“We should kill the witch.” Said Kai.
“Sssssshhhhh!” Hissed Shin. “Lower your voice or your throat will be the next one I slit.”
He looked back at Sara’s ‘tent’, appraising it with a trickle of mana to his eyes. If Aaya had heard them she wasn’t stirring, in fact nothing was moving in that tent. A tingling terror dripped down his spine, the way she had healed her fingers meant she was a powerful mage. At least as strong as Inquisitor Gaheris was, and he was a full blooded Seraph, a direct son of an angel!
“Listen here you little shit. She is stronger than all of us combined and then some. Don’t forget how many of us Tristan killed when you made a pass at Lorelwhore or whatever that ugly bitch was called.”
“Dad, that wasn’t my fault! She bewitched-”
“I said shut up.” Ordered Shin, his eyes glowing with red mana.
Fearing another of his old man’s beatings Kai shut his mouth. Shin poked the fire with a mana shielded finger, stoking the coals with his bare hands.
“Eighteen, that’s how many of us Tristan killed. The damn monster, if I knew he was a demon I would have let him wring your moronic neck instead of fighting back! Maybe then his whores wouldn’t have killed every single woman we had! Damnit all. Do you know how hard it is to find a woman who will eat human flesh?”
Kai swallowed apprehensively, shaking his head ‘no’, and fully expecting Shin to beat him senseless for the third time this week. Shin was a mean drunk, doubly so now that he had an actual reason to be angry, Kai might end up as breakfast.
“Don’t touch her. Let Sara work her charms on that mutilated bitch. Maybe if we adopt her she can heal herself. The way her fingers sprouted… She’s stronger than Gaheris, let her go if it comes down to a fight. Tell all the men. I’m going to sleep.”
Shin stomped off, walking through two fires, the battle mage unhindered by the menial heat. Kai smothered the fire with dirt, he had no intention of obeying his father. One by one he roused the men, gathering a dozen of the remaining men. Mage or not, a dozen men could hold down a single woman, in the worst case scenario she might tag one or two of them, but they could always cripple her like the demons had.
Try casting without a tongue or fingers. We’ll cut you up and give you enough to heal yourself each day. An infinite food hack. Thought Kai, laughing at his own puns.
Thirteen men approached the wagon they colloquially knew as the ‘booty’ wagon. Sara was one of the budding prizes they had taken from their victims, she had been three years old when they first found her, and Shin decided to raise her up right.
Kai split the group into four squads, they needed to gag and bind the mage, Sara knew her roll and should have snuck out of the wagon by now, but Kai moved towards the bottom entrance, heaven help that girl. If she was cuddling with another one of their meals he was going to take her into the woods and make her cut a switch. Sara could only blame herself, he wasn’t the one telling her to get attached or develop feelings for their targets. She knew what was coming. It wasn’t his fault if she got too close.
On Kai’s signal the assault team ripped the wagon open, four men entered from the top and five from the bottom ready to hold Aaya down. They collided in the center, finding the wagon empty.
“What the fuck?”
“Where’s the whore?”
“Shine a lamp you idiots!” Ordered Kai.
Flickering lamplight filled the wagon, showing it vacant except for Sara’s small body. Her face was blue, with purple bruises around her neck, fingermarks from where Aaya had strangled her in their sleep.
“She killed Sara! Find her!” Shouted Kai.
His call was echoed by the others, four bands of hunters would find the ingrate –they wouldn’t even need an excuse now– and bring her down. Kai broke from his own group, sprinting towards Shin’s tent, the battlemage specialized in fire magic, but his shields would be needed against another mage.
Kai threw open the tent flap, falling inward onto Shin’s legs. “Shin! Get up, the woman killed Sara!” He yelled, shaking his legs.
No response.
Confusion filled the darkness, and blinded Kai to Vesper’s dagger. Ashera caught his hair, pulling it back so the blade, enhanced by magic, could slice through his neck. Mortal flesh parted, spilling his life essence across his soulless father’s corpse.
Ashera’s Soul Sphere twinkled in the darkness, absorbing one more wayward soul. She hadn’t realized until now that neither her coin eye or Sphere eye required light to see, they could pierce complete darkness and highlight the cannibals with crimson mist. Mana augmented her strength, drained from her new silver banded reserve, allowing her to pull the larger Kai into the wagon, his neck snapped as she lifted him, leaving the ligaments to support his weight.
Three murders– she shook her head, these weren’t innocent people, this was no clandestine assassination, this was justice. Three executions had been performed, each cleaner than any fate the trio had inflicted on others. Sara went to sleep and never woke up, same with Shin.
Placing one hand on Kai’s back, she sucked the soul out of his body, a mere twig next to the ancient oak that was Shin’s brilliant soul. Two years of mana circulated through her body and eye, she had never had this much raw power, she needed to use it, expend it on the wicked cannibals. Give them the slaughter they were seeking.
