Chapter 79
Nayali
Burning Sheep.
Burning sheep. That was the first thing that caught Nayali’s attention. That helped direct Nayali towards the real attack. Flames erupted up and around children. Two larger human frames were falling to the ground, their bodies little more than charred meat on old bones. It was gruesome. Wore the soldiers were smiling and jeering at the fleeing children and what remained of their flock.
The soldiers each took turns firing off pillars of flames taking of fleeing children one by one. The children moved quickly, each trying to go as quickly as possible. The smaller children were the first to be consumed, their smaller legs unable to keep up with their elder peers. Some then lost their lives as they turned back to try and help their neighbor or sibling.
“Hahahaha!” The men cackled as they jeered at the children that still fled towards the tree line.
Then just as they arrived flanking squad of Azani soldiers appeared and created a wall of flame that jutted up from the ground. One boy, the oldest of the group carrying a sac tightly to his chest spun backwards through the flames before appearing on the other side of the flame pillar and abruptly collapsing on the ground. His body in flames as he dropped the bundle in his arms as he got up and charged the flanking soldiers. It was a last-ditch effort, his life was forfeit at this point, all he was doing was trying to buy some of his friends and fellow villagers a slightly easier wall to charge through.
He made it five steps before a second pillar of flame sprung up and engulfed him. He collapsed in a charred husk like the ones that became of the two elders. The ones who had probably been left behind to tend to and care for the children. That was the first and last true sight that Nayali had before rage filled her heart and left her blinded to what she was doing. To any that saw her, all they saw were two glowing red eyes that filled the night sky from above.
Nayali filled with rage flew in like a specter, a reaper of death, an avenging spirit. Whatever word you would use she was that and more.
Fueled by her rage Florijma, her bonded dragon roared out a piercing mind blast. The blast turned everyone’s attention to the pair. Everyone being the Azani platoon that had been sent to this area, as all the children lay dead or dyeing.
At this point a malevolent rage filled Nayali causing bloodlust and anger to swell from her very being. At this point she wished she still had the dark miasma of energy to fuel herself from, but that was gone. Instead, all she had were the primal instincts that had been imparted from her time carrying the alien power. She drew upon the instinctive rage that was prevalent in that power and she struck.
Realizing that no one alive was anything more than an enemy she let out a controlled burst of electricity. This was like what she used to disable an armada of war ships over Dunthir, but far less devastating. Before over Dunthir she was fueled by the torrents of energy from the dark pillar. Now she was only able to use her own reserve, but which were still formidable. She was now the most powerful she had ever been in her life. Despite being renounced by her god.
Perhaps spite played a part in her ruthless assault of her former countrymen. The men who were still clearly blessed by their god, her old god. A god of wrath and vengeance. A god who would have you kill an enemy to the last woman and child. Then go on to burn and salt their fields should any remain hidden from the war. This was the path of her old god, the god of death and vengeance. Even now in her rage induced state she dared not think his name, lest she invoke his ire once more.
Instead, she struck down the enemies ruthlessly and efficiently. She struck from above, her aerial combat skill on full display as she was the best flying sword master the Azani had trained in generations. With her mithril sword on hand, she was easily able to hack, and slice her way through the enemy lines that stayed by the woods.
One soldier, a junior recruit by the looks of him turn and fled to the woods.
Seeing that one ran, a smile broke out onto Nayali’s lips. She was the snarling wolf chasing a fat and particularly slow deer. At least that was the mentality she had now.
A wicked snarl filling her lips she looked around the battlefield. Everything was either burnt or had dying embers in them. Every child was dead and left to little more than a husk. They had performed a flawless pincer attack against children. Children! That thought alone caused the anger in her mind to redouble.
She looked around to see that Florijma was now tearing through the drivers. The squad of soldiers that had gone in a line to herd the children right into the ambush. Giant bite marks were clear in each one of the soldiers’ throats. It was a clever attack for the psychic dragon, being the smallest of the dragons, they made their way in life by disabling their prey and giving a quick bite to the vulnerable areas before consuming their prey. Seeing that her bonded had taken care of her section. Nayali turned to see severed arms, legs and torsos cut into two all splayed about around her.
It was too good of a death for you lot. She seethed in anger seeing as how despite being hacked to death, they all died relatively quickly. No, not all of them. There was still one left. One who ran thinking that he might be able to survive if he ran far enough, fast enough.
Realizing that she still had one remaining prey that she could savor the flavor of his fear Nayali rose to the air and darted about.
