Out of Character:
“Where… did you get this?”
Several pairs of eyes were locked on the twisted black piece of wood and metal that Christina Bredith had slammed down on the table before them. Each regarded it differently: some eyes spoke of awe, while others regarded it as they would a coiled snake, and one even made a brief holy sign and muttered a prayer. A number of other members of the Underwood Watch had now crowded around to see what the Deputy had brought. The room, a smallish meeting chamber in the back of the Peaceful Promenade in Underwood, seemed a lot smaller with all of them crowded around.
“I think we all know the answer to that question,” she retorted, taking a step back and crossing her arms beneath her breasts. Her scarlet long coat fit her curvy form as well as if it had been made just for her, and the fine golden thread that decorated the arms and hemlines could almost have been taken from the shimmering head of hair that spilled around her shoulders. Argent eyes regarded the Marshals with smug amusement, but at least one of them was having none of it.
“Where?” Marshal Stormcrow repeated, his voice as hard as iron. He may have lost his leg in the Razing of Underwood, but that was all he had lost. The eyes that bored into her seemed dull, but they were sharp and hard, and with his muscular frame and close-cut hair, he had a menacing appearance that she would sooner not stand against.
Her visage weakened just a trifle. There was no holding back what Edward Stormcrow wanted to hear, even if it was just for the formality of actually saying it. “It came from a Scarlet Brigadier,” she admitted at last. Some of the Marshals stiffened. This was not the first time a Brigadier had been killed by a Ranger, but it was the first time one of their weapons had actually been recovered and returned. And she was hardly on par with Letho Ravenheart, who had killed the only other recorded Brigadier so far.
“You killed it?” Major Jahaad asked, and she tried not to take offense at his tone. To be honest, she hadn’t quite believed it at first, either.
“I had help,” she clarified, bringing down one hand to rest on her hip. “Maybe you’ve heard of the King of Thieves?”
“Such friends you keep! You are quite the social butterfly, Deputy!” an elven Marshal joked, and as he laughed, his tight golden braids swayed softly around him. He seemed to be the only Marshal amused at what she had brought them, but then, Tenniel Lisosian could have laughed at the prospect of his own death—and in fact, he often did.
“If you came here to brag,” Stormcrow cut in darkly, “then I’m afraid we have no time to listen.”
“Marshal, you wound me!” she said, shaking her head and holding out her arms in protest. “Fighting that thing was hardly something I wish to remember, let alone brag about. But I think that certain members of our company can already see why I brought this here.”
Her gaze came to regard another of the elves sitting at the table, off to one side and flanked by another pair. These three were slender and unusually fair, even compared with Tenniel, which told a keen observer that they were Raiaeran-born and Raiaeran-raised, unused to the sunnier climate of Corone. He was a Bladesinger—they all were—come to Corone to assist the Rangers in exchange for the return of some precious Raiaeran artifacts with which the Imperial government had illegally absconded. The elf in the center of that group, one Lenwë Miriel, was regarding the twisted black half-glaive with particular concentration and discomfort.
“This is a thing of evil,” he said at last, knowing that he was now the center of attention, despite not having taken his eyes off the object since it was placed on the table. “The thing that held it…” He shivered slightly.
“Not human, was it?” Christina said, turning to face the Bladesinger. “This Scarlet Brigadier. We call them wraiths, but they really are, aren’t they?”
The elf was stock-still for a long time, but eventually he nodded. “I think you are right. I cannot see much, but… no, I do not think the beast that held this weapon was human.”
“If you can tell that much…” Christina let the sentence hang, her question pleading itself in the dead silence. She knew Lenwë knew what she wanted him to do from the way his spine stiffened. If he could tell that much just from looking at the thing, how much could he tell if he actually used his song magic? The other Marshals, and indeed all the members of the Underwood Watch, now regarded the Bladesinger with rapture.
“I know what you ask,” he said, facing Christina with serenity that surprised her, “but I do not know if I can.”
“If you can find out anything about these monsters,” Marshal Stormcrow said, leaning over the table and sensing what was being implied, “I’m asking you to please try.” His voice was still hard, but it too had softened, perhaps as close to pleading as he would ever get.
Lenwë nodded at last. He reached out and touched the half-glaive gingerly, as if expecting it to vanish in a puff of smoke—or to strike out and bite him. Immediately a shudder ripped through his slender form, and his companions took hold of him, whispering things in elvish too quietly for Christina to understand. The elf nodded at last and began to whisper himself, and over time Christina realized that he was singing. Quietly, as if a lullaby to a sleeping dragon. Tell me your secrets, he seemed to say, but for the love of the star-gods, do not wake up.
