War's Apprentice

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TheFox
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War's Apprentice

Post by TheFox » Tue Oct 15, 2019 1:26 pm

Sadie Hasper coughed hard, choked by smoke.

"Down! Cover!"

Fire streamed out from over the makeshift barricades in front of her, and she just barely managed to escape with a few singed hairs and a dirty uniform by going prone. Colfax wasn't so lucky. She shoved his screaming corpse off of herself and grabbed for her infantry sword, lost in the muddy street detritus.

Her sleepy post was suddenly a battle, and she was caught in the middle of it.

Magic carried the smell of ozone thick as pitch, as the air broiled or froze or snapped with lightning, and as the sentries stationed further down started to break and run. From behind her, Sword Derrenal called orders she couldn't hear, repeated in a series of rough metal whistles that she could. She steadied herself, drawing some of the last of her personal reserves into another elemental ward as she leaned against the low retaining fence of some Tanner's hut, shivering and afraid to move. She couldn't find her breath.

They were still coming in. The blue crackle of gates lit in a half a dozen places as the Cowled Wizards of Amn appeared one after the other into the street, gray robed and solemn. She peeked from cover at them as they began to unload fresh arcane hell on the incoming day sentries, a whole field away. She was alone now and she was screwed.

She was just a night sentry. She was supposed to go off shift in an hour. Sadie tripped over Colfax's smoldering corpse, then remembered to pull his wand belt off of him, hoping to Nine hells that some of them still worked.

Lightning caught her full in the back halfway to the next post, and she sprawled, ruining her blue Boar tunic and scraping the hells out of her knuckles. She didn't want to lose her sword again, so keeping hold of it was all she could think about through the terror. She was stunned, but her wards held, and she found her feet and kept running.

Friendly hands found her as she made the forming shield wall, taking her in behind a bulwark of wards and steel. She could hear Battlemage de'Faris's strong baritone in the background, as abjuration after abjuration washed over the Boars line, and she made for it like a singed pidgeon searching for home, darting through the hovels of Trailstone like her life depended on it until she found him warding the next group of infantry.

She didn't know what to say. She couldn't speak for coughing. The old mage didn't bother answering her anyway and one of the other apprentices, Margina - Ruddy - grabbed her and moved her out of the way again, behind the lines and into a shadowed alcove.

"Hey Stutter," Ruddy teased, practically glowing with blue ephemera and half gone invisible. "Left some for me?"

Sadie coughed. Then she remembered Colfax, and without being able to help it, she threw up in the alleyway.

"Sune's tits," said Ruddy.

"Colfax," Sadie managed, leaning against the alley wall with breakfast on it. "h-he..."

"Rotting Amnish bastards," swore the dusky Calishite. She added, glib, "present company exempt."

Sadie straightened, feeling lightheaded from the burning in her lungs and the shock of combat. The shorter, older girl supported her until she steadied. "Thanks."

"Come on."

They went back to the Battlemage, and found him engaged at work, looking hawk eyed and grim. When they came up to him he gave them a terse glance, lingering only a moment longer on Sadie than her smaller confederate. She tried to look ready.

"Done running away?"

"Um."

"That's Stutter alright," teased one of the men at arms, and they laughed. They looked nervous to her, but she felt like vomiting again, so she kept quiet.

"Well," the old Battlemage said through a toothless grin, "best be useful then."

He handed them wands and they spent the next half an hour refreshing the warding on the Sword's infantry companies. The Cowled Wizards had taken the outskirts, Sadie learned by listening, but they hadn't been able to push past the defense yet into the town proper. They had portaled in waves, like usual, but like near Sadie's post, they had been met by mage-backed infantry and turned aside.

"They'll have reinforcements coming down the north road," she heard someone speculate.

"Where the nine hells do they get them all?" Was another's grumble.

But the company held, and they held for hours more before the glitter of spear points and the flutter and snap of red banners finally crested over the northern mountain horizon, as predicted. The Amnish Army.

Ruddy found her trying to spy on them from the top of a broken wall, which was embarrassing. Ruddy already had third circle spells so Sadie asked her to look at it, because she was curious, and she watched the diminutive girl, who had become like her older sister by default, squint blue eyed into the outskirts.

"Count Salgo de'Armigan," Ruddy declared, matter of fact. "That's the banner of Esmeraltan, there, and... Oh."

"What?" Sadie asked, desperately wanting to see and jealous. She scrambled up by Ruddy and squinted off into the distance. It didn't help. All she could see were scraps of red and soldiers that looked like ants.

"Banner of Tyr."

"What's that mean?"

"It means," Ruddy huffed, exasperated, "we are going to get talked to death before they bugger us."

