3:3 Sibling rivalry.

Apparently, Shesua certainly had noticed the two women leaving camp the night before.  The next morning, he bound them not only to Aleksei, but to each other, so that they formed a single file line led by Mi'ishaen and ended by Silveredge.  Shesua led Mi'ishaen on a strap far too similar to Niku's for anyone's liking, and Hophni, very much relieved to be physically separated from Aleksei, dropped back with Rafa and Niku.   He made pitiful attempts at conversation, but Shesua didn't have to shush him, as a relatively annoyed Rafa did the honors himself.

Leaving the path that would have lead the group farther north than the swordcaptain wanted to go, Shesua led the group to a swiftly-flowing river that he gruffly assured Aleksei was easier to cross than it appeared.  Rafa admitted with a sigh that the group had brought a small craft with them when they crossed with the cart, but that they had lost it, the cart, and their other two archers when they were first attacked by Semmites.  The embarrassment in his voice and face spoke to inexperience or ineptitude on the part of the soldiers instead of foolhardiness on the part of the commander, so the seasoned Dragonborn soldier merely nodded in response.  Instead of wondering why Shesua hadn't brought more guards, Aleksei began to think about whether his deliverance to Battlemage Ranclyffe was even of an importance high enough to merit it.  If Cormyr was capable of thinking Sembia's attempted repossession of Urmlaspyr only worth fourteen soldiers and a hastily promoted roadcaptain, it was likely that a condemned Dragonborn being dragged over to Suzail for scientific study might only be as important as seven men and an unfortunately obstinate swordcaptain.

The river wasn't very wide, but the water moved powerfully toward the Dragonmere at varying depths, so Shesua decided to make the seven foot Dragonborn useful.  With a warning that either Mi'ishaen or Silveredge would die if any escape attempts were made, he untied the bonds between Aleksei's hands and loaded him up with the bedrolls and packs.  Rafa was tasked with all the confiscated weapons, and Hophni was given charge of the provisions and health potions.  Rafa noted that it might be wiser to allow at least one of the females to help Hophni with the provisions, but Shesua upbraided him for disrespect.  After a pitifully terse apology, the males continued to prepare themselves for the crossing.

When they had all shouldered their respective loads, Shesua waded out into the water and led the group to the places where the river ran relatively shallowly.  Mi'ishaen and Aleksei followed strongly, nearly tugging Silveredge along behind them.  Niku paddled happily as though the strength of the river were a joke, but nearly cost Rafa his balance any time Silveredge seemed as though she would not be able to best the push of the waters.  Nearly overburdened with weapons, it took most of Rafa's strength to keep up with the hound, so he couldn't do more than call out to Shesua when he heard gagging, splashing and sputtering behind him. 

The swordcaptain was disappointed, but somehow less than surprised to hear Rafa's call.  He swam back quickly to take some of the load off Hophni, leaving Mi'ishaen to attempt to get to the shore without knowing where to move without getting swept away.  She, instinctively heading for the powerful roots of some nearby trees, managed to lead Silveredge and Aleksei to the other side without incident.  Niku paddled after Silveredge resolutely, practically ensuring that Rafa would move in the direction Mi'ishaen was going. 

Shesua grabbed the first two packs he could hold off Hophni, but left the Human behind to continue to struggle.  Once Rafa had dropped the weapons on the other bank and untied the strap between himself and Niku, he threw himself back into the water to physically lead the Human to the shore.  Aleksei put down his load and held Niku back from dashing back into the river, so the hound bounced on the banks, barking encouragingly.  Meanwhile, Shesua, who easily reached the shore, discovered that one of the packs that he'd saved held food that was already half-soaked.  With a groan, he realized that most of the health potions that they had just purchased in the two towns were in the packs closest to Hophni's body, submerged with him, and thus probably ruined by dilution of the river water.  When Rafa and Hophni managed to make it to everyone else, Shesua accused Hophni of trying to ensure his own survival without having reguard for any of the others in the group.  Hophni looked to Rafa, who merely shrugged and walked away from commander and compatriot alike with the excuse that both the hound and Aleksei's hands were free.  Hophni was unable to stand up to Shesua alone, and wound up having a few of the ruined potions poured over his head by his enraged commander.

A few hours after they got moving again, the group hit a heavily wooded area, and instead of a march, the pace became a civilian amble.  They covered much less area than they would have with a day's hard march, and when the light of the sun disappeared completely, there was still so much tree coverage that the light of Selune, trail and all, hardly met the ground.  They were forced to make camp, and Shesua ordered that everyone who was not fully in health receive healing.  This was easier said than done for Mi'ishaen, who drank an entire health potion to no apparent effect.

"It might be that Shesua gave you a river water potion," Rafa whispered disgustedly, forcing himself not to look toward the sheepish Hophni.

"No, this is fury of Mishka," Aleksei laughed.  "Her body's acceptance of healing is overruled by disgust with situation."

"The river wasn't easy to cross, and for a moment, you led us," Silveredge soothed, sitting behind Mi'ishaen and putting her head over her shoulder.   Mi'ishaen, who recognized the position, managed to crack a smirk.  "Perhaps it would be good for you to meditate- clear your spirit."

"And how does m'lady believe should I do that?" Mi'ishaen asked, only half joking.

Silveredge sat up straight and wrapped her legs over Mi'ishaen's thighs, resting her ankles on them.  Mi'ishaen's natural stiff-backed posture suddenly softened just a bit, as though the Tiefling realized that she was being difficult to guide.  Encouraged, Silveredge put her bound arms over Mi'ishaen and into her lap, so that the two were as close as they could possibly be.

"Alright, I'm uncomfortable," Mi'ishaen lied with a genuine smile.  "Now what?"


"Master Aric would have us sink deeply into our souls," Silveredge said calmly.  She inhaled deeply after she finished speaking, and Mi'ishaen faced forward, then did the same.  Both women released their breath in a low, steady stream, but after a few beats of shared silence, Mi'ishaen turned her head back over her shoulder.

"That makes no sense to me," she whispered.  "What does he mean by that?"

"He requests that we silence all the outer and inner callings on our beings, making ourselves one with the emptiness of our thoughts.  We thus become neither heavier nor lighter than air," Silveredge replied.

"By the hells," Mi'ishaen retorted, allowing her body to slump even farther forward.  "Sounds like there's probably a whole training session for that bloody nonsense, and it's not for people like me."

"I also am thinking that meditation is good," Aleksei chimed in.  "My blade father is teaching me of what I am saying to you before, the meditation on the killing."  With this, he sat down and contemplated Rafa, who was sharpening his sword.  Hophni, meanwhile, got up from his place on the far right side of the fire to sit on Rafa's left side.

"I mean no offense to your father, but that sounds... counterproductive," Rafa interrupted as he looked up from his sword.  "Why would anyone meditate on people they've killed?"

"Without the consideration of these people's families, their friends, their homeland, the way they are fighting and their faces, there is no understanding, no growing," Aleksei noted as he looked into the heart of the campfire.  "There is no remembrance of kinship between everything that lives.  There is only being murderer."

"That's... a very religious... monkish, actually... thing to say," Rafa mused.  "But I'm afraid I can't imagine you being a monk, ser."

Aleksei threw Rafa a curious smile as his only response.

"I can try to remember how those slavers fought," Silveredge noted, relaxing her arms without unwrapping herself from Mi'ishaen.  "But it was so quick, and random-"

"Well, I can't," Mi'ishaen sighed deeply, feeling Silveredge's body move slightly with her own.  "And I can't remember their faces at all."

"Me neither," Rafa shrugged.

"This is because you are fighting while you are asleep," Aleksei counseled, smiling as he remembered the old lesson.  "When you are awake, your eyes see only the steps of the death dance, and your body sways with it, filled with the song in the blood."

"Oh, gods, Aleksei!" Mi'ishaen charged, flopping herself backward into Silveredge so hard that both women nearly went to the ground.  "You can't tell me you process all that mystical nonsense while you're sopping drunk."

Aleksei chuckled as he considered his bound hands.  "Sometimes, I too am asleep.  But, I am more awake when I am drinking, and more asleep when not."

"Unessmus, Hophni, stop fraternizing with the prisoners," Shesua commanded from the left side of Mi'ishaen and Silveredge.  "We are no friends to them."

