Lost Bloodline 2 - Chapter 8

** Sorry about the mis-post, this is the actual chapter 8. I set these up while dealing with major dental pain (which has been resolved.)

Chapter 8

Calandra, or Cal as she insisted on being called, was a font of information once Koda got her away from Councilman Yanus. He couldn’t fault her for being upset with the man, as she explained exactly what had led up to their group being captured.

Apparently, they’d been hiding in the extensive building on the corner, which was a caravansary that handled trading groups that came through town.

Their group had been missed during the initial sweep into town because they’d heard the commotion, and Calandra had gotten everyone inside and up into one of the storage lofts.

It turned out Yanus owned the caravansary and had been there late reviewing financial records, which was the reason Calandra had been there as well since she was a member of the city guard and had been assigned to watch over him.

“Why the hell was he doing paperwork so close to the edge of the town when it was under siege?” Koda asked while Calandra shimmied into her armor.

The Crooked had taken her gear and then tossed it into an alley. He helped her get the chain shirt over her head and slid down over her injured arm without making it worse.

While he helped her, Koda did his best to ignore how the armor clung to her lush figure. Calandra’s arms held firm muscle from work and wielding her weapons, but the rest of her figure had a far softer look. Koda guessed that because of being in town and not having to race across the countryside hunting.

Despite the injury, Calandra was insisting on coming with them.

“Don’t ask me, handsome. He refused to explain it to me when I asked initially. I was told to just shut up and do my job,” Calandra grumbled. “Anyway, after the main group had passed. Yanus insisted we head out and try to make our way to the town hall. All the council folk live near there and the town hall is the best defended building in town. We all tried to tell him it was stupid, but he insisted and raised enough noise that another patrol of the beasties heard us arguing and found us in the loft.”

“Do you think he’s going to cause more trouble for us?” Koda asked, handing over the broad, leather kidney belt that Calandra strapped on over her armor with practiced movements.

“Naw. Yanus is a coward. I’m sure he’s going to want to hide in his office now that he knows the streets aren’t safe and you flat out refused to take him to safety. I’m sure as hell not staying here and hiding out. These bastards invaded my town, and they’ve killed more than a few of my friends over the last week.” Calandra’s lip curled in anger as she slapped a rounded iron helmet over her head, letting a chain coif fall to protect her neck and the top of her braids, which she’d pulled out to hang over the back of her armor.

“Good. Defending your home is a noble goal, little one,” Arthene rumbled approvingly, getting a smirk in response from the dwarven woman as she hefted a long-handled Dane-axe and gave it a swing with just her right hand.

Apparently satisfied with being able to use the weapon, Calandra nodded and guided them back up the street to the same caravansary that the group had been hiding in before.

Koda didn’t give people time to argue, ordering anyone who wasn’t willing to fight into the caravansary to hide while anyone who was willing would come with him.

“We are going to send people back here as we move through town,” Koda explained to the ten people who would be remaining behind. “I need you all to stay out of sight. We can’t protect you and fight the Crooked at the same time. We don’t have the numbers for that.”

“But what about the guard?” demanded a middle-aged woman in a flour-smutched apron. “Who is going to protect us if you take her with you?!”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, your city is literally on fire. If you aren’t willing to do something to protect it, then you are abdicating responsibility for your own safety, and I can’t help you with that,” Koda snapped back, his patience at an end. “Anyone willing to fight, come on. We have lives to save.”

The group fell in around Koda, having nearly doubled in size with the addition of the villagers willing to fight, and Calandra. They left behind the other ten who were unwilling to take up arms, those ten scurrying into the cover of the caravansary after staring at the departing group.

“Harsh, but not untrue,” the gruff green-skinned man said. Koda was fairly certain that he was an orc, but hadn’t figured out a way to ask yet, so set the issue aside.

“He’s right though.” Sienna was quick to come to her mate’s defense. “We are risking our lives here to try to save people, and they are arguing that we aren’t doing enough to protect them? That right there is grounds to just walk away and leave them to their fates, at least in my mind.”

