FLHTH Session 10 - Campaign Story: Tándir

A Tale of Many Turnings

Threesday, Fourth Hand of Coldeven, EE238

Tándir of Great Harbor

The Mystshroud Sea

I rubbed Saafiyah's back as she heaved again, throwing up over the gunwale. The cargo galley's constant rolling and cork-screwing motion was too much for her. She was definitely not a sea person, I thought with a smile as she heaved again.

"Kill me now, please," she groaned.

"Should only be another two days," I advised as she heaved yet again. Nothing was expelled, her stomach long since empty.

It was both surprising and strange to see Saafiyah experiencing a moment of weakness.

The girl had saved my life. My memory of that night so long ago was hazy at best, muddled by memories that I had never been able to determine were real or those made up in the mind. I had laid dying, unconscious, barely clinging to life with the remaining assassin poised over me ready to strike a final blow for this employer, Camedyr Cavalcanti, when Saafiyah, full of rage had tossed aside any concern for her own safety and charged the much larger trained killer. Maybe it had been her speed -- Saafiyah was fast, faster than me -- or perhaps the assassin had been focused on delivering that final thrust that would ensure his mark was dead. Whatever the reason, she had been on him in a flash, dagger flashing over and over again. Without any hesistation she had killed the man, viciously, in my defense.

She saved my life a second time in the days and turnings after, testing the bits and pieces of knowledge she had gained from the time spent in my study back in Folkestone's Landing devouring my entire library after I had taught her to read. She managed to stabilize me, staunch my bleeding from my numerous wounds before seeking out aid from Payatt and Aponi. She had found them both dead, along with a fifth assassin that Payatt had skewered with his short sword before being felled himself. With no one to turn to for help, and an understanding that Penrith's Point, a half day's ride away, would likely be even less safe, she had decided on a course of action that exemplified the brilliance of her mind: she had hitched Stormlight to the wagon used to transport the keber harvests to town, managed to load me into it by dragging me up a makeshift ramp. Safely out of the house she had proceeded to drag four of the five dead intruders out into the groves for predators to gnaw on then fired the property. She had set alight my manor, the barn, and the smaller home of Payatt and Aponi. Hands before we had rode into the higher foothills of the Dahkan Peaks to camp for a few days, and she recalled the small decrepit hunting shack that we had discovered together. By nightfall the next night she had claimed it as ours, installing my corpse-like form on the lone straw bed.

For most of the winter she had managed to provide for the two of us, hunting japers by day and tending to my health in the evenings. At one time, when food ran low and no game was to be found, she put a bolt through the side Ashkan's skull and butchered the pony for meat.

One night, shortly after the attack at the manor, she was lifting my head so that I could sip at a foul smelling and tasting broth. I was still disoriented, every movement excruciatingly painful. My concern, however, was for Saafiyah. "You okay?" I asked.

"Uh huh."

She had already told me what happened that night. "You sure? You just killed someone," I said, remembering the emotions that plagued me after I took my first life just before my eighteenth cycle.

She shrugged her small shoulders. "He deserved it," she said with finality, exchanging the bowl of broth at my lips for a cup of water. "Drink." When she put the cup down, she added, "He was going to kill you."

"And you're okay?"

"Yes," she nodded. For a moment it seemed like she might be recalling the memories of that night, playing them over again in her mind as I studied her face through a haze of pain. "Krugrapi," she spat out in Orcish, spitting on the ground beside the bed before looking at me, her smile returning to her face as she lifted the broth to my lips once again. "Drink more."

I wanted to believe her. I really did. But there was no way in hell she should be that calm, that accepting of what she had witnessed let alone what she herself had done.

"Saafiyah," I started to say, trying to muster as much firmness to my voice as I could.

She continued to smile at me, clam. "I'm fine. Drink. Now."

As spring approached I was able to get on my feet again but my body was weakened from inactivity. I tried to lend her a hand with the hunting but she would not hear of it. I focused instead on myself, stretching recently healed muscle and bone, testing them, strengthening them. I began practicing with the sword as the hands passed, until I was confident that I could defend myself -- and Saafiyah -- if neceessary. I began to hike and run each day, rebuilding the stamina and constitution that I had possessed previously. And throughout spring I considered carefully how to respond to my life being threatened twice now -- and unacceptably threatening Saafiyah's in the process.

Finally, towards the end of spring I had recovered well enough to make a decision. Retribution was needed. With the end of spring fast approaching and my strength regained it was time to put that retribution into motion. Some people needed to learn they could never come after me and succeed; it would be bad for their health. A lesson needed to be given, an example made.

When I had told Saafiyah I would be away for a while she just about had a fit, yelling at me with anger shooting out of her pretty eyes. It hadn't taken me long to accede to her demand to come with me, though. The simple fact was I liked her too much to risk leaving her behind unprotected. She was safe with me, I told myself, though judging by her performance with the intruders in the manor, I was beginning to think I might be safer around her. That thought made me smile.

Throughout my long recovery and rehabilitation she'd shown no remorse, no guilt and no trauma as a result of that night. She'd calmly explained each time I asked, "They were bad, Tándir. They were trying to kill you. They deserved to die. So there," and nodded her head to emphasize her opinion. If I hadn't loved her before, I would have then. The thought of an eleven year old child taking the life of a skilled, experienced murderer was one I found incredibly funny. I was definitely weird.

