Chapter 14: AppearancesFrom the crest of the limestone ridge, the violence below looked almost like a painting—a smear of chaotic motion against the pale dust of the Trade Road. But the sound... the sound was raw, ugly reality. The wind carried the screams up the slope, mixing with the guttural, wet barking of the attackers.
Miz’ri dropped to one knee, her red eyes narrowing behind her goggles as she surveyed the carnage. It was a merchant caravan, four heavy wagons circled up in a desperate defensive ager. But the circle was breaking.
“Bandits?” Talisa whispered, crouching beside her. She was squinting, her human eyes struggling to make out details at this distance.
“Worse,” Miz’ri muttered, her lip curling in disgust. “Goblins”
Talisa gasped. “A Warband?”
“A pgue,” Miz’ri corrected. “There must be some rotten fairy circle around here they’re spilling out of to loot and pilge.”
She watched the attackers swarm over the overturned lead wagon. They weren't the uniform, green-skinned soldiers of children’s stories. These were creatures of the Anicora, the realm of the fey-folk, born of raw, chaotic magic left to curdle in the sun. The crow was a riot of misshapen biology. Some were small and spindly, moving on all fours like spiders, their skin a mottled, bruising purple. Others were hulking, furry brutes with too many teeth and mismatched eyes, swinging crude iron clubs. There were goblins with patches of bright, toxic orange fur, and others that looked like wet cy given malicious sentience.
The chaos of life cares little for symmetry; only efficacy. They moved with a terrifying, fluid coordination—not the discipline of an army, but the swarming intelligence of a pack. They were overwhelming the caravan guards simply by drowning them in bodies and noise.
“They’re going to kill them,” Talisa breathed, her voice tight. “They’re going to kill everyone.”
“Well, yeah. That is generally what Warbands do,” Miz’ri said ftly. She stood up, dusting off her breeches. “Come on. If we head back down the scree slope and cut through the ravine, we can bypass them. By the time they finish looting and… eating… we’ll be three miles up the road.”
Talisa stared at her, horrified. “Bypass them? Miz, those are people!”
“Dead people,” Miz’ri corrected, gesturing to the sughter. “Look at the numbers, Marshmallow. There are at least forty of those vermin. The caravan guard is broken. The wall is breached. It’s all lost - suicide.”
She adjusted her pack, turning away from the edge. “Not our problem.”
Talisa didn't move. She was still kneeling, clutching the straps of her pack, her knuckles white. She watched a guard down below get dragged off his horse by a massive, hairy goblinoid that looked half-boar. The man’s scream was cut short. “Pappy,” Talisa said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it had a strange, resonant quality.
Herkel, who had been standing silently by a withered scrub bush, rattled his attention toward her. “We can’t just walk away,” Talisa said, not to the elf, but to the bones. She stood up. She wasn't shaking. The fear was there—Miz’ri could smell it on her—but it was being crushed under the weight of something heavier. Duty.
Miz’ri stopped. She turned back, an incredulous sneer forming on her face. “Talisa. Don’t be an idiot. You are a girl with naught a weapon to speak of but your rosy-cheeked pout. What exactly are you going to do against forty mad killers?”
Talisa looked at her. Her blue eyes were wet, but hard. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I have to do something.” She didn't ask for permission or wait on Miz’ri to deliver a pn. Talisa Magleby, the girl who apologized to rocks when she tripped over them, simply tightened her pack straps, and threw herself over the edge of the ridge. “We have to!” she called back, her voice already fading as she began to slide down the loose scree of the slope.
Herkel didn't hesitate. The skeleton adjusted his hat, gave Miz’ri a single, ccking nod that felt infuriatingly like a challenge, and leaped after his great-granddaughter, his bony limbs cttering like hail as he surfed the ndslide.
Miz’ri stood alone on the ridge She watched them go—a soft human girl and a pile of antique bones, charging headlong into a meat grinder. “Stupid,” Miz’ri hissed at the empty air. “Absolutely, profoundly, utterly, infuriatingly, suicidally stupid!” She looked at the ravine that offered safety. It was right there. Quiet. Empty. Safe.
Then she looked down the slope. Talisa had almost lost her footing and was righting herself before she went tumbling ass-over-teakettle, heading straight for the fnk of the Warband.
“Vith! Void take me,” Miz’ri roared, grabbing the hilt of her sword. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Miz’ri drew her bde, the dark steel singing in the dry air. She hit the slope with the grace of an avanche, her boots digging into the scree, surfing the shifting earth with lethal intent. “Wait up, you witless Marshmallow!” she screamed, her red scarf whipping behind her like a banner of war.