"Sir, yes sir," Rafa replied distantly, his eyes wandering someplace else for a few moments. 

Hophni immediately got up and walked back to his place on the right of Aleksei.  Aleksei, for his part, looked up from his hands to Silveredge, whose gaze had also momentarily strayed.  When she felt his attention upon her, she turned carefully to him, searching his look with concern.  Without a beat between this and her decision, she took her arms up over Mi'ishaen and held out her wrists to Rafa.

"Will it please my lord to draw blood?" she asked, her urgency moving powerfully in the passive request.

"No, of course not," Rafa shot back, confused.  "What are you-"

"Bahlzair," Aleksei breathed, looking into the nearby tree tops.  "Please also to cut me free, that I may physically turn him away."

"What are you on about, the pair of you?" Rafa asked with a clear note of alarm.  "Who's this Bahlzair and why would she be here?"

"Never mind expecting the captive to explain himself, Unessmus," Shesua said flatly.  "He and his wives are all mad.  We cut them free, they're liable to take the camp apart themselves- you see how they even fight each other."

"He's male," Mi'ishaen finally corrected, confused.  "Why would you think-"

"I tell you, cut me free," Aleksei repeated.  "Bahlzair is wanting blood- a fresh fight, chaos and your death.  Things like this are pleasure to him."

"Well, I can't blatantly disobey an officer," Rafa frowned, his eyes flitting between the trees and his commander.

Silveredge contemplated her hands for a few moments, then scraped the inside of her left wrist with her right hand.  Drawing blood after the third scratch, she got to her feet and touched blood to the ground in a tight dashed circle, avoiding Aleksei.  But since she and Aleksei were still attached by rope at their hips, she could only go as far as the strap between them would allow.

"Stop at once," Shesua demanded, getting up and putting his hand to the hilt of his blade.

"Don't you dare threaten us," Mi'ishaen replied, her eyes narrowing.

Silveredge stopped moving, closed her eyes and breathed in, listening to everything while creating a silent space within herself.  Just as Shesua began to cross the camp toward her, she dropped her head.  Aleksei's trunk contracted slightly, as though he had been pushed away by a much stronger creature than he, and glorious black wings momentarily appeared at Silveredge's back with their full span extended.  Hophni jumped to his feet, but when Rafa glared at him, he didn't respond any further.

"By Baator," Mi'ishaen spat, jumping to her feet at once.  "What was that?"

"A ward," Silveredge replied with a touch of embarrassment.  "Against evil."

"This... is wise... Shadow Child," Aleksei managed, catching his breath.

Rafa thought quickly, then unrolled the confiscated weapons.  Without a word, he cut the women's ties to Aleksei and put Mi'ishaen's fanged daggers into her hands before Shesua or Hophni could even respond.

"What are you- you're arming them again!" the swordcaptain finally sputtered after Rafa began attempting to untangle Silveredge's spiked chain.

"With respect, Commander," Rafa began,  "the last time we ignored the warning of the Dragonborn and his wives, we walked dead into an acid trap that I myself should have identified at ten paces.  Tymora clearly favors them, and I want to live."

"I got the perimeter; you coming, Edge?" Mi'ishaen began as she cut the bond between herself and Silveredge with one of her daggers.

"Better that I take the center, so please our lords," Silveredge replied, noticing the shortening of her name to a tag.  "My weapon has reach."

"You give a fig for what they say?  If you want center, take it," Mi'ishaen commanded, shamelessly stripping off her dress in favor of the armor that had been in her confiscated pack.  Hophni watched her metamorphosis with a strange, childlike wonder.  "Armor?"

"No," Silveredge admitted as she watched Rafa undo Niku's strap without cutting it.  "Hampers spells."

"Fine.  Rafa?"

Just as Rafa looked up to respond, Shesua stepped forward and smacked Mi'ishaen's still-bare shoulder with the flat of his sword.  "Who commands here, you or I?"

Neither Rafa nor Mi'ishaen had time to reply before a suddenly vengeful Aleksei stood up and moved to elbow the swordcaptain in the face. Rafa blinked, not wanting to draw his sword against the Dragonborn without witnessing an unprovoked aggressive move from him.

"Never will you do this again," Aleksei breathed, his words striking the warm air as visible puffs of chill wind, "or I promise you, you will answer me."

"Commander, with respect," Rafa offered from behind Aleksei as he got to his feet.  Niku padded away from him toward Silveredge, at the center of the camp.  "You hit the male's wife.  While she was top-naked-"

Just as he spoke, a glistening stream of noxious arrows soared from the right side of the camp toward him, slashing at his uncovered face and soaking into his armor.  Surprised, Rafa gagged as he began looking for whatever trap he believed he set off.  Hophni, meanwhile, was visibly stranded between helping Rafa and defending Shesua against Aleksei.

"No trap; fresh spell," Silveredge pronounced from her central location.  "From my left, left!"

Niku shot off like an arrow, eyes and ears alert.  Mi'ishaen finished buckling her armor and looked in the direction the dog had gone, frowning with the attempt to think of Bahlzair's next move.  Without any idea of his motive, she quickly remembered that he seemed pleased to attack anyone.

"This is his challenge," Aleksei snorted, his tone wavering between warning and threatening.  "You do not know how to answer him.  Free me, or you will die."

"I fear neither spells nor threats," Shesua responded, bringing his sword between the Dragonborn and himself.  Aleksei closed his eye and turned his head to his right while exhaling deeply.

Silveredge noted Hophni's utter dismay and decided to prevent him from scaling a tree only to possibly find the assailant there.  She moved from the center of the camp to bodily force the trembling archer into the protective circle she'd made, then turned to Rafa, who had not moved since the acid arrows assailed him.

"Truly I may destroy this place," Aleksei admitted.

"Then why should I free you?" Shesua shot back, his voice thinning into a hissing whisper.  "You are a soldier, and know what it is to take captives.  Would you do as you are asking me, were I such a danger?"

Mi'ishaen successfully caught sight of the elusive dark Elf before Niku did, but made the mistake of trying to climb the tree in which he was perched.  As she bounded for the first low branch of a nearby tree with the intent of swinging herself up to him, he unleashed a sticky mass of threads at her that she wasn't fast enough to completely avoid.  Caught by her tail and one hoof, the Tiefling lost control of her upswing and flopped upside down so that her back was instantly stuck fast in the same web.  The bough on which she'd swung came down with her, but only tore away enough of the web to leave both arms and one leg free.  Niku ran around in a large circle for a full minute, distracted by the attack.

"Where is my brother?  Did you find him?  He will look like midnight and smell like burned eggs," Silveredge reminded, looking up from Rafa momentarily.  The hound shot off into the trees, pausing at times to put his nose to the ground.

"Brother?" Rafa managed, completely unheard by anyone but the Shadar-kai in front of him.  Frowning, she refocused on him and poured more of the precious health potion down his irritated throat.

"He is my answer, as I am his," Aleksei muttered.  "I know why is he asking me to fight him now, when I am least ready to answer his call, but I must not let myself fall to the power that coos so sweetly in his ears."

The unmistakable silver pact dagger sung across Silveredge's turned back, headed for the cowering Hophni.  Mi'ishaen, who could do little else but watch, saw the thing stop midair at the border of Silveredge's ward, gleam an inexplicable crimson, then drop to the ground.  Silveredge shivered at the touch of the poison on the thing, but managed to keep working.  Niku gave up tracking Bahlzair and soared back to her, sniffing at Hophni's packs in the attempt to find more good potions.

"Hey-" Mi'ishaen called.  As she did, the blade seemed to pick itself straight up, then fly back toward the direction from which it came.

Aleksei noticed the gleam from the corner of his eye and turned to try to see Bahlzair, but Shesua immediately moved in front of him.

"No," Shesua said flatly, holding his sword at the ready.  "You are not going anywhere out of bonds or my sight.  For all I know, this is a coordinated attack, planned to set you free.  I'm not having it, ser."

Mi'ishaen finally won herself free of the web with her wriggling, and fell on all fours to the ground.  As she picked herself up, she noted an unrecognizable male moving toward the area with a drawn bow and a crouching animal of some sort.

"Edge!" she called at once.  "Company!"

