On Call (pt 1)

She was already awake when the Maelstrom officer barged into the barracks.

“Grymfalk!”

“Aye,” she mumbled, already sitting up in her cot, blinking in the dark. “We got another one?”

“Rubble collapse on th’ outskirts. Ya need your kit.”

“You’re going on foot,” shouted a different officer just outside the door, heedless of the rest of Grym’s barracks still clinging to sleep. “The birds are on rest before afternoon rubble haul. Marie’s waiting at the gate.”

Gently lifting the sleeping Button from her lap, Grym nestled him in her blanket pile and lurched to her feet while the highlander in the cot next to her grumbled and turned over. She muttered an apology as she hurried through prep and was jogging out the door, pack slung over her shoulder, before she’d even gotten both arms in her coat sleeves.

Northern Ilsabard before dawn was a ghostly thing. A steely palate of grey skies and the black silhouettes of peaks stretched in all directions, and the snow blanketing the earth as far as the eye could see gave the world an eerie glow before dawn. Marie, the elezen healer with whom Grym had done most of her recent work, held out a stick of jerky as the roegadyn approached. Still shoving her arm into her coat, Grym took the food with her free hand and offered a breathless “thanks” as they started on their way at a jog.

“Did they- fill you in-? You bring your- hammer?” Marie breathed out, already panting. Jogging in full gear was tough enough, but breaking trail through fresh snowfall wasn’t making it any easier on the lanky elezen. Grym answered her with a grunt and a nod, holding her jerky between her teeth so she had both hands free to button up her coat and pull on her gloves. Already the subzero wind had numbed her torso.

“Rescue mission- went wrong.- Breaking into a- ruined building- to get at some- trapped survivors, and I- I guess they- hit a support- Hey, Grym, could you- would you mind-”

Grymfalk glanced over her shoulder, slowing with a nod as Marie doubled over to catch her breath. Briefly she glanced at the trail ahead, back at Marie, debating whether it would be more responsible to hurry on and let Marie catch up. They weren’t terribly far from base camp and the situation was clearly a dire one. But this was already a rescue mission for a rescue team, and if something attacked Marie while they were apart, out here in the dark…

“How’s this,” Grym said as they started on their way again. “I’ll ask questions. Ye jus’ nod an’ shake yer head. Keep yer breath, aye?” Marie nodded.

“Did th’ buildin’ collapse on someone?”
Nod.
“More ‘n one person?”
Nod.
“They still kickin’?”
Noncommittal nod. For now.
“Ground level?”
Marie held up two fingers.
“Second story?”
Nod.
“They weren’t carryin’ fuel or explosives, were they?”
Marie shook her head.
“An’ thank Twelve fer that. Any local dangers?”
She waved her hand.
“Jus’ th’ usual, then.”
Nod.
“They send anyone ahead o’ us? Warriors or th’ like?”
Nod. Marie held up one finger.
“A’right. ‘s all me questions. Ye jus’ focus on findin’ our way, an’ I’ll watch our backs.”
Marie nodded, that intense focus on her face softening into a smile for a second before it settled again. She always seemed grateful — comforted, maybe — when Grym took the lead, and these days, Grym had plenty of motivation to do so.

The grays around them lightened as they approached the outskirts of the city, keeping good pace. Vision enhanced by the torc she wore, Grym kept careful watch of their surroundings with every weary step, counting on the elezen’s ears to make up for whatever her sharp eyes might miss.

The pair’s path took them through familiar territory, and Grym twisted as they passed a corner, peering down the lanes of rubble, only to find the note still posted where she’d left it. The name ALSIS in bright blue paint on white paper was hard to miss in this dreary blackened landscape, and the child’s handwritten thank-you letter still fluttered beneath it, untouched. She scowled, glancing behind her as if to catch a glimpse of that black coat darting around a corner. Maybe he really hadn’t been back here after all.

No matter. It had been nearly a week, and every day since, Grym had brought at least one new handwritten note to post on her patrols, all addressed in the same manner. Young Caelius’s story of being saved from certain death by a brave Garlean soldier had made the man an instant celebrity among the children in Camp Broken Glass, and with little else for them to pass the time, they had taken to writing notes and drawing pictures for Grym to deliver to their errant hero. No less than a dozen different notes and doodles decorated the ruins of the city for him to find. But had he seen even one?

Onwards Grym and Marie jogged until the elezen slowed, rounding a corner. The problem was immediately apparent; the burnt-out second-story walls of this home had folded in on themselves, and although the massive hellsguard man who had gone ahead of them had cleared some of it away, more remained to trap however many were beneath or behind it. Grym’s hearing was too dulled to catch the sounds of breathless sobbing echoing down to the street, but by the way Marie broke into a flat run, she knew.

The two bolted up the broken staircase (a safety hazard without question, but not something they could afford to address while people lay covered in steel and stone) and met the hellsguard hefting bits of building with half-articulated “hey”s as they set to work. Even Marie, usually so afraid to scrape herself on odd nails or sharp edges, clawed for whatever pieces of rock she could lift and tossed them over the side of the building as fast as she could.

They came to a steel beam, and Grym and the hellsguard exchanged only a glance before taking up positions on either end and straining — carefully, now — to heave it up and away. The floor crackled once beneath their feet. Was that ice or stone? Sloppy, in a hurry, Grym swung around so the pair could heave it over the edge before the floor could give way beneath them. It crashed to the streets below with an ear-shattering crack, echoing, sharp, and she flinched for fear of what such a noise might draw, but there was no time to spend worrying.

Grym had seen too many naval battles (always gruesome things) to be repulsed by the state of the people revealed beneath the beam, a mess of tears and blood and dirt, Garleans and Eorzeans both. What mattered was that they were alive. A close call, perhaps, but she and Marie had made it in time, and the conjurer was already at work healing those she could see while Grym and the hellsguard dug at the remaining stone to uncover those she could not — an old lady, it turned out, shaken but unharmed. Grym took the woman’s tiny, trembling, wrinkled hand in hers, reaching into the crawlspace to help coax her out, gentle words and small smiles. The hellsguard stood watch between the wide-eyed woman and Marie’s patients and blocked her view with his bulk. She didn’t need to see them just yet.

It had taken the volunteer force time, trial and error, to learn how to handle the situations they so often found. One lesson they had learned almost immediately: never let the injured’s family see them before they’re bandaged, not unless you want a new wail to join the chorus in your nightmares.

Guiding the old lady toward the stairs, Grym filled the space with gentle small talk. Her name, that the woman’s family was alive, that Marie the expert Gridanian conjurer was taking very good care of them, that the family would be all patched up in no time, that the two of them were going to head down the stairs to the street so they were safely out of harm’s way. She knew the purebloods were often fascinated by her accent, especially the elderly and children, that it could give them something other than their shock to focus on, even when it was hard to read their blank eyes and trembling lips. She praised the old lady for her resilience as they made their way down the crumbling stairs one step at a time, how far they’d already made it, that they were almost there, just one more step. She turned her back to the freezing winds as they came out onto the street and sheltered the old lady as they walked a safe distance away, slow and steady, to the husk of a burnt-out tree for her to stand beneath. She left the old woman there with words of reassurance. Going back to help the rest of your family. Going to make sure all of you make it home safe.

The old lady spoke, finally, asked if the miqo’te pair who had come to help them were going to make it back, too, and Grym smiled when she told the lady they were.

Hasty steps took her back to the base of the stairs, and there she froze in her tracks for the yelp she heard behind her. A pair of magitek slashers 8 fulms tall bearing down on the old lady twenty yalms and closing fast and there was nothing for it but to whirl and charge