The Path of Poison: Chapter 13
Previously…
The party found themselves in the Voerlund town of Saumark during a winter festival, where Sepp was brought in secret by the Macha dryador sorceress Aismere to heal a poisoned Dunmarrow warrior. Now the party have said goodbye to the town, and sense danger on the road…
Chapter 12 can be read here
The atmosphere in the wagon had taken a sudden turn. After the first group of firehawks had appeared overhead, smaller numbers were seen intermittently. They travelled quietly then, the two Dunmarrow brothers Karmov and Dorach pensive, the easy tone of the voyage spoiled by this hint of what, they didn’t even know.
All in all, there were ten northern mercenaries spread across their four wagons, stationed in a defensive perimeter around the eight merchants from Saumark. These latter folk were bundled together in two wagons, the other four bearing their goods. Each wagon was pulled by stocky beasts with short, curling horns, shaggy mantles, and a lightly fuzzy, thick skin. They weren’t fast, but they were dependable and sturdy, able to comfortably travel non-stop for long distances. That’s why the Dunmarrow had brought two dracomounts, fleet reptilian creatures good for scouting. One of those scouts passed by the tent in which group sat, relating news in the northern tongue to the brothers, who translated. No one else seemed terribly bothered by the firehawks, in fact the merchants seemed thrilled to behold such a rare sight. But Skivor’s worry had been relayed to the other mercenaries, they trusted the native woodsman’s word over their own feelings.
The situation seemed to have sobered the mercenaries up a good deal. Swiftly had their grim presence reasserted itself. Sitting there, listening to the crunch of earth outside and the skittering tread of the dracomounts, Sepp couldn’t help but feel a pang from before, of how it had been back home in Yamesh, sitting and waiting for bad news. He couldn’t convince himself it was nothing, or just a fluke. Not with how Skivor had sounded. What could have spooked those firehawks? It’s not like they weren’t defenseless creatures. Hunters, maybe? Or beastmen? Would have to be an awful lot of them, and bad ones, too. Sepp idly thumbed through Búcher’s grimoire, partly to pass the time, partly to focus on something else, and partly for reassurance.
All of a sudden, there was a sound like the roar of a gale and the wagon shook as if struck by a battering ram. Shouts resounded from inside and out. The scrabbling of dracomount claws could be heard careening around and shouts in the Dunmarrow language came from all angles. Karmov and Dorach leaned out of the wagon’s door-flap as the rest of the group righted themselves and shot looks of fear to each other. The two brothers were calling to their comrades—he didn’t need to speak their tongue to know they were asking what in the world that was.
A streak of black was seen racing through the pale winter sky.
It was most certainly not a firehawk.
The Dunmarrow took control. Karmov jumped out of the moving wagon, blade in hand, while Dorach stayed between the exit and his charges. Everyone had their hands on their axes, but Sepp gripped his pack. From outside, there was another roaring thunder and then a crash of wood and braying of burden beast—their wagon shuddered to a stop as screams shot through the air. Seconds later Karmov appeared, shouting to get out of the wagon.
Sepp whirled about in the blearing sunlight, but didn’t have to search long for the source of the chaos. It must have stood about twice as tall a person, even these tall Dunmarrow, but its great, curving wings were what gave it such a frightful immensity. Every beat of them sent up a cloud of dust and a wall of wind. It stood on two long legs of knotted muscle, and its arms, though comparatively short, were as thick cords of sinew with dextrous, taloned limbs. Behind it, a long, thick, spined tail lashed violently, and what gazed forward at them was a curving neck surmounted by a horned, crested head with sharp eyes and short, tapering snout. It was picking through the remains of a merchant caravan with its arms, flexing and beating its wings to deter any who would get close.
Drakes long ago found a place of awe and terror in Voerlund and Silverden society. They adorn both noble and venerable heraldry, and their speed, power, and ferocity have long since been the source of inspiration for warriors of all kinds through history. Búcher used to tell Sepp stories of them when he was a boy. What Sepp chiefly found both frightening and fascinating about them was well recorded outside of myth and folklore, that drakes weren’t just cunning, they were smart. And that intelligence manifested as a fierce pride. Drakes lived out in the wilderness, where they dwelt uncontested. But Sepp somehow thought these grim northern men were unlikely to defer to the beast.
