Steelforged Legacy 4 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Stare later!

Magnus’ barked command broke Casey out of his funk and he turned to find his spirit beast menacing three more Fomori with his antlers as they pushed forward, one literally running onto Magnus’ antlers as it tried to get past him to the woman.

He’s right, we can worry about why an Ironwood Dryad is here later, Maude added. Fight with us, or hide where it is safe. We will protect you, daughter of the forest and mountain.

The four-armed woman scowled but did not speak, instead taking a deep breath that made her chest swell and strode past him to confront the leftmost of the Fomori trying to battle past Magnus.

Casey moved to take the right, something in his heart telling him he could trust the tall woman. Reaching Magnus’ flank, he thrust forward with Maude towards the distracted Fomori on his side, catching the creature high in one shoulder and cutting to the bone.

On Magnus’ other side, the four-armed woman thrust forward in an almost mirror of Casey with her club, the gnarled head slamming into the Fomori’s shoulder with a crunch of breaking bone.

The three of them made short work of the other Fomori as the roar of battle grew louder. Casey could hear shouting and the clashing of blades from further back in the Fomori’s battle lines, telling him that Runa and the others had to have entered the battle. From the challenging roars and the explosions he could hear, Casey knew a massive fight had to be going on right now.

Not now, Case thought to himself as another Fomori lunged at him—this one with the body and head of a wolf but with four human legs instead of animal legs. Focus on the fight, ask questions later about the strange woman who popped out of my vision.

Oh I have so many questions later, Maude snarled in his mind. You described her to me, but I didn’t make the connection till I saw her. If that’s the woman you saw in the vision, then I have so many questions she is going to answer.

Casey could tell his partner was upset, but he couldn’t tell whether it was with the odd woman—Ironwood Dryad, he reminded himself—the situation, or with him for somehow not conveying enough information.

Shaking off his distractions, Casey focused instead on the fight ahead of them.

Working together, the three of them bit hard into the flank of the Fomori, lunging forward and then falling back as they pressed into the other side of the thinning line of fighters between them and the battle line. Casey, Magnus, and the elemental changed positions without having to speak aloud, reaping a bloody harvest from the Fomori without hesitation. But the fight was not without cost.

Magnus bleated in pain when a Fomori’s claws raked his neck, the claws digging furrows through his hide but missing any major veins. Casey’s qi-enhanced clothing accumulated cuts and tatters as more and more blows made it past his fragmenting shield, the wood and metal unable to keep up with the bestial strength of the Fomori hitting it and the drengr alternating between using it to block and hammer his opponents. Even the dryad acquired two new wounds and had to switch her shield to her lower arm while the upper was kept tight to her chest, leaking a dark brown blood from her shoulder.

A bear-like Fomori with a wolf’s head partially emerging from its chest was what finally robbed Casey of his second shield.

He’d wounded the creature, forcing it to limp on three limbs but its snapping maws were too nimble for him to close. His Skin of the Iron Bear was holding out for the moment, but the creature's blackened fangs made him nervous and Casey wasn’t sure his technique would hold against it. What he wasn’t expecting was for the wolf-head to suddenly twist and catch the bottom edge of his shield, yanking it out of position and him off balance.

The Fomori timed its counter-blow perfectly, rearing up to slap out with its one good forepaw and shattering Casey’s shield into a thousand pieces, tossing him onto his ass.

Magnus was too far away to help, currently fending off a trio of wolflike Fomori with more scales than fur. But the elemental stepped over top of Casey without hesitation, catching the bear Fomori’s return blow on her shield with a grunt before hammering down with her club. Bone crunched and the bear Fomori fell to the ground, its other good leg too damaged to support it.

Another grunt and blow crushed the Fomori’s head before the elemental took another step to be out of his way, her bottom-right hand releasing the handle of her club to reach down to help him to his feet without looking while she blocked a thrown spear of bloody bone using her shield.

No sooner was Casey on his feet than the battle line in front of them parted. A bloody Einar bearing a partially shattered shield roared as he battered down the Fomori in front of him. The man looked rough, his clothes in tatters and multiple bleeding wounds across his chest while over a dozen bent arrows protruded from the half of the shield he still carried.

“I see him!” Einar roared, locking eyes with Casey and shooting him a savage smile. “Brave in battle indeed!”

Vibeke slipped around Einar’s broad back, her spear lashing out and removing the throat of one Fomori that tried to come at Einar’s flank.

“Tell me stories later, Einar!” Vibeke barked, kicking his ankle lightly with one foot to get the man moving as she turned to check on Casey.

