Survival until dawn

After the necromantic carnage that Vathiron has become, the endless darkness beyond the city walls holds its own sense of unease. Tentatively stepping beyond the city gates the group are relieved to see no undead in the immediate vicinity.

Avalon dons his hunters mask, climbs onto D-ablow and proclaims "Lets get the hell away from here." No-one disagrees, the direction of choice seems to be west, where people have vague recollection of copses of trees to try and use as shelter. With the current position of the moons, most of the group can only really see half-clearly for ten feet, and then very shadowy detail for another ten.

The group have only moved forty feet from the gates when Gargamadua calls for a halt. Using the night-sight that his draconic heritage grants him, he spots a body laid sixty feet ahead. The group move forward slowly to check it out.

They soon ascertain that its the body of a human child, around the age of 10. He doesn't look to be undead or killed by magic like all the others tonight. He looks to have been shot by two arrows, one from either side, whilst he was trying to flee from the city.

"Poor thing, I really don't like to see this kind of cruelty." 'Dua states nervously wringing his scaly hands, "We should take his body with us and do the suitable human burial rite". Whilst the body is loaded onto one of the horses, Hawk checks the surrounding area for tracks. Heading to the left of the body he finds a set of fresh horse tracks about forty feet away. Studying the area for a moment the Shifter heads back to the others to report.

"Looks like a bowman on horseback rode past and shot the kid down. I'll bet half of my fleas that there is another set of tracks on the other side of us too." Sure enough, slightly further away on the other side, a second set of tracks show a second bowman riding past.

The group spend a few moments discussing who would have shot the boy down and why. "Stop the undead contamination from escaping the city?....Robbery?....Cruelty?....Fun?". Without a conclusive answer, the group move on, eager to put more than a hundred feet between them and the city.

Whilst the group largely stay together, Hawk spends his time working a perimeter guard around them. Running from one side to the other he soon finds more evidence of horse tracks in the plains, some less than an hour old. It's also not long before he finds another body.

Bending to examine the corpse he quickly sees four arrows sticking out of it and plenty of blood pooled around the wounds. Rolling the corpse over it turns out to be a middle-aged half-elf, dressed in reasonably fine robes. Checking for any more clues, Hawk finds a reasonably heavy money pouch on the mans belt and realises that the motive for the murder was not monetary gain.

Reasoning that the dead have no use for their belongings, Hawk empties the mans pockets and soon finds himself in possession of a shiny gold ring, four potions, five scrolls that he knows will make fine fire-lighters, a finely-carved wooden stick and a hefty money pouch containing gold.

The group have managed to travel several hundred feet from Vathirond city walls when D-Ablow swings his head to his left and peers off into the distance. Suddenly the whistle of an arrow flying past can be heard by the group, thankfully no-one is hit by it. Fighting stances are taken, weapons drawn and spells readied. The group springs into action.

Hawk, Vaelas and, Avalon riding D-Ablow race off to find the unseen assailant. After fifty feet they encounter a heavy war horse being ridden by a Warforged. The Warforged looks different to the other two encountered earlier in the city. This one is no where near as heavily armoured and appears to have Mithril plating armour and a long bow held in its hands.

Hawk leaps at the Warforged on horseback, but the horse turns and plants a serious kick to Hawk's chest that knocks him immediately unconscious. Vaelas turns his Valenar twin-scimitar over in his hand and sweeps it at the Warforged whilst releasing a psionic attack through the blade. Unfortunately it misses and in a follow-up attack Vaelas drops his sword.

Cries from the main part of the refugee group arise moments later as an arrow pierces the ground near them but from the opposite side. 'Dua rallies the three boys that the heroes are escorting to safety, and persuade them to attack the new foe. Janin moves to attack with his Warhammer after a prayer of protection to the Silver Flame.

Avalon reaches down from his mount, lays his hand on Hawks body and uses his Dragonmark to heal the wounded Shifter. With surprised glances from Vaelas and Hawk, Avalons iridescent purple-blue tattoo glows eerily and heals some of Hawks wounds. Avalon riding D-Ablow then peels off from his attack run to assist the other group.

A couple of arrows later and Vaelas succumbs to his wounds. His subconscious-mind manages to keep some control though and stems the bleeding through force of will alone; a technique he'd learnt during his psionic studies but thankfully never had need for before.

'Dua uses his mystical powers to send both Warforged's mounts to sleep, and then summons a series of Celestial Hounds from the Outer Plans to attack the Warforged. A lucky strike from Sep, one of the human boys, finally manages to disable one of the Warforged and earns the group a much needed morale boost.

Eager to seal their victory, everyone surrounds the remaining Warforged and take it in turns to poke at it with sharp objects. He erratically slashes back at people, managing to take down Tam, one of the other human boys, and gives a wound to Sep (or super-Sep as he was fast becoming known). Finally Avalon sweeps his sword in from the side and manages to cause enough damage to topple the armoured brute.

With adrenaline-fuelled breaths, the group nervously stop and wait to see what happens next. Seconds pass and the night stays quiet, no attacks come forth. When things finally seem safe, weapons are sheathed and the wounded are examined.

Dirk, who seemed to do a good job of staying out of harms way in the battle, voices a complaint about how he might bleed to death from the arrow he has through his arm. Hawk stalks over, breaks the arrow tail off and pulls the arrow clear of the wound. After examining the arrow for a few moments Hawk gives both ends to Dirk and tells him "You'll live."

At an uncharacteristic loss for words, Dirk just mutters "Bloody savage" under his breath.

Janin approaches Vaelas's unconscious form and examines the wounds. He realises that they are not life-threatening, but considering the nights events so far, they need every able-bodied person on their feet. Knowing that it goes against his religions doctrines to heal those of other faiths, Janin decides that the situation requires it and uses a couple of his weakest healing spells to restore Vaelas to consciousness.

The group give the inert Warforged a couple of kicks and relieve them of their possessions. Other than a two heavy war horses and two long bows, the Warforged have between them three potions, a wand and two fine-quality short swords.

With a final push to escape the danger zone, the group travel on for another mile or so, until the ground starts to rise and the occasional tree makes the area less open. They finally stop in the shade of a 30 foot bluff, where they can look down on the remains of Vathirond and are less open to attack.

Once there the weary travellers bed down for a couple of hours and wait for the new day. With a hint of light starting to appear on the horizon, the dark of the night begins to lessen slightly and with it the oppression and gloom recede.

Suddenly a dark shadow passes overhead and it is as if night has fallen afresh. Everyone looks up and sees a three hundred foot wide object passing silently overhead. It's hard to make out exactly what it is at first, but as the object continues to pass for over a minute and a half, it soon becomes apparent that the shadow is being cast by some kind of floating fortress that comes to a halt between their camp and the ruined city.