"Niku, strangers!" Silveredge called, again looking up from Rafa for a few seconds.  When she forced her blurring eyes to refocus, she finally decided the Rafa's wounds would require the use of the entire health potion.  She sat him up on a tree and began to try to convince him to drink it on his own.  Meanwhile, a streak of light tan and red shot away from its search for potions to fly beyond the Tiefling.  Surprisingly enough, the animal accompanying the figure held its position even as the hound ran toward it, barking all the way.

"I am more than able to free myself, but you are not wanting to see this," Aleksei managed, a growl not far from his voice.  "Too cheaply are you selling the lives of those following you."

"Who are you to tell me this?" Shesua hissed.  "You try your hand at distracting me- you shall not prevail, though you have the tongue of a demon."

"Beware," Aleksei warned as he rolled some stiffness out of his neck and shoulders.  "It is respect that speaks to you, not inability."  He took a single step toward the swordcaptain before an arrow split the air between the two males, missing the leathery side of Aleksei's chest by inches.  Shesua assumed that Hophni had finally found courage enough to do his job, and thought nothing of it, but Aleksei paused to smell the air around him.

The silver pact blade split the air again, intended for Rafa, but deflected when Silveredge moved into its path.  Instead of striking the side of the guard's neck, it sliced the length of Silveredge's lower arm before losing its momentum and falling in front of her.  Feeling the effects of Bahlzair's poison much more keenly this time, Silveredge lost her balance and toppled from her kneeling position to the ground.  Rafa, powered more by the desire to get his healer out of harm's way than the effects of the actual attempted healing itself, managed to drag himself and Silveredge into the protective ward she'd drawn.  The blade picked itself up and flew back the direction it came again, and Hophni at last darted out of the protective circle, only to have Mi'ishaen run to grab him.

"Where the hell is your weapon, you useless sack of rat shit?" she spat, annoyed.  "There IS an archer this time!"

"Stand down- this instant!" Shesua demanded, realizing that he was practically alone against Aleksei.  "I'll run you through where you stand!"  But the Dragonborn merely turned toward the direction from which the pact blade had come.  Shesua moved to put his sword edge directly under Aleksei's throat, and Aleksei watched as a recognizable figure fell silently from a bough a few trees behind the swordcaptain.

In the mind of the Dragonborn, no one in the world existed outside of he and the figure, and he sighed deeply as the ache in his chest throbbed miserably within him.  "Do what you dare, but I will answer you."

The world danced around Silveredge's glazing eyes with a sick green cast, but the bauble above her right wrist seemed to somehow dig an extra inch into the arm, sending an agonizing pain up her entire side.  She opened and closed the hand slowly as she looked into its cobalt center as though enchanted by it.  Rafa pawed through Hophni's bags, but found only ruined health potions.  Worse, Niku immediately deserted whatever confrontation he'd enjoined, bounding toward Silveredge as though she'd called him.  A smaller, leaner dog ran into the camp after him, only to be turned upon once Niku arrived at Silveredge's side.  He pounced on the leaner, shorter creature, keeping it away from Silveredge with frenzied snaps and slashes.

Mi'ishaen pushed Hophni toward the direction from which Niku had run, and as she lifted her gaze to show the reluctant guard the place where she'd seen the figure, she was struck by the clear sight of an intense eyed, dark brown haired archer.  The male was focused on a point at Mi'ishaen's right, and the Tiefling didn't want to think twice about what he could be aiming at.  She hopped up, turned in the air, and kicked at Hophni with both hooves, leaving herself to fall straight down onto her outstretched legs and folded arms without being able to see whether her hunch had been correct or not.  When the offending archer's dog was suddenly distracted enough to allow herself to be grabbed by the back of the neck and thrown back into a tree, however, Mi'ishaen felt that she'd gotten a satisfactory answer.

Most useful he's been all day, she thought to herself as she surrendered her weight to the ground for a moment.

As Aleksei turned at the dull thud of Hophni's body hitting the ground, the dark figure moved with an easy, feline grace behind the swordcaptain.

"No!" a male voice hollered from beyond Mi'ishaen, prompting Aleksei to search the area for its source.

And Bahlzair quickly covered Shesua's mouth with a firm hand, bringing his re-poisoned pact blade across his exposed neck like a concert level cellist would draw her bow across her instrument.

The archer left his position to run down to Hophni's body, checking for life.  Mi'ishaen finally sat up and noticed that the arrow clearly intended for Aleksei's shoulder was just low enough to split the middle of Hophni's skull.  She couldn't help but laugh sharply, gaining the archer's furious glare.

"What's funny about this?!" he spat in an anguished voice.  "This man-"

Aleksei listened for the cessation of Shesua's pitiful gagging, then turned himself around, staring into Bahlzair's triumphant eyes.  The dark Elf held Shesua's tortured face next to his own as tenderly as a lover would, a pleased smile slowly spreading across his face.

"You are making him die much too quickly," Aleksei chuckled, a bitter smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.  "It cannot be that you are killing me this way."  With a deep grunt, he snapped the ropes that held his wrists.  Bahlzair allowed Shesua's body to finally slide free of his arms, but Aleksei didn't waste a moment looking at it.  As the shocked archer set another arrow from his position beside Hophni, Aleksei launched a powerful unarmed assault against Bahlzair.

"Which one are you going to shoot?" Mi'ishaen dared, rolling over and preparing to attack.

The question gave the archer pause, and in his moment of indecision, his gaze caught the blood red eyes of the dark Elf.  Seconds afterward, a barrage of foul arrows hissed toward him- though most of them missed him when he slacked his bow and ducked, the ones that connected burned like liquid fire on his skin.  Mi'ishaen waited around him for a few beats, mentally comparing his response to Rafa's as though she'd been an acolyte of the Bone College.

The fight was short, but charged- Bahlzair got his pact knife slapped away from him, sustained multiple punches, and was at last victim to a thunderous head butt.  He responded to the last move by spitting in Aleksei's right eye, but as the Dragonborn released him and dropped to one knee, he noticed Mi'ishaen running toward them both.  Figuring she was merely over-concerned about Aleksei's one functional eye, he prepared to summon his pact blade to his hand.  Mi'ishaen wasn't thinking of Aleksei's eye, however.  She had merely became curious about a permutation of the move she'd just tried on Hophni.

Vaulting off Aleksei's back, Mi'ishaen pushed her body sideways as she aimed her hooves for Bahlzair's face.  The move connected beautifully, though a bit off target, and the dark Elf crumbled to the ground with his arms wrapped around his struck chest.  Mi'ishaen again landed fully stretched out and had to roll over to get up.  Aleksei, very much like Stone, hadn't been bothered at all, but his eye was too irritated to even re-open the first lid.  Bahlzair pushed himself to stand as quickly as possible, then nodded his bleeding head in encouragement as a slew of sticky threads appeared at his hands and threw themselves at Mi'ishaen.  They pushed her back to the nearest tree and pinned her there, with her back to the entire group, but she had an excellent view of Bahlzair disappearing into the trees beyond the nearly-destroyed camp.

"What are you- what the-" she called after him.  "Where are you going?!?"

"Does anyone need healing?" the archer asked, getting to his feet with difficulty as he attempted to understand what he'd just witnessed.

"Here," Rafa croaked.  "That beast's poison's been almost the end of this female."

Niku whined at Silveredge's feet until the archer staggered toward her- then he jumped to his feet and began growling like a savage beast.  The archer's dog, who had suffered one pounce too many, attempted to get up to counter, but the archer reached over and pushed her hind joints down with his hand to compel her to sit.

"Knock it off, Valeria; he's only worried about her," he said as he put his other hand out to Niku.  "I'm not going to hurt her, boy.  I want to help- good boy, now.  What a good boy- loves mommy, yes, he does.  Good boy loves mommy."

Silveredge didn't move a muscle, but the hound suddenly stopped growling.  He padded carefully forward, sniffed at the archer, then sat down and put his head on his paws as he watched the two Humans slowly move the Shadar-kai's limp body to a treatable position.  The archer produced a health potion, and Rafa didn't think to ask any questions about it.

"Aleksei, how's your eye?" Mi'ishaen asked, trying to wriggle her way free of the web.

"It is very much burning," Aleksei replied.  "I am thinking soon it will be lost, too."

