RP Session 1: "A Hart's Errand"

A micro-expression of guilt flashed on the man's face. "I never made it out of my squire-ship."

There was a moment of hesitation before Corson remembered to add "...M'lord. I am actually from this region, though I have not set foot here for close to a year. I was squired to the Order of the Green, though less commonly known as the Order of the Ivy Wreath, before it was destroyed by rot. Now, I just find my way... M'lord."

It was pretty obvious that he was not used to dealing with nobility and stumbled, using a more commoner's style of address. But he was stalwart, and didn't come off as cold or stand-offish.

There was a subtle change in Lancaelad's posture as Corson replied to him. A mere squire? And of a rustic order he had barely heard of, and therefore, to his mind, an insignificant order?

"Continue to carry yourself with such valour in battle, and no doubt you will earn your accolade in due time," he said brusquely, striding ahead with Victorious' reins. It seemed that in his mental table of precedence, Corson had taken a step downwards.

Corson smiled sadly thinking to himself, If only I could...

As the hot wine of battle began to cool in his veins, Lancaelad felt his wounds more keenly. His ribs aches and head throbbed blackly as the entered the apparent safety of the barracks. "Mhairie, help me disarm," he said tersely to his armourer. The tall, young woman with the sculpted arms and shoulders of a smith loosened the fastenings on his maille, greaves and gauntlets and helped him lift the hauberk over his head, then unlaced the felt coat beneath. It stank of sweat, and there was a rusty patch under the arm. "No broken links, ser," she reported calmly, examining the armour. "A little work with the hammer and wire brush and she'll be parade-ground ready."

Stripped to the waist, the knight was a fantastic specimen, broad shouldered and hard-muscled with a tapered waist. Lancaelad flexed his arm behind his neck and ran a hand over his ribs, grimacing as he felt the bruise the ruffian had dealt him. The best that could be done for it was a tight binding of bandages, and though each breath stung sharply he felt no snapped ribs and the only broken skin was where the links of chain had been hammered into his flesh. Finding a bowl of water, Lan studied his reflection. There was a tangle of clotted blood and knotted hair on the side of his head, the scalp torn from his fall, and he winced as he worked it out with wet fingers.

By the time he'd tended to his own wounds the Haelynite brother had roused Aeric from the shadow of the Cold Rider. Lancaelad went over and clasped Aeric's hand, smiling. "It is good to see you whole and hale, my friend. Those blackguards did not account against the power of your secret lore."

Finally, he strode up to the cell that held the prisoner, folding his arms and regarding the man with a severe scowl. "There is an old Andu proverb, villain. Vae victis; woe to the vanquished. You find yourself at the mercy of those you wronged. There is no joyful end to your tale, but confess your plans, name and number your employer and fellow malefactors, and you may yet find a crumb of leniency."

Corson watched the interrogation in silence. He had seen knights extract information, and it was much more intense than this, but Ser Lancaelad got the job done. It was not much information, but they had a name, at least. Vash.

The squire of the Green shimmied out of his chainmail, his back covered in various scars that almost joined to create an image of a briar patch of silvered skin. The jutting arrow shafts caught in the attempt eliciting a sharp intake of breath before Corson continued.

Inspecting the wounds, he decided to let it be and wait for the Northwoman to tend them, and leaned back against the wall for a short time... ZZzz...

Breuddwyd felt distinctly out of place and uncomfortable surrounded by so many men and their serious steel but he went along all the same. He had accepted long ago that his journey had little to do with his own enrichment.

"Bys ar y pwls," he murmured quietly as they marched, reaching out and opening himself to mystic auras and focusing his attention on the captive. Apparently there was no protective magic about the mercenary that he could perceive, nothing to complicate an interview. Breuddwyd liked to think elven agents would be better prepared.

Once they moved inside, he considered how he might angle his incisive attack to glean vital information, fancying himself more a surgeon than a butcher in that regard. He needn't have bothered. Lancaelad beat him to it. And the low-rent footpad immediately squealed, seemingly telling as much as he knew. It made sense—a doomed man had no reason to hold back once cut off from his payday. The Sidhe was disappointed to say the least; engaging his flair for intrigue would have made him feel a bit less of an outsider among these strange, hollow-eyed and blustering churls.

He gave the knight a dark look. A promise of leniency was either a poorly-wrought lie or a weak-kneed self-delusion. There would be precious few tomorrows for this fallen soldier-for-hire.

"How many were you before today?" Breuddwyd asked of the prisoner, pressing for more and watching closely for non-verbal cues. "Are we to expect other surprises awaiting us beyond town? Did your cabal plan around this defeat?" Rare was the mercenary who wasn't prepared to benefit from a timely retreat, he imagined, and he wanted to know if this Vash was the type to cut their losses or to make a second attempt. "What did your employer tell you of us? Our numbers and strengths or just a vague idea of a defending force?"

