Page 97 of Elvenbred

The world felt dim. He raised his fingers, pressed them to his throat, feeling for his pulse. He felt a wave of fear then. He had lost a lot of blood. He looked around for someone in medical smocks. Someone who could help. No luck. He croaked out a call for help.

“Haldeen? Is that you?” A shadow fell across his eyes and he squinted up.

“Moragen? Is that you?”

“Haldeen? Ye gods, one eyebrow and half your hair are burned away!” the younger noble replied. He bent down and helped Haldeen sit up. “Was looking for sewer leaks, when all this happened. Looks like everything has gone to shit.” He paused for a moment, to see if Haldeen would react to the joke. “What happened?”

Haldeen gestured towards his leg. “Piece of metal, a spike I think, came through the wall. Got me in the leg.”

Moragen had bent down, examining the dressing, and Haldeen’s makeshift tourniquet. “This is going to hurt.” He put a foot on Haldeen’s thigh, took the bloody belt in both hands … and pulled. Haldeen screamed and passed out.

He awoke to Moragen breaking something caustic under his nose.

“Better?” he asked Haldeen.

Haldeen took stock of his hurts and bruises. “Better. It hurts, but I can think again. What did you do?”

“Found a Healer. They’re spread thin, but I used rank. You need a lot more than they can give right now. But one quick spell for a few answers seemed a fair trade. It’s a general restorative. Won’t last long. Now tell me … what in the nineteen hells happened?”

Haldeen felt his wits desert him. “I … I don’t know. I was in my lab … and came out, and everything had fallen apart.” He closed his eyes and tried to cast his mind back. “It was … it’s hard to describe. Things started guttering out, like a lamp that’s running out of oil. Mage-lights went first, then the shield. And the Predators started coming in over the wall.”

“No, Haldeen … what happened? Your Source … that powers the Shield here. It’s not working! What happened!”

Haldeen looked up at Moragen, completely at a loss. “I don’t know. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Your Source, Haldeen. Where is it?” Moragen snapped. “Did it die? Where is it?”

Haldeen shook his head, still working to clear the fog. He knew he had lost a lot of blood, and struck his head at least once. “Stables. It’s in the stables, close to the service gates in the back. Downslope. Once in, down two levels, then a quick left. Be careful, because ….” He stopped, and felt his mouth make a perfect “O.” Fear flared in his belly as he made connections. “That bitch.”

“What, what?” Moragen repeated. “Service deck. Two down. Stables. Is it there?”

Haldeen could only nod.

A shadow of something with wings flashed over the wall and into the city. The Monsters appeared to be recovering. The garrison hadn’t. Too many precious elves had died in the initial attack, and in the actinic blast that followed. Haldeen looked into Moragen’s eyes and saw the naked fear.

“Haldeen. Tell me everything. Now. It may be too late already, but I need to know.”

Haldeen closed his eyes. His voice sounded like a stranger’s whisper to his ears. “I got a Gate working. Used it to fish where we sent the exiles. Caught one. A woman. Noble. Stupid and weak, useless even for food production. Put it in with the Beast, because the minder was dead. Figured she’d be dead now. I think this is her doing.”

Moragen rocked back on his heels, as though Haldeen had struck him. “You did what?” He looked up at the wedge of blue sky. “If she hurt the Source, then you may have killed us all.” He went silent for a moment, shaking his head. “What were you thinking?”

Haldeen shook his head, unable to meet his eyes. I was given a key to a new world, a key to wealth and power. You would have done the same. He said nothing.

Moragen sprinted away then, yelling for guards, overseers, anyone in authority to aid him, to follow him to the stables for the sake of the city. Few could follow. Fewer did.

Something came leaping down into the courtyard … a creature of chitin, all hard shells and long, spearing claws. The few guards in the courtyard, all lightly injured, charged it with raised shields and swords. One died at once as the thing speared him in the leg and dragged him towards it. The elf screamed, leaving a trail of blood, before a second and third piercing strike silenced him. Other guards, terrified … but fighting anyway, engaged it, working to keep it busy. Once cast a strong spear thrust that simply glanced off of its shell. They could do no more than keep it busy until someone showed up with something heavier.

He needed to get out of this courtyard, and away from this killing madness. Haldeen called out to one of his servants, but the elf ran past, unheeding. I don’t look like a Great Lord. He levered himself up, then paused, dizzy and nauseated. He felt no pain in his leg, and wasn’t sure if that was from the tourniquet or the restorative spell. He needed to get to where he would be recognized and cared for. He was the Lord Gatekeeper, and vital to the city.

Haldeen worked his way along the wall towards his Tower. He looked up, and saw it leaning drunkenly. That sight shook him. Its construction, designed to withstand gales, had bent and flexed under the hot, actinic wind. Moragen’s words came back to him then, and for the first time he understood the danger they were in. If Triana had sabotaged the Source somehow, and they could not get the Beast back in harness, then the gap in the Shield would be like a hole in a dam. The Monsters would flood through the breach, and the city would die.

“The Gate.” he said aloud to himself. “Get to the Gate.” He could ride out the battle there. “Come back once the storm has passed.” If the city fell, he would live. But, he had to get to the Gate. He pushed off from the wall, and made two steps before his leg betrayed him and he fell. A bolt of pain, even through the numbed leg and spell. He turned his head to look back at the courtyard. The creature had impaled a second guard and hoisted him aloft, screaming. Another guard had found a spear. Haldeen watched as he leaned back, aimed, and cast it into the creature’s maw. It let out a shriek. More guards came up the stairs at the base of the Tower, and fanned out to fight the monster. Haldeen pulled himself up on his elbows and crawled for the open door. A broken spear-shaft flew across the courtyard and clattered against the wall a few in front of him. The spear had been neatly snipped in half. He grabbed the broken shaft and levered himself up, using it as a sort of cane to take his weight off his injured leg.

The battle on the wall above grew as he heard metal shriek. Stones from the battlements fell around him. A portion of a Machina grasping a writhing tentacle fell a few body-lengths from where he crawled. The sounds of battle built as the elves’ defenses rallied again. Haldeen knew he was no strategist, but the city’s defenses had been badly depleted. Perhaps help might come from other parts of the city, but taking from there left them weaker. He looked up to check his distance to the Tower and saw a blue sky. You ass. If there is no Shield, then the rest doesn’t matter. He put his head down and focused on crawling.

He made it to the open door at the base of his Tower, and pulled himself in. He saw a dead elf on the floor there, wearing medical smocks and carrying a pack. The blood trail suggested she had been pulled there. Haldeen ignored the blood to root through her knapsack. He found another round of bandaging for his calf, along with a pair of thick wooden dowels the length of his forearm. He wound the first bandage around his calf, as an additional layer to try and stop the bleeding. He took the second bandage and the dowels and used them to brace his knee into rigidity. The pack contained a restorative. He guzzled it, though the warning clearly said to limit consumption to one a day. The pain in his leg dimmed to a dull throb, then went numb.

He looked back outside as he worked. The guards had nearly done for the creature in the courtyard, swinging more found spears like clubs to break its joints and limit its mobility. Once they had it on the ground, the guard lept on it, and hacked at it, stabbing its eyes to blind it. A guard gave it a final sword thrust to its vitals, and it shuddered and died, spewing an ichor across the courtyard grass. The guards appeared to have brought it down, but Haldeen saw the butcher’s bill … a half dozen or so defenders had died in the process. Haldeen, though no military genius, could see that math to be unsustainable.