Chapter 21 — Tinker Tailor Shapeshifter Spy
The ignorant brigand joined his compatriots as they lay in wait around the village square. Naturally, he was met with questions as to the progress of the tasks he was assigned.
“Nothing was out of the ordinary, but I am more concerned with where the boss will be keeping his hostage.” The ignorant brigand replied.
He received confused but welcome looks from his compatriots. Confused for reasons the ignorant brigand could not guess—perhaps his diction was off—but welcome regardless that his tasks seemed to be complete.
The ignorant brigand struggled to make small talk, or in fact any form of conversation, as he was constantly being shushed by those around him. This could have been because of their ongoing objective of secrecy, but the ignorant brigand suspected it had to do more with his lower social standing within the group.
Minutes later a thickly bearded brigand—seemingly of much higher social standing—excused himself, announcing his intention to empty his bladder and promising his imminent return. Thus off the bearded brigand went… all alone… away from prying eyes.
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The bearded brigand returned as promised and soon initiated conversation. He struggled to make small talk, only finding conversational refuge in the topic of what his fellows thought were the boss’s most exceptional magical feats. Those immediately around him happily began debating amongst themselves, painting for the bearded brigand the picture of an apprentice ice mage.
The bearded brigand soon declared the debate over and settled, then moved the conversation back to the interesting topic the ignorant—and now oddly absent—brigand had brought up: that of where the boss would be keeping hostages.
The bearded brigand received confused but—no. He received exclusively confused looks from those around him, as he was informed that the likely location would be whichever the boss preferred most.
The bearded brigand attempted to move the conversation onto the topic of precisely where the boss could be found at this exact moment, however his attempt was interrupted by a distant cry.
It was a cry of surprise and discovery, soon followed by the sounds of struggle. It came from another part of the brigands’ hidden encirclement, and may as well have been a war horn. At once the bearded brigand’s compatriots rose then fell upon the village square.
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The attackers charged forward, weapons drawn, and in search of victims with whom they could communicate their intentions. The bearded brigand winced as blood already stained the village square—a finely dressed elderly man lay dead, having been felled by arrows. The single arrow through his skull confirmed that he was beyond saving, however, such was not the case for other villagers around the square.
A familiar looking baker seemed intent on standing his ground, armed only with a cleaver. His token resistance gained him only the attention of a light haired brigand who answered the baker’s cooking implement with sword and hatchet.
However, as the light haired brigand swung his sword to end the baker’s life, his sword arm jerked wildly, sending the sword’s blade instead into one of the light haired brigand’s compatriots.
Similar freak occurrences in the villagers’ favor played out across the square: here a desperate punch from a villager landed on a brigand’s jaw and somehow left the latter paralyzed from the neck down, there a brigand tripped and his dagger unfortunately found its way into his own gut, and what few archers there were were unable to loose any arrows as their bodies were wracked with violent coughs.
What was supposed to be a one sided affair of the brigands marching in, killing a small number of individuals, and then graciously accepting the unconditional surrender of the villagers, had turned into genuine combat—and one in which they were losing.
“We need the boss.” Observed the bearded brigand from the rear of the fighting. His conclusion was soon echoed by his fellows, but the cries for reinforcement went unanswered.
The bearded brigand called out again for his superior, but again went unanswered.
A semblance of a proper battle line had formed from the villagers, composed entirely of civilian men wielding whatever cooking utensil or scrap of wood they could turn towards their own defense. Opposing them, the brigands were a disorderly mob pressing against the villagers’ line. At the current rate, they would have to retreat or risk being wiped out. That is not to say that the villager’s were without casualties, merely that theirs were debilitating injuries at worst as opposed to more than a quarter of the brigands now lying dead.
The bearded—
Yvette. Yvette was running out of patience as the nightmare scenarios began to once again intrude on her thoughts. Across the square she spotted one of the brigands with a degree of authority trying to organize his men.
She was upon him in a moment, wrenching the scruff of his shirt in her fist.
“Where is the ice mage?” Yvette barked, keeping both her physical and mage sight locked on the skirmish as she continued to intervene on the villagers’ behalf.
“Get your hands off me,” the brigand demanded.
Yvette spared the man a glance to grab him by the throat instead, “Answer the question.”
“What the fuck, Tiubh,” he said as he tried and failed to pry Yvette’s hand off of him.
“Answer the question or I will snap your neck.”
“Shit, you’re not Tiubh, are you?” Realization crossed the man’s face, “You’re the mage girl’s master.”
“Answer my question.” Yvette commanded, tightening her grip, “Either tell me where the ice mage is, or where you saw him last.”
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The nearest brigands turned and noticed what she was doing to their superior, but before they could draw their weapons they collapsed to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.
“Where.” Yvette reiterated.
“Shit, look, I haven’t seen him since he stayed back with the mage girl.” he managed.
Yvette shuddered as she suppressed her rising panic, her slight lapse in concentration allowing a villager to take a dagger to the stomach, “And where was this?”
“Just outside of town, downwind—erh, southeast,” the commander said.
Could he still be outside of town? Perhaps he didn’t want to risk his men being caught in the crossfire of a fight between mages. It was possible, but that would necessitate leaving his men undefended from an enemy mage which would make no—
A dagger stabbed into Yvette’s gut.
It pierced her stolen clothing and broke through her skin, progressing only a centimeter through the thin layers of fat and hair follicles before the tip of the blade glanced off the armored plates of her mesoskeleton.
The deflected blade sliced an arch across Yvette’s abdomen, spraying the commander with blood so dark red as to almost be black. Immediately, and without the need of aether or any direct intervention, the bleeding ceased and small tendrils of flesh reached out across the wound to sow the skin back together.
