by Jason Jones
“Now, you die.”
Katrina felt it, the dragon was slowing and dying, so she climbed up toward the head. Over the broken bone stump of a wing, across the hardened black scale ridges, and she stopped right at the base of the neck. Her blade raised up for a finishing thrust, and then all went dark and sparks of pain forced her eyes closed. Her last moments saw only black horns snap back, then it was over. She was falling, then her legs went end over end as she hit a tree, and her body was rolling down a hill. Her armor scattered and the straps tore loose, her helmet and crown rolled off again, and her shield was gone.
Katrina opened her eyes, gripped her sword, and looked at her leg. Broken, the bone piercing through above the ankle, leaving her with two bad legs. She heard the dragon shamble, try to crawl, and then she heard a long hiss as Rynnth’s breath let out and her body crashed to the stream.
Katrina dared not breath, helpless as she now was. Her air went in slow, through her nostrils as she listened. An agonizing hour passed, and the wyrm had not inhaled, though she could not see over the hill to where she lay. Another hour, she knew Rynnth had not breathed nor moved, she knew her foe was dead in the stream.
Rynnth must be dead, must be, but I need to see it with my eyes.
Katrina looked over fifty feet away, seeing the wineskin full of draconic blood she needed to heal and survive, and she slowly began to crawl from her broken position. Her fingers pulled her to her elbows, then she shuffled up the hill on the moist grass, determined to get the wineskin. Her pain was intolerable as she now felt much more than a leg broken in her body, and her mind swam with flashes of intense weariness and shock. She tried to see over the hill, to see the rotting corpse of Rynnth, but her head fell to the earth.
As Katrina, queen of Willborne, faded into darkness, she heard horses and men. She heard yelling and boots and armor coming her direction as the sun burned bright above. She smiled, knowing that either way, she was unable to move and would surely be killed once recognized. She smiled, accepting at least she had taken her revenge on the dragon. Justice had been done.
“Willborne is free.” She whispered.
The horses were close, men were talking and yelling, she heard them spot her and the dead dragon. Katrina smiled as her eyes closed.
“It is done.”
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It was another world, another time it seemed, a place trapped in a storm and under gray skies for thousands of years. Nothing had changed, it appeared the ravages of war were still fresh scars upon the city of Mooncrest. It was quiet, far too quiet for a city that must have held half a million or more people during its time. There was no movement, no leaves on the trees, no grass to walk upon. They expected animals, birds, some life to have at least found a way in to nest and hide. Nothing was here. Though full of golden structures and sandstone grandeur, a skeleton of an ancient civilization was before them, just a shell of lost greatness to see and welcome.
First steps were taken, finally after an hour of stares and awe had passed. The five walked hesitantly into the empty remains of a once holy city, a place of temples and hope, a short lived kingdom of dreams and myth. Past the outer walls, then they went by the inner walls, all in crumbling decay. Shinayne strode alongside Zen, palms on her sacred blades of the white moon, Saberrak Agrannar was close behind with his axes in hand. James Andellis and Gwenneth stayed close to one another, still looking beyond the high rising metropolis and the mountains, taking it all in.
“Where to now, King Thalanaxe?” Shinayne grinned, not wanting to blink, as she toyed with her dwarven friend.
“Baah, don’t start that yet now, we have to get to Kakisteele first. Me guess is following that there central road, the one with the white markers of stone that leads up to the southern mountain wall.”
He thought of all the horrors he had heard over the years of this place. His mind recalled six-legged demons, devil women, ghosts of the dwarves, men, and soldiers of Altestan that still haunted this place. Zen saw none of that, though an ominous presence was here, somewhere. He thought of the dust, remembering his vow.
“I like the direct approach, no hiding or sneaking.” The gray minotaur huffed.
“Passes right by the tower and the temples, surely the best route for us.” Gwenneth smiled, looked to James, and then quickened her pace to match his.
“For us? You mean all of us, or you and James?” Shinayne shot the question back over her shoulder with a wide smile, one that was equally matched by Zen.
