The announcement had come hissing through the windows early that morning on the mouth-scales of a loudly passing snake person who yelled the news as he went.
“Sssslaver to be executed today! Come and watch around mid-morning, bring the hatchlings! Ssssee the good worksss of Guard leader Sssshortsight! While you're out why not ssstop for a bite at Sssslow Jho's. The sssslowest food in town...”
His commercial faded down the street as he went on with the news but eyes were turned on Wormwood who seemed especially interested in polishing his knives.
He finally looked up.
“I told him. I told him who to talk to and about what. It's not my fault if the Great Tail or some other scale not prone to shining its brightest doesn't want a human to have the same rights as the other swamp dwellers. It's what I'd do.”
“Let's be glad most people aren't as dishonest as you are.”
Alouella said, peeling an orange. Wormwood smirked and shook his head slowly.
“Oh, if you only knew...”
The spread on the table was far too much for the small piece of furniture but the plates overlapped and brought everyone in for a homey meal. Swampbelly was clearly rich to just have the food on hand to feed so many, something his appearance seemed to belie. It was really too bad the mood was so sour for such good fare.
Gwen stood and clapped a fist to palm.
“Guess we have to break him out then.”
Swampbelly shook his head.
“I don't think fighting all the guards in the city is the best idea...”
“They can't have ALL the guards at one execution.”
“They'll have a lot of them. Execution stand is right in front of the guard housing.”
Gwen removed her palm from her fist and sat back down.
“Oh...”
Clarke pondered over just leaving Wade. The thought likely would have gotten him slapped by Alouella and Gwen which was why he was thinking of a nice way to say it. But truth be told they needed every body. Who knew what trouble they'd find in a city built on wild magical experimentation?
As much as he was an arrogant, mean idiot, he was their arrogant, mean idiot.
This tense meeting was interrupted by Valerie looking past the curtains and calling to the rest of them.
“Honey, there are a bunch of hatchlings in front of our home.”
He ambled to the door and opened it, the hatchlings all looking up at him and crowding the door in a wave of pushing and shoving claws.
“Hey, you kids-!”
They didn't listen, instead stamping through the house until several of them converged on Alouella, tugging at her robes and hissing gleefully. She raised her arms over them, shocked at being engulfed in the tiny sea of reptiles.
“Why...?”
Was about all she could get out.
Valerie hoisted one up, feeding it some meat from the table.
“Shouldn't these have been all picked up yesterday when they were returned?”
She asked. Swampbelly shook his head.
“Kidnapped hatchlings are considered unlucky to bring back in to the city. They're probably going to be forced out of town to become feral.”
Both Valerie and Alouella looked horrified at the idea.
“No!”
They shouted in unison. Swampbelly pointed at the elf.
“You can keep them if it bothers you so much.”
“Oh...uhh...”
She murmured.
“My life isn't exactly...stable.”
“Then we've got new babies!”
Valerie cooed at them. Swampbelly rushed to her and picked the hatchling from her arms and and back to the floor.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“But that was one of the best parts of human women! No pregnancy! No hatchlings!”
Clarke stood, gathering his things. The others followed suit as he motioned to them, all heading for the door as Valerie argued.
“You know I found out a long time ago that hatchlings that make it back to the city are open to any couple who wants them and you JUST SAID...”
Their discussion trailed as they left the room into the next building over, the storage warehouse.. It housed barrels of found weapons and armor, a few workers going through the things but paying them no mind. They were of a like mind to their boss and didn't mind the humans or dwarves but Wormwood kept a cloak hood over his head, face obscured underneath.
“So what's the plan?”
Gwen asked. Clarke pointed to the cart that one of Swampbelly's workers had retrieved. It had come at cost but at least they'd gotten their supplies back. Clarke motioned at Wormwood and Alouella then to the cart.
“You two are going to wait outside of town with our cart on the road to our goal. The two of us are going to retrieve Wade.”
“I can't let you fight a whole battalion of mad lizardfolk!”
“No one is fighting a whole anything, except maybe Wade and Gwen. I have a plan. Go wait for us?”
He motioned to the wagon where Wormwood was already flapping the reins weakly and eyeing the horses with suspicion. Alouella huffed but got in beside him, taking the reins. He gave Wormwood the map and Alouella pulled the hood of her robe over her head before they rattled down the large door and down the road.
“So what is the plan?”
Gwen asked.
“Let's walk. I need to time to prepare it and I can tell you on the way.”
-----------------------------------------------
While there were very few humans or dwarves in the city no one seemed to look at Clarke as he moved through the crowd from place to place, kneeling here and there though some did calmly put hands to their coin purses. The turn out was large, a sea of scales and tails all with a nasty gleam in their eye.
