Wandering Warrior: Jury - Prologue 1

Prologue 1

The city of Greendown was old, but it had been built upon ancient ruins from a civilization that had been even older, and far more advanced.  The integration of the aging sewer system left by those who had come before had cut down on outbreaks of disease, and helped Greendown flourish, even after its borders stretched beyond the bounds of the ancient ruins.  Only the people living in the slums closest to the outer walls had to deal with the smell of raw sewage in the streets, making the more central regions of the city more sought-after.

Naturally, the center of the city is where the vast majority of the guild halls were located, along with a few governmental buildings dedicated toward running the city.  In the exact center, in the place of prominence, there wasn’t a palace or keep for a king.  Instead, it was the guild hall for the Hunter’s Guild, which served as the headquarters for the Western Wardens.  This late at night, it was almost abandoned, except the few people still working to prepare for what was coming from the mountains and forests to the north.

“Commandant, there’s still been no word about the missing people from the guilds, or your nephew and Captain Cross.”  The aging figure hunched over his desk looked up to see his scarred secretary standing in his doorway.  Commandant Beck held in the sigh that tried to escape, not wanting his loyal servant to see him feeling the strain he was under.  Years ago, the secretary had been badly injured when he refused to stop running back into a burning building, determined to save every person inside that hadn’t been consumed by the flames.  He had saved nearly a dozen, most of them children.  It had been a heroic feat worthy of songs and stories told by bards up and down the banks of the Mighty Reka for generations.  As is the way of things, he quietly retired from his position in the Black Wardens and offered his current position, where he worked to help Commandant Beck keep the region from descending into chaos.  After not receiving a reply, the secretary cleared his throat and moved on to the next issue.  “Lieutenant Lucente is here to speak with you, as you requested.”

“Send her in.”  Commandant Beck stood, leaning backward to stretch his lower back.  “We don’t have much time left to finalize our plans.”  The light drizzle outside made his bones ache, and he could feel every place he had been injured over his long career.  Most especially where a goblin spear had caught him in the back when he was a much different man, still filled with the fire and zeal of youth.

While old age was catching up to him, Beck knew he could still hold his own on the battlefield.  His frame still held enough muscle to carry the burden of heavy armor, and carrying a shield and lance was still something he practiced with the men when time allowed.  Morning practice with his longsword kept him in good enough shape that he didn’t fear any of the younger men in a duel yet, especially since they hadn’t learned the tricks that experience had brought.  Not to mention the few magic spells he knew that could tip the scales in a real fight.  Being replaced by a younger man was still a few years away, which bode well for the city.  Beck had yet to find a replacement for himself he felt could handle both the responsibility of securing the region, and the balancing act in the political arena.  His nephew and Captain Cross had been the two most likely to succeed him, but Cross was from the Blue branch instead of the White–making him politically unprepared–and Gleason had proven himself to be… problematic.

He shook off his internal concerns about his personal situation and walked over to the place on his wall where he had removed some paintings of his forebearers.  There, he had hung a map of the surrounding area, with Greendown in the center.  It didn’t show all the details he would have liked, but it was enough for the purposes of planning the defense of the city against what was coming.

Beck wished the map’s colorful lines and hand-drawn details held the answers to the questions plaguing his mind, like where all the craftsmen kept disappearing.  It was never the best who went missing, like the guild leaders and their vice heads, but the fourth or fifth in line.  The ones not quite good enough to warrant top security details.  Enchanters, blacksmiths, armorers, bladesmiths, leatherworkers, alchemists, all had disappeared into the night without a trace, sometimes with their entire families in tow.  The uproar it had caused somehow landed on his shoulders, and the people wanted answers.  So did he.  Many of those men and women were his friends, people he had known for years.  His investigators could only determine that it wasn’t the witches’ type of magic that had taken them.  Something else was loose in the city, and he didn’t have the manpower to hunt it down at the moment.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”  Beck turned around to see the highest-ranking Blue Warden left in his command, at least until Captain Cross could be found.  Lieutenant Lucente hadn’t bothered saluting.  The two were familiar enough that she knew he didn’t care about such frivolities in private.  Beck knew she was the illegitimate child of some noble from somewhere far to the east, which gave her the raven-haired and tan-skinned features that stood out this far north.  Many men would have found her beautiful before the battle with a wendigo had caused her to lose an eye, and given her two long scars across the left side of her face.  Now, most men found her black eyepatch intimidating, and kept their distance.  Her uniform was stained with blood, and a dirty bandage was wrapped around her left calf, giving her a slight limp.  She was dripping mud onto the floor, and smelled like she hadn’t seen what a bar of soap even looked like in at least a week.  Commandant Beck was quietly impressed.