The commanding brigand, dagger in hand, stared at the wound in horror, “What in the hells are you—”
Yvette idly snapped his neck as she considered.
“Southeast…” she murmured to herself. It was the best and only lead she had, however there was still the matter of the brigands attacking the square.
Yvette drove her threads into all the remaining attackers she could see, latching the threads onto all the critical points within their bodies. And as Yvette ran to the southeast and left sight of the square, her threads began tearing into their targets. What was a desperate fight one moment, was a village standing amongst the dead and dying attackers the next.
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“RÍNA!” Yvette bellowed as she plowed through the powdery snow. The massive amounts of snow her body was displacing kicked up a small snowstorm around her. It made visibility plummet, but Yvette no longer relied on her sight to follow the footprints in the snow. Instead she was following the scent of blood—Rína’s blood.
“RÍNA!” She tried again, the smell of the girl’s incendiaries becoming stronger. With his absence from the fight, and signs of a conflict here in the forest, Yvette doubted the ice mage was still alive, but as for Rína…
“RÍ—”
“Over here.” Came a weak, raspy voice.
Yvette shuddered at hearing her voice and slowed to allow the snow to settle. When the air finally cleared Yvette saw Rína sitting up against a tree. She had her now half burned coat draped over her, beneath which Yvette saw burns and makeshift bandages soaked through with blood.
Yvette closed the remaining distance, kneeling to the ground and pulling Rína into an embrace.
“Thank Vhela you’re alive,” Yvette said, her breathing still unsteady as she cradled Rína’s head.
“Hey aunty,” Rína weakly said before chuckling, “Nice beard.”
“What?” Yvette cocked her head, “Oh, of course.” She said as her bearded visage quickly reverted, “The ice mage is dead, I presume?”
“I… yeah… Yeah, he’s dead.” Rína said hollowly before widening her eyes, “Shit. The village: is everyone ok?”
“Save for one or two deaths, the village is fine—I made sure of it.” Yvette said.
“Oh… I guess that’s pretty good, given the odds.”
“Indeed, and speaking of… Rína,” Yvette met her eyes, “Thank you for surviving,” Yvette’s voice hitched, “Thank you for being alright.”
Rína weakly chuckled, “You’re welcome. But I’m not exactly alright.”
“Hm?” Yvette cocked her head to the side, “Oh, perhaps, ‘alright within a rounding error’?” A slight smile tugged at the woman’s lips, “But on that topic: do I have your permission?”
“What?” Rína stared quizzically.
“For healing, I mean. Do I have your permission to administer healthcare?”
“Oh,” Rína shook her head, remembering the woman’s promise, “Yeah, go for it. I think in emergencies you can just assume you’ve got blanket permission.”
“Thank you, but I would hardly consider the situation an emergency at present.” Yvette said as she pulled two needle tipped tubes from the ostensible pack around her shoulders. The pack itself was nothing short of an auxiliary cardiovascular system, containing its own lungs, calorie stores, and so forth. The former two were unnecessary at present, but the heart and large supply of universal donor blood would more than show their worth.
“And how could this not be an emergency? I’ve been burned and stabbed—multiple times.” Rína weakly said.
Yvette raised an eyebrow, “A few minor injuries do not an emergency make.” She stated plainly as she inserted one tubed needle into each of Rína’s forearms and began a blood transfusion. Meanwhile, Yvette unspooled dozens of flesh threads from her fingers to suture not just the surface of the stab wounds closed, but to also suture the severed veins back together.
“And how the hells are these just minor wounds?” Rína asked, somewhat glad the low light prevented her from fully seeing her numbed flesh being stitched back together.
“Well, they don’t include any head injuries, nor the loss of any limbs, and you seemed to still have had most of your blood—thus ‘minor’ is the only appropriate word to describe them.” Yvette said matter-of-factly. The burns she ignored, save for numbing them, as they weren’t of immediate concern and would take some time to repair regardless.
“I’d hate to see what you consider a severe injury then,” Rína mumbled to herself.
“I imagine you will see examples momentarily, given the recent conflict.”
“Right… so, uh, all the rest of them…” Rína vaguely pointed deeper into the forest, in the direction from which Yvette could smell a large amount of charred flesh.
“Dead.” Yvette said, “Or at least it is unlikely any survived.”
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Deilo ran for his life as if the very Scourge King was chasing him, and for all he knew, that’s exactly what he left behind in that no-name village.
It had been going so well: they had surrounded the village square without any of the villagers being any the wiser, and all they had to do was just wait for the boss to signal the attack. But then… then Deilo found Tiubh’s body stashed behind a pile of firewood. He ran to tell the rest of the guys, but when he got to them, Tiubh was there.
Except it wasn’t him. Sure it looked just like him, hells it even had his voice, but there was just something off about him, a kind of wrongness. And before he could tell anyone the fighting had started. Deilo hung way back out of sight and saw not-Tiubh just… staring… with eyes that weren’t his as the group of dirt farmers were somehow killing his comrades left and right. Deilo was going to do something, he swore, but… but…
But then Deilo saw not-Tiubh get stabbed, and then…
And then everyone died. They just died. Dropped to ground, dead.
Those memories were going to be burned into his soul for as long as he lives.
And so he ran. He ran straight for the pass where the dogs and their sleds were stashed, all while giving the forest he saw that… thing… run towards a wide berth. The tracks he and rest of the boys had made should still be fresh enough for him to follow back and escape this thrice damned valley.
After that… after that Deilo would have to tell someone.