Crash, crackle, pop.
If Nayali hadn’t learned how to track from her time following the trails that Aren had pointed out that showed Lykan’s direction, the sounds of her current target would have been enough. As it was, this was almost overkill with how easy it was to find the fleeing soldier. First, he ran in a straight line, second, he charged through twigs and branches like they were open fields. Each step caused a new sound to rise and alert every one of his approaches.
Had there been other predators about Nayali might have been worried that she would have to first save her prey from another opponent. Fortunately, most predators had been scared off, or at least knew to remain hidden when fires were erupting. As such any predators that might have been lured out by the sounds of frantic prey fleeing through the woods.
Nayali was over top the fleeing warrior in seconds. It was clear that this was a fresh conscript, likely barely old enough to join the military. This was a common tactic, putting junior soldiers into veteran groups. This helped maintain numbers for veteran groups, while helping to get junior soldiers acclimated faster.
“Hahaha!” Nayali cackled, like a banshee or a wicked witch of the forest. A part of her almost felt bad for encouraging the stereotype, of a woman always luring young men to the death in the forest. In this instance though, she didn’t mind. In fact, she fully accepted the stereotype and played it up when she realize it was working on her current target.
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Nayali flew past the soldier who only had the cackle of warning. He spun about trying to find the source of the sound.
Slice.
There was a blur, as something moving at speed darted past. Najanial Opund, the last soldier of his elite platoon felt something slice into his shoulder. He turned, only to see a stream of blood running down his right shoulder.
“Hahaha!” That cackle came again. Najanial placed his left hand over the wound and immediately tried to course fire through his palm to cauterize the wound while also turning and trying to flee from the spirit of vengeance that had found them.
He knew these woods were haunted. They had that feel to them. There were also the tales that the magi killers lived here somewhere. Of course, he had tried to discount the stories, but the further inland they went the more stories about how the magi killers were in the area played to his fears. There was also the story of the missing squad from a week ago. They went sent on a simple burn and salt job, nothing for the likes of the squad. But they failed to report in.
When they were sent to check, all they found were trials of animals and small children fleeing. They managed to track the children, but it was a trap. In their death the children and their care takers must have made a prayer that summoned forth the evil that was now chasing him.
An unbound spirit was nothing to take lightly.
Najanial fled, until he hid behind a large tree. He was relatively sure he had eluded her, the wrathful spirit. With grit and determination, he used the moment to begin cauterizing his wound. Flames erupted from his fingers and began searing the flesh together. It wasn’t pretty, but it would work long enough for him to get to a healer.
A gentle breeze.
Wind began to blow in his left ear. The sound was both unnatural and unexpected as despite all his panic the forest had been relatively quiet. Quiet as a grave. Najanial quickly shook that thought from his mind, as he turned left to look for the source of the wind. That was the moment he felt a thin flat blade of death pressed against his neck.
Holding perfectly still Najanial shifted his eyes to follow the blade to its wielder. What he saw both shocked and amazed him. Beautiful. That was the one word that came to his mind as he looked at the woman who could easily be the avenging spirit of an Azani Princess.
The specter of death before him was beautiful, long dark hair, fading tan skin. She looked like an exotic beauty who had been slowly growing paler the longer she had remained away from the light, away from her time amongst the living. Even covered in the blood of his fellow soldiers and countrymen she was beautiful. He half expected rows upon rows of razor-sharp shark teeth to appear when she opened her mouth.
“Sor…sorry.” Was all Najanial could think to say as he looked into her fierce blue eyes that he could have sworn glowed red with anger when he first saw her descending from the heavens like a wrathful god.
Hearing something in his words Nayali nodded. She could feel the sincerity of his words. Also looking at the boy before her, it was clear that this boy could have done little more than follow orders.
“I had wanted to drag this out.” She spoke back in perfect Azani. Was this a gift of the dead, that everyone who died would get the ability to speak any language? This was the last thought Najanial had as his view of the world began to spin and rotate.
Najanial fell, or at least he thought he fell as he was now looking at two sets of feet. One was wearing boots similar to his own. The other was a set of female feet that were easily gliding off the ground. He blinked once, then twice, then his flow of life stopped.
Nayali returned from the woods a few minutes later. She felt both exhausted and relieved.
