The party makes it's way down the valley, away from the broken scree and the curious line of ancient towers. The landscape is rolling hills with patches of woodland, with no signs of habitation. If it wasn't for the fear of attack, the scenery would be quite beautiful.
Duplar sees it first. As the party ford a small stream, he glances back and sees black shape in the sky, like some kind of bird. Only it's too big.
Roy glances up at it casually, then returns to picking his footing out while carrying the stretcher. It doesn't occur to him that the airplane could be important to them unless he sees others reacting to it.
"Wow! How does that stay in the air?", Duplar exclaims excitedly, "Just look at the thing - no flapping wings or anything".
Then his expression darkens.
"The mind I read was worried about something he called 'the shuttle' and I got the associated concept of heavier-than-air flight. That thing is not entirely different in shape from a shuttle you might see on a loom, and weavers talk about making their shuttles fly".
"That thing be this 'shuttle' the prisoner thought of. It was very important to him that we don't find it, but I don't know why or what it might do".
"Still the Guild records claim such things used to be built, though not as many as there were power-wagons. There are those in the guild who are sure the records are just a fantasy to gain research funds, but now I think they might be true".
"Aye." Ryzar says, turning away from the sight of the craft, and towards the tree-line.
"The Kolder have used such machines with good effect to attack both fortifications, as well as attack troops on the ground. And of course, from such a high vantage, the Kolder-scum inside the vehicle can see all the surrounding terrain for miles around. We must, indeed, hurry to find shelter in the shadows of the trees".
As Ryzar speaks, the craft drops in the sky and beings to dive. It reminds both Hank and Roy far too much of the tactics of a dive-bomber not to be worried.
** Good grief **, thinks Duplar to himself, ** perhaps these Colder people Ryzar is so worried about really do exist. These strangers also seem worried about them... **
"Everyone scatter!" cries Ryzar, "Get under the thickest leaves of the trees -- where they cannot see you!"
He starts to jog as fast as he can, with the double burden of his own possessions, and the literal dead-weight of Jal's body.
"Kylar, this'll be a rough ride. Sorry. Roy? Haul it!", says Hank
He breaks into a crouching run, all but bolting for the treeline. He takes Kylar's condition into account, taking care not to drop or jostle him too much, but if that thing is a hostile fighter-plane, a bruise or two would be better than staying in the open..
Roy keeps up as best he can, wishing he had his hands free and wondering if maybe the gun he's carrying could bring down a fighter jet...
Ryzar reaches them.
"You two obey Kylar!" Ryzar pants at the two newcomers, "He is an Officer of The Legion, and he knows the dangers of these lands well. You have the greatest burden, so find a safe hiding place for the three of you. Once the sky craft has gone, the rest of us will come to you. Good luck, Kylar, old friend."
Then Ryzar cuts away from the three men at a sharp angle, and heads for the cover of the trees as fast as his heavy burden will let him move.
Dharak grabs the prisoners' leash with one hand, hauling them towards the trees, while menacing them with the pistol in his other hand.
Somehow, one of the two quaan prisoners [the orange cat-like beings] has manage to loosen his bonds, and takes the opportunity to make a break for freedom. He heads for cover too, but in a different direction from Dharak and the other prisoners.
Before Dharak can react, the sky is rent asunder...
From the flying thing a beam of coherent light blasts a rock outcrop into smithereens, showering the whole area with sharp rock fragments. While most people manage to get under enough cover to avoid being hit by these fragments, Reylorna gets a nasty gash across her forehead, drawing a lot of blood.
One of the kandar prisoners gets hit too. A big shard of rock takes off the back of his head, showering Dharak and the remaining prisoners with blood and bits of brain.
"REYLORNA!", yells Hank.
"Come on man, get down!", yells Roy, as he dives for any cover available, trying to drag his end of the stretcher with him -- he figures that the patient will recover from a few bumps and bruises more quickly than from a giant laser-blast. He may be right, but Kylar winces from pain anyway. They do manage to get Kylar under a reasonable amount of cover, behind an uprooted tree which might protect them from flying rock shards. They can still see the craft by looking up over the edge of the roots.
Dharak curses and spits. All too familiar, he thinks. Of course, the last time, he was only armed with his walking stick...
He quickly but securely ties the two remaining prisoners' leashes to the nearest tree, then looks to see where everyone else is located; although widely-scattered, everyone is still within earshot, provides he raises his voice.
