Private Tales Cut Our Teeth & Break Our Bones

[Maseno Luana]

"I cannot say just yet..." Maz replied through a concerned frown.

Trotting his horse up to the scene, he swung a leg over the front to dismount, allowing Thraah to remain should a quick exit be required, and walked on foot over to the nearest of the downed figures. His face took on a look of horror at what he saw: a young man whose body had been broken and twisted in ways a body aught never be. He was bleeding from several of the breaks where the white of bone stuck out and though his head had fallen to the side, his jaw had unhinged and stretched in the opposite direction.

A sound left Maseno's throat that he could not stop as his feet carried him away from the body toward the carriage and the others strewn about.

They were dead. All of them. Even the carriage horses had not been spared. The display was sickening on a level he'd not been prepared for, and he nearly lost his footing as he felt all air leave his lungs and blood run cold. The errant Dreadlord did not appear to be anywhere in site.

"This was him," he confirmed to her as he neared the body of a young girl and stooped down next to her, gently placed his fore and middle fingers to her neck to check for a pulse. She was done, as he suspected, but her body had not yet fully sunk into rigor mortis. He closed his eyes in a surge of grief and drew his fingers over her eyelids to close her own.

 

[Thraah]

Thraah had gotten down from the horse. The coast was clear as she could figure.Taking the reigns she led the horse through the senseless mess of death.
He tried to stall once but she hushed him and took his head over her shoulder and wrapped her arm about his long head to stroke his face and help keep him calm. It was probably the smell of blood that had him scared.
"It's okay big guy, it's okay."
She patted him again and walked him over to the side of the road, where a large bush and some small trees were sitting. She tied him up and then proceeded back towards Maz with legs of lead.
So this is what happens when Dreadlords go Rogue. It doesn't matter who you are, you're just chum to be ground.
Anger should have welled inside her but it didn't. She just felt bad.
Bad for these poor dead strangers and bad for Maz, who clearly added this to the pile of things he felt he should have been able to stop.
But that, like what happened to these people, wasn't fair.
Thraah had laid down with death, woken up with it in the morning. When the nights were too cold for some to get through and they had eaten too little to stay warm no matter how tightly you all packed together.
This was different. This was needless and ugly and cruel.
Still she wasn't able to get angry yet.
So she knelt down in front of Maz, over the body of the girl who might not have been any older than Taraah and Kraah and that mixed a deepening fear for them in with her sorrow.
"Why would anyone do this?"
She looked about them now that she was among the carnage.
"These people didn't have any weapons, they weren't dangerous, there are no staffs or signs of struggle or magic or anything! Kress sake they were a fucking family."

Maseno Luana

 

[Maseno Luana]

It was moments and scenes like these that made him feel hopeless and more than once over the last year he'd struggled with second-guessing himself and his purpose. What good did his power do if he couldn't help prevent horrible events such as this? Listening to Thraah's words only drove the nail deeper, speaking words he could no longer bring himself to say, even if he was thinking the very same.

Maseno swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

He wanted to give these people their due respect. Wanted to unbreak their bodies and make them whole again so he could lay them in peace at roadside where they might await local family or familiars to take their bodies and put them to rest. He wanted to find the nearest village and tell the people what had happened here.

But there simply wasn't time for any of it. If they stayed here much longer, the trail would go cold once again. That the bodies were so fresh meant that Ilverstein was slowing down. They had to keep moving.

So, instead, he quietly prayed for this family. He pulled a chord of wooden beads from beneath his robes and took up the carved amulet at the bottom in his hand. Fist rolled and pressed against his lips, he prayed for their safe passage to the beyond. Prayed for their forgiveness. Prayed for the natural cycle of their souls to someday return into a better fate.

Prayed for the strength to stand up and leave. For the clarity of mind to press on without the distraction and weakness of regrets or guilt.

He breathed in deeply, then slowly breathed out, "Eshva guide me onward."

When Maz opened his eyes and looked to Thraah, it was not with the strength of a hero. Prayers weren't like magic, they didn't work that way. He looked sad, lost, and woefully afraid.

"We must keep moving."

 

[Thraah]

When Maz opened his eyes he'd see Thraah in her own ritual.
Palms on her shoulders then her head. She was mumbling to herself.
To finish she bent forward and kissed the corpse on its mangled hand.
"Yeah. He can't be far."
She stood up but her limbs felt heavy.
"I..."
For a moment Thraah feared to ask.
"I can, take care of them. Quick like. Do you think that, would be okay?"
It felt strange but really Maz had no more authority than her to burn the bodies. It would keep them from being taken by animals. That was about all she could offer.
It wasn't nearly enough.

Maseno Luana

 

[Maseno Luana]

Maz shook his head in response, "We must leave them. It is not our place."

A breath, he moved to stand and gave pause, then looked back to Thraah, "If we get a chance or the opportunity, we will tell someone about them."

But that was all they could do. He lifted a hand, in offering and gesture to follow, and made his way back to their horse. Maseno did not look back as he untied it and mounted up, lowering his arm for Thraah to lift her up behind him.