"Oh."
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Re: War's Apprentice

Post by TheFox » Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:09 pm

Count Salgo de'Armigan was everything Sadie thought a knight should probably be, except that he was a little fat. His armor had been fitted to conceal it, but when he took his helmet off in the dirty Trailstone square, she could see the mess that overeating had made of his face and neck, and that ruined some of her romantic ideas of knights and chivalry - at least, when it came to her own countrymen.

By comparison, Sword Derranal, her captain, a Tethyrian born mercenary lord, seemed like a sandy-colored, rugged wolf shoved into the Order of the Blue Boar's trademark doublet and black boots, scruffy as any street dog.

They sat at a table that someone had dragged out of a hovel, with the knights of Tyr standing around looking considerably better at their jobs than any of the participating nobility. And Sadie, as Battlemage de'Faris's apprentice, got to watch. She was one of four apprentices, but only she and Ruddy had actually survived. Colfax was dead, and Snort - actually, Mariot was his name, but not for very long - had fallen somewhere out of sight. Ruddy had her veil up, too, and they both had their uniforms, so they looked almost like a matching set behind old de'Faris.

As the discussion wore on, though, so too did Sadie wear out. When de'Faris found an empty keg to sit on, she scrapped together with Ruddy to drag out a bench. Sadie had sort of been hoping for a knightly duel, even though the Sword wasn't a knight, since she'd heard about such things before. Maybe something with lances and snapping flags and horses - Count de'Armigan had brought a huge, beautifully black destrier, and Sadie thought maybe she'd want one like it some day, if she ever became a knight. So it was pretty disappointing when after hours of legal arguments put forth by the Tyrran monks, Salgo lost his patience and slapped the ruddy table.

"...this land belongs to me," Salgo declared, irate. "It's belonged to my family for three generations. I pay its taxes to the Council, I appoint its mayors and freeholders, I own this land. Just because you want to defend a bunch of rebels in some backwater, doesn't give you the right to hold this town against the might of Amn!"

"Not according to them you don't," Darrinal retorted, "And not according to Count Idogyr, the bloody Court Sage of Tethyr."

"He isn't even here," the fat knight shot back.

"And we are."

"So quit the field. I've three hundred men out there with heavy horse, and the Cowled Wizards hold half this little dungheap."

Sadie looked to Darrinal, and she wasn't the only one. A few of the other lingering soldiers gathered like a pack around their leader, though many of them had gotten bored and left by now. Ruddy bumped her shoulder.

"He's done it now," she whispered, sanguine and conspiratorial.

Darrinal sat back in the armchair they'd dragged out for him to sit in, giving a gruff snort. "Toy wizards and conscript-soldiers. You'll have a lot less after I get done with them."

They hadn't looked like conscripts to Sadie, but she didn't dare even whisper that to Ruddy. Ruddy leaned on her. Ruddy leaned on her a lot. Sadie thought it was because Ruddy liked girls, like that. Sadie didn't, but she liked Ruddy's friendship too much to growl at her every time, so she leaned back.

She shouldn't have. Salgo had a wandering eye, and he hit on the two of them. He scoffed. The expression was very impressive on such a big face.

"And what do you have?" Count de'Armigan challenged, motioning towards the magical core. "A gaggle of girls, orphans, and old men. Against the Cowled Wizards of Amn. That bink looks like a bloody harlot, and that one next to her looks like she came out of a horse - how old are you?"

Sadie tried to speak, and squeaked instead. Ruddy lied for her. "She's sixteen. I'm eighteen, Sir."

Battlemage de'Faris stepped in, "They're my apprentices. I assure you, either one's a match for any soldier, despite their humble appearances."

The fat knight looked amused. "In what? Knitting, or shoveling horse shite?"

Darrinal kicked the table over, onto the Amnish knight.

Sadie nearly fell off her chair scrambling back, in a tumble with Ruddy, before de'Faris stepped in front of them. The Tyrran knights drew their swords, and the monks looked suddenly frightened. They had good cause; Darrinal looked like the wrath of Tempus, come again. His voice was as chillingly icy as it became in combat, the sort of voice that cut down to Sadie's soul and moved her legs before she could even think about disobeying him.

"Enough. You've worn out your peace, get out of my camp."

And they went.

Sadie didn't get to watch them leave or form up their lines. She and some of the other soldiers got drafted to clear away the table and the chairs and to move barricades into the square, since it took magic to bind them together, even if they did a terrible job of it. But while they were working, and because she couldn't help her own curiousity, she finally plucked up the courage to ask de'Faris if they could actually win.

"No," the old warmage said, after a long pause. "I don't think so."