“Easy, miss.” The big man held up a hand to placate Sienna. “I’m not saying they were right, or that the good warrior was wrong in confronting them like that. Just that his words were harsh. But as this is a harsh situation, they are warranted.”

For an orc, the man is surprisingly well-spoken, Koda thought to himself as he trotted along just behind the shorter form of Calandra. But then again, I only have Earth media to use as a point of comparison for what an orc might sound like. So for all I know, this is normal for them here. Yay, something else to have to get used to. 

“Sorry,” Sienna said, not sounding apologetic in the least. “A little on edge here.”

“All of us are,” interjected Calandra from her point in the lead. “I’m still confused about how the hell these beasties managed to get past the barricades. We’d held out for over a week without an issue. Carrier pigeons had already carried word north about the attack, and we just needed to hold out until the Baron’s men got here to drive them off.” 

“How come we haven’t run into other groups yet?” Koda asked as they turned another corner and headed up a different cobbled street. 

“We evacuated everyone we could to the center of the town,” Calandra said, her gruff voice coming a bit quicker as they ran. “The buildings on the edge of town were deemed to be too risky with the raiders. Even before that, everyone who could afford it moved into the square near the town hall. There was a time that everyone would have been able to take shelter in the town hall, but the council kept repurposing rooms or claiming them for private use. Between that and the fact no one has needed to shelter there for decades, we didn’t realize until too late.”

“What do you know of how this all happened?” Sienna asked from the dwarven woman’s other side.

Calandra sighed, her shoulders slumping. For just a moment, Koda could see the exhaustion that rode the short woman like a devil on her shoulder, but she brushed it away a moment later and straightened.

“I don’t know much. The major roads were barricaded and any gaps between buildings filled in. The council assigned the City Guard to watch over the barricade in full squads, while half-squads stood watch on roofs to pick off anyone trying to sneak in.

“I was in Yanus’ office, trying my best not to die of boredom, when the first building went up. I ran to the window because the sudden flare of light wasn’t expected. Next thing I knew, there were floods of Crooked in the streets and other buildings were smoldering. I gathered who I could to get them to safety and buckled in to hide. I might be dangerous, but I’d have just been a speed bump for how many of the monsters were out there.”

“And we appreciate you getting us into cover, Guardswoman,” grunted the green-skinned man, while dipping his head in respect to the shorter woman. “They’d have caught me for sure if you hadn’t dragged me off the street.” His thanks was bolstered by a rumble from the other villagers in the group, and Koda was slightly surprised at it. Apparently, Calandra had been the one to get most of them to safety when the whole situation kicked off if the number of people speaking up was true.

“Anyway, that’s all I know about it. One second things were fine; then another everything went to shit.” Calandra sighed in resignation, clearly blaming herself for not knowing more.

“Wait…” Arthene paused and considered her words for a moment before continuing. “You said that the Guard was assigned to watch the road in full squad sizes? How big is a squad?”

“Ten person squads are standard, though we’ve been operating undersized at eight to a squad for the last few years.” The final part of Calandra’s sentence was spoken in a growl.

Arthene caught Koda’s eyes with a meaningful glance and he grimaced, but knew where she was going next.

“Cal, when we came through the barricade, there were only two dead guards. And while there were signs of struggle outside, there was not nearly enough for the whole group to have been fighting there.”

“What?” Calandra’s voice was a snarl now, and she slowed to glare back over her shoulder at Koda. She mastered herself a moment later and frowned, shaking off the snarl. “Sorry, but… that isn’t right. That can’t be right. We all know what the Crooked do to people, so there is no way that the guards at the barricade would let themselves get caught. We all know that it’s a death sentence in the worst kind of way.”

“All I know is what we saw, which was two dead guards with their throats cut.” Koda explained with a shrug. “Whether that has some kind of further meaning or message is something best left for later, right?” Calandra nodded in understanding, sighing cutely through her nose with a flare of her nostrils.

“Right. I still don’t know where you lot came from, but thank you for saving us since I didn’t say it before, even the idiot councilman.”

“You are welcome, Cal. Now, what can you tell me about the town?” Koda shot her a smile and the dwarven woman wrinkled her forehead with a grin that revealed bright white teeth.