"Roy, Hank, if they try to get free, shoot them, and watch out for their furry friend," he shouts, wiping blood and bits of gore from his goatee. "Duplar, is Reylorna all right? Because she's our only chance at stopping this flying power waggon".
"Ryzar, I say you and I move far away from everyone else and try to draw the fire of this contraption by shooting at it, while Reylorna, with Duplar's mental support, tries to put to sleep whatever man, kandar, cat-man or giant amoeba is at the controls of the thing."
"Of course, if she's badly hurt, we should just abandon the prisoners, split up into at least two groups, and try to lose ourselves in the wilderness until this machine leaves, then try to make it back to the human village. What's the word, sister? Are you all right?".
"I..I think so", she says, wiping some blood from her forehead. Adrenaline is keeping her going now.
The shuttle climbs and banks in a huge semi-circle, coming in for a second attack, from the opposite direction. It's remarkably quiet compared with real-earth aircraft; the low whining noise is a lot less than the roar of a jet.
"And let's all get out of sight of this lot" Dharak adds, pointing to the tethered prisoners, "So they can't give away our position." He pauses just for a moment. "Of course we could just shoot them all in the leg or something. That'll take their mind off things".
Reylorna reaches her mind towards the approaching craft; at the moment it's beyond her range, but getting closer every moment.
Motioning to Ryzar to follow him, Dharak pelts off into the trees, away from both the tethered prisoners and Reylorna and Duplar's position.
Meanwhile Duplar looks to Reylorna, but as soon as she confirms she is still conscious he makes his own dive for cover. He then rolls round and assess his chance of affecting this thing with his lightning wand, and realises he doesn't really have a clue. These weapons were designed to stun living targets, although they can also fry delicate circuitry. They're useless for causing structural damage against vehicles and buildings.
He checks its selector switch is on full power. It is.
Hank's a bit lost. He's still not ready to shoot down the prisoners, people who themselves haven't done him any harm- or even threatened him. At the same time, he realizes they probably aren't about to extend him the same courtesy.
Above all, there's nothing he can do about the jet, except hunker down and try not to be a target. He glances around; the wooded side of the valley would give the party a lot of cover, should the only remaining option be to bolt for it.
As soon as Dharak is a safe distance away from the rest, based upon what he saw of the blast radius of the flyer's energy weapon, he squeezes off a shot at the shuttle. Unfortunately the combination of the range and the speed of the craft means his first shot misses.
Almost simultaneously, the craft opens fire on a rock face just above it's previous target; again showering the area with rock shards. Everybody ducks, and this time nobody is hurt, although a sharp shard of rock passes just inches from Reylorna's nose.
Dharak runs like hell and dive for cover. Duplar decides not to fire as it would give away Reylorna's position.
Reylorna makes mental contact as the craft passes overhead, her mental probe entering the mind of the pilot. He's concentrating on banking the craft in a sharp turn to come round for a third attack.
"They're firing back", comes the voice of another, speaking in Konaic
"To much damned cover", replies the pilot, in a thick accent she can't place at all
With no time to waste, Reylorna concentrates on closing down the man's consciousness. There's something alien about his psyche, not quite kandar, not quite human, but something else.
The craft quivers in the air, the goes into a stall. It plummets towards the ground, but then seems to recover, and the dive flattens out. But then it vanishes behind some trees on the opposite side of the valley, and everyone heads crash like a rumble of thunder.
Hank stays with Kylar, relieved that Reylorna's still relatively alright. He watches the plane crash for (to him) no explicable reason.
He says, half under-his-breath: "Okay... I've got a shiny nickel for anyone who can explain what just happened..."
"Maybe the planes here are just crappy." Roy considers a second, then says, "But they can build rayguns, so you'd think they'd be able to build planes, or flying saucers, or something".
"Nobody builds machines like that", Kylar says softly, "It was a relic from ancient times, in the days before the Golden Empire died in wars and plagues. The Guardians do not trust us with such things today, lest the terrible wars of the past repeat themselves".
Meanwhile Dharak jogs over to Ryzar, grinning and nearly giggling -- which, given the fact that he's covered in kandar blood, makes for a macabre image. "Brother, I've seen a thing or two in my day, and I'm sure you have too, but that," he points to the plume of smoke and flame pouring over the ridge, "has got to beat them all. Reylorna just saved all our lives -- and who knows how many more, if that contraption had been able to continue with its devilry."
He looks around. "Do you think we should take the time to track down that escaped cat-thing, or should we just put as much distance between us and this place as possible, and to hell with that creature?"
