Chapter Text
They arrived at Taunka’le, cold, soaked and exhausted, as the larger moon was sinking over the black midnight horizon to the west. Aza had been able, for about five or ten minutes at a time, once an hour, to freeze the ground below their feet and they used that time to mount up and ride as fast as the poor mounts would tolerate until the spell ran its course and they were floundering in the mud again. This tactic may have saved them some time, but it wasn’t much against the constant struggle with the weather and the road itself.
Taunka’le’s gates were shut against them and the guard on the gate said they were welcome to camp in caravansary, which he waved an arm in the general northwest direction, “You can camp in what’s left of it, anyway.”
In the midnight darkness, they asked for a torch, at least, to light their way up there and provide a campfire starter. The guard pointedly shut the door in their faces, saying, “One minute,” and returned, opening the door only wide enough to thrust out two lit torches.
With raised brows, Meshie took them, handing one absently to Troo who stalked up the rise with it. It wasn’t a long distance, and surely during the day one could see the town quite easily, but tonight, all was dark behind their log palisade.
The caravansary was a modest structure, and it smacked of quick orckish war-time building techniques. Wood posts, leather siding and roofs, but nothing insulated against the cold and only rough floor platforms lifting feet and bedding out of the mud. Thankfully the ground was more solid here, dank and damp, but not actively trying to suck a person down to hell.
For travelers who were wet, cold and about to drop from fatigue, it would have to do.
“They call this an inn? There’s not even an attendant.” Moharan muttered.
Beyond tired, teeth chattering, Meshie still defended the Taunka against Moh’s critical review, “It is after midnight Moh. Would you stir yourself to see to a surprise visitor’s comfort in the cold and damp Under these same circumstances?”
Meshie had found a fire circle in the middle of one of the pavilion style tents, loaded in a bit of thankfully dry tinder from a box by the entryway and started the fire burning with her torch before propping the torch in a holder on one of the sturdy upright columns.
The others got the mounts into a stable tent and unloaded the pack animals. Fodder and water were to hand, at least and the animals were left comfortable resting and eating to regain their strength.
Kovari was especially tired. His innards were still recouperating after the wounds and healing of the first day’s ambush, and as much as he had wanted to help fight the gorlocs earlier, Meshanka had been right. Just slogging through the mud all day, and most of the night too, had probably been more that he should have been doing so soon after the surgeries that had saved him. He’d noticed Troo limping too, though her injury had been less drastic, she probably could have done better to just spend the rest of the day laying down with the leg elevated. His previous trading journeys with Odesa and the guild had been just as eventful, but with injury care spread between Meshie and Ellodie before, they had been much less down time for recovery.
After getting the fire started, and eating a bit of trail rations, Meshie had changed out of her wet garments, placing them on the racks near the door, those few things done she had rolled up in a blanket and fallen asleep beside the fire.
Kovari steered people around her as he also prepared to sleep, the most that everyone did was change into something less damp and hang wet things to dry before curling up to sleep. Kovari found Odesa, another blanket wrapped person on the floor, and cuddled up to her, the planks under his body were uncomfortable but warming up next to Odesa felt like heaven. He reviewed the day, starting as it had with him back on his feet, only to have to slog along in the mud beside his mount, and forced to stand-by as his companions fought off the gorlocs. His protégées back in Silvermoon would probably have looked askance at that, though Virasa would have understood. She was an archer, and she wouldn’t be surprised at how much the abdominal muscles were involved in drawing a bow-string, and how that would translate to core-muscle usage in a sword fight. On top of that, she’d had to sit out patrols once due to a belly injury. She at least would be unlikely to believe any acid Moh might spill her way about him wanting to shirk fighting duties or being lazy. Somarillian, Rokenna and Miramas, as far as Kovari knew, had not ever had to contend with such an injury, and given their ready access to all the healers in Silvermoon’s ranks, they had not had the experience of being field treated, they were so young. The first time Kovari had come up to Northrend, he’d been about their age now, and he’d had a very different first experience of combat, of healers so tired he’d been lucky to survive with scars and was just thankful to be alive. Had Ellodie been along this time, she and Meshie could have traded off worktime on him, as it was he was glad Meshie was so skilled as she was.
He pulled Odesa closer, feeling the pull in the newly healed gut wound, and she made a little snuggle-up move and a sigh of contentment. He had this now, this closeness, this connection with another that was strong and honest and comforting, and he put his protégées out of mind for now. They were in Silvermoon, and hopefully Moh was reevaluating his opinions. One thing to be said for the snooty paladin, once he saw your worth he was still snooty, but he tended to attack less. Maybe that was why Perrie loved Moh. . . Kovari’s thoughts chased themselves a bit, but being warm and exhausted from the day, and still recuperating from the stab wound, he fell asleep with Odesa in his arms under the blanket on the floor with alacrity.
~o0o~
Nru and Aza, though not discomforted by the cold, did find that moving about in clothing that was icing over impeded progress. There were cubicles that the others had used to change in, and so did the undead.
Aza declared that she did for once, need sleep, but not needing warmth, she simply lay on a bench by the wall out of the way, and crossed her arms over her chest, ragged lids dropping over her eerily glowing blue eyes, dimming but not shutting off the weird effect.
Nru took the opportunity to evaluate how much fire fern remained (about 2 pounds) and as quietly as he could (though everyone was so exhausted he probably could have run a marching band practice through the caravanserai’s thin-walled main room, direct the marchers to step over his companions, and still not wake them) he cleared space on a counter top to set up for his project. Casting one more amused glance at his companions, they were, he observed wryly, sleeping like the dead. The dead-Dead, as opposed to the forsaken Dead.