Miz’ri hit the valley floor running, her boots skidding in the dust as she corrected her momentum. She didn't scream a war cry. She didn't announce her presence. She simply became a bde in motion.
Ahead of her, Talisa and Herkel had already crashed into the rear fnk of the Warband. Or rather, Herkel had crashed; Talisa had mostly just arrived loudly. The skeleton was a terrifying sight. He had abandoned all pretense of being an old man. His coat fpped open like bat wings as he plowed shoulder-first into a cluster of purple-skinned goblinoids. He grabbed a screeching, four-armed runt by its ankle and swung it like a fil into its packmates, bones rattling with the force of the impact.
Talisa, bless her heart, was doing her best. Her eyes darted to the ground, looking for something to defend herself with, setting on a shield-like piece of an iron pot-lid that was scattered on the ground. “Back! Get back!” she shrieked, banging the lid against a goblin that looked like a bipedal toad with teeth. The creature snapped at her, and she panicked, scooping up a handful of gravel and throwing it directly into its eyes. “Hah!!”
The creature easily blocked the clumsy attack by closing it’s eyes in time. Talisa stammered, “B-but that worked before…” seeing the creature only pause for a moment before moving in to attack her.
Miz’ri surged past them, her sword fshing. She decapitated the toad-thing before it could recover, the bck blood spraying across Talisa’s tunic.
“Watch out, Marshmallow! These aren’t some stupid Rheans!” Miz’ri barked, kicking the corpse away. “They fight dirty; Stay behind Pappy!”
She looked up, finally getting a clear view of the defensive circle. The caravan guards were dead or dying, their bodies scattered like ragdolls. The only reason the merchants weren't meat was a trio of fighters holding the center. And they were the strangest collection of killers Miz’ri had ever seen.
The anchor of the line was a monster. He was a Half-Orc, but he was built like a siege tower, easily seven feet of corded muscle and scarred green skin. He wore heavy, dented pte armor that had clearly seen a dozen wars, painted a matte, ugly grey. In his hands, he swung a two-handed fnged mace that looked heavy enough to crack a castle gate.
“Hold the line, Baby! Don’t let them fnk Artie!” the Orc roared. His voice was a bass rumble that shook the ground. Despite his monstrous appearance, he moved with the precise, economic discipline of a career soldier. He wasn't raging; he was working.
He backhanded a charging hobgoblin with the mace, sending the creature flying ten feet into a wagon wheel with a wet crunch.
“I’m trying, Gourdy!” a voice sang out. “They’re squirming too much!” Miz’ri’s eyes snapped to the speaker. Standing atop a crate of grain was a human woman who looked like she had gotten lost on her way to a royal tea party. She was petite, blonde, and devastatingly pretty, wearing a dress that was entirely too clean for a battlefield. She looked like the kind of damsel who would faint at the sight of a spider.
Then, she giggled. It was a bright, manic sound. She raised a delicate hand, her fingers curled into a cw. A wreath of fire, white-hot and crackling, erupted from her palm. The fme arc caught a trio of furry goblinoids, incinerating them instantly.
“Burn, burn, burn!” she cackled, her blue eyes dancing with a terrifying, pyromaniacal glee. She spun, her skirts fring, and snapped her fingers. A jagged bolt of lightning arced from her other hand, frying a goblin that was trying to climb the wagon. “Damn, I’m good!’ she proudly stated as she danced upon the top of the wagon, seemingly care-free.
“Focus, Baby!” the Orc, Gourdy, barked, smashing another skull. “Left fnk! Artie needs cover!”
“On it, big guy!” Baby chirped, bsting a goblin into ash with another snap of her finger and a maniacal giggle.
Miz’ri looked to the shadows of the wagon wheels. At first, she saw nothing. Then, a blur of motion. A figure in a grey, tattered hooded cloak was weaving through the melee. He was fast—unnaturally so. He didn't engage directly. He moved like smoke, sliding under swings and vaulting over debris. Every time his hand flicked out, something died. Throwing knives. Dozens of them. They appeared in throats, eyes, and joints with surgical precision. He was silent, lethal, and entirely focused on keeping the smaller goblins off the Orc’s back.
“Look out!” Talisa screamed from behind her. Miz’ri ducked instinctively. A massive, bloated goblinoid wielding a section of a fence post swung over her head. Miz’ri drove her sword up into its gut, twisting the bde.
“We need to link up with them!” Miz’ri shouted over the din. “We’re exposed out here!”
“Gourdy!” the knife-thrower—Artie—shouted. His voice was raspy, strained. “Strangers on the battlefield!"
