I did deliver Silveredge two solid kicks when it was time to go, but apparently, she is an incredibly deep sleeper. I sharpened her katars and handed them to Bahlzair, who nodded solemnly before I'd even said a word to him. Aleksei, having kicked dirt into the place where the fire had once been, knelt down, picked Silveredge up, and looked to me for direction. I was about to ask him what made him think that I would be a good candidate to lead the party when I actually looked at that three-quarter tail of his.
There's something to be said for parties lead by a rogue, but at least I did have the entire length of my tail.
Aleksei, with one eye scarred shut and a wide swath of scale that did not match his own pale scales, would look terrifying and battered no matter what he was wearing. As it stood, he had a thick, black-and-purple detailed shendyt that looked as though he'd come down from his home village with it.
Silveredge's clothes had been cut nearly to rags, a far cry from the lovely bodess and dress I'd seen in the market place not so long ago.
Bahlzair- in addition to being an ebony-hide Drow- sported an almost-loinscloth that was, in stark opposition to Aleksei's garment, just long and wide enough to cover what it was supposed to cover. I'd thought nothing of this when the creature was hiding in and playing around a forge. But now I realized a rather immediate truth.
We looked awful.
"We have to rob someone," I blurted out bluntly, looking Bahlzair over again. "Look at what we look like."
"We are looking like the sort of people who will rob people," Aleksei smirked, snuggling Silveredge so that her head rested comfortably on his right shoulder. "Or maybe just kill them. But it will be difficult if I am having to carry the Shadow Child."
"Shadar-Kai," I corrected, pursing my lips in thought.
"No, Lyoshenka is saying exactly what he means," Aleksei replied, leaning his head close to Silveredge's. She seemed to accept the show of affection even in her sleep, and snuggled into his arms like a small child.
I looked over to Bahlzair, who offered no opinion, but simply fixed me with a "hurry it up" look. At least it didn't radiate the weariness that I felt. My muscles were screaming from my sparring the night before, and I would have much preferred to simply stay where we were. But the fact of the matter was that Silveredge needed help- a kind that none of us were able to render- and I didn't want to admit how strange and ominous the curse that she had described really sounded. Soul-eating shadows? You think when you're born into a race that made a pact with the lords of the hells that you'd heard everything.
"Maybe we should follow the road for a while, as we think, so that the sun is not going down on our thinking," Aleksei suggested. Having said this, he turned his back on our campsite and made for the paved road that was some ways away. Bahlzair shrugged and followed him, leaving me to sigh and scamper after them a few moments later.
We moved in silence- I'm not particularly sure if this was because both Aleksei and I were painfully aware that Bahlzair couldn't verbally reply to us or simply because no one had anything to say- until we caught sight of a creek that cut under a rather shoddy wooden bridge up ahead. It had been perhaps about a half-day's quick march, and the afternoon sun was beginning to really annoy Bahlzair, who had to practically walk in my shadow as he covered his eyes and squinted. Instead of being surrounded by trees willing themselves to grow through stony ground, we were instead contending with doughy, clay-based soil that annoyed the center of my feet- well, my hooves- and made unpleasant sounds when Aleksei's bare, clawed reptilian feet squished into it.
So actually, I had been relieved to see a bridge, until I realized that it was probably a bandit post. On the other side of the bridge were some guards- I wasn't sure what kind at that point, but two creatures stood sentry-style on either side of the thing, so I assumed that they were guards.
Bahlzair stopped.
I slowed down.
Aleksei, however, plowed right on forward as though he'd never had a bad experience with sentries, guards or bandits.
He crossed the bridge, Silveredge comfortably resting in his arms with a beautiful innocence clinging to her face, and for a few moments, it seemed as though he would pass the guards right by. Hoping he would, I managed to convince Bahlzair to follow me a bit closer to the far side. But no such luck. What was worse, Aleksei had run into a strange team- one Human, one Dragonborn.
"Where are you going with that parcel, sir?" the Human male asked. He wasn't wearing a uniform, but had the bearing of a proper soldier, as opposed to the normal sneer and shamble of a bandit. However, referring to a living creature as a piece of cargo didn't win him any decency points in my book.
"Ja govorju ploho," Aleksei rumbled in a low tone. "Otpusti menja, pozhalujsta."
Both guards laughed, and the Dragonborn shook his head. "No, sir, we don't speak the mountain tongue. In fact, I don't even speak the plains speak anymore. You got any Common for us?"
"Very poor," Aleksei sighed, looking behind him to see where we were.
The guards looked up to see me, then back to Aleksei. "So, that's with you, too?"
And Aleksei said something that, for a moment, forced me to doubt his command of the Common.
"Yes. This is both my wives. Please, we are passing through now, yes?"
Apparently the guards didn't believe him any more than I did. "Do you mean that creature and the Drow? It seems you've been infiltrated by demonkin, then," the Dragonborn smiled. "You can pass through, sure, but it's five gold a head for your Elf and your wife. That horned creature's ten gold."
