Yelena

Profession: Guardian (LVL 6) EXP: 1000/2500 *LEVEL UP* Skill Points Available: 2 Training points Available: 1

The words flashed before her like arcs of lightning spearing across the thundering skies above.

As Frezia had fallen, so too had the fleshy pods that clung to the walls of her layer. They melted into the back wall and slowly began to de-materialize completely – revealing the searing hot sands of the desert Layer once again.

The fearful energy that had beat at the heart of this place was gone, Yelena noticed, and the trials of the last 48 hours had finally led them here, to this moment.

And of course, Marius wasn’t even awake for it.

She turned to see him snoozing at in a sand dune, body inert like a dried up fish, and sighed to behold the proud thief laid low.

“You delivered the final blow,” she said to his non-receptive body. “And now you need me to carry you. Why am I not surprised?”

She disregarded him for the moment, wiping the plumb-purple blood of the Dominion Lord from her gauntlets as the Red-Woman stepped forward, supplicant, hands clasped before her bosom in a gesture of total subservience to her Goddess – the frail girl standing slack jawed as she looked towards the sunstruck horizon.

The dog-beast that her Appraisal had identified as a ‘Gnoll’ stood tall as the Red-Woman crept closer, eyeing him with fierce, passionate pride.

“Brother of the Sands,” she said with a bow. “It is pleasing me to know you.”

He grunted, licking away some of the bubbling poison that still seeped from his doomed eye.

“Red-Sister,” he said simply. “I’ll be damned to the Fifth. Thought you were all dead.”

The redhead – Amara – turned suddenly to her companion.

“You know her?”

“Not particularly,” came his coarse response. “Blackbird caged the Sisterhood ages ago. We just assumed they were all gone.”

“We remain,” came the Red-Woman’s chilling response, delivered in a far more menacing tone than Yelena had heard her exhibit before. “As long as the fire of the Lady burns bright, we remain.”

Yelena couldn’t help but note how the Gnoll rolled his eyes as the Red-Woman dropped to one knee, bowing so deep that her veil kissed the sands beneath them.

“Be knowing me, Lightbringer,” she said. “I am Antethra, initiate of the Sisterhood. I – we – have come to aid you in the battle yet to come.”

Yelena allowed herself a snigger. If Marius was cognizant, he’d have probably sputtered a disjointed tirade beginning with, “What battle?!”

But her laughter died in her throat when she saw that the redhead was barely even acknowledging her servant’s prostration. Instead, she was moving past the Red-Woman on thin, yet steady legs, slowly kicking past the sand until she stood before Yelena.

She was a little smaller than Yelena had imagined. A little more brash, too, considering the way in which she pushed past both her followers with apparent disinterest.

The girl stared at her and regarded her with furrowed brows, and Yelena was suddenly under the impression that she was listening to something. Like she was being fed information from some hidden, ulterior source.

Then again, that could be just her training kicking in, Yelena realized. After all, what else could she expect from a –

“Argent,” the girl said.

Yelena blinked, but the girl’s stare remained firm.

“You’re an Argent.”

Yelena heard the sound of a blade being drawn. Then, the sudden onrush of movement against the dead desert winds. But her hand did not fly to her sword. Instead, she met the girl’s stare, unblinking and focused.

“And you’re a Glancer.”

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A flash of resentment sparked in the girl’s eyes, but it wasn’t the light in them that glinted in Yelena’s vision then. It was the glint of the Gnoll’s axe swinging towards her.

She stepped back, ready to unsheathe her own blade, but her hand was stayed by the most unlikely protector.

The Red-Woman, who had now revealed herself to be Anthethra, had moved in the way of the furious beast’s weapon.

“Stand. Down.” He growled at the stoic woman who had planted her feet firmly in the sands between them.

“This one is being different,” she said, directing her answer more to the redhead than to her brash guardian. “Please, my lady, you must be hearing our story before you are passing judgement.”

Yelena again met the crimson eyes of the girl who was probably Appraising her right here and now.

“What do you mean,” she finally said. “Different?”

Before the Red-Woman could answer, Yelena found that she had already accepted that if anyone was going to defend her honor, it had to be her.

Because Marius was wrong. It was something worth defending.

“She means I fought against the horrors of this place for one reason only: to find you.”

The redhead scoffed.

“And do what?” she asked. “Kill me?”

Yelena bristled, seeing fiery determination burning away in those eyes. It was only later, upon reflection, that she realized she felt an abject terror as she held the girl’s gaze. And she knew, then, that this was no ordinary Glancer.

“This is your moment, Argent,” she said, stepping closer so her face was mere inches from Yelena’s chestplate. “I’m all out of Glance.”

“And I’m all out of the will to fight people I’ve been told to hate,” Yelena replied. “Besides, there has been enough death today.”

Amara smiled up at her. There was little warmth in the gesture.

Then she raised her hand to quell the rage of her guardian.