The massive Half-Orc turned his head, spotting Miz’ri, the skeleton, and the terrified pilgrim fighting in the rear. He didn't look surprised. He just assessed their utility in a heartbeat.
“Friends!” Gourdy bellowed, crushing a goblin’s windpipe with his off-hand. “We need aid! Please! You two - clear a path!!”
“Making a door!” the blonde girl shouted. She raised both hands, and a wall of fire roared to life between the goblin horde and Miz’ri’s group, searing a path through the chaos.
“Move!” Miz’ri grabbed Talisa’s colr. “Through the fire! Go!”
Miz’ri hauled Talisa through the gap in the fmes, the heat searing the moisture from their eyes. They stumbled into the retive safety of the wagon circle, coughing against the smoke. Herkel cttered in behind them, still holding a detached goblin arm, which he politely dropped before taking up a defensive posture near the center.
Miz’ri spun, scanning the chaos for the next threat. A massive Hobgoblin, wielding two rusted cleavers, leaped over the wagon tongue, aiming for the distracted Sorceress. Miz’ri intercepted him. She slid underneath his high swing, her bde finding the gap in his leathers, and shoved him back into the fire. She stood up, breathing hard, and found herself back-to-back with the hooded knife-thrower.
“Watch your back” Miz’ri barked, assuming he was human. “They’re swarming the undercarriage.” The figure turned. The hood slipped back just an inch, revealing sharp, angur features and skin the color of polished obsidian.
Miz’ri froze - The knife-thrower froze.
He was a Dark Elf as well. A male. His eyes, a startling violet, went wide with instant, ingrained panic. He saw Miz’ri—tall, female, wearing the imperious scowl of a Matriarch-in-training—and his reaction was visceral. He hissed, recoiling as if she were a snake, raising a jagged obsidian dagger toward her throat.
“Rath ulu l'har'oloth dos c'nros” (Back to the pit, Witch!) he spat, his voice cracking with desperate hate. “Usstan nezmuth’t tlu g'sslu 'sohna! Usstan’ll elgg dos ust!” (I won’t be colred again! I’ll gut you first!)
Miz’ri’s own instincts fred. A male raising a bde to her? In the Reaches Below, that was a death sentence. Her lip curled, her sword snapping up to deflect his dagger.
“Kyorl dosst ooble', jaluk, xor Usstan’ll harventh ol doeb lu'zirn ol ulu l'go'hi!” (Watch your tongue, male, or I’ll cut it out and feed it to the pigs!) she snarled back in perfect, venomous Tea’Zalnan. “Usstan’m gal ulu dormagyn dosst yeunn waess” (I’m trying to save your pathetic skin!)
The sound of their native tongue cut through the battle noise like a whip crack. Artie flinched, the authority in her voice hitting him harder than a physical blow. But he didn't lower the knife. His eyes darted from her face to the red scarf at her neck, confusion warring with terror.
“Ril xan'ss dos tenth zhah natha ulnar” (Every word you speak is a lie.) ” he hissed, recognizing the aristocratic curve of her armor, even without the insignia. “Dos phuul natha xukuthe'l Karoth” (You’re a heartless sver.)
“Lu'dos phuul kiel” (And you’re slow) Miz’ri countered, parrying a goblin spear that had been aimed at Artie’s kidney while he was busy posturing. “ Yuial pholor l'ogglin, dos mal'ai! Udos shlu'ta elgg weth byr gajak!” (Focus on the enemy, you idiot! We can kill each other ter!)
“Usstan do plynn ilkana dal dosst valyrin!” (I don’t take orders from your kind!) Artie shouted, spinning to throw a knife into the spearman’s throat. “Usstan tlun duul'sso!” (I am free!)
“Dos ph'elghinyrr ka dos don’t kri'sha ussta suul” (You are dead if you don’t cover my fnk! Miz’ri roared, ducking a swinging chain.
“Artie! Guests!” Gourdy’s voice boomed from across the circle. “Py nice! We need the bdes!” He looked at the two arguing like they were bratty siblings fighting over the st morsel.
Artie gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw working furiously. He looked at Miz’ri with deep, abiding suspicion, but the goblin horde was surging again. A fresh wave of the twisted fey creatures was pouring over the barricade, screeching for blood.
“Fine,” Artie spat in Common, turning his back to her, though he kept one dagger reserved in his off-hand. “But if you try to cast a binding spell, Cousin, I will put this in your spine.”
“If I wanted to bind you, you’d already be on your knees,” Miz’ri retorted, stepping into the rhythm of the fight. They fell into a grudging, lethal sync. It was the dance of two people raised in the same darkness, trained in the same ruthless school of survival
“Clear the air!” Artie shouted, pointing to a cluster of goblins bunching up for a rush.
