Chapter 96: Ch: 88 Feed The Tree

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Ch: 88 Feed The Tree

 

Shai’s graceful form slipped away from the pair of desperate looking men, leaving blood in her wake. She paused, balanced on her toes, in an invitation to the two bleeding slavers.

“Come dance wi me boys, I hae enough steel fer the pair o ye.” Her words fell in time with the wild music she danced to. The madwoman seemed to relish each confusing rhythm change and tempo shift.

 

Across the glade, Luna’s bow sang again, plucking a slaver from his saddle, wrapped around the fletchings jutting from his solar plexus. 

Khan had Dagget backing furiously into the woods under a barrage of sword strikes. The bigger man bled from a half dozen minor wounds already and the small mustachioed warrior seemed content to carve him into slices at leisure.

Annie ran a mounted swordsman in circles, his horse seemed to have switched her loyalties, she bucked and bit at her rider at every opportunity, as he struggled for control. Things were not going well on team slaver today.

 

The red armored boy that started the whole mess taunted her in a voice ragged with exhaustion and fear, demanding her attention. 

 

“One pass more, one lance and fuck this job we break for the hills!” 

Her furious whisper made the poor horse pin back her ears in terror. The unfortunate animal surrendered to her training, as steel spurs bit her bleeding flanks.

Octavia couched her lance, determination and fury on her pretty, sunbrowned face. She tossed her golden ringlets and spurred her heaving, foaming mount. She charged straight through the insane, purple caped apparition, directly at the red armored fool. 

Her lance point dropped at the last moment, deflecting his spear and aiming for his bowels. She crowed with victory, as her lance rammed into the boy’s belly and shattered explosively, catapulting her from her saddle.

 

She watched in confusion and pain, from the ground nearby, as the red armored lad staggered out from behind himself. 

His other self smiled and stepped away from the boulder he had been concealing with his illusory form and gave a flourishing bow, as he vanished in a cloud of mist.

The bleeding, armored boy stumbled forward a few gasping steps and collapsed.

 

Octavia struggled to her feet and drew her rapier. She could still take his ears and get away… her horse was wandering over by the slope…

 

A tiny blonde girl stepped over to her fallen prey and nudged him with a toe, careless of the warrior’s approach.

“Wake up dead man, you still have killing to do.” She sighed sweetly and turned startling blue eyes on the approaching slaver. “Run away, girl. He belongs to a friend of mine.”

Casually, Octavia skewered the child through the heart, bending her slim blade almost double as it grated against the rock hard, immovable, maple dryad.

The tiny blonde’s slim and pale hands became barbed, hooked clubs in a blink. She lashed out with one, shattering the warrior’s sword into a ragged stump. 

The creature’s other arm flashed forward, burying itself in Octavia’s abdomen to the elbow, sending gouts of blood to the forest floor.

“Good advice is seldom heard, until it’s too late. Now you will feed my grove.” Maple said softly to the dying woman. “If the living dead boy survives, he may visit your shade, if he dies… He certainly will. Look at me, warning you not to play with dead things, yet here I am…” She shook the corpse off her slim and delicate hand with distaste. 

With staggering speed, she dashed over to Shai’s battle, hamstringing the spear guy with a barbed forelimb before he knew she was on him. As spear guy fell with a scream, Maple clambered up the man like a spider monkey and did… things to his throat. 

She spun and leapt on hatchet dude, taking him on his newly blind side while the corpse of his buddy was still falling down, looking surprised. 

Gouts of red rushed from his ruined throat, as the tiny girl stepped from another falling body with fluid grace. She landed on a pointed toe for only an instant, before she was astride Annie’s new friend, gouging her barbs into the unhappy rider’s kidneys.

#

 

Lyonel lost his horse during the battle in the woods, the arrow he collected in the meat of his shoulder was going to be trouble when his combat drugs wore off. 

Maybe it was the stuff Octavia passed out, but he could swear that branch seemed to reach down and swat him off his mount, leaving him dazed, injured, unarmed and afoot. 

The sounds of ongoing combat were not encouraging, so he slipped into the woods, angling for the barren hills to the east and no man’s land. It was hundreds of miles to safety that way, but none could be had in any other direction. 

 

The town’s alarm bells were ringing out steadily in the distance. He could see bands of riders and foot, spreading out from the gate. “A general muster for one orphan… Jervis was right, this job stinks.”