After ensuring that Silveredge was swallowing the health potion instead of just letting it pool in her mouth, Rafa pushed himself to his feet.  Grabbing one of the health potions that had been thinned by river water, he slowly made his way to Aleksei and got it into his hand.

"May not heal it," he managed with a tight chuckle, "but at least it'll stop the burning, won't it?  Here- lie flat."

The green mists, which had almost overtaken Silveredge's sight entirely, began to dissipate, and she felt the remains of a slightly-sweet substance in her mouth.  Her eyes widened in horror, and an unknown male face smiled widely before her.

"The...last..." she whispered, finding her throat sticky and unresponsive.

"No- tell her no," Rafa called as he quickly doused Aleksei's barely open eye with the watery potion.  "Our last proper health potion was the one she used on me.  Where's Mi'ishaen?"

"Over here," Mi'ishaen groaned.  "Stuck to this damned tree, or I would have been down there lending a hand, don't you think?"

"You?  Help anyone?  That'll be the day," Rafa muttered, watching Aleksei's second eyelid rapidly open and close.  "Gods, but that's scary, ser."

"This is part of being now more kin to dragons than to Humans," Aleksei grunted in a pained voice.  "It is not much feeling better, but I am seeing kind of grey shapes.  There is maybe still little healing in the potions."

"Right; I'll get another.  Thank Tymora they're good for something," Rafa managed as he got himself back to his feet.

"Just gonna let me hang here- fine," Mi'ishaen sighed.  "How's Silveredge?"

"What was that creature anyway?" the archer asked as he tested Silveredge's ability to follow his fingers with her eyes.  "And this one's much better, miss."  With great effort, he forced himself back to his feet again.

"That creature is Bahlzair," Aleksei replied.

"We know him," Mi'ishaen added.  "If I see him again, I'll kill him."

"This is what he is hoping for, yes," Aleksei laughed as Rafa returned with another ruined potion.  "Ah- that one is stinging almost worse than what already is here."

"Well, either there's more river water in here than there was in the last one, or there's more of the actual potion in here than there was in the last one," Rafa shrugged.  "Either of those is better than acid or poison, so-"

"These two are dead," the archer frowned, leaning close into Shesua to check his breath.  "We'll have to take their weapons back to their families."

"You must be joking," Rafa scoffed, sitting back on his ankles.  "There is no way I'm going to take Hophni's bow back to-"

"If that coward hadn't died, I'd've killed him myself!" Mi'ishaen interrupted, hollering loud enough for her voice to carry through the trees.

"You're a pitiful excuse for a Cormyrean soldier!" the archer cried at once as he wearily sat down on the ground.  "Is there no mettle in you, no dash of valor, no flash of courtesy?  What would you, have his father think his son alive and lost somewhere?  No indeed; we must with all haste put the man's bow directly into his father's hands- his, and no other's."

"Oh gods- fine, take it up," Rafa groaned as he got up to cut Mi'ishaen down from the tree.  "Ser, how fare you?"

"It must be that there is more potion than river water," Aleksei replied, sitting up and blinking both lids in slow succession.  "I am now seeing color, though still everything is blurry.  There is no more burning."

"What happened to your other eye!?" the archer asked, taken aback.

Mi'ishaen flopped to the ground like a rag doll, and felt a very uncomfortable tingling in her extremities.  Rafa, noting that her movements were ginger and slow, got under her right shoulder and helped her back toward Silveredge.

"It is lost many years ago," Aleksei replied simply.  "I am never remembering that maybe it is not looking pleasant to others until someone is responding like that."

"One day we'll get you a patch," Mi'ishaen laughed as she sat down with a thud.  Niku, who didn't understand the concept of blood circulation, immediately plopped himself in her lap.  She rolled her eyes, but figured it would be better for her to rub out her stiffness than for Niku to curl up with the still-lethargic Silveredge.

"Who are you?" Rafa demanded, now noticing the arrow that had been the end of Hophni.  "You killed this bugger yourself, and you want me to cart his bow back to his family!"

"If it weren't for a miscalculation on this female's part," the archer explained gallantly, "he wouldn't have died.  I'm certain she meant to merely deflect the arrow with his armor, but unfortunately, I was aiming higher than she expected.  You know how it is when the fairer bodies try to read the murky field of battle."

"Oh, sod off!" Mi'ishaen spat.  "What you see there is the most defending that brave and powerful example of a Cormite ever did, and I'm more for slitting your throat than for painting my dainty nails, you bloody prancer."

"So says that delicate dress you're wearing, certainly," the archer replied with an eyebrow pulled high on his brow.  "Pray give the man's weapons back; be they never so unsuited to his hands, he must have them."

"They're not mine- nor the Dragonborn's neither," Rafa answered, crossing his arms.  "They do belong to the lady what holds them, so knock it off and tell me- oh.  Oh, for- ugh.  I command you, by the seal of the Dragon imprinted over my heart, that you unfold to me your title and your business in this land."

"By all the devils in Baator," Mi'ishaen moaned, allowing herself to fall backward onto the ground.  Silveredge laughed lightly, and Niku bounded up to turn himself in tight, excited circles.  Across the camp, the smaller dog began barking.

"Shush, girl- that's my dog, Valeria, and I am Iordyn Raibeart the Younger, son of Lionar Yesha and Lady Hanna Raibeart of Marsember," the archer replied as he got to his feet to render a bow.  "I do gladly make your acquaintance, good ser."

"Blade Rafael Unessmus of Moonever," Rafa said as he gave a small bow.  "Swordcaptain Shesua was leading seven of us, at the start, having left half his power in stocks... for incompetence in training... the Crown perhaps ought to have sent a different batch altogether.  This prisoner, Ser Aleksei Voyonov, was sent for by a battlemage in Suzail, and those- Mi'ishaen and Silveredge- are his wives.  They aren't technically prisoners at all, and came along with him because no one told them that their husband was about to be carried off to Cormyr.  I'd be embarrassed at their treatment so far, but they've made the best of it- done better than the rest of these, obviously."

"We shall, in good time, consider all these things," Iordyn nodded as he sat back down gracelessly.  "But presently, we must rest.  On the morrow, we go at once to make your superiors to know of this tragic venture.  Have you the power of the written word?"

An uncomfortable silence ensued, and Mi'ishaen rolled her eyes.

"I have," Silveredge offered quietly, "if my lord does not."

"Can you wait five minutes from death's door before doing something for someone else?" Mi'ishaen groaned.  "Not ten minutes awake together, and you're hiring yourself out for people who treat you like- you and this nutty half-blind sponge will buy my death with frustration!"

"Maybe I am telling you of how I am coming to be guard in Urmlaspyr," Aleksei smirked when Silveredge looked at him quizzically.

"I command but few words, my lady," Rafa admitted with a wan smirk.  "And those all found in the prayer books.  I shall welcome your help- but I'll respect the first wife, as you do.  I'll not have you bound up to myself, and I won't have screaming matches with you.  The male what did that kind of fuckery is dead."

"If she's going to write your missives, you're going to pay her," Mi'ishaen stated flatly.

"That's fair," Rafa shrugged.  "What says you, my lady?"

"What you will give me, so please the most beloved, I will gratefully accept," Silveredge smiled.

Mi'ishaen balked at the new title, an unexplained blush warming her cheeks.

"Well, then, this sweet siren shall be your arm," Iordyn grandly proclaimed.  "My lady, you shall have Marsember before Suzail, for it's just across this next waterway.  When you've reached it, you can send off your lord's word and wait for orders.  I shall go with you all."

"Oh, gods defend us," Rafa groaned.

"No, don't keep praying that," Mi'ishaen urged.  "I think they're making sport of doing the opposite every time you ask."

3:2 Taking counsel.

Shesua was a man of his word.

The battered group kept up with his furious march through that evening and most of the next day, crossing back out of swamp land and into the more familiar grassland that they had been dealing with before.  Deciding to return to the road that had been previously avoided, Shesua led them through through two small towns where the inhabitants nervously kept to themselves upon seeing Purple Dragon escorts.  Hophni was sent into the small general stores to purchase health potions, extra food and water with what was left of their rationed money, but the time his errands took was all that was taken to sit or stand still.  By the time Shesua himself was tired of the frenzied pace, the salty smell of the sea overpowered nearly everything else, brought in by a pleasant breeze swept off a relatively nearby body of water that Rafa referred to as the Dragonmere.

