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Chapter 14 – (find a name)

They both jerked their heads back as the door crashed open, and Toin came in. He wavered for a moment, and then found his balance. He was holding his helmet under his arm, and in his other hand, he had a turkey leg.

“Aren’t ye coming down? They’ve got** the most wonderful beefed turkey!” Toin said in a loud and sluggish voice, as he chomped at the turkey leg. He was clearly drunk.

“Yeah, I…we’ll be right down,* Kashan said loudly, somewhat frustrated.

Toin walked out, muttering, “He should know better then to challengesh me to a drinking contesht.” When he had gotten out to the hall, they heard a loud thump.

“I guess we know who won that contest, then, huh?” Kashan said comically, and Arya giggled.

“C’mon, let’s go,” she said, and got up.

“Go where?” Kashan asked, curiously.

“Downstairs, of course; we can’t sit here all night, plus we can’t just leave him lying on the hallway. That would be a bad waste of a bed,” She replied, and quickly bowed down, planting another kiss on him, and then walked out.

Kashan sat there for a few seconds, with no intensions to leave just yet, when he heard Arya’s yell out on the hall.

“Are you going to help me carry him or not?”

Kashan smiled and walked out of the room. When they had gotten Toin into his bed, they went downstairs for a drink. They sat in the bar with Timier, chatting and laughing ‘till near midnight; then they all went to bed. Even though they hadn’t told Timier what had happened up in the room, Kashan had the feeling Timier knew. He shook it off.

When Kashan woke up, he shifted his weight, and saw Arya lying next to him. He lay there for a while, then got up and took his claws off his dresser. He got dressed and walked out for a breakfast down at the bar.

When he walked by Toin’s room, he heard some rumbling inside; so he knocked, but found the door wasn’t locked.

19-Sep-2006 23:37:06 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:41:51 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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His room was somewhat smaller then his and Arya’s, probably because he didn’t have to share it with somebody. It was a single, reasonably large room, with only the barest necessities, and a single door on the right hand wall, leading to a lavatory.

Again he heard some rumbling, along with a couple of moans this time; they came from the lavatory door.

“Toin? Are you in there?” He asked through the door, and knocked on it.

Some more moaning came through the door.

“Yeah it’s me,” Toin’s voice weakly answered. Some more rumbling could be heard, and then he continued. “That beefed turkey must’ve given me food poisoning or something. I’ve been up since four, most of the time sitting in here.” He didn’t sound too happy.

Kashan couldn’t stifle a laugh.

“Yes, yes, very funny,” Toin mumbled angrily when Kashan had stopped laughing, and then moaned again, followed by some more rumbling. Kashan started laughing again.

When he had stopped laughing, he began to think, and got worried. If Toin was stuck in there, he couldn’t fight in the battle.

“Hang on; I’m going to get Timier. He can heal this, I hope,” He said, now nervous.

“No!” Toin snapped. “I don’t need the whole inn coming up here to laugh at me. Just leave me be, I’ll be all right.” He sounded mortified.

Kashan reluctantly agreed to this, and went downstairs. The bar was completely empty, save for the barman and Horas, who was lying face down on a table. Apparently, he had been there the whole night.

Kashan decided, after he had eaten, to go and see what the exact battle plan was. He returned to his room for the scroll, and then went to the palace. Already, dozens of guards were wide-awake in the garden, following the orders of the generals, and other commanders for preparations.

“Sir? May I know what the battle strategy is?” he asked the archer, Kai, carefully.

“Why do you need to know?” Kai asked suspiciously.

“Knowledge is power,” Kashan replied matter-of-factly.

19-Sep-2006 23:37:07 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:42:14 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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Kai barked a laugh. “I suppose it is. All right then, but I think it’s best if we speak inside,” he said as he walked into the palace, ignoring the harsh looks from Reol and Kareel.

“After your friends’ remark yesterday, we decided we needed major rework on our plan,” Kai said as they walked down a corridor. He stopped in front of a door on the right hand side, close to the end of the hallway, and went inside, along with Kashan.

“We’ve sent troops to the Salve; they should be able to hold them there. As for our defenses, it’s a wee more complicated. Those scouts from Lumbridge finally arrived, and immediately set out to the Wilderness. They all managed to come back, contrary to the earlier scouts we’ve sent, and have reported, the leader of the army was Xen; so we need to pack up on some silver. We’ve issued silver arrows to all the elite archers, that will be on the palace top, and some other archers that are strategically placed along the wall and the battlefield. Wherever he goes, there should be a constant volley of silver on him.”

“Xen? Who’* that?” Kashan interjected, questioningly.

“You don’t know of him?” Kai asked surprised. “Where have you been the last five years?” he then asked, though he didn’t expect a reply.