The spearwoman’s eyes widened when she beheld the tall, multi-armed woman standing just to one side and behind the bloody Casey, her spear turning to defend her friend almost immediately.

“Wait, she’s with me!” Casey barked, holding up his now-empty left hand to halt her. “She’s the one Magnus and I saved!”

Vibeke blinked at him for a moment, but it was a testament of how much she and Einar trusted Casey that neither hesitated longer than a breath before beckoning him forward.

“Come on! Get in the line! They dropped the Queen and her forces at the heart of the horde a minute ago and I expect it won’t take long to mop this up!” Einar barked.

Casey didn’t hesitate, trotting forward and summoning his third and last shield out of his storage belt. The quiet thump of steps behind him told Casey that the many-armed elemental was right on his heels as they settled into their previous formation and set about slaughtering more of the Fomori.

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“Why didn’t Magnus bring you back the same way?” Einar asked before wincing with a hiss. “Gods and fire, woman! Are you stitching me up or trying to tenderize me for the cook-fires?!”

“Oh hush,” Vibeke snapped, slapping Einar on the hip with one hand before going back to stitching the large cut in his shoulder. “I’m a better cook than a medic, so the more you wiggle and bitch, the more likely this will scar crooked.”

The fight had carried on for another twenty minutes before the Fomori broke and ran. The Fomori clearly thought that they could outrun the seasoned drengr, but were quickly run down by the far more nimble mounted drengr.

Casey had debated going with them, but had already been forced to warn off a few of the Roaring Mountain drengr that had approached the still-silent elemental that he’d rescued. Most of them had been eying her oddly, and he hadn’t trusted any of them to get too close, especially with the injuries they all shared.

Magnus also refused to leave the towering woman’s side, the still-injured Gladewalker Elk grunting angrily at anyone or anything that approached it besides Casey and his two friends.

“My guess is that he either didn’t have the energy, or couldn’t transport both me and her at the same time,” Casey answered, gesturing towards the cherry-eyed giant who was rummaging in her leather tunic for something.

I couldn’t transport both, Magnus answered, huffing a breath out through his nose. As soon as I sensed her, I knew that I couldn’t leave her behind.

Not surprising, Maude grumbled. The spirit-woman had been mostly quiet during the battle, focusing on helping her partner fight and survive. Ironwood Dryad don’t just show up out of nowhere.

“Care to fill me in on that?” Casey asked aloud, forgetting in his exhaustion to keep his communication nonverbal. When Einar shot him a questioning glance, he gestured distractedly towards Magnus and the other man accepted the excuse.

Ironwood Dryad are protectors of the wilds. They normally only occur one or two at a time in a given area and are extremely strong. They are also one of the only elementals that are as resistant to the corruptive presence of the Fomori as drengr are, Maude answered him. Casey, you got elixirs from the Bronze Fist, why not use one?

Don’t trust them, Casey answered silently, leaning back against the rock he’d chosen as a seat once the fighting had come to an end and the injured set about tending to themselves.

He knew he should start cleaning out and at least bandaging his injuries, but exhaustion had struck him hard after expending so much qi. His body ached, his channels burned, and despite it all he still felt overstuffed at the moment from the fight.

The elemental woman found what she was looking for, a roll of what looked like birch-bark but crinkled like paper as she began using it to bind her injuries silently, leaning against the same rock that Casey was using.

“Don’t ask,” Casey said when he caught Einar’s gaze dipping towards the towering silent woman. “I probably don’t know the answer yet either. Blame Magnus.”

Hey! Magnus protested, turning to shoot Casey a dirty look.

It was the sight of his companion, oozing blood from his injuries but still standing resolute that motivated Casey to get to his feet. A gesture brought out water skins and clean cloths before he set to work fixing Magnus up.

“Really need to get more of those healing pills,” Casey muttered.

You can afford them, Maude said, her mental voice tinged with amusement.

“Definitely should be able to afford them now,” Vibeke chuckled before using her belt-knife to cut the thread she was using to stitch Einar up. “There, big guy. Just need to get ointment on them to keep them from going foul and you can bandage up. Thanks for covering for me.”

“Anytime, Vibeke,” Einar answered just a little too quickly, the big man flushing slightly.

Casey and Magnus shared a knowing and amused look between them before Casey went back to cleaning the cuts in Magnus’ neck. Casey kept an eye on the drengr moving past them as he worked, noting more than a few of them shooting suspicious looks towards the towering and silent elemental as she worked to bandage herself.