“If you don’t gut this Ch’alokk heretic,” he snarled. “Then I will.”

“Will you?” Amara answered him. “With your 4 HP and poisoned eye against her sword and armor?”

The creature snarled again – sending a torrent of spittle flying across the sands. Then, Yelena suppressed a gasp as the girl laid her palm on the bulging muscles of the creature and quietened his rage.

“She is right,” she said. “There’s been enough death today. Too much.”

They shared a look of sadness – like two who had bonded over much hardship.

Yelena spared a look back at the inert Marius snoozing away in the sand. Some flies had started buzzing round his grizzled cranium.

“At least let me go after Lokar,” the beast grunted quietly. “That bastard will pay for his treachery.”

Amara nodded.

“In time,” she agreed. “First, we need to get strong again. Then we find your other brothers and sisters. And then we kill him like the dog he is.”

Not quite the merciful, forgiving kind of deity, then, Yelena thought.

Then again, none of them were. Not really.

“Alright,” the girl said. “I have to level up. You probably do, too,” she nodded to Yelena.

“We shouldn’t do it here,” she replied. “Too much chance for ambush. Ever since we escaped the palace, we’ve been hunted. I doubt Revok will give up on trying to kill us so easily.”

Amara blinked. “Revok?”

“The Blackbird,” the Red-Woman explained as the Gnoll emitted a low, resentful growl. “The one you shall burn away to ash. But let us be talking of this on the way to the stronghold.”

The Gnoll narrowed his eyes. “You know of the stronghold?”

“It is being our only place of refuge,” she continued. “The one settlement untouched by the shadow of the Blackbird’s wing. It is the place the Lightbringer much reach, ere she fulfil her destiny.”

The Gnoll nodded gravely. “The exact words of Kimon.”

He said this name in almost a whisper, and he and Amara shared a look of pity again.

There was a story here. A story that Yelena, in spite of all her Argent training, very much wanted to hear.

“Will you take us to this place?” the Anthethra asked, bowing now before the Gnoll in a gesture of supplication.

He regarded her with an odd mixture of fear and sorrow, then looked up to hiss at Yelena before being calmed once more by the touch of the Lightbringer.

“Fine,” he said. “But it’ll be impossible on foot. With Kimon’s Windcalling and Lokar’s stealth, we could have stood a chance. As we are we’ll die of thirst out there within a tenday.”

Antethra looked up, and through her shroud of crimson Yelena imagined she was smiling as she waved her hand towards the gaping hole in the side of the Catacombs exit.

“We are planning for this.”

Like a hero hiding in wait, Edna stalked through the crumbling tunnel they’d emerged from, shaking sand grains from her body and giving a delightful chirrup of recognition as she saw her friends.

Yelana’s smirk was unconscious. The Gnoll stood to attention with his weapon again raised, before he realized what was going on.

“Ty’Kella,” he coughed, looking to Amara. “Kimon always did say fate would provide…”

Antethra took hold of his curled hand, ignoring the blood still dripping down his arm.

“More than you are knowing, Brother. We are all what we must be, when we must be.”

He nodded, understanding something Yelena didn’t.

“We can be nothing else.”

He spared a snarl in Yelena’s direction again as he followed the priestess onto Edna’s waiting back.

“One wrong move,” he said to her as he past her by. “And – “

“You will take the head from my shoulders,” Yelena finished. “I have heard this before, Sir.”

“I’m no Sir, Argent,” the gruff creature barked back. “Remember that.”

Yelena was then left looking after them both – human and beastman together, united in purpose, just like she had been up there on Averix.

Before she knelt down to pick up Marius, she felt something hit her back, and turned to see the girl – Amara – shoving an Arcanist’s Elixyr towards her.

“You can fix people,” she said simply, and Yelena was struck by her forwardness. Before she could even reply, the girl went on. “I want you to fix his eye. He’s hurting.”

The girl walked on without looking back at her. Without, Yelena could have added, so much as a ‘thank you’ to her saviors.

…though if she was being honest, it was Marius who truly brought the thing down, in the end.

“Don’t you want this?” she had to ask, watching the girl climb aboard Edna with some difficulty, requiring her Gnoll to help her up.

She wasn’t sure why she asked it. But it was important to get an answer.

The girl replied without much fanfare. “If I wanted to use it, I would have done it by now. If you are an Argent, this is your chance to show us you aren’t like the others like you say.”

This time, it was Yelena who smirked at her, scooping up Marius and accepting the hand of Antethra to get on to the beetle’s cramped back.

“Besides,” Amara murmured. “Argents aren’t known for trusting their prey. Could you really live with letting a Glancer have access to all their spells?”

Yelena sighed, not answering at first, but instead enjoying the feeling of the breeze on her face, blowing her blonde bangs against her brow as they shot off towards yet another destination in this forsaken land. Above, the clouds had finally cleared away.

“I’m learning to live with a lot of things.”