Having decided to bring her, we'd had no choice but this galley. If I was to take her to Tyyst -- one of two island nations in the Mystshrouds that strictly monitored the comings of goings of visitors and citizens alike -- I would need to get Tyystian travel papers for the girl. Even stepping into a shop to purchase goods or services required travel papers, unless the shopkeep was willing to run afoul of law. Most weren't. I knew of no one on Wirost who could forge a set of travel papers for her, but I happened to know a man in Chimera's Rest on the island of Writh who had a remarkable artistic talent for such things.

We arrived in Dellyn Bay, a small town on the west cost of Wirth, early in the morning two days later. I secured a single horse for Saafiyah and I and we headed north to Chimera's Rest. One fast stop within the town to see Nyor and lighten myself of one of the platinum Dwarfs I'd bought in exchange for a promise of a faultless set of Tyystian travel papers for Saafiyah to be delivered no later than the following afternoon. We found ourselves a nice off-the-beaten-path inn and settled in for the night.

The next day was spent at the docks arranging transport on a ship headed for Southport. The only such ship that was available appeared to be a pooly constructed junk. Despite my reservations I booked passage on the vessel with the first mate and hoped that Nyor would come through as promised, for the junk was scheduled to set sail at first light the following morning.

FLHTH Session 09 - Campaign Story: Tándir

Wherein Our Peace is Interrupted

Fivesday, Third Hand of Harvester, EE237

Tándir of Great Harbor

Vacozan Province, Wirost

Eyes snapped open; listening, there it was again, the squeaking of old floorboards somewhere on the first floor of my home. The middle of the night judging from the moonlight filtering through the solar's window. "Saafiyah," I whispered shaking her shoulder, rolling out of bed and reaching for my long breeches, heart rate spiking. "Get up."

"What..." she said sleepily.

"We have visitors. Get dressed and get in the study. Lock the door. Wait for me." I tugged my breeches on and reached for the short sword hanging over the sitting chair next to the bed. There was no time to don the leather lamellar cuirass that had saved my life more than a few times over the cycles. Barefoot, bare-chested, I slipped silently out the bedroom door using every bit of my skill to remain absolutely quiet as I moved over the old floorboards.

The house was dark, lit in spots by moonlight shining through windows, corners deeply shadowed. Padding down the stairs I moved silently, sticking to the darkest shadows, listening. The faintest of sounds drifted from the dining hall at the rear of the house, a prime point of entry with its two glass pane doors. Slowly I made a tour, finding two uninvited guests, one just beyond the kitchen door off the dining hall, the other holding just under the arched doorway between the dining hall and the foyer. There could be no mistakign their intent; both holding glinting steel in their hands.

I knew there must be more. This far out in the country this was no random burglary. So far off the beaten path, off any trade route, the chances of my guests being bandits looking for an easy score were slim. Somehow, some way, some one had discovered my link to the manor, and after the fiasco in Folkestone's Landing they certainly wouldn't send only two to finish the job. I waited, listening for the sounds of others. The man under the dining hall archway seemed nervous, agitated by the delay, eager to get on with the deadly task at hand. The man in the doorway of the kitchen ducked back out of sight, deeper into the kitchen.

I moved swiftly knowing my moment of opportunity was slim, the point of the short sword slicing upwards through the lower back at the same time my hand closed over his mouth. I could feel the vibration of the blade as it sliced through flesh, muscle and bone, severing arteries and tearing through vital organs. The man's death gurgle was muffled by my hand and I drug him back into the shadows from which I had struck, propping him up against the wall gently, quietly.

It had meant turning my back to the dining hall for only a brief moment, but it had been enough. The second man had moved from the kitchen and along the length of the dining table, stopping where his friend had stood only moments before, likely confused as to his comrade's disappearance. On alert, he spotted me as I stood back up turned just in time to avoid a killing blow from the man's dagger, its blade slicing open my side rather than plunging into my chest. The pain left me off balance, instinctively stepping away from the source of the pain that had flared through my side.  My swing was wild, easily avoided, and I cursed myself under my breath. My wild swing threw off the assassin's advance, his followup attack coming up well short and leaving him wide open.  I thrust once, pulling back a fleshly bloodied blade, and thrust again, narrowly missing the second time as the man turned the blade away with his dagger.

Another wound opened, a shallow furrow stretching across my unprotected chest as he turned his parry into a lightning counter attack and once again I was pressed back, further into the foyer, lightheaded from pain. I thrust again madly, met resistance and a cry of pain then a sceram of anger. he rushed me, a crazed look in his eyes lit by the moonlight.

Saafiyah appeared out of the shadows, glinting steel in her own hand. As focused as he was on me he never saw the flash of steel. His eyes sprung open wide at the unexpected blow as she drove her dagger upwards into his exposed side, a near perfect killing strike. He stumbled forward, his body colliding with me in a tangle of limbs that almost sent me tumbling to the floor with him. Saafiyah slipped back into the shadowed sitting room from which she had appeared.

Two more men entered the dining hall through the kitchen doorway, both wielding short swords, one circling around the end of the dining table, the other pausing until both could advance as a team. Unwilling to be pressed any further back into the wide open foyer during the onslaught ahead, I pressed forward.