“I can always join a new cult…” He grumbled to himself as he made his stealthy way overland.

 

“Can you now?” A low, rumbling voice asked from the woods. “Someone called, singing the song of my people. Did you think that would go unanswered?” Pogo of the wolf clan emerged from the shrubbery smiling with all his pointy, pointy teeth. Rufus, of coyote appeared silently at his shoulder, sniffing with a grim smile on his canine lips. 

 

“I have tracked this one before… he stole two of my young cousins from my sister’s den last year.” The coyote snarled. “Where is your leader, Octavia?” Rufus yipped with excitement, circling to the man’s flank. 

 

“I thought watching over this boy would be dull…” Felton the Badger snorted from behind the unlucky scout. “This one is known to my tribe as well. Let’s gut him and find his friends.”

 

“Now, now, Badger.” Pogo sighed. “He won’t answer Rufus’ questions if we hang his entrails on the shrubbery, will he?”

 

Lyonel’s hand twitched towards his remaining weapon, a long knife at his belt, at that same instant, a tiny needle struck him from behind, dragging him down into darkness.

 

“Squirrel! We were not done with him.” Coyote yipped. “How fares the rest?” He demanded, feeling cheated. 

 

Squirrel lowered his blowpipe and smiled grimly. “Madness and death scattered far and wide, I saw much and understood little, beyond that they did not take or slay him.” He shrugged his tiny shoulders and chittered at the frustrated coyote.

#

 

Thirp and Ducky were waiting for him in the other world, looking frustrated. “That was horrifying Gary. Truly awful and nightmarish.” Marduk gasped, pale and peaky, even by his standards.

“It was them or me... Them or me …” He sank onto a mushroom, sagging in on himself. “So much blood… the smell…”

 

“No, I mean the thing you did with your soul. Sweet essence of life man, what was that?” The tiny god demanded, stomping his sandaled foot imperiously.

“Lord Marduk… Ducky… Gary has never ended a sentient life before… Please shut your ambrosia hole.” Thirp sang with more crisp and direct emotion than either of them expected. 

She climbed onto Gary’s slumped form, doing her best to hug him. “Help me out here biped, I am not well equipped for this task.” She snapped at the godling, strumming her harp impatiently, while clutching her boy tight with as many limbs as she could manage.

#

 

The music stopped suddenly, as Gary collapsed. His monstrous duplicates began vanishing one by one, leaving a pleasant scent behind.

 

Shai dashed to the fallen boy, leaping the woman’s corpse on the way. He was pale, but breathing, his armor plates were already sealing themselves closed, closing his wounds in the process. She rolled him over gently and wrenched the lance point out of his scapula, he let out a soft moan at that. 

His armored plate slowly began closing the rent in its structure, staunching the slow seep of blood from his wound at the same time. Carefully, she rolled him back over, once she was satisfied. 

Gary’s eyes snapped open with a convulsive twitch and a familiar voice emerged.

“He will live, he simply ran himself empty on a number of levels.” Thirp said from his slack lips, forcing Shai to stifle a scream of terror.

 

“Fie! Let him rest then, Thirp. Yer reassurances are nae reassuring as such!” She scolded her spider friend.

#

 

Gary woke up encircled in Shai’s arms, balanced on Annie’s back. “Mmm. Hi love, is everybody ok?” He murmured.

 

“We did hae them in hand, Ye ran them ragged until Maple did enter the fray… I would nay wish to quarrel wi her. ” She pulled him closer. “What e’er ye did, ‘twas none of your choosing. I hae ye back by whatever means, tae the depths wi them.”

 

He settled back against her, sighing deeply. “I had a chat with Thirp and Ducky… well mostly Thirp. Ducks just wanted to yammer about my new gift. ‘Horrifying…’ ‘abomination…’ stuff like that.” He yawned and sank a little lower. “I’m not bleeding on you, am I? One of them got me I think.”

 

“Yer mad armor hae smushed yer self closed, Tawny will hae ye set right an we peel the shellfish. Must we blanch thee in scalding water ere we shuck thee?” She sighed happily. 

“I think you can talk me out of my shell… be careful. I might pinch. Did any of them escape?” He asked sleepily.

 

“One did escape at least, we dinnae ken how many there were.” She pulled him a little closer. “Rest, boy. We hae ye.”

