>
> Neledh Coroe galea et paen
>
> Yestae o olla an cante duinen
>
> Curuniel rent ae Aniculo Saereg
>
> Cante Calae leloca ae Cared e rham
>
> Ae se ta dostae hain pan.
>
>
>
> -
>
>
>
> Rather long incantation probably triggering, or referring Anaur-dostae
>
> (loosely deciphered from the Old Tongue* -Sunburn)
>
> The second rank of the prohibited Greater Spell of Fire
>
> After the much more widely used in the First Era Calae-Coroe (Firesphere, or Fireball)
>
>
>
> -
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
> ----------------------------------------
>
>
>
> *Old Tongue, Old Witch Tongue, Coded ciphered language differing from the later Court, or Common Imperial variants. Created by the Sorcerers and Witches of Cydonia, mainly in the great Island city port of Cazan before the First Era.
>
> No translation or long texts exist.
>
> Also meaning, a dead language.
>
>
>
> -
>
>
-
> (Somewhere on Eplas)
>
> ...
>
>
> A remote parch of land where Desert Minor touches concurrently the sources of the river Vapi Arn Ria and Kraken’s Spine Peaks.
>
>
>
> Last month of Spring, Imperial date 3202* of the Second Era,
>
> Twelve centuries since the Ruin of Sibara,
>
> & the signing of the Elauthin-Galith peace treaty
>
> -Year one thousand, one hundred and two of Queen Baltoris’ reign
>
> -Six months after Reinut’s Rape of Central Goras
>
> -Four years before the Fall
>
>
>
> -
>
> The construct Wiris ‘Green’ paused, the desert’s scorching wind blowing snow white hair over her comely dark-skinned face and pointed towards the splintered huge basalt rocks to their east. Khix’roon clicked her forked tongue excited, her yellow serpent eyes veiled under the thin red mesh face-cover she wore religiously. The towering Aken female rushed towards the shorter Wiris, unnaturally long legs with insect-like omni-rotating joints, moving with ease over sharp rocks and avoiding sand sinkholes on instinct.
>
> “Yeah, I’m not doing that,” Aeleniel, of Miridor hissed, her head cover leaving her face uncovered. “Fancy a climb Doll?”
>
> Aelrindel glanced at Zargatoh, but the Aken Elder seemed unbothered by the heat and the potential discovery.
>
> “Is she wrong?” Aeleniel asked him with a frustrated grunt. “I’m strongly inclined to ask her to turn one of you into water. I’ve more moisture in my boots right now.”
>
> “She could try,” Zargatoh said, resting on his long ironwood staff. “Then again, you could always suck on the soles adventurer.”
>
> “Enough!” Aelrindel snapped and grabbed a scorching sharp boulder’s edge to climb the slight slope. “Let’s try to find some semblance of shade at least. That’s enough disgusting things I’ve heard and witnessed to make me long for the cursed ice again.”
>
> “Ice is good,” Aeleniel agreed coming after the flustered sorceress, pausing to look behind her light armoured shoulder and toss a last taunt at the ruggedly dressed old Aken. “Are you coming handsome? Your skin ain’t getting redder than that unless you use a skinning blade.”
>
> Zargatoh fluttered his eyelids, forked tongue moving over his mauve lips ruining whatever he wanted to accomplish and nodded.
>
> The first thing of Gimoss they found was his huge twenty meters in length, lacquered black segmented tail, the stinger on it sunk a meter deep inside a basalt boulder.
>
> Aelrindel stared at the huge cut entrance on the sides of the massive wyvern, an incredulous look on her sweat-covered tanned face. The latter an unwanted result of the desert sun piercing through the veil she had come to wear as well to protect her skin.
>
> “Beasts?” She guessed and stared at the ominous large cave leading deep in the guts of the mountain. With no plants on this side of the Peaks and the nearest water source kilometers away, it seemed unlikely. “Arachne?”
>
> “There’re old tracks here,” Aeleniel informed her, knelt near the entrance. “Blood sipped in the sand, turned it to ruby stone. Boots. Not all human.”
>
> “We know of this place for centuries,” Zargatoh explained, his accent easier to follow now after weeks in the desert. “Some scavenging obviously occurred.”
>
> “Where are the bones?”
>
> “Look inside,” Khix’roon suggested and Aelrindel glanced at her. Her nose crooking at the female’s weird odor. The sorceress swallowed trying not to vomit.
>
> “I’m not getting in there!”
>
> Are you serious?
>
> Screw this, she thought. What am I doing here?
>
> “Use the talons,” Zargatoh said, clicking his tongue.
>
> “How do I break them?”
>
> “You mentioned ice,” the Aken Elder swished and walked slowly further inside the echoing cave. Aelrindel wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her fingers, flinching when the sneaky Khix’roon sniffed the soaked underside of her armpit.
