All Dreams End When the Sleeper Wakes

Tor stood on the foredeck of the Alithaar, the converted merchant vessel that was serving as his makeshift flagship. One arm linked through the rigging to his left to steady himself against the rocking of the ship, he peered through the sheets of rain that lashed the deck. The enemy that had plagued his city for so long was out there, somewhere. He could feel them. Maybe he was sensing the proximity of the pall of dark magic that would accompany the inevitable assault, or maybe he was just feeling the same apprehension that all soldiers felt before battle. Regardless, they were there, and they were coming.

"Stay sharp!" Burghild roared from beside him, trying to make herself heard over the storm raging around them. The forks of the dwarf's braided beard had been bound together and tucked into her belt to keep it from flapping freely in the wind. She had been a steadying influence on Tor for many years now. He had a penchant for brooding and for overthinking his problems, but Burghild had a knack for kicking him in the shins and bringing him back to reality. Not that that would be a problem tonight. Tonight was far too real. "Keep an eye out for those sarding dogsbollocks! If one of them gets through without warning, I'll huck you overboard myself!"

It was now or never. As Burghild stomped off back down the deck to triple-check that everyone was in position, Tor reached under his drenched cloak and into one of the little pouches hanging off his belt. He plucked out a ring that looked like it could have been made of miniscule twigs braided together, though the cold weight of the metal in his palm belied its true nature. Sliding the ring onto his finger, he rotated it in place three times, and on the third heard a voice speak in his head. "You have called, mortal, and I have answered," the voice said. It was soothing, feminine, and warmth in every sense of the word seemed to radiate from it. "What boon would you ask of me?"

Memories washed over Tor at the sound of the Bridgekeeper's voice, memories of a different life that threatened to overwhelm him with the immensity of his failures. He shrugged them off. When this was all over, if he survived, there would be plenty of time for memories. "There is a group of sailing ships some distance south of my location," came his reply, though only in his mind. "I need you to shield them against detection, both physically and magically. Can you do it?"

A brief pause followed, and then the Bridgekeeper responded. "It is done, and my boon expended. But I am curious. Many are the things within my power greater than this feat. Why then, I wonder, is this your request?"

"I think," Tor began, tightening his grip on the rigging and feeling the rope creak beneath his fingers, "that you know quite well why. Once, long ago, you charged me with the protection of those precious to you. Now I deliver into your care those who are precious to me." Tor was struck with the distinct impression that the voice in his head was smiling, but it soon faded, and with it that sense of all-encompassing warmth. Even the ring he'd placed on his finger seemed to melt away into nothing, one more of the many circles of his life that were now closing.

With the civilian ships cloaked behind a veil of fae glamour, the time was now. If they were going to get away, this was their one and only chance. Tor reached deep within himself, into the well of magical power that flowed through his veins, and he sent out a pulse of that power in all directions, and then another, a challenge to the fell abomination and its hordes arrayed against him. After the third, he felt a stirring in the depths beneath him; not physically, but all the more horrible for it. "To the railings!" he barked, wheeling around and striding purposefully down the deck toward the bridge, "Shields to the front! Mages to the back! Keep those bastards off the deck and keep their focus on us!"

Grinning despite the desperate situation, Tor looked to his left, then to his right, barely able to make out the ships on either side of his own. Three ships against the entire combined might of the Cult of the Drowned. Three ships loaded with a small army vastly experienced in combating arcane and eldritch threats, perhaps. But every single one of the Deathstalkers on those ships knew that they were on the eve of their final battle and that the outcome had already been decided. The civilians were on their own little fleet, somewhere off to the south hidden by the wind and rain. Their survival was all that mattered now, and this diversion was their only hope.

Armor clattered as warriors clad in all manner of oft-mismatched armor leaped to the railings. Swords rasped as they were drawn from their scabbards. Then silence fell for a long, dreadful moment; the only sounds the rain pattering on metal-clad men and women and the wind whistling in the rigging. "There!" shouted a voice, and an arm went up, pointing out into the water off the starboard bow. Tor whirled his head around, eyes sweeping the seething waves and settling on an indistinct form bobbing among them. As if on cue, lightning flashed and showed everyone aboard the horrors that waited for them: foul, twisted creatures in the shape of men but the scales and fins of fish and pale, staring eyes. One after another they surfaced, treading water with unnatural ease and deathly silence. By the time the first peal of thunder had faded away, the three ships were surrounded on all sides by the beasts.

