30. Captain Morgana Silversword
Chapter 30
Captain Morgana Silversword
T he journey back to the Capital was much trickier than the party had bargained for. The bards at the college were able to open a portal back to their home realm – again, for a cost; they were really burning through the stipend Lord Arnault had given them – but it transported them not to the Capital, or even to the grove through which they’d entered the fae realm, but to a random forest in the opposite direction.
Three days into their estimated ten day journey back to the Capital, assisted by a horse-pulled wagon they’d bartered for in the last town they’d passed through, Morgana called the party to a halt. They were on a quieter portion of the Queen’s Road, and they hadn’t seen anyone for several hours. But when she saw a twitch in the trees up ahead and heard a clicking noise carried on the strong breeze, something in her recognised trouble. Thrormir, who was sat next to her as she drove the wagon, looked over at her with confusion in his eyes, and she pointed to the trees.
“Take the Sphere and go,” she whispered to Calamity, who was lying down inside the wagon with their belongings. Calamity nodded and whispered her newest spell. Still lying down, she grabbed the Sphere and started to fade out of sight, fully invisible in under a second.
The back step of the wagon creaked slightly, and Morgana knew Calamity was out. She clicked her tongue, urging the horses forward, though even they were tentative in their movements, picking up on her nerves. Morgana brought her hand to the hilt of her sword just as they passed under the trees where she’d seen the movement, prepared to strike whenever someone charged or jumped them.
Sure enough, almost as soon as they’d passed under the trees, two figures dropped onto the wagon. Morgana didn’t even hesitate to suss out what was happening; anyone who dropped onto someone’s wagon from above uninvited was an enemy. She reacted instantly, slicing through one of them with as much force as she could muster, and realised, as she felt her blade clatter against bone with little resistance, that it was a skeleton. It fell to pieces in the footwell.
“Undead!” she called, just as four more figures ran out into the road. She and Thrormir jumped down from the wagon, and Gorlag and Yorick emerged from the wagon. The other undead was still up on the wagon, where it started tearing through their belongings. Morgana hoped that Calamity was well clear of the skirmish.
Morgana, Thrormir, Gorlag, and Yorick dispatched of the remaining undead, then turned their attention to the one still ransacking the wagon.
“Allow me,” Thrormir said, holding up his amulet with the symbol of Chaius.
“I need healing though,” Gorlag said, motioning to a tiny gash in their arm.
“Me too,” Yorick said; Morgana couldn’t see a single wound.
“Just let me do this first,” Thormir said with a sigh, “and I promise I’ll heal you after.”
He held out his amulet and started muttering under his breath. They all watched as the cloaked skeleton continued tearing through their packs, pulling open Morgana’s bag of rations, and then suddenly exploded into a cloud of dust. The cloak blew away on the wind, and when they leaned over the side, there was no sign the undead had ever been there other than the mess it had made of their belongings.
“That’s a cool trick,” Calamity said to Thrormir, appearing in the middle of the road with the Sphere in her hand.
Morgana began to look over the body – if it could be called that – that was still crumpled in the footwell; it had no other possessions except for a small, standard dagger. The cloak, however, was of interest. Because on the outside of the hood, stitched in blue, was a twelve-pointed star.