RP Session 4: "A Halfday's Ride

"Curse you, man! Salien is the mission! I am expendable" the Green squire swears as he pulls and swipes at the webbing!

Tovrunn had just made it off the webs when she heard Lan's shout of warning. That fool! A charge?! Here??! He was daft! A fool! A child playing at-

Tovrunn's breath caught in her throat. She had turned just in time to see the arrow fly true. Just in time to watch her beloved slump in Ogre's saddle, and fall.

"LAN!"

Without any conscious effort she plucked a mote of starlight out of nowhere. Shifted it into a spear. He was daft. And a fool. A child playing at hero. But he was also kind, and gentle. A man of his word. And awnsheghlien and their vile servants be damned.

He was HERS.

Adalric had ridden hard across the bridge of webbing between Corson and Lancaelad, only to turn at the far side and see his protector tangled far behind, and then all had been shrouded in unnatural mist. He'd made the best of Erik's blessed intervention for a few moments, but now that the fog lowered he could see Lan's stand against the entire party of goblins had been a vain one.

Putting his heels to his own steed, and with Rhoderick's in tow he galloped to the fallen knight's side, dropping from the saddle into a slide to try to revive the man.

A skirmish in a mordant wood -
A canter down a darkened pass -
Two thousand gold of chivalry
Drops to a five-copper shaft!

The creaking of trees, the glutinous groaning of webs under weight, the scuttling of goblins in the undergrowth and cries of his companions – all faded into a single roaring sound. A waterfall with a heartbeat. Lan reached up and touched the strange lever that had grown from his sternum, through the broken links of maille, frowning at the unfamiliar pain as he pulled it too and fro, making the roaring increase in furor. This lever seemed to have the power to move the entire world, however, because when he yanked at it the trees all at once pivoted to the side, growing from left to right in his vision. The sky seemed, strangely, to be on his right flank now, his shield somehow pinned against the sour dirt of the Spiderfell, which was at his side instead of under his horse's hooves.

There was a woman's voice calling a name he should know, inaudible over the thunder leaking from his veins. Then a man dropping from steed to his side, a man who looked somehow familiar, like he had seen his profile on a coin, or hewn from marble. Lan mouthed something weakly, grasping for a truth as the man's hands moved over the arrow jutting from his ribs.

"My... my..."

---

Ogre tossed his mane as the Boy toppled from his back. Ogre did not care for the Boy. He was slack with the reins, indecisive with the spurs, loud, ungenerous with apples and brush. Unlike the Man, who Ogre had ridden with on many sorties and in to many battles, whose hand he trusted and weight he knew.

But Ogre cared even less for goblins. They smelled of wolves and cruelty. Ogre scraped his hooves on the earth, whinnied a challenge, and burst into motion at the goblin that had pricked the Boy, a living battering ram of iron-shod muscle...

Gritting his teeth and trying to ignore the Spider the size of a galleon Rhodri put his head down and sprinted for Lan’s fallen body.

Repeating a litany to the Mother of Storms under his breadth, he seemed to fly over the strands as if he was running the ropes on the ship he grew up on.

He slides down next to Lan’s body, placing his hands on the knights wounds and prepares to cast Spare the Dying on Lan.

Cursing in a Giantish/Sidhelein combination, Corson spurs his horse, freshly freed, and crosses the web bridge! Initially, he reaches for his javelins, but thinks better of it and instead calls upon the magic of the Green...

When her javelin of light missed, Tovrunn let loose a very unladylike shout of anger and humiliation; to let the goblin that struck her husband-to-be like that escape justice was beyond unacceptable. Even more frustratingly, Corson robbed her of her vengeance; she would have to console herself with the knowledge that the towering behemoth of a spider would finish the job.

Hopping onto the branches that made for the sturdiest footholds, Tovrunn began to cross the makeshift bridge. Blessing Fegrð for her dainty and sure footfalls, she managed to make it to the halfway point when she pulled up short. Quickly glancing between the fallen Lancaelad and the restrained and imperiled Rhoderick, her heart quivered for a moment as she settled on a course of action.

Rhoderick was in danger, mortal danger. And though she was bound to him, Lancaelad was not. Not yet anyway. The goblins were pressing close, but he also had Ogre to defend him. It would not be enough, but he was not within the maw of that nightmare giving chittering flesh.