 

[Thraah]

All Thraah could muster in reply was a half-hearted
"Yeah."
She followed him, quick enough and took his hand without a word.
This time her heart didn't jump. It was too heavy.
Full of a loss that wasn't hers and that these poor souls were only fortunate enough to be mourned by passing strangers.
At his back again, she put her arms around him and it was different again.
She could feel the tension in him, the reaction to the injustice of it.
It was a feeling she was intimately familiar with.
Against the great wheel of Anirian social status and what it laughingly called justice she had seen more than her share. Felt the helpless terror as boots marched into the slums and she prayed to anyone that was listening that they would pass her home.
That they would not take her strong Momni, not take her beautiful sisters.
On those nights she held them extra tight in the great bed the children shared.
On those nights, her parents did not sleep.
Much as she liked to talk Thraah was at a loss for words.
She could not tell him it was going to be okay.
She could not take away what he had seen or how he felt or change it into anger. That felt disrespectful to those poor people.
She squeezed him and found it in herself to let what warmth she could muster ebb from her arms and torso. Just a bit of comfort from her presence, maybe that would be enough for now.

Maseno Luana

 

[Maseno Luana]

The next location was a small trade city, situated along the shores. Compact for the lack of fertile lands to farm, it meant the population lived densely lining the main ocean docks that sprawled along the beach. If Maseno had to guess, Ilversmith had robbed the people in the carriage for his fee to escape by sea. They were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and fell victim to a man with too much power and not enough humanity.

"We stay together," Maseno informed her and he pushed his horse down the main road and into the rows of buildings, cottages, and merchant businesses, "I have a feeling we will find him here, and not alone."


Pressed against his back, it was very likely Thraah would feel Maseno's heartbeat pick up, thundering with anticipation and adrenalin, "We must not let him leave, no matter what. He must fall here. I trust you to watch my back, Thraah. Do as I say and we will both get out of here alive, I promise you."

 

[Thraah]

Thraah had taken the long silence of their travel to stoke her anger at Ilversmith.
She was in that calm fury that people went to when they knew there was bad work to be done and there was nothing wrong with it by her reckoning.
"I've got you. Whatever you say."
It was a rare thing for Thraah to give anyone control but that was what trust was. A surrender of control to another's judgement.
Maz had a good heart and a clean mind. She had her anger and the power to back it up.
It felt... good.
They had the same goal.
Get Ilversmith.

Maseno Luana

 

[Maseno Luana]

He hurried his horse down the road, his anxiousness setting the usually calm gelding into a bit of a nostril-flaring, sweat-frothing frenzy. As they entered the town their frenetic entrance drew eyes of the locals who quickly dashed out of their path, ushered along to safety at either side of the road with a helpful push of Maseno's power. Though it would be foolish of him to announce their arrival, he was certain that Ilversmith would already know they were here.

He certainly could sense the exile's great power, though he actively suppressed his own to a fraction of its full wealth. The older generations of Dreadlords had not bothered to learn to dampen their presence - to do so often lead to death at the Academy where for generations only the fittest, strongest, and most ruthless survived. Problem was, while Maz could sense his mana, it was a very generalized sensation that pulled him toward the docks like a voice calling from the ships, though he could not say which one.

And he was right - Ilversmith wasn't alone.

As they reached the docks he pulled his horse up, looking quickly between three larger boats sitting at port with smaller boats sprinkled throughout. Something told him they had to move quickly and he willingly followed the urgency of the feeling by sweeping his leg over the horse's neck and dismounting to tie it to a nearby hitching post. He turned to the horse's flank where he removed what appeared to be some variant of a shield, though it was circular in shape and strapped flat against his back like a shell.

"He's on one of those ships," Maz said with certainty, "but I am not sure which one. Can you sense anything? Magic users?" Without asking, he had no way of knowing if Thraah had that ability. Not every Initiate did and to some like himself the sense came naturally while others honed the skill by choice.

 

[Thraah]

As Thraah slid down off the horse she closed her eyes and tried to sense something. There were times when the gemstone gave her a bit of a bump or something outside it's usual rhythm.
*Come on, let's see what you got.*
She focused hard on it, listening to it. Then she heard a bit of an echo like a drummer in the distance. It was heartbeats, loads of them. Banging away but there was no discerning whose belonged to who or how far this awareness went. Still, the loudest drumming came from a ship further up the dock, about a hundred paces away while there was a quiet ship closer only two heartbeats. She was pretty amazed at herself. She did not expect to be able to sense anything. Never could at the Academy.
When she opened her eyes Thraah drew her sword and chain and rolled her shoulders.
"I think, there's most folk in that ship."
She pointed with the finger of her chain hand.
Her sword went to another ship that gave almost no sound.
"That one has the least I think but I can't sense magic users. Just eh... heartbeats I think. Must be a me thing."
She indicated her chest where the gemstone lay but spoke not of it.
"I could set one on fire, smoke him out, it would save us going in."