Aleksei shook his head. "I am poor, I do not have this money. I can work."
"Maybe we could use another one of you, Bakari," the Human smirked to the Dragonborn, probably only half-joking. "You know how he's always complaining that there are too many Humans and not enough of you to keep us from growing horns. Want to go ask Gunter if he'll take another Arkhosian mountain brother?"
"But what will he do with the rest of them?" Bakari replied earnestly. This was no bandit, after all, or at least not a type that I had ever dealt with before. "They mean something to him, even if he hasn't told quite the entire truth about it."
"Perhaps we should encourage him to tell the truth, then?" the Human replied, turning his gaze back to Aleksei, who had begun to let Silveredge out of his arms. Against his protests, she had wanted to stand on her own, and there were a few moments of concern when her bare toes first touched the ground. Aleksei made an awkward squishing noise with his own feet, wiggling the taloned toes.
She laughed, sending a noticeable shadow fleeing from her. She turned around, found Bahlzair and I across the bridge, and began walking back toward us. Aleksei didn't prevent her, but simply looked at her delicate blue feet as they rapidly turned slightly brown.
"Or we could fight," the guard replied, his eyes narrowing.
Aleksei abruptly turned around and walked back over the bridge after Silveredge, who peeked over my shoulder at Bahlzair. The Dragonborn guard left his post, and Aleksei sighed deeply.
"Well, are we fighting the Human, or what?" I asked, smirking.
"I am not getting a good feeling from this place," Aleksei admitted. "I am feeling- different. Not- myself."
And behind him came the Dragonborn guard and a slightly taller Dragonborn male who looked much more like what Aleksei might have been when all his scales were a uniform color.
"Here he is, and his- um- friends? I'm not sure if-"
"That's enough, Bakari, thank you," the taller male replied, crossing his arms. The guard quickly moved away, leaving the male to turn his stony grey eyes upon Aleksei, who still had his back turned to him. "This is a toll road. Your brother was willing to let you pass through for free, and only asked that you pay for your companions. Why have you not done this, so that you may go about your business?"
"I do not have money," Aleksei replied simply. "I can only offer my arm, whether in battle or for work."
"Posmotri na menja," the male said in a tone that was somehow strong and gentle at the same time. "Skazhi mne, kto tvoi druz'ja."
Aleksei took two steps further away from the male speaking to him, still refusing to turn around. Bahlzair, oddly enough, stepped out of my shadow and in front of Aleksei, staring holes into the Dragonborn.
"Nyet," Aleksei replied simply.
"Vy boites' svoego proshlogo. Vy boites' togo, chto vy byli."
"If you don't back away from him right now, I'll give you worse scars than he's got," I found myself saying. Bahlzair was certainly giving me the sensation that something was going terribly wrong, but Silveredge stood stunned, shadows wrapping themselves around her as though they were her family.
"Skazhite demona ujti, moj syn. Pojdem so mnoj."
And the one mistake he made was to reach forward in the attempt to touch Aleksei, who seemed somehow smaller than normal. Bahlzair, without a pause or second thought, turned his head and bit the arm that had gone past him. There was a sound of acid on scale, and a sour smell. The Dragonborn reached across his body as though he were going to draw a weapon, but Aleksei did in fact finally turn around. Seeing this, he simply gave Bahlzair a good shake, so that he let go of his arm, and then backed up one step.
"Ona ne demon," Aleksei muttered, drawing just one sword.
"Killing me will not silence the calling that has already carved its name into your soul, Petrinovich. I can see it, can see you. The script is ablaze in your heart even now, even as you fight it. You are still a loyal soldier to holy Tiamat, just as that creature is a Tiefling, an abomination. That will never change."
As though the Dragonborn's words had been a balled fist, Aleksei slightly staggered back a half step.
"It's you the male was fleeing. The threat of justice was too much for him. I see him throwing himself into the arms of death to escape you- I see that through your very eyes. You deny this truth, but you must face it. Now, this female- she has turned your head, has tried to blot the righteous calling from your mind-"
"Nyet," Aleksei managed, his sword lowering slightly. "ja ne ub'et ee."
"You deny the justice of the holy Tiamat in your mother's tongue? Do you not see how far you have fallen? The Nine Hells open their fanged jaws to snap up your soul, my son."
On either side of this prophet gone wrong, Silveredge and Bahlzair were doing some ferocious hand signing. I truly wished I could understand them.
"Come, I will let you and both your slaves pass through, but you must pay-"
"Nyet-" Aleksei replied again, pushed by some strange force to one knee.
"Stop- stop this," I finally said. "I'm not deaf, and I'm not an idiot. If you're worried about me stealing his soul, I can just leave. If I leave, can he pass through with the others? I can-"
And the Dragonborn looked at me.
Looked right at me.
Locked those steel grey eyes onto my own.
In them, I saw great towers of a burning city, with charred bodies, crawling and writhing in pain.
And then I saw nothing.
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