Mountain Top (Location D) [Archive]

Bleater

08-07-07, 11:09 PM

The Eyes and Ears Company have arrived from The Clearing (Location E)

Su'acotangi, Falannkku 19, 1803 CP
12 Days Ago.

As he looked at the drow's sinister grin, a sense of foreboding came over William. The official stopped his pacing, carrying the remainder of his drink with him behind the desk as he sat down, placing the glass gently on the expansive desk's top.

"Well, to be frank" he said to the capran "the other part of the deal is that you are going to lead a small deployment of Aleraran soldiers to locate and secure the Gisela."

William was stunned, and the surprise of this finally allowed him to draw his head back up high as his eyes almost bugged out.

"I beg your pardon? Me, leading Aleraran troops to the Gisela?" he said with disbelief. A yellowing smile answered him back from the other side of the table.

"That's right."

"Well, pardon me if I'm not entirely clear on this matter..." the goat said, a look of distrust and concern coming to his expressive yellow eyes, "...but why would you trust me to lead a group of your soldiers after you just found out that I'm Raiaeran?"

Leaning back in his chair, the drow had an air of confidence about him as he pulled the glass to his lips, another drink of the amber liquor sliding between them. William's own throat felt even more parched as he watched the dark elf take long pleasurable sips of the brandy.

"Well, firstly, because you have the motivation to succeed." the elf said as he pulled the glass from his mouth. He still held it off the table, swirling it gently in a circular motion that made a small wave run clockwise inside the glass. "Because you know that if you succeed in securing the Gisela, not only have you earned a pardon but you are a free being, someone who has a real life ahead of them."

"And what if I don't?" William replied.

The dark elf cracked one of the corners of his mouth up higher at hearing the word "don't" rather than "didn't", he knew it meant that the goat was almost sold on the idea, as opposed to it simply being a far away option.

"If you should fail... well, let's just say that you would do best to die on the field alongside the men. Because if you actually return having failed, then what short time you have left to call a life would be spent in such pain that the last two days will seem like a good dream to you. The torture that Lashgiver gave would be nothing compared to the price of failure: you would suffer in ways that would make you think we've made a career out of hurting you."

William choked back a hard gulp, but this time it was not just because of his dry throat. His mind started working so quickly that the room seemed to wobble from side to side, and he praced his forehooves against the chair to keep himself from tumbling forward.

"...and the second thing?" he said as he closed his eyes and tried to regain his composure.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, you said that firstly, I had the motivation for success. Which precludes that there must be a 'secondly', or you wouldn't have said 'firstly'."

The dark elf looked pleasantly surprised as he leaned forward, bringing his elbows to rest on the table and continuing to swirl the drink in his glass.

"You are a clever one, William. That trait should come in hand on the field. But yes, there is another thing..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Droitangi, Falannkku 31, 1803 CP
Present Day - 11:54am

The men of the Eyes and Ears brigade finally reach the end of the tenuous trail that have been riding on for the past several hours. The trail encircles the cap of the mountain top, less than a hundred feet vertically from the summit. The path is much easier to travel here compared to the roadway they used to get here, running below the southern outskirts of the Middle Forest. The foothills had almost been treacherous enough to force them to abandon the horses, but a small pathway through a mountain rift had given them the opportunity to steer their colts along the cracked grey rocks in relative safety. Looking back east, their eyes trace the main path running to the middle forest, like a long scar running the northeast face of the mountain. Once it actually hits the treeline, it seems to disappear into a green oblivion of trees, everything past the treeline obscured from sight, save for one thing: a pair of airships that float above the canopy of the forest.

The men come to a stop, each taking enough time to fetch a dry ration for themselves and a carrot to feed to their horses. One by one, each surveys all around the area, and look off in the distance. It's quiet, and a few of them are more than a little relieved that they did not run into any enemies on the way. As they break for a few moments for their meal, one of the scouts keeps an eye trained on the airships, and his face scrunches up with worry as he sees one of the airships break formation and move away from the other, disappearing below the tops of the trees to land.

"That's not good..." he mutters, the scout beside him looking up with flakes of an oat-like ration mix sticking to his lips.

"The airship's moving away from the other?" he says, wiping his sleeve across his mouth, taking most of the flakes away. From behind the pair, a third dark elf eases his horse between them, glancing at the airships and then moving onward a few yards.

He is the company commander, and brings his horse's walk to a stop, steering it around to face the other men. "They're deploying the men from one, which means they've most likely run across the enemy."

The messy eater troop looks on at the airships in awe, before looking back to the company commander. "So does that mean we need to go back to them?"

"Absolutely not." the mounted drow says, looking disapprovingly at the other scout. "Go back for what? We are out here to gather intelligence. We have none to provide them. Which means we will continue by standard procedures until we find something that is worth taking back to our superiors."

The two drow in front of him hurredly mount their horses, and the other remaining scouts steer their own horses up to the commander, who turns his steed and begins along a northward path.

"Which means we will continue along the perimiter of the Middle Forest northwards."

The men from atop their horses stuff half-eaten rations back into the saddlebags of their horsesbefore the ten of them begin moving along the path downward from the mountain.

As they press onward, one of the men, a soft spoken drow with a deep voice, comes alongside the company commander. Their horses each having a matching and easy gait, they ride side-by-side as the soft-spoken points a finer up to the sky ahead of them.

"What do you make of that?" He inquires earnestly in his low voice. The commander looks up and sees a large formation of birds heading in their direction, but shrugs.

"Looks like a bunch of birds of prey flying together this direction."

"Yes, but birds don't migrate southward this time of year, we're still months away from that. What do you think it means?"

Wobbling back and forth on the back of his horse, the commander looks at the birds one more time before shrugging again.

"Perhaps whatever has them heading this direction is waiting for us, and we'll have something worth reporting by the time we reach the Forgotten Valley..."

Eyes and Ears Company moving to Forgotten Valley (Location A)