I advanced under the arched entry to the dining hall, taking up a defensive stance, a position that would make it almost imposible for either of the men to flank me without somehow slipping past me. The odds were certainly grim enough as they were without having to worry about being flanked by either of the men intent on taking my life. The first of the two mean to reach me was fast, really fast. Whether it was adrenaline or shock, this time I did not feel the blade's bite, only the warmth of my own blood pouring down my left arm. I heard the twang of a crossbow behind me, feared the worst for a split second until a bolt passed over my right shoulder and buried itself deeply into my attacker's own shoulder. I felt a sword tip press itself into my chest shallowly before retreating once again.

I stumbled back a step, half dazed, half crazed, screaming, thrusting my short sword back at the man with the crossbow bolt sunk into his shoulder. My blade found purchase in his gut and slipped through easily. I tried to push the dying man to the side, to put him between me and my remaining assailant, but he easily stepped out of the way as the body collapsed onto the dining hall floor.

I could feel the life ebbing out of me. I staggered back against the wall, bracing myself against it. The remaining assassin stepped over his friend's dead body and thrust again. I was too slow in my parry, too weak to do more than push the blade downwards. It sank into my upper thigh and my leg went out from beneath me, sending me down to one knee.

I had heard stories from those who had been on death's door about time seeming to slow down, the hypersensitivity to every little detail around you as if the mind and soul were clinking to as much of the moral world as they could before slipping away. The harsh copper taste of blood in my mouth was overwhelming, flecks of it misting into the air with every wheezing breath I took. I could hear drops of my blood as they fell to floor, smell the pungent, rancid odor of the dead man's bowels seeping up through the gut would I had delivered to him.

I realized in that moment that the only truly good deed I had done in my life had happened half a cycle ago when I had lifted a stinky, scruffy guttersnipe off her feet and shaken her, demanding my coin purse back. I had not turned her over to the city watch to be branded a thief, nor had I beaten her as I would have any other that dared to try and steal from me. I had taken her in, unwillingly perhaps, but sheltered her nonetheless. I had educated her, taught and trained her and accepted her as my own daughter despite every headache she had caused me.

"Run girl! Run now!"

I turned my neck to look at her one last time, standing in the foyer struggling to redraw the crossbow. I actually smiled at her with a sense of accomplishment and pride before launching myself at the man standing over me, his arm pulling back for one final killing thrust of his blade. Like in Folkestone's Landing that day so many hands ago, I vowed to sell my life to protect the one real difference I had made in the world.

My blade cut into the man's leg, but I instinctively knew it was not enough to bring him down. Exquisite pain erupted throughout my back as the assassin brought the short sword he wielded down upon me. I fell to the floor, my head turned to stare at Saafiyah as she discarded the crossbow and drew her dagger.

"No!" I tried to scream at her. It came out only as a wheeze, barely a whisper, flecks of blood splattering the floor with the effort.

"Camedyr Cavalcanti sends his regards, assassin," I heard muttered above me before my senses faded and darkness enveloped me.

FLHTH Session 08 - Campaign Story: Tándir

My Secret Revealed; Knives At the Dinner Table

Threesday, Third Hand of Harvester, EE237

Tándir of Great Harbor

Vacozan Province, Wirost

"So what do you really do?" Saafiyah asked at breakfast one morning as she munched on a piece of flatbread smothered in keber jam and honey.

I didn't really think twice about telling her the truth this time. She already suspected I was a thief, a criminal, and probably already had a suspicion of the awful truth. If not, I had decided she deserved to know given what had happened back in Folkestone's Landing. "I kill people, Saafiyah."

Saafiyah tilted her head slightly and studied me. "Really?" Is it hard?"

Her casual acceptance stirred something in me. I wasn't sure what it was. Relief? Fear?

If anything her determination grew in the days and hands following. Every day she was a fireball, insisted she practice with the bow, the crossbow, and was soon enough asking me to teach her to fight with blades. She maintained her growing collection of weapons with great care. I taught her how to clean, sharpen and oil her dagger, then a thrusting short sword I had purchased for her on one of our trips north for supplies. I gave her a hand crossbow which she could draw herself and she kept the strings of both it and her shortbow cleaned and waxed. Through it all she talked up a storm. She had me explaining how to kill, where to place an arrow or bolt in a target for the greatest chance of a kill shot, how to approach a target. Her curiosity was endless. I cut body shaped silhouette targets out of canvas sheeting, nailed them to wooden frames and let her practice kill shots. She was more dedicated than I'd ever seen anyone, and only eleven cycles old! I was pretty sure I understood the ulterior motive driving her unusual dedication; it was about control. Or so I hoped.

Hands passed at a dizzying pace of instruction and practice and summer moved into autumn, the daily temperatures settling into a more respectable mid-eighties. My shoulder had long since healed but I was so caught up in Saafiyah's enthusiasm for learning that days would sometimes go by without my thoughts turning to the reason we were here in the Vacozan countryside in the first place. The events of Folkestone's Landing seemed so far away, so long ago. I berated myself incessantly each time I realized that I had let the potential for danger slip my mind.

Saafiyah was staring down at the dagger in her hand one day, eyebrows knit. She was working her wrist to try and work the blade into her long shirt sleeve. It would have been easier to start her with a robe, or a loose fitting overcoat, and if she had been anyone else I would have started there and moved on to more difficult methods of concealment later. With Saafiyah, I no longer doubted her ability to master the skills I was teaching her.

