Black Archer's Trophy Number 26

She heard the nock of an arrow and the drawing back of a bow by the spider-infested house in North Shadowdale. A common enough sound. But this time, it was followed by a thump in her torso, then another and another. Pushed back by the impact, she found herself unbalancing and falling over backwards. No pain.

Not until a black figure knelt over her and took out a knife and removed the right ear from the already heavily bruised and swollen girl's face.

Her last thoughts were a desperate hope that this was not the end. Maybe there would be a last second reprieve as the urge to live swelled as great as the sun. Maybe even someone knew her name.

Her last sensations were of another intrusion into her torso between her ribs then another searing pain that brought a blackness following.

She was not aware of the life's blood flowing down her attacker's knife or of the divine fire that consumed her body. Only ashes and shards of burned bone were left floating lightly in the air or falling to the grass in the shadow of the building that once had belonged to Syluné before the Zhents had come.

Deleted

The ashes had drifted in the wind and curious, a large man had follows them to where the grass close to the road was burned in the shape of a body. There had been fragments of burned bone there and quantities of ash.

----

She came back to herself confused. The dim glimmer of awareness became self-awareness. She had been carried in a big man's arms, but he wasn't Sergeant Utterminis. There had been a room, and old dwarf clothes to cover herself with. Then a walk, a long one as she came back to herself. The man was kind, Raman. She was confused and lost in the forests and followed him trusting him.

Now she was surrounded by Dhaerow. She had been so tired and confused she barely reacted last night. But now, they were here. Their skins were the same colour as hers. And they seemed kind. A trick? She did not know. She missed Sergeant Utterminis. And Farran, she missed him in a painful, wholly different way. And even Raman, the great strong kind man. She wondered why he had not taken her back to Shadowdale, he knew it was where she belonged.

She would have to go back, she knew it, her place was at the Sergeant's heel. But for now she was weakened and confused and she would never make it back to Shadowdale. Not yet.





//thank you for the surprising number of /tells IG about this!