>
> Noble Goddess!
>
> That was twice the Aken had been weird with her in the last couple of days.
>
> “Hey copper-skinned freak,” Aeleniel warned the female. “Leave her alone.”
>
> “It’s her time of the year. You had yours early in the journey,” Zargatoh explained tapping at a meter long small talon with the edge of his staff. “Wiris don’t have this problem. Tell them why sweetheart.”
>
> “I was a male before,” Wiris said unperturbed, but for a narrowing of her pupils Aelrindel caught.
>
> “Mmm,” Zargatoh murmured thoughtfully. “And how did you die?”
>
> “You flayed me alive.”
>
> Shit.
>
> “Why?” The Aken probed with a satisfied smile.
>
> You repellant monster!
>
> May you burn until there’s nothing left.
>
> “You wanted all the bones,” a sickened Aelrindel replied for the construct, asking in her turn. “Why?”
>
> “One bone to make it whole,” Zargatoh corrected her. He had also shifted the conversation elsewhere but the sorceress remembered this detail much later. “Ice is good, so is fire. One stops the rot, the other burns it away. Use the talons,” he added with a smack of his thick lips. “Do it afore the sun goes down. This was a Desert Centipede’s cave once. Monsters have a tendency to come back.”
>
>
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Aelrindel, of Edlenn
Lady Lenar,
Moon of Neil-Dan,
Nesande’s Shade Moon Daughter
Death Defying Illusions
Part III
-On a night like this-
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Her arm was on a fire.
A wildly galloping warhorse burst through the thick pyroclastic cloud, chainmail fused on its burning head and mane, partially melted legs digging at the smoldering ground. The hapless animal cantered past her in total silence and was lost in the foul thick soup of vapors. There was a strange reddish hue in the fog, her ringing ears making the otherworldly hellish scene appear rather peaceful. In a macabre manner.
Aelrindel coughed trying to clear her throat, her long hair charred on one side almost to her hurting ear and rolled on the ground to get up. The soil warm and black, all grass scrapped off of it all the way to the gates.
Where are the gates?
Someone grabbed her shoulder and then ripped the burning sleeve off. Her arm covered in blisters. It's color a fierce dark red. Faelar turned her around and pressed a vial on her mouth. Aelrindel stopped him, took it with her left hand and poured half of it down her right arm.
Then tipped her head back and screamed so hard her ears popped and she could hear again. The pain on her burned arm making her teeth clatter uncontrollably.
“You blew the gates away,” Faelar explained tensely, as she used the rest of the healing potion on her face and ear. “Almost killed us as well.”
Aelrindel blinked, tears in her eyes half of it from her deep burns and half from the foul smokes covering the yard.
“Did I get him?” she gasped, allowing Faelar to lead her away.
“I wasn’t looking,” the Ranger admitted and she noticed his leather cloak had been all but destroyed on his back.
“Lithoniela?”
“She’s… as good as she would be,” Faelar replied. “We are going to the guard tower.”
“Why not use—”
Faelar stopped her with an angry grip on her good arm.
“Your fireball hit the gates. Never seen the likes afore. Blew everything away,” he explained speaking slowly. “You killed the guards to do it. Your mother fiercely forbade the trade. The Queen would have had your head chopped off for it.”
“One guard,” she coughed, hearing the clamor of the uncontrollable fires burning at the walls, structures collapsing and the screams of many people coming out the thick smoke.
“Aelrindel,” Faelar said soberly. “I saw them drop all at once.”
No.
I made sure.
Didn’t I?
The ranger grimaced and stooping spat down to clear his mouth.
“We need to move.”
----------------------------------------
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“The tower is unguarded, but there’s a patrol approaching,” Lithoniela said minutes later. “More than one.”
“We make it out of the walls,” Faelar explained gruffly. “Clear the plateau afore everyone realizes what happened. They catch us on the move we’re in trouble.”
“What about that thing?” Lithoniela asked. The Princess looked unharmed, other than covered in black soot and dried blood.
Zilyana’s.
Ugh.
“We must make sure he’s dead,” she hissed through her clamped teeth.
“Seriously?” Faelar grunted and shoved them both towards the entrance of the wall tower. “He was standing two meters away. Everything between you and the gates turned to ash and bones lasses. I ain’t going back to look.”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
They made it out of the tiny metal gate, hidden in a corner of the walls, after Faelar used a steel peleg to break the heavy padlocks and remove the chains. It led to a path concealed in a narrow stream and towards the richly vegetated south banks of Yeriden, through a collapsed part of the outer walls, on the road to the distant Lilyana Fort and the Threeriver Bridge.