Warriors spilled forth from the Dunmarrow wagons with spears and shortbows while the merchants fled backwards. Captain Karel himself had a long spear with a wicked head. They ran to surround the drake as it spread its colossal wings out to their full length, shadowing the entire caravan as it spun about, swinging its great twisting tail, far more agile than any of them had expected for its size. One fellow ducked in with a longsword but was met with a swift and brutal strike of the drake’s talons. It snapped its jaws and stamped, snarling and emitting a dreadful growl. It flapped several times, but none of the Dunmarrow moved an inch, each one eyeing their downed companion. It suddenly swung around again, bringing one of its wings down, slamming into two mercenaries who didn’t dodge quick enough. This was when four of them ran in low, spears aimed high, raking their blades across the creature’s and side and leg—it gave a sort of hiss of shock as it kicked out the wounded leg and turned, jaws open and ready to grab whatever was closest, but the Dunmarrow escaped by a hair’s breadth.
From the other side there came now a peppering of arrows, their meaty thocks eliciting further hissing and deep, throaty roars from the drake as it shook itself to try and loose the shafts lodged in its scales. Two spears came in with heavy thrusts into the other leg while another two dragged away the injured warrior. Evidently the plan was to force the thing to retreat rather than have to kill it, for they left its wings alone, but each attack seemed to do nothing more than make it angrier, and it was beginning to eye the caravans, and the merchants.
Sepp looked on with sheer dread in his chest.
“They can’t win,” he said to no one in particular, “and no one’s coming to help us.”
The other three stared at him, but weren’t given time to get even a word out.
Sepp’s movements, he felt as if from afar, were not his own in that moment. Maybe it was the power of the previous night’s events still fresh in his mind. Maybe it was looking at those poor men out there hopelessly outmatched, including one who had been his patient mere hours ago. Maybe it was that pang of a bad memory from before that hadn’t left, and which he refused to let leave on its own terms. Whatever it was, Sepp scooped one of his heaviest hexes out of his pack and dropped it onto the ground as a defense for his companions and the merchants.
“Don’t move that,” was all he said as he strode out, digging around and rubbing away with his thumb the blooms at random from bottles in his pack. Each one lent to an increased sensation of what Sepp could only describe as weight in the air around him. Hexes were not precision instruments, but they could be directed, and good thing in this case. He needed a blunt instrument.
Captain Karel saw him approach with a measure of surprise and confusion which in a flash became comprehension. He looked to the brothers, who followed their captain’s gaze, and who turned back with a nod. Karel roared a command in the Dunmarrow tongue and the men fell back, forming a barrier of spearheads, blade points, and flying arrows between the drake the hex man. He dropped another strong defensive hex into the group of mercenaries. Northern magic for northern warriors. His thoughts came moment to moment. He didn’t actually have a plan besides his mind yelling to not hold back, that there was a lifetime’s work and more in this pack. Use it, whatever it was. The second his warding hex hit the earth, the drake reared back and shook itself. But that wasn’t all he had. Sepp passed through the line of Dunmarrow warriors. He took another hex out, and rubbed clean its bloom. He’d need the warding hex below to hold the drake off for just a moment, neutralize what he held in his hand, and scrawl a directive bloom upon it. With a piece of charcoal, he drew a new design upon this vial, surrounding the Silverden symbol for “drake” with a bloom that said “be set upon this thing alone”. He held it out towards the drake which had lowered its head and threatened to come in for an attack.
Sepp knew he carried the toxins of toads, serpents, and nameless things that crawled in the dark, the bile and blood of vicious beastmen, the pulp and resin of plants so venomous that to even brush a fingertip against their leaf’s edge was agonizing death. This was the kind of stuff that gave hexes their reputation, for what kind of person gave themselves over to gathering such things? What was in that vial, though, not even Sepp knew. Búcher had refused to tell him, and that had rarely ever happened. But whatever it was, alongside the cloud of toxic force that surrounded him, it was working. As Sepp brought it out with its new bloom, the drake recoiled. Its scaled lips peeled back in a disgusted snarl as it rattled its throat. It squinted and clawed the earth as if in a wrenching pain. Although it was working, Sepp didn’t dare go too far forward or he’d end up out of the range of his warding hex. He wasn’t sure just how fast this dire vial would begin to take over, but it had to be stronger, now or never.
