by Jeramy Goble
Another whirlwind of deadly foliage tore through the area. Many of the allied Acorilinians and Messyleians were struck again.
If this isn't Leona, we're all fucked.
Sharp rocks whipped her side, and Jularra clutched at her ribs, her leather armor no match for the tempest of lethal debris. Then again, maybe we're fucked even if it is Leona. “Vylas sent me!” she screamed again. She fell to her knees and looked up, desperate in the hope that Leona registered what she was saying. Can she even hear me?
The unnatural army came to a sudden halt. The wind died down, and any projectiles still in flight immediately dropped, returning to their previous harmless state. Wounded, exhausted, Jularra’s allies tumbled to the ground.
As Jularra registered the ending of the fight, she relaxed just enough to fall back onto an elbow. The cool breeze stung the gaping slices in her side. A hint of anger raced through her at the inconvenience. She pushed the pain of her own wound aside, scanning the battlefield for any signs that her comrades were still in danger. She ground her teeth as she sat up and prepared to shout for a status from Wona or Vischuno, but was knocked back down once again.
The field erupted in screams of fresh pain as something unseen prodded the injured Acorilinian and Messyleian soldiers. But almost as quickly, the screams stopped, as did Jularra's—and, presumably, her allies'—pain. Someone—Leona?—had forcibly removed the shrapnel of sticks, leaves, and rocks from those she had been attacking. She must have heard me, Jularra thought. She rolled and shifted on the ground, still favoring her sore—but healed—side, looking for any sign of the witch.
The field fell truly quiet for the first time since before the battle. The skeletons and bears stood frozen in place, gazing down eerily at the recovering humans. Only the occasional groans of stirring soldiers disturbed the aberrant silence.
Jularra pushed through her discomfort to clumsily gain her feet. She eyed a nearby skeleton suspiciously as she stood, still not entirely convinced that the danger had passed. Jularra craned her neck to see through the frozen army of foes to the far line of trees.
Where are you, Leona?
The ground stirred around and in front of Jularra, gently at first, and then more noticeably. Jularra's soldiers closed in on her protectively, wincing as they moved.
Jularra alternated between scanning the ground, helping the rest of her men and women to their feet, and looking for Leona. Slowly, she made her way towards the other side of the field.
As Jularra weaved her way through her frozen foes, she came across a friend that was not stirring.
Vischuno.
“Visch!” Jularra shouted. She darted over and fell to her knees at his side. No!
Whatever magic had been used to heal the wounded had been ineffective for Vischuno. He must have already been dead. She swallowed a sob, forcing down horror at the sight of his mangled body. His neck had been shredded; the material hurtling through the air had almost decapitated him, and his head was still attached to his body only by his spine.
Jularra’s shoulders slumped beneath a crushing sense of loss. Grief threatened tears, but then rage took over and put a stop to that.
“Leona!”
Jularra’s voice blasted out across the field.
“Where are you, you bitch?”
Jularra marched through the last bit of cluttered field, shoving aside rooted skeletons as she walked by. She used her magic to do the same with the heavier petrified bears, flexing her body before unleashing a pulse of energy to knock each one over. More and more skeletons and bears fell as she cleared herself a path to the other side of the field. Her comrades and allies scampered out of her way on their own.
“Leona!”
The far edge of the glade was clear of both friend and foe. Inside the trees, Jularra now saw a large, round monument, and on the steps leading up to its open floor stood a dark figure encircled in thin, pulsing loops of smoky energy.
Any lingering exhaustion burned out of her when Jularra caught sight of the stranger. She planted her feet, and her hands rumbled with furious power.
Sixteen
Jularra felt the air around her thicken. She let some of her remaining energy seep out into the area around her, and took hold of the climate in the nearby environment.
She raised her arms and whipped the gathered energy at the trees flanking the monument. On one side, a tree ripped out at the roots. A massive oak on the other broke at the base as if it had been chopped through with a colossal ax. As soon as they were free from the ground, Jularra used her energy to fling them at the shadowed figure on the steps.
