Ch: 178 Baby Dont Hurt Me
A ragged line of nearly two dozen scruffy, wild looking men and women faced down a twelve man mounted patrol of War’s light cavalry. Their line ‘bristled’ with shovels, woodsman’s axes and farming implements. They wore only common clothing and were either sandaled or barefoot.
Despite their many disadvantages and obvious lack of training, they stood together as the troop charged.
In the timeless minute between the forces aligning against each other and the inevitable clash, a long high sound cut the air. The clear shrill piping of a bone flute sent the ragged line into fits and spasms.
War charged, wielding the butts of lances and stout cudgels, rather than steel. Horses and their riders battered and bashed men and women to the earth, breaking bones and dealing out pain and injuries with generosity and eagerness. Tawny looked away from the one sided drubbing, she always disliked violence, even when it was necessary.
Liam’s sharp, piercing whistle cut the sunny mid morning, two short blasts and one long. Tawny reined Magnus around from where she and Becky were supporting War’s cavalry with her arts. They had this neatly in hand, once the unarmored and ill equipped fools tried to line up and fight, only to have their master’s control interfered with at an inopportune moment.
Liam’s call drew her little pony towards the sounds of conflict, the brave little fellow brought her right to the edge of the small clearing, before he balked and shied at the scent of blood and sounds of battle. She vaulted from the saddle, leaving Magnus to join Annie. Tawny’s guard, Becky followed suit, jumping from Pickle, with a swat on the rump to send him on.
The two women dashed to Liam, who was bent over Dannyl’s bleeding and crumpled form, among the scrubby brush.
#
The sweet chiming song of his baton and Shai’s bells gave the furious battle a festive air, while leaves, twigs and small branches rained down from the canopy and larger branches fell to Shai’s amateurish tree pruning efforts.
She skipped forward and deftly removed a limb with her murdershovel, then danced out of its rapidly diminishing range. The tree shuddered and spun at her, sweeping a cut stump past her dancing form. It was way too short and the creature was running out of limbs…
Gary was in the canopy, scrambling like a monkey, trying to get free of the entangling boughs that had swept him up. Dangling upside down, he constantly vanished, then reappeared his weapon, as he wrestled with the tree.
He was bound in slender, but tough green vines with little peach flowers and tightly bundled balls of thorny cordage scattered on its length. Those cockleburrs could lash out, uncoiling for long range whip attacks or stay bundled tight, forming thorny fists to punch up close.
It held him upside down, having a good grip around his legs and waist, restricting his movement and keeping him trapped among the thrashing, flailing limbs in the upper story. That left a lot of thin and tender things for his baton to chew on.
#
A sturdy suit of armor and a baton with buzzing whirling ring blades were not the kind of thing a vine monster would or should normally choose to mess with up close, but it was enraged by the sound his weapon produced.
Hryluth, the Cockleburr had been around for a long time, this was far from the first time a weapon had bit it so… But some affliction of the Mind and Will ravaged its senses, even as its vital juices spilt from severed and smashed vines.
The sound of the armored warrior’s weapon refreshed the affliction, renewing the agony, fear and rage that the fallen, small human had inflicted with his terrible whip. It thrashed and flailed at the armored man as that terrible song played on and on in its mind, drowning out all rational thought.
#
With a few final swipes of his buzzing blades, Gary freed his legs and he dropped to a crouch, right beside the trunk. The thickest limbs were unable to reach him in close, while the vine didn’t have the strength to pierce or bash his armor. Its thorns and fists simply lacked enough mass to make an impression. It continued buffeting him about, losing more vines to every attack… Entangling attempts wound up just adding to the spattered sap and goo coating the armored figure.
Gary swept his weapon through the rapidly thinning lower canopy, sending detritus to the forest floor in a shower of plant matter. The thicker boughs were impervious to his blades, but that vibrant green vine with the flowers responded very well to its touch. Gary took to juicing every strand of it he could reach, snipping it into mulch as he clambered closer to the trunk, where the vine wound most densely.
After just a few seconds of diligent weeding, the tree shuddered and began to fall. Its motive force fled, as the vine withered and browned into leaf litter and dry cordage.
“Careful, it’s not dead, it’s hiding…” Gary called out. “The vine is the monster, it just controls trees it wraps around.”
