Fan Fiction ❯ In the Service of the Red Lady ❯ Stone Cold ( Chapter 4 )

In the Service of the Red Lady
By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Why the hell am I writing this? Nobody reads them and they have no legal weight. It's a complete waste of time and bandwidth and yet I'm still typing. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and rate this fic R, violence and language, the good stuff.
“…” Normal Speech
`…' Thought

Chapter 4: Stone Cold

"I look ridiculous," Kiori said.

"It's not that bad," Tyyrlym assured her ignoring Marik's smirk.

"I'm wearing two shirts, either of which I could use for a tent, how would you describe my appearance?"

"It's the best we can do; with a belt it will look like a dress on you." One of Marik's thick shirts, recently washed he assured them, covered by one of Tyyrlym's nicer blouses was really the best they could have done. Marz had confirmed that no one in the area had any halfling-sized clothes and the righteous indignation in Kiori's eyes when he had suggested maybe using some children's clothes had put an end to that idea before it properly began. 'They wouldn't have fit any way,' Tyyrlym mused. In spite of Kiori's small stature, the top of her head barely made it to Tyyrlym's waist, she was proportioned exactly like a full-grown woman, and a child's clothes would have been even baggier on her than Tyyrlym's shirt was.

Sighing in frustration Kiori hopped up on a chair in front of the room's dresser and checked her appearance in the mirror that Tyyrlym had placed there. The light blue blouse that Tyyrlym had given her had lost most of its sleeves, which were now wrapped around her legs and torso as makeshift leggings and wrappings, but it still looked like a giant's shirt to Kiori. The laces that would have only made it to the top of Tyyrlym's mammoth cleavage went all the way down to Kiori's waist. It wouldn't have been the raciest thing she had ever worn but it was obviously never intended for a halfling. Peeking between the laces was Marik's thick gray wool shirt that protected her modesty and would hopefully help to keep her warm out in the cold. Unfortunately they hadn't found anything suitable to use as sandals, she had no problem going barefoot in civilization but walking barefoot through the forest was not something she wanted to do if she could avoid it. For someone used to wearing finely tailored dresses and having a dozen different pairs of shoes to choose from it was an intolerable situation. She reached out to pick up one of the leather thongs that Tyyrlym used to tie up her hair but she pulled up short as thoughts of her clothes brought up memories of the village. A wave of revulsion and self loathing at her own conceit when everyone else was dead washed through her and found some outlet as she slapped the thong around her waist and tied it in front of her like a belt. The sting of the leather was muted by the wool and cotton of her clothes but it did help to focus her again. She almost didn't reach for the hairbrush Tyyrlym had left out after fixing her own hair but there would have been no point in punishing herself by avoiding such a simple thing. The brush was big and heavy but she just managed to use it one handed with the other guiding her auburn curls through the thick bristles.

Marik caught himself watching both of the women get ready, not really with any lascivious intentions, just with the eye of a... connoisseur of the female form. Despite her size Kiori rather well proportioned, her bright red hair reminded him of Kayla's but where's Kayla's was a golden red Kiori's was fierier. 'I guess I just like red hair,' he mused, not that he'd do anything about it. As good as she might look Kiori's size kept cutting off that train of thought. 'If you can't see her face she just looks like a little girl playing dress up in Tyyr's shirt.'

On the other hand the only thing Tyyrlym might be mistaken for was a half-giant. At six and a half feet she was the tallest member of their little group, she was almost a full head taller than he was and she positively dwarfed everyone else. She already had her blue enameled and copper gilded silver half plate on, the various lames and plates flowing together like liquid metal, which was the desired effect after all, she had been a paladin of Umberlee for a time. Blackened mithril was visible at her joints when she moved and in spite of the layers of silk, leather, and metal the artisan who had created the suit had still managed to convincingly convey Tyyr's impressive figure through the armor. Marik watched her pick up the last trinket from the window seat, one of her rings, and slide it onto her finger before she pulled on one of her half gauntlets covering the magical band. Just like he did she carried a good many magical trinkets on her but she kept them all tucked away beneath her armor if she could. The bottom half of her riding cloak was next, the thick enchanted cloth wrapping around her waist and hanging down like dress except that it didn't come together in front of her and a large slit ran up the back as well. She'd once explained the purpose of the garment as something to prevent her opponents from seeing her hips move but he wondered if it might be a concession to femininity on her part or an attempt to throw off her opponents by making it look like she was wearing a dress. With the last of her defenses on Tyyrlym turned her attention to her armaments.