"Won't uh, won't Count Idogyr support us?" Sadie asked, some of her youthful enthusiasm draining. "He's ah, he's hired us, I heard there were uh, there were soldiers coming up from Spellshire... too."

de'Faris sighed. He put a hand on her shoulder, and looked her in the eye.

"Don't let it bother you. We'll go as far as sword and sorcery will take us. It's our lot. Trust in Helm, trust in Mystra, and trust in your own sword."

She nodded, loyally.

"And don't misplace it again. You don't get a replacement."
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Re: War's Apprentice

Post by Gideon DeVay » Sat Oct 19, 2019 9:10 am

commenting on posts in this forum is so weird because it's so rare. Hopefully it's ok--these are splendid stories and you've done a commendable job in drafting, editing, and publishing them. I appreciate your efforts, and deeply enjoyed this. Here are some of my favorite moments:
Magic carried the smell of ozone thick as pitch, as the air broiled or froze or snapped with lightning,
Sadie coughed. Then she remembered Colfax, and without being able to help it, she threw up in the alleyway.
"Rotting Amnish bastards," swore the dusky Calishite. She added, glib, "present company exempt."
But the company held, and they held for hours more before the glitter of spear points and the flutter and snap of red banners finally crested over the northern mountain horizon, as predicted. The Amnish Army.
Count Salgo de'Armigan was everything Sadie thought a knight should probably be, except that he was a little fat.
They hadn't looked like conscripts to Sadie, but she didn't dare even whisper that to Ruddy. Ruddy leaned on her. Ruddy leaned on her a lot. Sadie thought it was because Ruddy liked girls, like that. Sadie didn't, but she liked Ruddy's friendship too much to growl at her every time, so she leaned back.
"Don't let it bother you. We'll go as far as sword and sorcery will take us. It's our lot. Trust in Helm, trust in Mystra, and trust in your own sword."
I genuinely enjoyed this recollection, and I look forward to more! Well done.
"Yog don't think Beat Up Guy know how dogman work."

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Weston Cain-deceased
Cameron Morning-deceased
Halifax Bisby-returned to the earth
Evelynn Longbrooke-rolled uncermoniously
Drakas Austraxas, The Quiet Fury

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Re: War's Apprentice

Post by TheFox » Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:16 am

Sadie waited.

In fairness, so did everyone else. Though this was now her first real battle, she knew at least intellectually that battles took a long time to prepare for. She spent her time running de’Faris’s errands. That was, after all, what their little magical core was for in the first place.

The Order of the Blue Boar was a professional mercenary company. She had ended up with it sort of by accident, and a little by design, but mostly because she hadn’t wanted to stay a villein shoveling pony shit for the rest of her life on some noble’s estate. The old Battlemage de’Faris had been her ticket out, and it had landed her here, using a belt full of wands to do anything from reducing the fatigue of the soldiers, to making them faster or sturdier in actual combat. He had picked her up off the floor of a stable after sniffing a bit of talent in her, and now here she was.

So she waited with the rest of the sorry lot, magic or no. Waiting was what soldiers did.

If there were a rhyme or reason to why, Sadie didn’t know it, but as the Amnish calvary and infantry milled about, and the Cowled Wizards made occasional unsuccessful testing forays against the first line of defenders near the outskirts of Trailstone’s central plaza, she got that weird electric sense that comes from too little sleep and nerves frayed just a bit too thin. The explosions and screams, the cheers and raucous laughter, became a little further off, and that was how it was before combat. Sadie waited for a call, every minute expecting it to come, and every time tortured when it didn’t. She wanted to just get it over with and have done, though she didn’t actually have anywhere to go or anything better to do.

Ruddy eventually found her sitting on the jockey box of an unloaded stores wagon and hopped lithely up next to her, settling like she belonged. Sadie would have fallen flat on her face if she’d tried that, but Ruddy could do all sorts of nimble things and was talented like that.

Sadie braced herself for the inevitable round of teasing and chit-chat but was surprised to find a little clay pipe on offer, a few inches from her face.

“Try,” offered her dusky companion. “It makes it easier.”

She examined the little curved pipe. It didn’t look like anything special. Ruddy smelled like sweat, powdered perfume, and a sort of tinny, cherry smell. Sadie assumed the latter was this, and the girl must have seen her doubt because she encouraged her by taking the pipe back and lighting it herself with a dramatic little flare spell. Sadie watched, jealous. None of her magic looked half as good as that.

Sadie knew about smoking. She knew de’Faris had a pipe, and brandy, on occasion, but that had given Sadie the sense that it was expensive, and Sadie was poor as dirt and pocket lint. She had no idea where Ruddy had got any.

