Chapter 30: Bloodbath
Ember was flying. The tents of the bandit camp were barely visible far below her, and she could see the woods stretch away for miles around. All was quiet. That will change at dawn, she thought with a small grin. Her smugness evaporated as an invisible force pushed her down towards the ground, then into the ground. Complete and utter darkness surrounded her; she couldn't even tell whether or not she was still falling.
After what felt like an eternity, light returned to the world. It was not much; just enough for Ember to tell she was in a small, rocky cavern. A statue loomed before her.
A statue of herself.
"Such pride undeserved, great predator, when your whole being is borrowed." It was the voice she'd heard in other nightmares. This time, it seemed amused even as it accused her. "Credit where it is due, and dues where payment is demanded."
A dagger of bone flew from the blackness and struck the statue's chest, cracking it slightly. Ember's body exploded in pain; it felt as though she were being ripped to shreds.
"You were made as you are," the voice said, "and you can also be broken."
Ember fell backwards, but there was no floor to meet her. The void swallowed her again, and she kept on falling and falling and falling...
She snapped awake, gasping for air. Kivan was standing over her. "I could not wake you," the elf said, a worried tone in his voice.
"It... it was just a dream," Ember said, inhaling deeply. Her fingers grasped the bedroll; the rough, greasy texture felt wonderful.
"Then it was no normal dream."
"I've had similar ones before. There's this voice, chastizing me.. and daggers of bone. Tonight it wanted to claim some due I owe it."
"Perhaps you owe it your gift of healing?"
Ember laughed quietly. "To some nightmarish creature who never is pleased with me?" She fell silent, remembering that she had dreamed of the voice before she knew she could heal. "I did discover I could heal after I dreamed of the voice. And I could heal twice after the second time I dreamed of it," she said thoughtfully.
"Your abilites may arise from spiting the creature. It is a powerful thing that can lock your spirit in a dream, and it is more likely that one such being has interest in you than two."
"If you're right, I should be able to heal three times now. I guess we'll find out later." Ember closed her eyes. The voice still rang in her ears; a voice with no trace of benevolence or compassion or warmth, and definitely not a voice you'd expect to bestow healing gifts. Could that voice belong to someone... something real? A chill ran down her spine.
"I hope there will be no need to find out. You should get some rest; dawn is hours away," Kivan said.
"I don't think I can sleep any more." Ember said. "Why are you awake, anyway? Have you slept at all?"
The elf shook his head. "I can manage."
"Then so can I." Ember took a blanket and sat down next to the elf. Huddled together for warmth, they waited for dawn.
---
"What a remarkable sense of style," Edwin said, eyeing the largest tent in the camp. "(Yes. Decaying decor, with accompanying odours. It suits these simians.)"
"I have little doubt you appreciate it," Ajantis whispered.
"Quiet; he's being sarcastic," Imoen scolded Ajantis.
Tazok's tent was a large structure on a wooden platform. The tent itself was shaped like a dome. Corpses were nailed to the outside of the tent, their extended arms forming a circle around it. Ember was grateful that it was still too dark to see the bodies clearly.
The air inside the tent was damp and musty, but not as bad as the outside suggested. Lit torches hung from the support beams, large banners with the emblems of the Chill and the Black Talon were nailed to the walls, and a large, thronelike chair stood in the middle of a collection of chests. In the dim light, they could see two humans, a gnoll, and a hobgoblin in the back of the tent, standing around a bound man. One of the humans, a burly man dressed in heavy mail, turned and glared at Ember and her friends. "I don't care who you are, no one's to enter Tazok's tent, under penalty of death!" he bellowed.
"Oh, but we're here under Tazok's own instructions," Imoen said. "He told us to fetch his documents and bring them to him as soon as possible." Behind her, Edwin muttered quietly.
"You lie," the other man - a mage, judging by his robe - said. "I know who you are. Like Ender Sai, here, you've crossed the Iron Throne for the last-" The sentence went unfinished as Edwin cast a spell of horror on them bandits. Minsc felled the gnoll with a well-placed arrow while the two humans cowered in fear in the corner; the spell had also hit their prisoner, who was shaking and pulling at his bonds, trying to flee. The hobgoblin was the only one unaffected by the spell. He ran towards a weapons rack, but Ember fell upon him before he reached it. With one swift stroke, she cut his head off.
By the time the prisoner recovered from the spell, the two human bandits were also dead, and Imoen was busily inspecting the room for traps. "Demons!" the man shouted, then looked confusedly around.
"No demons," Ajantis told the man in a calm tone as he freed him. "It was merely a spell, one that was not intended for you."
"You're not with him, are you? No, I'd smell his rancid breath on you if you were."
"That's right, we're not with Tazok," Ember said. "Why have they held you here?"
"This is what you get for stepping on the toes of the Iron Throne, as I have," the man said. "This place is dirty to the core; The Chill think Tazok's getting orders from the Zhents, and the Black Talons don't do much to discourage that particular line of thinking, but it wasn't messing with Zhentarim that landed me here as Tazok's personal prisoner. There be others elsewhere, like that priest Mulahey sent to poison the mines of Nashkel. Set himself up as a kobold god returned..."