“Hhrrmmmph! Good question.” Saberrak snorted low and grinned.
“For all… of us, and…me and James…that…Shinayne what are…?” Gwenne turned a shade of red as she stumbled over her retort.
“I believe your chosen main road is fine, for all of us.” James, just as red beneath his beard and brown locks, spoke up over his raven haired companion.
“Splendid save there brave knight, already rescuin’ yer’ maiden and such, well done lad.”
“I am no ones maiden, I will have you all know right---“
Gwenneth was cut off as both Shinayne and Saberrak raised their hands, crouched, and stopped not ten feet onto the road. Zen knelt down to the white bricks and began to tap at it then put a scratch into it, he was curious about something. James drew his griffon hilted blade and surveyed for a reason for the sudden halt, and Gwenneth focused on the staff and stretched out her senses of the arcane.
“Platinum. Tis not white bricks at all, they lined the very road to Kakisteele with precious platinum they did. Hidden below a layer o’ thick paint, ha! Vundren’s blessed boots!”
The dwarven priest rubbed his hand over the invaluable metal that dotted every ten bricks of the lining to the main road. He looked up to a bronze sign on a stone building and read it.
“Vulanri Road. It’s in dwarven, part o’ it anyway.”
“And what does Vulanri denote?” Shinayne sensed motion ahead, so she asked without looking to Zen. Just as he touched and spoke, the elven swordswoman felt things change, many things, all across the ruins.
“It is the dwarven word for hope.” Gwenneth responded before the dwarf could, yet her senses were overwhelmed with things near and far that were radiating arcane glow in her eyes, mostly from the tower.
“Aye, Gwenne is right, in Agarian it’s hope. Cross street here is…odd…Gimmor Way, in Agarian this time, named for the green moon or the month, I s’pose.” Zen looked out to the dozens of main streets, none as grand as Vulanri Road or Temple Way, yet they all went north to south, and were crossed by just as many from east to west. “Hells, we are gonna need a guide to find everything, ha!”
“One approaches, ask her then.” Saberrak pointed with an axe and lowered his horns as an old woman shambled toward them. He had watched her come out of a ruined home, silently, and she was walking very slow.
“There is nothing there, what are you talking about?” Gwenneth looked with both her normal sight and the arcane, she saw just an empty street, one of hundreds in every direction.
“I sense her, she is sad and wicked, but I can only make out a glowing shadow, nothing more.” Shinayne drew her blades and watched the strange spirit float toward them.
“I see her as well, Zen can you?” James waited, watching the old woman limp with her head facing the road, it looked as though her crooked neck could not lift up had she wanted to.
“I see nothin’, ye’ all be seein’ illusions or visions or somethin’.”
The dwarven priest looked ahead, nothing moved, not anywhere. He pulled out his hammer and moons of finely crafted silver, and his eyes went wide. The old woman was right in front of him now, and he fell over onto his rump as he pulled his warhammer from his hip. She was not alone, he could see her plain as gray, and hundreds more behind her in the distance, just watching them from their homes.
The streets were suddenly filled with people, people dragging bodies and burying other people, none of them were there moments before. They looked re
al, though their colors were dark and dampened, and they cast not so much as shadow nor sound. Walking the sunless streets, wailing over their dead brethren, thousands mourned thousands in silence. Some hung from trees, others were nailed to crossed beams of wood, several hundred were in burning piles, many more lay impaled by spears. Dwarves there were, and elves, men, women, and even children. Bundled infants were carried by their elders, all mouths open in terrible pain and suffering.
The fires cast no smoke nor smell, the wailing was not heard by their ears, only thier eyes took in the horror of the aftermath of war. Buildings fell without the expected crash to follow. Priests with symbols they had never seen, and some they had, presided over masses of graying figures that wept and held one another. Flags rippled from the temples, ones that could not be seen by Gwenneth nor Shinayne, but by the men for certain. Flags of white with a golden triangle holding three eyes, they were speared into the ground everywhere. Some others waved on the non-existant breeze, ivory banners with three long identical dragons of black, and none of the ghostly citizens dared take them down.
