The Stalwart’s Rest was packed with off duty city guardsmen and women, but the mood was sombre. Many were deep in their cups, trying to drown the horrific memories of their most recent foray to the Petrichor coastline to fight back the creatures emerging in ever increasing numbers, or to numb the pain of fallen comrades.
Rhynn Pyobaer waited patiently, sitting still and silent on a small stool on a platform towards the back of the common room. Eventually, when they were ready, they called for him.
“Piper! A song!”
“Piper! Play ‘The handsomest lad I knew’…”
“Something in memory of my friend Piper..”
“‘Requiem for a Rodrigan’, Piper..”
He stood, slowly, solemn in the face of their loss and grief and began to play. Before long the skirling of the pipes would hold them entranced and the music would work a magic upon them, easing their sorrows, calming their fears. Rhynn was an excellent piper and The Stalwart’s Rest paid him handsomely for his skills.
He hoped there would soon be fewer nights like these, now that Lord Arcanum Estabiel Thunderstar had arrived to reinforce the beleaguered defenders of Petrichor. The hope was that the tide would turn in their favour and that the damaged Realmgate out in the Bittertwang Sea could be sealed shut for good. The Stormcast Eternals of the Iron Peacocks Stormhost had arrived at Petrichor and then marched straight to the front line to do battle without pause. Their less hardy cohorts had stopped to rest from their march before readying to join the Stormcasts.
As the evening wore on news trickled in that the Iron Peacocks had already routed the Ghurish sea beasts from the walls and back down to the shore. There was talk that the Stormcast would follow the beasts into the water and hold the Realmgate closed by strength alone, mostly joking. The mood in the Stalwart’s Rest was hard to judge, Rhynn heard those who delighted in the victory and the promise of peace. But beneath that, and at the edges of conversations, the barely spoken rebuke. Why had they come so late? Why had so many of their own been lost? Poor battered Petrichor had needed the Iron Peacocks for weeks before they had arrived.
Rhynn did what he could to brighten the mood with his music but the Stalwart’s Rest patrons had lost too many friends to the Ghurish incursion. And then, out of the aether, he was transfixed by a stabbing bolt of pain that seemed to burn from his brain down his spine to the balls of his feet. He dropped his pipes to the drunken amusement of some and fell forward onto his knees, driven there by an agony unlike anything he had ever experienced.
The windows to the tavern were blown in with explosive force and the door was smashed from the hinges. The sound of an unimaginably powerful explosion reverberating through the room, some patrons were even thrown from their feet. But the explosion did not die away, it rumbled on, growing louder and closer with each passing instant.
Rhynn’s pain began to subside and he gingerly reached forward to retrieve his bagpipes. Outside, the city was filled with the cries of mortal-kind calling to each other for help, shouting their pain, trying in their myriad ways to understand what was happening.
As the ground shook and the city walls trembled the soldiers within the Stalwart’s Rest regained their feet. A captain crying out for them to form up, dammit! Return to the walls! Caught up in the press, Rhynn and other non-combatants were carried by the flood of soldiery out of the tavern into the howling gales that whipped along the city streets. Aghast at what they saw they went no further, for the wards inscribed over a hundred years earlier by the Druid of Rodrigos were afire and shrieking, under assault by forces beyond the ken of mortal folk.
The stars in the sky were gone, Petrichor was torn adrift from the Rodrigan pocket-realm, ripped away by cataclysmic forces and her fate now lay in the hands of the gods. As Rhynn’s conscious mind reeled in shock, his unconscious stretched in a manner he had not felt since he was a young child. Instinctively he understood that under immense pressure the Druid’s wards had snatched away any power it could to save the city and in so doing had unravelled a similar warding spell that had been woven over his own mind. Yet in spite of this thievery he could still feel that the Druid’s magics were failing. The city was about to be torn apart leaving just a whirl of tumbled masonry, natural rock and the rapidly cooling bodies of her citizens.
By the city walls a power blazed out. An enormous flaring mage-fire, incandescent to his newly unveiled mage-sight, he felt a thrum pass through his body and mind as though a deep bass note had sounded. Lord Thunderstar! Hurling all his arcane strength without reservation, holding nothing back, attempting to feed the wards the magic needed to maintain the city. A second blazing power, strangely mortal and yet not in a way.. And then he sensed lesser powers joining them, mostly Stormcast, unflinchingly pouring out their soul’s essence to try and save Petrichor.
It would not be enough, with his rapidly expanding senses Rhynn could feel the city starting to tear apart. He felt the Druid’s wards brush through his mind again as though seeking to tap into the warding power they had already taken. Pandemonium had taken Petrichor, people clung to one another in terror, the weaker buildings crumbling and collapsing under the stresses vibrating through the ground and city walls.
He could help, somehow he just knew he could. He hefted his pipes, calmed himself and launched into an old Petrichorian favourite. “Stay!” He demanded, commanding as hard as he could muster within the newly uncovered corner of his mind. “Stay together! Come with me!” And he sensed his own long suppressed powers awaken and blaze outwards, spiralling away from him throughout the city. He felt the soul-wrenching moment that he connected with the Druid’s wards, they needed so much power! He felt as though every atom of his mortal frame was being drained away into a vast unfillable sinkhole. Focussed wholly on funnelling power into the wards he was unaware that he had again been driven to his knees. Still he played on, for all that existed to him now was the insatiable hunger of the Druid’s wards and one pulsing demand, over and over. “Come with me! Stay together! Save the city!”