Miz’ri didn't argue. She stepped forward, unleashed a sweeping, circur strike that forced the goblins back, creating a pocket of space.
“Now!” Artie leaped onto the wagon wheel behind her. His hands were a blur. Thwip-thwip-thwip. Three goblins dropped, knives buried to the hilt in their eye sockets.
“Nice throw,” Miz’ri grunted, impaling a survivor. “For a male.”
“Vith dos,” (Fuck you) Artie shot back, dropping down beside her. “alu ulu uoi'nota” (Go to Hell)
“Jal'yur gaer, Jaluk” (Already there, Male.) Miz’ri smirked.
She pointed her sword toward the rear of the swarm. “Look. The big one.” Striding through the chaos, whipping his subordinates into a frenzy, was the Warlord. He was a massive, scarred Hobgoblin, wielding a cruel, barbed whip in one hand and a serrated saber in the other.“He’s rallying them,” Artie noted, wiping sweat from his brow. “If he stays up, we get overrun by sheer numbers.”
“Then we knock him down,” Miz’ri said, her eyes locking onto the target. The silence in her head was gone, repced by the cold, calcuting hum of the hunt. “Cover me. I’m going to cut the head off the snake.”
Artie hesitated, looking at her with that same fearful distrust. Then, he nodded once. “Don’t miss, Cousin. I’m running out of knives.”
“I never miss,” Miz’ri lied, and charged into the fray. Miz’ri hit the valley floor running, her boots skidding in the dust as she corrected her momentum. She didn't scream a war cry. She didn't announce her presence. She simply became a bde in motion.
The Warlord saw her coming. He wasn’t foolish enough to meet the charge head-on. As Miz’ri cleared the screen of fodder, he roared, snapping the barbed whip out like a viper striking.
The whip was ugly—thick leather interwoven with razor-sharp bone shards and rusted iron barbs, stained bck with old blood. It wasn’t a tool for cattle; it was designed to tear flesh from bone.
Miz’ri heard the snap, the hiss of dispced air, and sidestepped, the barbs catching nothing but dust where her knee had been. She pressed her advantage, lunging forward with a short, brutal stab toward the Commander’s armored gut. He blocked with the serrated saber, the steel ringing sharply against Miz’ri’s bde. He was strong, far stronger than his slightly hunched posture suggested, and she felt the jar up her arm.
“Dark elf girl!” the Hobgoblin snarled in broken common, his voice a gravelly bark. He pulled his saber back, driving her bde away, and instantly followed up with the whip again. “Delicious”
Crack! This time, she wasn’t fast enough. The whip wrapped around her left forearm, just above the cuff of her elbow-length red leather glove. The barbs bit deep through the leather and into her flesh. It burned. Not just the pain of the tear, but a sudden, searing heat that radiated up her arm. Miz’ri ignored the spike of panic that tried to rise in her gut. With a gasp of pure, predatory fury, she surged forward, using the resistance of the whip to close the distance the Warlord wanted to keep. She yanked hard, sacrificing her treasured glove and the skin beneath it to the bite of the barbs.
The leather tore free, a smoking crimson shred still wrapped around the whip, leaving a deep, burning furrow in the obsidian skin of her forearm. The Hobgoblin was yanked off-bance, his massive bulk stumbling forward. Miz’ri drove her knee into his chest pte, creating a sharp intake of breath. The second he hesitated, she released her sword, letting it ctter to the ground, and snatched the Warlord's own serrated saber from his hand. She cmped her free hand over the whip, wrapping the coils around the Warlord's thick throat, pinning his head back. She brought the saber up in a blinding arc, driving the tip through his chin and up into his brain.
The Hobgoblin convulsed, making a noise like a gurgling dog before colpsing in a heap of dead muscle and broken armor. Miz’ri stood over the body, the saber heavy and slick in her hand. The Warlord’s death was instantaneous.
A rough, warbling horn sounded from the tree line. Then another, and another. The remaining Goblinoids—cowards by nature, now without a commander—shrieked their panic and scattered like insects into the surrounding scrub brush.
The battle was over.
The dust settled, thick and redolent with the smell of scorched earth, goblin blood, and spent magic. In the center of the carnage, the surviving members of the caravan—a handful of terrified merchants and one bewildered guard—were already clustered around Gourdy and Baby, babbling their sincere, grateful thanks. They completely ignored the three newcomers.