With a flick of the wrist the dagger slid across the palm of her hand finally and disappeared beneath the edge of her sleeve, tucked neatly against her wrist. She shook her arm subtly, the dagger sliding forth again until her fingers were gripped around its hilt.

"Again. Faster. That was two and a half beats, kerl."

Saafiyah glanced across the dinging hall at me, frowned and started again. Her hands moved faster.

"Again. Faster. Do it in under a beat, Saafiyah."

She put the dagger down, spun it on the oak table so the hilt was facing me and slide it to me. "I can't! It can't be done," she told me frowning in frustration.

I studied her for a moment. "Time me and count."

I hefted the dagger into the palm of my hand. "Ready?"

She nodded.

"Now!"

I could see her lips moving as she counted, my hand a blur of movement, the blade disappearing into the sleeve of my shirt, reappearing, gripped to strike a target, disappearing once again. Repeating, I thumped my knuckles on the oak table with each repetition.

I stopped at ten repetitions. Her mouth hung open.

"How many?" I asked her.

"Ten."

"How long?"

"Eight beats."

I smiled wryly and pushed the dagger back across the table to her.

"Now, practice. Do it faster. Like I did." I stood and started preparing dinner, thankful to have distracted the girl long enough to prepare a meal that wouldn't end up on my plate blackened and barely edible.

FLHTH Session 07 - Campaign Story: Tándir

Wherein I Flee Folkestone's Landing with a Thistle In My Side

Onesday, Third Hand of Coldeven, EE237

Tándir of Great Harbor

Vacozan Province, Wirost

Swaying back and forth atop Stormlight as we made our way down the old worn dirt track that led to my bolt-hole I considered the past three days. Unwilling to stop for any length of time other than to rest it had not healed well and the constant movement of being horseback had turned it into a dull throb of pain. Beside me Saafiyah sat astride a pony we'd acquired for her in Penrith's Pointe the day before. I disliked the girl intensely by this point, having had done nothing but pester me with questions since deciding that she was coming with me more than a hand and two hundred miles back.

The rush to flee Folkestone's Landing had been chaotic at best, made worse by my newly won injury. She'd followed me with dogged determination to the stable where I had Stormlight boarded, not saying a word as she watched me intensely. Turning my back on my horse after checking its saddle, I had bent down to whisper in the stable boy's ear, passing him a gold Dragon and instructing him to send word to Trelbar to hire some men and secure the belongings I had left behind in my apartment. I turned back around ready to leap into the saddle and instead found the damn girl grinning down at me from my own horse with that enigmatic smile that I both hate and love.

I wanted her gone, to get the hell out of my life, to go away and piss off. I didn't need her with me. It was far too dangerous for her, and after the choices I'd made back at the apartment in an effort to protect her, far too dangerous for myself as well. I told her so.

Ignoring my snarl of anger and frustration she spoke. "Sorry?" she said, in the manner she had that suggested that she didn't have one ounce of sorry in her bones, grinning as she refused to budge from the saddle. "I don't care about it being dangerous," she continued as she shifted to get more comfortable in the saddle. When I didn't respond she raised an eyebrow inquiringly, "What are you waiting for? Let's go. Where are we going?"

For two days we rode double down the northern highway following the coast of Wirost from Folkestone's Landing to Jarren's Outpost, a small town that had sprung up in Wirost's early days of settlement around a roadside inn a day's ride from the seat of colonial power in Folkestone's Landing.  We did not stay in Jarren's Outpost much to Saafiyah's dislike. We left the highway some time before we came upon the city and camped in the rolling hills south of the town. I had no way of knowing whether or not we might be pursued and I did not fancy another run in with a bunch of thugs in an enclosed space. Saafiyah was petulant about not having a soft bed and bath. It was that first evening that I finally got around to pushing the bolt, which had snapped in half during my tumble down the staircase, through the remainder of my shoulder with Saafiyah watching calmly, almost fascinated, as I bit down on a stick to prevent myself from screaming.

Reaching Penrith's Pointe by nightfall the next day, we had rented a room at one of the many inns. The risk of stopping in Penrith's Pointe, the economic hub of the Vacozan Province and home to as many as 1,500 people at any given time, was negligible compared to the risk we would have taken in Jarren's Landing just a day before. Nearly all harvest from the province moved to market in some fashion through Penrith's Pointe. It's landscape was dotted with granaries and wide open stockyards and auroch pens. It was a perfect place to acquire a mount for Saafiyah, who had pestered me the entire day's ride about wanting her own horse if we were going to be travelling so much. I settled for a pony, much more befitting her size. She did not act too pleased but quickly named it Ashka. From whence the name came I could not say.

We rode out of Penrith's Pointe early in the morning this third day, heading south on one of the less well maintained hard packed roads, eventually turning off onto an even less well maintained dirt track that took us through the hills of Vacozan towards the Dhahkan Peaks, the largest geographical feature Wirost. Some Wirostian scholars theorized that the island, that all the land masses composing the Mystshroud Isles, had been formed by the ground itself belching out fire and smoke and molten rock in great quantities. I could not say if such things were true or not, but the thought of such raw power never failed to make me realize just how insignificant I might be compared to the power of the gods and of nature.