Wreathed in rings of smoke, the figure didn’t flinch. Almost as soon as Jularra flung them, the trees rebounded and soared away even faster than they'd flown in.
As Jularra’s attacks were deflected, Melcayro reached into a pouch and pulled a pinch of something out. He clapped his other hand onto it, knelt down and then thrust back up, shooting twin blasts of fire from his palms towards the witch.
Meanwhile, Abranni had brought her sword up to her mouth. With closed eyes, she brushed her lips gently across the flat of the blade as she whispered something. She opened her eyes and threw her sword at the woman on the monument steps. As the sword left Abranni’s grip, it erupted into flames and spawned ten matching swords that hurtled through the air in a loose group.
Melcayro’s fire and Abranni’s swords reached their target at the same time. But the cloaked enemy held up a hand, invoking some form of invisible barrier in the same way Jularra might politely decline the offer of a drink. Melcayro’s beams of fire passed around the shape of a transparent sphere; Abranni’s swords struck it and ricocheted off in various directions. One of Abranni’s deflected swords broke off wildly towards Jularra, forcing her to dive to the ground.
She tumbled and rolled, still trying to make up her mind what to do next. Disgruntled yet undeterred by the stranger's casual dismissal of her trees, Jularra quickly realized the futility of attacking with objects, and decided instead to go for something more direct.
Jularra bounced back to her feet, her hands tightly gripped around an energy sphere. Caught off guard by the unexpected move, the figure on the steps began to float, bound within Jularra's ball of energy. Jularra walked closer, wary. Had she really captured their adversary?
Yes—but not for long.
She experienced resistance immediately; had expected it, in fact, but not like this. Her foe's defenses were powerful beyond belief, and Jularra was at a complete loss as to how to break them. Jularra’s hold on the magic collapsed.
This has to be her!
The enemy dropped a few feet out of Jularra’s sphere of captivity. As soon as she landed, bits of the circling, smoky energy struck out, engulfing Jularra, Melcayro, and Abranni in their own spheres of captivity, which they each struggled and flexed against. Jularra focused, releasing blasts of energy in an attempt to free herself, to no avail. Melcayro futilely struck the inside of his sphere with blasts of elemental magic, while Abranni attempted to stab her way free with a dagger. Each strike only resulted in sparks of useless friction.
The three prisoners in their bubbles rose off the ground as their captor descended from the monument. Fatigued Acorilinian and Messyleian fighters shuffled from the battlefield toward their helpless leaders.
A new silence, dripping with dread, bit into the hope of each nearby soul. The witch continued her approach, showing no visible signs of exertion in her control over Jularra and the others. She stopped a dozen paces from Jularra. The circling loops of smoke dissipated, and the woman reached up to pull back the hood of her cloak.
What initially stole Jularra’s thoughts upon first seeing the woman was the appearance of her skin. Her flesh was grey, but far from lifeless. Its overall shade was formed from millions of varying pigments of brown, black, white, and silver—like the floor of a riverbed, or the banks of a freshwater lake. And though the colors in her skin resembled natural sediment, its texture was as smooth as the mos
t veteran of river rocks.
The woman’s hair was long, and it fell free from her hood in a thick, healthy tumble. Its dull silver patina resembled fine jewelry set in the shadow of a clouded sun. She stood tall and solid, as stout as any man, and waved her finger at the magic that held Jularra and her two friends.
“Is this what you were trying to do?” she mocked.
Jularra continued to struggle and writhe. “Are you Leona?” she shouted from inside the bubble. Her voice was muffled by the invisible barrier.
“Have you not already inferred that?”
Jularra spat back. “I came here to ask for your help, and you’ve killed my people, you bitch!” The sphere of captivity dampened Jularra's volume, but not her aggression.
Leona rolled her eyes. The rings of smoke reappeared.