 

“My new gift really taps me out. It’s weird, but I like it.” He drifted away to someplace warm that smelled like Shai’s boobs… that was nice.

#

 

Gary woke up in the grotto, with Leo, Celeste and Tawny sitting in the dry zone on a sofa, while Shai and the kids were with him under the moss coverlet, soaking in his special blend.

“I dreamed of a giant turtle in a cave like this once…” Leo muttered.

 

“Kai! I like Kai! Turtle!” Wilford fussed and squirmed in joy, until Amy shushed him.

 

“Yeah, she’s a friend, I like her too, I dunno where she saw my grotto… Wilford… did you let a strange turtle wander around in your brain?” Gary demanded of his wiggling, giggling child.

“Anyway, welcome to my… I guess sanctum? That seems douchey. It’s a cave…” He shrugged from the bath bed hybrid and grinned. “To what do we owe the pleasure…?”

 

“A raiding party of slavers rode within sight of my walls and tried to filch one of my residents. I consider that a personal insult.” Leo complained.

 

“If they had tried luring me into a wagon with candy… it might have worked out better for them.” He mumbled, while Shai dug an elbow in his ribs. “Let us get dressed, we’ll talk over some things.” The pile of moss began stirring as the family of weirdos got in motion. 

 

“Becky, take the wee ones please, Ivy hae already started dinner.” Shai got the whole thing organized while the nobles were exiting the grotto. The last thing Leo and Celeste heard before the door closed was Gary complaining.

“Sweet gods, I smell liver! I’m back on your ‘blood and loins’ menu again…” Only the smith’s musical laughter answered him.

#

 

Gary had never been inside the temple of Healer before, it was pleasant, homey and very tranquil. The main space was a vast hall, with pews and benches for worshipers, as well as a number of balconies and mezzanine floors. 

The room could probably accommodate a thousand people comfortably. Too bad the acoustics were awful, perfectly awful. 

“THIS IS THE MAIN HALL, WE HOLD WORSHIP HERE TWICE A MONTH!” Celeste yelled, blowing Gary’s hair back. “THE ACOUSTIC DESIGN ENSURES SILENCE, EVEN JUST A FEW STEPS FROM SOMEONE RUDELY SHOUTING DURING THE OBSERVANCES! ONLY THE CLERIC AT THE LECTERN CAN BE HEARD THROUGHOUT THE CHAMBER!” Her loud bellowing call failed utterly to disturb any of the worshipers scattered around the room. 

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“So… I can yell and shout here and it’s ok?” Amy asked, shyly. That was out of character for the buoyant child. 

The duchess squatted down and hugged the child close. “Yes Amy you can shout and sing here and no one will be disturbed. It’s magic.”

 

“Real magic… not like Gary’s?” She pressed the golden woman, peering at her face, seeking any deception.

 

“Yes, it’s real magic…Just like Gary’s.” She assured her tiny new friend. Celeste glanced up and noticed Gary and Shai, frantically waving and shaking their heads at her whenever Amy looked away from them.

“You and Wilford will stay with me here. Gary and Shai have to visit some injured people… we can sing songs while we wait…” The two Adventurers were still desperately trying to wave her off, while Becky smiled in a not reassuring way. “Be as loud as you want.” Celeste finished.

 

“So I can use my outside voice here?” Her radiant smile and hopeful wiggling bottom made the priestess smile. 

 

“Yes Amy, you may.” Celeste said calmly, while the children’s guardians backed away rapidly. “In this chamber you can let it go…”

 

For some reason her last sentence made Amy light up like an alchemist’s firework. Leo, Tawny, Becky and the pair of crafting troublemakers were moving rapidly away and pointedly not looking back. Becky ducked into a nearby vestibule with a good view of the action and began putting wax in her ears with a devilish smile.

 

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight

Not a footprint to be seen

 

A kingdom of isolation

And it looks like I'm the queen…

 

Amy’s clear, crystalline voice began softly as they fled, dragging the duke along and giggling. They traveled across the chamber to a transept and a closed door, pursued the entire way by the rising volume of the child’s voice. 

By the time they reached the door at the back of the transept, the whole temple was vibrating subtly, thrumming along with her heartbreaking, shattering, exultant song.

 

Frantic clergy were in motion, bustling about in distress as the door closed behind them. The song continued, following them through a long, curving hallway leading down, bouncing off the walls and making dust motes dance in the light of the enchanted stone lamps.