Khan and Luna had been stalking the perimeter of the fight, watching over the healer… since the kids seemed ideally equipped for the tree creature. Now she scanned the brush carefully, on foot.
With a yell of victory, she grabbed up one of the melon sized burrs, snatching it from where it was trying to root in the soil beneath another oak tree.
Even as she held it aloft, it browned and withered. “It’s a seed caster, find and smash all these burrs!” Luna yelled, looking around for more of the knotted masses of wriggling thorns and vine.
“Gary, back off so I can look for it! Guard Tawny and the boys, Shai, on me!” She barked.
Luna got Annie the horses in on the search, snuffling and browsing among the low grasses and verdure for the wretched things. Magnus found it first, whinnying with fury and stomping the bundle of thorns into green paste.
Once Gary was out of the way, Luna snatched off her eyepatch and started searching. “Over there, Shai, in that bush and another, six yards behind you under a tree. Becky, look by that boulder, around behind it.” She directed their small force in the search, while the sounds of combat ended quickly down the hill.
Less than five minutes later, Luna was about to rip the last one to shreds, when a man came stumbling and bleeding, out of the brush.
When he spotted her, preparing to shred the knotted seed pod, he screamed and charged to attack, bare handed.
A few staggering, screaming steps later, Shai’s shovel caught him lazily across the face, planting the deranged man on his back with little fanfare. She quickly bound him hand and foot with the corded remnants of his leafy master, with a few kicks for good measure.
Luna watched with satisfaction as the wild struggles of the battered man subsided. Shai’s iron hard fist to the back of his head was a potent sedative, with rough side effects afterwards.
A moment later, priest Shaheen and two War cultists came charging into the clearing, no doubt seeking the stray Shai was casually seated on. They looked down from their lathered mounts and grumbled softly inside their helmets.
“Adventurers, take your fallen and withdraw, this is a matter for War. We will sweep the area and examine their camp.” Shaheen called out authoritatively.
#
Liam hoisted Dannyl’s limp form over his shoulder and followed Tawny farther from the fight. He was battered and unconscious but seemed largely whole. They set up in a small clearing with Khan watching the brush for threats, so Tawny and Liam could work their arts.
Liam had already extracted a stub of broken tree limb out of Dannyl’s hip and staunched the bleeding, but the rest needed the attention of a real healer. Together they quickly stripped him, searching for hidden injuries. Liam checked his extremities, finding a badly broken left leg and left arm, along with all the expected bruises and contusions.
Tawny worked on his hip wound, stuffing the cavity with springy green moss mixed with a few drops of a thick honey-like substance. She dashed a quick spell with her wand, speaking the incantation softly. A pale golden glow suffused his hip and left leg, as the spreading bruises slowly began to fade. Not entirely, but they looked a few days old now, rather than freshly battered, purpling flesh.
“Splint that leg Liam, I’ll bandage this and then we can check his torso more carefully, there may be a spinal injury.” Her calm sure hands and easy smile reassured the two guards warily patrolling the makeshift clinic. “He’s going to be fine… Tell the others, Gary.”
The red armored lobster emerged from the brush into a scene… Shai was seated on a man, bound thoroughly and unmoving. Luna and Becky were lined up behind her and the prisoner, facing down Telemain Shaheen and two armored War troopers, who were carefully not pointing their lances at the very angry looking smith woman and her companions.
“An ye would give commands, ye should first be certain they will be obeyed… Lest ye be embarrassed an shamed by one who cares not tae mind thee.” Shai snapped at the priest. “Tis fortunate that man of mine be nae…”
He stepped fully into the clearing and glared at the War troopers and their leader. “Hey gang, Dannyl’s gonna be ok…”
Mild hostility bloomed in his voice, as he looked over the mounted men from behind his hideous insect mask. “I remember you now… Is Helene somewhere around too?”
“I serve War, not lady Kinneman. I was simply following orders, as I am now. Withdraw back to the north road, that is an order.” The priest barked. “Journeyman Maus, get your subordinates in order!”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Oh, you really aren’t good at this are you?” Luna murmured softly. “Kids, tend your kills and come on. We don’t want to make trouble… worse.”
Gary stalked through the clearing touching the fallen trees and piles of shredded vines. He rooted around for a moment, in the pile of rags and broken manzanita branches Dannyl had been gloating over. “There’s nothing worth having here; I’ll harvest that oak tree another day.” He grumbled, when he finished.