The group made camp on a small grassy knoll just barely higher than the flatland around it.  Shesua insisted that Hophni be tied to Aleksei, Niku be tied to Rafa, and that both females remain with him.  Mi'ishaen violently objected, and was tied hand and foot instead, but Silveredge laid down with Shesua as though she'd always been his mate.  Aside from Rafa muttering to Aleksei that he'd probably kill Shesua if he were forced to allow his wife to be separated from him that way, there were no further complaints made.  There was a terse silence at first, but after a little more than a half hour, sleep visited most of the group.

Except for Mi'ishaen.

Both of her daggers had been confiscated, along with the rest of her belongings.  She looked over at Shesua, who had rolled her satchel up into his pillow and put her weapons into his pack.  When she was certain that he was no longer merely floating between waking and sleeping, she scrunched her upper body as close as she could to her thighs.  She breathed out and began to slide her bound arms under her tail and backside, fighting hard not to inhale too deeply.  Once she reached her knees, she folded her legs and forced one hoof through her arms at a time, rolling onto the ground momentarily as she did so.  A few grimace-laced attempts got her arms in front of her body, where she wasted no time in picking and biting the rope bonds apart.  In a little more than twenty minutes, she was completely free.


High on the parapets of Letherna, where the dim light from the braziers reflected in the thick, crystaline icicles without melting the thick surrounding pools of ice, Silveredge sat in utter silence.  Eyes closed and legs crossed, the Shadar-kai lifted her opened palms up from her bare thighs as she breathed in.  She held her breath for a few moments when her lungs had completely filled and her palms had reached the height of her shoulders, then released it as she turned her palms outward and pushed her arms away from the center of her body.  The tranquil sensation of complete inner balance lasted for the kind of eternity that fit into a single second, and Silveredge relished the delicacy of it, until she felt the brush of distinctly familiar wings at her back.


With a sharp intake of breath, she awoke into the reality of the moonlit night, then sat up as quietly as she could.  Niku, whose store-bought strap was much shorter and stronger than the previous one had been, rested on top of Aleksei.  Since the Dragonborn was turned on his side, the hound had perched himself precariously on one thick, scaly arm with his paws hanging down on either side.  Rafa had turned himself in the other direction, forced by Niku to be nearly back-to-back with Aleksei, but seemed at least relatively comfortable with all his plate armor still on his body.  Hophni was curled into a strange ball with his armor laid to one side, and seemed to have trouble breathing.  Either he or his charge made sure that they were as far apart from each other as the strap between them permitted them to be.

Silveredge studied the strap that was holding her to Shesua for a few moments, then made the muscle of her thumb as flat as she could.  With a bit of gentle tugging, she -pulled the knotted rope up and over her entire hand without undoing it, intending to simply slip it back on when she returned to the roadcaptain's side.  She got up to see about Hophni, but paused when she heard a thump from some distance away.  Her weapons had been confiscated by Rafa, but she listened for the source of the sound anyway.

I am a weapon, she reminded herself with a slow, cleansing breath.

The sound did not repeat, but other whispered movements did.  Carefully tracking them brought her to a scarlet whirlwind of movement nearly five hundred yards away from the camp.  Silveredge didn't have to think twice about what it was.


Mi'ishaen noticed the approach, and so was less than surprised to see Silveredge suddenly step into the way of her practice strikes.  Like two dancers in a piece so familiar that neither one had to even open their eyes as they moved, the Tiefling and the Shadar-kai fought with a new and seamless grace.  Mi'ishaen soon learned that Silveredge had learned to remain closer to the ground, protecting her soft and easily-punctured places with precise blocks.  Silveredge noticed that Mi'ishaen had honed her natural athleticism, springing, flipping and turning like a circus performer so that she was difficult to hit at all, and that her strikes came from daring angles.  One of them caught her in the back of her ribs, prompting her to sit down for a few moments as she recovered.  Mi'ishaen's movement ceased immediately, and she thumped to the ground.

"I woke you up," she breathed as she pulled some stray hairs away from her nose and mouth.

"I had a disturbing dream," Silveredge managed, rubbing the soreness out of the struck area.  "I would have woken up eventually."

"What was the dream about?" Mi'ishaen asked, scooting over to help Silveredge massage the area.

"I- was remembering," Silveredge replied with a distant tone.  "When whoever it was held the master ring.... I was beginning to remember what happened, somehow.  But I could only go so far.  Afterward, I dreamed of meditation- as though I were doing it."

Mi'ishaen put her head over Silveredge's shoulder so that their cheeks could have touched each other.  "What was that like?  With the whole ring thing"

"Like nothing," the Shadar-kai sighed.  "Whoever held it didn't give me a command, and did not know what they were holding, so everything just went blank.  But they may get it appraised, soon.  Any decent mage will recognize the spell."

"We're going to find that ring," Mi'ishaen stated definitely, getting up and rolling her head from one side to another.

Silveredge looked up, then got up herself, shaking her muscles free of their momentary rest.  "And I will thank you."

"Sure, when we find it."

Silveredge sunk low to the ground, spreading her arms slowly.  Mi'ishaen, remembering the kobolds' mistake, flipped herself up and over the crouching Shadar-kai to try to win another strike to the back.  Silveredge leaned back and caught Mi'ishaen's leg in mid-air, but had to let go and roll out of the way when Mi'ishaen picked up her other leg in the effort to catch her neck or arms underneath her weight.  The two scrambled up quickly, then poured themselves into fighting again.

"You- can talk- to me, you know," Silveredge managed between parries.

"Not everything needs talking about," Mi'ishaen replied simply.  Her strikes glanced away from Silveredge's counters, but when the Shadar-kai countered one of the attempted strikes by planting a punch on the inside of her shoulder, the two backed away from each other for a few moments.

"Would you rather it distract you?" Silveredge breathed as the two circled each other like stalking animals.  "It's the weight of your mind, not the acid spray, that disturbed you so thoroughly in the swamp.  That slaver could have killed-"

"We're just sparring," Mi'ishaen shot back, charging at Silveredge with a chambered punch.

Silveredge grabbed Mi'ishaen's leading arm with one hand and put her other hand behind her shoulder, easily pushing her down to the ground.  The Shadar-kai immediately stood to her full height and turned her back on the grounded Tiefling.

"We have never 'just sparred,' " she said pointedly.

Mi'ishaen sat up on her knees for a few moments, watching Silveredge move away from her as though she would return to the camp.  A deep sigh slumped her shoulders and dropped her head, but it also stopped Silveredge from continuing to leave.

"You're right."  With a low grunt, Mi'ishaen rolled forward and sprung back into a fighting stance.   "Come back here- training be damned."

Silveredge turned quickly in response, and the two paused for a split second.  Calm silver eyes met stormy crimson ones, then fluttered closed.

"I am for you, mistress."

"Damn right."

With new found energy, the two women threw themselves at each other.  For no less than ten minutes, they threw grace and form to the winds- faces were slapped, hair was pulled and open skin was bitten without shame.  After an attempted choke hold that only won Mi'ishaen another powerful toss to the ground, the two circled each other again, panting, bleeding and bruised.

"Does it hurt enough?" Silveredge dared, not much of her natural voice coming through.

Mi'ishaen launched into a flurry of vicious straight punches.  "Why- why can't mages leave the past where it belongs?  Gone- dead- buried?"

Silveredge fought hard to block the strikes as she replied.  "The gods- give us- talents- and- expect us- to- use them."

"Screw the gods!" Mi'ishaen hollered, unleashing two wild-armed slaps.  One was blocked, but another snapped Silveredge's head to the right with its severity.  "If they exist at all, they do nothing for us mere mortal scum!"

"If there are no gods," Silveredge charged, stopping the third slap and stepping in to Mi'ishaen to deliver a low punch, "or rather, if they do not care, then perhaps it is some cosmic revenge for my mother's poor choices that spat magic in my blood- or simple bad luck that breathed the whispers of the dead into Seyashen's soul."

