Open Chronicles Beneath Her Hands

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Hugo Farlance said:
"One of your own is out there, are they not?"
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Part 1

Monifa turned her face toward the sound of swords clashing. Though she could not see, she could feel Zyn’s presence: a steady, sweeping rhythm. His blade moved like a river before the flood, sharp and unyielding.

Even now, he flows. Fighting a Drow who feeds on her kin—and he does not falter.

“As far as you can see,” Vaene whispered inside her, her voice cool and close, “he will survive. But the soldier beside you needs more than time.”

Monifa turned back to Hugo. He was trying to stand tall, but his frame betrayed the weight of pain. Without thinking, she moved to brace him under her right arm—only for white-hot agony to ripple from her shoulder, where her own wounds still burned.

She grimaced, then shifted him carefully to her left side. Her touch was firm, her tone answering his quiet question with gentle certainty.

“I believe he is.”

Part 2

The fight behind them rose in pitch—Zyn’s strikes punctuated by the Drow’s shrieks and the cruel ring of metal. Monifa’s clouded eyes tried to adjust, but her sight was gone. Still, her voice was not.

“Ténéré!” she cried, her words cutting through the night.

“Keep her tongue and her head—let her soul find no escape. Cripple her arms or legs if you must. But keep your spirit sane. I will return to end it.”

She glanced at Hugo again, steadying him once more.

Then, with a deep breath, she turned to the alley ahead—blind to its details, but not to its weight.

I do not need eyes to walk the road ahead. But I need light. A name to lead me.

She placed her hand gently over Hugo’s wrist, anchoring herself not just to his form, but to what he had already done—for her, for the city, for those still cocooned in shadow.

“Jagunjagun…” she whispered, reverent.

“Please light the way with your words. My eyes see clouds—but your courage clears them.”

Then she took her steps forward, toward the wider conflict, toward whatever healing or horror still waited beyond the veil.

Behind her, Zyn moved with the certainty of a sharpened oath. The alley rang with defiance.

I do not know the hour. But I know this: the dark will not keep Lazular. I will dust it clean with teeth and smoke. I will midwife this city back into breath.
 
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Hugo was about to protest against the support, having seen the beating she took. But upon leaving his sanctuary of the wall, his legs immediately betrayed him, feeling like stumps of lead, and he had to admit his gratitude for the aid.

Time flowed strangely when wounded and fading between consciousness and oblivion. It was flowing around him, escaping him, at once agonisingly slow and much too fast, too bewildering to grasp. Monifa's stoic presence gave his drifting mind something to hold onto, her firm grip assuring him he would not crumble and fall.

He couldn't believe he was already in this twilight zone. He'd suffered worse injuries than this. But he recalled the drow's words of her poisoned sting, and cursed to himself.

He would be damned before he let some bloody drow's concoction defeat him. Gritting his teeth together, he summoned up the very last dregs of his endurance, kicking up the sword dragging after him to rest on his unencumbered shoulder, his sweaty palm still stubbornly clasped around its hilt. The dagger was lost somewhere in the dark - a token for someone passing by here next dawn.

With this, he followed Monifa, struggling to match her stride.
 
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Part 1

Monifa tightened her hold on Hugo’s side, but the weight grew heavier with each step. His breath stuttered; his legs dragged.

He’s fading fast. I can’t carry him much longer.

As her tongue had no strength, my mind spoke instead.

Vaene… I’ve no eyes tonight. Let your wings guide my steps. Let your will keep this man from the gourd of the dead.

She then looked back at Hugo. “Jagunjagun, rest your soul.”

When they reached the familiar compound, she rapped her knuckles three times on the carved wooden door. The sound echoed like a drum.

Part 2

A moment passed before the door opened, revealing Gbáyọ̀dé, a broad-shouldered orc with deep green skin and weathered eyes that always seemed to read too much. He wore his ceremonial cloth across one shoulder, and his wrists jangled with bronze divination rings.

His brows lifted the moment he saw her.

“Monifa?” His gaze dropped to Hugo, who sagged against her. “Ojú rẹ̀ kò dáa... He’s been poisoned?”

She nodded, breath sharp. “A Drow’s sting. It runs deep. I need your hands, Gbáyọ̀dé. I need your fire.”

He moved aside without question, motioning them inside.