“You took something, boy. Give it to me, now.” The priest barked.
“Come take it.” He grumbled. “If you wanna rob me, you gotta put in the effort.” Gary collected their bikes from the brush with a glare at the War troopers and their leader. “We’re done here anyway…”
The Adventurers vanished into the scrublands with their mounts, leaving the priest and his two goons with the bound man, a fallen tree and a pile of broken branches.
#
Poor Dannyl had been having such a good run too. Becky sat beside him in a camp chair sipping her tea with a sigh, while the others were setting up a very temporary camp. His eyes fluttered open and he let out a soft groan.
“Hey buddy, don’t try to move… everything is ok.” He settled down and drifted back to sleep with a sigh, before she even finished speaking.
“He needs another hour to stabilize, before we can move him. The broken pelvis and spiral fracture in his left femur need to be more thoroughly mended first.” Tawny said firmly to Vera, her golden eyes flashing angrily.
“If sir Telemain Shaheen has a complaint about my troop, he should address it to me, rather than putting you in this awkward position.” Tawny’s voice sweetened, though her face still looked like a stormcloud lit by a golden dawn, beautiful, while threatening thunder and hail.
“That way, it would be sir Shaheen getting strips torn off his hide in this humiliating manner… wouldn’t it?”
Orlando was lurking by the horseline, pretending to groom the mounts, while ear guzzling the whole show and grinning to himself. Watching a healer chew on the ragged dignity of a full priestess of War like a puppy with an old sock was a novel experience, one he would cherish forever.
“Now, if you would please remember, there is an open contract on these people.” She ungently reminded priestess Anglin.
“Furthermore, it was one of mine who found, reported and bottled up this whole mess… and whom I should be caring for, rather than attending to this nonsense. Good afternoon Vera, give your troop my thanks for their timely assistance. We will depart this scene when I deem it safe and not before.”
“Lady Bele…” Tawny cut Vera off by jerking her thumb at the scanty white veil she wore. “Acolyte Belen… Sir Shaheen reports that the foo… Gary took something from the fallen creature’s corpse. We will require that object for our investigation…”
“Request denied. That was my team’s kill, its spoils are ours. If I deem it needful, the object will be turned over to the proper authorities… and since when does war ‘investigate’ anything?” Tawny’s eyebrows were deadly golden spears, pointed at the object of her displeasure.
“Do you have any other unreasonable demands for me to reject?”
“No, acolyte Belen. I do not.” She seethed and fumed while leading her horse away through the narrow trail that led to their makeshift camp.
They had a lovely pavilion with a thick rug of woven rags on the floor and a scattering of camp furniture. A camp stove and samovar were heating up an early meal, while the injured man lay on a cot, in a well appointed tent of his own.
Gary was in the corner of the meadow by the horses, doing something odd, as usual. Shai watched in amusement as Vera got verbally abused and her boy went about building… something.
“Boy, did ye bring a palanquin along?” She asked in disbelief when he stepped back from his creation.
“Kinda…” He mumbled happily, around his pipe stem. “It can come together in a bunch of ways… cart, stretcher, wheelbarrow, even a rickshaw. I thought Orlando and I should carry Dannyl to the road when he’s ready to move, you guys can watch out for trouble.”
“Aye, ye be worth keeping fer one more day… an ye dinnae cause any trouble tonight.” She said with a kiss and a swat on his armored rump. “Fie, ye still hae sap all over thee!”
“Yes Gary, you are very clever, now what did you take from that hideous creature?” Tawny demanded, once Vera was gone. “If you have that thing captured, I need to know.”
“I absolutely don’t have it…” Gary said with absolute forthright honesty and guileless charm. “I stole his purse. Money and gemstones, not a bad haul. Yeah, I’ll declare it and pay the taxes…” He grumbled and complained, as was traditional among the commons and nobility alike.
“You should hear my father when he sends the quarterly levy to the capital… it’s just money.” She complained right back.
Shai snapped her head around so fast it spooked Magnus, who was still a little shaken by the earlier violence.
“Ye best nae let Ivy nor Esperanza hear such talk, they might shun thee as a blasphemer!”
While the Adventurers took their ease up the hill a ways, War’s score of troopers took over the slovenly and ill planned encampment by the small pond.