Gourdy, the Half-Orc, lowered his mace with a heavy thud and surveyed the field. He walked directly toward Miz’ri’s group—the Dark Elf, the dirt-covered human, and the unsettling skeleton—his expression unreadable. “Thanks for that, we were in quite a pinch, good work.” Gourdy rumbled, his voice a low boom. He was looking at Miz’ri’s weapon choice, the stolen saber, and her battle stance. “We owe you three. Name yourselves and your destination. Professional courtesy.”
The half-orc pointed a thumb back up at myself, “I’m Gourdy,” then to the dark elf in a defensive posture, “That’s Artie, Artie Choke”, and then over to the small blonde woman, “And that’s Baby Bok Choy, or just Baby as we call her.”
Miz’ri was trying to focus. Her vision was starting to swim, and the hum of the pain in her left arm was now a distracting, high-pitched whine in her ears. She forced her voice to be steady. “We are private travelers,” Miz’ri said, trying to inject the familiar, cold authority into her tone. It came out a little too ft. “Our destination is our own affair. I suggest you focus on your wounded and leave us to our journey.”
“A little hostile for a savior,” the blonde sorceress, Baby, chirped, pushing past the Orc. She wiped a single, immacute fingertip across a smudge of blood on her cheek. She was entirely focused on Miz’ri’s eyes, not the wound. “You move like trained steel. And you look like trouble. We’d like to know what kind of trouble we just shared a battlefield with.”
Talisa, covered head to toe in grit, instantly stepped forward. She was panting, her cheeks flushed with the adrenaline of survival and the terror of being questioned.
“We’re not trouble, ma’am,” Talisa said quickly, an open book of relief and anxiety. “I’m Talisa Magleby, from Julisia. And this is Miz’ri. We’re pilgrims, well I am, she’s my…bodyguard? Escort? Travelling companion?” She looked for how to define who Miz’ri was to her, “Well, whatever you call it, we’re heading to Vigil to present my great-grandfather, Herkel, for the rites.” She gestured to the silent, judgmental skeleton with the pot lid.
Miz’ri shot a look of pure, concentrated venom at Talisa. You did not just give them my name! The effort to maintain her scowl was suddenly enormous. “We are not pilgrims,” Miz’ri hissed at Talisa in a low tone, the word sounding like a threat.
“But we are!” Talisa insisted, then lowered her voice for Miz’ri alone, oblivious to the scrutiny of the mercenaries. “You were so good at helping just now! Don’t be rude. They saved us too!” Miz’ri turned back to Gourdy, trying to recim control of the conversation. The world was tilting slightly, and her lips felt numb.
“As the human said,” Miz’ri stated, trying for a dismissive wave of her good hand. “P-Pilgrims. We require nothing. Go away.”
Talisa, who had been watching Miz’ri's face, suddenly frowned. She noticed the slight dey, the unnatural effort Miz’ri was making just to form a simple sentence. “Miz?” Talisa murmured, stepping closer, instinctively reaching for the elf’s arm. “Are you alright? You look… warm.”
“I’m fine!” Miz’ri snapped, batting Talisa’s hand away. The movement was jerky, uncoordinated. She tried to turn her back on them all—the nosy Orc, the maniputive Sorceress, and especially the fearful Drow male, Artie, who had silently retreated to the wagon shadows and hadn't stopped watching her.
As she turned, the dizziness spiked. Miz’ri stumbled, catching herself clumsily on the wagon wheel. She felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead, immediately mingling with the heat radiating from her fey-poisoned forearm.
Baby’s eyes finally dropped from Miz’ri’s face to the wound. The blonde woman’s falsely sweet expression vanished, repced by cold, professional arm.
“Gourdy,” Baby whispered, her voice losing all its false cheer. “Look at her arm. That’s Fey-Rot. That whip was dipped in something vile. She’s fading.”
Miz’ri tried to deny it, sneering one st time. “It’s a s-scratch. I am… I am daughter of House Niranath. I’m immune to these surface poi-.” She tried to say a simple word: poison. But her tongue betrayed her. Her voice slurred, the haughty Dark Elf noble reduced to a garbled, wet noise. Her red eyes lost focus, the cold, predatory calcution dissolving into panic. Miz’ri’s body simply gave up. Her knees buckled and she colpsed forward, not an elegant fall, but a dead weight, smming directly into Talisa, who gasped in shock.
She heard Talisa shriek, saying something, but couldn’t understand it. Miz only saw the fading colors of the girl’s face and curly brown hair as her vision colpsed to a pin. The human struggled to bear the weight as the tall, powerful elf went utterly limp in her arms, dragging them both down to the blood-soaked dirt.
