The night passed too swiftly. Azrael did manage to get the fey chill out of his bones after a few hours, but the memory of Kamaran’s demise would be years in withdrawing. He rose, plunging his hands into the glowing coals of the fire, rubbing the embers on his skin. Convinced they were clean, he stood, clapping ash from his palms.
“Miranda, report please.” The Shadrim woman walked over from her consultation with the magicians a second later, pointing in some indistinct direction while whispering to them.
“Sir, we are ninety minutes’ march from the village of Escombe, a fishing and farming town as we were told. Recon last night puts the population at around forty families. Two cattle herds of about twenty head each, and about one hundred twenty pigs in the town.” She paused. “We’re about eight hours ride, a full day’s march, from the next town. There are only two horses here that we spotted, both tied at a small inn. The inn serves good beer.” She added the last while holding out a sealed horn to Azrael.
“Someone’s bucking for either a promotion or a good bucking,” he smiled as he took the horn. Uncapping it and taking a few long swallows, he looked around. “Injuries? Everyone else alright?”
“Yes sir, Joergg was the only injury, he got some of Goram’s poison on his hands and accidentally rubbed his eyes after we got out of the portal.”
“****, will he live? Can he see?”
“Yes, and yes, sir. We got to him in time and flushed out most of the poison. He’ll have a little swelling, and his sinuses probably aren’t a joy to him right now, but he’ll know to handle that satchel more carefully in the future.” She looked around the campsite at the rest of the team. “One of the mages lost his book back there.”
“Spellbook?”
“No sir, an augmenting tome. The others have their travelling books too, so we can stand to lose a spellbook.”
“I’m not worried about casting, I figured they had that covered. But a spellbook is a deeply personal item, and having one fall into the hands of the Winter Court would jeopardize its owner. I couldn’t afford to keep him on the team if he were subject to possible possession.” Azrael scowled a little at the thought.
“Yes sir, he should be fine. We’re…we’re not going back that way, are we sir?” She didn’t sound happy about that idea.
“No, in fact we’ll probably be mounted. If we’re not, it’s likely that scouts from Gold Battalion will find us and we’ll get killed.”
“Good point. Orders, sir?”
“Get Joergg, you and he head to town and tell the inhabitants that the drakes are inbound, and if they don’t leave, they’re probably going to be killed. Get them to pack up for at least a week in the wilds, and for ****’s sake, tell them NO FIRES. An aerial enemy will follow the smoke plumes right down on their heads and my plan will be ruined.”
“Yes, sir.”
Diran was watching the exchange from the side of the campfire. As Miranda hustled off, he stirred the fire with a stick. “You really think this is going to work?”
“It won’t be one hundred percent, but yeah, I think we stand to kill or disable a good chunk of the drakes. They’re hungry bastards, and roving this far from home in those numbers, they’ll be all over the livestock.” He squatted down across from the magician, finishing off the beer. Looked back to Miranda as she was gathering Joergg up. “See if you can bring back a keg or two of this stuff, and secure those two horses!” She threw a quick salute to indicate that she understood the order, and the two of them took off towards the town.
“Okay, all of you – gather up.” Azrael stood up and used his foot to clear some ground near the fire. The others all moved in towards him, forming a loose circle around him. Taking a stick from the fire, Azrael drew a small circle.
“Miranda’s filled me in. Only two horses in town, so we’re going to have to hoof it to the next one ourselves, unless you’ve got some ritual that can help with that, Diran?” The magician shook his head no.
“Okay, I can accelerate us a little bit, but we’re still going to have to march it. Tough up, at least we won’t be freezing our tails off on this one. I’ve just sent Miranda and Joergg in to get the natives out. There’s an inn in town which we’ll use for our base of operations today. There are two herds of cattle, total about forty head. Triple that many pigs.” He looked around at the magicians.
“When we get into town, you three set up in the inn and start making a big batch of poisoned grease mix some pig **** in with it so it looks like regular hogs-wallow. If you have enough pots, split it up and make a quarter of it with cow ****, so it’ll be inconspicuous. The rest of you scour the town for anything useful, and stoke up all the fires – when they get here, I want the place to look like it’s been evacuated as recently as possible. The drakes are going to be suspicious when they find no one home, but they’re also going to be in a hurry to join up with their battalion.”
He continued “After we dish up this town for them, Diran, make sure to clean the pots. If any of the riders come in looking for booze, I don’t want them stumbling onto your handiwork.”
He drew another circle and connected them. “Once Miranda and Joergg get done clearing this town, I’m putting them on the horses and sending them ahead to clear Oer’water – the next town – and secure whatever mounts might be present there. We’ll meet up with them tomorrow and repeat the process.”
One of the men raised his hand. “Sir? What of the individuals who refuse to leave town?”
“Aside from kill them?” Azrael thought about it for a few moments, silently staring into the fire. “We can’t afford for the drakes to find out we were here and what we were doing. I don’t want to kill them outright. Anyone got any ideas?”
Diran looked at one of his magicians, who shrugged and nodded back. “Sir, we have a ritual for a mass charm, which might help – the request to remain silent with regard to us might be enforceable, though if they are tortured they’re pretty likely to talk.”
“Hmm. Okay. Let’s talk more about this while we head in. I like it, but I’m still nervous about having them expose our mission either directly or under interrogation. The rest of you – you have one hour. Eat up, pack up, and let’s get a move on.” The circle broke, and the teams went about their business.
“Diran, if you charm them, can’t you just tell them to go with our original instructions? Get out and don’t come back for a week?”
Diran looked blankly for a moment, shook his head as if to clear it, and then nodded slowly. “I must be getting old, I didn’t even think of it once we’d gone past that idea. Of course we can. We’ll likely get them to agree faster than the ones who leave in the first place.” He smacked himself in the forehead. “Gods, I’m so stupid to not even think of that.”
“Stop worrying about it. That’s why we don’t do these jobs solo, so if someone forgets something, someone else is likely to remember. Okay, do you need all three of you to mix the poison up?”
“Actually no, as long as I can have an extra hand or two on the manual labor, two of us should be fine.”
“Good. Joergg will assist you. I understand he has a new appreciation for the handling of your goods, anyhow. Send Kaenig with Miranda when she goes to Oer’water, and they can have a town meeting. I expect him to cast this mass charm to get everyone to leave as quickly and peacefully as possible. They should be told of the impending drakes, and since the rest of us aren’t around it’ll look less like a war party and more like a warning even if someone gets caught.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
“Nope, just get your gear ready and let’s head into town.”
“You got it, sir.” Diran moved back to his companions and began informing them of what the plan was.
Azrael looked downhill at the rising lines of smoke from the village.