“I should bring them a few of your insect repellent charms before the skeeters come out.” Liam remarked mildly.
“Oh, darn, I didn’t bring any with me… drat the luck. Shame on me for not thinking ahead.” Gary lied transparently. Liam stared at him in an awkward way for an awkwardly long time.
“Ok, damn it. You could have just pilfered some out of my storage and been done.” He complained, while handing over a small box of brass trinkets. “Don’t forget the horsies.”
Liam trotted off with a wave and a grin to Gary, who kept grumbling about whatever ‘playing Santa Claus’ was.
#
It took two long hours of trudging to finally step out of the wastelands and onto a gravel track. Gary and Orlando felt like their arms were at least six inches longer, after carrying the injured man through miles of game trails to the closest thing that could be called a road.
Shai helped her boy put an axle and a couple of wheels on the platform, fixing them with cotter pins, as Gary slid the carrying poles forward and attached them to his bike, with a clever universal bearing joint.
“Help! I Came To A Magical Alternate World To Pedal A Bike Rickshaw Ambulance… I could totally write a xianxia novel about this. Slapping a few young masters sounds pretty good right now.” Gary spouted his usual nonsense in the usual way, with absolute confidence. Most of the companions knew to ignore those kinds of things, but Orlando was new.
“What’s a xianxia?” The young warrior asked eagerly. “A kind of monster?”
“Gary, no.” Becky scolded firmly before he could get started. “Let us get home with our sanity and I’ll make Liam play the whole ‘Royal Scam Lp’ with you. That’s a good two hours of ‘Steely Dan’, if you take a few solos.”
“Hey! How is that fair?” Liam asked, but no one was listening.
“Will he wear the costume, including the fez?” Gary asked cagily.
“Absolutely not!” Liam barked.
“Yes, he will.” Tawny said with a smile of anticipation. “Including the fez, dear boy.”
“Ok… I agree, the bargain is struck.” Gary declared. All the interested parties shook hands, while Liam and Orlando complained to each other.
“Now I’m confused and concerned.” Orlando grumbled.
“Now I have to play ‘Steely Dan’ all evening… I’m confused and concerned.” Liam answered… not that anyone was listening.
Dannyl slept peacefully through most of the trip down the smooth highways of Wheatford. They pulled up at home just around seventh bell and eased the injured lad into the bubbling spring in the grotto to soak his bones.
#
“I think it’s darling!” Luna enthused, while the ladies of the wedding party just tried to avoid staring. Liam made the wide legged linen trousers and sleeveless vest in gray and black look good, the gray fez with a sparkling beaded tassel really sold the look. “Gary, I feel an absolute fool in this… oh, ok.”
The boy pranced out in a similar getup, bare chested, in thin white muslin trousers and a bright orange sash. His white fez with a matching orange tassel perched on top of his head like a king’s crown.
“Gary, I kin see yer tittynipples!” Shai jeered from the kitchen.
“Drink it in, baby…” He crooned happily, sinking onto his favorite stool.
“Wait, so we’re just playing, like we do most nights?” Liam asked carefully, while taking his own stool in the common room with his guitar.
“Yup.” Gary nodded and kept tuning up.
“So why did you insist on costumes?” He asked even more flustered, but also relieved.
“Liam, baby. You are the sexyest dude in town…” He ignored Ivy’s complaints and protests. “Sexiness is a responsibility, Dannyl is on the injured list, so we’ve got to do our part, right Tallum?” Gary asked the big guy in navy blue linen. The white tassel of his fez nearly brushed the ceiling beams until he sat down.
“I’m doing this ‘cause Ivy told me to.” He said good naturedly. “I think when you said ‘ticklemonkey’ it gave her some ideas… thanks for that brother.” He sighed happily.
“Try pretending aren’t that into it…” Liam remarked drily, while Tawny eyed him like a jaguar staring at a newborn capybara. “That’s what I do. Tawny is never bossy or aggressive with anyone because she always had power at her fingertips, she always felt weird about that. Now I let her push me around a little, because she knows I’ll say no when it suits me, that’s sexy.”
The devilishly handsome young man strummed his guitar and smiled, causing a few winsome sighs to sound in the room.
“You get three ‘Steely Dan’ songs and only one can be ‘The Fez’, Gary.” Liam said with a hard look at the musician.