Simple opposition running counter to their own goals was a much less troubling prospect than possible duplicity in upper echelons of Roesone. That the attackers had a clear idea of the Golden Prowl's scheduled arrival was worrisome enough. Who else knew of their mission? Were they sent to fail?

"Or perhaps it was the sting of arrows and steel they ran from," Tovrunn retorted, though her tone lost much of its initial bite. Following along with the rest, upon reaching the blockhouse Tovrunn returned her attention to the wounded Aeric, calling for scalding water and boiled linens and tending to him until the golden mantle of the Haelynite could be seen. Only then did she turn her attention to herself and the others in the room.

To Lancaelad.

Catching a first, and then a second, glance at him as she removed her outer layers, Tovrunn had to turn her back on him lest she become distracted. Fumbling with the knots of her chain link shirt with suddenly clumsy hands, she shed the armor and inspected it briefly. There was a new opening on the sleeve where there had not been, and a corresponding slit in the sleeve of her dress and mantle. Though no blood stained either, the torn clothing and armor were a grim reminder of the desperate skirmish only just finished. And how close they had all come to needing far more than idle stitching.

Politely asking Mhairie to inspect and repair the broken chains when she finished with her task, Tovrunn pulled up her hair and approached the knight Corson. "I need you awake for this," she said, pulling the man's attention. Snapping fire to life in her palm, she took a blade and ran it through the focused flame, cleansing it of impurities. "This will sting," she warned as she began to open up the magically closed wounds and remove the shafts and steel. Pressing cloth to the bleeding, she applied ointments and minor knitting magics to the injuries, gently encouraging bleeding to stop and for flesh to bind itself together again. It was the most that she could do, for the battle had drained her of her reserves, but she had enough will left in her to not undo her lifesaving work.

"Ask him if his fellows are the smugglers that exiseman Boso had been warned of," she said towards the party of men who badgered their captive with questions as she worked. It seemed an obvious one to her, but it was best to be thorough.

"We'd best expect another ambush on our way out of town then." Corson's eyes are still closed as he speaks. "No sense worrying about it. Just best to be prepared."

"Gulfport?" Lancaelad mused, rubbing his temple. The aching in his skull had not abated, and the wan morning light through the barracks' arrow slits seemed uncomfortably bright. "Osoerde is a realm that languishes under a usurper duke. Doubtless it teems with ruthless sell-swords like this wretch. You hired local muscle? From whom? That brigand, Orthien Tane?" Hearing Torvrunn's interjection, he struck the bars of the cage. "Answer the lady! Were you the smugglers el-Hadid wrote of?"

The young knight frowned. He remembered poring over a chessboard as a boy, planning elaborate manoeuvres involving bishops and rooks moving in unison under the cover of a screen of pawns. He remembered his father's gentle, weary voice. You're making things too complicated, Lan. A stew of too many parts. When you are on the battlefield or in the court look to a single engagement, not the entire campaign.

"No. Tane and el-Hadid are bitter rivals in their vulgar business," Lancaelad said slowly. "If these ruffians were hired from Tane, it would not make a whit of sense for el-Hadid to assist them by tying up the Golden Prowl with warnings of smugglers. Only someone working with these would-be kidnappers benefitted from that. So, applying Dosiere's Razor, el-Hadid must be their cohort!" He punched his palm in furious certainty.

"This changes our path," he said, looking around at the others. "I had originally intended for us to travel north to the village of Talmoere's Ferry and cross the Spider River to Ilien. But el-Hadid's Port of Call Exchange is headquartered in that city-state – we would be walking into the Khinasi jackal's very den. Instead we must go further and make our crossing at Proudglaive, or even Thoeren's Landing, into Medoere where his influence is less strong. To move where our enemy is blind and feeble is the pinnacle of tactical grace."

Lancaelad sounded very certain, as he always did, with reason or not. His aura of confidence was perhaps a little damaged by the fact his eyes were ever so slightly out of focus and a big purple goose-egg had formed under his hair.

Breuddwyd's expression tightened ever so slightly—though the variation was not so easy to discern on his wan features—as his eyes flicked across the Baronial troops still standing by and then back to the prisoner once more.

"So you'll be staying in tonight, will you?" He smirked mirthlessly at their caged adversary.

"As you say," he then replied smoothly to the knight, his tone eerily placid and level as the surface of a bottomless lake of ice. "But in future might we perhaps endeavour to discuss our top secret manoeuvrers out of ear-shot from all of mankind and creation besides?"

The Sidhe had some ideas about how they might proceed as well but he did not trust the mouths of the rank-and-file marines to keep from repeating what they heard here. A life of service seemed so very dreary that even the most innocent prattling in an off-moment might result in truly dire carelessness.