“Is it uh, is it alright?” she asked, uncertain.

“Mhm,” Ruddy murred out, blowing the smoke into Sadie’s face and giggling when she coughed. “I won it in dice, didn’t steal an ounce.”

“I uh, didn’t say you stole it,” Sadie managed, still a little wary.

The pipe stem hovered inches away.

“Try,” Ruddy encouraged. “Oh, come on, Stutter, you’ve been sulking for for-ever, loosen up and try to at least enjoy yourself. You could be dead in an hour.”

“If they uh, ever actually attack.”

Ruddy rolled her eyes, and gave Sadie a big-sister, little-sister look of scorn. “They will. They’re just getting tripped up by Montani’s traps right now. Didn’t you watch him throw them all up?”

Sadie told her what she’d been doing for the last few hours, and Ruddy huffed at her.

“You’re just spooling yourself up. Look, this isn’t magic, or anything, but it’s common enough where I’m from. Just try it.”

Sadie took the pipe back and placed it at the edge of her lips, mimicking Ruddy. A few moments later she was coughing heady, cherry-smelling plumes, and getting laughed at. She flushed, embarrassed, and after Ruddy had a little time to explain and Sadie knew not to take it into her lungs, she sat and traded the little pipe with her friend, getting a little light-headed from whatever it was, was in the pipe.

It did make her feel a little better, after all, and she told Ruddy so after a while of their sitting there, just waiting.

“Well of course it did, Stutter. What did you think I was trying to give you?”

Sadie shook her head.

“You,” she clucked, “are dense as little diamonds.”
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Re: War's Apprentice

Post by TheFox » Mon Oct 21, 2019 1:52 pm

A horrific scream, worse than anything she had ever heard before, woke Sadie up, and she struggled confused with a heavy weight on her chest. Panicked grasping discovered it was Ruddy.

Ruddy was still asleep. The unearthly wail persisted. Sadie covered her ears as her eardrums rattled and her head split and the world became a little blurry.

She screamed too, when the pain was too much, and she cried and it felt like that scream lasted forever.

When the nightmare ended and the ringing of half-deafness began to subside, leaving her shaking in the bed of the cart she had been napping with Ruddy in, she had to blink away her tears to see it.

Ruddy had slept through it. Sadie tried to wake her, shaking her shoulder a bit, only to find the girl limp. When she turned her Calishite friend over, the little light from the cracks in the covered wagon glinted dull off of the bold whites of terror-stricken eyes, off too pale teeth pulled back from a beautiful face mutilated to rictus.

Sadie lost her breath, as hard as someone had punched her.

She couldn't speak or cry out. All the wind left her at once. She shook Ruddy again, suddenly feeling as weak as a newborn kitten. Her friend's head lolled, her dark hair spilling out of her hood in ringlets of midnight, as blood leaked from her ears and mouth, the red tears already drying.

She hugged her. She gathered her up and held her, and she didn't know what to do. Sadie gasped for air, like a fish caught out of water, unable to breathe for the burning in her chest. Ruddy was dead.

She barely heard the tin whistle calling the Boars to battle, or the screaming. She let the battle carry on around her and stayed in the cart with her friend until the fighting sounded far off and distant. She sat there with Ruddy until the sun waned and the dust motes got caught in the gold-red light of the day dying. She missed the whole battle and didn't care. When one of the sergeants found her in the bed of the cart, she didn't hear her name. It just didn't register. He could have been as easily an enemy, but Sadie couldn't gather the wits to draw her sword.

"Apprentice Hasper! Nine hells, girl."

She struggled when de'Faris himself seized her and pulled, drunk legs fumbling her out of the cart with only the old Battlemage's ancient strength keeping her from going face first into the poorly cobbled dirt. She wanted to get back in, and needed to, but couldn't pull away.

De'Faris slapped her. Hard.

The rest of the world was filled with corpses, and a hazy red color. This had been behind the lines, with the reinforcement company - where she had sort of fit in. People who hadn't been tried before. People who weren't well trained. Messengers, drummer boys, the sick or injured. Unblooded rookies. Just like her.

They lay as death had found them, having stood and fought, or rushed to fill the gaps in the blasted streets with bodies instead of barricades. A few of the Amnish in their pretty red uniforms left blossoms of blood on the cobblestones, cut down by archers. In one place, they had been skinned by acid, the enamel of armor corroded to rust and sick mockery. It bore all the marks of a magical battleground. Melted cobblestones. Half caste corpses. An Amish tinny drum blasted to splinters and cloth by some arcane bolt, and everywhere the dead in blue or red, burned or scarred or ruined. But the most horrible to behold were the ones that had been caught, like she and Ruddy had been caught, in the midst of some foul sorcery - they lay twisted and broken, thrashed to death by their own muscles, bleeding out their eyes and ears in a macabre fantasy, like some careless child's discarded rag dolls.