A belt with a pair of scabbards riding low on her right hip slid into place around her waist. Marik had seen the pair of kukuri's those scabbards held before, Tyyr kept them with her for those instances when her favorite weapon couldn't be used. The rasp of sharpened steel on leather announced the appearance of Tyyrlym's favorite implement of divine justice.

Technically Ceilbrik was a greatsword in the way that Waterdeep was technically a city. The sword was gigantic, from the tip of its gently curved blade to the rounded tip of its pommel the sword was almost six feet in length, and it weighed thirty pounds if it weighed an ounce. The blade was solid adamantine, a third of an inch thick on its back side narrowing down to an alchemical silver laced blade sharp enough to shave a baby's head with. The silvered edge of the blade undulated down the length of the sword towards the cut back tip where it flared out to encompass the entire end of the weapon. The feathered edges of the undulations gave the effect that they were a line of waves marching towards the end of the blade where they would break against her enemies. The long leather wrapped grip of the sword met the blade in a burst of frosted golden metal that made the hilt. The guard arched out gracefully away from the blade while jagged fingers of metal reached up along the dark blade as if holding onto it and in the middle of those fingers sat a single jewel. Cold and dark with a black blemish bisecting it the blue gem sat sucking the warmth out of your body if you even looked at it.

Kiori couldn't help but stare in awe at the sword her rescuer was wielding. The size of the weapon didn't concern her, arcane power could trump physical strength any day, it was the power radiating from the weapon, divine power, not good, not evil, simply power. Tyyrlym brought the weapon up to her lips, kissing it briefly, then she touched it to her forehead and quickly sheathed it. Kiori's enhanced vision showed glowing spots where ever the weapon had touched Tyyrlym and those spots slowly diffused into the faint blue glow of Tyyrlym's body. Who had she fallen in with?

With the solid weight of Ceilbrik on her back Tyyrlym busied herself with packing the last few bits of her belongings into her saddle bags which gave her time to think. Kiori's story had horrified her; to kill an entire village was an atrocity, but to then raise their corpses from the dead? It was beyond the pale, it was an abomination of everything good and holy; before she had said her morning prayers she had known that this was why Tokimi had sent her here and her resolve never waivered. The monster that had done this to Kiori and her village would pay; he would pay with his life and then answer for his crimes before the Red Lady.

*****************

"Alchemists fire or flasks of acid?" Raul Longstreet asked as he leaned on his counter. "Someone has expensive tastes; those aren't all too common around these parts."

"Do you have them or not?" Marik asked. He'd never had much patience for merchants and this smarmy example grated his nerves worse than normal, though he wasn't sure why.

"Oh I've got some, don't worry about that," he assured Marik as he levered himself up off the counter. For some reason the big half-elf didn't seem to like him, 'Probably spent too much time lookin' at his lady friends,' but Raul wasn't going to let that slow him down. "I'm glad to see that you're up and about little miss, the last I saw of ya you looked to be on death's door."

"I've had better days," Kiori said as Raul disappeared into the shelves behind his counter. The sound of clinking glass could be heard from where they stood.

Kiori's description of the beasts that had attacked her left little doubt in Tyyrlym's mind that it had been some type of troll, though what kind of troll carried weapons and wore armor she didn't know. If there were more of the creatures then they would need something to ensure that they stayed down and Tyyrlym wasn't keen on depending on Kiori for a spell to do it.

"Here we go, alchemist's fire and acid," Raul said as he set down two small crates full of pint sized vials, one crate of ceramic vials and another of glass vials full of a sickly green liquid. "This is everything I've got."

Immediately Kiori hopped up on the footrest that ran in front of the counter and pulled one of the clay vials out. She didn't pay any attention to Raul's protesting yelp as she tore off a small piece of the rag that encircled the vial and threw it on the counter. She deftly pried the stopped out and dipped her pinky finger into the liquid, pulling it out with a drop attached to the tip and then giving it a simple flip towards the piece of rag. Immediately the rag was consumed in burst of flame that caused all of them except Kiori to lurch back. She stopped the first vial and returned it to its crate before pulling out one of the green vials and then snapping off one of the crate's slats where it was starting to split. Pulling out this next stopper she dribbled a bit of the vial's contents onto the broken wood which started to smoke and dissolve under the acid's consuming touch. "They're good," she declared. "It looks like Samael's work."