“Lay him by the hearth. I’ll fetch the ewe inún, the bitter leaf, and mix it with powdered charcoal and clay.”

Part 3

Inside the earthen-floored hut, Gbáyọ̀dé set to work. The smell of crushed leaves, palm oil, and camphor filled the space. He pressed a thick paste to Hugo’s wounds and poured a steaming mixture down his throat in slow, careful sips.

Then, as the concoction took root, he rose and brought over a calabash bowl painted with sigils.

“His blood has memory,” he murmured, drawing white marks across Hugo’s chest. “But this poison sings louder than it.”

Monifa watched from the doorway, heart still thudding from the battle, while drinking a clay pot of water like a baby drinking the milk of their mother.

“You’ll perform the ritual?”

“I must. This venom was sharpened with magic. Herb alone will not save him.”

He turned briefly, and for a heartbeat, his gaze softened as it met hers.

“You did right to come. You always do.”

Part 4

As he rose to reach for more powdered root, he froze.

“Monifa—your foot.”

She blinked. “My what?”

He stepped closer and gently crouched at her side. A thin stream of blood trickled from her left heel, dark against the dirt floor.

She hadn’t even felt it. Now the pain came in a flush.

“Ah,” she muttered, cheeks warming from her ignorance. “I didn’t notice.”

“You never do,” he said, voice dry but kind. He rinsed the cut with warm herb water, then bound it with a strip of cotton bark and pressed his palm gently over her ankle.

“Your body is your drum, alágò. If it breaks, how will you call the spirits to dance?”

Monifa exhaled slowly, the first true breath she’d taken since the Drow fell.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to learn to dance in silence.”

Gbáyọ̀dé smiled faintly, not as a Babalawo—but as the man who had known her since she came to Lazular.

“Silence listens. But it doesn't answer. Take care of yourself, Monifa.”

She looked at Hugo’s now-steady chest, the calabash bowl still steaming beside him.
 
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Hugo slept, his cris-crossing belts of equipment rising and falling with his breath. But peace would not find him. Vaene might have saved him - but she wasn't going to allow this mortal to rest easy. Beneath her hands, he would witness his own sins, and repent.

A dream slithered into his mind. No longer was he in the stifling streets of Lazular, but within the depths of the earth, once again in the Anirian reach, near the border to Cortos.

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He was running for his life. Running and crawling, rocks stealing his footing. Blood and sap ran from his blade and uniform, spilled from man and monster alike, panting as he made it back up the twisting corridors to his commander's position. The long lines of tinder, ready for ignition, had guided him back. The screams of his company echoed after him like souls of the damned, already in the next world.

"Lord commander!" Hugo cried, snapping for breath. He noted the artillerymen next to them, standing poised with crackling torches. "You must send reinforcements. Creatures - underdwellers - they've swarmed us!"

A pause. Sir Runer Basilicus stepped forward, his red cape and green surcoat blotting out the narrow corridor. His small eyes narrowed in consideration.

"Are the beams ready for ignition? The sappers have completed their work?"

"Aye, but they'll be killed if we don't make it there. The monsters . . ."

"How many?"

"I don't know, sir. Too many to count."

The commander nodded, decided on his course.

"Very well. Give the order, lieutenant. Light it."

Hugo froze. The sticky blood, the pain pulsing through him, all of it washed away before those two words. Lighting this fuse would collapse the tunnel. It would sap the wall of Castle Bast, as intended.

But with it, his comrades would be buried in stone. A fate worse than death. His throat parched, words withering on his lip.

Runer took a lumbering step forward and grabbed his shoulder, his hand a steel grip.

"Do as I command, lieutenant."

Hugo felt disconnected from himself, as if he watched this scene from afar. Faint, bat-like shapes flittered and disturbed the vision, whispering the words even before they left him. The words that doomed his company but won the battle. The words that branded him a deserter, reducing him to a vagabond. The words that robbed fifty families of their loved ones. The price of misguided loyalty.

"Light it," Hugo commanded. Even the artillerymen hesitated, glancing at one another.

"Light it!" Hugo's voice boomed, while his heart withered.

The steel grip turned into a velvet glove, clapping him fondly on the shoulder.

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Hugo writhed in bed, weak murmurs of regret leaving him.

"Don't . . . Save them . . ."
 
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