A woman stood in the clearing, sword bared and held in a style completely unfamiliar to Rhian. Her legs were held wide, one foot in front of the other and her whole body crouched low. She held a large shield in front of her, with the long sword held like a spear over the top of the shield. She was beautiful in a masculine way, with long grey hair and a build that was thick with muscle. She wore a tartan skirt that came down to her knees, and a heavy leather jacket over a long sleeved shirt, rolled up to expose well-muscled forearms roped with tension.
The man facing her was built less for war and more for vanity than she was. His features were fine indicators of soft living, his skin clearly moisturized and his stubble trimmed to a perfect length to strengthen a jaw that was clearly lacking. He wore plate unmarred by nicks, scratches, or dings and too clean to have been worn on the road. He had yet to draw steel, and it was clear why to everyone around him. To do so would be to invite a strike from the woman, and he was clearly not quick enough to get the sword out before she made him a new hole to breathe out of.
"Listen, I know it's hard for you to understand this with your wood-eared ways and feminine brain, but that thing behind you is a dangerous animal that's going to try to kill you." The man spoke to the woman in a tone more patronizing than Rhian thought was possible. "We're just looking out for the people here. You understand that? The people that this dangerous animal is going to kill?"
The woman's eyes flared with rage, but to her credit she did not move an inch.
Ceridwen turned back to the group. "Okay, play it out or get involved? One to play out, two to get involved."
This was a quick voting system the group had come up with a long time ago that Ceridwen used when she wanted to get a read on how the group was feeling. It was hard and fast, and Ceridwen only used it if they had time. Rhian put a two up above their head, and cast about to look at how the rest of the group was feeling.
Gaith put up a one. Unsurprising as he was more pragmatic than the rest of the group. Laia put up a two, and Jonas abstained, looking conflicted about the situation. Rhian resolved to ask him about it later. Ceridwen put a two up above her head, nodding and looking back out before laying out a plan.
"Rhian is going to stay here and setup with the crossbow. Gaith, start over that way now," she said, gesturing to a part of the clearing that was perpendicular from where they were currently, "And get setup over there to provide a good crossfire. Jonas will go with you and come in if necessary. Laia and I will go in and provide support to the woman."
Jonas and Gaith moved off without hesitation, but Rhian balked at their position.
"I'm going to go in with you." They said in a voice that betrayed more uncertainty than they had hoped. "I'm never going to get good at a melee if you keep me on the sidelines in most situations."
Ceridwen looked at them and stared hard for a second, then responded only by nodding her head. She gave the boys a five-count before moving into the clearing.
"We goin' friendly or foe-ly for this one Ceri?" Laia asked Ceridwen out of the side of her mouth.
"Friendly at first. Lets try to defuse. This guy looks like a bully and he'll probably back off once he realizes it's not just her."
Laia nodded and held up a hand while walking into the clearing. "HOWDY BOYS!" she exclaimed, waving her hands over her head.
All the heads in the clearing - knights, noble, woman, and dragon snapped over to look at the sound and evaluate the newcomers to the drama happening in the clearing.
"We're just nice passersby that heard some hollerin' coming from this clearing and were hoping to help out!" Laia exclaimed brightly. Rhian still didn't understand how she managed to get such a dichotomy in her words and her tone. The words she was saying were nice and overall neighborly words, but the energy she was throwing off as she stalked forward while saying them implied violence. Rhian really wanted to learn how to do that.
The man looked down at them and then gestured for one of his men, who probably called themselves companions but were in reality cronies, to take care of this new problem. The man moved towards them and drew his own arming sword as he walked. "Now little pretties, it's nice that you thought you could get involved in mens business but it's time for you to go back to your night-time constitutional walks, I wouldn't want to do anything to ruin your good looks."
Laia's eyes grew wide and she looked over her shoulder to Ceridwen. Rhian looked at the same time and they both saw the wand leap into Ceridwens hand as the man spoke.
"Remember Friendly!" Laia said as she grabbed Rhian and began to push her away from Ceridwen.
"Fuck friendly" Ceri said, as she began muttering in a language that Rhian didn't understand.
Watching someone weave a spell through The Words was spectacular, as it should be. People were wielding the powers of the elementals with their own hands, even if it was just a bare spark of what the greater elements could achieve, it was still power beyond anything Rhian had seen before. Fire bloomed between Ceridwens outstretched hand and her wand, a miniature sun bounded only by her will and her understanding of the forces that she wove. The man saw her and stopped, managing a half-turn before the fireball took him in the side of the chest, melting away armor and blowing him off his feet. He screamed as he flew through the air, landing in a heap next to the noble.
