Chapter 7: Revelations Part 1

  Brynnly moved swiftly, and slowpokes made horrible luciloos. He stopped at farmer Jenkins’s place to inform the man the adventurers had started trying to discover and remove the creatures that had attacked him.

  Being informed that things were being handled, the farmer seemed in much better spirits with the news that his issues would soon be over. His wounded leg, now mostly healed, helped his disposition into almost cheerful.

  Farmer Jenkins asked Brynnly to inform Prisca when he was on his way to the manor house. Brynnly, already planning on stopping by her place, agreed. He nodded to Jenkins, stepped out the simple wooden door of the farmhouse, and headed into town.

  Traveling back through Crook shire proper on his way to the manor house, he stopped at healer Prisca’s shop. He informed her of the Dwarven Paladin’s actions.

  She looked less than impressed by what Brynnly considered an altruistic action as she said,

  “Probably to make the guild look better, but I suppose it is a good act at heart, coming from one of those holier-than-thou pantheon pals. I’ll go out and check on Farmer Jenkins shortly. I need to make my rounds this morning. Then I’ll head out that way.”

  Prisca informed him with an annoyed tone.

  With other tasks to see to, he left her to her grumbling and walked down the main street to the public common house. It was only a single story tall to the perturbance of the more dynamic drinkers in the county.

  The house of drinks and acceptable debauchery had a few windows overlooking the main thoroughfare and a simple stone chimney up one side. As Brynnly entered, several simple tables matched with chairs were scattered around the large main room.

  A hearth, cold in the early morning, sat to one side of the large room opposite the mid-sized bar on the other. Early in the day, there weren’t many in the common house. The barkeep, Tim, was polishing a wooden mug behind the bar as he listened with a bored expression to the only other current occupant.

  Crier Kitron was almost as tall as Brynnly, with blond hair that typically reached her shoulders when unbound. Today, it was bound in a black velvet band, revealing her sharp cheekbones and wickedly hooked nose. She was a handsome woman with solid muscles and generous curves, tastefully and poorly accented by her currently disheveled, expensive clothing. Her livery was clean but rumpled as she leaned against the bar and regaled the bored barkeeper in an unnecessarily loud voice,

  “So I says to him, ‘Is that all? She won’t mind the third row after we’ve already had two!’”

  She was laughing raucously at her wit. She was doubtlessly telling a tale of another wife who would be attempting to thump her with a blunt, heavy object or perhaps some crockery by the end of the day. Then, in an inebriated celebration, she took a large gulp of the ale in her tankard.

  Brynnly was almost sure it was ale. Tim had banned her from the hard stuff while the sun was up after two tables and a chair had been smashed in an almost clockwork efficiency every Tuesday at three bells past noon for a month. The other casualties of her last ‘tumble’ had been a window and several other patron’s noses, heads, and the cooper’s goat’s dignity. Brynnly thought the fate of the poor goat made the barkeep draw the line.

  The cooper still hated her for that one. He had loved that damn animal.

  He cleared his throat to get her attention, and she turned to survey him. She set her tankard on the bar with a clunk. Grinning lopsidedly at the tall ranger, she addressed him,

  “Brynnly! What’s lord Tom’s finest Luciloo doing in the common house this early?”

  “Adventurers started their hunt, was looking for you to pass the word to the townsfolk. And Temlin is my equal,”

  Brynnly replied sourly.

  The barkeep rolled his eyes at Kitron’s back and took the empty tankard. He turned and fetched a pitcher of well-watered wine from behind the bar and filled it wordlessly as Brynnly continued,

  “Sober up long enough to spread the news. I need to report to lord Tom.”

  She scowled at that but took the tankard back from Tim and quaffed the watery wine down in a single pull. Then, wiping her mouth with a sleeve, she attempted to straighten her clothing without much success and straightened her posture in only a slightly more efficient manner.

  “Fair enough. I’ll announce it at the morning market. But, you know, you’d be more handsome if you stretched that pretty mouth of yours more often. Give us a smile.”

  Brynnly didn’t respond as he waved at Tim, then turned and left the common house. He found the best way to avoid drawing more attention from the rowdy crier was to not engage in her games. Sometimes, it even worked.

  Moving at a little quicker pace, he continued to the manor house. Ignore the woman’s continued catcalls from behind him.

  Guard Captain Lowry greeted him at the gate,

  “What news, Brynnly?”

  The Captain often didn’t bother with pleasantries when they weren’t needed—a man after Brynnly’s heart. The two of them got along just fine, neither being the type of man to elaborate on the movements of weather systems when pointing at the sky would get the message across.

