Wanted: Alive

Wanted: Alive is an encounter in Blood of Heroes.
==Enemies==
* Royal Scout (3900 Gold, 480 XP, 300 Energy, 3 HP)
* Royal Soldier (3900 Gold, 480 XP, 300 Energy, 3 HP)
* Royal Hound Master (4550 Gold, 560 XP, 350 Energy, 3 HP)
* Royal War Wizard (4550 Gold, 560 XP, 350 Energy, 3 HP)
* Royal Bounty Hunter (5200 Gold, 640 XP, 400 Energy, 1 HP)
==Transcript==
===Introduction===
"Are you hurt, Edwin?" Roderick asked.
The wrestler glanced down at his wounds.
"Not enough to stop me!" he said.
"Then come, all of you! They need us!"
The demagogue broke into a run, leading their group in a ragged charge. Soldiers and civilians clashed in front of them. Swords and halberds purchased by the kingdom's coffers slaughtered King Crenus' subjects. The sight made redoubled fury blaze in the heart of each freedom fighter.
A smattering of soldiers stood away from the fighting, catching their breath or nursing their injuries. They turned just in time to receive the charge and be obliterated. Roderick's pitchfork took one man through the chest. The sword and axe Edwin had snatched from the dead each spoke for another. And the rest of the rebels weren't slow to add their kills to the tally.
"Roderick! It's Roderick!"
The crowd spoke amidst the clamor. They called his name, even as the soldiers cut them down, as though it were a prayer. The gold dragons at the back of the formations turned. When they gazed upon the demagogue and his comrades, they took up the very same cry -- uttered as a profanity. And they charged.
"West Kruna, the Dragon-Rider, and freedom!" Roderick cried.
They were outnumbered. The rebels had but a handful left, and dozens of purple tabards and gold dragon heads came towards them. But they didn't slow or falter.
"Death to Crenus! Death!"
Edwin bellowed a wordless war cry and threw himself into the soldiers' midst. His weapons cleaved in all directions, a whirlwind of blood and steel. Roderick lost sight of him among the press of bodies. The others were taken from him as well, scattered by the sheer pandemonium. But he fought on alone -- thrusting with his farmhand's weapon.
"Alive! We need him alive!"
"Someone take him! Someone-"
The pitchfork's prongs punctured the man's face. But something smashed into the back of Roderick's head, and darkness flooded his vision.
***
"Roderick! They've got Roderick!"
The shout spread throughout the mob, and it was as though each man and woman became a berserker. They threw themselves forward with new strength and vigor -- wrathful and fearless -- knocking aside armed and armored soldiers, trampling them into the ground. The sheer determined press of humanity shattered battle lines like eggshells.
"Stop them!" a lieutenant said. "Hold the line!"
"You!" another grabbed at one of the men holding the unconscious demagogue. "Take him away!"
"Where?"
"I don't care! Just get him out of here! Now! Go!"
A cluster of soldiers bore Roderick away on their shoulders like a butchered beast. One carried his pitchfork as a trophy. Those who remained rushed forward to engage the crowd, and cover their comrades' escape.
===Conclusion===
You lift your blade for a final blow that will be more courtesy than cruelty. Your downed opponent won't be rising again, not with blood the color of dark, rich wine flowing from his sundered veins. It's only a matter of whether his death is soon or slow.
"We've won," he says. Hollow laughter bursts from his lips and showers your boots with little flecks of crimson.
"Oh?" you say. You lower your sword. "Enjoy your victory then."
Gloating victors are bad enough, but if he wants to gloat in defeat you'll leave him to it.
"Roderick..." he says.
The back of your neck prickles. Dark presentiments fill your veins with ice.
"What of him?"
His index finger twitches towards a small pouch at his belt, and he flicks his eyes to the sky. You follow his gaze. A majestic bird arcs through the blue heavens, circling over the carnage below. It's no carrion-feeder. Even from this distance you recognize it as a messenger bird.
You crouch down and pull the pouch open with the fingers of your free hand. There's a single ribbon of parchment inside.
---
Call your searchers off. Our people have Roderick. Alive.
---
The parchment flutters from your hand. It lies forgotten in the blood pooling from his body.
Alive...
The man laughs. You run him through without looking.