“To the point, something I can appreciate!” The much smaller woman’s voice was fierce as she gestured one-handed with her axe. “Up ahead is the Low Market. I’m sure that they are using that as a staging area to hold captives. Let’s hit them hard and fast while they are distracted.”

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Calandra’s summation was correct about where the Crooked were congregating. A group of almost thirty of the monsters was corralling another group of villagers into the center of the market, using the smashed remains of different stalls to make a crude paddock for the people.

Men, women, and children were herded about like animals while the Crooked bayed and cackled. Three of the twisted people worked together to hammer a gruesome sign into the front of a nearby building.

The sign consisted of a dead man. His stomach opened to allow his guts to dangle, crucified against the building with his arms spread out to either side.

Koda’s group hit them without hesitation.

This time, rather than Arthene leading the charge, it was Calandra who spearheaded their formation.

“For Amberpost!” Calandra shouted as she swung her broad-bladed Dane-axe through the knee of one of the Crooked.

The monster spun with the blow, losing the lower half of that leg and tumbling to the ground with a squeal of surprise and pain that was ended by the knuckle of Arthene’s club a moment later.

The villagers in their corral all surged at the cry, and more than a few of the cowed inhabitants found their courage. Improvised clubs were torn from the remains of the stalls that hemmed them in, and the villagers fell on the rear of the Crooked formation with a will.

Koda did his best to stick close to the pint-sized guardswoman. Calandra was the most talkative of their locals, and he found himself enjoying her coarse humor and brash attitude already. She swore and spat as she explained what had happened the last few weeks, making crude gestures with both hands and swearing even more when the action made her injury twinge.

Sienna and Arthene ran on either side of him, and the four of them worked as a wedge to drive into the enemy formation while the hunters of Koda’s tribe sent arrow after arrow to cut off the enemy from escaping.

Caught between their suddenly vicious captives and the new enemy, the Crooked didn’t know what to do. And the villagers worked to exploit the sudden uncertainty with their own assault.

Koda spotted one of the Crooked in slightly better clothing barking orders in their garbled tongue and bent to snatch a shortsword off the ground that had two different angles knocked into its shoddy forging. Standing upright, he lobbed the weapon at the shouting Crooked.

His throw was off. He knew it the second the weapon left his hand, but Koda had expected that from the misshapen projectile, really. The attack still distracted the commander while the monster in the rough shape of a man batted the weapon aside with his own bent sword.

The deflection actually made the weapon more lethal, as it averted the sharp end of the weapon into a closer target, while it would have been the handle that struck the commander instead.

While the Crooked that the commander had been shouting at gurgled around the sword now stuck in his chest, the commander turned his glare on Koda in time to see the black-haired champion crouch and launch himself forward into a bounding leap that carried him over Calandra like a pouncing cat.

The commander’s eyes widened in surprise and he tried to bring his sword around into position to parry the human flying at him, but the strength of Koda’s earlier throw had jarred his grip and he failed to get his sword around in time.

Koda bore him to the ground a moment later, the rippling crunch of his rib cage crushing in only audible to Koda over the roar of the fight.

All too quickly, the fight was over. Without the commander to even get them into some semblance of order, the Crooked were quickly crushed between the two forces and destroyed by the weight of numbers.

They didn’t go without cost, the Crooked’s misshapen weaponry claiming the lives of several of the villagers who had fought recklessly and got in over their heads. Koda did his best to not stare at those still forms, instead checking on his people to make sure they were okay.

“Right, you lot!” barked Calandra. “Anyone who can fight: grab a weapon and come with me. Anyone unable or injured, head back to the Silk Scarves Caravansary. We’ve got folks holed up there, and you should be able to stay safe while we see about kicking these bastards out of our town!”

Koda wasn’t sure if it was her blunt way of speaking, the outfit of the city guards, or just familiarity with Calandra, but a cheer rose up from the newly liberated villagers.

Nearly another fifty fighters joined their group and rallied around them, while a bare handful hurried back along the road to the caravansary.

Koda was gratified to see that even those going to hide still took the time to collect weapons before leaving.