“There are some that are dying, yes. And if I do nothing more, they will die. But there’s still time.”
Jularra launched into an exasperated plea. “Then do something. Do whatever you need to do to save them.”
Leona smiled. “And you supposedly have some of the Gifts?”
Jularra boiled with rage, but choked it away.
“Please,” she added.
Leona’s rings of smoke sped up again and shot out into the field. Jularra strained to turn her head far enough to see what was happening.
The prone combatants—those who were dead, or had lost consciousness before Leona could heal them just minutes before—were now struck by streams of power that throbbed with color and energy noticeably different than the previous wave of healing magic. Despite the strain upon Jularra’s neck, she watched as her soldiers started to sit up, seemingly shaking off the beginnings of death itself.
Jularra looked back to Leona, incredulous. Feeling helpless in the face of the other woman's apparent omnipotence, she reached once more for the familiar comfort of her own anger.
“Why did you attack us?” Jularra demanded.
“You are strangers. I don’t owe you any further explanation. Now tell me why Vylas sent you.”
“Release us!” Jularra cried.
Leona took no notice of her words. She stepped closer. “Answer me.”
Before Jularra could reply, a war cry roared up from the middle of the field. It was Vischuno, revived and refreshed, rushing back into the battle he didn’t realize had ended. As he approached Leona and his suspended queen, another sphere of captivity popped into existence and floated Vischuno up into the air next to Jularra.
“Visch!"
He didn’t respond, too busy writhing in indignant confusion while Leona watched dismissively.
“Visch!” Jularra yelled again, louder. Upon hearing his name, he dropped his flailing arms and looked at Jularra.
“Hold on,” she instructed. “Be calm.”
Jularra looked back to Leona, tired of their current situation.
“I need help with the Voidwarden, Leona, and Vylas suggested I seek you out.”
Leona showed no discernible reaction, and only began to pace in front of her suspended captives.
Fucking bitch, Jularra thought. She wanted to unleash a tirade of verbal attacks, but bit her tongue in hopes of being freed soon. Fine. Go ahead. Take your time.
Leona spun around, momentarily surrounded again by smoke.
“I will take my time!” she thundered, her voice echoing around the clearing with shades of profound and foreign power.
Jularra froze inside her sphere, her thoughts awhirl. Mind reading—of any degree—was supposed to be impossible. For anyone.
She glanced at the others, watching helplessly from their invisible prisons. As Jularra began to wonder whether any of them would survive this encounter, the floating prisoners started to slowly return to the ground.
The moment the base of her own clear prison touched the ground, Jularra felt the constraints upon her release.
For the first time since the battle, the tension in the air relaxed. Leona raised her hand calmly; the encircling rings of smoke appeared once again, but they spun with a fraction of the frenzy they had before.
Leona casually waved her hand. Across the entire expanse of the open field, baykoks and bears flickered away into dusty puffs of ash. So, too, did the conjured Acorilinian forces. Meanwhile, Jularra’s corporeal company of Bedrock and Spire panned the area with jaws dropped in awe.
Jularra worked hard to calm herself. Now that her people had been healed or revived, she might actually succeed. Leona took a deep breath, as if doing the same thing. With a new appreciation for the sheer scale of the witch's powers, Jularra cleared her mind and waited patiently for Leona to make the next move.
“The Voidwarden,” Leona said. “Vylas thinks I can do something to help you?”
“He wasn’t sure,” Jularra responded gently. “He told me that if anyone could, it would be you.”
Leona shifted her feet and looked around. “Why did he think that?”
Jularra cycled through possible ways to formulate the delicate answer.
“Because… you two were…” Jularra started.
Leona broke out into a sad smile.
“I understand,” she said. “I understand.”
“He warned me,” Jularra continued, “that due to his... "mishandling"... of past events, approaching you for help might be…”
Leona looked directly at Jularra, curious.
“Dangerous,” Jularra finished.