"The young wizard?" Raul asked. "I got these from him in exchange for some foci and reagents."

Tyyrlym reached into one of the pouches on her belt. "We'll take them." A trio of golden coins clattered on the counter top.

"That looks about right," Raul said in a slightly hushed tone.

*****************

Marik adjusted the shoulder strap of his new pouch, the leather strap wasn't much more than a string and it kept getting tangled in his armor. He'd never used acid or alchemist's fire before, he'd never had a reason to, and he didn't want the pouch bumping around, he didn't want to find out what would happen if one of those vials broke.

"You have to throw them against something," Kiori said. "You won't break them even if you fall on them." The halfling girl was walking beside Tyyrlym, her small legs hustling to keep up with Tyyrlym's long strides. The main street of the town was starting to give way to forest again and the thin coating of snow that had fallen the night before was crunching under their boots and Sturmwind's hooves.

"Why is that?" Marik asked doubtfully.

"Because that's not the way they work."

"There's not much difference between falling on something and smashing it you know."

"Of course I know," she snapped, "but it's called alchemist's fire for a reason."

If Tyyrlym had been paying attention to their conversation she didn't show it, she just adjusted one of her saddle bags on Sturmwind and threw the reigns back over the saddle horn. The giant destier kept on walking beside his mistress. "If you want, you can ride on Sturmwind," she said with a slight tilt of her head towards Kiori.

"Actually I think I will, we can move faster if I don't have to try to keep up with you giants." Tyyrlym started to turn to pick Kiori up but before she could the halfling had already scrambled up the stirrup and was settling into the saddle. Sturmwind huffed and looked back at his new passenger, his eyes narrowing.

"Let her be," Tyyrlym said. The great grey horse snorted, ruffling Kiori's robes and hair with a giant blast of his steamy breath before he turned his head back to the snow covered road to keep pace with Tyyrlym and Marik. Sturmwind was unaccustomed to anyone save Tyyrlym riding him and the grumble in his chest let all of them know that he wasn't happy.

"So how far is it to this village?"

"About five leagues from here."

***************

When Tyyrlym silently raised her hand Marik stopped instantly, but Kiori had been peering at one of her rings and right into the back of the paladin. To her credit the little sorceress didn't make a sound when she did it.

"What is it?" Marik asked quietly.

"Something's not right," Tyyrlym whispered.

Kiori's question died on her lips as Marik drew his bow and notched an arrow. She could feel the arcane power starting to flow through her body hand in hand with the adrenaline starting to be dumped into it.

Tyyrlym couldn't hear, or see, or smell anything different about this point in the forest that would signal danger, but she knew it was out there. The sense of something that was just... wrong, was nearly over powering. Her time in the temple had taught her that such feelings, so often dismissed by the average person, were very important, and her life had proven those teachings correct. She considered summoning Sturmwind to them, but decided that he was better off where he was, and they were better off too. He was a good horse but no animal of that size could move quietly.

Her right hand drifted over her shoulder to caresses Ceilbrik's hilt as she tried to push her senses as far as she could to no avail. The dark forest stared back at her with silent defiance, the scattering of tiny, slowly falling snowflakes the only break in the monotony. Her discontent sigh coalesced in front of her face in the chill air.

"How close?" Kiori asked.

"I don't know."

Again Tyyrlym tried to sense what was giving her this feeling but again she failed. She quashed the frustration that threatened to creep in and focused on picking her way through the forest.

All of the will power she could muster couldn't get Kiori's heart out of her throat. The lump was firmly lodged in the back of her mouth and wasn't moving and she couldn't hear anything but the thundering of her heart in her ears. She had been lucky to get away last time, very lucky; she should probably be dead.

Marik was starting to sense something was wrong as well, but for entirely different reasons. No matter the season, or the place, or how quiet or empty a forest seemed there was always life in it, a rhythm to it. The lifebeat of this part of the forest was quickly dying. Every step towards the halfling village brought fewer and fewer signs of life. He hadn't seen a bird in an hour, a small creature in almost as long and the signs of anything larger were tapering off, growing older. The creatures of the forest rarely knew why they did what they did, but they did it anyway, and you ignored them at your own peril. He didn't put his bow back over his shoulder.

