“Only a battle lost is sadder than a battle won.”

- Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven

Alyssa ran towards the gasping Mireille and checked, hands shaking, if she was alright. There seemed to be no obvious wounds even though her tunic had been splattered with blood, perhaps from the dead person in Alea's room.

“Sorry…” Mireille coughed, “The lightning bolt, together with the haste, wiped me out. I still have a lot to learn.”

“Don't! Simply don’t run off without me.” Alyssa hugged her. She did not neglect to observe her surroundings and saw Alea jog out of the inn's entrance, where the big Innkeeper stood with a rolling pin and meat cleaver in hand, trying to look intimidating but failing at that. Alyssa saw the men coming and pulled the hem of her friend's tunic a bit lower. Mireille blushed a bit at that.

Lucien Caravar and his three mercenaries came directly behind Alea and looked to be in various states of undress. The others were not fit for the journey after the altercation with the bandits.

“Is everything ok?” Lucien called while hefting his longsword. He only had a vest thrown over his bare upper body, his puffed-up pants, and a belt with some pouches. He was running while still barefoot. Mathilde came next. With her were her two maids. She looked towards Caravar and asked sharply, “What happened here?”

“I only saw the fight through the window but Mireille chased a person in black by jumping out of the first-floor window, then, as this person tried to harm her, Alea and Alyssa intervened.

“Bothersome.” Mathilde seemed to be thinking about something.

“There is a dead person in Alea's room upstairs,” Alyssa interjected. Her voice sounded a bit weak, and the adrenaline left her shaking.

“It's Olea, my maid. Someone killed her.” Anger made Alea's voice rough, and she sounded quite unlike her usual self.

Maximilian came outside too, hopping while trying to get his boots on with only his right arm.

“And now that we are all assembled,” Mathilde slowly paced among the mercenaries and stood before Alea. “Kill them.” Then she stabbed with a knife hidden in her sleeve, and Alea folded around the blade a tortured gasp, the only sound she could make.

“I thought as much.” Caravar looked apologetic while swinging his sword and advancing on the still kneeling Mireille, “a mercenary's business is a young man's game, and we all don’t get younger.” He swung downwards, Mireille caught the blade on her shortsword but was thrown back and thudded heavily on her back. “Experience is no substitute for the pains and weakness, the slowing of reflexes that come with time. The money was real good too.” Alyssa jumped to her feet, Cyrus winged into the air. Suddenly a burst of light outlined Mathilde and a white light shone through her left shoulder burning into a tree farther back, smoke rose from cloth and skin as the former began to burn around the dark hole in her body, oozing blood. She shrieked and threw herself down to smother the flames. The dark-haired, thin mercenary beside her took his cloak and began to help her.

Alea was visible behind her, blood dripping from her mouth as she pointed with her still glowing hand, the other was pressed firmly to the wound on her stomach.

Maximilian fought against two mercenaries and was slowly driven back into the inn.

Alyssa looked uncomprehending for a short moment and then spoke words not meant for a living tongue; death spread from her in a widening circle, grass withered, darkness spread around her left arm, if one looked carefully the porcelainlike skin grew farther along her forearm.

In the woods hidden behind some bushes, a black-robed figure paused and looked around, the left arm was trembling, the scars from the lightning he had barely avoided were still hurting. He pulled back the mask covering his face and, now clearly identifiable as the ‘butler’ accompanying Mathilde, took a thin vial with his right hand, opening it with his teeth, then spat out the cork and quickly drank the liquid. The trembling stopped as wounds slowly began to close, and he turned around to hasten back to where sounds of combat could now be heard.

A small person flew out from the tree above, claws of black ice flashed towards his throat as he threw himself back, parrying with a dagger that suddenly erupted from the bracer along his left forearm. Sparks flew, and the battle was joined, luminescent green eyes filled with bloodlust fixed on the assassin.

Meanwhile, at the inn.

Mireille vocalized the word of power and lightning shot through her again, this time her face paled and blood bubbled from her nose and mouth. A quick slash with the short sword opened a weeping wound along Lucien's lower ribs, the blood dark in the uncertain light, causing him to curse and retreat a few steps.

“Damm, you girl, it's not often that a Branded can so overdraw themselves.”

Alyssa furiously swung her left hand, and the black sphere shot towards the mercenary, who frantically backpedaled while grabbing for a pouch at his hip. His left hand came up with a crystal plate inscribed with runes that flashed before the plate cracked into powder sifting through his fingers, a shimmering field of energy sprang to life catching the bolt of unlife before fading significantly.

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Mireille slashed at him again, which he barely parried this time. A deep notch appeared on his blade as sparks and pieces of metal spun away from the lightning-charged impact.

The young redhead looked frightening, with blood running along her lower jaw and dripping onto the packed earth, sizzling with energy, but this energy only sustained her for a short burst before beginning to flicker, she teetered. Lucien swung his sword against her, the short sword spun away after a clever flick of the experienced mercenaries wrist.

A winged shadow swooped down from behind the triumphant man, and a stinger plunged into his neck. Lucien gasped and grabbed at his neck as his muscles seized, and he shook from the effects of the poison.

A brilliant firebolt formed between Alyssa's hands, lighting the yard and the surrounding houses and trees, then shot forth and impacted on the chest of the struggling man, burning through the thin membrane shielding him from magic- burning the flesh from his ribs until blackened bone could be seen.