The dark welcoming and the nearby plateau still lit up from the flames burning atop the pyramid. It made the huge structure appear rather daunting in the night. Other than the cries of panic and the gongs still sounding monotonously all over the ravaged waking up city that is. Aelrindel stopped first, too tired to even speak and collapsed near the roots of a wild cinnamon tree.
“What happened?” Lithoniela asked nervously, as the road was near and the many smaller paths all about them whispered of a well-used part of the river.
“She crashed,” Faelar grunted, signing for them to keep their voices down. “Witches. There was a reason the army wasn’t keen on using them. You get a talented angry dude start blowing stuff up, you better ride with a Wyvern.”
“Really?” Lithoniela asked and the Ranger grimaced.
“I was jesting your grace.”
“Gimoss,” Aelrindel croaked.
“I heard him,” Faelar replied. “Pretty sure that wasn’t a wyvern.”
“It was him.”
“Listen I understand you’re rattled,” he licked his lips and turned his eyes on the road hearing horses approaching. “He killed Rinariel, but that was on your mother and the others. She shouldn’t have come in the first place. You can’t out-magic a Wyvern.”
“Arrgh!” Aelrindel cried out and made to get up. “You’ll defend him!”
“Sit down. Keep your voice down,” Faelar rustled gravely. “It needs years and many wars to become a battle mage and you ain’t one,” he knelt over her, his face relaxing. “It isn’t skill. You have that. Rin did as well, many of the others. All dead now. Those that survived had one thing in common.”
“What?” Aelrindel croaked.
“They knew war,” Faelar replied and stood up to stare at the frowned Lithoniela. “You have tunnel vision Princess and she was always too emotional to use strategy.”
“I used strategy with Nym’s killers!” Aelrindel growled and got up. She wiped the drool from her mouth, hand dirty making it worse.
Faelar smacked his lips and stared at the group of riders fifty meters away. Two of them had stopped their horses and turned around on their saddles at the sound of her scream.
“Damn it Doll. Your mother’s biggest fear was your thin grasp of reality. This is the real world, not your birds and fairy-tales in your head. All of us swore to keep you safe, but you make it so god darn difficult,” he sighed deeply, wrinkles gathered on his taunt face giving a glimpse of his advanced age. The old guard is dying away, she thought sadly. My mother’s people. “Ralnor did,” the Imperial Ranger finally said and counted the arrows in his quiver. “He always had a thing for you. Which is why Nym dispatched Minue Mol. You and him were lucky, the other two were busy doing allgods know what dirty deed for her. Had Din been there, or Draug, you’ll both be dead. You know why?”
Oh, buzz off old bones! She pouted, forgetting her previous thoughts. I’m angry and hurting.
I NEED NO GOD DARN LECTURE!
“Why?” Lithoniela asked curious and Aelrindel glared at her miffed.
“She strolled into the alley without knowing how many of them were still around and shined her light to cast away the shadows,” Faelar said and turned around to face the approaching riders visible through the foliage. “For one brief moment, while her illusion had fooled the guards, every killer worth his salt knew who the real witch was.”
Eh.
“Should we talk to them?” Lithoniela asked on his back and Faelar paused, bow in hand.
“On a night like this Princess,” he said soberly without looking her way. “No one is keen to listen. Not unless you give up a piece of your soul.”
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Lithoniela pressed her mouth tight and glanced at the sorceress.
“That doesn’t seem right,” she hissed and Aelrindel moaned, her arm hurting and tickling at the same time in a maddening way.
“It’s done,” Aelrindel said and riffled through her satchel for something to bandage it. She found nothing and went after her chemise instead shortening it even more under her ruined leather cloak. “Living a year with them don’t mean they like you all of a sudden. You heard the prince.”
“The prince?”
Right. You were out then.
“Anyway,” she sighed and gave up on the bandage. Lithoniela approached to take over working on it. “You can’t spare them all.”
“You don’t believe that,” Lithoniela murmured. “I can sense it bothers you.”
“I’ve been around them for a very long time,” Aelrindel told her with a grimace. “Seen them grow and fail. Lie and cheat their way to one problem after the other, but somehow getting up again after each failure. They are resilient and they’ll gang up against a common foe like hyenas.”
“We don’t?” Lithoniela asked, her eyes on her work.
“We carry too much baggage. Your mother’s father favored my mother, until he didn’t. Your mother… didn’t like her as well, until she decided I was useful.”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Lithoniela looked at her strange. “Were you? Useful?”
Aelrindel checked on her bandaged arm to stall, the younger female had dressed it up to the elbow, as she found herself conflicted. Whether it was because centuries of monotonous wallowing and hatred for those that had wronged her had finally worn her out, or her earlier encounter with the strange construct, the sorceress found herself unable to hate Lithoniela. It was a treat having her around and watching the two young females grow so attached had filled up a void in her heart. Perhaps the slightly snobbish elderblood is just too likable, she thought hearing horses approaching their hidden grove by the river.
