"Now?" Bianca asked quietly from behind a tree, her eyes turned on the tall, mail-clad cleric crouched down beside her. He continued to stare straight ahead over a fallen log. She glanced around the side of her tree, up the thickly wooded slope to the rough wooden palisade just visible through the trees. If the cleric had heard her, he made no acknowledgment. She waved her hand down at him, definitely within his peripheral vision.
"Can we go now?" she enunciated with deliberate slowness, helpfully accompanied by a simple pantomime.
"No," he replied distractedly after a long, irritating pause. "Not until full light of dawn. I'm afraid my powers are not yet equal to those of Sir Andreas. I can't make enough daylight to disorient them all."
"By the gods, Alessio" she inquired with a performative sigh, "why did we have to get saddled with you for this?"
"I feel my predecessor's predilection for carelessness may have had something to do with that. Although," he smiled broadly, gleaming white teeth set off against an unruly black beard, "how he managed to acquire that particular condition without breaking his vows has been a matter of speculation among us men as well." He pursed his lips to suppress his smile, though without much success. "Don't worry my Lady, I'm sure he'll convalesce quickly."
"You can take a nap if you like," Eufemia offered, lazily tracing out a faint purple circle with her fingernail that lingered briefly in the air before drifting off like smoke. "We'll wake you when it's time."
"No, that's alright Effie," Bianca replied with a mock whimper. She allowed her chin to rest on the hilt of her sheathed greatsword and turned a doe-eyed pout to her mage. "You really aren't coming in with me?"
"No I am not. The priestess did specify women pure of heart." The paladin arched an eyebrow skeptically. "What? We don't even take the vows! You don't know what I've been up to!"
"She also wouldn't lose her powers even if she fell," Alessio remarked, still scanning the forest ahead.
"Yes! Thank you!" Eufemia said with an appreciative flick of her wrist.
"Awfully convenient that I've never heard a word about this until now. Five years together - you've been holding out on me this whole time?"
"As a matter of fact, I have. I know you don't have anything juicy to offer in return, or they'd have kicked you out by now. Besides," she added with a meaningful look, "I didn't want to make you jealous."
The priest rubbed his forehead. "Remarkably free conversation for present company," he said with a slight laugh, "don't you think?"
"Do you promise not to tell?"
"I suppose I do."
"Well then what's the problem? Is a knight not as good as their word?"
"Hmm," he grunted noncommittally. A few of the nearest militiamen shuffled their feet awkwardly.
The party lapsed back into silence. Bianca idly drilled little holes in the ground with the tip of her sheath. Every once in a while she would glance about, looking for enemy scouts. Stupid, lazy gnolls. Never adequate scouts except on hunts or raids. Even if they'd remained loyal, bringing them over would have been a mistake.
At last Alessio was satisfied, though on what possible grounds she couldn't tell. The two knights advanced carefully along with three picked men-at-arms, their footfall muted by the priest's magic. Two gnolls stood guard in the closest watchtower. Rays of the eastern sun caught them from the side, lighting up their reddish fringes against the muted, black-spotted grey of their coats. They betrayed no sign of alarm until Eufemia popped out of invisibility not forty feet from the wall, her hands already weaving her spell. The creatures stared stupefied for a moment. The taller one had the presence of mind to try to turn and raise an alarm, but instead slumped back into enchanted sleep alongside its slower-witted companion.
Bianca and Alessio broke into a sprint, reaching the palisade with spearmen in train just as the mage opened the way. The remaining soldiers and militiamen now openly advanced from the tree line, provoking whooping calls first from the other towers, then from within the camp. A single cluster of tents blocked the path to a lone timber pit house at the center of the camp. "Remember! Kill the den mother first!" Alessio shouted.
The cluster of tents burst spectacularly into magical flames, sending the few confused survivors staggering off in random directions. Bianca and Alessio cut those down who fell into their path. Scattered barbed javelins began to rain in from the sides, one glancing painfully off Alessio's mailed flank. He groaned and turned about, turning his shield left and right as he called out an incantation. An orb of brilliant light, bright as the noonday sun appeared above him, dazzling the nocturnal defenders.