“Treachery!” A deep voice bellowed and the old coachman ran from his place in the stables a long rod clutched in his hand. A mercenary turned towards him, he had been helping Mathilde extinguish the flames but a dull roar sounded accompanied by a dark red plume of flames gushing out of the rod and then the mercenary was lifted by a massive impact to his lower back a crater burned through his coat cracking his spine. He flew against the wall, impacting with a heavy thud, cracking plaster, and fell without control over his legs, arms scrabbling frantically.

Throwing the spent widowmaker rod to the side, the old warrior charged with protecting the young scions of Graufurt drew a long and nasty-looking cutlass and rushed into the fray at the inn's door. “Raaaargh”. Bellowing madly, he drew the attention of the mercenary standing farther back as the first one tried to fight his way into the inn, which the innkeeper and Maximilian had so far successfully stalled.

Madam von Nordmark stumbled to her feet and called to the two maids cowering to the side, “Help me! If I get through this without you lifting a finger, I will sell you as slaves to the snakes!”

Alea's spider had fallen off as she fell and now climbed the wall of the inn. Orienting herself the small girl with the blindfold lifted her hands again, a blinding brilliance build up as she chanted arcane words, and then a blast of fiery radiance shot towards Mathilde burning her left arm that she had protectively thrown in front of her face, cloth burned and flesh sizzled as it blackened and shriveled. A tortured scream ripped from her throat as she beheld the ruin of her left forearm, stumbling she fell into the arms of the dark-haired maid and weakly ordered “the coach, hurry!”

Lucien pressed his hands on the grievous but not deadly wound on his chest before stumbling away toward the woods. Mireille fainted and sank to the ground. Alyssa desperately looked at the carnage and then force-fed a potion to her friend before running towards the pale, still form of Alea. She fell to her knees at her side and sang to the waters of life. Asandria quietly joined in the song and added her strength to hers. The spider saw all from her perch on the wall, the pain in her body of flesh had driven her into this metal shell, cold and calm and pleasant, but the tears in Alyssa's eyes called her back and her body, no Alea, gasped as she felt the cleansing water close her wounds.

The old coachman embraced the mercenary, a flaxen-haired man with a proud goatee, and rammed him against the wall with a loud crash as he viciously and repeatedly stabbed into his victim's stomach, blood and other unnameable fluids dripped to the dimly lit ground, coloring it black. The screaming soon stopped. White teeth bared in a bushy white beard the old warrior turned to the last man fighting in the doorway. The mercenary was not unprepared he had frantically tried to finish this sooner, but the old Innkeeper had fought against him and the young von Graufurt brat was fighting with a blade formed from summoned metal, a technique which he probably had learned in Kronenburgs famous academy. Hearing his comrades dying scream he jumped back from the door and tried to get away but a snick and a hot pain lancing into his left leg took away that option. The coachman threw away his hand-crossbow and grinned savagely while waving the bloody cutlass. “Scum like you, turning on your employer, gives honest mercenaries a bad name.”

Alyssa cradled the painfully slim and light form of Alea as healing energies closed the most serious of wounds, and then she sighed in relief as the blind girl gasped once and then breathed again more easily. The blindfold was damp with tears. Carrying her back to where Mireille was lying Cyrus alighted on her shoulder making her stumble, the wyvern seemed proud as he cleaned his stinger with his teeth.

The wind blew through the dark trees, bowing the branches and rustling the leaves as clouds raced before a full moon.

The last mercenary still on-site was forced back by heavy blows from the coachman, who seemed to revel in the fear in the eyes of his prey. “It's been a long year since the last battle, but the lady paid well, now I can finally sate the thirst of my blade.” Laughing with dreadful mirth he swung the cutlass like a butcher the cleaver, hammering the other man into submission, finally, the sword snapped and the cutlass hammered into the forearm the backswing took the frantic mercenary in the throat who fell heavily, twitched once, and lay still.

Behind them, they heard the sound of hooves as Mathilde and one of the maids rode two hastily saddled horses away from the fighting.

Inside the woods…

“Halt! Vampire, we have a truce with your mistress!” The butler-turned-assassin scrambled back.

Vanessa held still and looked at him, waiting.

Licking his lips nervously, the man continued, “We don’t hinder her agents, and you don’t attack us.”

The vampire sniffed and scented the air, there was no direct falsehood, but she sensed a lie of omission. She grinned, showing her elongated canines. And as the butler relaxed for a fraction of a second she sprang forward. But the dark-robed man was not as unprepared as he had seemed and, with sparks flying, parried her by crossing his two wrist-daggers and, with a tremendous effort, pushed her away.

“So you don’t belong to her then. Such luck.” The assassin grabbed a crystal slate and white lines of liquid light filled channels, formed symbols, and the small crystal burst into white glyphs that were sucked into his body. His movements sped up and he threw a potion at her which she avoided but just in that second, the potion flared with actinic light. Hissing she recoiled and shielded her sensitive eyes. The assassin sprang away from her and, with the assistance of the magical haste, vanished into the forest. She was not his target and his life was more precious than fleeting satisfaction.

Vanessa frantically brushed the bloody tears away, but the man was already gone. She fought with her desire to simply chase him, the instincts of a hunter urging her on, but it would take some time, and the situation at the inn was not resolved. Cursing silently, she flew towards the inn.