The final bolt from Mathilde prooves fatal for their healer, the force of the blow rendering him unconscious and pushing him off the edge of the causeway. Landing on the drawbridge below, his figure contorts unnaturally.
"Limp wristed...!? I'LL KILL YOU!!!", the plated monstrosity angrily screamed.
"Do us all a favor and cease the screeching," Cal called down as though he were dealing with a noisy neighbor. Almost as an afterthought, he turned Mathilda on the unfortunate sap.
Karl snorts at the miss, circles again, and backhands the anti-paladin.
Kyriel stows his bow and draws his sword as he moves towards the melee, unwilling to waste another arrow. [ooc]double move along the path[ooc]
"Throw down your weapons, you've been beaten!"
Kyriel seriously doubts the man will acquiesce.
Cal's arrow penetrates the raging antipaladins armor and distracts him long enough for Kal to maneuver about and get a clean shot to the back of his head, but the helm absorbs the blow.
The man wanted so much to climb that tower and make Cal more intimate with his weapon than he probably ever intends to be, but Karl is still close enough to hit, and he's still pissed at him too. His anger gets the best of him; his wild swings coming nowhere close to contact.
Karl shifts back to his previous position, keeping the armored numbskull off his balance, hitting him with a quick one-two punch.
Or attempts to, his rapid fire punching destroying his accuracy.
Kyriel hustles past Nukilik, slipping into a defensive stance as he draws his sword on their foe.
Kyriel's blade slips between the metal sheets, finding flesh and blood. The plated monstrosity only seems to become more angry, reflected in his wild blows.
"Give it up kiddo." Karl says and unleashes a quick gut punch/uppercut combo.
Cal leans against the gap, hitting the release on the wooden case under Mathilda and letting it hit the floor. Pulling a fresh clip from a low slung messenger satchel, he slaps it home and checks over the mechanisms quickly. A misaligned bolt could be disastrous for him.
Kyriel maintains his defensive stance, and tries to find another opening in the man's plate.
Frustrated by his defenses, Kyriel calls to Karl, "Circle around behind him! "
The scuffle continues: though weak and injured, Karl's incessant taunts and dancing about infuriates the antipaladin and further draws his attention.
Despite Karl's insults, the antipaladin fought a mighty battle, protesting until his last breath.
Now, the causeway is littered with the bodies of friend and foe alike. From the top of the bridge, the group has a vast vantage of the north beyond the wall. In the darkness of the night, the glow of torches can be seen. As the noise of battle gives way to silence, the thunder of war drums can be heard in that same distance.
An army marches on Balentyne! Judging by their pace and distance, it will only be a few hours before they descend upon the compromised watchtower.
"We run. Nukilik, you and Kyriel head back to town and get the townspeople out of there. Make sure Hester is saddled and ready for me. Karl, we need to make this place look as lively as we can. If they think the sabotage failed, they'll waste time trying to siege an empty fort and the civilians will be free to escape."
In the space of a few seconds, Cal's person changed sharply. Gone was the inveterate rogue and in his place stood, of all things, a soldier.
"We should work on slowing them down, too. Block off the entrances and exits if we can."
A brief run through the castle reveals a gruesome scene.
Downstairs, in the master barracks, the bodies of over three dozen guards lay in their beds, all of their throats sliced open.
Nearby, Father Donnagin and his monks are slaughtered in their holdings. They put up a valiant fight, but were no match for the intruders.
In the courtyard outside the keep, the remains of Captain Barholde and a few of his retinue are thrown in the grass. The nearby temple to Mitra has been desecrated and marked with the unholy symbol of Asmodeus.
Finding ways to make blockades proves futile. A river splits Balentyne from it's keep to the gatehouse, separating it from the Savage North. With the drawbridge raised, it would be nearly impossible to get an army through quickly, but the mechanics to raise it have been sabotaged. So too has the gatehouse: the portcullis may no longer be lowered and even if it were, a large hole is now in the foundation of the gatehouse for easy access. The stores of arrows and scalding sand within have been split or burnt. Balentyne has been left defenseless.
On the drawbridge below the causeway lay the body of the caster who fell.
"Bastards were already convicts. Did they stage a prison break?"
Karl sets to work on breaking the drawbridge.
"None of this looks good. Perhaps we should all return to town? I'm not willing to die for a broken fort."
"We're going, we just need to buy some time. We should evacuate the town as well, that army will sweep right over them and us as well. I've bought us about an hour I think, but it may not be enough." Karl says, more grimly than anyone here has heard him speak before.
"If that's the case, we should take what we carry. No sense letting this army have any more than we must," Kyriel says, looking down to the dead Commander sadly and thinking about the dead captains up in their tower. "They may have wrecked the armory, but maybe we can find something of use. I imagine the Commander would want every resource utilized. We should check the officer's rooms on the way back too. I'm guessing these killers didn't have time to be thieves as well."
Kyriel looks thoughtful for a moment.
"Nukilik, can your friend the priest raise the dead? Perhaps we should bring the commander's corpse as well..."
"Mitra is stingy with His holy light. Most priests are all sermon, no intercession," Cal said coming back, a note of clear bitterness in his voice. The saboteurs had done a thorough job and coming back to some of his least favorite kind of talk clearly did not improve his mood.
"Leave the bodies but check the rooms."
The unlikely heroes find more weapons and armor than they know what to do with; most still attached to the corpses of those who tried to fend off the saboteurs.
The villains carried a large satchel of gold, platinum, and potions: most likely looted from the tower.
End of Chapter 1: The Fall of Balentyne
Though all that was done that could be, an assault on Balentyne, and most likely Aldencross is inevitable. The four men bearing the mark of the forsaken had all too well sabotaged the castle's defenses. Were it not for the unlikely heroes, they would have vanished into the night after murdering Commander Havelyn, free to watch the invasion from the distance.
The townsfolk, obviously distressed at the news, hastily pack what little they can. The nearest city, Daveryn is not too far, perhaps a hundred miles, but wagons are unable to make a direct route through the wilderness. Instead, the will take the road along the wall, passing warning to Lorrinsgate along the way, all the way to the east coast and trail it down until they reach Daveryn.
What will our unlikely heroes do now?