"Y'all better run before she puts another into the lot of you!" Laia yelled as Ceridwen put her hands up in the air, beginning to conjure an even larger fireball.
The assorted knights managed to pull up their wounded compatriot and get an arm underneath him, before retreating in the most pretentious way possible.
"We'll be back and you'll pay for what you did. His armor was heirloom! PRICELESS!" The noble roared as they retreated.
Gaith and Jonas came jogging up as the knights were just getting to the edge of the forest. "Did they press the button?!" Gaith asked, in the after-shocks of a mighty fit of laughter. "I LOVE it when people press the button."
Ceridwen looked up as Laia laughed and confirmed Gaith's guess. "Yep. They pushed it and that one guy really paid for it. He'll probably live."
"I wove the spell to only melt metal. If the metal melted onto him that's none of my business." Ceridwen said while brushing off her clothes as though they weren't already immaculate. "If he'd have approached the situation like we were all adults he wouldn't have had to learn a hard lesson."
The woman in the tartan skirt had straightened up and lowered her weapons, but still regarded them with suspicious eyes. A rumble came from the dragon, and she looked over her shoulder to it before nodding and sheathing her weapons.
"Lilidh Claisher" she said, holding out her hand. Ceridwen took it in a warriors grip, hand clasping forearms. "What business did you have this deep in the woods?" She asked, her arm still clad in a shield unconsciously cocked back in preparation to strike.
Ceridwen took a step back as Jonas stepped forward a bit. "Well, originally we were here to . . . . Well to fight your friend there." Ceridwen said with a face that was attempting to say sorry. "But we couldn’t let one stand against many and we we took a vote to intervene. And now we're . . . Well we're going to ask some very frank questions about what's going on."
Lilidh seemed to take all this in stride when Rhian noticed something. Her ears were long and pointed.
"You're an elf!" Rhian blurted out in surprise before realizing they did and attempting to take back the words by covering their mouth.
"Sorry, they haven't met any of y'all yet," Laia said. "Though of the ones I've met you do seem a bit of an outlier."
"We can get to that later," Ceridwen said cutting off further conversation. "We're here because the locals are afraid of your friend here and what they could do. We helped you out so I figure we're owed some information before we make any more friendly conversation."
Lilidh seemed to consider this for a while, hand straying unconsciously to their sword more than once. Another rumble from the dragon seemed to break her out of her considerations and she looked up and gestured to the party. "Come this way, I've got a small camp on the other side of the lake where we can sit and talk."
Rhian was confused by the situation and leaned over to Gaith as they walked. "So . . . We still might fight this person we just saved? And we would do it while we fight this dragon? What's going on here?"
Gaith looked at them and nodded. "Yeah, we're going over there, Jonas will cook, we'll all eat and talk about the situation, and if we don't like what the other party says then we'll all fight each other over it."
Rhian considered the situation as they walked and didn't come to any good conclusions about it before they were all sitting down around a fire, Jonas moving around it with kettle and pot in hand, preparing a dinner.
"Well, lets get introductions out of the way first. I'm Lilidh, as I told you. This," she said gesturing towards the lake at the dragon, "Is my wife Ardaeneth."
The party turned and looked from the elf to the dragon, all of them looking increasingly more confused.
"Wife?" Gaith said incredulously, breaking the confused silence. "I thought that Dragons were wild animals. Not sentient enough to speak, let alone enter into long-term agreements like marriage."
"This is why I didn't want to come down this close to a town!" Lilidh said to Ardaeneth. "They're so taken by the propaganda that they don't even understand what you are!" Another gentle rumble from the dragon seemed to calm Lilidh. "Sorry, I forget that humans don't live long and don't remember things well. What little you know about dragons are lies spread by the old emperors Draigmarchog. They became so obsessed with fighting and killing dragons that when naturalists finally began to figure out what they were, the Draigmarchog were too powerful as an organization to get the truth out."
She sighed heavily as she went on. "Dragons aren't horrifying predators. They're sentient creatures just like us," She said gesturing to the group assembled around the fire. "Yes some of them pose a threat to humans and your settlements, but those are outliers. Most of dragonkind has taken to living out their lives in solitude. Some of them have wielded powerful words to transform their bodies into human shape so they can live out their lives peacefully. Those hunters only had a chance because they caught up with us while Ardaeneth was at her weakest, just after a growth cycle."
The others took some time to process this information. Just long enough for Jonas to set a vegetable and sausage stew in front of them. Lilidh looked askance at it for a while.