We should get her away from this place, Maude said after they caught the fourth drengr eying the big woman. The longer we wait, the more likely someone is to try and attack her to claim her core.

Over my dead body, Casey replied automatically, with Magnus snorting his agreement at almost exactly the same time.

Exactly, Maude replied without heat. I know you two are already protective over her. Magnus I had no doubts on, and I know how you feel about the drengr hunting elementals for their cores, Casey. But Ironwood Dryads… I told you they were rare.

Before Casey could respond, Casey felt someone touch his shoulder and he twisted suddenly to look up at the stern face of the many-armed elemental. She had wiped the blood from her face and bandaged the largest of her wounds now, the thick strips of birch-white bark standing out against her tan skin with its thin gray threads through it.

Now that they were closer and he wasn’t fighting for his life, Casey could see that the thin gray threads looked like the channels and whorls in a tree’s trunk, but described in metallic ink rather than actually carved into her flesh. Her cherry red eyes bored into his own for a long second of silence before she held up another roll of the odd bark-like bandages towards him.

“You need help with a bandage?” Casey asked and the silent woman shook her head and gestured towards his own oozing wounds. “You want to bandage me?”

The smile that spread across her face was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud and the large woman nodded rapidly.

Oh she’s good, Maude chuckled in Casey’s mind. Take care of my partner, would you? He’s the kind of idiot that will make sure everyone else is fixed up before he bothers to stop his own bleeding.

The elemental woman nodded again, clearly having heard Maude’s mental speech. The fact that some spirit beasts and almost all elementals could hear her still surprised Casey, given that she’d told him it required a basic bond between them to form before they could speak.

Though Runa did ‘hear’ her, at least enough to know someone was talking to me when I was with her, Casey thought as the elemental shifted to take a knee next to him and begin wiping at the bleeding cuts in his shoulder.

“Hang on,” Casey said as she started to work. The elemental froze, her cherry-colored eyes widening as she waited to see what he wanted. Casey didn’t hesitate, tugging on his tunic and banishing the tattered garment into his storage belt. “There, now you don’t have to fight the tunic.”

The elemental’s smile returned and she nodded silently before going back to work.

“You charmed a Gladewalker, and now an elemental? Why am I not surprised,” Einar chuckled as Vibeke smeared salve on his injuries, having also stripped his shirt off. “Next you’ll tell me that you’ve wooed a goddess.”

Casey bit back a laugh at that but didn’t respond to Einar’s teasing barbs. There was no reason to encourage the man’s leading questions, after all.

Soon, love, Casey promised Maude. Soon you can join me out here. How did the harvest go? Did you collect much qi from the battle?

When I wasn’t petrified of you getting your stupid ass killed or Magnus getting hurt, Maude quipped back, but her normally bland mental tone held not even a hint of heat. Yes, we collected quite a bit of qi from that fight. More as soon as you start claiming Fomori cores. Which you should do as soon as you finish bandaging Magnus up.

I thought you wanted me to get the elemental to safety? Casey shot back as Einar and Vibeke began to quarrel with each other playfully. Casey could see that the two of them were using the banter to stave off the grotesqueness of their surroundings.

I still think you should, but from the way she’s watching you I doubt she’ll leave, Maude replied dryly.

Tilting his head, Casey glanced towards the elemental to find her tanned skin darkening across her cheeks in a faint blush as she studied him while two of her three arms worked to wrap the odd bandage around his injuries. The soft material was adhering to his skin easily and as soon as it wrapped the injury, the burning pain began to fade away.

Realizing that he was looking at her, the elemental shook her head in the negative, clearly refusing to leave just yet.

“It’s dangerous,” Casey said in a low tone, darting a glance to the other drengr that were nearby.

The elemental shrugged.

“I’ll protect you if something happens,” Casey said, and the red-haired woman’s smile returned again.

We will protect you, Maude insisted, making the elemental’s smile widen. There has to be a reason we ran into an Ironwood Dryad, and a young one at that if she’s not speaking to me yet.

Or maybe she’s intimidated by you, Maude? Casey suggested, getting a disbelieving sputter from his lover and a silent giggle from the elemental.

“Freyja’s tits!”

The profanity wasn’t what caught Casey’s attention, instead it was the voice that spoke the words since it drew the attention of every one of the drengr in the area.

Queen Runa stood, clad in glittering metal scale armor with her sword at her hip, about twenty yards away. Ragna was posted up right beside her queen, armor and weapons glittering and gripping the head of her hand axe. Both women were speckled with blood and clearly having just come from the fight with the powerful Fomori that led the war party they’d wiped out.

