Spellscribed resurgence, p.6
Spellscribed: Resurgence, page 6
"Is that Thorpe Bronzesmith's gear?" Bridget asked. "He always had a thing for wolves, even before we got along."
Wrach glanced at her and shrugged, a very human gesture. "He was excited to make equipment to match our needs." Wrach replied. His voice had lost even the slightest burr of a growl in the past few years. Alongside Gnaeus and a couple of the wolfmen diplomats, his voice now sounded perfectly human.
"I like him." Bridget said. "Though I wonder what he's going to do for us furless folk, now that we don't use wolf hides."
"He may have to become an exclusive smith, since Gnaeus approved four of our pups to apprentice under him." Wrach replied, "Our crafting techniques are woefully behind when it comes to smithing."
"I would think that living in roving packs would make it hard to set up any large smithing stations." Bridget replied. "I guess we can spare the guy and his workshop."
"The sacrifice is appreciated." Wrach said diplomatically.
Bridget shrugged. "Sounds fair to me." she replied. "How's your daughter doing?"
Wrach's ear flicked, and he swished his tail before answering. Bridget had listened to Endrance enough to know that it was a sign of his irritation.
"She's… how do you put it? A handful." Wrach expressed. "My mate is hard pressed keeping her in line, but it has been good for the pack that she is there."
"Oh?" Bridget intoned. "How so?"
Wrach rolled his shoulders, grunting. "She was very quick to pick up pack structure and positioning, and has been seen abusing it by using that knowledge on other pups faster than the rest of the wolves in her litter could learn how the rules work."
"I think this is the point where Endrance would get it and say something clever." Bridget said, scratching the back of her head. "But I'm not him."
Wrach glanced at her. "She has learned how to use the rules to her advantage, but has not learned the reasons why she should not do so. She hasn't learned how her actions affect the pack."
"Oh. So it's a morals thing?"
"Yes… a morals thing."
Bridget turned to look back over the siege. As they watched, their warriors lobbed another volley of boulders from their recently constructed catapults. The rock sailed through the air, but only one of them collided with the castle wall. The other two sailed over, landing out of sight with a crash. The arc they had to fire from was bad, and if they missed the walls, the shot would likely continue on over the whole castle.
The archers on the walls kept their men at bay, and those that had gotten close had triggered additional defenses. Now three of the streets that approached the castle walls were doused in boiling oil that had been poured down the walls, making advancing on the smooth stone street slopes hazardous, even if there were no archers.
“This is surprisingly boring.” Bridget observed.
Wrach nodded. “It looks like they’re stalling.” He declared. “Their strategy is likely holding out until reinforcements get here."
“Think they’ve got reinforcements elsewhere? Maybe an army to flank us?” Bridget asked.
Wrach shook his head. “I am not sure. Perhaps. I will send some scouts out to the surrounding region and have them look around. Though if Balen's forces are still moving south, then the only direction their reinforcements would come from is Ironsoul City.”
"No one's in charge of that place." Bridget commented.
Wrach muttered to one of the messengers, who raced down to the catapults. Soon, the two that missed would be making adjustments to their shots.
Bridget sighed. "I hope something changes soon."
"Well, do you want to go knock on their door and ask them to surrender?" Wrach asked. "Might work this time."
Bridget surveyed the battlefield. The castle was somewhat off center of the city that had been built around it. Large slabs of stone were embedded as the foundation of the curtain wall. They had not much more information to go on, but Balator's military was not that concerned with specifics. A skilled enough warrior would be able to handle changing environments on the battlefield, so figuring out floorplans was not even considered.
But Bridget was not just a skilled warrior. She was also a Draugnoa, and had spent so many hours listening to Endrance think aloud that she'd picked up more than just how to read. Being clever and creative was not 'cheating' or fighting unfairly in her husband's eyes; they were merely using what one had to their greatest advantage.
"Wrach." Bridget stated, trying her best to think her way through their current standstill. "Do you see any way the castle disposes of their waste?"
"Other than the boiling oil, no. I do not see any means to remove waste. There are no grates along the ground that we can see, nor sewage channels." Gnaeus observed. "Are you suggesting there's an alternate means to dispose of it?"
"Well, it's worth looking around for." Bridget said.
The next volley of catapult shot was dead on. The three large rock projectiles slammed into the same ten foot space of wall. The barbarians cheered as visible cracks spread across the stone and part of the wall looked buckled in. Another couple of volleys like that-
The cheers died down as light emanated from the cracks and mortar in the area of damaged wall. The damage it took seemed to reverse itself, the cracked stone healing and buckling, pushing back into its proper place.
Wrach looked over to Bridget as cries of anger and dismay rolled back at them from their warriors. "Take some warriors, search the city and find a way in. There's a mage in their number and this fight will not end anytime soon unless he is dead."
"We will need to interrogate any prisoners we find. Is there a problem with that?" Bridget asked.
"No."
"Great." Bridget said. "Get me my warriors and I'll find you a way into that castle."
Bridget took a step back as Wrach let out a howl that echoed over the city. When he finished, he turned to one of the messengers who stood nearby.