“By Vundren, look at the clouds.” Zen pointed a half mile up, directly at three black spheres like eyes that looked through the gray at the temple district. They were immense, two on the bottom and one above and centered, and as they glared down the people fled out the temples, gray folk long dead.
“Altestan, I see the three dragoned flags of Altestan and the three eyed triangle of Yjaros. Same flags that were on the Headhunter warship in Harlaheim. They did this.” James looked past the old woman in ragged dresses to the forgotten carnage reenacting before him.
“The men may see for they are touched, they see what I remember, they do. What she makes us see, forever. For why have thou come to our graves eternal then? Treasures, or answers?” The old woman of gray hair amess and wrinkles uncounted looked with hollow black eyes to the five visitors, her voice a strange whispering song that all could hear, yet Gwenne and Shinayne could not see her.
“What goes on here, old ghost?” Saberrak huffed, now seeing the massive three black eyes from the sky widen, shadows pouring from their gaze into the temples. Black winged beings by the dozens glided from the air, landed behind the holy towers, and more people screamed. Many more.
“It is the judgement of Gimmor, of God, and kept for all eternity by Arabashiel. She keeps this place, her purgatory, and ours, forever. You see, and so you must be blessed by the fallen ones.” The old gray spectre snapped her bony fingers and the vision was gone, all of it disappeared. She turned her neck toward the again empty ruins, then back to the five in front of her and smiled.
“No more, you should be here not, the Knights of the Crescent must be told.”
“We come to end it, to give ye’ freedom old spirit. This Arabashiel, she got six legs then I s’pose? Where she be then?” Azenairk stood, seeing only the lost city and this ancient ghost of a woman before him.
Her laughter was as if a thousand elderly women and men cackled through her. “Ha ha ha ha, he he he, ho ha oh oooh…a warrior, a slayer of immortals, is it the cursed archmage of the ember tower, the warlock of night I see before me? No, nay, tis not he. You be but a dwarf that follows a lesser being and seeks the mines. You will die.”
The spirit passed through Zen, giving him raised hairs on his arms, and walked to Shinayne.
“Blessed blades of the conquered moon, but survive you will not, elf. You will die.”
After passing through Shinayne, she hovered now to Gwenneth. “You can see me not, faithless one. I see you though, old archmage in the emerald, and you will not save her. You will die.”
The old ghost hovered before Saberrak. Two axes cut right through her as if she were air, and her grin met that of the gray minotaur. “Just checking.” He snorted.
“Foolish one, I know what you are and what you were. It matters not, your brothers have abandoned you to exile. You will die, spirit of Annar.” She hovered through him, and floated up to James.
James Andellis saw the empty stares from his friends, as if hope had been taken from them when the ghost spoke and passed them by. They moved little, as if a black cloud was over them that none could see. No one argued the spirit, no one asked her anything, they just stared. Something was happening.
“What curses does your mouth spit, old ghost?” The knight presented his blade and paced in circles while his friends eyes saddened and their heads looked to the ground. He would not let her touch him or pass through his body.
“Curses? No curses, let us talk of you then, failed one of---“
“No! Saberrak, Shinayne, wake up!” James focused on his faith and hand, glowing a faint blue aura now, though no one was injured. He backed up more, seeing through this ghost of a woman, and his friends now relaxed and sat down on the road, oblivious to anything.
“They know now that hope is lost, let me tell you of it. Perhaps in this tavern over here, there is wine---“
“No! Silence! You servant of demons, your tricks hold no power over me!” The blue aura flickered and rose up the hilt of his blade from his hands, it had never done that before.
“Tricks? No tricks, tis judgment and truth I speak, she sees you all, inside and out. Arabashiel holds all here. Let me show you.” The ghastly hag smiled, her black eyes radiating shadow, and she reached for James.
“Tell her to find another messenger then!” He slashed his sword across her outstretched ethereal arm, hoping something happened. It did.