We wound back and forth through the morning until, cresting a hill, a lush green valley at the foot of the Dhahkans appeared, full of cultivated fields and kepek groves. On the higher south side across from us in the distance, I saw my bolt hole, my summer home, a rectangular dun-colored two-story house protected by a dun-colored wall. A rather large outbuilding stood nearby, as well as a smaller single home a couple hundred yards from its larger cousin. It took another hour to cross the valley.

Payatt appeared around the corner of the small home dressed in brown fieldwork attire and wearing a cloak despite the warmth of the beautiful spring day, his intense dark eyes smiling in his weathered, wrickled face as we brought the horses to a stop in front of the home he shared with Aponi, his wife of many years. I could make out the outline of the man's shortsword, sheathed at his waist, beneath the heavy cloak.

"Welcome, Master Tándir," he said with a slight bow. Payatte and his wife were my grounds keepers. They tended the kepek groves, managed the small herd of goats and looked after the house. In exchange they lived rent free in the smaller home and kept fifty percent of the profits from each year's kepek crop; they were quite wealthy as a result compared to the average Wirostian commoner.

"How are you, Payatt? Not getting any younger, I see." I shook his hand after jumping down from Stormlight, mindful of the pain in my injured shoulder. "This kerl," I said, nodding towards the guttersnipe still sitting astride the pony, "is Saafiyah." Having been introduced, she climbed down from her mount's saddle. "Also, she is a pest," I added with a laugh.

Somehow it didn't surprise me at all when Saafiyah and Payatt began conversing like old friends. The child had a natural ability to disarm those around her with little more than a natural smile. I left them and led Stormlight to the main house and unloaded my packs and bedroll, carefully putting away the few weapons I had managed to gather before all hell had broken loose back in Folkestone's Landing. No matter, I had a small collection of trade tools here at the bolt hole, and if worse came to worse just about anything I might have need of could be acquired in Penrith's Point, a half day's ride north.

Over the next few days, as I mulled over what to do, rested and healed, Saafiyah followed me around pestering me about what I did for a living. "Why do you have so many swords and daggers and crossbows?" "Why do you have poison?" "Who were those men?" "Why did they want to kill you, Tándir?" "Was it something you did?" "Did you steal from them?" "Are you a thief?" "Who do you steal from?" "What do you steal?" She snooped and investigated, interrogated and probed. She was, indeed, a pest. One who I was glad I had not been able to rid myself of, even if I still wanted to.

I'd shown her the guest room which she'd looked at, commented something to the effect of "nice," and promptly picked up her bedroll and dropped it in my room, laying it out on the floor beside my bed. She climbed into the bedroll after I'd fallen asleep that first night and though I woke as she did so I didn't have the heart to admonish her yet again.

And then, on the third day as we ate a breakfast of mutton, badly burnt and barely edible in typical Saafiyah-style, she looked at me intently and asked me to teach her to use a bow. It shocked me.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because. You're too young," I added.

"Am not."

"Women, and especially young girls, should pursue other interests," I said. It was true. There were notable exceptions to this in Wirostian culture, but they were far and few between.

"So?"

One hour later as I was rebandaging my shoulder she asked again. I refused and she seemed to take that as a challenge, asking constantly, pestering me incessantly.

Two days later I caved. I'd seen an unnatural determination in her face so I decided to humour her, see how determined she really was. Thus, on the last day of the hand we saddled Stormlight and Ashka and made the half day trek to Penrith's Pointe, spending the afternoon visting the markets. We returned by nightfall with a bow suitable for Saafiyah's use.

I would have bet my last platinum Dwarf on Saafiyah getting bored when I began talking to her about crossbows, how each mechanism worked, the inherent benefits of different prod designs from ashen wood to composites made of wood, horn and sinew, how to build a makeshift bow press for restringing, the ranges of crossbows and bows, stances, care and maintenance. I was deliberately trying to discourage the girl by boring her silly. I failed abysmally. I'd never seen such concentration. She gave me not a single smile that day first day. her eyes were intent, brows furrowed. In some ways her determination scared me, as if she had a purpose in mind, something driving her. Perhaps it was her experience in my apartment.

Saafiyah was all bounce and enthusiasm the next day as I set up a handful of old and worn clay mugs on a dead tree trunk some twenty feet away. "Is it hard?" "When did you learn?" "How old were you?" "Why do you need so many different crossbows and bows?" In typical Saafiyah fashion my silence at each new question did not deter her. One of the things that amazed, amused and annoyed me about the kerl was her ability to have a complete conversation on her own, often veering into the absurd in the process. It usually made me smile despite my best efforts, which only served to encourage her further. She was a bit of a pest but I found I liked the pest more and more, despite the aggravations and endless headaches she caused me.

Handing her the shortbow we'd bought two days before in Penrith's Point I stood to one side to correct her stance. The shortbow looked huge in her hands, given her small stature.

"Both eyes open, Saafiyah."

Her eyes were locked on the clay mugs, intent, focused. I was just noticing how odd it looked for a girl, barely eleven cycles old, to be standing there with a shortbow in her hands, bowstring drawn back, arm shaking with the effort. The practice arrow went sailing into the air as she released. She grinned at me, not disappointed in the least bit. "Fun!"

I handed her another arrow. Moments later olive-green eyes glinted at me. "Missed."