It should have smelled, but all Sadie could smell was blood - her own, she found out.

De'Faris swore something nasty as he wiped off her face, and she saw the cloth come away red. He looked into her eyes as she stood there shivering. He looked furious, and Sadie was terrified of that look. She stumbled to find something, anything to say, her cheek stinging, but only one thing came to mind.

"I'm s-sorry, I-"

The look of relief that dawned on de'Faris confused her, and stopped her.

"Good gods, girl," he said.

"She's not...?"

"No. Damn him. Bloody court wizard. Tower mage without a lick of sense."

Sadie had no idea what they were talking about. Other members of the company were filing in now, in a bedraggled lope. She stood there dumb and watched her haunted company begin to pick through the dead.

That stirred her to action and she tried for the cart again, but again, de'Faris caught her.

"It's alright, Sadie. It's alright, they'll get her too."

"Maybe we should take her to the Count," the other soldier said. For the first time, Sadie looked at him directly, and realized he wasn't just any soldier. He had a knights spurs, for one thing, and heavy armor, and a long shock of gold hair that lay over the pauldrons. He looked young. The dragon of Tethyr adorned his tabard. "She looks half dead. Perhaps she's under some sort of enchantment."

"She's just battle-shocked. Let her rest."

Sadie's voice cracked but she pressed on. "Did - did we lose?"

The knight gave her an amused look, and then laughed. But de'Faris didn't laugh.

Bitterly, he said, "No. We won."

"Saved by his Grace," offered the knight, peering around at the remainder of the company with the unconcerned air of a player surveying a lanceboard. "You were lucky. We gave you mercenaries up for dead. Tell me, how did you survive the Wailing?"

Sadie shook her head. She didn't know. Truth be told, her mind didn't seem to want to stay anywhere. It wouldn't hold thoughts. She didn't even try to bother making sense of anything, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. But then she caught sight of something else and they lost her immediate attention.

It was a man on a horse. A white horse, huge, sixteen hands tall at least. A great, long staff took the place of a banner in the saddle stirrups and a robe as black as pitch, and twinkling with gems that shone like stars, marked him out. But it wasn't the staff or the robe that demanded attention. And it wasn't the centaur that rode - walked? - beside the mage. It was his eyes. His face was scarred and an emerald took place of pride, where an eye should have been. And he was watching her with the perplexed expression of a wolf puzzling out why the rabbit hadn't run.

Her body chose that moment to give up. The world spun for a second, hazy and indistinct, and she didn't feel the ground when she hit it, or remember anything else after that except the sky and how it looked at dusk, in bloody Trailstone, at the end of the autumn season.
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Re: War's Apprentice

Post by TheFox » Tue Nov 05, 2019 7:23 am

She awoke a few times over the week it took her to recover. Her memory faded in and out and included robed priests in gray homespun, the Boars medic, and de'Faris once visited as well. He looked sad, but didn't come again.

She was half conscious when they took her to the cell, and snapped to full consciousness when they discarded her on the cold and dirty floor of it.

She scrambled to take her face and hair out of the damp mess, and blinked a few times owlishly into the gloom. But the fever made her arms weak and her muscles unhelpful, and her head hurt and her stomach hurt and she couldn't even turn around to see what was happening.

She heard a slam, and when her muddied mind could make sense of anything, in the dark, she realized it must have been the cell door bolting. She heaved up and went to it, only to find her hands grasping aged, grainy wood without handle. Only a little torch light peeked in beneath the timber gaps.

She got dizzy then and had to sit down. She sat against the door and tried to get the world to stop spinning, and to make sense again.

It didn't.

Eventually she slept again, only to wake when the door moved against her back and interrupted her curled feverish malaise. She blinked up in the light at the shadow of someone outlined against it, and for a few moments she thought she had died, only she hadn't. It was an Ilmateri monk. One of the men she vaguely remembered tending her at her bedside in the sick tent.

She crawled out of the way of the door once she realized she was blocking it and managed to come up to her knees, where she struggled to sit upright.

The monk brought a lamp which he sat down between them, and the door closed behind him so that it was just the two of them. Sadie shivered, and held herself. After a moment, he offered her a cloak, and when she didn't move to take it the monk draped it around her and pulled it close about her and only then did she realize she had been next to naked in the damp cell. The cloth was warm and she clutched it.

The monk sat back and watched her shiver for a bit in the damp silence before sighing in apparent resignation.

"I am so sorry," he said.

