The Chronicles of 'Team B' - Chapter 10 - The Demiurge of the Raid

Before the companions take leave of Zinovii, he introduces them to one of his servitors - a rooster-headed man called Anatoly Frolyn. Anatoly was a captive who grew up with the Kochmaki on the steppe after having himself been taken captive on a raid from a Norik village. Along with his sister, he grew up among the nomads, learning their customs and language. On a trip to the Khan's court with Grand Prince Vasilii, Zinovii met him, and purchased his freedom. Now, he sends Anatoly along with the other companions to serve as a translator and protector. Anatoly - a person of martial disposition, tells them that he would like to serve his benefactor and learn what befell those whose fate is similar to his own. The best use of his talents at present, Yuri and Lokan decide, would be to visit the Kochmak encampment just outside of town, and to ask them about the Vladykino captives. Yaakov has personal and family matters to attend to in the main city, so he excuses himself, and says he will meet the group at the cemetery, where they are to hold their vigil again tonight. Agapia also runs off, apparently in search of a new cauldron.

Anatoly, a new companion taking up the vacant 'cocky' role in the party

Anatoly, not wanting to attract unwanted attention, prepares himself by changing into the form of a tall, muscular human. The party then rides outside of the Nart Quarter, and heads through the rain toward the field dotted with multicolored yurts. Upon coming to the perimeter, they are immediately surrounded by four Kochmak riders, who, ignoring Anatoly's entreaties, order the group to dismount and disarm, and conduct them to one of the tents. The riders look very similar to those that confronted Yuri when he was following the raiders several weeks ago.

Inside the tent, they find Nygmet, a white-bearded clan elder of some sort. Unlike the camp guards, Nygmet treats the visitors cordially, inviting each to sit down on the cushions, and enjoy a bowl of broth (which Anatoly, who eschews meat, politely sets aside at an opportune moment). When Anatoly explains that they would like to speak to the bey about the whereabouts of the captives taken from Vladykino, Nygmet replies that the bey would in turn like information about who the guests are, who they work for, and what their interest in the matter is. After negotiation, it is decided that the spirits will determine the matter by having the two sides cast knucklebones, and the winner of the throw will be required to divulge their secrets first. The knucklebones are cast, but the spirits remain silent on the matter - the throw is judged to be a draw.

To resolve the draw, Nygmet offers a tie-breaker contest - a test of skill in archery. Anatoly makes his own counteroffer - he knows that the highest honor among the Kochmaki is held by those who demonstrate feats of physical prowess, so he suggests a wrestling contest. Nygmet agrees, and brings Aibek - one of the clan's best wrestlers, as well as Zhuldyz - the daughter of Sholpan Bey. Zhuldyz is conversant in the Noriki tongue, which will ease communication with the whole group, and relieve Anatoly of having to translate.

Anatoly offers the group his services as their champion against the strongman. His forelock stands upon end as he feels the power of the Earth flow through his body. He locks arms with Aibek, catches the Kochmak in a reverse hold, and quicker than one can blink, throws the strongman over his back. Clearly impressed with his strength, Zhuldyz asks if he would like to join the clan as a wrestling champion. When he replies that he is currently engaged, but will consider the offer, the bey's daughter fulfills the promise of the wager. She tells them what they have already heard from Berke: that the bulk of the prisoners are warehoused on Slave Island in a caravanserai owned by a man named Hassan, but the young women in the group were transported across the river. She does add that they are now in the possession of a powerful lord named Yaqub, who owns land across the river, and who paid for the raid in the first place. The raiders keep the proceeds for the sale of the other captives, but the young women were sent to Yaqub immediately upon the expedition's return.

Zhuldyz then asks the companions to tell them about herself, as a courtesy, and Yuri reveals his story, as well as the group's relationship with Zinovii. Zhudyz ends the meeting by wishing the companions luck in buying back the captives, and invites Anatoly to return at any time, asking whether his prowess at wrestling is matched in other areas.

