Life Review Ch. 05

"Then you should be studying, young lady" Nessa said, wagging her finger at Cassidy. "Leave Shawn to me."

"Yes, mom," Cassidy rolled her eyes and pulled out the Wise Witch's grimoire, but smiled once she opened the leather bound volume and immersed herself in its pages.

"The dynamic of our little party here is just the strangest thing," Shawn whispered to Denza while Nessa rummaged around in her bag for a vial of her rejuvenation potions.

"Everything is strange around you two," Denza said as she sat down at his side and leaned into him.

Nessa handed him a small vial which he took gladly and downed quickly to avoid the less than stellar taste. His stomach warmed as the potion suffused his being, spreading a fuzzy sensation through his body. His eyelids drooped and his arms and legs felt like they were made of lead. His thoughts fled him as he slumped over onto Denza and was asleep in seconds.

Shawn's lower body felt stiff after waking to find himself on the hard ground. His memory was hazy from the previous night, remembering everything up to the point where he drank another horribly tasting potion. He sat up feeling slightly hung over and found that Cassidy and Denza had turned him into their own personal pillow.

The two of them protested when he nudged them awake so he could get up and stretch. He found Nessa already awake and tending to her patient. In the light of day he could see the condition of the man he rescued the previous night. The expeditionary was built like a pole, tall and thin. He had blonde hair that was matted with dirt and dried blood, and his clothes are torn to shreds. Nessa was working on cleaning the expeditonary's wounds, several of the deep lacerations along his arms and chest were puffy and oozing from infection.

"If you hadn't gotten to him when you did he might not have survived the night," Nessa said softly. She had two glass jars sitting on the ground in front of her and a basin of steaming water at her side. She wiped the blade of a small knife on a strip of cloth, placed it in the jar of clear liquid that smelled of ether.

"I didn't know you were a doctor as well as a witch," Shawn said, kneeling next to her to watch her work.

"I'm more of a apotheker than a doctor," Nessa corrected him. "I have neither the magic nor the expertise. I know how to create medicine and apply it, but I'm afraid that is all I can do."

"I only know basic first-aid myself," Shawn said, handing Nessa a rag from the bowl of hot water.

"One of the tenants of the Wise Witch is to know equal parts destruction and creation. To take a life, and to save one," Nessa took up her knife and cut away the infected scabs to drain the wounds and applied an murky gel to the inflamed tissue.

"He didn't get these wounds from the fall," Shawn said. "We need to wake him up to figure out what we are dealing with. You stabilized him, right?"

Nessa tisked, "I have been tending to his infections. He still has several fractured or broken bones that need to be set, but at least he doesn't seem to have any internal injuries."

"He is our only lead. He said some pretty heavy stuff when I picked him up," Shawn took a clean rag and began washing dried blood and dirt from the man's skin.

"Let's finish cleaning him up and set his breaks, then we can wake him up," Nessa compromised.

Shawn worked as Nessa's assistant for an hour before they finished tending to their comatose patient. Nessa retrieved the antidote to the sleeping draft from her bag and Shawn saw it was suspiciously low. He remembered his hung over feeling when hadcwoken.

"Nessa, why did you drug me last night?" Shawn asked conversationally as she mixed a few drops from a vial into some water and fed it to the man.

Nessa didn't even flinch when she answered, "I didn't want a repeat of what happened last time I ordered bed rest."

"Point taken," Shawn chuckled.

The girls woke shortly after and ate a cold breakfast while Shawn and Nessa cleaned up their makeshift first-aid station. The expeditionary began to stir when the sun was well into the sky. His eyelids fluttered and he moaned weakly as he came to consciousness.

"Water...," He rasped.

Nessa put the skin to his mouth and let stream of water trickle between the man's cracked lips, "I'm sure you are in a lot of pain, so please don't try to move. I would normally keep you unconscious until we got you a hospital, but we need some information. Can you tell us your name?"

"Loren, master soldier, guild rank twenty five," Loren croaked.

"That's a good start," Nessa encouraged. "I'm Nessa, master witch, guild rank thirty. My companions and I came out here to find out what happened to your team."

