The governor arrived amidst the chaotic suffering; his polished amygdala unphased and obsessed with a bigger vision, obligate onuses against the potential threats still cackling outside the keep. His face cracked with determination and hope, despite his likely swordhand nurtured in a makeshift sling. Torus was uncertain whether the fracture or sprain was from previous skirmishes or a mark left by an adult blue dragon. The same half of his head was also crudely mummified with the garnish of crimson dashed all upon his light blue tunic and peeling bandages; his faint limp, at times, almost betrayed his resolve and leadership.
”Ah, you are here. I was considering to send someone looking for you. Come with me onto the roof of this tower, if you would. And if you know where to look for the cleric that was with you, they are welcome as well.”
The pirate’s hazel irises continued to stray from his attentive duties, to note the accompanying guard, the precautionary political relics of import, as he haphazardly ascended the spiral staircase to the precipice of Orchid’s harrowing vault. His loose cape fluttering and beckoning the Orc, the Hin, the paladin and the cleric.
“Priestess, we have been summoned.” The nearby Sylvan warrior irked out as the boon became paramount.
It seemed the spent Kyra jerked from the depths of her surgical meditation. Patients were sprawled about around her; some moaned from encephalopathy, under her scalpel, with hidden biochemistries suggesting shock liver or kidney failure, from the uncleared hyperammonemia and uremic poisons. The jaundice and ascites from the resultant hepatorenal syndrome, portrayed pregnant male soldiers, carrying no child into this world, but a subsequent death of impending intracompartmental extravasation, intravascular collapse, and cardiogenic dyskinesis. Others were lucky, with their rigor mortis riddled bodies carried by family members and strangers to the next room, where Torus had forgotten his belongings, moments before the battle on the parapet.
The druid rose from the young, maimed soldier, no older than two decades; his aged fingers had cleansed and finished suturing a massive abrasion.
“There, son, take heart!” as he rested his stiff hand on the teenager’s forehead, “You will overcome. Uncertainty is a pain too forlorn to realize that faith is its twin. Remember this and doubt will melt away from your mind.”
As the elder hobbled, with his strapped tortoise shield, in the opposite direction, he voiced to the bestial eyed divine aspirant, “I must fetch my staff. Won’t be long. Take the bird with you, lad.” Torus maintained his mouth ajar, with soot dripping from the vermillion crevices. Before long, the familiar raven’s beak interjected away from his lips, then a head and torso, struggling, crowing and flapping its ashen wings, attempting to escape his master. The regurgitated fowl finally flocked to Brannor, resting on the green knight’s shoulder.
“He will be my ears until the occasion pardons my slothful legs.”
Turning about face, he oozed into the improvised morgue that smoldered a particular scent, ersatz of a witch’s cemetery. The corpses carried coins or blindfolds over their life bereft eyes, ceremoniously free of hardship or pain. Father Time and the Grim Reaper both remained undefeated, it seemed. The historic corner still huddled his untouched property, its space respected with no hint of thieves. Soon, the orb with Yorick’s skull, spell book, and brass brazier quickly became possessed by a black net alongside a conch horn and his full three waterskins.
After pocketing the remaining tinderbox with flint, taking in a sigh of disdain, and firmly grasping his dragon-fanged quarterstaff, he mumbled to himself, “Promises. Promises,” as he sluggishly arrowed, towards the stony helix, whose pinnacle housed the adjudicating roof where nightfall and Nighthill had already gathered.
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