"Hunted, killed, and processed the sausage myself," Jonas said looking at her. "The proper rights were observed."
She looked at him confused for a second before lifting some of the soup to her mouth and eating it. "You know our old ways?" She asked around mouthfuls of soup.
"Spent some time around your people," he responded. It was clear from the way he tucked into his soup that he refused to elaborate any further.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Ceridwen got everyone back on track. "So what brings you down here if you and your wife are such peace-loving sentients?"
"Just after a growth cycle a dragon needs to shed their skin to allow their new scales to breathe and harden. She's gotten so big that the pool up in the mountains we used for this isn't big enough anymore, and she needed something larger. The fish farm was an accident, she crashed into it while dragging herself across the river bed to loosen her scales up. It's torture for her when she's out of the water because it itches so much."
A deep sound, felt more than heard, accompanied her statement. It came up at them through their feet, like a thick tree trunk slowly cracking inch-by-inch. Rhian looked over and realized it was the dragon scratching themselves under the water. They looked up at the creature and shuddered as the bright blue eyes fixed themselves on Rhian.
The brows over the eyes, knotted together while scratching, softened as Rhian stared up at the Dragon.
"Can . . . Can we help somehow?" Rhian asked pensively. "Like help her shed her skin?"
The group turned toward Rhian at the same time. "Well, if the people here are worried about the dragon, and the dragon's only here because of the skin, couldn't we get the skin off and solve the problem?"
Ceridwen put her head in her hand and tapped her chin, thinking. "Well, we'd be doing a bunch of work for basically no pay," she said a little sourly. "But, if we were to fight then we'd probably end up hurt and need some sort of assistance. There's no guarantee we'd make it out with anything either."
"Girl if you can get this itchy skin off me I'll pay you myself." The voice came from the dragon, surprisingly feminine and light, indistinguishable from a normal human voice. "I'm not good with money but if you live as long as I do you don't have to be," Ardaeneth said while chuckling to herself. "Plus you can keep the shed. It's not going to all be good scale, but a whole bunch of it will be and it'll make better armor than you're wearing right now," she said, gesturing to Jonas, Gaith, and Rhian.
Ceridwen stood and walked away from the fire, indicating that the others should follow. They grouped up out of earshot and huddled.
"Okay, pros and cons. What are we thinking? Jonas you don't have to answer, I know you want to fight it."
Jonas started to nod and then seemed to think about it for a second. "Seems wrong to break up a marriage," he said before folding his arms and leaning back.
Ceridwen, Laia, and Gaith all looked at him in slight wonder for a second before huddling back up.
"Possible injury. No guarantee of a payout if we fight. The knowledge that we're going to have to take on two opponents, one of them an elf with who knows how much experience. On the other hand, a possible payout with little chance of injury, but only the word of a dragon and an elf to go on." Gaith listed out each point, ticking them off on his fingers as he spoke. "I think that we go for cleanup, and maybe we can sell some of the scale if we don't end up getting a payout from the dragon."
Ceridwen nodded and looked around, each member of the party nodding along. She stood straight and said "alright, lets get this done then." She looked up into the night sky, and tapped on her chin once more. "Maybe lets get this done tomorrow morning."
The party walked back to the campfire and Ceridwen spoke directly to the dragon. "We accept your terms. If you are willing to offer pay, we'll stay and help remove the scales for you. We keep whatever we take off."
Ardaeneth brought her head lower, to get on level with Ceridwens own. The scale of it was more stark this close. One eye was larger than her whole head. The skull of Ardaeneth could have provided an incredibly nice covered bed for Ceridwen. Rhian stood several dozen feet away and still was shaking in her boots. Jonas closed in on the conversation, getting between his wife and the maw of Ardaeneth. Even in the action, he looked more afraid than Rhian had ever seen.
Ardaeneth chuckled and fixed Jonas with a stare, before looking over at Lilidh. "What is that lovely vow you're always making to me when you want to assure me that you're going to do something?"
Lilidh looked at her and then at Jonas. "By root and limb, by sap and blood."
Ardaeneth looked back at Jonas, "By root and limb, by sap and blood, I swear that the only harm I'll bring to your lady here is financial as we discuss the rates for this job."
Jonas considered it, looking back a Lilidh who nodded in assent. He cautiously stepped away as Ceridwen and Ardaeneth got down to brass tacks on payment.
"Thee'll be aht that for awheel." Lilidh said, accent thick. "Ah suggest we all make our whee back to the fire."
The party, sans Ceridwen, went back to the fire and talked for a little while over some tea Jonas brewed for them.