  Brynnly responded,

  “Hunt’s started. If there is no word by nightfall. We summon some AG backup,”

  He stopped to take the disk from his pack and handed it to the captain,

  “Break it. Throw the pieces in a clear space.”

  The captain grunted as he smiled and took the disk before replying,

  “I love SAP. Shows how to do things, there’s less confusion for the troops to fuck things up.”

  Brynnly thought,

  Sometimes it might keep the higher-ups from fucking up too, but not always.

  Brynnly did an equally manly grunt in response before stating,

  “Need to report,”

  Then, he headed into the manor house as the guard captain waved him on.

  He nodded in passing to Maria as he entered the foyer. She was stationed near the manor house entrance and valiantly fenced with cobwebs only she could see inside the foyer chandelier with her deadliest duster. She saluted him with her mighty weapon, and he courteously returned the salute with equal respect.

  As Maria battled against the near-invisible entropy of an untidy house, Brynnly smoothly moved down the hall to the study door. He took special care not to wrinkle the hallway rug and disturb the wrath of the head housekeeper. Then, knocking briefly on the closed door, he waited for the call to enter before opening it and stepping inside the room.

  Lord Tom looked up from behind his desk as the ranger entered. Castellan Joclyn was at another desk, piles of scrolls and ledgers surrounding him as if a bastion of numbers protected him. Setting aside his quill, he asked the ranger,

  “Have they started?”

  Brynnly nodded in affirmation and briefed the lord on how the backup SAP worked, noting that the backup disk had been given into Captain Lory’s safekeeping. Castellan Joclyn seemed relieved at the lack of additional cost needed if a reclamation party was summoned.

  Lord Tom looked relieved as well, if for different reasons, and said,

  “The guild masters had said something about starting that SAP back when I was training, but nothing solid came before I graduated and took over my duties from my father.

  “It’s good to know the guild will resolve this issue regardless of what this party finds. Temlin and Ivan went on their rounds at dawn. Temlin should be return-”

  Yelling from outside the library interrupted lord Tom as the door burst open. Temlin came in half carrying a young man covered in blood with a tourniquet around one ragged stump of an arm.

  The amputated arm was still seeping blood down the side of the man’s body. The young man had other wounds. Plenty of scratches and bites scattered over his body. Some of the more extensive injuries had been dressed but not well.

  Temlin looked the worst for wear, his uniform torn and smeared with blood in random places. He was panting heavily as he half dragged the almost unconscious man to a chair, dumped him into it, and staggered to the desk, leaning against it for support.

  “Joclyn!” Lord Tom snapped.

  “Fetch a healer, quick!”

  Joclyn, gone pale at the trail of blood left behind by the two men, nodded and quickly scurried out the door.

  Lord Tom helped Temlin to another chair and said,

  ”Report!”

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  After seeing Temlin go to the chair with Brynnly’s aid, he opened some drawers on his desk and looked for spare cloth. He snatched up a fancy extra shirt he had secreted for when he spilled wine on himself. Deeming it worth the sacrifice to help staunch the flow of blood still seeping from the other maimed young man’s stump, he started ripping it into strips with a letter opener from the desk.

  Brynnly had unslung his pack and was rummaging through it for aid supplies. Temlin tried to get his breathing under control as he complied with the lord’s wishes,

  “North road has a migration heading right toward us. We barely escaped with this one. He was getting gnawed on by the advance scouts about an hour’s ride out,”

  He paused for more breaths, then continued,

  ”Ran those few off, but they’re still coming. Heard a large pack making hunting grunts behind us. My Lord, it was silver-striped tomb vermin.”

  Lord Tom looked up from cutting the spare tunic of expensive-looking quality into strips with the overly ornate letter opener. He stared briefly, then shook his head and continued his task. Finishing the strips quickly, he folded wads of them into place against the wounds and tied them. A similar treatment was given to Temlin.

  “How many, would you say? You notified the gate on your way in?”

  He calmly started dressing the ranger’s wounds and yelled over his shoulder for his maid,

  “Maria!”

  A quavering voice came from the hall,

  “Almost there, my lord.”

  Maria, with her gray hair and a stooped posture, backed into the room, mopping up the trail of blood. She wore her livery with precision and pride as she mopped. In that mysterious way of competent servants, she seemed as stately as her Lord as she carried out the task. Behind her, Brynnly could see the hallway carpet had mysteriously disappeared. No doubt she had already removed it and sent it for the laundering of blood.

  How does an old woman move so damn fast?

