by Joseph Lallo
She tried to sense something, anything about her surroundings, but there was something preventing it, some sort of force. Slowly she followed the flow of it. She could feel it grow stronger. As she turned slowly to face its source, Ivy cried out once more.
“Listen to me! She could have prevented it, I know she could have!” the malthrope cried. “Why won't you listen to me?! I'll force her to tell the truth.”
The maddened creature hurled herself at the shape shifter, who again changed to wind to evade her.
“Ivy! Calm down!” Myranda cried, turning from the search.
Lain too tried to get the wild creature under control. At first she struggled, then turned her hostility to them.
“Why are you helping her? She is a murderer!” Ivy screeched, throwing Myranda to the ground.
The instant Myranda struck the ground, Ivy cried out and clutched her chest. The pain dropped away to a look of fear and confusion.
“What am I-I . . . .” Ivy stuttered, her look growing more desperate as she seemed to be quickly losing a struggle against something.
“Ether,” Myranda called out, climbing to her feet. “Somewhere over there. Something is being concealed. I'll hold off Ivy.”
The shape shifter swept toward the edge of the valley from which they had come. When she reached the exit, she collided with something. The collision sent a ripple through the air, leaving a shimmering veil behind. The veil spread, revealing a full wall leading high into the sky. She pulled back and dropped to the ground, turning to stone and bashing at the wall. It wavered, but would not give. Behind her, Ivy's frenzy had grown stronger. The fiery red aura was threatening to overtake her. Just as Ether was about to rush to the aid of her allies, she heard a sound. It was peculiar, one she had heard before. At the same moment, Ivy's rampage suddenly ended. In place of her frenzied screams for revenge came impassioned pleas.
“Help me, please! You've got to put me to sleep, or tie me down or something, I can't help it! I don't want to hurt you!” the creature cried, fear and desperation in her voice.
There was a second sound, the sharp slice of an arrow through the air. Ether's eyes, locked on the point from which the first sound had come, beheld an arrow streaking into the sky, seemingly from thin air. Instantly she pounced upon the point of origin. There was the splinter of wood and the sound of someone falling to the ground. The snow depressed under the weight of an unseen foe, and Ether quickly snatched up the enemy. As she did, an engraved metal amulet with a broken chain dropped from mid air. A moment later the struggling form that the talisman had concealed faded into view.
“You! What are you doing here! What is this!” Ether demanded.
In her grip was the throat of Desmeres, Lain's infuriating former partner. He wore ornate armor; a handful of amulets, each glowing brightly, hung from his neck. Ether tore them from his neck as he clutched desperately at her arm, trying to loosen her grip enough to draw in a breath. Instantly the effects of the artifacts wore off. The sound of rushing wind, joined by the crackle of mystic energy, rose up all around them. The scent of their foe revealed itself to Lain and Ivy.
“Explain yourself before I squeeze the life out of you,” Ether warned, tightening her grip.
Desmeres’ left hand held tight to Ether's stony arm, while the fingers of his right crept to one final crystal that dangled from his wrist. As he finally made contact, Ivy's madness surged back, and the helpless creature threw her friends aside, unable to resist the beckoning of the crystal. Ether quickly clutched the crystal with her free hand, halting Ivy, but also cringing in pain as it tore at her. She wrenched it free and threw it aside. As Ivy struggled to understand what was happening to her, the others recovered and ran to her side.
“You have only a few moments of breath left, I urge you not to waste them,” Ether hissed.
“You can kill me . . . .” Desmeres croaked. “But if I were you, I'd do something about that arrow.”
She turned. At the far end of the valley, the arrow had landed. More of the same accursed crystals were affixed to it. Whatever spell had been assigned to them, it was beginning, and it was one of terrifying intensity. The shape shifter thrust Desmeres against the shimmering wall behind him and shifted to wind, streaking toward the arrow. She was not the only one to notice, as Myranda was already rushing toward the quickly manifesting spell. The air burned with the raw power of it. All of the light near the gems seemed to wick away, leaving a midnight black gash in the valley that began to swirl and churn.