And then he remembered.
He shouted for the Dunmarrow to get further back, to just trust him. Karel barked an order and he could hear their armour clinking as they fell back. Sepp reached with his free hand into his pack and brought out the parchment with the woad mark of the Macha sorceress, Aismere. It was power, she had said. It made power flow. Well, no better way to really know how it worked, he thought. He flicked out the rolled up parchment and laid the hex into its curl, wrapped it up, and thrust it out. The drake quite literally fell onto its forelimbs. Its piercing eyes were locked on Sepp. Every fibre of the thing looked as if ready to spring forward but it was being forced into stillness.
A shuddering nausea quickly began to creep through the apothecary. This new hex was beginning overtake his was. He could begin to feel his stomach twist and his limbs shake as he stared the drake down, the awful clarity what he was actually doing flooding his mind. All he could get out was:
“Arrows! Spears! Now!”
The warriors obliged without response and Sepp ducked as the twang of shortbows and singing of spears passed him and struck the recoiling drake. It gave one great flap of its wings, and held them in the air for a moment, its eyes darting over its adversaries. It gave a snort, and leapt into the air, in seconds no more than a streak of shadow.
Serpent’s Breath, thought Sepp, what had he been thinking? Sudden panic cascaded through his body as the first thing he did was rub off the bloom and replace it with something neutralizing. Had that gone on a minute longer, he felt he mightn’t have come out of that well. The hex’s influence was waning, but he was still shaken. Was he supposed to feel elated? He didn’t know, he’d barely avoided death just now. What would his father have thought of that? His thought was stopped by a clap on the shoulder from a black gauntleted hand.
“That’s twice you’ve saved Dunmarrow now, in two days.” Karel’s gaunt, ghostly face was drawn in surprise and no small measure of admiration. “Making a name for yourself, hmm?” Sepp could only chuckle awkwardly. He needed to sit down.
Some time, that was mostly a blur for Sepp, was spent relocating the goods in the destroyed wagon to the others, and making sure none of the merchants were harmed. One of the scouts had been sent back to Saumark to warn the Count of a drake nearby, though there was little chance of its return. Everyone was fine, in fact they were astonished by what they had witnessed. A lad of, what, maybe nineteen summers, standing up to a full grown drake like that? It looked right out of a story. Barosh was very vocal about it, and Skivor was impressed beyond his disdain for poisons. Seva seemed to key in on Sepp obviously about to collapse from the excitement and brought him over by the arm to their wagon where he sat down, giving a ragged sigh. He could see the merchants talking amongst themselves. More than once did he hear what he assumed was the word “magician”. He’d rather they think that than “hex man”.
The two warriors who had been hit by the drake’s wing would be fine, they were only lightly bruised and Sepp produced a simple numbing agent for them to rest easily. The fellow who had been hit by the talons, though, didn’t look like he was going to make it. They’d sheared right through his chain and brigandine, gouging the splitting bone. Absolutely no way any of them would have survived had the hex and Dunmarrow weapons not driven it off. Sepp spent about an hour apologizing profusely as he worked to do the little he could, mitigating pain and injury with medicine and hex alike in the back of a moving wagon. But the warriors assured him time and again it was okay. He witnessed then the culmination of the rite that had begun last night in Saumark. From among several Dunmarrow was chosen one to “put the sleep upon him”. Several passes were made over the body with the slate gravemark that he barely followed, but showed as much interest as he could in his state. Then the fellows talked amongst themselves about what to do with the body, and told Sepp to go rest. He’d made the passing easy, and that mattered more than anything.
The wagons didn’t move so fast that Sepp couldn’t simply drop out the back and stumble back into his own wagon with the others. He sat down with an exasperated laugh and wondered what he was going to do for the rest of the day.