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The sky was still stormy, grey and constant like a blanket over the world. The execution stand was a raised stone platform in the middle of an open square supported by stone pillars.
“Get everything done?”
“Yup. When I start, run to Wade then you two make for the edge of town as fast as you can.”
Gwen looked uneasy.
“And you can definitely make it out? You know there's no point in us going to this place without you.”
“I'll be fine.”
The crowd erupted into a chorus of hisses and guttural rumbles as Wade emerged from the jail, shackles clapped tightly around his wrists and ankles. He shuffled and stumbled, the guards shoving him forward and laughing as he fell. The crowd spit at him but there was some fire in his glare that made the crowds collectively step back as he passed.
“Egg snatcher!”
“Hatchling killer!”
“Coward can only pick on children!”
The calls came and came and Wade was led up to the stand via stairs, the guards keeping a firm hold on him and a large lizardfolk with an axe standing beside. Shortsight came out behind them all, following the Great Tail to a smaller dais to the side.
Despite his apparent victory, Shortsight looked just as disgruntled as Wade, a scowl creasing his scales into concentrated fury. Something wasn't right.
“I'm going.”
Clarke nodded to Gwen and backed away through the crowds. Gwen watched as the Great Tail held his claws aloft, calling for the silence of those in attendance.
“Brothers, sisters, friends! It is a great day to see justice done! The end of a joyous mating season spoiled with the wretchedness of slavers and elves gracing our land! But this one will pay while the others, inferior and cowardly like furless rats, ran back to their hiding holes!”
He jabbed a claw at Wade and the crowd erupted in new hoots and hollers.
“Their faces burned into our records of vengeance! And this one! This one dared to challenge our laws, to ask for the mercy of our trial by fang and claw! To spit on our traditions by thinking he is the same as us!”
The crowd roared in anger and the Great Tail spat his words.
“But I said to this inferior, lower thing that he was not worthy. And so, let our anger be taken out on him.”
The Great Tail looked up at the executioner and nodded.
The first explosion ripped a chunk out of the base of the execution stand and stone sharpnel peppered the crowd, flying through the air like tiny grey birds taking off. The stand teetered as more and more stone fell from it and began to fall, guards tipping over the edge and Wade slipping off to land hard below.
The second and third explosions tore holes in the street and in a building facing the square. The crowd panicked, dashing this way and that, some frozen in shock as the threat of explosions rooted them to the ground.
And Clarke appeared on top of the guard barracks, arms crossed and enormous papier mache elf ears stuck to his head in what would be awfully racist anywhere else. A shaggy hide cut from some beast, likely a goat, hung from his face with the aid of some hastily cut ear loops and a space cut for his mouth and he waved a gnarled branch overhead like a staff.
“Tremble before my mighty magical powers! Quake in fear of the spells of a single elf entirely unaffiliated with any other elves! I am attacking you based on my individual dislike of you and not because all elves hate lizardfolk!”
He shook his staff in circles and tossed a bottle down to the stones, another explosion lighting the scene that had the crowd running, tearing over one another to the safety of anywhere but there. There wasn't much danger in the bottles, just enough to break a stone and send blinding smoke into the air but they didn't know that.
Clarke ducked as an arrow whizzed by him, the guards aim thrown off by the constant jostling of fleeing citizens.
Gecko types were already swiftly clambering up the side of the building and Clarke let his foot kick one down to the square below before turning on his heel and dashing for the side. He leaped over, hands and feet scrambling for cracks and spots as he descended. Maybe relying solely on his ability to run through an unfamiliar city was a terrible idea...it WAS a terrible idea but he took off, ears flapping around his head as he shouted slurs backwards and practically every lizardfolk guard gave chase.
The Great Tail had been escorted into the barracks for safety and Gwen ran through the crowd, dodging through people as a bull dodges raindrops. People flew to the sides as she crashed through them yelling sorry as she went.
A few leftover guards surrounded Wade as he got to his feet. Gwen grabbed one by the tail and leaned back, jerking him into the air and swinging him like a flail into another.
“Wade, come on! Clarke is drawing them all off!”
“I can't exactly move like this!”
He yelled, hopping back as a lizardfolk jabbed a spear at him. Gwen ran to his aid and grabbed his legs, lifting him up in the air and tossing him like a weight to crush the spear wielder into the stone.
“I am not a weapon!”
Wade grumbled, slipping as he tried to stand.
“ROLL!”
Gwen yelled and without a thought he did, an axe shattering flakes of stone from the square.
Shortsight turned his gaze on Wade and roared, a sound that shook the rain from the sky as drops began to fall.
“You sneaky bastard! Can't fight me fair, you just take these chains off and you'll see-”
The axe flew from his hands and the links of the chains at his feet broke apart, the axe bouncong away across the stones.