While Breuddwyd lacked the gift (or honestly the abundant interest) for the hunt boasted by many in the Serensgrech line, he understood some connected principles fairly well. Should one prove unable to claim their quarry in an initial attempt, flushing them out and herding them into more favorable position was the best bet and often a desirable objective from the beginning. But bolting into action as frightened hares now, in which direction should the company from Proudglaive flee to better avoid the net or spear?

Corson perked up. "The Rider? I'd not speak that name out loud from inside a gaol."

Corson listened quietly as the nobles discussed travel plans once privately secured, flinching slightly at mention of The Spider and his goblins.

Finished with her gruesome work, Tovrunn washed her hands clean of Corson's blood and turned to regard the conversation that dominated the room. Listening to Lancaelad make leaps at the identity of their hidden pursuer, Tovrunn couldn't help but pop a questioning eyebrow. She was new to these lands, true, and thus she trusted his word when he named his list of suspects (the name El-Hadid had come up more than once at court, and not always in a positive context), but she found his confidence in his answer somewhat premature. Men and women in positions of power dealt with intermediaries; that was what they themselves were after all. To make sweeping arguments about who wanted Salien was seemingly nearly as pointless as the attempt to answer why.

Still, she saw wisdom in his decision to avoid Ilien, if not the path he took to get there. El-Hadid had a somewhat ruthless reputation, and whatever powers drove this sought to avoid that city-state, elsewise they would have landed their charge there instead. And she saw yet more wisdom in Breudwydd's suggestion of silence.

"I agree, we should not discuss our route openly. Not here, at least," she said, quietly reinforcing the elf's request. "A more important question for now is this: how do we get out of the city safely? If the word of this brigand is true, and I've no cause to believe otherwise, his crew is not the only one after us. We should take stock of our current resources and aim smaller in our thinking."

Ser Lancaelad's expression flickered uneasily as Breuddwyd spoke to him. The sidhelien's aura was uncanny and off-putting, the reason for his presence on this mission uncertain at best. And yet there was something intoxicating about him, like the scent of a familiar forest glade...

He struck the bars of the cage again. "Hold our tongues? Why? This wretch is going nowhere. Save the dungeons of Blacktower Castle, and thense the gallows." But his gaze did run over the marines cleaning their weapons and chatting about the bloody commotion in Abbadiel in the bunk room. Soldiers did have loose tongues when the ale flowed or boredom reigned. Without appearing to acknowledge the sorcerer's good point Lancaelad did step away from the prisoner and the guards and modulate his volume a little, with one final sneer: "If he is an exemplar of the quality of filth arrayed against us, our journey will be swift and sure."

Stepping aside with Tovrunn, the elf, the bandaged-up squire Corson, Salien and the roused Aeric Lecland, Lancaelad requisitioned the armoury to speak in. It was a room with thick stone walls and a good solid door. Examining the racks of pikes and axes, the young knight resisted the urge to stamp his foot and petulantly whine that he had already announced his decision as to what their course should be. A leader should listen to the counsel of his underlings... his valued advisors and lieutenants.

"Your thoughts, my lady?" he asked gallantly, then gestured to the others that they should also speak their minds.

"Our man Salien should disguise himself in the garb of the common locals," Breuddwyd suggested patiently once he felt certain none of the marines or any other errant ears were listening in. "The mercenary's fisherman togs would serve or something from the barracks. Then we send out patrols to decoy our charge's persecutors. Two or more groups would be ideal with but a single man among them, out of uniform, who could be taken for Salien at a distance. It seems the enemy lacks the intelligence to place us individually by description." He almost sounded disappointed to imagine none of the enemy knew to fear him. "That may divide our challengers and give us room to slip through. The key point is we need to move as quickly as we can. If those who escaped have yet to report their inability to find a foothold, the momentary scrabbling for purchase on the part of our remaining foes is an opportunity we can't afford to ignore."

Pausing to take in the expectant gazes of the Anuirean men, the Sidhe sighed before continuing, intent on heading off what he predicted to be a flaw in that plan, at least from their perspective.

"And there's no need for the Baroness's marines to suffer in our stead. I'm confident even the most persistent mercenaries will avoid open combat with well-trained troops once they draw near enough to see their error. And our cat's paws only need to hold their attention long enough to expand the gap between the real Salien and themselves, they do." He frowned, not actually convinced it would be so simple, despite his claims. "Aside from commandeering one of the local vessels, that's our best option. I suspect the ramshackle herring drifters found hereabouts will lack for the speed we'd most desire in any event."

Now he looked to the others for information about the countryside; his forest home was not so far but he had very rarely felt compelled to leave it as an adolescent.

"We need only pick a direction and transmit our orders to the commander here. But let's not tarry or we may never leave at all." The pale, svelte sorcerer smiled grimly. "And do remember that in the natural world a straight line is generally only travelled by those creatures who have nothing to fear ... and those who know with near certainty they have already lost."