[While on a rescue mission gone crazed, a holy warrior and a rogue fight bandits, demons, and the urge to rip each other's clothes off.]
The mission, rescuing a princess, could be going better.
Séa is an earnest paladin, honest and gullible. Tash is...
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The riders kicked, but their mounts scarcely needed encouragement. Hooves churned earth, and the chargers sprinted. They were only a furlong away, but it felt like a league as the speed-created wind whipped their eyes to slits.
With a metallic snick, Séa lowered her visor. "With arrows flying, I wish you were behind me."
Tash growled, "Just keep your speed up. Are you going to jump the log?"
"That sounds rash."
"And that sounded like a 'yes.'"
The lightly armored individuals atop the log belatedly discovered two knights in full armor where only empty road had existed before. Hooves thudded and dirt clods flew as they charged. The archers yelped and swiveled, and one fell over backwards. Frullan's charger had fallen a few lengths behind, but her bowstring twanged. A half orc staggered and squinted down in bewilderment at a feathered shaft protruding from his chest.
Frullan's mount slowed, but the bay mare sped up as the log approached. Bayrump gathered herself, then leapt. The acceleration mashed Tash back against plate mail, but Séa used the impetus to add fearsome momentum to a swing of her mace. It connected with a defender's head with a splintery crunch. The fact that the fellow wore a helmet paled to insignificance against the force of the blow.
They landed with a jolt, and Bayrump blew a snort of satisfaction as she slowed to a canter.
Bodies littered the bottom of the dell, most of them in the King's livery. Several riderless horses milled at the dense forest edge, and the King's carriage sat in the middle of the carnage. A second log blocked the forward route, equipped with its own ragged row of bandit archers. The carriage's harnessed horses lay on their bellies, as if asleep. The carriage had become the battle's focal point, and the melee seemed almost over. Only two men, back-to-back, held off half a dozen brutish raiders, a mix of humans and half-orcs. Séa recognized one of the two defenders. He was Brant, the cravat-wearing gentlemen whom Tash had robbed.
The rogue scissored her legs and slipped from atop the mare. "It's Pogrosh's gang. I'll go snipe 'em."
"Yes. I'll just ... attract attention, shall I?" An arrow pinged off the top of her helmet.
"Be flashy." Tash darted to one side, making for the bole of a tree.
Maybe not flashy, but certainly obvious. Séa hooted, "Lawbreakers, with your very teeth, taste the righteous hammer of Torugg the Endurer!" She, too, slid off the tall horse and barreled toward the carriage, her armor rattling and jingling.
To the surprise of a bandit trying force his way into the carriage, its door popped open. A tall black shape unfolded to full height and raked claws down the man's front. The fellow screamed and aimed a desperate short sword slash at the black, horned creature. The tall shape encircled his throat with a clawed hand and choked off his screams. "You irritate me, mortal. You are spoiling my plan."
Séa hardly needed visual confirmation. She could feel the cold radiance of the transformed incubus like a joy-sucking bonfire. Other tiny shadows flitted through the air. Quasits.
Séa attracted a light shower of arrows from the archers at the forward blockage as she charged in. Several clattered against her armor but nothing sharp pierced her skin. A heavy fellow in chainmail armed with a flail swaggered into her path. She aimed a swing at him, but he caught her mace in the chains of his flail and pulled. She pulled, too, and they slammed together, but she led with her gauntleted fist, aimed for his face. He snarled with bloodied lips and punched at her armored head, to the detriment of his knuckles. She shook her mace free and rained blows upon him until he fell into a moaning heap.
Breathing hard, she scanned the area. No Omnians stood on their feet, and Brant the aristocrat had also gone down. At least four quasits harassed the archers at the log. The demon had so effectively carved into the bandits that only a few remained. In this form, Zorexis had glowing yellow eyes, a spiked tail, and bony ridges striping along a reptilian body. A swordsman skewered him in the side with a sabre, and he roared with frustration and pain. "This plane is pure chaos!"
A whistle pierced the air; a double rising glissando. "Retreat!" bleated one of Zorexis's adversaries.
Four remaining half-orcs and men tried to scramble away, but Zorexis pounced on one and buried his fangs into the fellow's neck. He was too intent on his butchery to see the shining Séa approaching from behind, or hear the tramp of doom from her metal-encased feet.
Séa stalked the demon as the battlefield cleared. Tash could not be seen, but Frullan was a shiny presence in the corner of her helmet vision, now on this side of the barricade and firing arrows steadily.
C'mere, Zorexis. Your game is over.
The paladin cracked her mace down at the base of Zorexis's tail, and a satisfying bony snap echoed in the quieting dale. The demon screamed as burned and left off ravaging the bandit's throat to face his new attacker.
"What? You!" he howled.
"Torugg grant me strength," Séa chanted. She waded in to keep the demon on his heels.
He slashed and slashed again, and his claws scored the metal of her breastplate. "No! How?"
"Talk time's over, mister smartydick." The paladin managed to clip his skull, which banged like a beaten drum.
"I'll— I'll give you anyth—"
She hit him again, this time across the jaw, which broke. Her backhand shattered his elbow. "Not interested, duh. Whenever you're ready, I'll send you back to the Abyss, fiend."
He wailed and scrambled away in panicked retreat, but Séa pounced and hammered his hip. Again and again she struck, each blow marring his beauty until so many bones broke that he could neither fight nor flee. She planted a foot on his reshaped body and slapped her mace home on her belt. She laid her hands together in an attitude of prayer.
Zorexis could only sob, "No, please, no. Anything but this. Anything."
"You had your shot, demon. By the grace of Torugg, you are hereby banished."
A flash of blue light. A vanishing black cloud.
As the wave of divine energy washed past her, bliss gave way to a pang of emptiness. Torugg's buoyant touch disappeared, leaving her alone and in the dark.
"Séa," came Frullan's voice, but altered as if something constricted her throat.
The paladin shifted her feet to swivel her body. Frullan stood by the carriage, staring in. Flecks of blood darkened the inside surface of its door. The Dame raised her visor to reveal haunted eyes that searched into Séa's. "I think he's alive, but barely. Can you do anything?"
Séa removed her helmet and peered in. The claws of Zorexis had done terrible things to King Pharing. Séa's stomach churned, but her oath to give succor was inviolable. She would do her best. She ungauntleted and laid her bare hands on his wet, sticky chest. She closed her eyes and offered her most earnest prayer to her beloved diety.
She knew the attempt might fail. Father Kay had assured her that only once per day could a paladin lay their hands upon an injured soul and expect a positive result. Time's passage was a blur, but surely it had only been a few hours since Tash had rescued her from the torture pit and she had reknit her shattered arms. She had never known Father Kay to be wrong.
With a sense of letting go and falling into space, she entered a state of ritual meditation. Let me be the conduit, my god. Let me be the channel of grace from you to the good king of our fair land. Let his hurts by demonic arts be reversed, and let him become hale and whole.