Ether reached it first, but the force of it began to push her back. She fought against the torrent of energy, but began to lose ground. Finally she turned to stone once more, dropping to the ground and plodding slowly forward. Myranda fought hard, but the energy burned at her viciously. Behind, Lain left Ivy with Deacon and stalked toward his prey. Desmeres was gasping for breath, pulling himself toward the nearest amulet. He had only just seen Lain out of the corner of his eye when he was pulled violently from the ground. The furious assassin's eyes burned with rage as he drew his former partner face to face.
“Lain. I can't say I was looking forward to meeting you under these conditions,” he said.
“What is this?” he demanded.
“Business,” Desmeres replied.
Deacon steadied Ivy by the shoulders and tried to look her in her wandering eyes. She was dazed, confusion and fear vying for control of her embattled mind.
“Ivy, look at me, focus,” he said, shaking her slightly. “I need you to calm down.”
“Calm down? Calm down! Deacon, my mind is screaming things that don't make sense! How can I calm down? How can I know what is even REAL!” she cried.
“Listen to me, do you know what is doing this to you?” he asked. “Has this happened before?”
“I don't know what's doing it, but Demont did it to me once. Only it was worse then,” she forced through the fear.
That was all he needed to hear. The crystal was to blame, the other half of the one he'd found in the workshop. He turned to search for it. When Ether was dealing with Desmeres, no less than a dozen crystals had been shaken free. Surely it was one of them. As he tried to move toward them, he was pulled back.
“Don't leave me alone!” Ivy begged.
Lain put a blade to Desmeres’ throat.
“What did you think would happen, Lain? This had to end sooner or later,” he said.
“Tell me what you have done and how to undo it, or it ends now!” Lain stated, drawing the blade a few inches, prompting a trickle of blood.
“Well, they were not content to let you come to them, so I had to bring them to you,” the elf said with a smile.
As if taking the words as a cue, the building spell chose that moment to reach its peak. A flood of energy burst out, throwing Ether and Myranda back and knocking Ivy and Deacon to the ground. Only Lain and his prey remained standing. Desmeres managed to wrench himself from the grip and raise a blade of his own. Lain swung his sword, but Desmeres’ own weapon blocked it.
“It is rare that one of my creations meets one of its brothers,” Desmeres said. “But I can assure you, it is a reunion of equals. A last bit of advice, old friend. Don't waste your time on me. There are larger threats on the horizon.”
Lain raised his blade once more, but the sound of thundering hooves drew his attention. Desmeres tried to slip away, but Lain struck. The ornate armor proved no match for the masterfully honed weapon. The blade found its way to Desmeres’ thigh, slicing deep into it before Lain finally rushed to the more pressing task at hand. He turned to find the once empty plateau filling rapidly with foes. Where once there had been only the arrow, now there was a great shifting black ring. Outside of it was the valley. Inside, as through he were looking through a window, was a paved courtyard filled with troops and beasts. The army began to flow through the portal.
Dozens of soldiers on horseback and dozens more on foot rushed into the valley, every face hidden by a mask. Six standard dragoyles, and one beast th
at would have been a dragoyle save for the fact that it was easily three times their size and lacked wings, followed. The formerly silent valley was now filled with a deafening thunder of hooves and feet. Myranda managed to pull herself to her feet, dodging sword and pike long enough to retreat to Ivy and Deacon. Lain soon made his way to them as well, Ether fighting her way in soon after.
The heroes formed a tight circle, the soldiers all around them working their way into formations and holding their ground. A stillness came suddenly, only the odd shuffle of feet breaking the tense silence. All weapons were held at the ready, each side waiting for a move from the other. The only motion came from the portal, as a pair of soldiers on horseback appeared. The first was Trigorah, her gem-embedded sword held low but ready. The other was not familiar. He wore light armor, with a helmet bearing the same face guard that obscured the twisted features of the nearmen from view. The man's build seemed light, and he seemed far too frail to be on a battlefield. An infamous weapon was strapped to his back, the accursed halberd, dispelling any doubt as to who it might be.