"Go, ask each commander to get volunteers to go with Bridget and search the city." Wrach ordered.
"Are you sure, sir?" the messenger asked, pointedly ignoring her presence. "There is no one living who would serve under the command of the dead."
Wrach's lips pulled away from his fangs as he growled under his breath. "Just do it." he said, making an effort to speak softly. The man grunted and set out to deliver his message.
Bridget was placed in charge of twelve wolfmen and four humans. The humans were the few that Wrach could get to volunteer, since it was considered taboo to interact with the Ghost-Women of Balator. The wolfmen were not imposed with such tradition, and those that were best suited to scouting the city offered to help.
The way the wolfmen volunteered was something strange for Bridget. They seemed more than willing to volunteer to do things that would help the overall good of the army. Unlike humans, Balatoran warriors sometimes need to be badgered or forced to comply. Once they accepted, they would fully commit to their task. The wolfmen had never needed such urging for them to cooperate. Perhaps that was what Wrach was talking about with Kaie.
"Okay, so the castle's locked up tight." Bridget started. "It's also got some pretty formidable defenses, but nothing we couldn't take care of with time, right?"
The humans nodded, three of them women. The wolfmen looked to her quietly, either being respectful or just waiting for their orders.
"But Balen doesn’t want to wait weeks or months for this siege to break on its own. He's eager to get more of Ironsoul under our control, and has left the capture of this castle to us. I personally don't like sitting around on my ass and waiting for us to knock the walls down, so what we're going to do is find another way to get in there and personally kick the doors open to let our men in."
The wolfmen finally nodded. Bridget smiled. "Now, there's something else we need to do while we're out. There's at least one mage in their castle, and if we want to prevent our men from getting their heads set on fire, we need to kill that guy first."
"How?" One of the women asked.
Bridget turned and gestured to the city. "There's got to be a few hundred people who didn't evacuate when we showed up at their doorsteps. We find someone who knows the area, and get them to tell us how to get in there."
The wolfmen nodded and one of them stepped forward; a female with a gray coat. She was armed with a mace and a light shield. "We would be best suited to sniffing out someone who could tell us what we need."
Bridget nodded, "Go. Do it."
The twelve wolves scattered, swiftly disappearing into the city. The four humans milled around, looking at her for direction.
"You four, come with me." Bridget said, starting off after the wolves. "We're going to follow. Maybe you can learn something from them. Stick close to me, and keep an eye out for any more of those archers."
The four moved into the city in the direction the wolfmen had gone. The human bulk of the army could probably sweep the entire city methodically within a few days, but with the wolfmen under Wrach's command helping, it could likely be done in one. Their especially keen wolf senses and hunter's instincts would make hunting down any defenders outside the castle a snap. They were powerful combatants too, ferocious and cunning when they lived long enough to learn. The younger pups would go through a rash, defiant stage where their animal instincts developed faster than their intelligent minds. Those youths were the ones most barbarians encountered, and they did the race no favors when it came to making good impressions with the local tribes. Now there was talk about building something similar to a berserker's refuge for the young wolfmen to be locked into until they became capable of rational thought again. Their species as a whole would benefit just as much from working with the barbarians as the barbarians were currently benefiting from them.
Bridget could hardly keep up with the wolves who were tearing their way through the city, in some places loping on all fours. Though panting, they were also sniffing the air as they moved, occasionally pausing their motion to give an area a more thorough search before continuing onward. Bridget wasn't certain the other humans noticed, but whenever one of the wolves stopped to sniff out a location, the other wolves would slow their search pattern so they didn't leave one of the pack behind.
Four hours passed with no results. Four hours of trotting along the streets of the city, taking a break every fifteen minutes or so when the wolves would sniff around a centralized area. At last, they found someone. Bridget had just jogged around a corner into a street lined with houses, when one of the wolves cried out in pain, hurling itself out of a doorway it had just ducked into. She hit the stones on her shoulder and rolled backwards to stop on all fours with a snarl. Bridget and the four humans came charging up behind the wolf.
Bridget leapt past the bleeding female, in time to see a wooden door swing closed. With a surge of adrenaline and a wordless cry of excitement, Bridget crashed into the door shoulder first. Her leather armor had been reinforced with thick bands of steel, and her right shoulder had a heavy steel pauldron which leant weight to her shoulder. The door cracked and folded in the center, the wood splitting down the middle as it buckled under the force of her charge.
The man behind it was knocked back, falling onto his backside stunned. Three other soldiers, all gritty and clutching swords with white knuckled terror, cried out and charged her. The man she knocked down tried to scramble back up with his hands.
Bridget crossed her blades so that the two edges met just at the fallen man's throat. "Halt!" she shouted, her body language doing more than implying that she would scissor that soldier's head off if they failed to comply. The middlemost of the three stumbled as they all came to a halt, and the other two had to drop their swords to grab him before he landed on the fallen man and pushed his neck into the crossed blades.
"Good." Bridget said, and three of her human subordinates slipped into the room behind her, taking their weapons and grabbing them roughly. "You are now my captives. Do what I require of you, and you will be released."