Leaving the camp with heads still attached to necks: a moral victory

The party leaves the raider camp, and returns to the city. Now that they have some answers, which seem to absolve the Grand Prince of any responsibility, they hope to receive Zinovii's promised princely protection. But the ailing boyar, though he praises the group for the results so far, objects that the people of the Ladeisk prince who would blame his master would require more concrete legal proof of the raiders' collusion with this Yaqub, preferably in writing. Anatoly promises that he will return to the encampment to obtain the proof, especially as he seems to have a standing invitation from the bey's daughter. But now, as the day heads toward evening, it is time to return to the cemetery, and this time, Anatoly would like to accompany the rest of the group, in all his rooster glory.

At the cemetery, the watchman is closing up as Yuri, Lokan, and Anatoly arrive. He hasn't seen any disturbing activity since the previous night, but remains nervous - the grave robbers might come back! The companions ask for a few candles - they'd like to have a closer look around for tracks and disturbed graves. Searching around, Lokan finds disturbed dirt on top of a stone slab, which Yuri shoves aside, finding another staircase down into the darkness. Around this time, Yaakov shows up. He informs the rest of the group that his contacts in the main city have revealed to him that the grave robbers are Banu Tabar that operate out of an apothecary shop, where they sell the stolen water as a cure-all remedy. Perhaps one of the tunnels leads to this shop.

Lokan heads down into yesterday's tunnel with Anatoly, and after entering the long hallway, finds the passage blocked with a newly constructed brick wall. A careful look around reveals that some of the mortar hasn't set, or is perhaps of lower quality. Lokan easily removes the bricks adhering to the bad mortar, revealing a hole that a person can crawl through. Looks like the grave robbers have left themselves a back door, and likely intend to return. Meanwhile, Yuri finds an identical wall, with an identical "back door" in the new tunnel. Both tunnels continue for quite a ways, and then begin to branch off into side passages. Perhaps tonight is not the time to find out where they lead, and to confront whoever waits on the other side - these are tasks best left for another day. The group returns to the cemetery, and completes their nightly vigil. Nothing transpires, and at sunrise, they all go back to their resting places - Yaakov to his home in the main city, Anatoly to the Nikonov mansion, and Yuri and Lokan - to Hegumen Mitrofan's monastery, to sleep, and reconvene at Nikonov's in the early evening.

The following day, Anatoly rises to meet his new companions at the monastery. Alden and Agapia are still nowhere to be seen, Yakov is likely preoccupied with his affairs, and Anatoly returns, in human form, to the nomad encampment to speak to Zhuldyz, to see if he can wrangle a confirmation of what she told him the previous day in writing, and perhaps to have a bit of fun. The bey's daughter seems preoccupied and dismissive in comparison to the previous day, says that she does not write, and invites Anatoly to return another time.

In the meantime, Yuri and Lokan decide to head into the main city to see if anything more can be learned about Yaqub. The most promising place to go seems to be the docks from where captives were ferried to Slave Island, because here they might find the ferryman who took the young women across the river, and on to Yaqub. Yuri leaves his weapons behind - he doesn't want want trouble with the guardians at the West Gate. Lokan, however, tries to sneak a dagger and his whip into the city. The guards don't like how he looks, so they demand that he hand his purse over. Lokan toys with the idea of pulling a little sleight of hand, but a dirty look from Yuri dissuade him. The guards are thorough, find the weapons, and confiscate them, giving the vagabond a token so he can redeem them later.

After arriving at the docks and asking around, they find the dockmaster, Kardysh, who directs them to a man named Mamoun - the transporter of the slaves. The arrival of the captives was obviously big news, and hard to cover up. When they ask him where the young women were taken, who Yaqub is, and where he lives, Mamoun takes them aside and demands three gold dinars as payment - a hefty sum. There is nothing to it, so Yuri pays up, and in return, Mamoun tells them that Yaqub is in fact a firebreathing zilant - a winged, two-legged serpent, who lives under a hill a couple of hours upstream on the other side. It seems he has lived there for a while, and is sometimes seen to take flight at night. His hunting grounds are elsewhere - perhaps on the steppe, as he has been seen carrying horses back to his lair. But this is not the first time he has received contingents of young women taken on raids. What he does with them is unclear, but Mamoun took the women there shortly after they arrived, turned them over to people who are presumably Yaqub's agents, and they took it from there, while he returned. There is no indication that the man is lying, but he refuses to set any of this down in writing.