Or clearly innocent.
Unburden by the older generation’s baggage.
“Hmm,” the sorceress murmured. She ain’t even that stuck up all things considered.
You can’t hold everyone to your own standards mini Rin. You’re just too perfect baby.
“What is it?” Lithoniela asked and Aelrindel touched the tip of her upturned nose playfully once. Lithoniela blinked unsure at the gesture.
“Gratitude for the help Princess,” she told her pleased, dodging all those uncomfortable queries, whilst showcasing her own capacity for forgiveness at the same time, along with the importance of teamwork. Faelar’s gruff voice cutting through their bonding moment.
“Get over here ladies to help me with the blasted horses. I need to go back and drag the bodies out of the road,” the heavy breathing Ranger grunted. “Then you two are grabbing a pickaxe and start digging two holes, or one big one.”
Wait… what?
“I’ve a hurt arm!” Aelrindel blasted him, Lithoniela dutifully moving to help the Ranger getting on her nerves.
“Use the other one,” Faelar retorted heartlessly. “I won’t say it again young lass.”
> In late winter, the ending year of the New Calendar one ninety and one, Lord Prince Sahand Radpour, heir of the Eternal Khanate and the conqueror of Raoz found himself in a quandary. The hardened marines -descendants of Reinut’s Blood Raiders- of the vaunted North Issir Fleet and half the Second Foot out of Midlanor that had managed to burn Yuetu Fort and take Ri Yue-Tu in a daring beach landing in the summer, now stood poised to strike at Altarin through the narrow Hellfort Pass. They had already severed the Khan’s hold on Eplas’ northernmost corner and blocked his only available sea supply route, leaving the two large conquered cities supplied by land, or the merchant ships.
>
> With Lord Rinus Van De Aesst assuming command of both North and South Fleets after the untimely demise of Lord Vanzon, a more unified plan was put in place over High Regent’s Anker Est Ravn initial objections. The North Fleet that had started its return to Sallowhall for the winter was ordered to move on Altarinport instead. The Fleet did and established a brutal blockade moving against neutral merchant ships that attempted to break it. With Prince Atpa’s ‘Army of the Desert’ parked in Rida, after the latter’s ‘triumph’ at taking Sadofort near Queen’s Oasis, the now fully open desert roads while bustling with incoming caravans from all over the Khanate, found themselves in a bottleneck at Yeriden.
>
> Not enough supplies were escaping the rebuilding Rida and the army’s hungry clutches and Prince Sahand’s equally large force started literally starving. The population of Altarin that had ‘started starving much sooner’ revolted against Duke Reeves rule and the city turned into a battlefield. The Prince realizing he was slowly losing control of the situation and with the two ambitious young spawns showcasing surprising astuteness in staying put inside the canyon, he decided to act.
>
> He sent half his force inside the city, the army’s camp was too big and Altarin wasn’t half-gutted out like Rida, to squash the rebellion whilst helping out Duke Reeves and they did, in three brutal days of indiscriminate slaughtering. The rest of his massive force, the Prince had over fifteen thousand men with him, split into different units, he moved up Teid River, crossed the wood bridge his brother Prince Nout had built two years ago and prepared a strike to break through the pass.
>
> The two ambitious noble spawns facing him, Sir Ton Van De Aesst, firstborn of the Duke of Caspo O’ Bor commanding the marines and his friend Sir Thor Est Ravn, second son of Lord Anker now in command of the Second Foot as his brother was in Jelin trying to deal with the ‘Succession Wars’ that had sprouted there, had decided to stall as much as they could for a second front to open.
>
> They didn’t want to pour out of Hellfort Pass and face the Khan’s army in the open. It was much to their surprise that the Prince came to them instead. In the clash that followed the two armies fought themselves to a standstill over forty days. In one of the back and forth in the narrow canyon’s scraps Prince Sahand caught a marine’s throwing axe with his leg and was carried away from the field injured.
>
> Leaving pickets and patrols behind the Cofol and Horselords retreated beyond Teid river. They made camp there to live off the land and nearby outlaw infested redwood forests. Prince Sahand travelled back to Rida with a thousand strong bodyguard force –along with the King’s Chariots- to recuperate near his spouse and threaten his brother if it came to it, in an effort to force him to relinquish the supplies the latter was hoarding away from the heir’s starving army.