  As she turned to face the men in the room, the blue and white eye patch covering her missing eye showed the adder of Lord Tom’s house done in red thread. She was shrunken with age but managed the mop and bucket efficiently as she kept mopping the mess the wounded men had left behind.

  She stopped her task long enough to turn to the desk, placing several rolls of bandages she had taken from behind her belt. Putting the mop into a bucket she had stationed just outside the door, she clucked her tongue at the blood on the carpet of the study before she continued,

  “I find it best to start early on these small messes before they become unreasonable, my lord. Captain Lowry is on his way. He’s gone to summon the rest of the guard to the gates and will return to receive orders shortly.”

  She frowned at the strips he had made of his tunic he was pressing to the rangers’ wounds and gave him a reproachful look,

  “My lord, you’ve made a mess of a fine piece of clothing.”

  Lord Tom smiled briefly as she eyed the heavy furniture atop the blood-stained rug. She glanced at the still-bleeding man in one chair and Temlin in the other before shaking her head in resignation, mutely saying that most of the mess would have to be tended to later.

  She had an odd sense of humor but performed her duties admirably while managing the other household servants. She encouraged all of the servants, from the cook to the stable master, to anticipate the needs of their lord and was very fond of setting an example with an almost magical efficiency.

  “Thank you, Maria.”

  Temlin seemed to have caught his breath enough to continue his report and answered his lord’s query with a grimace as Brynnly applied pressure to a wound that was bleeding more than his others,

  “Aye, the gate guard started moving as I came through. I let the Sergeant know we would have company soon. Three scout vermin were using this fellow for a snack. I heard him screamin’ almost a quarter mile out from where I found them. I ran two of them off with my bow, though they didn’t want to leave.”

  The third was very hungry or very angry. He didn’t want to leave. Tore me up good once I got closer.”

  Temlin slipped into more common speech as he continued.

  “That one is down, but with that large a group in advance, at least fifteen or twenty of the buggers are about an hour behind me. The Bad-girs don’t move fast, but they are ornery.”

  Maria spoke up as she moved out the door after finishing her mopping,

  “My lord will need the strong brandy for cleaning the wounds. I’ll return shortly, sirs.”

  As she exited the room, Captain Lowry bustled in, looking flushed from rushing around the village and passing orders,

  “Sir! I’ve ordered word passed to the civilians to gather at the shelters and the guard to assemble. We’ll have everyone safe and ready to finish setting the defense within the next quarter hour.”

  Two of our healers will be on hand to treat any injuries incurred at the gate, my Lord. One will be with the civilians at the shelters. I’ve already assigned a team of four soldiers to each of the shelters.”

  Lord Tom grimaced as he nodded in agreement. He continued tending the wounded men with Brynnly’s help. Removing some of the hasty dressings Temlin had placed, they started packing them with cleaner cloth and tied them securely. Most of the more severe wounds had been dressed at this point.

  Once Maria returned, the wounds would need more skillful attention. Several of them would need stitches from whichever healer arrived.

  That stump would also need to be treated, probably amputated further to prevent infection. Lord Tom poured some well-watered wine into a goblet and tried to get the younger man to take some.

  “As soon as the castellan returns with a healer for these men, I’ll oversee the men’s distribution. The enemy comes from the north, so we can continue staging at the north gate and finish digging in.

  We won’t have much time before the migration arrives, so start without me. I’ll be along shortly. Have the crossbows issued out along with pikes. I shouldn’t need to remind you, Captain, but I will. The north gate is still under reconstruction. Stage your men accordingly.”

  Lord Tom glanced at Temlin briefly before adding,

  “The enemy is an unknown number of silver-striped tomb vermin. Expect at least a score.”

  The guard captain saluted in reply and headed out the library door. Temlin attempted to stand and follow. Brynnly’s growled a comment that he was being a fool. The injured man was gently pushed back into the seat by Lord Tom, who had hurried to the wounded Luciloo to restrain his efforts to rise.

  “Enough of that, Luciloo. I’ll not have one of my rangers collapse from untended injuries. After the healer looks at you and cleans you up, we can have you back to your duties, being observant for us, not before.”

  Temlin looked about to protest until Joclyn swept back into the room, looking worried, with healer Craser on his heels. Craser was a grizzled man of medium height with hair starting to gray. He had a bristling mustache to go with his bushy eyebrows.

  He was dressed pragmatically in simple clothing with many pockets sewn strategically to be close at hand and stout boots. A small, simple, metal brooch with the sigil of a red adder adorned his left breast.

  A strap draped a medium-sized healer bag over one shoulder, and the stout walking staff he carried was shod at one end with an iron cap.