Another thirteen arrows later and she still hadn't hit anything. Not even the old tree stump, which was quite large. Another thirty arrows and she'd punished the air plenty but the clay mugs remained quite safe.

"That's enough for now," I said as I reached out and took the bow from her hands.

She frowned. "Why?"

"Lunch," I said.

"Fine," she huffed, then smiled with a hint of evil. "I'm cooking!"

I groaned inwardly, preparing myself for another barely edible meal.

Saafiyah's determination was admirable. I actually felt proud the first time she hit one of the mugs. But, seven hands later, after daily practice that she fanatically insisted on, the girl was hitting each mug with ease. She had a remarkable natural talent that I'd never seen in anyone, myself included. Then one day, as she was sitting on the ground applying a light lubricating wax to her bow's flaxen bowstring, I offered her one of my light crossbows.

"Fun!"

I handed the crossbow to her without saying a word. I wanted to see how long it would take her to adjust to the heavier weight, if she would figure out for herself the best stance for an accurate shot. The first bolt missed by a mile. Unable to do so herself she handed it back to me to be drawn again. She paused and stared at the crossbow when it was back in her hands. Lifting it she shot again and missed by a mile. Frowning, she hefted it in her hands, studying it, before handing it back to me once more to be drawn. The third shot one of the few remaining clay mugs and spun it through the air as the bolt glanced off its side.

"Huh." She handed it back to me. I drew the string back and returned it to her, along with another bolt. She loaded the bolt into the flight groove and snapped the crossbow up quickly, pressing the lever all in one smooth motion. The "thwap" of the bowstring was followed immediately by the shattering of a clay mug downrange.

"Thought it would be harder."

Pride made my chest swell and that all too familiar uncomfortable knot formed.

FLHTH Session 06 - Campaign Story: Tándir

My Life Upended and an Axe At the Door

Twosday, Second Hand of Coldeven, EE237

Tándir of Great Harbor

Folkstone's Landing, Wirost

Saafiyah moved into my life like I had invited her. I hadn't. Yet, three nights after that first one, I found the girl curled up on the end of my bed when morning arrived. It infuriated me. I immediately had a picture of a dog sleeping on my bed and felt a flush of anger that she'd sleep like that. It was demeaning.

Her eyes opened at my rough shake. "Don't sleep on my bed like this," I told her. "I don't like it."

Olive-green eyes studied me for a moment, tugging at something inside me. I felt that discomfort return to my chest. An enigmatic smile played at the corners of her lips.

"Sorry?"

She didn't do it again, either. But the next morning I woke with a mass of burgundy hair tickling my face. I smelled an unusual aroma and felt heat radiating at me. Saafiyah had slipped into my bed, curled up, her face resting on the pillow turned away from me and thick hair a mess. She was wearing one of my linen shirts once again.

I shook her awake, telling her to get the hell out of my bed. I'd never been around kids, at least not as an adult, and never really cared for them. But Saafiyah was completely different from my preconceptions. She was quite intelligent and had gumption and courage. Nothing I did seemed to faze her or discourage her. She had a mind of her own and I had to admit I even admired her a bit for it. I was not happy at how I was beginning to care about her, how already I was beginning to see her as my own child.

The child also moved into my life like a storm battering the coast, uprooting and upending everything in sight. I was a man of habit. I woke at roughly the same time every morning. I made the trip to the Spinning Coin each morning, ordering the same meal of mutton and mead. I walked the Soul Market each afternoon, eyes alert for any new oddity or curio that caught my attention. I sat at the same table in the market's central plaza each day, and played a game of dominoes with the same people. At night I would pay a visit to the bath house on Gold Street and bathed before heading back to the Spinning Coin for my evening meal. I led a predictable, highly structured life, and Saafiyah quickly managed to overturn my highly regimented life.

I commissioned a new single width bed, and a week later we embarked on a bout of furniture wrangling in the common room. The couch fell victim to limited space and ended up in Trelbar's curio shop for a fraction of what I had originally paid, but at least Saafiyah was no longer sleeping on the floor in my blanket roll beside my bed each night. Until she decided that she preferred the floor after a week of sleeping in the bed. I argued, coerced and connived in an attempt to have her spend her nights sleeping on the feather mattress that had set me back what most people where lucky to make in a year's time. But eventually the bed ended up at Trelbar's, once again for a fraction of what it had cost me to commission it, and the couch returned to the common room, at nearly the same price I had first paid for it, , and Saafiyah slept on the bedroll on the floor.

Each morning I would wake to the smell of fresh food from the kitchen. In the early days she simply fetched warm meals from the Spinning Coin, somehow always seeming to find whatever coins I had on hand and hidden away the night prior. Later, another round of furniture wrangling was endured when she decided that she wanted to do the cooking herself. The hearth in the common room had never been lit by me in the nearly six cycles I had owned the apartment. Once again I argued and coerced. "Sorry?" she would respond, with that enigmatic smile of hers, just before moving more furniture to make way for the hearth's first lighting. Ale and mead disappeared from my diet, replaced by water and milk and tea and all manner of coffees. My pipe disappeared soon after, obviously misplaced by a feeble minded old man if Saafiyah was to be believed. I replaced the pipe. It too disappeared. As did the third.

