They dealt with another smaller patrol that hadn't produced much danger for the trio, before the sound of horns had carried out over the woods from at least three places and the patrols looking for escaped slaves had evaporated.
After a brief discussion, the group decided to make for the main encampment, albeit cautiously. They paused for Chess to fashion them each a vine and leaf cloak, and this time Chess made sure to add what she could of stronger smelling herbs to counter the gnolls strong noses.
The sun lit the retreating backs of the moisture laden clouds with the first hint of morning when they finally crept close enough to see part of the gnoll encampment on top of a steep grassy hill that poked itself out of the surrounding forest.
Chess stifled a yawn and slowly rolled her shoulder to get some feeling back into the aching appendage. The group crouched deep in the forest watching the sentries circle the outskirts of the flat topped hill through a handful of breaks in the canopy. The camp behind guards roiled like a kicked anthill that readied itself for a symphony. Horns, drums, and barking drowned the sounds of the waking forest as the large cackle of gnolls dismantled their encampment.
"This is just the sort of thing Stace would be perfect for," Chess murmured then continued when Amber gave her a quizzical look. "Scouting that is. I can't believe they haven't spotted us yet."
"These cloaks are better than you know. The lack of enchantment just might be a benefit. Still, I agree, this is pointless. As long as they remain vigilant we have no chance of catching their chief out and vulnerable," Amber added. "I say we leave and come back with reinforcements."
"They're already leaving, and gnolls move fast. This may be my only chance," Masae protested. Her tails lashed back and forth a few times before she forced them to slide under her cloak again.
"We should've started with reinforcements. We've been extraordinarily lucky so far," Chess muttered.
"I just don't see how," Amber reasoned.
Masae shifted between them. "I think the others have escaped. I haven't seen even one of them yet." Chess thought the fox lady was trying to reason with herself.
"They could be in the middle," Amber disagreed.
"Or the cookpot," Masae hissed through her teeth.
"I don't think we'll be able to get the chief for you. Besides, I'd really like to avoid ending up as elf stew," Chess agreed begrudgingly with her friend.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry on that front. You're prime breeding stock."
"That's so much worse." Chess shuddered.
"Where there's life there's hope," Amber said.
"I've always hated that saying. It's hogwash in a lot of situations. You need to stop listening to Gramps," Chess muttered.
Amber raised a closed fist for silence and they nervously watched as a pair of gnolls approached then passed by a few yards from their hide.
"Why are they packing up?" Chess wondered.
"You're right. Why are they packing up? There are well over a hundred of them," Amber mused.
"What are you thinking?" Chess prompted.
"I think I have an idea. Just how hot is your fire magic Masae?" Amber asked.
"Why?" The kitsune woman asked cautiously.
"Yeah, why?" Chess added.
"It just rained and their shamans are dead." Amber sounded like the cat that ate the canary.
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Chess found her focus drifting as she tried to listen to the woman across from her. The shutters behind her host were locked tight over the night-blackened windows, and a handful of candles cast light on their soft conversation from the table between them.
Chess shifted apprehensively as Abbess Sholer leaned back in her chair and regarded her over her teacup the saucer held primly below. "So, let me get this straight. Your patron goddess woke you in the night and sent you hurrying off into the middle of the woods after some unknown kitsune woman who was fleeing from bronze hide gnolls. You then decide to cull their number enough that you eventually enrage the whole tribe. Then you lead the whole train to our humble town with two severely injured comrades tied to their saddles arriving in the dead of night. I thought you were smarter than this."
"You have trains?" Chess asked. Her weariness and lack of sleep made it hard for her to hold up her end of the conversation. It had been over two full days of fighting, riding, and running since she last slept and it was taking most of her concentration to remain in her seat. She was unsure how she'd even ended up in this richly decorated parlor.
Sholer snapped her fingers. "Focus girl. Are you following me?"
"Maybe?" Chess's voice rose into an unconscious squeak. She realized she'd missed a large part of what the Abbess had said and hazarded a guess. "I don't know. We did kill their chieftain and steal his body. I…we thought it would scare them off for good. Ghosts in the fog and all that. Not...well you know, encourage a suicide rush against a town full of armed soldiers. Why are there so many soldiers here?" Chess shifted in her seat before taking a sip of the delicious tea to steady herself and maybe perk her up. Alas, it did little to help.
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"Mercenaries," Sholer let out a long sigh and took a delicate sip of her tea.
Much of Chess's last day remained a fragmented blur in her mind, especially after Amber's mist idea. However, significant odds and ends stood out. Like Masae sprinting through the forest, her flaming tails waking clouds of steam behind her. And Amber in a vicious knockdown fight with the gleaming bronze gnoll chieftain. Amber's hammer striking sparks off the gnolls' hide and her blood shield cracking and losing splinters under the return blows. Or Masae emerging again and again from the mists like a flaming wraith, tripping up and cutting down the chief's lieutenants one by one with a bowie knife when they threatened Chess.
Amber's disquieting anguished scream after taking a blow to the hip that shattered the dryad wood plate armor and crushed her bone beneath haunted her. As did the memory of her throat seizing up mid-spell before realizing Amber had taken the blow in exchange for a Power Attack infused hit from the titan steel hammer that penetrated the chieftain's bronze coated skull, dropping him like a tree.