>
> Prince Atpa (the Khan's third son), who had taken over half of Rida and its port by pouring his armies inside the city and crashing the gangs that had ruled for almost a year, probably wasn’t pleased at being once again outranked in this war. A shrewd organizer he’d managed to brute-force the rebuilding of the half-leveled city siphoning funds, supplies and manpower into it and didn’t want all his hard work usurped by someone else. Whether his hurt feelings played a role in it or not, the 'confused' security around the two Princes’ faltered, brigands infiltrated the old palace premises and set it on fire.
>
> With the symbol of Rida burning, people and the army reacted instinctively with everyone rushing towards the Palace only to be met by another hellish firestorm near its west gates. Such was its power that the gates collapsed bringing part of the walls down.
>
> The Prince’s inner gate guards, a patrol of Atpas Cataphracts that was somehow inside the palace walls, fifty royal bodyguards rushing to the scene from their wall-adjoined camp and another large group of Cataphracts that had just arrived outside, were burned to a crisp, or crashed under smoldering debris. Another twenty would succumb to their injuries later that day, bringing the total toll at over two hundred according to the official records. Amongst them the ‘Rebels Slayer’ Khanate’s Heir Prince Sahand, his shield and sworn bodyguard Indera, Lord Adi Putra of Lukela aka ‘the city of the Hashish fields’, the Prince’s closest friend and also sworn bodyguard, his spouse Lenar of Dan, the woman found mutilated and the son of Lord Elur-Sol Jain of the city of Que Ki-La, the famed Lord Larul, commander of the Khan’s chariots.
>
> The latter’s untimely demise and the discrepancy in numbers, the palace was empty when the fire started, attributed to another weird ‘mishap’ that happened that same night though kilometers away and in the abandoned fields near the road leading southwest towards Queen’s Oasis. This third spontaneous firestorm –in the mid of mud infested rainy season for those keeping score- killing over fifty foot soldiers and the Peninsula Lord’s son who was searching the area for the insurgents.
>
> It was said, the Khan got blinded from one eye upon receiving the news his heir had perished, all his decisions after that point in the war fueled by his desire to hurt those responsible for it.
An hour later, but with time still left for dawn, Faelar left them a horse and returned to Rida via a roundabout route to arrange for their ‘forced’ relocation with his contacts. When Lithoniela asked about them, he admitted these were Ralnor’s henchmen, which was a code the Princess missed for ‘criminal scum.’
“Take my hand,” Lithoniela said sitting atop the ‘stolen’ horse, the ranger’s instructions clear that they should vacate their soon to be searched for the missing riders spot near the river and cut through the fields towards the road leading to Queen’s Oasis and wait for him there.
Aelrindel made to climb behind her with a snort, realized she couldn’t move her arm that well and she wasn’t wearing any undergarments under her chemise and puffed out frustrated.
“I can’t ride on the saddle properly,” she announced leaving it vague as to the why and took Lithoniela’s hand to sit in front of her sideways, her long legs dangling down the left side of their Cofol horse.
“Where to young lady?” Lithoniela said and she eyed her, the sorcerer’s hair cut crudely earlier to match the length of the side she’d burned away, making her appear like a very young feminine tomboy under her hood.
If one was a blind eunuch.
“Through the fields. You find this funny?”
“No. But I can see the irony of it,” Lithoniela replied and send their horse through the thick vegetation, soon finding one of the wide paths the farmers used. Everything had been abandoned these past couple of years and the unattended canals watering the dry farmland had slowly dried up. When the winter rains stop, Aelrindel thought. The desert shall once again touch the walls of Rida.
“Eh,” she sighed and dug her long nails in the horse’s mane, playing with the cheap colorful beads the Horselords still put on them.
“I’m sorry for Zilyana,” Lithoniela murmured sadly. “I should have payed attention—”
“Stop it fool,” Aelrindel cut her off. “He went through the guards and reached the palace. You couldn’t sense him. I couldn’t. He wasn’t alive.”
“How can this be? I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”
“You saw a body moving and talking,” Aelrindel explained, the horse’s clopping almost lulling her to sleep and the not so distant burning city making the night stroll almost romantic in a sense. But she wasn’t in a romantic mood. The sorceress hadn’t been in one for… eh, a very long time. Wulan had sensed it, but of course that poor thing was dead, since Sahand couldn’t slap her away and that bastard Adi always went for his sword, or cock first.
Wulan getting the short end of the proverbial stick.
“The Aken?”
“Gimoss,” Aelrindel corrected her. “He was there controlling it.”
“How… why do you think that?”
“A construct can’t interfere with magic, or sense it. Never seen it happen and I’ve seen some of them that were so old they had created a whole new life, or two and you would never sense what they were, unless you knew beforehand.”
“There is no coming back Aelrindel.”
Don’t go there.
“Gimoss is around. I’ve sensed him near your Glenavon,” she told her.