  Wasting no time, he moved to the maimed young man and examined him thoroughly after setting his healer’s bag on the floor next to the chair. Checking the pulse and examining the man's pupils, he gently pressed his head against the more petite man’s chest.

  He listened briefly before turning to his bag and removing the tools of his trade. He started to tend to the younger man. Lord Tom looked to Brynnly,

  “Head to the outlying farms and spread the word for them to get to the shelters.” Brynnly glanced at Temlin, and then, with a nod to Lord Tom, he swept up his pack and headed to notify the outlying villagers.

  Maria reentered the room with a bottle of brown liquid and a filled glass snifter as Brynnly departed and brought the large bottle to the healer directly, who took a whiff of the bottle contents and nodded in approval. She then provided Temlin with the snifter of a golden brown liquid she had poured from the bottle,

  “Drink up, young master Temlin. I imagine the healer will be sewing on some of your scratches. After he sees to our guest, this will help fortify you against whining about the needle.”

  The ranger quaffed the drink at the nod from the healer. It was a distracted nod as he continued to tend to the young man who seemed insistent on bleeding out despite the healer’s arguments of skill and experience against this silliest of goals. Seeing that the ranger followed her directions, she took the glass from the man and said to Lord Tom,

  “I’ll get the house staff to the shelters, sir. Good luck, and give those bastards a thumpin’ from me. Come along, Joclyn.”

  She swept back out of the room to organize the house staff into a shelter as lord Tom nodded at her to give his consent to the plan and motioned for Joclyn to follow her. Seeing that Maria had his house staff well in hand, he turned back to the healer to observe the ministrations as the other two left the room.

  The healer had given the maimed young man a dose of some powder from a waxed paper envelope mixed with a small amount of the brandy in a tin cup pulled from his healing bag. The injured man seemed much more relaxed as he slumped in the chair. The healer swiftly removed each of the makeshift bandages one at a time.

  Stitching the more extensive wounds closed after cleaning them with the brandy Maria had provided, he covered those with a light coating of a salve pulled from his kit and re-bandaged them efficiently as he worked through the wounds.

  He cleaned and washed the remaining wounds with the brandy. As he continued to re-bandage the wounds, he would apply a salve from the container he had laid out near his tools.

  He studied the stump that remained of one arm and said,

  “We’ll probably need to take more of it, but I can at least clean it up before. As long as infection doesn’t occur, he should be alright. Those bites have the worst risk. I’ve treated them as best I can, but we’ll need Prisca to look at them and help me with the arm.”

  Temlin looked green at the number of stitches now covering the man he had rescued,

  “If you’re gonna stitch that much of me, maybe I can get some of what you gave him?”

  Craser smiled and replied,

  “You won’t need as many. Now, hold still, and don’t wiggle. He’s out of the worse danger with that tourniquet you put on him. Good thinking, that, but we need to plug the holes in you before you bleed out and get him to Prisca so we can treat that arm.”

  Healer Craser moved to the ranger and did his job. A few grunts and sharp breaths from the ranger over a minute or two resulted in the stitches completed with only minor wiggling of the patient. The wounds were more neatly dressed. The healer examined the bites on the ranger and grunted.

  “Prisca will need to tend these with some of her own salves. But, for now, what I have applied will suffice. I’ll be taking the other young man to her directly at the shelter. We can finish the treatment needed for his arm and tend to the bites properly there. Help me get him to the shelter, and she’ll treat you before the threat gets here.”

  You can get to the defenses soon. Infection will kill you quick, even if you survive the fight.”

  Lord Tom agreed. The ranger nodded and stood to help the healer with the wounded man. Lord Tom collected the used bandages into a pile by the door for one of the servants to collect later. He held the door for the trio as all of them exited the library and then the house.

  Lord Tom returned deeper into the house as the three men ambulated like a cart with three wheels towards the shelter where Prisca would be. He wanted to gear himself up for the coming threat. He went to his private rooms and retrieved the magical zweihander he had inherited from his father that was mounted over his fireplace. Setting it against the door jamb where the runes along its blade glittered, he fetched a gambeson and mail shirt from his smaller extra wardrobe.

  Maria had made a face at him for keeping armor in his private rooms, but he thought that needing it and having it took precedence. She had relented her objections after he had commissioned a smaller wardrobe to keep it in so the metal wouldn’t stink up his other clothes.

  Cinching a belt studded with a few hooks for other equipment over the mail, he retrieved and donned a set of sturdier boots and greaves. Then, hooking the winged helm and a set of vambraces to his belt, he shouldered the deadly sharp inheritance from his father and headed to the staging area.

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