“Xen is an experiment of Kolodion, the battle mage, which got out of hand. Five years ago, Kolodion tried to create the ultimate challenge for his mage arena, and he succeeded to well. The experiment, Xen, didn’t obey him, and escaped after nearly killing Kolodion. Since then he’s been terrorizing the Wilderness, and recently started coming to cities, assassinating high-ranking officers of their armies.

“We’ve tried capturing him, the White Knights have tried capturing him, hell, even the Ardougne Paladins have tried capturing him, all to no avail. He’s too smart, and moves much too fast. He always escapes, usually killing most of his pursuers. And there’s one more thing you should know; he’s not human.”

19-Sep-2006 23:37:09 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:42:27 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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Kashan looked puzzled, so Kai explained. “He’s a combination of an elven Dire Wolf and a human, though the only things human about him are his mind and stance. Most people never get to see him due to his skill with evasion, but he’s said to have fur black as shadow and eyes of pure fire, so watch your back.”

They were now inside the same room Kashan had found them in yesterday, bowing over the same maps on the same table.

“What were those ‘other things’ they reported, sir?” Kashan asked when he had taken in all that.

“They also reported hordes of zombies at the forefront of the army. There must be a necromancer among them, and a powerful one if he can reanimate all those zombies. We’ve issued all mages with earth, air and chaos runes for crumble undead; that should drop them like flies in a fire. From what they saw, they order of the army is very simple, yet chaotic. Just the style of Zamorak. Leading the army are the zombies, as I’ve already told you. Behind them, there is the main army, with demons guarding each flank, led by the blood-demon Chronozon. Other than that, there appears to be no organization to it, the beasts simply go where they please.”

Kashan tried to picture this army in his head, but it was too grand and frightening for him to comprehend. “What of our defenses, sir? What are we doing to counter this?” he asked after a while.

“Along this line,” Kai drew his finger over a red line going horizontally over the map, only an inch from the Wilderness, which would be only a few yards in actuality. “We have erected a reasonably tight wall of spears. In between them, we will place several mages to open fire upon the zombies as they come into view, and then retreat. Our warriors will be behind them, ready to take continue the job the mages probably won’t be able to finish. As I said before, there will be a few archers among the warriors, but there won’t be many; an archer in the midst of a battle won’t do as much good as he could.

19-Sep-2006 23:39:24 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:42:50 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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Since we are meeting them in an open battle, the range from the wall is too great for the average archer or mage, so we’ve erected several towers all over the field, each going about fifty feet to the air. That should be a good enough vantage point.”

“Where exactly will we be? I know Arya and Timier will be on the Palace top, but what of me and Toin?” he asked, then quickly added “the dwarf,” when he saw the face of confusion on Kai.

“On the request of Horas, you two will be here,” he said, as he pointed to a place slightly behind the red line, in the center. “He will be your squad commander,” he continued.

Kashan thanked him, and prepared to leave as he had gotten the answer to all his questions; when a memory of the first time they met hit him unexpectedly.

“King Roald said, when we met, that there would be several high-ranking officers to oversee the battle. I didn’t see anything wrong with it at the time, but I was thinking; doesn’t he do that himself?” he asked as he stood in the doorway.

Kai barked a laugh. “That old coward? No, he’s gone to Falador. He tried to get Ellamaria to go with him, but the old lady has more guts than he does. She’s staying, even though she won’t be fighting. Nobody would expect that of her, anyway.”

“Thank you, for your time and trouble. I’ll leave now,” Kashan said as he left the room.

He went back to the inn and found that Timier and Arya were already down, having breakfast.

“Ah, Kashan! I was wondering if you knew where Toin was,” Timier asked questioningly when he noticed him.

“Yeah, he’s up in his room… but I doubt he wants any company,” Kashan said, emphasizing the word ‘doubt’.

Timier arched his eyebrows, but asked no further.

“I was thinking we could visit Kaiser now? The doctor said we could come today,” Arya said, cheery as always.

They both agreed on that, and when Timier and Arya had finished their breakfast, they went to the doctor’s.

19-Sep-2006 23:39:25 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:43:12 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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There they found the doctor sleeping in a chair in the corner of the room, and Kaiser, fully awake, lying in his bed talking to the elf in a low voice.

“I don’t know how to tell them. I know I haven’t been traveling with them for long, but they…” he said in a low voice, but stopped as soon as he saw them walk through the door. ”Oh, hi! I was wondering when you would come. Where’s Toin?” he said cheerfully, though it was obvious he wasn’t. They decided not to comment on it, though.

“He’s…not available right now,” said Kashan, who was the only one of them that knew exactly what was wrong with Toin. Kaiser, like the others, decided not to ask any more details.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Everyone, this is Elissa. Elissa, these are Kashan, Timier, and Arya,” he said smiling, as he gave Elissa a ***** look.