The man who had nearly stumbled into Bridget's hostage was the last to be grabbed, but he hardly resisted. Bridget could see the defiance in his eyes.
"You'll never win." The man sputtered, and Bridget gestured to the woman holding him to halt. "We will defeat you!"
"That's a broad claim, soldier." Bridget replied, sheathing her short blade. "And I think Endrance would say it's… terribly uninspired? I've never been very good with the sayings of mages. Either way, I'm sure I'd love to hear all about how we won't win in the comfort of a room with a hearthfire. Come along."
The man's face visibly paled. "Wait… Endrance? Wizard Endrance? The traitor?" he asked. He started to struggle in earnest, and the warrior holding him had to adjust her grip to prevent him from twisting free. "Ah, hells. Don't take me to him!"
"Wait…" the warrior holding the captive started to speak. "Isn't Endrance-"
"Not with us?" Bridget interjected, glaring at the woman. "Right. Well, he'll be back soon enough. But since you brought him up, we can have a chat about him too."
"No!" The man cried, thrashing. "Just execute me, hang me, do whatever! Please don't leave me at his hands!"
Bridget groaned, giving the struggling warrior a look of disappointment before swinging her sword. The big weapon had a huge amount of cutting power, but when swung like a paddle the thick steel blade was quite adept at knocking unprepared targets unconscious. The man crumpled as the warrior shied away from her swing, struggling to right herself and keep the man from falling to the floor.
"Take him back with the rest." She said. "I'll check on our wolfmen and then catch up with you."
The warrior nodded, throwing the man over her shoulder like a sack of grain and walking off. Bridget stepped outside and walked over to the cluster of wolfmen. The injured party was seated on an overturned feeding trough, while another wolf bandaged the cut on her torso. The wolf's armor was stripped off to the waist, and Bridget was somewhat surprised at how the wolfmen females were more anatomically similar to humans than wolves. The female was dark gray with almost reddish fur accents along the edges of her ears and scattered over her body in hard to see patches. She looked up at Bridget with bored blue eyes.
"This is the most humiliating part." The wolf said, her voice only slightly graveled. Her ears were aimed out to the sides and slightly drooped, and her tail swished aimlessly. "Not the getting stabbed by a soldier, but getting treated like a puppy while they make sure you don't bleed out."
"If you would just shut your jaws and quit moving around, I'd get this done sooner." The male wolfman grumbled, wrapping a bandage over the treated wound before handing back her armor. He looked up at Bridget and nodded. "Alpha." he said, stepping away from her and standing back. Bridget raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything turning back to the injured female.
"He's giving you deference because you have acted like a pack leader." The female said, starting to pull her armor on without any apparent pain. "And I am especially appreciative that you had been there to back me up."
"Uh… Sure." Bridget said.
"My name is Runa." the wolf said, standing. "Can you help?" she asked, turning her side to Bridget and presenting a set of buckles that could not be easily reached by the wearer. The Draugnoa nodded, helping her buckle up.
"Are you going to be all right?" Bridget asked. "Looked like he got you with his dagger."
The wolf nodded, turning back when the work was done. "Yeah, hunting knife I think." She flicked an ear. "Only got about an inch in before I was able to leap back, but that kinda tore it open worse. I'm not as skilled as Wrach's personal team yet. I am sorry."
Bridget shook her head, using her wooden hand to stop Runa from looking down at the floor. "Hey." She said, wiggling the wooden fingers in front of Runa's face. "I know what it's like, not being strong and fast enough. But you know, Wrach didn't just magically get as good as he is without having had his own battles. Some of us are lucky and get away with only a few scars or a missing finger, while others sometimes aren't so lucky."
"Yeah?" Runa asked.
"Yeah." Bridget replied, smiling as best she could with her lips pressed closed. Endrance had warned her long ago that, like their less intelligent kin, baring teeth was seen as a threat or challenge. "The unlucky ones never lose a fight."
"I don't get it." Runa replied.
"You don't lose a fight, you don't learn your limits." Bridget replied. The group started walking back towards camp. "If you don't learn your limits, you can get yourself killed. Failing, getting hit or stabbed, or even burned, can teach you that pain and you know better how to deal with it. It means you can keep fighting longer the next time it happens. Because it will happen again. With our way of life, not getting hurt would require an act of the gods."
"Ah." Runa replied, walking alongside her. "What are these gods you speak of?"
Bridget shrugged. "I… I dunno." she answered. "I was an orphan and an Ergkinoa, so I really didn't have much time to go to one of the temples. I guess we have a lot of war gods and stuff. I never really prayed to them or anything."
"But, what are gods?" Runa asked.
"You mean-" Bridget started to ask. "Ah. Okay. I get what you're asking now."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Gods are supposedly nearly all powerful beings that exist out there somewhere and they have things they think are important. And we believe that if we act like them, and make the things they think are important also important to us, then they will shower their blessings upon us and make our lives better. Even though there's no proof they actually, you know, exist." Bridget replied dispassionately. "Though, you know, I might be a little biased. I spent quite a few long nights praying to them when I lost my arm, and for all I know, they never even heard me."