"Gone," Loren croaked, a haunted look on his face. "They are all gone. I need to warn the guild."

"Loren? Loren! Look at me," Nessa said, shaking the man slightly. Once his eyes focused, she asked, "What do you need to warn the guild about? What happened to your party?"

Loren's eyes teared up and he cried silently for a few long minutes before he replied, "They're all dead. We found the caravan and gnoll tracks. We followed them to what we thought was their camp..." Loren took a shuddering breath, trying to hold himself together. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, holding back sobs as he tried to finish his report, "There were so many. Too many. I barely escaped. Riley was right behind me..."

Loren began to cry openly as he mourned the loss of his party members. Nessa tried to console the man and get him to say more, but he was too lost in his grief. She took pity on him and fed him the sleeping draft to let him slip into a dreamless slumber.

"That didn't sound good," Shawn said. He watched the proceeding from his place against the opposite wall so that Loren wouldn't feel overwhelmed when he woke up.

"Vile creatures," Denza spat.

"gnolls are those bipedal hyenas rights?" Cassidy asked, her cheeks were puffed out with the nuts she was munching on like a squirrel .

Nessa didn't take her worried gaze off Loren when she said, "Yes, Cassidy, but that description doesn't do them justice. They are usually between seven and eight feet tall, and are savage brutes. They eat pretty much any kind of meat, dead or alive, and usually live in nomadic clans of around sixty to eighty members. They split into raiding parties of ten to fifteen. One raiding party shouldn't have been enough to annihilate a party of masters."

"So that tells us that we are going up against gnolls at least," Cassidy rested her chin on her hands, abandoning her snack on the ground in front of her. "That isn't enough information to go on."

"It's enough for me to start scouting. I found a lead as to where they might be hiding out. Shawn and I can do reconnaissance," Denza volunteered.

"No offence, but Shawn isn't the sneaky type," Cassidy pointed out. "His boots are pretty noisy too."

Denza shrugged, "You are right. I'll be doing the scouting and sneaking, he is there for back up. I'm confident Shawn can hold his own against a pack of gnolls."

"I wouldn't know," Shawn shrugged. "I never made it a habit to go around punching beastmen."

"You have a spear now, remember? You don't just have to punch things now," Cassidy reminded him.

"Oh joy, I get to stab things now too," Shawn rolled his eyes.

"That's the spirit!" Cassidy said exuberantly, giggling at her own joke.

"Enough you two!" Nessa barked. "I need you both to take this seriously. Shawn, go with Denza and keep her safe. If she gets spotted and you get into trouble, I want you to shoot as big a fireball into the air as possible and run as fast as you can. Me and Cassidy will come back you up and then we'll make a break for it on our horses. We'll have the advantage of speed once we get back down the mountain."

"Don't worry, Nessa," Denza said confidently. "Any gnoll will be dead before they can even try to call for help."

"I hope for your sake that you're right," Nessa chewed her thumb.

Shawn and Denza gathered their gear and set off towards the trail Denza had found the previous night. Once they were out of ear shot, Denza stopped him.

"We won't be running away if we get spotted, right?" Denza asked quietly, a fierce look on her face as she looked into his eyes.

"We are going to see this through to the end," Shawn promised. "I know you are fired up, but we don't have room for mistakes."

"I know that," Denza said defensively.

"Good. Let's not start the reaping until we actually know what we are facing, alright? We will call for backup if we find out we are fighting something we have no chance of winning against, okay?" Shawn entreated his bondmate.

"Fine. The sooner these monsters are dead the sooner I can find my sisters," Denza agreed reluctantly.

"Atta girl, lead on super scout," Shawn motioned for her to lead on.

Without the darkness and escorting an injured person, Denza and Shawn made it back to the trail quickly. After searching around, Denza found the signs she was looking for and led Shawn down the slippery winding path. The deeper they delved into the maze of passages the more Denza was able to find signs of life.

Shawn had a single but very important job. Whenever they changed direction he was to mark the wall with chalk to indicate the direction they had come. Despite being well into the afternoon they traveled mostly in shadows. Shawn found out that Denza had nearly perfect low light vision when he asked her how she could see the small details without any direct source of light.