"What?" Mi'ishaen choked as she crumpled to the ground.  "No- it doesn't make sense for one person's bad actions to affect their children, and I'm talented, not lucky.  Losing both parents and a brother is not lucky at all."

Silveredge dropped to her knees, putting Mi'ishaen's face between her hands.  "Then, if there are no gods, no cosmic retribution and no luck, is there nothing but chaos?  Has every thing- every action, every word, every opportunity- been merely part of a series of mindless accidents?  The result of unknown, unseen and uncared for things tirelessly crashing into each other, day by day, age after age, until our existence was formed from the void?"

"I don't know," Mi'ishaen conceded at last, throwing herself backward onto the ground.  "How should I know?  Ugh, that old man in the catacombs took a toll on you."

"Yes- I suppose he has."  Silveredge thought about that statement for a few moments, then slowly crawled toward Mi'ishaen, pulling the stray hairs back up out of her face again.   The Tiefling trustingly closed her eyes, which seemed to Silveredge as good as an acceptance of her unspoken apology.

"Seyashen walks burdened, I know, with conjuration and necromancy.  Those two schools do not usually prefer each other in the same mage," she continued, lying down next to Mi'ishaen with her head on her chest.  "Yet, it seems that he can do no other than obey those forces, for if he denies them, then they will tear apart his sanity.  Now, if we will believe him, then we believe that the dead retain those feelings they had while alive.  If they feel as we do, then they may also push those feelings down, as we do, ignoring them until they are too powerful to contain.  If this is so, then perhaps your brother was at last so stricken with his grief that he could not help but compel Seyashen to speak for him, against even his better judgement.  He must well know how little stock you put in the words of mages, even those mages that share your blood."

"I can't- I just can't- ugh." Mi'ishaen put her hands over her face and sighed deeply, and Silveredge listened closely to the breath in her lungs.  "I don't know what to do.  With what he said- any of it."

"He told you to your face what your brother was like- told you the name and the temperament of a male he's never met.  And from the look of you as you asked those questions afterward, he answered every one of them correctly.  Further, think of the caravan," Silveredge pointed out.  "Who told Seyashen these men were coming for Aleksei?"

Mi'ishaen rolled over on her belly, laying her forehead on her arms as Silveredge sat up.  "Maybe there was talk about town?"

After a few moments of silence, Silveredge reached over and began to undo Mi'ishaen's braid, marveling at the how thick and heavy the hair was.  "Maybe there was.  And maybe Iaden told him.  And maybe some demon or god who desired to addle your brains whispered it in his ear- we don't know.  Maybe it is enough, for now, to simply accept that he told you because he knew you would want to know.  It is good that you have one family member alive that cares very deeply about you- and if you like, I will write to him for you."

There was a very long pause, and Silveredge closed her eyes as she laid her hands back in her own lap.  She was surprised to feel her messy braid being taken apart.

"Sorry.  About... your sisters.  And your mother, too."

Silveredge opened her eyes and turned around to find that the Tiefling had sat up as well.  Her fingers trailed in the silver hair without coming out of it, since it was so long, and Silveredge gazed deeply into her earnest eyes as she put her own light blue fingers into the midnight black hair that now fell over Mi'ishaen's shoulders.

"Hey- hey!"

Both females looked around to notice Rafa and Niku.  The hound bowed his head and chest to the ground, picking his stub of a tail as high up into the air as he could to wag it.  Mi'ishaen was surprised he wasn't bouncing around and barking, but Silveredge smiled at him knowingly.

"Come back, won't you?  I don't know what you were doing, but you made quite a racket," Rafa urged.  "You're lucky that Hophni has no manhood and that Shesua sleeps so deeply, or one of them would have come."

And without explanation or complaint, the two battle-warmed women got up to follow the male and the dog.

"You both look a wreck- I won't ask."

A Virtuous Quest 3:1 Harmony

Swordcaptain Shesua avoided the road that led straight from Urmlaspyr up to Daerlun, desiring instead to take a lesser-known foot path through the plains just to the north of the city.  The city was close enough to be heard and smelled, though too far to see, and there were few plants much larger than bushes. 

In addition to the four soldiers that were bound to Aleksei, one guard had his hands full attempting to escort Mi'ishaen, who would not allow him to get within two feet of her.  Shesua himself kept Silveredge near him, and put Niku on a makeshift strap whose lead he would not let her hold.  Silveredge had looked at the strap and lead with a vague trace of concern when Niku was first bound, but did not say a word about it.  Allowing Mi'ishaen's guard to lead the party, Shesua called orders from the rear when necessary.

The march was mostly silent.  What few pleasantries were passed came from the Purple Dragons themselves, and were addressed to each other only to be shushed by Shesua.  Because he demanded a double-time marching pace, he had expected more complaint from the captives, and was surprised to hear not a single note of weariness from them.  Silveredge didn't know how to march properly, but jogged along in good spirits.  Mi'ishaen refused to keep any sort of proper form, and kept speeding up or slowing down at her own whim, only barely hampered by her harried escort.  Shesua heard more murmurs from one of Aleksei's guards, who was vaguely annoyed about marching so quickly in a full set of heavy plate armor.

The group cut an easy path through the plains, but had to slow down when the terrain began to change.  The ground became muddy with occasional pools of water, and tall, slender trees began to grow more and more numerous.  Their strange, lanky roots bored through the soggy land like harpists' fingers, and were covered with shaggy moss.  Approximately an hour after the change of scenery, as the sun ran before them to sink below the horizon, Aleksei began looking around and studying his surroundings.

"The air is changing," he muttered, as though there were some nearby monster he did not want to rouse.  "Please to be careful."

"We tread in swamp land now, Voyonov," Shesua explained simply.  "Thou hast had the odor of at least one in thy lifetime, I trust?"

"Watch out for ambushes, you idiot," Mi'ishaen shot, rolling her eyes.  "There's cover."

"You walk now in Cormyr," Shesua stated slowly, as though speaking to a simple person.  "and Cormite soldiers are trained-"

"Yeah, trained soldiers that got their asses handed to them by Semmite slavers, I thank m'lord for reminding me," Mi'ishaen scoffed.  "He warned you.  Whatever happens to you now is your own fault."

Silveredge bit her lips and lowered her head, but Aleksei was too focused on sweeping the area to respond to Mi'ishaen.  Every breath of air that passed his snout made it twitch.  His ears- two membrane-covered burrows on the sides of his head similar to those an iguana would have- caught the whispers of careful footsteps.  Concerned, he dropped to a slow march, and the four guards that were attached to him rapidly discovered that they had only been able to maintain a fast pace because he had wanted to do so.  No amount of pulling from any of them could coerce him into moving more quickly than he chose to go.

"Get moving," Shesua warned from behind them as he closed the space between them rapidly.  "Whatever foul plan thou thinkest upon, Dragonborn, I pray thee leave it rest, or thou shalt buy the death of the one bit of baggage."

"Did you just call me baggage?" Mi'ishaen shot back, pausing to look at the swordcaptain behind her.  Behind the party, running the length of his strap and bouncing around at the end of it, Niku began growling his discontent.

"As thou dost comport thyself, so shall I call thee," Shesua replied with a snort, pulling at the strap so that Niku nearly choked himself.  "And the scorn of an untrained mutt shall not move me."

Mi'ishaen looked at Silveredge immediately, but the Shadar-kai didn't respond.  She was utterly focused on pinpointing just what could have displeased Niku so thoroughly, but saw something else entirely.  On one of the nearby tree trunks, she noticed an image similar to that which Seyashen had once drawn on the ship to Urmlaspyr.  Thinking over Seyashen's abilities, she paused, trying to recall just what his ward- for the image had seemed very ward-like to her- was supposed to do.

The frustrated soldier who was supposed to be escorting Mi'ishaen finally decided to ignore her, and continued to move forward.  By the time a quiet hiss caught the Tiefling's ears, it was much too late to warn him.  Five ward-like images glowed on surrounding tree trunks, and a foul smelling green mist immediately filled the air.  It was impossible to see through, it stung the nose and throat, and it irritated any exposed flesh.  Mi'ishaen's guard dropped to his knees instantly, hit full force by the noxious fumes and completely overcome by a furious coughing fit.  Mi'ishaen threw herself to the ground and covered her face with the bottom of her dress, but still hacked and gagged.  Aleksei's first two guards staggered back a few steps, but he and the two guards at his sides were spared such intensity. 