They all greeted her, and then started speaking with them. They found that she was a very nice person, if a bit rebellious, and that even though she had stopped adventuring years ago she still couldn’t refuse a good fight, which made her a frequent customer of the doctor.

“That doctor’s a miracle worker! He was jumping between our beds like a rabbit almost all night, and what a job he did! I can hardly feel any pain in my back anymore, and I’ve regained almost full strength in my arm again! Actually, I can’t feel ANYTHING in my back anymore, but that’s beside the point,” Kaiser said at one point during the conversation.

“Great! So you can fight in the battle tonight?” Kashan had asked, thrilled, but Kaiser’s face turned to that of a disappointments.

“No. He says fighting would open my wounds, and that I would bleed to death in minutes. About that. Arya! I would like you to have this,” he said as he took his bow from the side of the bead, and handed it to her.

Her jaw dropped. “But Kaiser, you won it! I can’t possibly take it,” she said surprised.

19-Sep-2006 23:39:26 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:43:27 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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“Only because you were distracted, and yes you can. It will do more good for you tonight than it will me, that’s for sure,* Kaiser said harshly.

She took it with open palms, honor and awe coloring her face.

“Thank you for this,” Arya didn’t know what else to say, and just stood there open mouthed, watching the bow in her hands.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I’m not going to use it in the battle, anyways. It’s better that it does some good out there than just lay around here, looking shiny,” he said smiling, despite the fact that his total finger count was only nine. Kashan suspected the painkillers the doctor had given him had some other effects.

They talked for a couple of hours, but then left alone again. Kashan could hear Kaiser speaking for a second, from behind the door.

“I just don’t know how to tell them, is all. I will eventually, don’t worry.”

~~~~

The darkness was almost total, yet Xen could see perfectly.

He had the general form of a human, though his head was in the shape of a wolf, and his body was covered in jet-black fur. He had black dragonhide leggings that blended almost completely in with the black fur of his own body, but bore no other clothing or armor. Muscles rippled beneath his fur, and blood**** could be read in his eyes. Sheathed at sides were two dragon-metal daggers, each painted black with dragon’s-blood poison.

All around him, as far as the normal eye could see, there were the evil creatures of the Wilderness, too numerous to mention. He could see further then the normal eye, however, and saw the demons that flanked them on each side. In front of him, and the whole army, there were zombies, masses, and masses of zombies. His master would be pleased with the work that was about to be set in motion.

He had no illusions that they would be able to defeat Varrock. Well, at least not on their own. However, the trump card he had up his sleeve was what would become Varrock’s doom.

19-Sep-2006 23:39:27 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:43:39 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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“The troops are ready to move, my lord,” said a gigantic greater demon, standing beside him. His voice was booming deep, and would have sent chills down anybody else’s spine.

“Then move they shall, Chronozon,” Xen replied in a venomous voice, and then howled to the moon as he unsheathed his daggers. Even though the howl was a single note, the meaning of it was clear:

“DEATH TO VARROCK, AND GLORY TO ZAMORAK!”

The dices of fate had been set in motion.

End of Chapter 14.

19-Sep-2006 23:41:04 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:44:03 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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Chapter 15 - Dots of Dragons and Lines of Zombies

They spent the rest of the morning on preparing for the battle, each in their own way.
Timier went over the spells he was going to use, meditated, and prayed to Armadyl in his room, while Kashan and Arya spent as much time with each other as possible.

When the clock hit eight PM, Kashan and Arya were returning to the inn after a walk around the city. When they got inside the bar, they noticed a messenger inside, standing on the bar.

“Those who will fight in the battle shall report to their stations now! Troops are getting ready!” he yelled, repeating the same thing a few times, for any newcomers, then ran out of the bar, to some other rally point to announce the same thing.

Kashan and Arya immediately went up to the rooms, both to get their equipment and to let Timier and Toin know. Toin was as adamant as before on not allowing Timier to come, and hence announce his illness to every habitant in the inn. It’s a funny thing, a dwarf’s pride. It won’t let them fight, and it won’t let them miss a fight.

Kashan went to his place in the mass of swords, chain mails, axes, plate bodies, and helms, while Timier and Arya went to the palace top, which was much less crowded.

Up there, Arya only saw seven people scattered around the edge of the building, besides herself and Timier. She saw two of the generals, Kai and Kareel, both clad in the same equipment she had seen them in yesterday, four other rangers, all clad in full black dragonhide with either a crystal bow or a magic one, of which two were obviously elves. She also saw three other mages, two in full red and black mystic robes, and one in an extremely vibrant set of robes, many different shades of colors.

“Sir, are there really supposed to be so few up here? Are there not more with enough skill to shoot from up here?” she asked, surprised by the small number of people.

19-Sep-2006 23:41:06 - Last edited on 19-Sep-2006 23:44:58 by [#80N8R0VWZ]

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