Despite their collective caution a titanic roar caught them off guard. To their left part of the forest floor erupted in a spray of leaves and snow as an armored troll lurched up from it hiding place. The giant's thunderous growl froze them all in place for a split second as the beast's vocalization shook the world around them.

But the spell was broken just as quickly when the troll took a lurching step towards them. Marik's bow came up and an arrow flew from it so smoothly that it appeared he had willed it into existence. Kiori let fly with a fireball but her aim wasn't as practiced as Marik's in such situations, and her spell missed its target. The ball of arcane flame sailed past the troll to explode against a tree in a blast of charred splinters and steam.

The troll snarled as Marik's arrow dug into its shoulder, then lowered its head and charged. The troll brought its hefty ax up in its right hand while it unsheathed a wickedly curved dagger the size of a falchion with its left. Even though the creature was clearly coming for him, Marik stood his ground.

Kiori backpedaled as the hulking brute charged towards her and Marik. She fought off the urge to use another fireball, with two other people around it would be wasteful, and draw unwanted attention, instead she conjured a simple acid arrow into existence and sent it flying towards the on rushing brute.

Tyyrlym was unimpressed, yes the troll had ambushed them, it was wearing "armor," and carrying weapons more complicated than a log, but still, he didn't know how to use them. The armor the thing was wearing had more holes than chainmail, big gaping holes big enough to push a horse through; while the weapons had a little sophistication to them, the way they were used did not, and it had attempted to ambush them, but it started off by yelling and being a good twenty yards away. Still, it was a troll, and that required some respect, but not that much.

For someone wearing their weight in metal Kiori thought that Tyyrlym moved with startling speed, she had barely started to look towards her rescuer before the tall woman was running at a full sprint towards the beast, her great sword already out of its scabbard. Tyyrlym's hand came up to point at the troll and a silvery sliver of ice sped shot out to strike the side of the creature's face.

With an indignant roar the hulking brute turned towards its newest tormentor, bringing its axe to bear and its dagger to the ready, but it wasn't fast enough. The paladin was blur as she raced under the lumbering troll's arms and chest, and just as it looked as if she might run completely under the monster one of her hands shot out and grabbed hold of one of the straps binding the troll's armor together.

Every time he saw it the blank look on Tyyrlym's face in combat bothered Marik. People were supposed to be excited in combat, aggressive, not serenely passive, and yet she was. It was the same look she had when she practiced every night with her sword. Eyes half closed, staring at nothing, lips closed but not tight, breathing gently and shallowly, she'd move through the different katas before creating her own movements, different every night, her own way of honoring Tokimi and the weapon that their goddess had granted her.

Kiori could do little besides stare in amazement as Tyyrlym used the strap she was holding to swing herself up, around, and onto the troll's back. A magnificent and graceful maneuver that was about to end in tragedy as the beast recovered remarkably quickly and made to sweep the unwanted rider from his back with the pointy side of his dagger.

Tyyrlym’s face betrayed no emotion as she deftly leaned out of the way of the blow. The dagger missed as her body melted out of its way. Her lips just barely moved as if in prayer as she brought her huge sword up with one hand and plunged it deep into the troll’s body.

More than anything the lumbering troll seemed confused as its back spasmed in response to the blow. The hunchbacked creature stood straight up for the first time in its life, its weapons falling from its hands as it pawed helplessly at the air. Kiori lost sight of Tyyrlym as the creature reared back and she feared for the blue woman’s life.

Marik saved his arrows as the troll fell, he seriously doubted that Tyyrlym had missed her mark. As the creature toppled Tyyrlym came back into view, crouched down, one hand entwined in the beast’s armor, and the other holding onto the pommel of her sword. She deftly rode the troll down leaping off its body before it landed. Ceilbrik came free of the troll’s body in a shower of red ice crystals. Tyyrlym landed softly on her feet just as the huge body came to the ground with an earth shaking thud, a blast of frosted breath leaving the monsters mouth as he hit. Tyyrlym stood up, the same placid expression on her face as she exhaled gently, her frigid breath coalescing in the air before her. In a move as graceful as any dancer’s Tyyrlym smoothly pirouetted about, Ceilbrik whistling through the air, and decapitated the downed troll. Her fluid motion continued, bringing her sword up to her skirt and wiping it clean before disappearing into her scabbard. The frozen bits of ichor fell away from her skirt immediately leaving her looking as clean and calm as she had just minutes before.

Kiori’s mouth gaped open at Tyyrlym, she was in way over her head.