“Amy’s gifts are percolating… we never let her use her outside voice inside for a reason.” Gary said smugly. “She calls the cadence for our morning run like a champ.”

“Dinnae worry, tis nae destructive, only distracting… as yet.” Shai reassured the duke, as Gary took on a shifty look. “Gary… Amy’s gift is nae dangerous… yes?”

 

“Totally harmless, I’m still working on her weirding module…” He mumbled dreamily. “then we learn the killing words.”

“Teach me this weirding way Gary, it looks promising.” Becky said, with a vicious look in her eye.

 

Through three more doors and past a security checkpoint manned by a war cultist in full armor, the song followed, always clear and ringingly audible. The warrior’s armored toes tapped as they walked by, while his fingers kept the beat on his spear shaft. 

 

“We think Amy’s going to wind up with a vocal gift…” The madman remarked blandly as they approached a barred door.

“Another odd gift… I look forward to seeing the results.” The duke nodded to another war cultist, this man was also armored, but bearing only a set of keys.

“We collected the survivors and remains from your battle, as well as a suspicious merchant and his two injured ‘guards’. Tawny said they looked like your handiwork so we tucked them in snugly.”

 

Beyond, a short hallway lined with steel grilled doors ended at a solid looking metal portal. “These are our merchant and his guards.” The duke said evenly. “Do you recognize them?”

A man with his face swathed in bandages lay on a clean bed in the small room, he was tall and lean, dressed in beige hospital issued robes. “Ahh, the bicycle thief. He caught my gears to the face, I guess I was not ‘the right one’ after all eh?” Gary snapped.

The next bed also held a man with a bandaged face, and a shoulder immobilizer. A complex arrangement of bandages and wooden rods held his right arm in a fixed position. “Archer guy… you shot Ozzy, a shot through the heart… wrong singer, not cool man. Looks like I fucked your shoulder up.”

“Oh yes, very badly.” Tawny said grimly. “As outlaws, Healer cannot aid them, beyond mortal methods and skills. Her sacraments cannot be shared with holders of forbidden Contracts.” She looked the pair of injured men over with pity. 

“Even slavers should not suffer needlessly. Would you consider…”

 

“Tawny, I love you, but, all of the people I let into my bath, I also let into my soul, even if just a little. I respect and understand your compassion… screw them.” He glared at the ‘merchant’ in the next cell. 

“This guy I didn’t see. I can’t say he’s one of them. Maybe I will find him in the wilds and ask him another day.” The musician sounded hungry as he spoke, eyeing the stocky, middle aged man. 

He was unremarkable, middling height, with a rough hewn face and pale skin where the sun and wind had not burned him brown. He had short blonde hair balding slightly and a  ready, friendly smile, until he saw the hard look in the boy’s eye.

 

“Silence collars are standard here, he no doubt wishes to protest his innocence… However, in his cart we found your two injured assailants and a parchment depicting you, with your name, description and habits.” Tawny said smugly. 

“He may also be bound up in outsider contracts, but we cannot assay him without probable cause, under the eyes of the law.”

 

“Refusing assay is his right, that is not a crime, Trelawny. The other two can be tried, he will have to be released this afternoon.” Leopold said. “Since his guards have taken ‘ill’, this worthy’s cart load of beets will be guarded by volunteers. A band of newly discharged Adventurers from out of town have graciously offered to escort him.” Leo seemed intent on the last part and the ‘merchant’ seemed less than enthusiastic.

 

“Wait a minute, Otho wanted to ‘assay’ me on day one, then they made me do it anyway when I objected…” He snapped, suddenly angry, to the point he almost seemed a stranger for a moment.

 

“Orphans may not refuse any lawful demand made of them by any citizen. That is the law.” The duke said in his ‘I am the law’ voice.

 

A flash of white hot rage, followed by an icy cold stillness flashed through the boy, while the cold, drafty hall suddenly felt very crowded indeed, as though a legion of faces and bodies were pressing in on the entire area, filling it beyond capacity.

 

Smiling mildly now and oblivious, Gary shrugged. “As for their dead friends, I’ll take them off your hands. I promised I’d make instruments from the bones of anybody that tried…”

 

The duke cut him off with a sharp look. “There will be no necromancy in my domain. Cross that line and we will be having a very different discussion.”

 

“I’m just going to talk to them, mostly. Bloodstains will be a lot harder to work with.” Shai started looking a little green around the place where her god wanted her to grow gills as her boy kept talking.