Suddenly, Lenwë’s body stiffened again, and his companions flinched away as if his skin had become suddenly hot or cold. He grew pale, so it was probably the latter, and when he opened his eyes only the whites showed. His mouth opened and he began to speak, but the words were in elvish. Christina could understand dribs and drabs of it, but it took a few moments before one of his companions, a short and surprisingly stout elf named Elessar Carnesîr, translated.
“‘I see a place of madness. It hides in the shadow of mountains like dragon’s teeth biting at the sky. It was once a place of great pain and suffering, and has been made a lair of even greater evil by those who now dwell within. Though it hides beside the core of the evil that fills this land, it is darker by far.’”
“Well what does that mean?” Christina blurted into the following silence. A note of exasperation licked at her voice.
“The ‘mountains like dragon’s teeth’ must be the Jagged Mountains,” someone in the Watch offered. Those impassable mountains were located just to the north of Radasanth and covered the entire northern and much of the eastern coast of the island. Christina had never heard of anything being built there, but it certainly would narrow down their search if true.
“The rest of it makes me think of a place of torture.” Edward was drumming his fingers on the table and his gray eyes bespoke deep thought. In this, most of the Marshals were at a loss—before the war, they had primarily been responsible for their own territories, which they knew like the back of their hands but little outside of it. None gathered had been responsible for that part of the Radasanthia barony. In fact, there were no Marshals responsible for any part of the Jagged Mountains except its borders.
Suddenly, Major Jahaad slammed that palm down on the heavy oak table. The stack of papers before him trembled and began to slide forward. “Of course!” he exclaimed. Everyone turned to him with burning curiosity, and Edward’s eyes had a little more impatience than the rest. “There is an asylum that the government built decades ago, maybe over a century now, just inside the Jagged Mountains. It’s not very far in because the terrain is so difficult, but far enough to be out of sight and out of mind for the people of Radasanth.
“It’s where they took the mentally and criminally insane in half-hearted attempts at rehabilitation,” he continued. “The government had little involvement in what went on there, and a little under ten years ago they discovered that the people running it were using methods of rehabilitation that were much more akin to torture than medicine. They shut it down and it hasn’t been used since. It’s entirely possible that the Empire has… reappropriated it.”
“I beg your pardon,” Tenniel said at last, “but what exactly do we plan to do with this information? We’d need an army to destroy an entire nest of these things, and I don’t think we can just march one past the Imperial doorstep. Their welcoming parties have been so discourteous lately.”
“We still can’t waste the opportunity!” Christina said passionately. She took a step toward the Marshals’ table and held out her hands. “These beasts have to be destroyed, once and for all! If we ever want to reclaim Radasanth, how are we going to do it knowing that this ‘nest,’ as you put it, is right next door?”
“So you’re volunteering, then?” Stormcrow asked coolly, and his stare made Christina feel suddenly on the spot. She lowered her arms and considered that perhaps she hadn’t completely thought this through. Fighting just one of those monsters had been the most taxing experience of her life, and that was with Yari’s help. Taking out a den of them…?
“I am,” she said, surprising herself. “I’ll need help, but I’ll do it.” If they were stealthy about it, if they entered without being noticed, perhaps they could neutralize the source of the wraiths without attracting too much attention. That was the best case scenario. The worst case scenario did not bear thinking about.
“I will accompany you.” Lenwë stood up rather shakily, shrugging off the protests of his companions. It was the first he had spoken since the vision of the asylum. “I must accompany you. If these monsters can be purified, then I will be able to help you.” His two companions immediately leapt up beside him.
“Where he goes, so shall I,” Elessar said with such cheer that Christina wondered whether he really understood the task ahead of them.
“If you think I’m leaving you two to go get yourselves killed, you’ve got another thing coming,” added their other companion, a hot-faced female Bladesinger named Alassë Oronar. Christina wasn't sure whether to be pleased or insulted that she wasn't included in the two that were going to get themselves killed.
Well, three Bladesingers would make for decent company on a trip like this, and they just might turn the odds enough to come out of the affair alive. She would still have preferred Yari’s company, but they had parted ways when they reached Concordia, and she had no time to waste searching for the Bandit Brotherhood now. The Bladesingers rounded the table and stood beside Christina, who was already gathering up the half-glaive and stuffing it in the makeshift sling over her back.
“Then I suppose it’s settled,” Stormcrow said at last, nodding his head at the group. “Good luck, and I hope the Thaynes are with you.” The group turned to leave the room, but they suddenly halted when a voice called out from somewhere within the mass of Underwood Watchmen.
“Just a moment, please!” the voice said, and Christina turned to scan the crowd. “I think you’ll still need some help getting into this place…”
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