"Deep Ones!" Tor called out, hearing the words repeated down the warriors lining the railing. He turned and hurried the rest of the way to the bridge, approaching a group of mages positioned around a magic circle. "Now or never, Ulrich," Tor said to the one in back, meeting his fellow Mo'Raak's one good eye, "Get our barrier up and keep it up. Whatever the cost."

"Whatever the cost, Ordenmarschall," Ulrich responded with a curt nod. He gestured to the mages gathered around him, and they stepped up to the circle, beginning to chant the words to their ritual. As soon as the chanting started, some of the monsters in the waves surged forward toward the Alithaar, while others hung back. The attackers reached the hull of the ship and began to climb, hoisting their vile forms out of the water with terrible strength and agility while the soldiers along the railing did their best to dislodge them with spear and halberd. But the real threat was out on the water. One creature lifted a hand to the sky, a bolt of lightning arcing up into the air.

"Ulrich! Now!" Tor shouted. The chanting on the bridge hit a fever pitch, and with a final cry, the mages flung their hand hands up, fingers hooked into claws. A thunderbolt came streaking down out of the sky, but just before it impacted the ship, there was a shrieking sound and it rebounded off into the water, striking a handful of the waiting abominations. Ulrich's mages stumbled under the strain of holding their shield against the attack, but they held firm and the barrier remained in place, barely visible as a shimmer of starlight in the air. Tor shot Ulrich a look, one eyebrow arched, and received a nod in reply. He leaped down from the bridge and hit the deck running, finding where the fighting was thickest and throwing himself into the fray.

A small group of Deep Ones had gained a foothold on the deck, but a small group was all it would take for the defense to crumble far too quickly. A woman in full plate armor fell just in front Tor when a Deep One ripped her throat out, gorget and all, with a well-placed swipe of its claws. Amelia. Tor threw himself at the beast with a snarl, his faeblade leaping into his hand and carving into its belly with a brutal uppercut. A kick to the chest and it tumbled backward over the railing where its fellows would devour it. Another lifted a hand, about to blast a staggered warrior with a point-blank bolt of lightning. Tor spat out a word and it fell to the deck, shrieking and blubbering in agonizing pain. A second spell, and wounds sprouted from nowhere all over its scaly body, its thrashing quickly dying away into the occasional twitch. Tor turned in time to see Burghild arriving with a handful of reinforcements, finishing off the rest of the Deep Ones in the immediate area. "We're holding for now, Tor," she said, panting for breath and leaning heavily on her warhammer, "But it won't last."

Smiling grimly, Tor shook his head. "You know as well as I do how this ends," he replied, a hint of a growl in his voice, "But I damned well wasn't going out without a fight." A screech sounded overhead, and another thunderbolt ricocheted off the magical barrier. This time it was accompanied by a cry of pain, and one of Ulrich's squad collapsed to the deck and out of Tor's sight. He met Burghild's eyes and reached out to clasp forearms. "Die well, my friend. And Dromidigen grant that you die cleanly."

Burghild snorted. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. And Mondrigor's best to you too, you sarding bogwhit."

Tor's smile spread into a fierce, almost hungry grin, the joy of battle burning in his eyes. "I'd like to see him try." And with that he was gone again, diving into the next fight. One man down, bleeding out. Frederick. A mage, writhing and twitching on the ground, too far into her magical reserves to come back. Greta. The faeblade struck out again, stabbing up under a Deep One's sternum, and Tor sent a torrent of necromantic energy howling down the blade and into the thing's body, rotting it from the inside out. He took the head off of another one with one clean slice as he drew his blade out of the first.

In seconds, all the Deep Ones were down, and it took a while before Tor realized that an eerie quiet had settled over the ship once more, broken only by several more heavy blasts of lightning caroming off the barrier above as the barrage continued. More of the mages maintaining it fell, and those that were still standing were clearly straining, arms and legs quivering, blood trickling from ears and eyes and mouths as they literally gave their all to keep the shield up just a few seconds longer. Tor took a moment to catch his breath, trying to clear his head of the haze of battle. Mages and the occasional priest ran back and forth across the deck, tending to the wounded as best they could. The Deathstalkers had repulsed the first wave but at a high price. Enough good men and women were down that the second would likely overwhelm them.