“Milady, we have been keeping watch on the—” began one of the nearby drengr, a man that Casey didn’t recognize so he guessed was from one of the other ships. He fell silent at a wave of Runa’s hand before the senior drengr strode forward, eyes darting between the Ironwood Dryad and Casey.

Ragna kept up with her queen, but the bodyguard didn’t take her eyes off the elemental despite being ignored by her.

“Drengr, explain,” Runa demanded once she was within fifteen feet of Casey, though she approached until she was about ten feet away, only pausing when Magnus shifted to point his antlers towards her in warning.

Casey sighed, shifting when the elemental pushed him about and made him turn so she could reach another of his injuries and wind more of the strange bandage around it. Despite her being a size or two larger than him, she was surprisingly gentle in her insistence.

“We followed orders, hitting the front hard and halting the Fomori advance,” Casey explained, tying off the bandage he’d used on Magnus’ neck injury. “Things were going okay but we took a few injuries. Magnus was able to dip in and take out a few more dangerous Fomori before they could attack. During one of those, he brought word back that someone needed my help. He carried me into their ranks to what I thought was a burrow…”

Casey continued, explaining the fight with the three Fomori and the revelation that they’d somehow cornered the elemental in the small cave and been trying to dig her out. Casey didn’t reveal that he knew what she was, simply referring to the woman as ‘her’ or nodding towards the elemental. He explained how they fought side by side and returned to the line and continued battling the Fomori until the signal had come to rest when they had run out of enemies.

Throughout it all, Runa watched him sharply, glancing occasionally towards Magnus who remained planted between her and Casey and the elemental.

When the Ironwood Dryad was finished bandaging him, the elemental stood and brushed her pants off, one hand tucking the last of her bandages into the front of her tunic. Ignoring them all, she pulled a long knife of obsidian from her belt and stepped around to squat next to the closest Fomori, cutting it open before jamming her hand into its chest and extracting the tainted core from the creature.

She stood, set the core on the stone behind Casey, then moved to the next one. Casey noted that she pointedly kept him between herself and the other drengr, only straying close to Einar and Vibeke as she worked. Her multiple arms made quick work of each body, and she moved with the kind of surety that made Casey think that she could sense where the cores were hidden.

As he finished up his story, Runa was staring directly at him, her brow wrinkled like she wanted to scowl but was forcing her face to remain neutral.

“You said she was hiding from them but joined the fight as soon as you got to her?” Runa asked, the much more senior drengr watching him like a hawk.

“No. It was more like she was forced to fall back into a bad spot, probably while outnumbered. I’m sure she would have joined the fight sooner, but they were keeping her penned in,” Casey corrected.

Runa’s gaze darted from Casey to the elemental and then to Magnus before going back to Casey. He saw when her eyes dipped meaningfully to Maude’s sheathed length at his side and saw the question in her eyes when they came back up to meet his face.

“I don’t know if it’s related, but my gut says there is more,” Casey replied, hesitating a moment before deciding to take a small risk.

Runa already knew there was more than meets the eye with him, and had guessed that he wasn’t from this world. The leader of the Roaring Mountain was even arranging for a special trainer to help him at her spirit beast’s request. He just knew that his visions somehow connected to this woman who was an exact match for what he’d seen in them. And if she was here, then where were the Fomori hordes? The force they’d decimated wasn’t even a fraction of the size of the churning mass he’d seen in that vision.

After composing himself, Casey leaned forward while locking eyes with the woman who was far more powerful than he was. When Runa leaned in slightly, a gesture mirrored by Ragna though the bodyguard did not look away from the industrious elemental, he continued.

“I believe there might be a connection between the personal message I delivered before we set out and this,” Casey said slowly. He didn’t need to say more as Runa’s eyes widened before she schooled her expression.

“The elemental is not to be touched,” Runa barked, sweeping the nearby drengr sternly. “She is to be allowed to accompany Drengr Casey if she wishes, or allowed to leave. Do not test me on this. Drengr Casey, we will speak of this more later. I need to finish checking on my warriors and we need to pile the Fomori up to dispose of them before they taint the land.”

Casey nodded his understanding, and was glad to see that the other drengr that had been eying the many-armed woman were now pointedly ignoring them.

Behind him, he heard the wet noise of another cut, a quiet pop of a core being yanked from a dead Fomori, then the crystalline clink of the crystal joining the others on the rock at his back.