"So is seeing in the dark something you are born with, or is that skill you can learn?" Shawn asked, making conversation after hours of silence.

"Dark vision and low light vision are two different things," Denza said as her eyes swept across the ground in front of them. She had a choice of three branching paths and settled on the left most path.

"So what's the difference?" Shawn asked.

"Dark vision is when you can see in darkness as you or I would in day time. Low light vision is seeing well in dim light and shadows. Dark vision is something you are born with or gifted by magical means. Low light vision is basically training your eyes to detect patterns in the absence of light, you utilize your peripheral vision more," Denz explained.

"I remember hearing that you can see something better in the dark if you don't look directly at it," Shawn said thoughtfully.

"Exactly. It's a skill all rangers are taught. Velain is covered mostly in dense forest so there aren't many times where there is any direct sunlight when under the canopy," Denza crouched down to a dark spot on the rock, touched it with a finger and brought it to her nose. "It's blood, it's probably Loren's."

"How can you tell?" Shawn crouched down next to her and looked at the dried bloodstain.

Denza indicated the places the blood was smeared, "You see how the blood is spattered? The pooled sections are always where there was no movement, the droplets and smudges tell us the direction the person was headed. In this case, back towards the gorge."

Shawn nodded his understanding. He had watched enough CSI to know the terminology, but he didn't know how much of it was actually real, "So you've been following the blood trail?"

Denza shook her head, "There has been more than one blood stain, but considering we're tracking gnolls, it would be weird if there wasn't any. They fight each other constantly for superiority or just for fun, who knows with these creatures."

Denza continued her scathing remarks on the gnoll race, but a strange noise caught Shawns attention. He heard hissing and the sounds of weapons clashing chaotically. Denza gave him a puzzled look, then closed her eyes. Her ears rose up and away from her head as she listened closely. Her eyes shot open and she looked at Shawn questioningly.

He met her gaze with an equally confused expression. He put his finger to his lips and moved down a side passage, marking it quickly with chalk. He ran into a few dead ends as the sounds echoed around the rock walls of the natural maze. Eventually he found his way into the mouth of a wide cavern. The air was filled with the sounds of rushing water so Shawn guessed they had descended far enough to be near the river.

Denza pulled the bow from her back and loosely knocked an arrow. Shawn pulled his spear from the loop securing it to his armor and held it easily in one hand, ready to be thrust or thrown. They crept forward and hid behind a cluster of rocks. Below them was a large open area, the floor and ceiling were covered in stalagmite and stalactite pillars that were reminiscent of fangs in the jaws of a beast.

Shawn saw a group of thirty or so small scaly figures wearing only loin cloths and sporting a wide array of weapons. They were sectioned off into smaller groups of two or three that would come meet other groups in bursts of frenzied combat before breaking away to move to another group.

"Those are kobolds," Denza whispered to him. "It's not uncommon to see them in mountains like these, they usually live in caves."

"Do they fight gnolls?" Shawn asked hopefully.

Denza stifled a laugh, "No. The weird thing is that gnolls don't live in mountains, they are usually found in the planes, deserts, and hills. There isn't enough food in this type of terrain."

"So what are they doing?" Shawn poked his head out from his hiding place in time to see a black kobold that was flourishing its curved blade get completely flattened by a more experienced looking red kobold holding a club almost as big as itself.

"That looks like training," Denza squinted to get a better look. "This seems too organized. This gives me another bad feeling."

Shawn's ears picked up the sound of padded feet and scrabbling claws. Denza's ears twitched a moment later and they both turned to a passage on the far side of the cavern opposite them. A large shape emerged from the gloom. Shawn had difficulty making out details but Denza let out a small noise part way between a growl and a hiss, much like that of a startled cat.

"That's a gnoll raider," Denza's ears pressed close to her head in alarm.

"I take it this is a bad sign?" Shawn guessed.

"gnoll raiders are the upper tier in the command structure. They are bigger and stronger than regular gnolls. They lead the smaller packs when out hunting." Denza said absently, scanning the scene below.

