Hahnah looked at all of the things attached to Falcon's vest. She felt around inside of his pockets. She toyed with each thing she found, scrutinizing the items closely, sniffing them, turning them this way and that, pressing them with her fingers in different places and in different ways. One of these had to be what she was looking for.
She tossed a few vials that each had different colored liquids in them. Some shattered without ceremony. Others upon shattering had a magical effect of some kind, but not the effect she was looking for. She threw some circular metal things made of silver, these neatly lodging into the walls of the wattle and daub houses. She found a slender tube on his belt that had strange paper with letters written on it wrapped around the tube. She shook it. Nothing happened, but it sounded like there was sand inside. She shook it harder. Then it made a noise and she twisted it lengthwise to look again and
POP--a magical flare, blindingly radiant like the one that had illuminated the crop field, went rocketing down the dirt path and Hahnah yelped in surprise.
After some time, she found what she sought.
Falcon had some odd stones full of holes inside of a pouch on his belt. Hahnah took one out. Toyed with it, until a specific motion of her finger caused a blue rune to alight on the stone's porous surface. She tossed the stone.
And it exploded into a powerful blast of frost magic, turning the very dirt of the path to ice where the explosion had happened.
Hahnah smiled. And took the pouch from Falcon's belt.
She had what she needed.
She stood. Walked.
* * * * *
It took Reginald a moment to return to the back door. He said something that went missed as
Pretty Boy circled the church. Reginald, initially confused, did hear the crow hopping of the devourer outside, so knew that he had come back around. "There you are," he said. "I was wondering what happened. They said you might--"
The back door splintered. Reginald, pressed up against it, was knocked into the barricading pews and nearly toppled over. And the very sound of the door being battered sent a sharp wave of terror through the scores of people inside, and loud screams went up and panicked children began to cry or to ask their mothers taut questions that they could not answer in truth.
As the broken pieces of the door started to come loose from Pretty Boy's efforts, David shouted,
"REGINALD, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THERE! SPEARS! WE NEED SPEARS IN THE BACK HALL NOW!"
Reginald, immediately starting to do what David had said and climbing back over the barricading pews, stopped when Pretty Boy whined. Looked back. Confusion on his face are he was trying to understand. "What...what are you--?"
David came barreling out of the short back hall and into the priest's quarters, the room the back door opened up into. He grabbed Reginald by the scruff of his shirt and all but hauled him off the barricading pews and away from the broken back door.
Reginald, as he was being forcibly led away through the back hall, said, "I need a moment, David, just give me a moment to--"
David disregarded him. Said to the spear-wielding men at the end of the back hall protecting the way into the nave as they passed, "Watch for magic, the other one has magic!"
With no one close to the back door and the hole, no one could see what was written in the dirt outside.
* * * * *
Phari Ilmarion was a young elf. The fastest sprinter in all of Strathford, she was called. She was, in fact, the runner who had gone to deliver Strathford's plea to Griffin's
monster hunters days ago. She had taken refuge with the half of Strathford's population that was holed up in the mayor's manor.
The people inside had come to a decision. One that was helped, in part, by one of their number taking matters into his own hands--for purely selfish reasons--and unbarricading the back door of the manor so he could leg it. There was a reluctance in the air as brittle as cracked glass, and then others followed his lead. Soon, a certain mentality overcame those inside and everyone, regardless of their initial feelings, began to spill out of the back of the manor and into the night.
Phari, among a few others, realized they needed to tell the others holed up in the church. Even if the church had windows low enough for its occupants to look out of, the back of the manor was obstructed from view--they wouldn't see everyone in the manor fleeing to the north if even with such windows. So Phari volunteered to run over there and tell them. No one knew how long the two
monsters would be gone, but now that they had dispensed with Griffin's plan and were committed to running, they needed to get away. Get away, and fast. Every second counted.
She sprinted. Sprinted with the powerful stride of her long legs toward the church. The back door. The back door would be best, even if it wasn't as wide. Quicker to get open, and if the monsters came back, they'd probably be near the front of the church.
Then she turned the corner around to the backside of the church.
Saw one of the monsters there. The BIG ONE. Right there close to the door. It had come back!
"Ahhhhhh!" Phari planted her feet on the ground and slid and toppled backward onto her rear end. "No. No. No!" She said, turning around and scrambling frantically to get onto her feet again and to try to run back toward the manor.
Pretty Boy