Shesua watched Mi'ishaen's sentry go down with a sharp pang in his chest.  "Get down!" he barked at once, dropping to his knees with his eyes closed.  "Take cover!"

All the soldiers did as they had been commanded, getting as close to the soggy earth as they could.  Aleksei knelt down to allow the guards attached to him to get as far down as possible, but heard something moving through the mist.  Opening his bleary right eye behind its milky second eyelid, the Dragonborn saw an attacker headed directly for him.  The cretin wasted no time in slitting the throat of the gagging guard immediately in front of him, then cutting through Aleksei's neck chain with a blade that seemed to be made entirely of dark magic energy.  

Aleksei turned to take stock of the man chained to his manacles, and noting that he still was, did not move against the offender.  "Attack!" he called as loudly as he could, not certain if Shesua knew what was going on or not. Around him, several shadowy figures began stepping out from behind the trees or dropping down from above.

The male that had cut the neck chain responded by attempting to headbutt Aleksei, and after a pause during which both fixed each other with looks of confusion, Aleksei responded in kind.  The Dragonborn's blow, aided by the tough scales on his forehead, dazed his opponent, who staggered backward a few steps before being accosted by the guard attached to Aleksei's left side.  Aleksei held his arms in front of him to give the guard attached to his manacles as much allowance as he could, wondering why Shesua had not brought enough soldiers to protect the men who essentially could not move farther than three feet from their charge.  Even a party of eight, as apparently Shesua's charge had been when he left Cormyr, seemed strangely insufficient to the Dragonborn's tactical mind.

Silveredge had swung her spiked chain free of her hips and slung it up to attacking speed simply to help clear the air around her, but as it did, she saw one man fighting with Shesua and another being slammed into by Niku.  The hound had easily snapped the weak strap that bound him as soon as the trap had gone off, and was hopping up to rake the menace with the claws on his forepaws.  Without a second thought, Silveredge slung her chain around the neck of the male fighting Niku, figuring that the swordcaptain would be able to hold his own without support. 

Rapidly recovering from the mist, Mi'ishaen's guard managed to see the attacker coming for her before she did, and charged into him to knock him off his course.  Mi'ishaen, ignoring her burning lungs, ran toward Aleksei, used the Purple Dragon who was still chained to Aleksei's left side as a springboard, and kicked a stealthy attacker behind the Dragonborn in the face.  The soldier didn't recover from her acrobatic trick like Stone would have done, and seconds later found himself on the receiving end of a coup de grace.  When the victor's dark blade made its way toward Aleksei's neck, however, the Dragonborn simply put his manacles between himself and it.  Immediately grabbing the hand that had swung the blade with his right hand and putting his left hand behind the attacker's back, he pulled the man down over his still-bent knee, momentarily knocking the wind out of him. 

"How many?" Shesua finally called raggedly, after doing away with his opponent.

"Seven left," Aleksei responded, quickly and calmly looking around himself.

Mi'ishaen scrambled to her feet, knowing the one she had just kicked would soon recover and get up if she didn't move quickly.  She drew her daggers and put a killing blow into his neck, but was surprised and pushed face-first into the ground by the male who had killed the guard once chained to Aleksei's neck.  She, already weakened by the acid trap, found it unusually difficult to get out of the stifling hold.

"Six," Silveredge corrected as she ripped the spikes of her chain out of the neck of the attacker before her.  She turned to watch Aleksei's right side guard as the chain between the two males was sliced through by yet another attacker's dark blade.  The guard on that side continued to fight bravely, but was flanked and killed by an accomplice that immediately faded back into the cover.  Silveredge moved to catch him, but stopped when she noticed Mi'ishaen's situation.  She thought to help, but was surprised by Mi'ishaen's tail suddenly whipping itself- tail knife and all- around her opponent's knee.

Aleksei, still attached to the dead guard on his left, turned all the way around to watch the attacker that was recovering from the blow to the gut.  Mi'ishaen's guard, fresh from killing his attacker, quickly ran over to yank the offending male's head back and snap it against his shoulder. 

"Five," he panted, pushing the body away from himself with a wince of pain.  "You alright?"

An attacker that had been heading for Shesua stopped to attempt to avenge his compatriot by leaping on Aleksei's back with a cord to choke him, but instead was flung straight up into the air when Aleksei stood up.  The movement and sound surprised the guard, Silveredge and Niku back a few steps.

"Da, ser," Aleksei replied as the body hit the ground with a sickening thump.

Shesua moved beyond Aleksei to make short work of the tossed attacker, but was dealt a jarring head blow by the one that had disappeared before.  With some prompting from Silveredge, Niku barreled head-first into the male that was holding Mi'ishaen down, allowing her to roll onto her back.  Mi'ishaen's guard noticed Shesua's situation immediately and moved to respond, but was pushed backward toward Aleksei during the ensuing fight.  The Dragonborn, still unarmed and chained to a dead man, simply waited until the fight moved all the way past him and toward Silveredge, smiling when the Shadar-kai whipped her chain up to killing speed and easily slung it past the winded guard.  Snarling the offender's neck in a killer embrace, Silveredge yanked mercilessly backward so that the spikes dug deeply into flesh. 

"Four," Aleksei called immediately.  Seconds later, a thump on his solidly scaled midback alerted him to another presence behind him.  Turning over his right shoulder, the seven footer noted with a genuine laugh that the relatively large offender was surprised that his mark didn't move a single step.  Aleksei hit the male's wrist with a precise long-fisted punch to force him to drop his weapon, then grabbed the male by the neck with a force that almost crushed it.

As his head cleared, Shesua was surprised to see the male that had previously had Mi'ishaen face-down before him groaning as he rolled around on the ground.  Granted a moment to get her face out of the soggy earth, she panted pathetically as Niku tore at the attacker on her right side.  It was at that moment that Shesua noted the ropes and gags at the aggressor's side.

Slavers, he thought with ground teeth.  Semmites are now grown so bold that they will seek slaves in Cormyr?

Silveredge ripped her chain away from the fourth slaver's neck just as Aleksei snapped the third's back over his bent knee.  The two looked at each other for a brief moment before catching sight of the last slaver sneaking up on Shesua, who was moving to finish the male lying near Mi'ishaen.  Aleksei  moved first, running directly toward the sneaking slaver.  Mi'ishaen suddenly rolled over on top of the male near her, causing Niku to bolt off toward Silveredge.  Shesua came to a surprised halt as Aleksei, now dragging the body of the guard still chained to him, viciously grabbed the last slaver's neck. 

The Tiefling dropped both fanged daggers just under the slaver's chin and sliced his throat with authority, snapping his head to the left as she did so.  Aleksei, meanwhile, stood and bodily lifted the other slaver straight into the air with his right hand, gripped his upper thigh with his left, then brought the male's upper back straight to the ground with a force that put an inch-deep impression into the malleable ground.   To make sure of death, Aleksei released the male completely and slammed his closed right fist into the breastbone.  There was an unmistakable crushing sound, and the slaver's brown eyes went suddenly wide and glassy, punctuated by gushes of red from his gaping mouth and battered nose.

A strange silence fell between them, punctured only by Mi'ishaen's weary breathing, and Niku's anxious half-barks.  Shesua looked around himself, a deep scowl slicing its way across his face.  Silveredge noted the flitting gaze as Niku padded toward her with a wheezing whine.

"My lord is searching for survivors among his men?"

"None attached to me live," Aleksei noted sadly.  "The one that now is behind me is still breathing, yes?"

"Barely," the guard managed, pulling his helmet off his face to spit blood.  "We should do something about-"

"There's one missing- Hophni!" Shesua called, bringing his sword back to an attacking position.  "Hophni!"

Aleksei closed his eyes and listened closely to the area around him while the guard picked up a dropped dark blade and sliced him free of his perished cargo.  Niku, who had begun rolling around in the blood stained mud, stopped and looked to Silveredge with his tongue lolling out.

"I don't know what he smells like, Niku," Silveredge explained.  "I didn't even know his name."

"What do you care?" Mi'ishaen shrugged as she finally stood up.  "If he was half as useless as the rest of these purple-plated idiots-"

Aleksei stepped over the slaver that he had body slammed and looked up into a tree four paces beyond it.  "You are Hophni, yes?" he asked the Human that trembled in the branches.