Sadie tried to speak, but had to spit first. Her mouth tasted like a cesspit smelt. She didn't know what to say, afterwards, so she didn't say anything. The monk offered her a leather wineskin, but when she drank from it, it was only water that tasted brakish. It tasted better than whatever had filled her mouth before, though.

"Do you know where you are?" He asked, and when she shook her head he explained, "This is the donjon of Shildemare Keep. I am Brother Evald. I am truly sorry for your treatment, but the Castilian insisted. How are you feeling?"

It was a stupid question but when Sadie could bring herself to part from the water she answered, "Bad.". When she found she could talk after all, and because the monk looked to want to talk, she ventured "Why... am I here?"

There were no Boars in Shildemare. Only Tethyrian troops. She wanted to ask so many questions, but that one had seemed best at the time.

"You were brought here for an inquiry," the monk explained, watching her. He looped his hands over his folded knees, sitting with her in the grime. "Actually, I need to ask you a few questions myself, but take your time. This is monsterous and barbaric, I think, but it is the law here, nevertheless."

Sadie drank, and spat and sniffled and then, because she had no modesty left anyway and she didn't think it would be too rude, she blew her nose and spat again. Every bone in her body ached, her gut seemed to be on fire, and she felt as though she were freezing. If he waited for her to feel better he might as well wait until she was dead, she thought, so she nodded assent after sniffling a bit and curling herself in his wool cloak.

"How did you survive the Wailing?"

The Wailing. Sadie closed her eyes, and still saw the little lamplight in an after image. It was better than remembering the face of her friend. The Wailing.

"I don't know."

"Are you beloved of a god?" He asked, and she could tell by his tone he was trying to be gentle. She shook her head anyway, because she didn't know that either. "Particularly talented with magic, then? Your sergeant thought very highly of you."

"A little."

"Still," the monk reasoned, "you are too young to be much of a mage."

So Sadie told him how she had learned; it came out in little bits, at first, but he listened to her. He listened as she told him about de'Faris saving her from Sword Derrinal's drunken fumbling. How she had been in the stable when the Sword had found her and came on her, and de'Faris had stopped him and apprenticed her as a result of a joking bet. How she had left home. How she had came here. It wasn't a long story at all.

"So what did you feel when you heard it?"

"I was asleep," she said honestly. "And it hurt."

"It killed better trained men, twice your age," the monk offered. "Just how old are you?"

"Seventeen."

He chucked a bit and asked again, and this time she answered honestly. "Fourteen. Sir."

The monk shook his head, rueful. "You will be a mountain when you are older, I think. Still, twice your age, and better men with more experience. Perhaps it would have been fine if your commander still lived, but alas, the spell took him as well. But you survived, so now we must know the reason why, or at least give some reason to the Count."

Sadie hadn't known that Darrinal was dead. The news stunned her into silence again. Darrinal hadn't been a bad man, overall. In fact in many ways she had liked him, at least after she had known him a while. But he had been a mean drunk, however well he commanded in daylight. He had laughed about it afterwards, and treated her well enough, perhaps as an apology. She wasn't sure she had quite forgiven him in spite of that, but that was the end of him, and now he was gone, and Ruddy was gone, it left her strangely empty.

"So what uh, what happened to the company?" She asked, finally, when she thought to.

"Disbanded. I understand your Battlemage signed with another one of your... Swords?" He said it like a question, so Sadie nodded. The Board Heads made Swords, the Swords hired mercenaries in turn, which is how she had ended up here. "I see. He wanted to stay, of course, for the trial, but they called him away, I understand."

That sent a little shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with her sickness. "Trial?"

The monk nodded. "Yes. Unless, in my inquiry, I can come up with some reason that you survived, they will trial you as a witch. The knights are upset and very suspicious of evil work."

"Can I keep this?" She asked, suddenly worried, and afraid, and pulling the cloak close. She was just beginning to feel less vulnerable and clothing helped. It was warm, and she couldn't stop shivering. She was sweating despite it, but she wanted it anyway.

"The cloak?" The monk asked, surprised. "Well, yes. I suppose."

Sadie pulled the big hood up over her head and wrapped her whole self up, trying not to shiver, and sat for a few moments more, trying to marshal her fleeting thoughts.

"I'm not a witch," she said.

"You must simply prove it."

"How?"

The monk offered a shrug. "Honestly, child, it depends on circumstance. Witchcraft is insidious, and few trust mages here. Count Idogyr is the Queen's man, but the Lords here are black hearted and suspicious as a rule."

"Can't you help me?" Sadie blurted, miserable. But the monk gave her a studious look. He had a kind face, a little gaunt, a little wrinked, but he looked older like that.