“The witch has found a survivor.” Florijma spoke into Nayali’s mind as soon as she got close enough. While she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of returning her thoughts to her bonded, she knew such developments would happen in time. The one time she had tried to communicate back she had done the equivalent of mental screaming and caused Florijma to have a headache for a full day. Apparently, she was a very powerful psychic, or at least had the power to be a great telepath. The only problem was how could she moderate her energy output. Still there were other problems to take care of, like a surviving soldier. At first, she thought about killing this one as well, but then thought maybe interrogating the soldier would be the better way to proceed.
All thoughts of torturing and extracting information from an enemy soldier were quickly evaporated as she entered to clearing to see Aren holding a small bundle in her arms and bouncing up and down in a rhythmic fashion.
Seeing the act caused Nayali’s heart to drop, as she recognized the bundle. That was the same bundle the older boy who charged through the pillar backwards had been carrying. The same one he discarded before quickly charging the soldiers while he was being burnt alive.
Seeing the child in Aren’s arms and realizing how the boy sacrificed himself to give the child a chance to live sparked something deep within Nayali. The world became blurry for a second. As it took Nayli a moment before she realized she was crying.
Tears filled her eyes as she drew close. The closer she got the more she realized how small the mind was before her. The child was barely a hear old if that, yet somehow it, or rather she had remained silent during the whole attack.
Realizing where they were and that they were out in the middle of nowhere motherly concerns began to flare up in Nayali’s mind. On the one hand she had no ties to the child. On the other hand, she had seen someone give up their lives to save the child before them.
Finally, after a moment of fear and doubt Nayali asked, “what can we do?”
Aren looked up and locked eyes with Nayali. Upon seeing the intense stare returned Aren nodded.
“There is an outpost for the Order not far from here. I will take her there.” Aren paused but realized that such words alone would not be enough to appease Nayali. “She will be cared for. We always take in the outcasts.”
Hearing that Nayali wanted to argue to protest. The child before her was no mere outcast, she was beautiful and all but radiated mana. Whether that was from her being so close to the death of so many Azani flame wielders, or whether it was an innate talent of hers Nayali couldn’t tell. But after a moment of thinking about this, and realizing Nayali herself couldn’t offer the child anything, she only nodded.
“I cannot take one such as yourself to the outpost.” Aren began, but quickly continued. “I fear this will be where we are forced to part ways.”
Hearing this Nayali felt like part of herself was being ripped apart. She was about to protest, but then felt the dried blood crack on her hands as she flexed. She looked down to see that blood of all the enemies she had slain were still dripping down her sword blade.
“One second, this is an old tradition.” Nayali said, dragging her finger over the blade and gathering drops of enemy blood and viscera onto her finger. Then with a deft motion she placed her finger over the baby’s head and made a circle with a dot in the center and a line to the right side. “An old symbol of power.” Nayali said to Aren.
Then she turned to the baby and was about to say the old prayer she would have said. A prayer to her old god who had abandoned her. Instead, she focused on a way to spread the peace and love that her new god, well greater spirit, would want.
Thinking for a moment the words finally came. “Great forest spirit, may you look after and guide this one. May she never forget the act of love that saw her through this day. May she never forget her homelands, and the faces of her ancestors.”
With that Nayali let her hand drop. There was a faint golden hue that covered the girl for a moment. Then the golden hue slowly seemed to be sucked into the blood-filled mark of vitality on her forehead. Then the blood that had been smeared slowly began do dissolve as that too seemed to be absorbed into the young girl’s body.
There was an awkward moment as the two just stared at each other. It was clear that the great forest spirit had heard the prayers of her newest priestess and had responded.
“I must be going.” Aren said, her own face suddenly filled with complex emotions. For a second Nayali almost swore it looked like she would cry.
Then in a second, she was gone, quickly going through the forests that had served as a hiding spot for the ambushing forces not moments ago.
Nayali was alone, in a foreign land, with no orders or purpose to follow. For a moment she felt lost. She had always had a direction, a purpose, but now? Now what?
“Should we try to find Lykan?” Florijma asked.
Hearing that Nayali felt conflicted. Why was she looking for Lykan? He had abandoned her. Also, there were no signs of where he had gone. They followed his trail to the outskirts of his homeland, only to fine multiple sets of feet everywhere throughout the ash covered city.
She remembered how they took a few hours tracking down the people of the city and trying to see if any signs of Lykan could have been found. Had they not done that, had they only followed the trail of people faster, they could have saved them all.
Her heart burdened by such a revelation caused Nayali to pause. For the first time in all her life she was free, well and truly free. What was worse, despite how much she always dreamed of this moment or one just like it, she was well and truly afraid.