The Human, who had lost his helmet and his weapon somehow, nodded wordlessly.

"Gods!" Shesua bellowed, quickly closing the space between himself and Aleksei with a few running steps.  "What put you up there, man?"

"Quick limbs and a yellow back'd be my guess," Mi'ishaen snorted, putting her daggers away and watching Silveredge wind her chain back around her hips.  The guard between them laughed lightly as he spat out another mouthful of blood and saliva, then recovered his helmet.

Hophni let go of the tree and fell on his hands and feet with a cat-like agility.  "There weren't any archers," he reported, straight faced.  Silveredge put both hands over her mouth to prevent herself from giggling in response, but Mi'ishaen allowed one loud, sharp guffaw to escape her.

"No, Hophni, there weren't any bloody archers," Shesua grunted, suddenly sounding much like Arnsvold back in Urmlaspyr.  "Come, hitch thyself up to this one, and let's away."

"This is not wise," Aleksei warned.

"He's right," Mi'ishaen's guard added sourly, looking around him at the various bodies.  "You must be worth something to them, ser- gods protect us."

"The gods had nothing to do with it, you prancer," Mi'ishaen spat, getting up slowly.  After a few moments, she shook her head as though she were responding to a question and sat back down on the ground.

"They are cutting strong chains with these strange blades as though they are nothing," Aleksei finished, watching Mi'ishaen.  "Unless there is blacksmith between the three of you, these cannot be fixed."

Silveredge came close to Mi'ishaen's guard to inspect him, then backed away as she lowered her gaze.  "My lord looks and sounds well in health," she concluded.

"My lady looks like she didn't even get a bruise," the guard responded with an embarrassed chuckle.  "I know I've got a few.  Commander, Hophni- how fare you two?"

Shesua didn't respond verbally.  Sheathing his sword, he tugged some rope away from one of the slavers.  As he marched by to take the lead, he simply thrust the rope into the hands of the guard speaking to Silveredge.  Hophni moved after him with a pace that could almost be described as a scamper.  With a shrug, Aleksei dropped to one knee yet again.

"Bloody coward," the guard muttered, looking Aleksei up and down.  "I'll just do your hands and let the Shadar-kai hold you."

"No straps for the baggage or the hound, then," Mi'ishaen laughed, wiping mud off herself as she tried to stand again.  "Just put one between the Dragonborn and Shadar-kai that saved your life, and let's be off like nothing's happened."

"Are you alright?" Silveredge asked, stranded between going to Mi'ishaen and waiting to receive Aleksei's strap.

"Unessmus!" Shesua called, pausing without turning around.

"Do you want us bound or not?" Mi'ishaen called back before the guard could say anything in his own defense.  "Sport yourself with your pet pantywaist."

"I have to hand it to you, ser, you and your wives are like three part harmony," the guard chuckled as he began knotting the rope.  "Mine would never take up a weapon with me- and I thought that thing was some sort of Netherese belt."

"I will not stand for your impertinence," Shesua warned Mi'ishaen pointedly.  "We are Purple Dragons, and you will respect us!"

"These women both are gifts of the gods," Aleksei replied calmly.  "Also, Rasha is not Netherese.  She is Shadow Child.  This is very different."

Silveredge smiled at Aleksei with a knowing gaze that warmed his heart and hurt it at the same time.

"I thought her name was Sil-"

"Rasha and Mishka," Aleksei supplied firmly, standing up after the guard finished binding his hands.  "Also Silveredge and Mi'ishaen; I am using little sweet names for these lovely ones.  I am wondering if this one is well, as normally she is fighting much harder than this."

"Untaught slavers took half your Purple Dragons down to the hells with them- on your watch, oh great commander!" Mi'ishaen called back to Shesua.  "Even with all your rigorous training, your lives rely on the help of your captives!  None of you noticed even one of the five acid trap wards, and you, our brave and honorable leader, were choking and sputtering all the way in the back!  You have the constitution of a terminally ill Halfling mage!  What about any of that should I respect?"

"Please to help Mishka?" Aleksei asked Silveredge quietly.  "She is much closer to the trap when it is going off, and though she is at least well enough to curse, still she is on the ground."

"Here," the guard replied, handing the rope over to Silveredge.  "Take this and-"

"Move out, Unessmus!"

"You come back here and make the knots around your captives' hands yourself, or you shut up and wait!" Mi'ishaen retorted as she finally got up.  "You're just as cowardly as what's-his-name that you've got tip toeing behind you like a mewling kitten-"

"My lord is kind," Silveredge smiled as she wrapped her hand in the rope and tied it into a knot.  "Your handmaiden cannot lead Ser Voyonov, but hopes that she might share his bond."

"What!  Thou thing- thou burnt tart!  Thou demon-cuckolded creature!" Shesua sputtered.  "Thou unwashed bit of birthing rag!"

"Say, you've got both ends of the spectrum covered, ser," the guard joked.  "This one's as careful and docile as that one is raw."

"Oh go on, go hang, you unfinished rug!" Mi'ishaen brayed, pausing to throw a handful of mud toward Shesua.  "Your mother sits on her knees all night for my patron demon!"

"Da, ser," Aleksei replied immediately.  "Great gifts, each in her own way."

The guard's face turned red as he tried not to laugh.  "Well, I respect you- all three of you-"

Niku barked sharply, and Silveredge squatted to kiss his head.  Excited at the affection, Niku eagerly returned the kiss with many more of his own.

"Four," the guard corrected brightly.  "Sorry, pup.  Say, Mishka, here's another rope for the-"

"I said move, Unessmus!" Shesua called, a note of frustration clear in his voice.  "And put a gag in that-"

"Just how much farther do you intend to march us in the dark, through a swamp, after that attack?" Mi'ishaen called back as the guard handed her a second rope with a wince.  "The hound and I are yet unbound, I thank m'lord so kindly!"

"I will be glad when we are reaching Cormyr, Unessmus," Aleksei sighed, moving forward.  Silveredge lifted her head toward Mi'ishaen, and Niku padded toward the Tiefling, obediently sitting down.

"I tell thee, thou hell-brand strumpet, an I am pressed to turn me around-"

"Call me Rafael, or Rafa," the guard replied, watching Mi'ishaen begin to use the rope to fashion a sort of harness that wrapped around Niku's forelegs and chest instead of his neck.  As she worked, Silveredge laid her head on her back and listened to her breathing.

"Come on and get me!" Mi'ishaen cawed, her voice harsh.  "In fact, bring your shadow with you!"

"Perhaps my lord may wish to spare a healing potion," Silveredge commented quietly.  "Her breathing sounds terrible."

"When we do reach Cormyr, I'll be the first to buy you and your wives a drink.  Oh, and a good soup bone for the hound," Rafa finished, digging through the meager belongings that he carried with him.

"We've lost time," Shesua growled, deigning to turn his gaze over his shoulder.

"I'm fine," Mi'ishaen stated flatly, looking at Silveredge over her shoulder.  "That guy was closer, and we're both fine."

"Commander, with respect, the Tiefling's right," Rafa reminded Shesua as he handed off a small vial to Silveredge.  "The sun is down, and-"

"There shall be no further argument," Shesua finished as he turned all the way around to stare Rafa down.  "We shall march 'til I be weary.  Sun or no sun, swamp or no swamp, do I make myself clear?"

"Your breathing sounds-"

"M'lord is kind!" Mi'ishaen scoffed, cutting Silveredge off as she finished tying Niku's strap to her wrist.  She sat down for a few moments, and Niku sniffed around her nervously until she began moving to get up again.  "At least if we walk into another trap, you'll be dead first- seriously, keep that, Silveredge.  I'm fine.  It hurts some, but I'm not dying."

"Pain is usually coming before death, yes," Aleksei counseled as he watched Mi'ishaen slowly stand straight.  "I am hoping that we will make more distance for you between the two."

"She said she was fine," Rafa breathed, looking at the remorseless Tiefling as she began to step over bodies as though they were merely logs or bricks.  Silveredge moved to hand the vial back, but Rafa shook his head as he moved quickly behind Mi'ishaen.  "but keep that, just in case."