"I am trying to do just that. Please think hard. Any reason at all."

So Sadie thought hard. She had never prayed much, being more interested in swords and knights and stories about powerful sorcerers. And she couldn't honestly think of any reason she might have survived when Ruddy and Darrinal had died. Gods didn't speak to her, and she didn't have some sort of magical reason for living. She just hadn't died. It had hurt a lot and, now that she thought about it, she was probably still gravely injured. But she couldn't think of a good reason.

"Maybe because... I am Amnish?"

The monk laughed abrupt and sudden, and his face softened again. "Tell that to a bunch of Tethyrian noblemen, I dare say!"

She smiled a little, too, and then she coughed for a long time instead of laughing.
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Re: War's Apprentice

Post by TheFox » Sat Nov 30, 2019 12:43 pm

It days to see the Castilian. Sadie hardly noticed the time pass, which is not to say that she didn't know that she had been in the cell a long time. She reckoned about three or four. They fed her sparingly, always bustling her away from the heavy ironbound door first and setting the tray down while she huddled, freezing, in her only true clothing, the cloak.

She got worse. Eventually she could not keep food down, and she might have died if, a few meals in - she suspected one a day - Brother Evald hadn't checked on her after the third one.

He cast some spells over her to keep her alive, and afterwards she could keep the food down again, so she ate it and marked time. It would have been insufferable if there hadn't been a grating in one corner. Heavy, far too heavy for her, and cast iron, she did her business down it and hoped there were running water. She couldn't hear it. It stank like a midden, because that is what it most probably was.

She got a lot of time to think and reflect in the gloomy place. She shivered and coughed, and waited, without spells, without warmth save for the cloak which had very swiftly become her most beloved possession.

And, she thought of the haunted dead eyes of Ruddy, every once in a while. It became harder and harder to distract herself and eventually she gave over to complete, sob-racked despair until she couldn't cry anymore. What did it matter if she died too? All her friends were dead, her teacher had left her, her family was out of reach forever. She hadn't been away from Tradesmeet a bare year before disaster.

When the door finally opened on the last day she didn't even bother to look at the light. Whether it was an executioner, or a baliff, or some devil out of the nine hells. Sadie was too miserable and wrapped in self loathing to pay attention to it.

The gauntleted fist seized her and dragged her to her feet, and Sadie struggled helplessly, feeling as weak and ineffective as a mouse squirming in a Hawk's talons.

She looked up into the helmet of a man in black steel armor, with a cloak she thought might have been red. The lamplight glittered on the mail in a strange way. He held her there in a single arm while she squirmed, and when she didn't stop, he shook her violently until she was too addled to struggle anymore and started crying.

"Stop it," he ordered, gruffly.

Sadie complied and whimpered an apology that ended in a racking cough. Her legs wouldn't support her. They cramped when she tried. The knight looked back to the monk, who rushed forward to try to tend her, but at a gesture he held back. The visor returned to Sadie, the knight regarding her through a half inch of polished steel and plume.

"This girl isn't evil."

He said it as though he were disappointed, and for some reason, his voice made her freeze like a fox waiting execution. If she could have curled up in a ball she would have. She lost control of her bladder. Then she couldn't speak, though she tried. The knight held her still, his grip on her arm like a blacksmith vice, and turned her head so she had to look at him.

He stared into her eyes and said, "You will do as I say. Exactly as I say. Do you understand?"

She tried to speak. It came out a whine. She shut her eyes.

"You are terrifying the poor-"

"Nine hells, sufferer, I mean to. Let her answer herself, this is the third witless peasant today you damn blackguards have demanded I burn."

Sadie nodded furiously. It was all she could do.

"I am going to let you go. You will strip."

He was as good as his word, and let her fall. She forced her legs to work, and looked to the monk for help, but no help came from Evald's quarter. He looked worried, he looked sympathetic, and he looked about as frightened of the man as Sadie was.

"I do not have all day, girl. Before I rip it off."

Sadie pulled the cloak off as quickly as she could, her fingers dumb and leaden, and then she pulled off her shift. It was all she had. She tried not to drop them, but the knight tore them away when she held then over her chest, and the knight took a torch to hold near her face.

He looked long at her while she stood naked and shivering. She felt every inch of it. Then he didn't even ask, he turned her around and examined her backside. She took the opportunity to cover her front.

He grabbed her hair and rifled through it. After a week, or however long it had been without a brush, it was a mess, and she heard him swearing as he picked through. It was like he was looking for lice. Sadie didn't dare move.

He turned her back and offered her clothing to her. She accepted it and waited, expecting worse - but it never came. He wasn't even looking at her anymore.