Ashera envisioned three spells, casting each on a dagger in her belt. Vesper’s twin dagger’s lifted into the air, carried by a simulacra of Ashera, hood pulled over her face and cloak wrapped tightly around her. She removed the scent and sound illusions she might use during the day, and reduced the illusion’s resolution, counting on the darkness to sell her lies. “Go, slay all cannibals.” Whispered Ashera, issuing their raison d'etre.
They scattered to the camp, blades seeking spines or necks. Ashera paused to cock Shin’s crossbow, hoping to save some of her new power for Lorelai. How many centuries of mana will it take to kill Lorelai? Hmm, I can’t risk blowing magic on these cannibals.
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Exiting the tent she found her illusions reaping well. Six men lay dead on the ground with four idjits trying to tackle her illusions. A grin uncovered her teeth.
“Rot in hell you fools.”
Sara’s crossbow twanged, bolt cutting through darkness to hit a particularly gaunt fellow above his areola. Unintentionally titillating the cannibal.
“Aaaarrrrhhhh!!!” Screamed the man. Calling the attention of the entire camp. Men who had been asleep began to stir at the sound, blades scrapped against sheaths and several crossbows began creaking as dreary hands worked their cranks.
Shin’s crossbow twanged, this time the bolt pierced a man center mass, he collapsed, his Aorta sliced into ribbons by the bolt’s broad head. One cannibal leapt from a wagon onto Ashera’s illusion passing through every part of it except the blade it carried. Vesper’s dagger pierced his side and stuck. His hands pinning the blade.
Her illusions were exactly that, figments of trickery without form. They carried just enough power to swing a dagger, and even then it had to aim at a surface artery to be effective.
Pinned in the dark, the illusion tried to hold onto the captive knife, the man tried to punch her in the face, finding his had passing through a ghost.
Ashera had no intentions of losing her advantage, with a running start she wound up a kick –hardening her leg with a month of mana– connecting with the man’s temple. Propelled by the fury of a hung over Chuck Norris her roundhouse kick connected like a freight train. The man’s skull popped open spraying gray matter across his fallen kindred.
Enhancing her arms with mana, Ashera cocked both crossbows, nimble fingers pulling back the two hundred pound strings with ease. Darkness mocked the cannibals, and her illusions found two more throats. One of Kai’s rapists remained, a man Ashera wanted to test her Sphere against.
Her illusions circled, blocking any escape.
“What are the three things Loki hates?”
The cannibal focused on her, hate in his eyes. “Bitch! I’ll kill you!” He howled.
Ashera’s pulled down her bandaged Sphere with a pinky finger, paralyzing the man as he saw a darkness that was infinitely deeper than the moonless night around him.
“Angels,” Ashera activated Sphere’s soul stealing, “Demons,” the man quivered unable to comprehend the agony that engulfed his body yet could not be felt. “And malice.” Finished Ashera, ripping soul from flesh.
Throughout the spell her silver eye observed Sphere’s work. Noting the spell’s limited range and ineffectiveness against wards. It also informed Ashera of how many living cannibals remained. They cowered in their tent wagons, or under them, easy prey for her knife illusions.
“I never killed cannibals during a siege, never got the chance they always defected to the demons once we found out about them. But cannibals when you have food around you? You’re not even animals.” She called, taunting the cowards.
One by one they died. Stabbed to death, or from a crossbow bolt to the back as they fled from the knife ghosts. Each of their souls were caught by Sphere, granting a few more minutes of mana to their executioner. By dawn the camp lay silent. Blood soaked the tents, a tribute of death to placate eternal vengeance. Ashera stepped on Shin’s face.
“Enjoy your judgment.” She sneered, grinding her heel into his nose.
She spent the next eight hours looting the camp, checking every nook and cranny of the wagons with her silver eye; what had once been an unlucky coin now showed her loose boards and secret cubbies with gold or daggers stored. Any meat was discarded, added to the pile of corpses along with bloody clothes. She would give the victims a burial by fire, at least then their bodies could not be desecrated further. Hitching four horses to the largest covered wagon she filled it with swords, dagger, and crossbows, selecting the choicest weapons for her coming vengeance.
Inside Shin’s tent she found the second most valuable item in camp, a dagger with a large sapphire set in the hilt, a hidden reserve that would allow any wielder to draw on the reserves’ mana; including her illusions. As extensions of herself the mirror image illusions could enhance their strength, fortify the dagger, or act as a second origination point for further spells.
An exceptionally fitting find. This will be perfect for dealing with Nerus, and I already know how to use it against Tristan.