I had rarely used the wooden tub in the small wash room. Saafiyah didn't like my daily excursion to the bath house on Gold Street. They kept slaves, after all, and she seemed to have a deep-seated dislike for the institution of slavery. She began lugging up pails of water from the enclosed courtyard to fill the wooden tub each night, bathing herself after I had finished. I didn't know how to tell her that I happened to enjoy the slaves that saw to the patrons at Guilded Flowers. Somehow, I knew it would break the accursed kerl's heart, and somehow I knew that I wouldn't -- couldn't -- bear doing that.

The afternoon strolls that I had enjoyed through the market became a walk for the two of us. The game players of the plaza were soon forgotten as we developed a game of our own, one based on the observation of merchants and shoppers around us. When this grew old we began trailing one another, moving in and out of the crowds hoping to spot the other before we ourselves were spotted. She impressed me with her ability to cut the strings of purses, her skill at money changing cons on merchants who by every right should have known better. She would run back to me after each success, presenting coins of all types, and each time I would send her scurrying back to her victim to return whatever possessions she had managed to take from them. She bluffed her way through each and every time, claiming she had spotted coins fall from their coin purse, or that the merchant had simply given her too many coins by accident. Often she would be rewarded with a coin or two in gratitude. I always made sure that she returned those as well.

She showed an incredible interest in the shelves of books in my study, covering everything from human anatomy and the herbal property of plants to scrolls on healing and tomes on combat styles and techniques. I was shocked when I realized that despite speaking both common and halfling fluently, she was not literate in either. I took it upon myself to teach her to read, and over the course of hands she became quite adept.

Over the course of several hands I managed to coax only two secrets from the gutter rat. I'd been told with tremendous indignation that she was ten cycles old, and "kirry wafe hedio osh jed," she'd exclaimed, in Orcish, with a frown. Roughly translated, she suggested I was both blind and senile. Again, she had surprised me, with her familiarity with the Orcish language, though her age sort of explained her remarkable personality. She'd glared at me when I'd tried to to explain she was so small that I had thought her at least a couple cycles younger. Then again, I liked her fierce glare.

It was mid-morning, early spring. Unlike the winters of my youth in my native land, the winter months in the Mystshrouds were relatively pleasant, more like a warm sunny autumn or spring day back home in Great Harbour. Saafiyah and I had just celebrated the passing of her 11th cycle only a few hands previous. She was back home doing Axsyn knew what. I was out intending to stop by Trelbar's Curio Shop for the long overdue visit I had promised him the previous fall.

"Trelbar," I greeted the obese fence as I stepped through the open doorway of his shop.

"Tándir, well met my friend," he said. Then, in a much more glum tone add, "A shame about our friend Bastion, is it not?"

I cocked my head to the side for a moment and took a deep breath. "What of Bastion?" I demanded, approaching the fat merchant's counter swiftly, the small hairs on the back of my neck standing on end suddenly.

"Ah, Tándir, you have not heard then?"

"Tell me," I growled, impatient. "Now."

Trelbar frowned, his jaw clenched tightly for several long moments before he spoke. "Dead, I'm afraid. I'm surprised you have not already heard, the news has spread quickly given... the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" Cold fear washed over me.

"He was badly beaten, I'm sad to say. But worse, burned. Tortured, is the word circulating on the street."

There could only be one reason for Bastion having been tortured that I could think of. Without another word spoken I spun and rushed from Trelbar's curio shop, the reversible cloak hanging from my shoulders whipping out behind me as I tossed caution to the wind and sprinted for my apartment. Logically, I knew that there could be any number of reasons that Bastion might have died at the hands of an interrogator, but paranoia and a sense of self-preservation had kept me alive far longer than most in my chosen profession. And now, with Saafiyah under my care there was even more compelling reason to fear the worst.

I burst through the door of the apartment.

"Saafiyah! Thistle!" Where was she? "You've got to go," I yelled.

My mind immediately started planning; get rid of Saafiyah, pack and disappear to my bolt-hole on the western coast of the Wirostian peninsula. There was no connection between it and the man known as Tándir of Great Harbour, as far as I was aware. It would provide a temporary reprieve from potential threats until such time as I could determine a suitable solution to the problem at hand.

I found her in the study reading a book on the mechanics and crafting of crossbows. "Saafiyah, you have to leave right now, right now."

"But..."

"Don't argue, kerl. Get your things and go. Now."

I tossed several days worth of clothes into my backpack, opened the chest that was a recent addition to my chambers and pulled out several sacks of coin. Most of my money was stored safely away in the Bank of Wirost, but I always kept enough on hand to see me through an emergency. I also had travel papers for Terraced and Kisell, the only two island nations in the Mystshroud Isles that strictly controlled movement of not only foreigners but even their own citizenry. In the unlikely event Wirost was no longer safe, the forged travel papers under a false name would enable me to pass cursory inspection when entering either kingdom.

Moving back to the study I paused briefly to watch Saafiyah gathering her meagre collection of clothes. I strapped on my sword belt and scabbard, then sheathed my short sword. My favorite dagger followed shortly thereafter. Several of the small wooden boxes that I remembered Saafiyah investigating so many hands ago were added to a shoulder bag.

I hurried Saafiyah along, guiding her by the shoulder. "Here, take this money and find somewhere to stay. I'll find you eventually." I guided her onward to the door.

"But..."