He turned back to the monk, saying, "she isn't demon-pacted. Just scared shitless. You damn gallows happy bastards have been wasting my time all season."

The torchlight caught the symbol on his cloak as he turned, and Sadie noticed it was the upright gauntlet of Helm.

It sent a shiver up her spine, for no reason she could adequately explain.
Last edited by TheFox on Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: War's Apprentice

Post by TheFox » Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:30 pm

When they departed Shildemare Keep, they skirted the black-boughed Wealdath on the northern side and used most of the day to put distance between themselves and the dark vale. They started in the morning and rode till near the evening, until they came to a bridge that had collapsed, and the knight called a halt.

Sir Blackmoore rode ahead of her on his white destrier, and Sadie ended up straddling the piebald mare that carried what little baggage the knight required. She was light enough to fit, and the mare was a gentle creature, and after being a week in a dungeon and another on the sickbed, she was determined to keep her seat and what little was left of her dignity both in-tact. Already she had saddle-sores that throbbed with the horse’s every step. So she was glad that he’d called the stop, and eager to get down onto her own two feet again. Once she was, she found she was a bit bow-legged, and tried to walk it off.

Straight off he had given her new clothing, though it had been meant for a boy about her size, and she had kept the monk’s cloak after washing it in a river stream a few miles back. The boots were a bit too big for her.

The armored knight, who hadn’t spoken to her all day since departing, finally sized her up.

“You were a mercenary?” He sounded incredulous. “How good are you?”

“Um… I-…I ah, I did, dr-… drills with the co… company?” she tried. It was really hard to talk to a faceless helmet.

The knight pulled a sword off the back of the mare’s saddle and offered it to her. It was a soldier’s sword, a little longer than what she was used to, and she hesitantly took it. At least he hadn’t mentioned her stuttering or called her names yet. The scabbard was worn leather bound together with wood, and it was peacebonded with a knot she didn’t recognize.

“Gnolls in the treeline. They will attack us when we try to ford.”

Sadie looked up at him. “Um?”

He loomed over her. She really didn’t like it.

“There is an ogre in the mountains. He has been raising an army. That army, has scouts. Those scouts,” he explained, turning his helmeted head without pointing, “Are over there. Can you fight, or do you want to hide in the trees over there?”

Sadie looked back to the copse of trees they had just passed. It didn’t look inviting. She looked over at the winding river, and then at the grim treeline beyond. The light was fading from the sky and soon it would be dark, and she didn’t think that she wanted to be in either forest when the night came. She looked back at the knight.

“I’ll ah, I’ll fight.”

He nodded to her and went back to his horse. Sadie buckled the sword onto her belt quickly, where it sagged, heavy, at her hip, and caught up in her cloak as she trudged along behind the knight towards the bridge.

The bridge itself had collapsed into the river, and the river current had carried most of the scrap wood and planking away, leaving only the pilings sticking up out of the riverbed like skeletal fingers. The knight stopped at the edge and his horse whickered. Sadie thought she could see a few shadows, darker than normal forest shadows, moving in the thick underbrush beneath the trees. How had the knight even known to look for them? Sadie would have missed them, and she thought she had pretty good eyesight.

Then she didn’t have to see them, they came out of the trees one by one, wielding axes or rough-hewn bows, and the knight retrieved his huge shield from the side of the white destrier’s saddle. Sadie tried to draw her sword, and remembered the knot, then frantically set to untying it.

“Be calm,” he warned, strapping on the shield. “They can’t hit us from there.”

A few bowstrings twanged, and the arrows zipped into the riverbed. One struck, quivering, in one of the pilings. Sadie managed to untangle the sword’s hilt and drew it, keeping her other hand on the mare’s reins. Suddenly she wished that she’d thought to ask for a shield too, but it didn’t look like he had a second, and the one he had looked like it had been pulled off the frame of a barn and wouldn’t have been of any use to someone like her anyway.

“They outnumber us so they will rush us,” narrated the knight, slapping his horse’s rump to get it going, and then drawing his own sword, “so meet them at the riverbank. They won’t have footing.”

Sadie hastily untangled herself from the mare, and mimicked his action. The horse whinnied at her and bolted off after the white horse, leaving the two of them alone to face the small band of gnolls. It made Sadie feel worse than naked, to be standing in the open with bows on the field, but she took shelter behind the armored man and held her sword in both hands, wishing she had spells memorized. Even a daze. Even _light_, though she didn’t know what use it would have been. Maybe if she could blind one of them…?

An arrow thunked into the shield. The knight didn’t move an inch.

She could hear the barking and the splashes as the gnolls lept into the river.

“Ready?”

“N-no.”

He chuckled.
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