The man snarled and spat towards Sable. “Even your pathetic sister failed us, her role far simpler than yours. A child forced upon her, one she knew only through the agony of birth, the sacrifice she swore to bear in honor of our mistress, one she would now deny! She refuses even to hold the dagger! This bitch dared to strike out at us when we would have permitted her to leave, even after her failures!”
“It doesn't matter!” Sable's desperate voice cut in. “I don't care what her father did to me, she is still my child!”
“And you are of the dark coven, fool!” the robed wizard snapped. “We have made you pay in pain for your transgressions. Be thankful that your noble ties allow you redemption, where others would pay with their lives!” He turned his hot gaze to Mord. “Three score of Velheim's best, carefully smuggled in by the hidden ways, all eager to sow dissension among our enemies and strengthen our cause. All of them butchered. And only a handful of Eloquin's cursed Squires perished when my black rite should have sent a score of them spinning into darkest Shadow!”
Jess felt her chest pound with hottest fury. Her hand trembled upon the hilt of her blade.
“Jess,” Twilight hissed. “Mord plays darker games than we heretofore knew. Let him finish his gambit, so we know how best to strike!”
Words unheard by any save Jess, Mord's abrupt squeeze of her off-hand made it clear he too sensed her fury.
Mord shook his head. "No Squires perished, though half a score were injured, several quite severely, as were multiple Aspirants."
A bleak smile from the wand-wielding men. "Well there is that, at least. It's your own damned fault your Aspirants didn't pull out. And how by the wrath of our mistress did your forces get here so quickly?"
“And how did they manage to best twenty Velheim knights? Our trap was perfect!” hissed one of the other robed figures. “You yourself raised arms against our Shadow brethren. Such is forbidden!”
“Such was necessary!” Mord snapped. “I would have broken character, were I to turn tail and hide. All I could do was assure the Aspirants parted as quickly as possible, and when we sought retreat, your damn knights sought to flank and butcher us, when they should have charged Squire Neal's men! I had no choice but to fight, lest it would be me lying in a ditch with my skull caved in.”
Lips pressed into a cold line, but none of the robed figures saw fit to argue the point.
“Very well. That still doesn't answer our questions as to how this disaster unfolded.”
Mord at once flashed a bleak smile, suddenly squeezing Jess close. “You have my betrothed to thank for that, Lord Graslig. Upon finding the original woodland path laden with traps and fallen logs, it was nothing for her to use her gifts to scout out a direct route to Hyve's demesne.”
A hooked nose flared angrily at those words, even as Lord Graslig snarled. “This bitch is responsible?”
Mord chuckled softly. “Don't you see? It's perfect! Why do you think the Calenbrys are so damned prosperous? Land once considered worthless scrub, and all too easy to ignore when the Crown granted it all to an upstart baron who just happened to shine as the king's confidant, we suddenly find to be thick with rich black soil, able to host exotic herbs prized by healers grown nowhere else, and is home to the lushest apple fields in all of Erovering! The lesser lords who swore fealty to the Calenbry clan boast the most bountiful harvests of wheat, oats, and barley to be had anywhere, no matter that two generations back starvation was the bitter brew their serfs took with their slops.”
Mord's voice took an odd, lilting tone as he approached the frowning mage. Almost cajoling. Jess shuddered. It was as if Mord were trying to win them over. “It is because the blood of Druids lies in their veins. Bloodlines the Plaga clan shall soon claim for our own.”
"Bloody hells," Malek hissed, but Jess paid her friend no heed, her mind whirling with the dark implications of Mord's confession, chilled to realize just how thoroughly the Plagas had studied her family and her gifts, coming to conclusions she herself had never dared to say aloud. Never even dared to think. And the furious pulse of Mord's squeezes, battle code Jess knew all too well.
She squeezed his hand once, to make sure.
He did not hesitate to squeeze back.
Lord Graslig flashed a chilling smile. “The Calenbrys have benefited far too well for us not to suspect dark covenants had been made by Arthur himself. But if the blood of Druids does indeed flow through their veins...” He gave a thoughtful nod. “Very well, Mord. Perhaps certain transgressions this day can be forgiven, in light of the bloodlines soon to join our Shadow Council.”