Ryzar, still carrying the corpse of Jaldaric, had been knocked down by the last blast from the flying ship. When Dharak arrives, Ryzar is down on one knee, preparing to pick up his friends corpse.
"By the Flame! Dharak!" Ryzar exclaims, his eyes going wide as he sees his blood splattered companion, "What has happened to you? Are you injured?".
Hank looks around to take inventory of his surroundings. The events of the last few minutes are still fairly unexplained, to him, so he stands his ground- hand creeping, however reluctantly, to the pocket where he put the beam weapon.
The scene is quiet except for the voices of the group, and the occasional bird singing. A plume of black smoke rises from the place where the craft crashed.
"These 'Guardians'...", Hank asks Kylar, "What are they?"
Kylar looks at Hank as if he's from another planet.
"They watch over us from the sky", he says, "And protect us. Great Guardian Kardak the Defender is the patron of all true warriors, even if some of his own knights get carried away".
"Do we have time to visit that crash site?", Duplar asks Dharak and Ryzar, "We might be able to salvage some interesting bits for the workshop people to look at..."
Ryzar quickly realizes that the blood on Dharak isn't his -- but it does make him pause and realize that others may be hurt. Looking around at everyone, Ryzar spots the blood on Reylorna's head.
"Dharak! You did not tell me that the Lady Reylorna had been injured! Any inspection of that crash can wait!" Ryzar says, turning to Duplar, before rushing to Reylorna's side.
"My Lady, please sit. Let me tend to that wound." Ryzar says in a concerned tone, as he removes his pack and starts rummaging for his dwindling supply of healing equipment.
"Yes, she caught some debris from that same blast that left me wearing one of our prisoners. Fortunately for all of us, she was well enough to send the drivers of that flying waggon into a sleep from which he shan't awaken."
He checks to see that the prisoners he tied to a tree are still there. They are.
At Duplar's suggestion of visting the crash site, he shakes his head. "That's what I would call pushing our luck, Duplar. We are weighted down with prisoners, dead, and wounded." He brandishes his pistol. "I think we have plenty of trinkets to show your Mechanist friends. I am worried about that escaped cat-man, though. What do you say, Ryzar? Press on, or hunt it down?"
Ryzar examines Reylorna's wound; it doesn't appear serious; most of the blood isn't actually hers. Reylorna feels the pain drain away almost immediately; whatever healing salve Ryzar is using, it's effective.
Ryzar's slim fingers gently tighten the knot of the bandage wound around Reylorna's head.
Reylorna moved slowly, checking the wound on her head with a light touch. "Thank you Ryzar, excellent work. I really feel better."
Then Ryzar squats back on his heels -- frowning -- as he ponders Dharak's question.
"While time IS of the essence...", Ryzar ponders aloud, "And we ARE already heavily burdened with a wounded Kylar and the body of Jaldaric...not to mention having to ride herd on the prisoners we have..." Ryzar looks up -- from Duplar to Dharak, and finally to Reylorna, "I am of the mind that the passengers of such a flying craft may be more knowledgeable than the prisoners we have. I am also thinking that the craft didn't come down as hard as it could have, and that it's passengers may yet live. It would be a dangerous risk to take, going to inspect the craft. But I believe that it could also be of great value to do so."
Ryzar stands, and replaces his backpack upon his shoulders, then clasps a hand around the hilt of his sheathed short sword, and bows his head before Reylorna.
"Of course, I am at your command, Mistress, and shall follow your wisdom on this." the young Borderer says, somberly.
Turning to the rest of the group Reylorna offers, "I think that the cat-thing pilot would be a danger loose and a worthwhile prisoner. In addition I don't think we can ignore the opportunity that the smoke plume represents. We came to find out what we could and this is most likely related to the functioning mirror that we discovered."
She can't conceal her own eagerness to learn more about the ancient devices even though it is clear she tries.
"Then that is what shall be done, my Lady." Ryzar says with a nod, settling his pack on his shoulders, and moving to recover Jaldaric's body from where he'd left it.
"We'd best move quickly, before those we had prisoner can get back to their masters." the slight young man says, before once again hefting Jaldaric's body up onto his shoulders.
"It will be easy to find the crash site -- we just walk towards the column of smoke. If I might suggest....Dharak, you take the lead and I shall follow behind you. My Lady, you and Master Duplar follow behind me, and our two new companions can bring up the rear with Kylar." Ryzar turns to face the two strange newcomers.