***
Etesian Hubwards, Quartos of the Zephyrrum Corps, came to with a groan. He felt weak as a newborn and was astonished to find he had poured so much power into the Druid’s wards that he appeared to have exhausted Sora’Tuuli, the Aelemental whose powers he stole. He was touching the ground, something he had not done since he had begun contesting with Sora’Tuuli for their powers years before. The unfortunate consequence of their now somewhat symbiotic relationship was the throbbing headache and weariness that ached through to his marrow.
He levered himself up, leaning on his elbow to cast a glance around. Petrichor was still here, mostly, and so were many of the troops who had been with him when the Realmgate had gone rogue, amazingly. The Lord Arcanum, Estabiel Thunderstar, was back on his feet, issuing orders, albeit in a softer tone than normal. He imagined the Stormcast Eternal was also suffering the after effects of their extravagant use of power.
Their eyes met, and the Stormcast nodded to him in what Etesian hoped was a thawing of their icy relationship. The Zephyrrum Corps were much respected for their battle magic but still treated with a great deal of suspicion. Etesian understood it, the others, Primus, Secundus and both the Tertius’ twins were all pretty darn creepy, but he liked to think he was the “nice one”.
Thick fog swirled all around them, from superheated water boiled off in the clash of elements and warding magics as the city had arrived, wherever it was they had arrived. He could hear buildings near and far collapsing across the city and the land beneath them groaned in distress that even he, who was not naturally attuned to it, felt. A light breeze cleared the hot fog away for a moment and Etesian took an easy breath. In that moment Sora’Tuuli seemed to revive somewhat because without fanfare the Quartos rose gently from the ground by a fraction. He sighed in relief, deep down he had feared that his extravagant abuse of the Aelemental’s power had killed it.
“Quartos!” The Lord Arcanum called over to him, wincing in pain at the effort, and causing Etesian to flinch. “We’re getting reports of some sort of nighthaunt incursion in the heart of the city. Are you able to fight?”
With a deep groan that he couldn’t stifle despite his best efforts, he rose to his normal height, hovering 3 feet from the ground, anchored by the weights and manacles around his ankles. “Always willing, Lord Thunderstar! We should stay together and save the city!” The words echoed weirdly in the fog and he noticed that many of the stormcast and mortal soldiers said the same phrase at the same time.
The Lord Arcanum looked askance at the mage and the troops around him. “Fine then, come with me! Stay together and save the city!” Etesian struggled to stifle a most inappropriate snort of laughter as the Lord Arcanum seemed to attempt a suspicious look at his own mouth.
They made their way through the shattered city streets of Petrichor, occasionally having to detour around places where the weaker structures had come crashing down during the tumult. Thunderstar and Etesian exchanged troubled glances as they heard their mortal and Stormcast companions muttering, “Stay together! Save the city!”
They heard the wailing of pipes before anything else and as they cautiously approached they saw the shades of the departed surrounding the piper in numbers beyond counting. The apparitions seemed to be chanting, or shouting and as they got closer Etesian was chilled to the bone. The gheists were mouthing the mantra that had taken ahold of the living as well. “Come with me! Stay together! Save the city!”
As they watched more and more spirits flowed into the street and swirled around the piper, until it became difficult to see him.
“This is no attack Lord Thunderstar.” Etesian whispered in awe. “I think our piper is a Zo’imancer, and a powerful one at that. He seems to be in a trance and has spread his influence over the city. No doubt the stress of the Realmgate collapse brought his untrained powers to the fore.” He paused to gesture at a Castigator who was apparently unaware that she was chanting “Stay together! Save the city!”
Thunderstar nodded in agreement. “We must needs wake him from his fugue, he must release these souls to their final rest.” He turned to the troops gathered behind him. “A volunteer! A non-mage to wake this man from his dream?” Etesian nodded his understanding, if the Zo’imancer became conscious of a power approaching there was no telling how he would react.
But their volunteer came from the Petrichor Guard who were still scattered around the Stalwart’s Rest. A bearded axeman shouldered his way to the fore and spat. “I’ll try it, our piper’s too good to waste on magecraft.”
“A slap should be sufficient my dear fellow.” Etesian was always on his best manners in public but frowned at the possessive “our” and the disrespect for magic, not unusual in the rank and file but uncommonly bold in front of the Lord Arcanum and Quartos of the Zephyrrum Corps.
“Esker Kame.” The axeman stated firmly, his lip curled with more than a hint of contempt.
“I’m sorry?”
“Esker Kame is my name. I am most certainly not your ‘dear fellow’.” The axeman glowered at Etesian in a manner that made him regret his insistence that he was the “nice one” of the Zephyrrum Corps. Occasionally he would like to ‘educate’ people about the respect he was due. Without waiting for a reply Esker strode unflinchingly through the swirling spirits that surrounded the piper, and how relieved he was that they moved out of his path is something that can only be speculated.
The crack of a solidly delivered slap echoed out but there was no change. Through the suddenly more agitated gheists Etesian saw Esker winding up for a terrific punch. “No!” He cried out in warning but the blow landed and the piper was knocked out stone cold. The pipes wheezed out their last breath and fell silent, the maelstrom of spirits began to fade away. As they faded from view they continued to mouth the piper’s mantra but there were none of the dire occurrences that Etesian had feared a punch would elicit. He sighed in relief. “Nicely done Esker Kame, nicely done.”