Mord nodded. “Precisely. If anyone doubts, you need merely take a close look at her features.”
Heart racing, Jess allowed Mord to bring her close to the robed nobleman who stunk of carrion and foulest magics. A hooked nose took too deep a sniff, eyes alighting with a desperate hunger. “Ah yes, Mord. Your pawn does indeed show promise. She will make a fine addition to...”
His words were cut off with a sharp hiss, crimson magics crackling from his robes as Mord attempted to run him through.
To no avail.
“Fool!” Lord Graslig snarled. “Do you really think I would be the ranking necromancer of Velheim if I left myself open to treacherous vermin such as you?” Quick as a striking serpent, he lashed out with an ebony wand the mirror of Mord's own, the air crackling with magics dark and foul.
“Duck!” Jess screamed, slamming into Mord, feeling a wave of vile energies wash around them, deathly winds shrieking and howling, promising torments never ending. A horrific glimpse of foulest Hells, just a hairsbreadth away.
Graslig paled, wand hand trembling. “You should be dead. Both of you.”
Malek roared, drawing his blade and charging for the pair of wizards preparing to flank them, even as they took aim with wands of blackened bone.
“Malek!” Jess screamed, as dark bolts of energy tore through the air for her friend.
Graslig's shock turned to a furious grin. “So Mord wasn't completely lying. Very well then, let's just see how skilled you really are!”
“Jess, you know what to do!” Mord's desperate whisper as he raised his wand and addressed their foe once more. "Very well, Graslig. I can tell when I'm outmatched. Your wards would protect you from any number of sword blows, I'm sure."
“Your cheek!” her familiar hissed.
The Velheim Lord's lips wormed into the darkest parody of a smile. “Ah, Mord. 'Tis a shame you had to betray me so utterly. We could have ascended to greatness together, the bards singing our praises as Erovering crumbles and falls. Now I fear your screams shall have to suffice for our music, as I flay you alive!”
His wand jutted forward, shooting yet another wave of Abyssal horrors at Mord. Mord did not bother to counter, his wand instead pointing towards the roof, perfectly aligned above the two wizards behind Graslig, presently struggling against a horrific monstrosity of flame and shadow.
“Die, Plaga rat!” Graslig snarled, before blinking in sudden horror.
His killing spell, knocked askew.
Infernal wand falling from spasming hands, the robed lord collapsed to the ground, his face a rictus of hideous agony as Jess ran him through.
The exquisitely rendered fresco above the pair of wizards erupted in an explosion of shattered stone. Jess sensed arcane wards flickering madly before rupturing out of existence as the figures stumbled under the rain of rubble; a lone cry all that was heard before the bodies were completely still, the air now filled with choking dust.
“Malek!” Jess screamed, terrified for her friend. Yet she was no fool. Even as time became a juttering affair, flooded as she was by panic, peripheral eye catching sight of a horrified Sable, other coughing captives tortured and tied beside her, even as her eyes peered intently at the pile of rubble, looking for traces of her friend, her wrist did not hesitate to twist and tear her blade free.
Jess took fierce, dark satisfaction as the foul puppetmaster screamed and writhed against her
blade.
“How...”
One word. A stinging cheek, Jess ramming her blade once more with chilling precision, her foe spasming his last as his spine was severed; vile robes once crackling with foulest magics now just rotting cloth.
“Her blood trumped your spells, fool.”
Mord's words, even as Jess raced for her friend, in that moment of heart-stopping terror utterly without care that her closest nemesis knew so very well all her close-kept secrets.
Cries of a babe, hungry and cold but otherwise unharmed, gave Jess one shudder of relief even as her eyes stung from the dust.
“Malek!”
From the pile of rubble, several pain-filled groans. Of her brother-in-arms, there was no sign.
“Mord! What the hell did you do?” She turned to glare at him, so wanting to hate. But how could she hate a man so tenderly taking up the baby that moments ago those monsters had wanted to butcher?