I was about to open the door when wood splintered and the curved blade of an axe crashed through the door, wood splinters prickling my cheek. Ducking back, I shoved Saafiyah away. She fell and slid across the wood floor on her rump with an "Ooof." The axe blade disappeared just long enough for its wielder to swing again. The door bowed inwards, but held. Standing, I moved to the balcony and whipped close the curtains, darkening the room into shadows before slipping back to the side of the door, back pressed to the wall, drawing my short sword from its scabbard. The axe fell twice more against the door before it finally gave way under the onslaught and buckled inwards, swinging open haphazardly.

From our assailant's position I could only imagine what he saw as his light adjusted to the darkness of the common room, a young girl sitting on the floor facing the door, propped up on her elbows. An easy target. He stepped through the doorway, the sound of another person moving behind him.

The tip of the short sword slipped through the man's flesh from the side, angling upwards, it's double sided blade pushing easily through both muscle and bone before finally puncturing a lung, it's tip piercing the man's heart. It sank even deeper as I pushed away from the wall, grabbing hold of the man who had yet to realize he had already died and turning him about. A disgusting ripping of flesh and muscle could be heard as the blade ripped free of the corpse as I pushed it back through the door. I could hear a curse shouted and the shuffling of feet as I kicked the door closed again, the thud of the body and the clanging of steel as man and axe fell to the floor in the hallway.

I spared a momentary glance at Saafiyah. She remained sitting up, her eyes wide, but without a trace of fear. Why didn't she look scared? I knew there was at least one more assailant out in the hall, and I couldn't imagine there wouldn't be more elsewhere, further down the hallway so as not to get in one another's way in the tight confines of the corridor. I couldn't imagine getting out through the front door of my apartment, at least not in one piece. I needed to get Saafiyah out. But how? Would she understand if I pointed to my study and then at the balcony doors? I jabbed my finger towards the study. She frowned at me and shook her head no. By Axsyn, what the fuck? I felt like snarling at her. Who the hell did she think she was? I tried again. She shook her head harder, her thick ponytail swaying. And then I caught the glint of steel in her hand, a dagger.

By the gods. Anger coursed through me. Her stubbornness was going to get her killed. Rage burned bright at the thought of her being butchered by thugs. Or worse.

I pushed open the door with the toe of a boot and luanched myself through the doorway. At the very least I might be able to sell my own life at a very dear price to our assailants, thereby whittling down however slightly the odds stacked against Saafiyah.

A man wielding a pair of daggers stood waiting for me. I swung hapharzardly, desperately while trying to ascertain whether any other men were present. The tip of my blade left a streak of red against the man's bicep as I heard of pair of "thwaps" from behind me. A pair of crossbow bolts whistled past me, stirring up a cloud of dust as it buried itself into the panelled wall inches from my face. Daggers flashed beside me and I stumbled backwards out of their reach. There was no doubt that I would die. The only question was how dearly I would sell my life before I exhaled my last breath. I'd never been dedicated to any particular god but for the first time I found myself sending a silent prayer to Axsyn, the Goddess of Life and Death, the one who's finger could sway the scale between one or the other.

I lunged forward wildly, welcomed the grunt of shock and pain from the dagger wielding thug as the already bloodied point of my sword pierced the man's belly and sank deep. I twisted and pushed, opening a deep gash across the man's torso. The stench of the man's entrails assaulted my nostrils as I pulled the blade free, a sickening wet smacking sound reaching my ears as his guts spilled out onto the floor, onto my boots.  I turned just in time for the two crossbowmen further down the corridor, one half concealed in the open doorway of another apartment, the second further back at the top of the stairwell, both lifting their light crossbows to their shoulders.

In the cramped hallway there was little way that I could move and dodge as I rushed the nearest man but was surprised when yet again a pair of crossbow bolts whipped past me, one near enough to tug at my cloak. They seemed shaken at the sight of their two comrades laying dead in the hallway behind me. The nearest man released his grip on his crossbow, choosing to step fully into the corridor and draw a rapier as I moved into striking range. He swung wildly as he took a step back, almost in a panic, an ungraceful swipe that did little but throw himself off balance and leave him wide open.  Exploiting his error I stepped forward, and drove my sword through the center of his chest. 

The final man in the corridor hefted his crossbow back to his shoulder as I moved past the dead man, withdrawing my sword from his chest and pushing him against the wall to make room for my passing. I did not flinch as the bolt sprang from the weapon and rushed towards me. I am not even sure I flinched as it buried itself in my left shoulder, slicing neatly through flesh.  I yelled and readied my weapon once again before charging the man.  We tumbled down the stairwell, the pain of the bolt buried in my shoulder finally registering as it was battered around, the short sword in my hands slicing through the top of the man's shoulder, cleaving downwards through his collarbone and nearly severing his arm. Grunting, screaming, we came to a stop at the foot of the stairwell. I drew my dagger and plunged it into his chest, resting atop him as his final breaths brought blood to his lips.

Sounds rushed back; the last breaths of the dying man beneath me, the sounds of the Soul Market filtering through the walls of the apartment building, and someone shouting "Tánny! Tánny!" I despised being called that.

I rolled off the corpse onto my back at the foot of the stairs and looked up. Saafiyah peered down the staircase, dagger still in hand, spotted me on the floor and smiled with relief.

Why did that smile hurt me?