 

“Perhaps the remains could be released to a competent and responsible party…” Tawny slipped in, smooth as warm honey, saving the day. “Lord Amicus Fawn could supervise any… research and maintain ethical standards.”

 

Having the discussion outside the cells of the silenced ‘merchant’ and ‘guards’ was a dick move, but no one seemed interested in their opinions.

 

“Acceptable. I will make arrangements, for now, we must officially identify your assailants.” He led them past a few dark and empty hospital cells, to the steel door. With a large brass key, he opened the portal and light stones flickered to life. 

Several dozen tables were arranged in neat rows in the large chamber. An icy chill crept in from all around despite the air temperature feeling comparatively warm for an underground hall.

Most of the tables were empty, with crisp sheets folded at the end, awaiting an occupant. A few, near the door held the discreetly covered forms of the dearly  departed, awaiting Joy’s rites. The duke led them past those tables, farther into the hall.

 

In a far corner, a few blood stained sheets did their best to hide the day’s grizzly toll. The duke pulled back the sheets covering their handiwork and the couple nodded at each revealed corpse. 

 

“Yup, that’s them. They came right after me out of nowhere. Felt targeted, really targeted.” Gary said restlessly, as his ragged shadow flickered and writhed in the steady, cold light of the glow stones set in the ceiling.

 

“As Trelawny mentioned, they had a sketch and your name, along with some personal details. This was an attack on me, more than on you.” The duke said coldly.

 

“I’m gonna disagree Leo. They tried to snatch me, that’s a problem I take more seriously than you ever will.” He grumbled sullen and low.

“Seriously, let me know what gate that ‘merchant’ heads out, he knows too much…”

 

Shai whacked him gently, and hugged him in the unnatural chill. “I will nae be wi a murderer boy, curtail yer rage. Streeka did speak o these men while ye were… sleeping. Her kin of all stripes hae troubles wi slavers, an this band were known tae her folk.” 

 

The duke pointedly stood a ways off checking the notes in a ledger nearby, ignoring the couple and his daughter.

 

“She did say ‘wolf and coyote have caught yer last stray’, an plan tae keep him fer their own purposes. The merchant too, be summat they desire tae ‘speak’ wi, an he leaves town.”

 

“Leo said he would be guarded, by some new troop…” Gary began, shooting nervous glances dukeward. 

 

“Tis Malus an his lot, methinks the handover tae yer wolf friend will be easy.” Shai said smugly. “Tis his lordship’s design, he be a good an honorable lord, Gary. Ye may trust in him.”

 

The couple rejoined the duke and Tawny and began walking back out. “Why is the duke doing this job, seems like a functionary could have done this just as well.” Gary asked. As they walked up the long ramp.

 

“Most of my knights are busy, patrolling for…” He shrugged. “And like I said, I take this attack personally. Slavers haven't raided this far from the fringe in centuries. Even though this was a targeted attack, I can’t let that stand.” 

He clenched one huge fist until his leathery, swordsman’s palm creaked like a well oiled catcher’s mitt.

“Amy and Wilford are a draw as well, our youngest is twelve… we miss having little ones around… for now.”

 

“Fair enough.” Gary admitted. 

 

“Papa… what do you mean you miss having little ones… ‘for now’?” Tawny demanded, looking flushed.

‘Papa’ just grinned and bounced on his toes looking proud of himself as they rejoined Celeste and the kids in the temple. 

Her hair was disheveled and mussed, but she still seemed a glowing, golden example of mature and elegant beauty in her prime… Tawny looked from smug smiling Papa, to her radiant, flushed mother and fumed. 

“You two are incorrigible.” Tawny griped in a low sweet tone. “It’s not even Spring Festival for another day and you are already… a week along?”

“I blame you and your baths…” Her waggling golden finger swayed in front of Gary’s nose, as she made her dissatisfaction known.

 

 “I already got scolded about going too dark and maybe becoming a barrow wight today.” He replied, as he batted at Tawny’s bouncing finger playfully. “How about we be happy when I stay on the sunny side of the street?” He scooped a child up in each arm and strolled out of Healer’s sacred domain and into an early spring evening. 

“Nobody is taking anybody away, kids, nobody.” He told the two sleepy urchins curled up to his chest, while his little sister and his woman strolled along beside.

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