"Please, help me," gasped a piteous voice as the surviving wizard, spells ruptured, desperately tried to crawl out of the heap of rubble.
Two screams and he collapsed, spine severed, Jess taking dark, terrible satisfaction as he shuddered his last against her probing blade. For Master Eloquin had taught her the darkest of lessons, and she had taken to each and every one of them with relish. Above all else, she would show her enemies no mercy. Ever. Lest her kindness one day be repaid with horror, her own family perishing to an enemy's blade. Only after her foe had collapsed did she force hands trembling with terror and fury to still themselves, to clean and resheathe her strangely pitted sword -etched with her blood- looking desperately for any trace of her friend.
She found only the remains of the final wizard, savagely torn open, and not by falling rubble.
“Malek!” Jess glared at Mord, even then working to free a sobbing Sable, gazing so tenderly at the little girl now tucked safely in her exhausted arm, her own injuries all but forgotten. “What the hell did you do?”
"What did it look like?" Mord snapped. "I took a gamble! I was not expecting Graslig to be warded by magics Father has only guessed at. No wonder his clan always manage to head our Dark Council." His grin was one of dark satisfaction. "But no magic is without limits. Wards that might make a wizard akin to a god for the duration of a swordfight, not a single blow landed, will do very little against an avalanche of rubble." He favored Jess with an approving nod. "And you took point and warded, as I knew you would, running that bastard completely through. Admit it, Jess. You reveled in butchering our enemies every bit as much as I."
“I don't give a damn about that, Mord. I'm glad they're dead, but you crushed my friend!”
Mord's eyes flashed with frustrated fury. “I did exactly what had to be done. You know that! I expected your fool of a friend to dart clear. Covered in steel, he was much better protected from stonefall than they were. I did not expect him to charge them as a thing of Shadow!”
Jess flinched. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Mord smirked. “Even fighting for our skins, you saw it, Jess. You must have. Malek, whatever he was, was trying to tear out their throats.”
Jess paled and swallowed. “You're mad. Absolutely insane.”
“Jess. Please...” A trembling voice. “Carry Julia. My arm, I can't really hold her,” Sable sobbed even as Mord strove to help her up, showing a tenderness Jess never thought she'd see from the man.
Wordlessly Jess approached, even as Mord shook his head, stripping off mail hauberk and breastplate in a few well-practiced motions. "Take off your steel first, Jess. Everything except your blooded blade."
“What?” Jess gazed at Mord, unable to find the words.
“No time,” he snapped. “Those damned wizards actually managed to pull Hyve's keep into the underrealms. Think, Jess. Those men we fought. You saw what was happening to them. That was no necromancer's curse!”
Jess paled and shuddered, recalling the strange deformations upon the bodies of the slavers. Eye stalks of blood and bone, orbs of mucus and silver, alien and strange. Tendrils covered in caustic slime, sprouting from flesh, writhing upon the ground. The sense of hideous things just a breath away, eager to seep through and infect her world.
“Jess! Focus!”
Jess shuddered and nodded, shamed to be taking council from Mord, of all people.
His mail and gambeson had been sown together as one garment. Besides leggings of leather and rawhide plates, he wore only a sweat soaked undertunic outlining a powerful physique. Much to Jess's relief, his normally obsessive or hostile gaze was free of anything save brooding worry. And for this reason alone she did not hesitate to unfasten her strangely heavy breastplate and helm before slipping free her mail shirt last of all.
Mord shook his head, chuckling softly. “I always knew you were hiding things from me, but your flesh lacks even a stabilizing rune.”
She gazed at the pile of armor in horrified wonder as the steel began to hiss and bubble, the hardened rawhide alone remaining intact, save where it touched metal, rotting away to nothing before her very eyes.
Mord's fathomless gaze left her breathless. "Your will alone kept your armor from warping against your very flesh, Jess. It is a foolish explorer who dares these depths wearing anything save cuir bouilli and bronze.”
Mord flashed a bleak smile as Jess gazed down at her sword and shuddered. “A sword that's tasted your blood and sweat is one thing. But a knight's steel is a fool's gambit down here. My armor was at least protected by runes that damned Graslig ruptured. Yours, I see, was not."