Dharak frowns. "Which is it brother? Investigate the crash site, or track down the escapee? If the latter, then, you're the tracker. Don't you think you'd do a better job of tracking if you weren't carrying our friend? And perhaps it would be difficult to track him with the whole group tromping along behind you. Perhaps you and I could try to find him, while the rest of the party checks the crash? Just a suggestion."
"No, I meant let's catch the cat thing first, then look at the crash", Reylorna replies, "I feel that anyone who is going to bring more of the enemy down upon us needs to be captured and held for information".
Ryzar looks from Dharak to Reylorna, and back. "In my years as a Borderer in the Northern Mountains, many times I have tracked patrols of the Hounds of Alizon, as well as the sleek mountain cats found in those ranges." Ryzar says, "I tell you now -- if that cat-man-beast has even half the speed and agility of a mountain cat, then going after him is pointless; for he will already be back at the tunnel entrance by now. That flying craft did not chase us far from the tunnel entrance, my friends. I fully believe that the prisoner that escaped is already back underground. If we went back, after him, we would just walk back into their search parties.
"Our best bet to avoid capture is to maintain our lead time. We can try to get to the crashed vehicle, and then get away from it with whatever we may learn, before the rescuers do -- or we can just head straight away for the nearest village, and remain even further ahead of our enemies. I will track down the escaped cat-thing, if that is your command, Mistress Reylorna. But I truly believe that to be a most dangerous course of action. Even heading to the crash is chancy -- but I believe the rewards to be gained there are worth the risk."
She nods her head slowly. "I must admit as in many things, I am not experienced enough to know the risks for hunting the cat thing. So given your assessment, our best course of action is to proceed to the crash site. I still would like to take more away from this than the knowledge that we have destroyed a functioning part of our past." Her voice holds just a bit of bitter sentiment.
Ryzar turns to Hank and Roy.
"Forgive me, friends, for ignoring you until now. As you know, we've all been a little busy staying alive." The young man says with a grin, "I am called Ryzar -- as you may have heard. Ryzar of Lormt. That's in northern Estcarp. In the eastern foothills...?" Ryzar asks with a tone of hopeful inquiry.
Hank's finally on turf he can run on- greeting those from different cultures: "Hello, Ryzar- I'm Hank Jenkins. From the state of Michigan, in the United States of America Former U.S. Peace Corps, Engineer..."
Tries out the unfamiliar words: " 'Lorrmpt.' in 'Estcarp'. I'm new here- never been to either. Once we get your friends to a hospital, or something, tell me more?"
"Greetings, Hank Jenkins", Ryzar replies, "May the Eternal Flame always Warm you, and Light your Way." Ryzar responds, with a solemn nod. Then, looking at Hank with a sudden brightness to his dark, doe-like eyes, he asks, "Did you say you are from the... the...Yeh-Knighted States of Merika? Why, that is the Fabled Land from which Estcarp's greatest hero -- Lord Simon Tregarth -- is supposed to have come from! Can it be so?"
Hank looks sort of amazed. "Um... Yes! Here..."
He fishes out his wallet, with a free hand...) "Licenses, ID, money, photos... go on, take a look..."
He nods at Roy "I'd bet a shiny quarter Roy's American, too. It's a big country, though- we only just met, here..." Please, tell me more about Simon Tregarth- can we meet him?"
Ryzar looks over the proffered papers, but makes no attempt to handle them.
Respecting what he can only assume to be local custom, Hank displays the contents of his wallet at a pace that allows Ryzar to see, then pockets it again.
"Incredible..." Ryzar says abstractedly, then turns his head to look at the second newcomer, "Is that true, friend Roy? Are you also a Merikan?"
"Sadly, Lord Simon Tregarth disappeared many years ago." Ryzar answers Hank, "Along with the Witch that was his Wife. It has been rumoured that they dabbled with powers of the Old Ones -- for Lady Tregarth was among the most powerful of Estcarp's Witches. That was many years ago -- back when their children were small. Now the children of Simon Tregarth are as old as I -- I have even met them! Well, met them in passing, anyway, for they were raised in Lormt, as was I."
"So much to learn...", Hank says.
"So, people like us- new visitors, from places like America- aren't common here, I gather?" and "Not to put too fine a point on it, Ryzar... I take your friendship as offered... but what's to happen to us? If I heard right, it wasn't a plan that brought us here, and we can't go back the way we came. You gave us weapons. It would be insane to arm prisoners, so we can't be captives...So..." he loses steam... what now?"
Question finished, he has a look of chagrin that he couldn't finish the query any better...