Ashera hefted her two reserves tapping on the mana within them, power flowed through her to fill the dagger, a single measly month of mana. While the remainder of the reserve entered Sphere, better to have the mana where she could access it quicker, and if the need arose she could sell the empty reserve.
A muffled moan broke with the dawn. Ashera nearly leapt out of her skin, she was certain everyone was dead! What was moaning? Drawing one of Vesper’s daggers she advanced towards the sound, it had come from a covered wagon she had thought was empty, crimson haze lingered over the wagon. Odd, since it had dispersed from most of the camp already, except near the pile of bodies though that was due to the concentration of cannibals.
This silver eye seems to require some finesse… I understand why Seraphs or Inquisitors seemed so fickle now. They could see some things, but the answers aren’t always given to you on a silver platter.
Swapping Vesper’s dagger for the short sword, Ashera lifted the flap that covered the wagon’s mouth, piercing its orifice with stealth as she slipped inside. Crimson haze rose from… The floor? She tapped on the wood, poking it with her sword tip until a groan burst from beneath the wagon’s floorboards. By the guiding sight of her silver eye Ashera found the trapdoor she had missed, lifting the false floor she found the source of the crimson mist. A woman lay in a narrow crawlspace between the false and true floors, held in place with foot long iron spikes, identical to the ones that had held Ashera on the cross.
She was so stunned she could only stand –mouth opened– and gawk at the cannibal’s work. The woman was in a sorry state, dried blood covered her, skin a patchwork of different tans, as if she had been left to dry in the sun, with pieces of flesh cut off her, then healed.
“How are you alive?” Wondered Ashera, her words snapping her out of the trance.
Leaping into the crawlspace Ashera tried to free the woman’s right wrist, she pulled on the iron spike fruitlessly.
Damnit, i’m a weak little bitch, and they drove these spikes in deep enough to hold a Lycan!
Craven sigils on the spikes caught her eye, runes, etchings that guided mana and could enhance the properties of whatever they were carved into. It gave her an idea, channeling mana through her limbs she empowered herself, ripping the spike free with brute force. Ashera reached for the spike in the woman’s hand and froze. Brown claws extended from the woman’s fingertips, a Lycan.
So that’s how you survived… They nailed you to a wagon and carved off meals until your regeneration ran out…
If she had been alive, Ashera would have vomited thrice over. As she was, she leaned back, looking the woman in the face. The Lycan’s eyes had been taken, as had her nose, ears, and lips, leaving behind a bloody wreck that moved Ashera’s undead heart to pity.
“Swear by your Mother that you will not harm me, and I will free you.”
“nnuuu” Was all the woman could manage.
“What?” Gasped Ashera, flabbergasted by the woman’s refusal. “You would rather stay pinned and rotting than swear by the Huntress?”
“untress… yes.” Groaned the woman, voice raspy.
“You swear on the Huntress that you will do me no harm if I free you?” Demanded Ashera, rising. She would leave if the woman refused, Lycans were natural enemies of demons, but they were hunters first.
Killing one human woman was well within their modus operandi.
“...yes.” Groaned the woman. Coughs raked across her naked body, highlighting the patchwork skin.
Flashbacks to the river where Ashera had seen her own stretchmarks melted her resolve.
“We have a deal.”
Ashera freed the woman, removing the iron spikes in her arms and legs, as her limbs came free the woman brought her limbs into herself, curling into the fetal position. Curiously, the wounds did not bleed, but they did not heal completely, some vestige of Lycanthropic healing lingered within the broken woman.
Her hands curled to her neck, sparkling in the crimson haze of midnight, exposed copper wires twinkled at Ashera’s silver, weaving in and out of the woman’s neck. If the wire had been sewn into her flesh –or tightened so harshly it cut into her then was left in place for the skin to heal around it– Ashera couldn’t tell.
“Damn monsters.” Ashera swore, mana enhancing her fingers so she could break the wire.
The woman groaned in pain, her throat too parched for anything else. “Hush dear, I know it hurts now but I’ll get you free. You survived. There is food and water, but no meat. Sorry but I can’t trust any meat in a cannibal’s camp.”
A rattling wheeze escaped the woman’s lips, a half laugh as she was lifted free of her metallic bindings and carried into the center of camp. Ashera clothed her in blankets and fed the woman, watching in morbid fascination as the woman’s face repaired itself, nail holes in her arms and feet sealed as she ate, the meager rations enough to rejuvenate the Lycan’s absurd healing factor.
“Thank you.” Said the woman, her voice already sounding better.
“Holy shit, I wish I could eat a few nuts and my face would get that pretty.” Ashera said.
Her teasing was interrupted by a throaty growl. She turned, finding a dozen crouching wolves aimed at her throat. That wasn’t what scared her though.
The nine foot tall wolf –with muscles that made Rowan look like a toddler– was a foot away from her, teeth barred.