His portable alchemist’s kit was unharmed by the day’s adventures and horribly cold weather, though some of his catalyst solutions were still a bit iced over. Setting them next to an active Bunsen burner had them thawing out nicely within a few minutes. The effects of the fever inducing potion had not been too detrimental to Meshie, his only tester so far, but he’d been evaluating her outward physical reactions to the potion. Pulling out a notebook and pen, he gave Jubnam a sideways glare that told the imp he should produce the ink bottle pronto, and the little imp did so, but with a return glare that boded ill intentions if Nru would ever let his guard down enough.
Meshie’s first reactions had her cheeks flushing, and a brightness of eye that was markedly more like she’d imbibed too much caffeinated tea than just having a fever. The heat, she’d reported, had returned to her fingers and toes, so it did promote a circulation boost, and he jotted these things down along with the curious notation that the fevered-ness had not clouded her thinking, but perhaps the clouded thought that usually goes with a fever was countered by the extreme cold of the climate here. He’d have to try this stuff out on someone in a warm climate and see if it just knocked them down like a viral illness would have affected a normal person. The good news with the cold though, had been she was able to stay warm enough to make it to shelter, and that was a high selling point if he was going to refine this and sell it to future travelers to Northrend, rather than use it as a disabling chemical weapon against enemies. One had to be careful of the end-product labeling, if it wasn’t accurate, one was in for a lot of headaches in the legal system.
In staying awake and doing useful potion tinkering, he was also keeping watch over his very tired companions. Hunter pets were curled on the floor near their masters, Kovari and Odesa in their little blanketed lump on one side of the fire, Meshie and Troo, with a bit of space between them on the other. Moh and Perrie were a bit apart from the rest, Aza on the bench, but Ruby was actually perched on the end of his countertop, he realized.
“How goes the potion-making?” she asked with her oddly double voice, blinking her red eyes at him briefly.
“Well enough,” he answered, “I’m making a few refinements to the fever potion I had Meshanka try today.” He shot Ruby a look, “And you? How is your mission coming along?”
“We have traced the Banshee Queen’s steps, but we have not gotten close to her yet.” The Ranger responded, “When I find her, I will certainly lend my support to her first, unless of course, she has succumbed once more to Arthas, in which case I may need to take . . .different steps. . .”
Nru’s head jerked up at her tone, and he gave her a considering look, which turned into a few moments of study as he processed his own thoughts on the subject. The Banshee Queen held his respect, without her, he would have been a mindless body dragging through the tasks required of him by heartless evil masters not the least of which was the lich king, Arthas himself. Since coming to Northrend, the background and underlaying call had been louder, more difficult to ignore, unlike when he was further south and able to tune out the call altogether.
“The Dark Lady has my loyalty, hands-down and with no question. I am sure she has her reasons.”
“It is my hope she does, and that I can either bolster her efforts or at least communicate her intentions to the council back in Undercity. With no knowledge of her intentions, it is easy to start sowing doubt. . .” Ruby’s tone implied she did not want to doubt her liege either, but whatever the council had thought up might be persuasive to those on the edge, where loyalty might be thinner.
“There is a different, more insistent quality to the, for lack of a better word, ‘call’ here,” he drawled as he measured and weighed ingredients, and extracted his travel mortar and pestle. “My hope is just to not get re-entangled in the whole mess. For the last few years, I have at least been able to resume the métier I enjoy best and still earn a living,” here he chuckled wryly, “ A living so to speak, and I get to travel the world at large, carefully in some places, with abandon in others,” he was thinking of Tirsfal Woods, not far from his native town of Andorhal, which had become a contested and difficult to live in mess in recent times. For some reason the living thought they might be able to reclaim the ravaged town, and the original residents, now Forsaken, protested any sort of eviction, and now the town seemed to be under constant claim-counter claim fighting. Unlivable for live or undead persons, really. “In any case, Ranger Ruby, I am understanding that you have a mission, I don’t promise anything now, except to help you get in range to find her. After that, my business and livelihood with these people comes first,” and his boney hand swung out over the floor covered with sleeping forms.
“Understood,” Ruby told him solemnly, “your work also holds value, as does theirs, my aim is to continue to support them as I have done so far. Tell me, have you any Mind-numbing poisons I could re-tip my arrows with?”
“Ah, yes. I do help Odesa with a ready supply when she hasn’t had time to make her own.” He extracted three small vials marked with various attributes of poison on the labels. “Help yourself,” he offered.
Ruby retrieved her quiver, and selected a poison, then she proceeded to clean the arrow tips of gorloc gore, and applied the mind-numbing poison as they continued to chat companionably.
Under the direction of Ruby’s questioning, Nru found himself informing her of what he knew about his companion’s own missions up here in Northrend. Meshie trying to locate a lost spouse. Moharan, as the brother of that spouse had come to find him too. Perrie, had come because Moh had. Odesa and Kovari were valuable members of the guild, but they also balanced sides for Meshie in the subtle struggle for power on this venture, countering Moh and his somewhat detrimental attitude to the stated goals.
Troo, he told her, had come to make a living, and also track down her mate that was already up here in Northrend, “He is supposed to meet us here in Taunka’le, and he contracted with an earlier expedition to supply the Kor’kron vanguard up in Dragonblight. If he got stuck in all the things we’ve been stuck in since we got here, I don’t hold a lot of hope for finding him.”
The rest of the evening was spent listening to the fat rain and sleet drops hitting the thin roof overhead and chatting about the efficaciousness of various poisons once they’d dried onto weapons. Tomorrow would bring its problems, but for now there was pleasant chat, cups of restorative tea shared and a glowering imp resentfully flipping through tarot cards in the corner, almost companionably. Jubnam had not liked having to take on two gorlocs on his own, but Nru was sure it was a confidence builder. Perhaps, Nru mused, I’ll banish him and bring out the void walker entity next time. Give the little guy a break.