"So what led you to living among mah people fer long enough to learn our wees?" Lilidh asked Jonas.
"Got Hurt." Jonas said, looking down in the fire. And that was the last that was spoken about that.
Time passed mostly silently after the attempt at conversation failed. At first awkwardly, but eventually peacefully as everyone settled into some activity. Jonas stared into the fire, Laia polished her armor, Gaith oiled Dylan, and Rhian sharpened Knife.
"We've come to good terms." Ceridwen said, walking up to the fire.
"I hope that you negotiated for hazard pay," came a shout from the forest line. The noble stood there, striking a pose that he probably thought of as heroic.
"How long were you skulking in the forest waiting to use that line?" Gaith yelled back at him immediately.
The noble bristled under the implication. "I just thought of it! We were in here getting setup and I was waiting for a reason! I don't have to explain myself to you!" he sputtered wildly.
"They had to setup. That means he's got siege weaponry, pretty far or we'd have heard it," Gaith said immediately, looking at Ceridwen.
"Jonas, Rhian, move. Get rid of it fast or they'll kill the client with it. Gaith and I will pull attention and stall as long as we can for you. Gaith, walk a fine line here. He's going to want to posture but don't get him too angry too fast or he'll start the fight before they can get work done." Ceridwen walked into line with Gaith and Laia, pulling the nobles attention before Jonas slung his body low and began to stalk towards the tree line, gesturing for Rhian to follow.
Pressure mounted in Rhian's head as the adrenaline hit them all at once. They had only been on the road with the Party for three months, and still didn't have a hold on going from a peaceful situation into a potential fight in the span of a few seconds. Their heart beat hard in their chest, like a convict trying to get the attention of their jailer. Between themselves and Jonas, that was the only sound in the forest as the two snuck through the underbrush.
Jonas stopped momentarily, casting around for a second before pulling a small knife from his back and cutting his hand, placing the bleeding palm on a tree.
"What are you doing?" Rhian asked in a hoarse whisper, voice tremulous with nervous energy.
"Calling on The Green for help." Jonas growled low.
In seconds the trees were shaking in an invisible wind, and black shapes circled in the night sky. Rhian's eyes, adjusted to the silver light of the moon, watched as they came closer and slowly resolved into the bodies of flying birds. One broke from the group and landed in front of Jonas.
What proceeded was the strangest conversation Rhian had ever seen. They understood that Jonas' was gifted the ability to converse with all of the children of The Green, but hadn't yet seen him do it past several silent conversations with various plants. This was mostly body language, with an occasional squawk or thrum deep in the throat. Rhian sat as long as they could before butting in.
"What's going on? What's he saying?"
"This bird is an asshole," Jonas replied. "He's making all sorts of demands for his murder before they give any assistance. Do you have any travel rations on you?"
"I keep some snacks in my pouch," Rhian said as they grabbed a belt pouch full of hard tack, nuts, berries, and jerky, handing it over to Jonas.
Jonas smashed the bag between his hands before throwing it in an arc onto the ground. The crows descended on the food, eating greedily. The larger crow Jonas had been speaking to let out a loud squawk and turned to begin eating, before Jonas grabbed it bodily and held it near his face, letting out a low thrum from deep in his chest that was half bird-sound and half wolf-sound. The crow let out an indignant caw and thrashed about, his murder turning to watch. Finally it let out another, more defeated sounding, caw and Jonas let it go.
"They're that way, closer to the mountain," Jonas said putting the crow down. "We can run, they'll follow and let us know when we're close." Jonas set off at a sprint, forcing Rhian to follow close after. A burst of wings from behind them let Rhian know their escort was in the air just moments later. Feet and feathers pounded out a hard rhythm as the trees sped by, Rhian only keeping their footing by following directly behind Jonas, eyes darting between the ground and the back of his green cloak.
A cawing came from above them, and Jonas slowed. Rhian blessed The Elements, the crows, and whatever else was listening for the reprieve from the sprint. Bent over and with hands on knees, they watched as Jonas crept forward looking into the dark.
A soft 'tchk-tchk-tchk' echoed in the dark, and a torch bloomed with light. The sudden brightness, despite its distance, hurt Rhian's eyes. Several other torches were lit from the first, and before long the entire area was bathed in flickering orange. As Rhian looked over the area a low noise came from Jonas that Rhian couldn't identify at first, but it sounded like anger and a deep sadness.
The clearing was new, trees felled only a couple days beforehand. Tents and some temporary wooden structures had been built out of the cleared trees, but they hadn't been treated. Even Rhian knew that meant they would rot quickly, a waste of old-growth trees like the ones in this part of the forest. Rhian could understand Jonas' anger.