“Yes, Lieutenant.”  He motioned to the map on the wall.  “I know you just came back from the field.  Show me where the largest concentrations of undead were located, and where you think the witches are going to make the next push.”

Located at the juncture of two major roads, and along the banks of a mountain-fed stream deep enough that most boats could make the voyage from the Mighty Reka, Greendown was a strategic location for ore, lumber, furs, and food production.  It was also home to a major branch of the Alchemist Guild, and the thick forests and mountainous regions were rife with ingredients important to their craft.  Unfortunately, those same forests and mountains were home to many of the worst kinds of monsters, beasts, and unsavory characters that could find a home nowhere else in the world.  Which is why they were now dealing with an undead uprising and monster horde lead by a witch coven, hellbent on taking the city for their own unknown, but certainly nefarious, purposes.

The Lieutenant pulled a dagger from her belt and used the tip to be as precise as possible.  “Sir, the largest concentrations of undead are here, here, and here.  We managed to push them back, for now, and my men hold the intersections that run roughly along this line.”  Unsurprisingly, the points coincided with major routes to the north.  Undead tended to travel along the path of least resistance, congregating in hordes on trails and roadways until they ran into something that interested them.  They all expected orcs, ogres, and goblins to make an appearance at some point, but they hadn’t materialized in any great numbers yet.  “But, sir, that isn’t the only thing.”  She paused, digging into a pocket to pull out a small scroll.  As she unrolled it, a small black stone fell out.  Drawn on the parchment, Beck saw the rough drawing of a ghoul, but one unlike any he had seen before.  “There’s something new.  It’s not just vampires occasionally leading the undead when the sun goes down.  During daylight, there’s these new kinds of smart ghouls, who are tougher, faster, and stronger than they should be.”  She passed over the black stone.  “Inside of them, we found this.”

“Interesting.”  Beck held up the stone to the light of his lanterns, noticing the glittering swirls that seemed to come alive as he touched it.  The feeling of foreboding coming from the pebble was disconcerting, and he sat it on his desk before wiping his hand on his shirt.  “How much has this affected the battlefield?”

“Honestly, sir?”  Lucente sighed, seeming to age a few years before Beck's eyes.  “Even with twice the number of Wardens, we wouldn’t be able to hold for more than a week.  Their numbers are growing too fast.  I don’t know where all of these undead are coming from, but the witches must be gathering every undead there is in the entire mountain range.  On top of that, with the ghouls handling the daytime, and the vampires at night, it makes the zombie numbers even more effective than normal.  We don’t have a chance to rest our best fighters, and it’s only a matter of time until they start to fall to exhaustion.  Once the witches muster their additional forces, most especially the orcs we’ve seen in the past, it’s going to turn on us quickly.”

“Is it really that bad?  We have a pair of Green Wardens on their way from the south.  Once they get here, things should get much easier.”  Beck was pleased to see the Lieutenant perk up at the news.  The Green Wardens were the strongest of their forces.  A single Green was practically a platoon by themselves.  “Can you hold out until they make it upstream?”

She pointed to a second line on the map, where another road intersected with the northern trails.  It was the last row of intersections before the actual city, where their supply stations were currently set up for their field operations.  “We are probably going to need to pull back in the next day or two, if we want to keep our defenses intact.  Then it’s just going to be a fight to hold those positions long enough to pull as many supplies as we can into the city before the siege starts.  If they can get here soon, we can hold this line.  If they take their time, or the witches start casting curses and using big spells, we’ll have no choice but to hide behind the walls.”

Beck took a long look at the map, thinking over his options.  He knew the Green Wardens were on their way because of a mission from The Oracle, and not because of the undead, but once they arrived there was no doubt those battle maniacs would jump at the chance to fight.  Whoever James Holden was, he would die quickly and allow the Green Wardens the opportunity to save the city.  He would also get answers as to the whereabouts of his nephew, and Captain Cross, whatever their fates might be.  “I’ll give the order to start pulling in supplies.  You do what you need to do, Lieutenant.  Hold the line for as long as you can, and I’m sure our city will come out the other side of this fiasco unscathed.”

She gave him a sharp nod of agreement before saluting and turning to leave.  Both of them knew they were in for a long slog of a fight, but with the Green Wardens on their way, the weight didn’t seem to push on their shoulders quite as heavy.