The transparent woman screamed a howl of pain, like a child that had never felt it before, and her arm vanished. She looked in horror as dust scattered to the city street, then up to the knight with blue flames licking the blade he wielded.
“Who dares bring such power here, whom do you serve?”
“I serve Alden, the father of sacrifice and Lord of Heaven. Now let my friends go!” James sidestepped, the ghost and he walking circles in the ruins under gray skies.
“The son has no power here, you are mistaken, knight. And you must not enter.” The haggard woman with one arm rushed in flight toward James.
He swung his griffon blade, yet she had vanished and reappeared behind him. He rolled to the left, stood and swung again, yet she was inhumanly fast now with a strange fear in her dark eyes. His blade caught air, and she dove straight for his tabard, hand grasping for the red feathered cross on his chest. Just as she went to pass through him, he grabbed for her head with his glowing blue hand. His thumb was on her ear, fingers across her face, he felt her as if she were real, and the blue glow intensified.
“I release you, tell your mistress you are forgiven and at peace!” James focused on healing the woman, the ghost with no flesh, and the blue light smothered her body. Starting with her head, the ghostly visage became dust that poured to the stone at his feet. He felt her power fade, heard her screams of agony and ecstasy the same, and watched as her form solidified only to disintegrate by his hand.
“The mother! Tell the Knights of the Crescent that Seirena comes for her son and revenge! She is guised as ..as…this man…tell …. Aaaahhhhhhhh!”
The spectre of the woman screamed warnings to the empty air as she turned to dust, then she was gone.
The blue light faded from his hands and blade. James was frozen, his hand grasping what was no longer there, sword ready in a high guard. He blinked, then looked over to his friends. They shook their heads and blinked as well, then they stood quick and turned around.
“What happened, where did she go?” Shinayne twirled her blades and searched with her senses and eyes, she saw nothing of the old woman.
“James, ye’ allright son?” Zen spun, hammer in one hand, hammer and moons in the other. He heard it, howling and screams far in the city, not in any language he understood.
“She is gone, I released her.” James relaxed, yet heard the sounds as well. “How, I truly do not know.”
“What are they chanting, that noise I hear?” Saberrak huffed, still shaking his head to clear his mind. Fo
r many moments, he had felt being here was hopeless and that he would die here, or was already dead. He looked around for the old woman, growling, knowing she had done something to him and his friends. The chanting was louder now, mens voices.
“Sssshhh.” Gwenne listened closely. “It is in ancient Altestani, they are preparing for war. They are praying to Yjaros, praying to be blessed in battle by God against the invaders that have dared cross the storm. Five…infidels…to be exact. Servants of the one eyed…mother?”
“We need to seek cover, and no more talking to ghosts.” James pulled his shield from his back and marched up with his friends.
Stomping boots and opening gates of steel could be heard from the inner ruins, sound that denoted this was no apparition. Horses whinneyed, men yelled to other men, and sandstone dust kicked into the air from near the temples. No one waited to see what it was. The five companions ran to a nearby inn, partially collapsed, and entered through the missing door. More yells and battle cries in a tongue only Gwenneth could understand went out through the ruined city.
“They are calling to the one who masks himself with deception, that hides with the torn one, yet worships a woman? And---“
“---and the one that killed the priestess of Arabashiel, the one that committed blashphemy against God. I understand it perfectly, and I do not care for this place.” Saberrak Agrannar the Gray put his back to a wall inside the structure. He looked at James with a serious curiosity as to what he had done to the ghost. The minotaur received the same look from his friends, especially Gwenneth, as to how he could know what was being spoken in the ancient tongue of Altestan.
Hidden in the shadows of a a forgotten inn, just inside the outskirts of Mooncrest, the five waited for an army they had not yet seen to come for them. No one spoke, but everyone was praying to someone or something, even Gwenneth.
Then, the once army of the Kingdom of the Crescent Moon marched past. Thousands on skeletal feet, thousands upon bone horses, and they filled the roads. No one breathed, the five inside the inn, or the dead that needed not the air.