights Ghreldan acknowledges the Priory of the Blessed Fen. Thank you for joining us, Prioress Kartez. Did you have something you wished to share?"
"I do." The Prioress leaned forward, her arms full of a very curious hound, but her attention wholly on the Knights around her. "I recognized that name. A man of that same name visited Bogfeld around a month ago."
"A month ago..." Lavin stroked her chin. "Was that not when parts of your Priory were damaged by a reckless discharge of Skill?"
"It was."
"And when the Paladins of the Pathless were assaulted in the Caleph fortress?"
"I do believe they occurred within a day of each other, yes," the Prioress admitted. "Whether they are related or not, I am unaware. But I do know that a man going by the name Silas Veil did us a great service, and I would be remiss in not mentioning that debt."
"I understand," Lavin said, though she sounded skeptical. "We shall add that to the list of details we can ask this man about, once he arrives."
"Huh," Felix said, tapping his fingers against a tree. "Gonna be hard to find me, I'm thinking."
"What are you going to do?" Pit asked, his disembodied voice echoing around them. "They seem on edge."
"Easy. I'll take a walk," Felix said.
"What?" Pit asked, but it was too late...Felix was already gone.
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