“Attention, Chosen!” Trigorah's voice bellowed with authority. “This, I assure you, will be our final battle. Too long you have evaded us. Too long have you resisted us. If it is your place to end this war, it is my place to see to it that you do so with the Northern Alliance intact. I am going to offer you this last chance to join our ranks. I beg you. Take your place by my side and together we will see this war to an end within the year.”
“Look at the abominations you've come to rely upon. How can you be blind to what has become of the north. These are the very beings we are charged with destroying!” Myranda replied.
“Remove your helmets!” Trigorah ordered.
The soldiers obeyed. Myranda's eyes widened, and her heart leapt to her throat. They were no nearmen. Every last one of them was human.
“The nearmen are an unfortunate necessity in these trying times, but they are too weak minded for this task. Every last face you see is a son of the north. These are your brethren,” she replied. “Dare you take their lives and call yourselves heroes?”
Myranda licked her dry lips and swallowed hard.
“It is the place of a hero to do what must be done,” she said, resolutely.
“Truer words were never spoken,” Trigorah said solemnly. “Men, capture if you can, kill if you must. This ends today.”
In a flash, every last soldier was in motion. Myranda crouched low and drove her staff into the ground, an expertly guided tremor knocked the nearest soldiers to the ground but spared her friends, providing a precious moment of safety. Each of the heroes knew their target, save two. Myranda would face Epidime, Lain would face Trigorah, and Ether would handle the beasts. Ivy's eyes darted about, a sharp blue aura around her. Deacon tried to gather some manner of spell, but his mind simply had not recovered enough. As he drew the Gray Blade and a dagger from his bag, he silently wished he'd spent a bit more time on the warrior's side of Entwell. As he was about to launch himself into the fray, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to find a familiar pleading look on Ivy's face.
“Is this real? Is this really happening?” she begged.
“I assure you. This is real,” he replied.
“Oh thank heavens,” she replied, a look of relief rushing to her face.
With that she charged quickly into the circle of soldiers. One of the men who had been knocked to the ground had lost his sword, and deep in Ivy's mind she heard a call to take it up, but she knew that the instinct was not her own. Her mind had been the plaything of others already today. If she was going to fight, she would do it her own way. For the moment, she was unaffected by emotion. The mob of soldiers simply did not frighten her as much as the manipulation of her mind had. Any speed and strength she had was her own, but fortunately that was plenty. When combined with her practiced grace, she was utterly untouchable. The swords of a dozen soldiers were dodged with fluid motions. It was nothing short of a dance, but when the way was closed, when there was nowhere to dodge to, that was when the warrior within came to the surface. A single, well placed blow was all that it ever took. A soldier would be sent reeling, the force of her attack sending him tumbling backward, scattering those behind him, and creating an opening.
Deacon hurried after Ivy. Without his magic, the Gray Blade was virtually useless, managing to do little more than deflect the odd blow that reached him. He lacked most of the speed and all of the grace of the warrior he followed, but the chaos her motion caused created a wake just barely wide enough for him to slip through. He didn't know where she was heading, what she was planning. In fact, he doubted she knew. For the moment, though, she was heading precisely where he needed to be. Before the portal had opened, he'd managed to catch sight of what could only be the crystal that had been controlling her. He rushed toward it, almost invisible in the snow just this side of the wall, knowing full well that if one of the soldiers were to find it first, Ivy would become little more than a weapon.
Ether threw herself at the first of the dragoyles. Despite the fact it was one of the smaller ones, the soldiers gave the clash a wide berth. The shape shifter, still in her stone form, sidestepped a powerful snap of the beast's jaws and delivered a blow to the creature's head. When it tried to pull back for a second strike, she grabbed a hold and was drawn into the air with it. Once she'd managed a firm hold of the beast's neck, she began to rain blows down upon it unmercifully. In mere moments cracks were opening in the monster's stony hide, oozing the black blood that flowed beneath. The abomination was well past the breaking point before long, and the soldiers and beasts that had held back until now moved in. Arrows began to rain down upon her, but her rocky form shrugged them off. Not so for the vicious strikes that the other dragoyles delivered. By the time the third such blow found its target, her own stony hide was showing fractures of its own. Worse, a small contingent of the soldiers who held spears tipped with the blasted crystals that tore at her so effectively had made their way to the battle. Knowing that any one of those spears would do more harm than a dozen of the dragoyle's attacks, Ether decided the time had come to abandon her stone form for one that would not be affected by the crystals. The choice was obvious.
