Eternal Beasts

Disputed Allies

Naming the Harbingers immediately elicited several contemptuous spits on the ground from the gathered half dark elves. Including the vahndim named Kalannar. Before she could say anything in response, however, another vahndim woman was pushing past her, her eyes intent on the slowly writhing Mordecai.

Without hesitation the vahndim woman strode resolutely right at the knot of pathfinders.

"Easy," Seth growled, his bow coming up.

Ignoring his warning, the woman knelt beside Mordecai to turn him onto his side before pressing a hand against his back even as blood poured unrestrained from his mouth.

"Stop what you're doing!" Phineas hissed, his bowstring humming with tension as he drew it completely back to aim his arrow directly at the woman's head. "Or I'll turn your skull into a pincushion!"

In response she looked up at him, then over at Seth, her gray eyes unrelenting.

"Do you want your friend to die, nomad?" she said in return, also speaking westerling, though hers was almost without inflection, her expression hard.

"Can you ... help him?" Seth asked, suddenly filled with uncertainty.

What was happening here? If these vahndim were blended from nysim-suru and cholim, they were as tainted as their dark elf ancestors.

Yet, not only had Kalannar's force struck to save them just as they were about to be overrun. But now they had one of their number, who gave off the distinct energies belonging to a powerful healer, looking to bring Mordecai back from the brink.

"Yes," the woman said, staring unflinchingly into his eyes. "What spell struck him down?"

Seth, after a slight hesitation, dropped his bow. Which earned him a hard, questioning look from Phineas.

"Seth!" he snarled. "What in the name of the Light are you doing??" he went on to ask in Iesho, the high elf tongue.

"Saving my friend," Seth replied in westerling without looking away from the vahndim healer. "He was struck down by a Shatter spell."

Nodding in understanding, the vahndim woman looked back at Mordecai, her face suddenly a mask of concentration.

"He's drowning in his own blood," she grimly reported. Then her hands were flaring with golden light. A heart beat later Seth was kneeling beside her.

"Can I help?" he asked quietly. Glancing over at him, the vahndim healer curtly nodded.

"Make sure his mouth and throat are clear," she directed. "When he takes his first full breath, we don't want him to breathe in his own blood!"

Nodding, Seth rubbed his hands against his breeches to clean them as well as he could. Then he was reaching into the big northerner's mouth to pull his tongue out of his throat. Which released another gout of bright red blood, the fluid guttering out and onto the courtyard's worn stone surface.

"Good," the healer said softly, her eyes closed as she moved her glowing hands over Mordecai's back. "Just a bit more ..."

The light around the healer's hands flared brightly for a long moment. Then Mordecai was gasping loudly and sitting up, his eyes wide as he looked at Seth kneeling close by, then at Timothy, who stood just behind Seth.

"I dreamt I walked on the waves of a sea of flowers!" the big elf declared, his voice hoarse as he returned his eyes to Seth to stare at him in wonderment. "And beyond it was the Maker's Light beckoning me home!"

Seth shook his head in relief as he reached out to put a hand on Mordecai's shoulder.

"Not yet, my friend," he said with a smile. "You have work here yet to do."