Mamoun spills the beans while sipping his sherbet

Yuri's heart sinks - can it be that his beloved Svetlana has already been devoured by a monstrous serpent? Whatever the case, the monster must die, but he and his companion must return to the Nart Quarter to at least wait out the downpour, which threatens to wash out the rest of the day, and collect their weapons and the rest of their companions. At Nikonov's, they meet Anatoly, back from his foray to the encampment with little to show for it, though the rooster-man is eager to join in the expedition to hunt down a serpent - it is just the thing to prove his heroic mettle. Yaakov is there as well - he has returned to give Zinovii another blood-letting. He had spent the day watching his nephews and nieces after his nightly escapades, and is now trying to give a skeptical Zinovii a diagnosis of his malady. It seems that the boyar is a little too indulgent a drinker - an explanation the latter dismisses as outlandish before agreeing to cut back his mealtime consumption from five drinks to three.

As the four stand outside the mansion discussing the diagnosis and their next steps, Agapia appears, happily skipping by. Yesterday, she tried to replace her missing cauldron by lifting one from a local bazaar, and was promptly caught and escorted back to her uncle for punishment - her relationship and special status do give her some leeway. Mitrofan promptly punished her by locking her in her room for a day, but now she has been set free, and is skipping along merrily - she just found a clay jar in an alley, and used magic to clean it from sediment, so she is elated.   

Chronicles of 'Team B' - Chapter 9 - Seeking Support of Church and State

Armed with new information courtesy of Berke, the companions return to the Nart Quarter as the sun sinks in the west. Tonight, they will hold a vigil in the cemetery of the large Irii Church that dominates the Quarter, as it is here that all of Udyn's Gaalites are buried, and here that unclean creatures come in the dark hour. If they succeed in driving the darkness back, perhaps Hegumen Mitrofan, and the other Fathers will see fit to support their efforts to free Yuri's family, both materially and spiritually.

As they arrive at the cemetery, the night watchman is just closing up the gate. He is frightened, and tells the group that undead nezhit' come up out of the ground at night, notwithstanding the fact that the cemetery is hallowed ground. They have already scared off some local adolescents who undertook to watch the graveyard, and caused a dog that had come with them to go rigid for hours after grabbing it with their claws.

What are those ghostly forms floating above the church?

Agapia, Lokan and Yuri enter the cemetery, and begin to search for a place where the nezhit' might emerge from. There are some recent burials, but no signs of where such creatures may emerge from out of the ground. There is a a sacred spring at the center of the graveyard that Agapia knows about - it is dedicated to Saint Pachomii of Udyn - a Bahite who converted to the True Confession, and was martyred by the Kochmaki on that very spot. The spring erupts from a rock, and empties into a font that the faithful built around it. Lokan looks longingly at the coins they threw in the font to win the saint's favor, but Yuri shoots him a dirty look, and dissuades him from fishing any of them out of the sacred water. Figuring this for a strategic and defensible spot, Agapia and Lokan set up a triangular tripwire using rope, wire and grave markers around the font, and begin filling a waterskin and Agapia's small cauldron with holy water. Yuri uses the opportunity to slip out, back to the Noriki monastery, to retrieve his horse Vera, and to see if there is any sign of Alden. Vera is there, stabled by the Hegumen's people, but Alden seems to have gone out on the town with his friend Fedor, and has not yet returned.

Yuri rides Vera back to the cemetery, and the trio begin their watch. Hours pass, but after the call for the nightly prayer from the minarets in the main city, which Agapia knows marks the midnight hour, the sound of a moving stone slab, buried somewhere under dirt, alerts the watchers that something is coming. Soon, two shapes dressed in rags approach the font, shambling and groaning. Their faces are deathly pale and covered with dirt and fresh blood, which is running down their chins. As they come closer, a groan goes up from somewhere behind the companions. The doughty men of action - Yuri and Lokan - have seen enough, and both head toward the gate, Yuri astride Vera.

Little Agapia is left alone to face the two fiends, perhaps not realizing why she should fear them. She positions herself to squirt one of them with holy water, expecting this to drive them off. But in response, the creature emits a wheezy laugh through its groan, deliberately steps over the tripwire, dips its hand in the font, and sprays Agapia with the water. Then it grabs her cauldron, which she left undefended.