Maseno Luana

 

[Maseno Luana]

"No," Maseno declined the offer quietly, his eyes slowly scanning the port and its many ships and docks, "we will not risk innocent lives without due cause." Too many innocent lives had already been taken by their target, and to wage destructive warfare just to get at him would make them no better than the exile.

But he would listen to what Thraah's senses and instincts were telling her. Heartbeats ... a curious thing for her to sense and something that would make more sense to him in time. Right now he trusted whatever it was she had felt and moved off along the port walkway to the ship she'd pointed to at the end of the last dock. The further they walked and the closer they drew, the stronger Ilversmith's presence became to him.

"Excuse me," Maz stopped a nearby dock worker holding a bundle of scrolls and ticking off a list, "I am looking for a friend I was meant to meet here but I think he has already boarded. Maybe you've seen him? Heathren Ilversmith?"

The man looked up over a pair of half-moon spectacles and blinked, "Can you describe him?"

"He is as tall as I, black hair with white at the front, pale eyes, black beard, and a scar across his cheek," Maz lifted a hand to trace the line of the scar he'd known the Proctor to have since he was but a young boy at the Academy.

"Mm, yes, a gentleman of that description did board a ship earlier today," the man turned and pointed to the same ship Thraah had indicated earlier, "that one, bound for Cortos, the Sana Viterra."

An amber gaze lit by the rise of wariness shifted to Thraah as he nodded and hurried off with her.

"You may be too late!" the man called after them, "Viterra has already begun departure!"

Maz took off down the docks, throwing a hand forward to part the crowd of people and clear a path for them both. His boots thundered against the sea-battered planks, arms reaching up over his shoulder to loosen the metal disc strapped there, "Thraah when you get to the end of the dock, jump! I'll get you to the ship!"

Without any further explanation, he threw the disc into the air and with a gesture of his hand, brought it spinning around to whir down along the open path he'd created and with a jump, landed on top of it. In a surge of power, Maseno Luana hunched down on the disc and rode it out and up through the air, over the heads of the dock workers and down the line of the dock toward the departing Sana Viterra.

 

[Thraah]

Next to Maz Thraah looked like a boulder rushing for the end of the dock.
*It's too far away.*
*Maseno said jump!*
*I'll never make it!*
*JUMP!*
Thraah leaped into the air flailing like a tossed chicken. Waiting for the splash, the cold, the sinking.
"WAAAAAAAGH!"
Her feet hit something, something solid.
"What the..."
The something moved, sending her flying towards the ship and after Maz at speeds Thraah became very uncomfortable with very fast.
"...FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!"

 

[Maseno Luana]

Swerving through the air along the dock, Maseno flicked a hand toward a large cargo crate and ripped the cap off its top. It flew along after him like a kite, swooping down under Thraah's flailing form to catch her just moments before she would have plunged boots-first into the waters below. He'd never done this before with another person, but there was no time for practice like the present, was there?

The pair of them flew in over the waves, chasing the departure of their target's ship, and arced downward toward the main deck. Thraah's crate board skidded across the surface as he tried to bring her in without crashing into those below. Moment's later Maseno swooped down through the sky, past the crow's nest, and leapt from his disc to land next to her.

All eyes were on them. Many frightened, some confused, a handful narrowed in perceived threat. Though this was not a passenger ship, it still hosted a high number of completely innocent people. Maz didn't like what this meant about the fight to come - they already knew Ilversmith held no issue with harming bystanders.

Maz glanced to Thraah to ensure she was solidly on two feet before standing straight and lifting his hand into the air to catch his disc as it circled back to him.

"We are looking for a man called Heathren Ilversmith. We were told he was aboard this ship."

"Joinin' the cause, boy?" said a woman from his left whom he did not recognize. She smiled a sort of expression that made his stomach churn as she stood to approach, "Ilversmith's a busy man. Won't take appointments with just anyone."

Maz shifted just enough to put himself directly between the stranger and Thraah, "Tell him Maseno Luana is requesting an audience."

"Interesting," she replied, "I thought all the Luana men had died. Cursed family - tsk. Which brother are you?" her eyebrow raised as she sized him up, "... I suppose it doesn't matter. Stay put, Lord Luana."

Watching her disappear into what he believed to be the Captain's quarters, Maz spoke low to Thraah over his shoulder, "Nothing rash. Stay near me. Count the people you can see on the deck."

 

[Thraah]

Thraah was breathing heavy and trying to keep her heart from exploding.
Under any other circumstances that would have been a thrill ride to write how about but she was too shocked to really understand it all since it happened do fast.
Thankfully Maz's words drew her back to herself.
"Uh, yeah, sure. I'm with you."
Serious time.
Thraah looked and saw eight figures on deck. They were mostly deck hands, some were armed, less than half and even then just with knives. They were not expecting a fight or so it looked.
Magic users did not need to be armed in her experience.
She was very aware of how fire and wood mixed and decided to not open with a blast of fire if and when it came to it.
"Eight, lightly armed. They look mean though."
She whispered the intel back to him.
Her sword and chain were loose in her hands, ready to go but she'd wait for the word first.

Maseno Luana