The break proved all too brief. "More coming! Cultists this time!" came the cry. Tor leaned over the railing for a look, and sure enough, a veritable army was emerging from the depths. These were human, or once had been, but their skin was now corpse-pale, their eyes cloudy. Their master, the Hofu Kina, gave those who served him a blasphemous facsimile of life; they could never permanently die, but every time they returned they were a little less than they had been. And there were many more of them than of the Deep Ones. Before long they were pouring over the railings, their lack of the Deep Ones' strength more than made up for by sheer weight of numbers. They crashed against the defenders' weakened shield wall, clawing or hacking at them with rusty weapons. One of the cultists rasped a spell, and Tor saw one of the defenders start drowning as water erupted from his nose and mouth.

Under Tor and Burghild's direction, the remaining Deathstalkers pulled slowly back, step by step, toward the bridge. Through the rain, Tor could make out flashes of light on the other two vessels, a rictus grin on his lips at the knowledge that the people he had brought together and forged into a weapon against evil refused to go quietly or easily. They had reached the bottom of the stairs leading up to the bridge when another thunderbolt hit the barrier and finally broke it. While much of its energy was deflected, it still managed to blow a large chunk out of the ship's port side, causing the Alithaar to start listing to port. Tor didn't even have to look to know that Ulrich was dead. A thorough professional, when he'd said 'whatever the cost,' he'd meant it. Another name for the list. Then, the end came for them all.

The water swelled beneath the ship, throwing it to the side, and many cultists and deathstalkers alike were swept overboard. A massive tentacle broke the surface of the lake, far longer than any of their ships, and as thick around. As though in slow motion, it rose up into the air and slammed down onto the left ship, cracking it in half with one titanic blow. A rumble, less of a sound than a vibration felt deep in the chest, shook the Alithaar, and Tor knew that the Hofu Kina had come to destroy them itself. The waves from the left ship's destruction crashed over the Alithaar again, and more were lost to the depths. The vessel was taking on water and starting to tilt forward, raising the bridge up into the air, turning the deck into a steep incline. Tor saw Burghild, clinging to the rigging with one hand, lose her grip and fall into the lake below. 

He began to climb, swinging himself over the railing as the Alithaar turned vertical and scaling the hull to what had once been the stern on his ship. He stood there in the wind and the rain as the Hofu Kina destroyed the other vessel. Its alien malice was palpable, and it knew he was watching. It wanted him to see his life's work undone. Tor closed his eyes, sighing and murmuring, "You've won then. End it."

The surface of the lake swelled again, one tentacle after another breaching the water, an enormous mass of them. In the center was a shape that Tor could not make out, that hurt him even to look at and nearly pulled him to his knees. He caught himself, standing upright with his violet eyes blazing. "No. I will never kneel to you," he growled, his teeth clenched against the pain of beholding the Hofu Kina's form. The thing howled, a sound that reverberated in his mind and once more turned his legs to jelly, and once more he stayed standing.

The tentacles flew toward him. Tor drew his sword one last time and forced himself into a jog, then a run. He leaped off the edge of the ship's hull in full stride, roaring his defiance as he plunged his sword into one of the monster's appendages, once again sending necromantic energy flooding down the blade. He held on, even as he felt the Alithaar smashed to pieces beneath him, even as he was dragged down under the water. He could feel his mind being torn apart under the strain, the last ounces of his life energy being expended. But finally, the darkness closed in and Tor slept.

When Tor awoke, the first thing he felt was pain. His body ached. His head pounded. He could barely move. It took him 10 minutes just to summon the willpower to sit up. The second thing Tor felt was confusion. He'd heard plenty of things about the Graylands, but none of them involved quite so much pain. Or a sea, for that matter. He'd expected a little more. The Halls of Judgement, Dromidigen's Gates, something. This was just too... mundane. As his brain slowly ground its way back into action, Tor realized that these were not the Graylands, and he was not, in fact, dead. Once again, he had lived when everybody else had died. Getting unsteadily to his feet, Tor noticed something washed up on the shore not far from him and he stumbled in its direction. Picking it up, he saw that it was a shield, bearing the sign of a boar rampant, and a broken length of chain. He stared at the shield for what seemed like ages, but he finally tossed it into the water, turned around, and struck out inland without looking back.