Fiction: Death on Dark Wings pt4

His bearing strong, the pride showing in his face, and his own remarkably
youthful eagerness for the coming mission, Korgesh turned and walked to the
end of the room.  Kneeling before the statue of Dukgash, saluting it and
bowing his head, he worked a secret set of buttons at its base, opening a
cache holding a large steel chest.  Pulling the chest out, he picked it up,
almost groaning from something he still was not truly strong enough for, and
walked it to the large table.  He pulled a large key from one of two chains
at his neck, and unlocked the lid, throwing it back with an incredibly loud
thump against the thick wooden table.  As he began calling his warriors,
starting alphabetically through the entire four units without any sort of
discrimination for rank, he recalled the first time a band of scro had
charged aboard an elven armada during this war, almost four years ago in the
sphere of frontier when he himself had been but a general.



            Saluting each and every soldier, calling them by their full
birthright name as he did so, he remembered the first time he had truly felt
regret, wishing he had found a way to take the armada fully with such a
small force, instead of detonating it with all the smoke powder he and his
small crew had snuck aboard.  Most of the smile on his tusky muzzle as he
saluted Captain Lekahn and handed him the potion and black iron chain was
truly his pride in the moments to come, but also in memory of Captain Lekahn
helping him when he found the large, solid piece of decking floating amongst
that first armada's debris, which now served as his war table.  Grown from
the largest trees in the known spheres, and placed within the starfly most
likely fifteen hundred years past, the foot thick wood had come up perfectly
under the saw and polish, more artful than either scro could have imagined.
It had taken the two of them two years, between missions, promotions, and
demotions due to Lekahn's miserable failure in the aquaspace incident - but
it had been well worth it.  Lekahn bowed his head as Korgesh placed the
chain around his long-time friends neck, and saluted stronger than he ever
had, the looking in each scro's eyes speaking more than could ever be known.









            Once the last of the warriors had been outfitted with their
equipment, the potions being the first and most honourable item to be
bestowed with, made with the blood of Korgesh himself.  Armour, weaponry,
and even wands for the captains and sergeants followed, the latter items set
in gauntlets to keep them on hand, and prevent them being wrenched away in
combat like the scro had done to many an elven battlewizard.  Finally the
defensive brooch's and rings were distributed to the captains, as were the
magical starwheel pistols of which only a dozen were given to each fleet.
While each captain now wore a wand in the back of their left gauntlet,
something not likely to be disrupted by any opposition, the pistols carried
the same power, but with an extra enchantment that if need be they could be
used in a captain's off hand, allowing him freedom of movement and action in
time when normally the wand would need all his concentration.



            A salute went around the room as Korgesh dismissed the
warpriests, refusing to answer their silent questions.  He and every marine
in the room watched the haughty warpriests leave, but none but he expected
him to call to one of them by name, the insolent warpriest of earlier
turning hearing the call.



            With a loud wet thunk Korgesh's hand axe buried itself in the
warpriests' chest, and the metal of its blade could be heard to hit the
ground as the corpse fell on its back.  Without turning the archmagi of the
warpriests waved a hand ordering the two guards from outside to remove the
body, and he and his compatriots walked away from the room without a second
thought.



            Lekahn, meanwhile, silently praised Dukgash that at least this
archmage and his underlings, who Korgesh had assigned to the mission before
distributing the starwheels, seemed to understand a little better than the
now dead Blahk.



Tilaurin
tilaurin@?????????????????.com
http://www.planetbaldursgate.com/atreus/index.html
"Dying Swans/Twisted Wings,
Bring This Savage Back Home"
- Brave New World, Iron Maiden