Part 2
Lorne Harlas rode hard out of Unen for the meeting place of Lalder and Rapi’og. His heavy plate mail clanked loudly as he rode, the sun shone off his polished full helm, even as the wind lifted his crimson cape high into the air as if to display the smith’s fine work. It was hard to believe the man was a professional assassin and shadowmancer, adept at sneaking about as well as other various bits of skullduggery. He smiled to himself, quite pleased at how this might turn out. Only a week previous, he had received word from one of his minions, aptly named Menion, that there was a reward out for protecting the safe transfer of some dangerous crystal. Money was all well and good, but Lorne often looked at the big picture. This crystal had to be pretty valuable for a declared payment of silver bars. He wondered how much they would pay to get it back before something adverse were to happen to it.
His chance to find out came soon enough.
After introducing himself to the assembled movers and shakers he took up his assigned position at the landing site. The high stalks of the magya had been cleared away to form a little camp site. A fire pit dug and food was roasting merrily away, while a thick bodied Olgog carefully tended the spits.
The smell of sizzling kolgul filled the air. All were on their guard, including the massive female Brezan who had greeted Aufgog Lalder with a hug hug. Lorne had heard that she was a UtR council member. It was surprising to Lorne she would be here. It raised his estimation of the worth of the crystal up a few notches.
With eyes busy counting coins, Lorne never noticed the cloaked Air Skimmer which nestled in the tree-like stalks at the edge of the valley. Then as a massive airship settled into a position floating above them, all were distracted by the Bruskti vessel. Even Lorne was impressed with the armament of the vessel. Suddenly his plans of running seemed a little less sure. But just as doubt filled his mind, he saw the burly Mag’ol Rapigog striding down the walkway, the crystal clenched surely in his hand. It glistened so surely, with such a gleam that it caught Lorne’s eyes. He saw it and he lusted for it. To possess it, and contain it, and smash it into one thousand shards and send each across the world so it could glisten over the entire world.
Not being a stranger to different forms of hypnotism and mind control, he ground his teeth and resisted. The strength of it was strong, but Lorne found his attention broken as suddenly twenty Brezan Stalker Cavalry burrowed out from around the meeting site. One was right in front of him, a Brezan olgog brandishing a cruelly hooked maul. The hammer-like weapon came down with enough force to batter Lorne from his saddle. The armor saved Lorne’s life once more, and the assassin was up on his feet. Towering above him eight feet of Olgog riding ten feet of predatory insectoid muscle, and Lorne drew his sword.
Off to his left he could see Rapiog and Lalder standing across from each other. Lalder motioning for Rapiog to hurry as the big chieftain roared at their mutual enemies. One hand extended from each, passing crystal hand to hand. Then a blade arcing up from the soil making two quick cuts serving each of their arms at the wrist.
The crystal flew upward under the force, hands touching each side as a tendrill of stone surged from the ground and wrapped it all in a protective coating. A perfect sphere of stone now dropped to the ground only to be picked up by an olgog dressed in the distinctive armor of the Black Scale Gangers. Unlike the Brezan mercs currently fighting with the locals, this Olgog was pure Colonial stock, from the gothic canal-city of Kelvara. His mane of green fur was dyed white and pulled up into spines where it extended out from underneath his dragonscale armor. A chimera claw extended from the end of his polearm on one end, and a poisonbringer tail on the other. He spun it over and over again urgning his mount to burrow once more. But rider, mount and crystal were levitated from out of the ground by one of the Olgog mercs working for Mag Buskt.
From the sky flew a winged soldier, his carbine spitting acid at the leader of the attackers. A few precisely aimed shots melted the polearm from his hand. The weapon dropped away, and Lorne noticed it missed cutting the stone holding the crystal in half by inches. Another two Black Scale Gangers leapt on the back backs of their own mounts, hoping to use the element of surprise. One was pulled off his saddle, levitated clean into the air.
The other was battered from his saddle by the Brezan female, Shirley. Her vine wrapped fists hammered over and over again into the Black Scale Ganger. There was the crack of broken ribs, and the ganger was doubled over. Shirley’s knee to his jaw knocked out the already battered ganger.
Two of the attacking cavalry came at her, and she grabbed both their Brezan Stalkers by the neck. Like a pair of whips she used them to flog their own riders, much to Lorne’s humor.
Lorne stood over his own dead assailant, but kept eyeing the stone orb. Now it was in the hands of the last remaining Black Scale ganger. Lorne wandered a glance over at the mass of gogs where Rapiog and Lalder held their own, each fighting onehanded against ten cavalarygogs. Lorne was about to act when a camouflaged tla’loc’alan stepped out behind the ganger. An incredibly sharp blade now protruded through the ganger’s chest.
The stone sphere rolled from the ganger’s hands. Dropping the body off his blade, Lalon reached down to pick up the stone as the battle raged around them. At his feet, the sand swirled as the stalker whose rider he had just killed, decided to burrow its own escape. Trying to escape its rip tide, he never saw Black Lorne coming. Lorne pumped a pair of deathbolts into his former ally’s face, allowing the body to drop into the wake of the stalker. Lorne lifted up the stone sphere and escaped.
Derlur noticed Lorne escaping with the stone and went to levitate them both back. Then a rocket propelled grenade struck the ground near him, hurling him up into the air. An undefended olgog would have been torn apart but luckily Derlur’s faith and his leyas shields held firm. He tumbled and rolled and looked up to see a Brezan with a rusty pump action shotgun in one hand and an RPG launcher in the other riding a Brezan stalker. The Brezan Olgog had slung the now empty RPG Launcher and was sighting in on Lalder and Rapiog with the shotgun.
Derlur levitated the weapon from the Brezan’s hands but when turned to go after Black Lorne Harlas, the double crossing sellsword was gone. If Derlur’s Leyas sight was true, then Lorne bore with him a slowly cracking crystal caressed by two half-dead hands held alive by the Leyas. All bound in a sphere of stone, a ticking timebomb that could go off in a day or off in a year. Derlur grew quite concerned.
He watched as a giant rocky Olgog in artificed armor crushed the life out of the Olgog gunner. In the sky above them, their flying ally rained down acid driving back the raiders in one final push, but Derlur wondered if they had won or lost the day…