Protected only by her gambeson of multilayered linen, Jess felt almost naked, for all that she knew her aketon would protect her from most sword slashes and any thrust that was not dead on. Mord, however, had only his sword to ward him from killing blows.
Jess shook away her stupor. “I don't know what you are talking about, Mord.” Even as she said those words she found herself holding a sobbing infant, unable to force herself to speak above a soothing whisper. “Where is Malek?”
“Where the hell do you think, Jess?” Mord snapped, even as Sable squeezed his arm with her one good hand. Mord held her close then, kissing a trembling Sable's forehead.
“Look, Jess,” a far calmer Mord counseled. “The rubble released was only enough to knock those two fools senseless after rupturing their wards. Not bury anyone alive. Do you see any trace of Malek? No? That's because he isn't here.”
Jess trembled. “Where the hell is he, then?”
Mord spat, temper flaring anew. “How the hell should I know? I only l know he isn't here!”
"That isn't good enough!" Sable's infant began to cry in her arms.
A soothing purr. “Fear not, mistress. Our friend did not perish here. If he had, I would know.”
Jess trembled with unexpected relief. “Thank the gods. Where is he, Twilight?”
Silence.
“Twilight?”
“I don't know, Jess. In truth, he rather surprised me. I did not realize... but yes. You two are far closer to the center of things than you have been in quite some time. It should not astonish me that virtues long dormant awaken once more.”
Sable paled at those words. Jess pretended she didn't know what that meant, exhausted and overwhelmed with all that had occurred already.
“Will he be all right?”
"I think so, my mistress. Come. It looks like Mord actually has the right idea, for once."
Jess grimaced and nodded as Mord methodically freed the panicked and sobbing captives, all of them covered in what Jess now sensed were protective runes of some sort, Mord awash in desperate gratitude as if he were the noblest of heroes.
Jess grimaced. She had a hell of a lot of questions for Mord to answer when they got back to Highrock.
“Mord, how do we get out?” Sable's frightened gazed locked upon Jess's own. Mord turned to peer back at the reinforced door the two guardsmen were pounding on even at that very moment.
Jess flashed a smile, bleak and cold. “
It's made of wood. Fear not their halberds. They will not break through.” The pounding grew more panicked then abruptly stopped, replaced by shrill screams.
Mord grimaced. “Follow me. There is another exit. This keep is littered with them.”
Twilight nodded. “It's how Graslig's pawns were able to take the field and catch us unawares, my mistress. Had they dared to hide in the woods, we would have known.”
Jess flushed, struck with sudden shame. “And had I not been so quick to give my report, had I thought to extend my senses under leaf and root, perhaps I could have sensed something.”
Twilight dipped his head. “Perhaps. And if Lord Hyve had not been such a headstrong fool and had waited for my council, as Eloquin, at least, has always been prudent enough to do, you all would have avoided the ambush entirely. Of course Sable, Julia, and these other poor souls would likely be writhing in Hades by now, and the world will miss neither these diabolists nor their henchmen. All in all, things could be worse.”
Jess grimaced, still wishing that things could have gone differently, desperately anxious for her friend.
"Malek! If you are still here, follow the signs!" For all that Jess knew it could well be fruitless, she couldn't help but leave chalk signs such that a dazed and confused Malek, should he awaken with no idea of what had happened, could make his way down the winding tunnel Mord led them through, thankfully free of eerie slime and hideous abominations Jess was desperate to think about no further.
After endless moments punctuated by the desperate whimpers of men and women clearly in agony from broken bones and torn flesh, they came before a hardwood door opened with the pulling of a single lever, dropping like a clever drawbridge over a midden, and within seconds they found themselves blinking in the bright light of the midday sun.
Jess smiled, relieved beyond words as Sable organized the survivors. There had only been one point in those winding tunnels that Jess had felt herself pushing against a horrid resistance that had seemed almost intent on keeping her trapped. It had been the oddest sensation, only lasting a handful of moments, and a single nip from an irate Twilight had been the burst of pain that had shocked her through. Happily, no one else appeared to have had any trouble at all.
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