Realizing that their friend is in trouble, Lokan masters his fear, and returns, succeeding in cracking one of the fiends painfully with his whip. Yuri rides back, too, but one of the creatures rips him with its claws, and he goes rigid. Only because he is an expert rider does he manage to remain mounted as Vera retreats once again. The other fiend claws at Agapia, and gets tangled in her thick fleece. It is then that Agapia sees that its talon glints in the moonlight, and that it is not a claw at all, but a dagger! She flings her own dagger at the creature, and buries it in its rags. At this point, both creatures turn and flee, no longer shambling, but running nimbly back in the direction they came from. They are able to outdistance even the similarly nimble Lokan, and disappear into the darkness. The stone slab grinds back into place.

Yuri is still frozen on Vera, but he indicates through his teeth that his two companions should follow the creatures without him. It would be good to know where they went, and to learn why they came. Worst of all, they have borne away Agapia's knife and cauldron full of holy water. After struggling, Lokan finally succeeds in moving the stone slab. Underneath, he finds a set of stairs. Shrugging, he and Agapia descend into the darkness. At the bottom of the stone stairs, a tunnel leads away, turning right and left. Lokan pursues in the darkness, with Agapia lagging far behind. Agapia soon finds herself peering at two glowing, yellow eyes, but they soon move away. She tries to move forward, feeling the wall, but after a time, she feels Lokan's hand on her shoulder. After turning two corners, Lokan saw a light off in the distance, but it moved away very quickly, and he found that he could not catch up. He returned to Agapia, and the two now ascend back to the cemetery.

After finding Yuri, they lead Vera back to the monastery. Lokan's ministrations to Yuri are in vain, and when they get back, they find an empty cell, lay Yuri down carefully, and collapse. The following morning Yuri is groggy, but finally mobile. Hegumen Mitrofan ministers to him, and he feels better, after which the hegumen questions the companions about their nightly escapades. The monk asks if Lokan remembers which direction the long tunnel was leading, and the vagabond answers that he is quite certain that it led east. That means that the tunnel and the grave robbers went back into the main city, and now, they will be hard to find. The companions entertain the notion of trying to seek them out, and to learn why they are stealing holy water, but the hegumen points out that if they get into a conflict with Bahites, he will be hard-pressed to support them. He surmises that now that they know the cemetery is guarded they won't be back, at least not right away. He will undertake a collection among the faithful to support the watchers.

The companions decide that their time is best spend seeking out the emissary of the Grand Prince, to learn what, if anything, he knows about the captives. Agapia leads them to the mansion of Georgii Nikonov, a boyar and fur merchant who resides in the Nart Quarter. Once there, Yuri explains to armed guards that he has heard an emissary of Grand Prince Vasilii is staying in the mansion, that he himself hails from the village that was raided by the Kochmaki, and that he wishes to speak to the emissary about the raid and the captives. The guards convey the message, and tell Yuri and the others to wait until the emissary is ready to see them.

While they wait at the bottom of the stair, a robed, turbaned and bearded man with a yellow armband that strikes Agapia's eye descends down the stair. He is Yaakov - a Fogarma physician, who was summoned here to attend to the emissary. The companions are then called up, to see his patient - pale, lying on a bench, with leeches on his arms and legs. His name is Zinovii Surikov, and he listens carefully to Yuri's tale, and his request to be granted the Grand Prince's protection so they can openly bear weapons and act on his behalf. Zinovii explains that he is actually in town to learn the truth of the matter behind the raid. He knows that subjects of the Prince Trofim of Ladeisk - Yuri's suzerain lord - probably suspect Vasilii's connivance in the raid, but he assures them that this is not the case.

Zinovii Surikov after surviving the wonders of 'modern'
69th century medicine

The physician returns to the mansion to remove the leeches. Zinovii orders the servants to bring food, while Yuri and Lokan entertain all those assembled with music. At the end, Zinovii tells them if they learn the true reasons behind the raid - from the slavers on the island, the raiders still camped outside town, or Udyn's rulers - he will know he can trust them, and will extend the Grand Prince's patronage to them. Yaakov expresses a desire to accompany them, for reasons that are as yet unclear.