Leona chuckled softly to herself as she paced in a circle. “He acted in the only way he could,” she said somberly. She turned back to face Jularra. “I wanted to spend every minute I had learning. Minutes spent with him were minutes lost.”
Jularra returned Leona’s now-gentle gaze. The frozen block of animosity and fear that surrounded Jularra’s perception of the woman began to thaw.
“Vylas has been my closest friend since I was a child,” Jularra told her. “Every time your name came up, a bright light of regard blazed in his eyes.”
Leona grunted, though with humor or shame Jularra couldn't tell.
“Did it? A warm flame that I’m sure scorched his heart at the same time.”
Leona forced out a heavy sigh. Then she waved her former adversaries over.
As they approached, Jularra reached into the small pouch around her neck and produced a letter from Vylas, which she handed to Leona. Leona tilted her head appreciatively. Jularra noticed that she hesitated, just for a moment, before reaching out to take the letter.
Leona stared at the letter for some time. Finally, she looked back up to Jularra.
“All right, Jularra. What is it that you need my help with?”
Jularra swallowed and set her sights on the massive monument behind Leona.
“You’re aware of the pact my ancestors had with the Voidwarden?”
Leona nodded.
Jularra sighed under the weight of a topic that she hated more each day. “I originally planned to perpetuate the agreement,” Jularra began. “I took steps to comply, but then I... I lost the baby.”
“And you ran out of time to conceive again?” Leona surmised. Jularra nodded.
Leona tapped her chin. “Does the Voidwarden know?”
Jularra shook her head. “Vylas made a potion to disguise it.”
Leona nodded slowly. “My knowledge of magic is extensive,” she began pragmatically. “I’ve spent decades studying and learning.”
Jularra's stomach sank. She guessed where this was going. Still, she waited for Leona to continue.
“How old is the Voidwarden?” asked Leona.
Jularra rushed to answer. “It's ancient, I know, but—”
“It has to be centuries old, Jularra!”
“Yes, I understand, but—”
“We’re not even sure what type of creature it is, right?” Leona interrupted again.
“That doesn’t matter. It’s just the agreement we need to—”
“It absolutely does matter, Jularra! The feasibility of destroying the agreement between it
and Acorilan is directly correlated to the nature of its existence, its age, and its power!”
Jularra shoved her hands through her hair in frustration.
“I know, Leona! But there has to be something that can be done to break that oath. I need to end that agreement. I’m not asking you to destroy it—only to help me consider what it might take!”
Leona glared at her, silently contemplating.
"Please," added Jularra quietly.
Leona’s shoulders dropped. She turned towards the steps leading up to the monument. After a glance back at her allies, Jularra followed.
Leona did not look at her feet while she ascended. They were the steps of familiarity and habit, that much was obvious—steps made by a person as at home there as one might be in their own bed, at their own dinner table. In their own heart and mind.
Jularra followed slowly, treading deliberately to take in the myriad of carvings, etchings, characters, and depictions in the wood and stone of the monument.
“This is Nurudian?”
Leona turned and nodded before cresting the stairs and marching to the altar in the monument's center.
Jularra had read everything Acorilan’s texts and histories could offer on the Nurudians, which wasn’t much. Most of what she had learned had come from the few stories her mother and Vylas offered earlier in her life, combined with a handful of passages in assorted historical tomes. With each of Jularra’s steps, she saw scenes, phrases, designs, and symbols that were completely foreign to her, and realized how little she knew of the culture that was so deeply ingrained in the curse that had defined Acorilan’s leadership for centuries.
“They were from the old continent, the Nurudians,” Leona said. She circled around the altar, looking down at the carvings set into the massive stone top.
“But they don’t exist anymore…?” Jularra prompted.
“No,” Leona replied. “They never recovered from their failures at the end of the Wars of Expansion. Do you know how the Voidwarden gained its power over Acorilan?”
“Of course,” Jularra said, insulted. “The queen at the time, Detsepera, swore the obedience of her successors in exchange for help with defeating the Nurudians.”