Whispering words of healing to the battered faithful of Nesirie, Tovrunn snapped a mote of fire to life and flung it at the nearest of the beastly gremlins.

With a scream bubbling in his throat after the Spiders fangs had sunk into the meat of his shoulder Rhoderick attempted to slip free from the encompassing web.

The Priest hopped from the web to the nearby log and sprinted for his mount where Adalric held it, swerving around the Goblins and hoarsely, frantically panting "let’s go, let’s go, get him up and let’s go" he scrambled back into his saddle

The look of pained confusion on Lan's face eased, and a glister of salt water appeared on his bloodless skin – not sweat, but sea-spray. If he was to pass into the Shadow now, it would not be struggling against the sucking wounding in his chest for breath, fighting not to drown in his blood, but with Nesirie's own peace. On his bed of dried leaves he could almost have looked asleep, if not for the tangle of his own limbs and Adalric's urgent attempts to stir him with every trick in the Suirienese steader's almanac.

---

Ogre snorted as the goblin was yanked away from him into the chasm by a thorny lash, feeling as thwarted in his vengeance as the woman, the Speaker for the Father of Herds. Turning his rolling gaze about for other victims to stamp into the earth he beheld the monstrous, hillock-sized awfulness of Shivhi rising from the pit to seize the man who smelled of the sea and holy oils.

War-trained or not, Ogre was not about to approach that thing; every instinct in his body shuddered and screamed against it. Instead he trotted about the fallen Boy and the man who had given him dried apricots once, whinnying and hoofing divots in the ground to make the urgency of the situation clear to them. Ogre nearly bowled the kneeling man over, brushing him with his powerful flank, tossing his mane and flashing his teeth against the bit.

Even as Shivhi loomed closer Salien was rummaging desperately through his saddle bags, a thin sheen of cold sweat stinging his eyes. At last he found it - the tiny pinkish vial with the almost imperceptible radiance that Lan had thrust into his hands as they entered this cursed wood.

Ripping out the stopper with his teeth Adalric darted back to the fallen knight's side and, pinching the man's nose to tilt back his head he forced the lip of the vial to the back of Lancaelad's throat and poured.

The elixir seemed to evaporate into Lancaelad's throat as soon as it was poured – fortunately, for it stopped him choking and coughing as he suddenly sucked in a deep breath and lunged up at the waist. His wounds were already clotting, scarring over, pushing the arrowheads out of his flesh, and though everything hurt with a bone-deep beating the likes of which he had never felt... he was alive!

Lan's look up at Adalric with gratitude and surprise became an expression of alarm and dread as he saw the unspeakable, ancient titan amongst spiders rearing up behind the older man. It was death upon eight legs, each as large as a cathedral's buttresses. There was no chance, no hope, no glory in battle with it. Lan grabbed Ogre's harness as the warhorse tramped past, and with an effort as great as any he had ever made hauled himself upright with the sheer strength of his arms, then into the saddle.

Mounted, he felt Ogre's boiling blood beneath him, eager to fight. Lan reached down and did his best to lift Adalric into the saddle of his own horse. "We cannot fight that thing!" he wheezed, his face white, eyes bulging and staring in terror. "Ride – ride for Endier!" Hoping that his sworn charge would follow, he wrestled with Ogre's reigns, forcing the steed's head to the west as he reckoned it, and spurred hard enough to draw blood.

Yielding to pragmatism – to cowardice, truth be told, and excessive love of his own life – Ser Lancaelad galloped away from the fight.

Corson, looking back at the giant arachnid, spurs his horse toward the goblins while drawing his sword and bringing it down on one of the goblins' head!

Continuing her push across the fallen log, Tovrunn could do little more than watch as Corson was ensnared by the titanic arachnids webs, stringing him up and pulling him to the edge of the ravine where deadly mandibles tipped with poisonous fangs waited for him. Unwilling to let this be the end of the Green Knights, she whispered a small prayer begging his forgiveness as she snapped another mote of flame to life.

Making it to solid ground at last, Tovrunn focused on the restrained and vulnerable Corson, as vulnerable to her as he was to Shivhi. Letting loose her fire, she plucked another of the arrows about her wrists and aimed at the remaining goblin. Drawing it as if it were an arrow upon an invisible bowstring, she loosed it with a vengeance.