“Glenavon isn’t mine,” Lithoniela replied, her hands tensing up around her waist.
“Good to know,” she teased her and the Princess narrowed her eyes.
“What's that supposed to mean Aelrindel?”
The sorceress sighed, the road opening up, the wider path made of cobblestone that cut through the overgrown fields and met the road towards the Oasis less than ten kilometers away.
“What were you two fools doing really?” she asked her although she kind of knew. Lithoniela blushed and looked away, her eyes blinking in surprise.
From another unseen path parallel to the one they were following a group of soldiers had appeared, about fifty-sixty meters in front of them. Around a score of them sporting spears and sabers. Light infantry. Lithoniela stopped the horse to turn it around and find another path, but another group appeared twenty meters behind them and just a couple of meters away yet another appeared, the latter smaller group carrying bows and long daggers.
Scouts searching on foot, Aelrindel realized and the leading Cofol whistled once to alert the others.
“Your girl is thinly dressed,” the hard-faced wiry scout told Lithoniela in the Steppe Tongue mistaking her for a man due to her pants. “For the time of day. Wait, it’s the middle of the fucking night. Hehe.”
“We were hunting,” Lithoniela told him, her accent passable.
“Night owls?” The scout mocked her. “How old are you kid?”
“Rabbits.”
“Well it’s no surprise you got nothing. What’s with the hoods? You don’t happen to be them terrorists setting fires left and right now eh?”
The scout had his eyes on Aelrindel’s displayed creamy thighs more than their shaded faces and she helped him stay focused on that shifting his way a bit more.
The man’s slanted eyes widened, his eyesight keen, but it was an easy angle.
“Well then. Nice,” he started, Huh? Fuck you! Aelrindel cursed taking offense at the lukewarm description, but another scout interrupted their moment alarmed.
“She’s a girl.”
“I know you idiot,” his leader admonished him a bit irritated, his eyes staying between the sorceress gratuitous split legs.
“The other one sire,” his man elucidated and the first scout frowned, a creepy smile on his face. Why settle for a free show, his mind telling him. When you can participate in the lewd festivities with minimum danger, or repercussions?
Unescorted females weren’t allowed to wander outside after sunset in the Khanate.
The punishment for the offence nine times out of ten a gory death.
One would be remiss to kill a wench afore sampling the goods, was Adi Putra’s favorite dictum.
Good fucking riddance.
Fifty meters away the large group of soldiers had turned seeing the scouts’ torches and waved theirs. Not twenty meters behind them a four-horse drawn lit up scythed chariot appeared from a turn of the cobblestone road, the armoured driver pulling at the reins to stop it upon seeing the road occupied at the order of the also heavily armoured, masked Cofol knight standing next to him.
Smelly shit.
“Ael?” Lithoniela probed in a whisper.
Should we run for it? Was her meaning.
We should have paid more attention. We suck at this, Aelrindel thought sourly, cursing Faelar for not planning this better.
“Girls I have grave news for you,” the scout announced with a lecherous smile, his friends grinning behind him. Aelrindel, felt Lithoniela tense up her hand slipping towards her bow. She glanced the other way where the second group of soldiers had paused as well seeing the lights and then back towards the first large group and the illuminated by oil lamps on its sides large chariot. “You never made it back from your hunt. Twas tragic your fate,” he added sadly and reached to take the reins from Lithoniela.
Seeing no other way around it Aelrindel decided to act. She extended her left leg outwards and caught the scout leader right on the nose breaking it, his warm blood splashing her dirty foot and probably infecting the wound.
The scout standing right behind him frowned not understanding what he was seeing, other than getting a fantastic view of Aelrindel’s divine cunt and out of the corner of her right eye she spotted a third hideous head appear abruptly on the chariot’s carriage, directly behind the two original drivers and just as she pulled her leg back to kick the dazed faltering scout leader again.
Uh?
Many things happened at the same time in the next five seconds.
One and the horrifically wounded newcomer grabbed the driver by the collar and hurled him over the horses. The man standing next to him recoiled and made to turn around, but he shuddered and then collapsed on the carriage and out of sight, the freak taking his masked helm and putting it on his head.
Two and Aelrindel’s foot caught the scout leader on the jaw twice as hard and cracked it breaking four of his teeth and his chin. The man went down with a muffled cry, swallowing his severed tongue and the scout standing next to him found the fletching’s of an arrow sprouting out of his hanging open mouth afore he could react. He went down, Lithoniela burning incense, while Aelrindel ordered the horse to turn left to give her reloading partner room to shoot.
“FUCK!” A scout growled and hurled his torch at them on the count of three, Lithoniela’s next arrow catching him right at the lump on his throat and doubling him over. The final man in their group just barely managing to raise his bow, afore two more arrows smacked his chest and shoved him violently back and into the tall weeds.