“I'm going to fight you fair. I never agreed with the cowardly decision of the Great Tail. It's people like you that took me from my home, made me an outcast to my people. And if the strength I fought for my whole life isn't enough to take my revenge and protect those who haven't been tainted then I don't deserve to live!”
Gwen made to move to him but Wade glanced down at wrists chained together, stretched them to get his range.
“Get back. This is okay.”
“We don't have time-!”
“You heard him. He accepted my challenge. I beat him and we can go.”
Gwen let it sink in, stepped back. If there was one thing she understood it was a good ol' law by slobber knocker. She watched for any extra guards as they took one anothers measure, beginning the slow circle.
Shortsight didn't wait long at all, letting loose another gut rattling bass roar and charging through the rain. Wade clapped his hands together, chain swinging around to wrap and brought them in from the side, cracking the double fisted weight into the scaly head and stopping his charge.
Shortsight rolled with the blow and twisted in a tight circle, his tail coming around like a whip and snapping across Wade's body. Wade dropped to a knee, growling out in pain and Shortsight leaped onto him, jaws open, teeth coming down on him. Wade thrust his arms up, the chain catching at the hinge of the alligator's jaw and forcing him up, snapping on the chain over and over as he tried to force his teeth down, drool spattering Wade's face.
“If you kill me...I want you to know I hated it...I hated the slaving!”
“You had a choice!”
Shortsight yelled. Wade kicked and kneed, jabbing his legs into the soft underbelly with hardened blows.
“I know! And I feel bad about it all the time! That doesn't make it right but it haunts me!”
It was hard to get traction as the rain soaked them but Wade got his boots to dig into the scaly thighs and pushed, tossing the lizardfolk over his head and onto the stones.
They scrambled to their feet and Shortsight bit ahead again, Wade thrusting out the chains but the bite stopped short and the links broke into tiny bits of shrapnel clinking on the ground.
Wade swung fast and pounded a left hook into the lizard's eye.
“Bring your guard up, you idiot!”
Gwen yelled, pulling her own arms up as example.
Wade brought them up just as another bite lunged for him and clamped down on his forearm. The crushing force had him scream out, blood dripping down his arm and dripping to mix in the rain.
“'or horry 'on't ean 'hit!”
Wade hammered into his belly with his free arm, attacked the right eye, stomped on the long bony toes. Shortsight growled and shook with every blow.
“I know that! I've never done a good thing in my life! But I'm going to!”
He pulled his head back swung down, cracking his skull into the bony ridges. Blood sprouted from his forehead as scales tore into his scalp. He repeated it, over and over, blood cascading down his face.
“My life won't go the way I want it so I'm going to make up for any wrong I did!”
He brought his skull down again and Shortsight let loose, blood dripping from his mouth as he stumbled back.
“I hate you!”
Shortsight screamed.
“I hate you too!”
Wade yelled back.
“And I hate me too.”
Shortsight swung at Wade's guard, pummeling his arms and body with blows that tore Wade's skin. Wade pushed through the blows, cracking his skull into Shortsight's snout so the jaw made a bone scraping sound, his fists working into the scaly body.
“And I hate me too! The me I am right now is horrible!”
Shortsight propped his jaw open enough to lunge but Wade swung his fist up to punch into the soft yellow scale of his throat.
“I'm gonna find those kids and bring them back soon. I'm gonna be better than the me who did that.”
They stared at one another, deep breaths making their chests heave. Shortsight spat blood over the stones and turned his back.
“Your blood doesn't taste like a liars blood but if I ever see you again and you didn't keep your promise...I'll kill you.”
“You better.”
They turned and ran, Gwen leading the way.
Shortsight spit out a tooth and slowly sat down. Something moved in a way it shouldn't have, a rib scraping bones it shouldn't meet. His jaw flapped on one side, out of place.
I hope I see that trash again.
---------------------------------------------------------
They found Clarke riding a giswird down the street, a line of very tired lizardfolk jogging after, several giswirds napping off the effects of paralysis and sleeping potions.
They climbed up and were out of town before any lizardfolk could catch up, the steady whomp-whomp of the huge, padded feet of the bird leaving the city behind.
They found the wagon mired in deep mud a few miles out, the two elves watching as the bird strode up.
Alouella spoke first as they hopped down.
“Wade, I have a few things to say-”
Gwen held her hand up, stopping Alouella before she could even start. Wade looked tired, staring down at the elf but seemed resigned. Gwen spoke.
“It's okay. He gets it.”
She looked at Wade, the fiery speech she'd prepared looking for a place to roost. He sighed.
“Yeah...I think I get it.”
“Well...good.”
It didn't take too long for the bird to be hitched up and drag the wagon out of the muck, though it was still hard going.
They were on their way once more.