An enormous gnoll in hastily-donned rawhide lamellar stepped up from the pit house, brandishing a pike in one hand and shielding her eyes with the other. A fireball leapt from Eufemia's fingertips and arced through the now-open doorway, erupting within the house and setting the roof instantly ablaze. The dazed chieftainess did not even see Bianca's blade until it the moment before it bit into her side. Her half-blind counter thrust went wide, and she stumbled to her knee. Bianca's upraised sword flashed with a pale, unearthly fire, and she hacked off the gnoll's head with a single stroke.
Bianca turned to survey the field. The palisade was already aflame, militiamen feeding kindling to fires started at the bases of Effie's arch. Effie herself was busy igniting nearby tents, the picked trio of spearmen loosely encircling her to dissuade any attempt on her fragile person. Alessio, meanwhile, had recovered enough to focus holy fire on the javelin throwers from within the obscuring halo of his artificial sun. Plenty of resistance to overcome, but nothing adequately organized. His plan had worked better than it had any right to.
"Hmph." The trick was to choose an enemy too foolish to underestimate, she decided.
Two great boulders towered above the far end of the camp. Their sheer walls came almost together to form a narrow pathway at the base, guarded by a free-standing wooden ceremonial gate. Bianca made her way quickly to the richly-carved gate, carefully observing her surroundings to make sure none of the enemy had followed or lay in wait. She retrieved the necessary implements from her pack and performed a perfunctory but correct ritual of veneration; a joint libation, perfumed unguent on the Earth Mother Armaiti's swollen belly on each pillar, prepared floral wreaths from the village maidens for each pillar, and throughout all a petition for fertility for the valley.
No sooner was this done than she'd moved on to the rough stony path between the boulders. The cleft ran off obliquely from the gnolls' camp, which was soon lost from view. The ground began to give way, and she found herself having to pick her way slowly to avoid slipping on the dew-slick stones. At length the path jogged west and then opened up onto a grassy ledge overlooking a large depression in the hillside.
The walls of the depression were steep and garlanded with dense, unbroken thickets of trees, brambles, and undergrowth. Downslope, the trees gave way to open ground blanketed with grasses and clusters of white flowers, occasionally alternating with patches of purple and blue. Wild apple trees stood scattered about, blooming green and white and swarming with bees. At the center lay a still, dark blue pool, teeming with frogs.
Bianca began following the stone-paved path west down from the overhang. The scene reminded her of a pool back home on her father's estate. Five years ago, her eighteenth birthday, before she'd joined the order. The bees were humming then too, around her and neighbor boy, when she'd let him... She smiled at the memory.
The path wrapped clockwise around the pool, ending in a natural grotto beneath the overhang. Carved stone posts had been driven into the ground in a semicircle around the icon to mark the consecrated ground. Bianca respectfully laid her greatsword, sidearm, and sack aside outside the ring of posts, bringing only the necessary ritual implements. A large altar of rough, uncut stone stood before the image. It was cast in bronze rather than the usual polished stone. It wasn't in the typical Ausonian style, but it was much too advanced to have been produced by rustics. This Mother danced rather than upon her pedestal, her chest supporting only a single pair of engorged breasts.
Bianca placed a new flower garland around the goddess' neck and applied scented oil over her womb. She poured two libations before the pedestal and drank the last as prescribed, accepting it as the goddess' representative. She retreated to the altar and set out the grain offering. She knelt and prostrated herself before the altar and image, intoning from well-honed memory the appropriate prayers of praise and thanksgiving.
She raised herself back to her knees. Her head swam a bit in the warm spring air, thanks to the wine. Alcohol was permitted only on the obligatory ritual occasions, a practice that did not conduce toward tolerance. Soft buzzing filled her ears, whether entirely from the bees now searching for nectar from the goddess' flower-wreathed neck she was unsure. She reached out with her mind and ignited the offerings. She watched them burn, carried off to the heavens, as she delivered the valley's customary propitiation the priestess had taught her.