Shawn watched the towering gnoll walk among the fighting kobolds, stopping occasionally to bark or cackle in a strange beastial language. The gnoll had two hyenas at its heels that snapped at any kobolds that got too close to their master.

"There goes my hope of them fighting each other," Shawn said muttered.

"The nest or camp must be somewhere close," Denza's eyes fell back to the passage the gnoll emerged from. "If only we could sneak by without being seen or heard."

"We have no idea where it goes. We should go back and follow the trail we were following. The need for caution is greater now that we know this is an organized group," Shawn pointed out.

"You're right," Denza took a deep breath and put her arrow back in her quiver.

Under the cover of the combat drills, Denza took the lead and sped back along the way they had come. Once they arrived back at the blood stain, Denza resumed their painfully slow pace. Shawn kept his ears on alert for any noise, but heard nothing except their own footfalls and breathing. The path began to rise after a time and the pair found themselves standing on a ridge overlooking a large valley nestled between the towering peaks of the mountains.

"Shawn, what am I looking at?" Denza asked, her voice wavered.

When Denza had led him deep into the mountains on the trail of gnolls, he had a certain expectation that they would find a cave somewhere with maybe twenty to forty monsters. They would call in the troops, sneak in and kill as many gnolls as they could before being spotted, and then pick apart the rest as they retreated.

That had been his original grasp on the plan. As he looked out over the ridge he remembered that even the best laid plans had a tendency to go awry.

What Shawn was trying to wrap his head around was why there was a full blown military encampment hidden away in the mountains in a highly defensible position. From his vantage point on the ridge overlooking the valley he could see rows of trenches and barricades bristling with sharpened wood pikes. Small groups of gnolls rode around the perimeter on bulky hyena mounts with packs of smaller animals trailing behind them. Behind crude walls constructed of logs and loose stone there was a shanty town of hobbled together buildings that spanned the valley.

"This would be our lives becoming much more difficult," Shawn patted Denza's shoulder, trying to project more confidence than he felt in the wake of their newest discovery. "Should we wait until nightfall to try and get a better picture?"

Denza shook her head, "No, if the kobolds are working with the gnolls than nighttime would be potentially deadly for us. kobolds are industrious creatures, and are who I would guess built this place. They like traps and ambushes, but aren't usually active in daylight."

"But what about those kobolds training in that cavern?" Shawn jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"Nothing about this situation is normal, Shawn," Denza snapped at him.

"I'm just asking," Shawn said soothingly. "You know more than I do, I'm just trying to get a clear picture."

"The picture is bleak," Denza's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Shawn cautioned. He knew once he told Cassidy about their new challenge she would want to proceed even more, she craved the sense of triumph from beating the odds. "We have their location, now what else do we need? What would a ranger do at this point?"

Denza straightened, puffing out her chest, "Collect all relevant tactical information: personnel, buildings with strategic value, total numbers, combat strength, and assets."

"Good," Shawn encouraged her. "How do we get this information?"

Denza chewed at her nails while her eyes drank in the scene below her, "Since we know kobolds are working with them, we should wait for the perimeter guards to switch shifts. The gnolls will go to sleep while the kobolds are awake. We need to sneak in undetected and map out the compound as well as identify any key figures or locations."

"So we should try to sneak in during the twilight hours?" Shawn furrowed his brows. "Wouldn't that be the time where there is the most activity?"

Denza nodded, than smiled, "Yes, so it will give me the perfect cover to use my mouse. You and I are too large and foreign to this area to try to sneak in with any success. We would need a skilled thief or spy, someone skilled in infiltration and information gathering."

Shawn was surprised at the mention of the mechanical mouse, "What do you plan on doing with it?"

"I can control the mouse and see through its eyes," Denza said excitedly, forgetting about the magnitude of the task at hand. Shawn could sense that she was feeling unsure of herself, so the little victories helped her remain calm and confident.

"Perfect. So we need to go find a good hiding place and I'll stand guard while you do your thing," Shawn nodded to her appreciatively. "Alright, let's find a place to hide."