A horrible certainty fills your head. If they took the demagogue alive instead of cutting him down in the armory, that can only mean one thing. A public execution. Crenus wants to show the populace what happens to his enemies. And if there's a public execution... gods, a trial... that means Roderick will have his chance to speak.
His chance to denounce you as a coward before the entire kingdom.
You look around like a man in a dream, ignoring your companions' stares and questions.
"I have to rescue him," you say. "I..."
A horse mills around nearby, the mount of a cavalryman who lies dead with a split skull. You vault onto its back.
"<name>, what-" Elyssa says.
"I'll meet you at the blasted oak!"
You ride off, leaving your companions' voices fading into the distance.
***
"We're safe..." The soldier gasped for air.
He was leaning around a tree, pressed up against the trunk like a child playing hide and seek, staring out into the plain while the others hid themselves in the copse. The demagogue lay on the ground. His eyes blazed murder, and his jaws champed at the strip of torn tabard they'd gagged him with. Similar bonds held his wrists and ankles.
"No one's following us anymore."
"So what do we do?" another asked. "If we get seen taking him over open country without an escort, we'll get ourselves lynched!"
"One of us has to go for help. Yark, you're the fastest."
The young, slim soldier sighed.
"All right," he said.
He pulled off his tabard, helmet, and mail shirt. In filthy breeches, dusty boots, and a stained undershirt, only close inspection would have revealed him as a soldier in the remains of his uniform.
"Good luck."
Yark nodded and slipped through the trees.
"He runs like a deer," a woman said. "He'll find one of the cavalry patrols, and... Yark? What-"
The slim soldier walked back into the copse with slow, tottering footsteps. A crimson smile adorned his throat. He fell on his face and twitched.
"Terracles' balls!"
"Weapons! Get your bloody weapons up!"
"The hell-"
"Watch out!"
Little objects, no bigger than nuts, flew between the trees. Each one burst in midair. White smoke billowed out, exploding tendrils that soon swallowed the entire clearing in thick clouds.
First there was swearing. Then came the screams.
When the smoke dissipated, it parted to reveal the soldiers' corpses. And the lithe form of a half-elven assassin standing above them. Clara's blades were red from tip to hilt.
"Roderick!"
She dropped the swords and threw herself down beside him. A thin-bladed knife appeared in her hand. It freed the demagogue from his bonds with a few deft cuts.
"Clara!" Roderick stood on unsteady legs, but he only tottered for a moment. Then his iron hardiness returned. "How..."
"I was with Aya. We got separated from everyone else in the fighting. Edwin and the others... I... I couldn't..."
Roderick pulled her into an embrace. His beard brushed her cheek, and the sensation was somehow comforting.
"We split up to find you," she finished.
She pulled herself from his arms. Her eyes hardened.
"I'll kill them. All the dragons..."
"We will."
The assassin picked up her swords. The demagogue retrieved his pitchfork.
"But we need to get away from here," she said. "There are patrols in the-"
The human's less keen senses heard it a few seconds later. Their eyes met. Horses' hooves.
They moved to the trees at the edge of the copse, and pressed themselves against the trunks as the soldier had. Roderick grunted. Clara was silent. A detachment of cavalrymen rode across the plain.
The friends' eyes met again, and shared mutual understanding. These riders were searching for the comrades who'd fled the battle with their prisoner. And of course they'd check the copse -- it was the most obvious place of concealment for some distance.
"Run that way," Clara said. She pointed in the opposite direction, away from the horsemen. "I'll-"
"No! I won't leave you. If there's fighting, we fight together."
"Trust me! I'm faster than you, old man. I'll lure them away and escape. I promise!"
He held her gaze for a long moment, before nodding his head. Clara smiled at him. Then she sprinted from the trees. The horsemen rounded on her at once, some calling for her to stop and others for their comrades to stop her.
The demagogue watched, his breath heavy in his throat. But the assassin knew what she was doing. As he looked on, she vaulted up onto a horse, dispatched its rider, and usurped him in the saddle as though she were a festival acrobat performing a well-rehearsed trick. An instant later she was riding across the plain -- with the others chasing after her.
"Brave, brave girl," Roderick murmured. "I'll buy you the biggest drink in the kingdom."
He turned around and set off.
Category:Blood of Heroes