Four and the sound of a chariot’s wheels moving was heard, the four long scythes whooshing as they started gaining momentum, two on the upper edge of the carriage and two revolving secured on the wheels.
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” A soldier bellowed and started running towards them after witnessing the scouts getting cut down.
“MURDER!” Came a yell from the other side and the other large group, just as Lithoniela hissed in her ear.
“Get us out of here Ael. For the love of the Goddess!”
Aelrindel stooped over the horse’s head her eyes on the onrushing chariot and the masked freak driving it… sort of, as he just stood rigid on the carriage, burned out, bone exposed arms crossed on his hollowed out half-skeleton chest.
Nesande as my witness.
It’s him!
And the five seconds were over.
“Run like the wind,” Aelrindel gushed a song of courage, her heart beating wild and the horse bolted towards the fields, the illuminated chariot reaching the first rows of unsuspecting soldiers running after the two females in a breath.
The next they had jumped into the tall weeds galloping as fast as they could, the screams and horrifying sounds of severed legs, hands and gutted torsos filling the darkness. Aelrindel swung her head around, the hood billowing off her face and saw the scythed chariot swerving right hard on command, the masked horrifically injured driver bouncing to the side.
The undercarriage clogged with gore, flayed skin and body parts, two whole bloody heads included, stuck at the rails. Their pursuer recovered, stood up on the carriage again, reached and gotten his shovel out. He raised his right arm high, keeping the other crossed and then hurled the shovel towards them.
From at least a hundred meters away.
Turn, Aelrindel ordered their fast galloping horse, Lithoniela leaving the reins and swinging around to fire an arrow at the approaching war machine cutting through the field. The horse bolted right and the tumbling shovel caught its front leg as it swerved adjusting its course mid-flight and ripped it right off above the joint, the skin tearing along the flesh further up leaving exposed bloody bone and torn tendons behind.
Defiant wind, Aelrindel gasped instinctively killing the horse afore they crashed down, the momentum propelling them downwards, despite the strong sudden breeze that blew on their faces.
I should have gone with levitate, she thought tumbling feet over head midair.
Damn it.
She crashed on the weeds covered field, leaves, watery mud and bugs exploding right and left as Aelrindel was dragged on the ground for almost ten meters afore stopping.
“Gah, bleh,” she croaked spitting out the local flora. “Shit.”
Shiiite!
She rolled in panic to the side and then on her knees the lit up chariot gaining on her with every ticking second. Weeds aplenty, she thought, forcing her scrabbled brains to work.
“FUCKING CUNT!” The freak bellowed seeing her, then reached for one of the throwing spears thingies and the overkill as the scythed chariot had already turned slightly to run her mutilated remains over sort of speak. The masked undead, or whatever the hells he was, raised his javelin –there I remembered it- wielding arm again, twenty meters turning into fifteen in the blink of an eye.
Goddess help me here.
HELLO?
Tab tye, a panicked Aelrindel ordered the wild vegetation, her unharmed left arm blackening up to the wrist and her mouth filling with blood.
The field came alive around her and the plants reached out to kill the horses and block the wheels of the chariot abruptly, almost tearing it to pieces in the process, the scythed blades cutting a three meters path though the roots afore they lost all momentum.
The only thing moving fast the next moment the masked freak.
“AHAHAHA!” he roared as he flew past two meters above the ducking sorceress and tried to stab the top of her head with the spear he was still holding. He would have succeeded but Lithoniela’s timely hurled shortsword deflected the spear blade away. Damn. Aelrindel would have expected Lithoniela to use her bow. But I’ll take the save, she decided watching as the scorched man crashed awkwardly without any attempt to protect himself on the ground and remained still.
“Think my arm broke. Heard it snap,” a pale Lithoniela griped, grinding her teeth and hobbled near her.
Ah.
Oras Hells!
“Yours look like Glen’s. What was this?” Lithoniela added, dark circles forming under her eyes. "Goddess it hurts."
“A root spell,” Aelrindel murmured, flinching seeing her partner’s clearly badly broken arm. “Sort of. I’m out of potions. What is this horrid sound?”
What was that about Glen?
“The soldiers are coming,” Lithoniela informed her and glanced at the unresponsive creature. Though the sorceress could hear something moving under him. Come on, I can’t fight this thing all night! Arrgh! “Is that?” Lithoniela probed, grimacing from the pain.
“Yep.”
“How?”
“Don’t know.”
“Is he?”
Aelrindel heard the soldiers approach and sighed ruggedly. “Hey,” she yelled at the crumbled corpse-looking freak. “Are you dead?”
“No,” the freak said after a guilty moment, his disfigured shoulder twitching.