Other than about ten milling about, the only other things in the clearing were large banners belonging to the Draigmarchog and five large ballistae, ready to be loaded.
Even with a face contorted with a building fury, Jonas waited. Rhian waited with him and didn't ask anything, fearful of being the small crack that broke the dam holding back a river of violence. Eventually, the silence broke as Jonas spoke.
"Start by breaking whatever you can on those ballistae. Don't just cut the strings, they can replace those quickly. Snap levers on the winches, and shave off parts of the swing arms so they break under the pressure of being winched backward. If someone comes for you, you take them."
"Like . . ." Rhian said, nervous at the possibility of taking a life. "Like kill them?"
"Return them to The Green," he responded. "They'll try to do the same."
The men got closer to the ballistae, getting ready to load them.
"Go." Jonas said quietly.
Rhian was just barely up out of a crouch when Jonas hit a member of the ballistae crew that had been unlucky enough to stand closer to the tree line. Jonas had come up from a sprint and unslung a shield and heavy wooden club before crashing like a cannonball into him, pushing outward with his shield and flinging the man down onto the ground. His crewmate, a little faster than the first man, brought his arm up only for it to be broken by the giant club. He went down on one knee screaming as he clutched the broken limb, and Jonas took the opportunity to kick him in the face.
Rhian snuck up as the ballistae crews attention turned from the work they were doing to the sudden violence in their midst. Rhian took some time to begin hacking away at the arms of the first ballistae, putting deep gouges in them before snapping the strings and winches and moving on.
Jonas took the mens attention and then backed off from his first two casualties, both unconscious on the ground. He circled away from the siege weapons obliquely, grabbing a torch as he moved past it and flinging it into several of the tents. The crew cried out as it hit the first tent, and became paralyzed with indecision between fighting the man that had appeared out of the darkness and fighting what could be a spreading blaze. Jonas took the moment of indecision to dart forward and bring his club down on the head of a man that was just slightly farther away from his friends. He went down to the ground with a sickening crunch.
The strike galvanized the men back into action, all running for Jonas and trying to surround him. Jonas turned his head up to the sky and whistled, confusing everyone for only a moment before a hoard of black-feathered bodies descended on two of the remaining seven men. The two began screaming and running for any cover they could find, batting at the crows ineffectually in their panic.
Rhian was on the second to last ballistae before realizing two things. Jonas was still outnumbered five to one, and by a quick estimation was out of tools to even the score. Rhian realized that they would have to step in and help, so they started to analyze the situation at hand and apply everything that Ceridwen had tried to get Jonas to teach them before giving up and asking Laia to help.
Rhian saw that the men had made a loose semi-circle around Jonas, the burning tents now working against him. They were all facing him, but it looked like some of them were a little less combat-ready than others, hanging back just a couple feet further than the rest. Rhian knew that those had to be the first target, being in the same relative incompetence boat. Rhian began to sneak toward the closest untested enemy, watching closely as the others tested Jonas' defenses.
The man turned around and as he did, Rhian's world slowed to a crawl. They could feel the leather wrapping around the hilt of their knife. They could smell the char of the tents burning. They looked into the mans eyes as they felt the muscles in their shoulders, bicep, and back tense as they swung the knife from where they held it low and near their hips, up towards him. Looking back on it later, the only thing they didn't feel was the flesh parting as the knife connected with the bottom of the mans jaw, driven up through his mouth and into his brain. The benefits of keeping a weapon honed to an incredibly sharp edge and point, Gaith would say later.
He hit the ground and time sped up again. Rhian watched as some of the men turned toward their dead compatriot, and looked between him and Rhian. Three of them screamed and ran toward Rhian, who backed off as quickly as they could without falling over.
Jonas was on the last two facing him in a flash and snarl, bringing them low. Rhian watched as he blocked a wild swing of a sword with his shield, the blade sticking and being wrenched away from the attacker. Jonas turned as the momentum of the movement carried him, cracking the edge of the shield against his other assailants head and then kneecapping the first with his club.
The three turned back, unsure now of what to do now that the odds were close to even. Jonas gave them some level of mercy.
"Run and we won't chase you."
They ran.
"Take out the last of those machines." He told Rhian. "Don't look over here while you do it."
Rhian looked over and saw his eyes, fury replaced with a dull, cold hatred. They turned away and took the job of ruining the ballistae very seriously. It didn't block out the sickening crunch of wood against skull that rang out through the clearing five times, returning the wounded men to The Green.