The Branchalite Legionnaires

Chapter 15: Ogres, Thanoi and the Bay at Waw

The discussion with Gilleana and Ailea had taken about an hour, and at the end of it, Michelle had a headache. But she also had an agreement – the elves would work with the Migan clan for the duration of the stay at the fortress, with an eye toward self-defense only. Sarah had gone to change out of the armor, and Gilleana and Ailea had joined with Talitha taking up positions to defend the fortress, with the help of the new recruits. Michelle had some field rations for her lunch, still in her green dress and bracers. She retained the Branchala blessed rapier and had added the sap, but had decided to add the longbow and arrows for the afternoon's excursion. There were also several flasks and vials and other interesting items tucked away in her cloak.

Fandy showed up first, wearing new leather armor that seemed to keep her in shadows. Michelle raised one eyebrow, and Fandy grinned at her. "Fandy did well in trade. This armor less likely to cause problem with tricks and mean Fandy not always buying potions. Much more profitable in long run. Also got stick to help Michelle and others – make them more agile for a short period."

Michelle nodded, knowing that Fandy would have been careful with her trades. That's why she had made her the quartermaster. The armor would help Fandy with her scouting and the stick, if it did make people more agile, it would be helpful to everyone. "Thank you, Fandy. I assume you kept the magic gear, like I suggested. This means you got rid of a lot of gear and made our load much lighter. That will help when we get on the ship – less stuff to transfer."

Fandy twirled in her new armor, almost girlish for the moment. She stopped suddenly, looking about and hunching down, a slight tremble in her limbs. "Fandy ready for trip to the dangerous tunnel now."

Sarah turned up next, in her yellow and green dress, looking like she were ready for an evening at the tavern. She had her dagger and some other gear tucked away in her cloak. She smiled at Michelle obviously happy to be out of the armor.

"You know we have a chain shirt that would fit you and wouldn't be confining," Michelle noted. "It'd give you something in case there were a surprise and we couldn't keep the bad guys off you."

"You mean that stuff from the Nerakan knights? I'm not wearing that. It smells. And probably has Sargonnas cooties all over it."

"Sargonnas cooties?" Michelle's tone was amused. "That's your defense this time?"

"It's not usually an issue when I'm with you guys."

Steven showed up last, wearing the Weya-Lu animal hides over his own chain shirt. He looked a bit flustered, but otherwise was carrying his regular gear, including the two handed sword on his back. His forearms were bare, revealing the hawk tattoos there. He just nodded to Michelle: ready to go.

"Just so you all know, in case it had slipped your mind, we're checking out a passage that Seston was known to use frequently. It's not something the Aghar were in the habit of traveling along. We suspect this is where he took those babies that were not stillborn. There weren't many of them. There may be some rather unpleasant sights. Does anyone have any questions?"

"What happens if we find any of the children?" This from Steven, a line on his brow.

"We return the child to their mother," Michelle said, as gently as she could manage.

Michelle lead them to the entrance of the tunnel, in the large meeting chamber, where a bit of a celebration was happening with the return of Bruze and a significant number of the male aghar. They stepped into the tunnel and Michelle paused, considering. "I'm going to use a sunrod," she told the others. She smiled faintly at the gully dwarf. "There's two more humans here, after all. I already have the trick for vision in the dark on me, but we don't want to deplete Fandy's resources. Let's go with the sunrod for now." She pulled one out from her cloak and tapped it sharply on a wall. It lit up brightly, clearly illuminating out to thirty feet. Steven was walking beside her, Fandy and Sarah behind. They moved along for eighty feet or so, before the tunnel turned to the right and started to go on a slight decline.