“Wanna talk about it?” She asked tiredly, her left hand fingers hard and black as coal.
“I’m busy! FUCKING BRITTLE BONES!”
“How about a truce? I have a lot on my plate right now,” Aelrindel offered and stooped not to be seen from the approaching lights. She almost planted her face in the mud. The sorceress was running on fumes.
“Fuck I care?”
“Fine, what do you want?”
“My cock sucked. Come here and work on it. I just had it repaired.”
Ugh.
“Seriously?” Lithoniela snapped. “Let’s go Aelrindel.”
“Same goes for you little cunt! Ungrateful brat!”
Lithoniela reached for her shortsword.
“We need to get off this field,” Aelrindel hissed stopping her.
“Sounds like a you problem!”
“What are you doing?” Lithoniela protested through her teeth, left arm dangling. “Damn you look horrible. Are you alright?”
No. But I probably look better than you darling.
“A trade,” Aelrindel murmured dodging her question. They were running out of time.
“Let me turn around so you can reach it fully!” He blasted his response and started rolling on the ground, arms and legs broken, charred bones protruding from torn decaying flesh that was in a disgusting way slowly healing on its own.
Lithoniela with a snarl rushed the reeling, half-burned corpse and kicked it hard. She lifted it clean off the ground. The irate Zilan went for her shortsword next, but stopped abruptly her body locking up. The mangled corpse rose slowly from the ground, flesh still growing on his hideous face, an eye socket empty and leaking white and yellow fluids, no lips around some of the regrown teeth, the rest missing along with the gums.
He reached with a three fingered, flayed arm covered in blisters, tendons showing and veins dripping pus and grabbed the paralyzed Lithoniela’s left breast over her hunter’s attire.
“Gimoss,” Aelrindel said sternly, clenching her jaw, intending to cast another great spell even if it killed her. “You don’t want that.”
“Mmm,” he murmured as the first foot soldiers arrived at the crashed chariot, following the road it had created through the field and spotted them with calls of alarm. He squeezed her breast and pulled it next, as if undecided on whether to play with her, or eat her. “What do I want witch?”
Could he do that?
Aelrindel wasn’t in the mood to find out.
What you took, the seer had said. Thou shall give back.
“A proper vessel,” Aelrindel replied risking a guess, the light of the torches blinding her and the taste of blood in her mouth making her dizzy. She was drained. “Something fitting.”
“You’ll betray your mother’s friends?” Gimoss asked her and reached between the frozen, but crying younger female’s legs.
“They were never my friends,” she said her heart sinking fearing the worst.
“Mortals and their Illusions. You run out of juice, forgetting you can’t out-magic a wyvern,” Gimoss told her didactically letting go of Lithoniela and turned towards her. “You seek to entice me with vague promises and sexual favors. ADMIT IT!”
“Never offered any favors,” Aelrindel retorted, trying to keep her composure. “You’re as vile as they said, but my promises aren’t vague.”
“That’s your moniker alluring harlot!” Gimoss corrected her in his typical ‘cordial’ manner. Standing back with a revolting brow-less frown. “Forget that! Shite, you don’t look very healthy up close. Ugh. Is it venereal?” What did that freak say? “SPEAK! Why should I even entertain it?” Gimoss roared as loud as he could for absolutely no reason and with complete disregard to the fact he was giving their position away.
“I’m her daughter,” Aelrindel croaked, her head hurting.
The other one.
“Her daughter,” Gimoss murmured thoughtfully the line of soldiers approaching them in a semi-circle, the glint of many blades drawn mixing with the lights of at least forty torches. “Aye. The witch is dead. I always forget that. FUCK!”
A dark-faced Aelrindel nodded and tried not to flinch when the freak came to stand in front of her.
“WHO SAID THAT?” Someone yelled angrily.
“SHOW YOUR HANDS! STEP SLOWLY OUT OF THE SHADES!” A man bellowed brazenly.
“VERY SLOWLY!” his friend repeated, not to leave any room for doubt.
“THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!” Cried another, his voice cracking at the end, sounding not as certain as the others.
“Suck on the finger,” Gimoss said tending his half-decomposing half-repairing index finger before her mouth and all the torches went out when she did. “Three circles growing out o’ each other. Start with trickle to make flood,” he chanted soberly the next moment in the Old Tongue, still forming eye only thing glowing. “Witch’s spittle an’ dragon’s blood.”
> Make fire crawl an’ build a wall.
>
> An’ in it burn them all.
The Wyvern whispered in her mind afore she fainted.
AHAHAHA!
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read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms
Scribblehub https://www.scribblehub.com/series/542002/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms/
& https://www.scribblehub.com/series/547709/the-old-realms/