She remembered the gnolls, freed from her charm, piling on her to pin her down and bind her only for Masae, in her massive bear form, to scatter them like bowling pins and pull her to safety, taking a devastating hit to her belly from a hammer in the process. Amber using her remaining healing to help Masae and seal her wound before falling into a pained stupor.
She could recall the anguish she felt hearing Masae whimpering in despair and pain while she shoved the chieftain's body into her vault, the titan steel hammer stuck fast in his skull.
And finally leaving her wounded friends under her cloaks and her search for their horses as the sun rose. If not for the still-pulsating charm she would never have found her friends again. They surely would have never left the forest right before the gnolls had taken up the pursuit in full.
She held a firm gratitude to Petal and the other horses as they seemed to know exactly where to go when she found a road once more. As Chess remained too busy, with her injured companions and the gnolls on their heels.
Chess stifled three eye-aching yawns before the Abbess spoke again.
Sholer leaned forward and tapped the neatly folded letter on her table with a manicured fingertip. "If you weren't delivering such dire news or hadn't turned and aided the men, leading to the capture of so many valuable slaves, I might have considered pursuing the charges some of the men are leveling for the danger you put the town in. As it is, this is quite the predicament you've dropped in my lap."
Chess swallowed and nodded.
"Now dear, please tell me what you know of the Count, and then maybe you can explain to me what happened to your minder, Sister Lynn Plinder, and why she was left out of the baron's letter."
Chess nodded again and took an unsteady sip of her tea to give her a moment to sort the half-truths she had to tell.
She decided to start with the biggest.
Chess swallowed. "I have Sister Plinder's body in my inventory vault."
"Show me."
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Amber woke up to a familiar blue and white mosaic ceiling with a familiar skunk-kin woman lounging beside her in a rocker, her narrow face buried in a book. It was a face she'd hoped to avoid entirely in her new life. Just the sight of her brought back painful memories.
The fuzziness of her head and the persistent ache in her hip told Amber why she convalesced in a sisterhood infirmary, but not why Yolanda, of all people, sat next to her instead of… where's Chess? Her heart thumped hard in her chest once before she sought the thread of the anima connection that Freya had placed on her torc and followed it to somewhere close by. She's alive.
Amber sagged in relief and forced herself to take the opportunity of feigned sleep to regain her senses and delve into her mind for information on how she ended up here before she worried about tracking down Chess.
The last thing she could remember was fighting the living bronze statue of a gnoll chieftain, then nothing but vague thoughts of blood and bone. Which prompted her to probe her body with her magic. Her right hip resembled a badly designed stained glass window and she was covered in bruises. Master Olive or another boneweaver must be here. They added reinforcement and binding runes to the bone alongside the knitting ones. She winced internally at what that was likely to cost them.
She licked dry lips and cleared her throat. "May I have some water please?"
Amber had the small satisfaction of seeing Yolanda jump before fetching a glass and helping Amber to sit up enough to drink while cheerfully introducing herself. Once Amber had slaked her thirst Yolanda offered her some stew which she took greedily.
"I'm Amber," she murmured around a mouthful of the hearty stew then really dug in. Healing took alot of food.
When she'd had her fill she finally asked, "Do you know where Lady Stewart is?"
"She's with Abbess Sholer. She wasn't injured."
"Oh, for Freya's sake!" Amber cursed and shifted her legs off the bed. Which increased the aching in her wounded hip. She paused to take a deep breath.
"Stop that! Get back in bed! You'll ruin your chance to heal properly," Yolanda protested, rising to push her back down.
Amber ignored her, the bindings would take a lot to shift or break, and brushed Yolanda's hands aside then stood before taking a tentative step.
An intense pain shot up her damaged side and she saw white. Yolanda caught her then settled her back in bed.
"Okay, that was stupid." Amber grimaced while Yolanda tucked the blankets back in around her and said, "I'll go inform the lady you're awake."
"Wait. What happened to the kitsune woman that was with us?"
Yolanda's cheerfully waving tail stilled as she glanced at a bed further down the ward. "I've been trying my best not to think of it. Poor thing might lose them all. Master Olive and Sister Claire are doing what they can but you know how it is working on the unborn." She gave a sad hopeless shrug.
Amber grimaced as she felt tears welling in her eyes. Was it all for nothing? Please, Freya, do what you can for her. She sent her prayers to her Goddess before speaking. "Can… Can you get me closer? I might be able to assist."
"Oh?" Yolanda raised a brow.
"I'm a support-focused bloodmage."
"Really? That's rare. What's the class called? What were its prerequisites?"
Amber gave her a flat look.
Yolanda shrugged. "It was worth a shot."
"Just move me closer. Please." Amber tried to put on a stoic face.
Once Amber's cot had been shifted close enough to share her bloodline benefits with Masae, Yolanda left in search of Chess. If only you knew what they did to us, she thought as she watched her former lover leave before turning back to stare at the mosaic on the temple ceiling and praying for Masae's unborn children. Then she followed the blood into Masae.