Desmeres grimaced as he rummaged through a pouch at his belt. It was filled with glass ampoules that had held doses of his healing potion. Most had been shattered when he was thrown and had leaked out into the snow, but one small one had mercifully remained intact.
“This is precisely why I do not get my hands dirty,” he muttered through pain-clenched teeth. “It is not a one man job. When this is through I must find someone to fill Lain's role.”
He shattered the appropriate vial and poured it through the jagged hole torn in his armor and into the gaping wound. Instantly the pain compounded as the imperfect elixir began to do its work. Desmeres stifled a scream and resolved to improve the concoction and produce some more effective armor before attempting something like this again. The agony faded somewhat, leaving an incompletely healed wound thanks to the undersized dose. After failing to pull himself to his feet, he scanned the ground desperately. The battle was raging less than ten paces away, but he had no place in that. Simply by assembling the Chosen here and distracting them long enough to open the portal he had earned the lion’s share of his fee, but it was in his best interest that the battle end in the D'karon's favor. For one, it would no doubt increase the size of his reward. Far more important, though, was the simple fact that if Lain finished this battle on his feet, Desmeres would not live long enough to collect. His sharp eyes spotted the crystal that would turn the tide and set about dragging himself toward it.
Myranda flexed her mystic knowledge, conjuring gale force winds, tremors, and bursts of force, anything that could occupy or immobilize the soldiers without killing them. Epidime, the only soldier on the battlefield with his face still obscured, stalked slowly toward her. When a final heave of magic scattered the men that surrounded Epidime, Myranda coaxed thick, woody vines
from the ground in an interlocking ring around them. The soldiers on the outside of the wall immediately begin hacking at it, trying to break through. It was clear that it wouldn't hold for long.
“End this now, Epidime. I won't hesitate to do whatever it takes to stop you,” Myranda said, gathering her mind for an attack.
She unleashed the spell, a potent example of the little training in black magic she'd received, fully expecting it to be deflected. Instead, her foe did not even raise his weapon, the crackling ball of magic connecting and throwing him backward into the wall of vines. His frail body bounced like a rag doll off of the wall, his grip on the halberd loosening. She seized the weapon with her mind, trying desperately to pull it from his grasp, but his spindly fingers tightened around it, the first hint of the unnatural strength that Epidime brought to his hosts beginning to show. Myranda charged in and grasped the shaft of the weapon with her free hand, readying a second attack.
“You chose poorly this time, Epidime. What is the matter? Have you used up all of the able bodies in the Alliance Army?” Myranda taunted, hoping to force him into a misstep.
“I chose this one for sentimental value,” came the voice from behind the mask.
Myranda froze at the sound of the voice. There was a chilling familiarity to it. Without thinking, she released the weapon and grasped the helmet. Epidime thrust at her, knocking her backward, but her grip on the helmet held. It was torn from his head. As Myranda scrambled to her feet, the face she saw before her stopped her heart. It was old, but looked worn beyond its years. Gray streaks ran through the once black hair, but the features, even twisted by Epidime's perpetual look of cold intellect, were unmistakable. It was her father.
Myranda's mind was aflame with a thousand emotions. Tears came to her eyes. Joy, fear, anger, hate, and love all combined in a paralyzing chorus of voices in her head. A fiendish smile curled her father's lips, followed by a mocking laugh.
“What is the matter, my dear? This should be a joyous reunion, shouldn't it? After all, you sought me for years. Well, here I am,” he said, cruelty peppering the voice of Myranda's loved one.