“Counter offer! We do ‘The Fez’, then we hit ‘Werewolves Of London’... after that, let’s see where the evening takes us.” Gary sang happily, grinning at his brothers.
“Gary, I don’t think you know how counter offers work…” Tallum began.
“Yes, he does, brother.” Gary answered for Liam, with a smile.
#
Dannyl woke up in the steamy, familiar waters of Gary and Shai’s grotto, feeling nearly whole. The look Becky shot him when he tried to get up was chilling, as were the sensations radiating from his left leg and hip.
“Stay in there. Liam had to pull a branch out of your pelvis. You’re lucky Gary makes good armor… you still have all your tackle and two legs to carry it around.” She scolded.
“Yeah… I get that now.” He gasped as an unfamiliar sensation swept over him. It felt like his insides had been scooped out and replaced with cold cottage cheese.
“Healing backlash, that will pass in a day or so.” Tawny announced as she slipped into the comfy, cozy cavern of care. “I’m rather proud of the results, you have responded very well, please don’t spoil my work by flailing about.”
“What got me? I had just ripped that plant monster a new fruiting body when I got clobbered.” He asked, while trying to avoid moving his lower body or breathe too deeply.
“The same critter, it was a body jumper. It had these seeds with thorny vines all coiled around, it used them to take over regular trees and plants. Creepy huh? Gary and Shai cut it back, then we stomped all its seed bodies.”
She leaned in to whisper. “Liam has its last seed in a metal can. The boys are going to interrogate it when the heat is off. War is trying to claim some kind of authority over the whole deal, so keep it to yourself.”
#
In bed that night, with Shai curled close and the whole family back under the roof, Gary sighed happily.
“What, boy of mine?” She purred sleepily, from under his chin.
“Nothing, I’m just glad you enjoyed ‘that thing you like’.” He whispered, kissing the top of her head.
“Mmm, nae, ye do still owe that, me boy, an I’ll be collecting in the morning.” She murmured. “I did like that very much, dinnae mistake me.” Her sinuous arms twined around somehow, pulling him closer with her mighty thews. “Aye t’was a splendid showing, but now I would sleep.” She bit his shoulder, just a bit… barely enough to leave a mark and drifted off.
“Ouch.” He muttered, but she was already gone. “Bad kitty.” He whispered, as he joined her in the dreamless slumber of exhaustion.
#
In the camp among the stony hills, under the dry, dusty oaks, beside a stagnant, reeking pond, Vera Anglin and Telemain Shaheen were having a terrible night.
Hordes of skeeters came flitting from the bushes at sundown, filling the night with their droning buzz. The madman’s charms seemed to work, but they didn’t keep the things far enough away to avoid hearing and seeing the damn things. Flitting about and buzzing the perimeter of the camp, they drew predators, giant bats and even worse, spiders. Huge jumpers with brown fur and lightning bolts on their fuzzy backsides leapt in the bushes, seizing their prey and scuttling for it.
The pond nearly oozed with noisome life, from the goopy green algae and slimy water weeds, to the reeking silt at the edges. Even the trees and bushes nearby seemed noisome and slightly off putting.
Talbot had dropped a baited line in the mess and only pulled out a squirming mass of leechslugs. The blood drinking, carrion eating filth were not even good for bait, only less wholesome things than they, would bite on one of those horrors.
“The locals call this ‘drowning pond’ it’s supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a girl whose warrior never returned or something.” Gilligan said cheerily. “If you believe in that sort of thing. I think it’s just a nasty, stagnant pond.”
#
“Humans…” Uff, or ‘Rufus’ the coyote shaman muttered to his wolf companion, Pogo. “Even without the haunt, who would willingly camp beside that mire?”
“I’m wondering why they chased off their only witch, before he could lay the ghost… It hid when he was near, I wonder if he even sensed it.”
“That’s their problem.” Kerry, Rufus’ mate grumbled from their temporary den. “We are up here in the not even slightly haunted hills, now come to bed. The humans will still be there in the morning.”
“I have got to get one of those flutes the boy makes…” Pogo muttered as he curled up in his own little burrow.
“You don’t have lips…” Rufus’ voice drifted over, followed by his familiar, barking laugh.
“Damned good point…” Pogo muttered before wrapping his tail over his nose and going to sleep, curled among the soft, papery manzanita bark curls.
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