"He's dead," Imoen said. "We killed him and the kobolds."
"Do you know where Tazok is now?" Kivan asked.
"Tazok? He's been making regular visits to the Cloakwood, so that's where I'd start if I were you. He keeps his documents in that chest over there," he said, pointing at a large chest bound with bronze. "They might be worth taking a look at. Step on some toes, alright?"
"Evil shall hide both butts and toes in fear when Minsc finds them, for Minsc can both trample and kick, with very large boots!" Minsc proclaimed.
The man smiled and grabbed a short sword from the weapon rack. "Good. Tell them Ender Sai sent you, if you would. I find this a fight I must bow out of, alas." He bowed theatrically to Ember and Imoen and snuck out of the tent.
"What a bufflehead," Imoen chuckled. She deactivated a trap on the document chest and opened it. "Ooh, more spells! Look, Eddie, I think this is a fireball scroll!"
"Where?!" the wizard asked excitedly. Imoen handed the scroll to him with a grin; he held it tenderly to his chest, as though it were a small child.
Ajantis inspected the weapons rack and pulled out a bow. "I believe this is better than yours, Minsc," he said. "Imoen, could you examine it?"
"Of course," Imoen said, "just let me finish with this chest. Ew, stinking cloud... horror... and here, some letters!" Imoen handed the two letters to Ember and went to identify the bow.
Ember opened the scrolls and quickly skimmed their contents. "They're both from someone named Davaeorn," she said. "He instructed Tazok to hire that assassin in Nashkel to kill us. The other letter asks what happened to us and asks for a shipment of iron and ore to their base in Cloakwood. It says they need to stockpile before they give an ultimatum, but it doesn't say to whom."
"To the Dukes of Baldur's Gate, I would guess," Ajantis said.
Ember nodded. "Makes sense. No explicit mention of the Iron Throne, though. So we still have no tangible proof, only hearsay."
"I suppose their Cloakwood base will be our next target, then," Ajantis said.
"Yeah. But we're not finished here yet," Ember said.
They quietly left the tent and spread out through the bandit camp. Kivan and Ember headed straight for Taugosz Tenhammer's tent. A young man was standing guard outside it; in his half-dozing state, he was an easy target, and Ember slit his throat before he could ask them their intentions. They hurried on into the tent. Taugosz was fast asleep, sprawled across a cot and snoring gently. Kivan drew his hammer and, with one swift blow, crushed Taugosz's windpipe. The man's limbs flailed wildly, and his mouth opened in a scream, but no sound emerged.
Kivan bent over Taugosz as he struggled in vain to breathe. "Do you remember me?" the elf hissed. "Do you remember my Deheriana? How you laughed as Tazok choked the life out of her with his hands?" The expression on Taugosz's face was anguished; if there were any signs of recollection in it, Ember could not tell.
"May her pain be yours. And may you rot eternally," Kivan spat. They watched as Taugosz's gaze turned glassy and his body fell limp.
As soon as they were certain Taugosz was dead, they left the tent. The bandits had been alerted by now; people were stumbling out of the tents, and at least one structure in the hobgoblin part of the camp was on fire. Kivan drew his bow and began firing arrows at his enemies.
With her sword drawn, Ember moved towards one of the largest tents. Someone came out of the doorway as she approached. She ran him through with her sword, pulled it from his body as he lay dying, and stepped over him into the tent.
---
Not quite like I imagined it, Imoen thought, brushing stray hair out of her eyes. As far as she could tell, the bandit camp was destroyed, along with all that were in it. The sun had barely risen, and the air was beginning to fill with buzzing flies.
There were bodies everywhere. Human, gnoll, hobgoblin; all dead. Minsc had wandered to the edge of the camp, claiming that all the blood made Boo sad even though it was evil. Imoen felt like joining them.
"This could have been done much more cleanly with just a few fireballs," Edwin said. "(I could do it with less than half a dozen strategically placed ones, I am certain.)"
Imoen squeezed the wizard's arm. Earlier, she'd watched him obliterate the Chill leader and half a dozen other hobgoblins with a single bolt of lightning and some strategic ricocheting. It'd stunk of burnt flesh, of course, but at least it'd been less messy. "I think you're right, Eddie," she said.
"My name is not Eddie," Edwin said, but he sounded much more subdued than usual.
In front of them, Kivan was gazing around the battlefield. He stood still for a moment, sighed, untied his string of scalps from his belt and, to Imoen's astonishment, threw them on a fire.
"By Helm," Ajantis whispered. At first, Imoen thought he said it because of Kivan, but then she noticed he was looking somewhere else. She turned to see what he was looking at, and froze.
Ember had emerged from behind a tent. She was plastered with blood - not her own, Imoen was fairly certain - that liberally stained her armor and clothing, especially around her hands and feet. Her hair was wet, and red droplets fell from the tips every now and then. Her sword was still unsheathed.
And she was smiling.