A Good Day To Die
Lonewolf was a tall woman, athletic and well-shaped, with bronze skin and smouldering grey eyes. Iron corded muscles flexed under her surprisingly smooth skin with every predatory movement. She opened the window of the hut and let the warm breeze of the pleasant spring day flow over her nude breasts and through her hair. There was an aura and confidence of power about her, which hinted at more than the clearly visible physical strength.
She was indeed a powerful mage, but now a strange and alarming feeling crept into her mind. It was as though she was a fly trapped in the net of a particularly hungry spider. There was, of course, the fact that she tried to live in a village, even though she was a nomad at heart. She had to work in the only inn, because she did not understand farming, but she had chosen this life for the time being. There was an underlying current that was far more disturbing.
The village had been built near the river Nujir, which was the border to the small kingdom of Nurm, but not on its banks. Most of the fields were between the village and the stream, where irrigation was easiest on dry summers. While the houses of the place were typical enough for this area with their timber framing and thatched Roofs, the young mage could never beat a feeling of unpleasant antiquity.
Lonewolf had used magic once and realised that the area was blessed by some forgotten god, as though it had been a temple once. Once or twice she had glimpsed hints of ancient masonry hidden underneath the more modern walls. Sometimes ancient temples were the prisons of terrible creatures, which might break out of their immemorial prisons, once the god and the purpose of the place had been forgotten. Maybe...
The stirring of Nirahr, her lover interrupted her train of thought. They had retired early last night to spent the rest of that evening together. Lonewolf always seemed to overwhelm her partner with the intensity and length of her passion. He seemed a strong enough man, but Lonewolf was physically far superior to almost any man. "It looks to be a good day," he said. "A good day to die," Lonewolf said grimly.
She sensed with either her arcane or her primeval barbarian senses that there was an upcoming battle. The wind was in the west, carrying the salty scent of the ocean and the aroma of sweat beneath the armour of at least a thousand men. That last part was slowly increasing in intensity. They were moving towards the village. Lost in thought, she moved towards the door, forgetting she was still nude.
Ishra was a small and feminine woman, or at least seemed to be one at a first glance, even more so in the arms of her large husband Braktus, who gently cradled her. She was not entirely sure if he was still asleep, or just pretending to be and slipped out of his embrace. Ishra was slender almost to the point of being skinny, but had surprisingly large breasts, which made her appear very womanly. Slowly and silently she walked out of the bedroom, but some of the floor boards creaked, ruining any pretense of stealth.
The woman made her way to one of the windows with an increasingly queasy feeling. She felt like she was being dragged into the terrible planar Blood War, were the two major races of fiends battled to prove, who had the right approach to evil. Ishra was one of the few, who had survived serving as a mercenary in that terrible conflict, whose scale and cruelty was beyond the minds of mortals.
She felt a strange calling, almost like that of the more subtle fiends, who had tried to trick or enslave her. Something tugged at the dark side of her soul. Ishra fought the urge to yield, as she had done hundreds of times, her lips becoming tight and thin. She lost focus of the world around her for a moment.
Nirahr sighed. Lonewolf deliberately ignored the customs and laws of civilization whenever she could get away with it. The barbarian naturally believed the way of her people to be superior. He got out of bed and looked for her clothes, but did not find them.
The woman always made him feel strangely inadequate, even though he was a handsome and strong enough man himself. Nirahr could stand his own in most fights, but there was a natural grace, power and fierceness to Lonewolf, that worried him more than just a little. He never felt as exhausted, as he did after having sex with her. Sometimes he felt like she was a cat, and he was just a mouse she played with and would kill sooner or later.
He opened the door and found his girl-friend lying on the ground, listening to its rumours. She rose and said: "The reading is strangely muddled. There are too many feet from an awful number of directions. There is also something else deeper in the ground. It seems to rage, but strangely out of phase with this reality. Better get your armour." He said: "You are nude." She shrugged. He blinked.
Lonewolf was wearing her robe, which barely covered her breasts and private parts, though it reached to the middle of her calves, and a pair of sandals, which also held the sheaths of two slender swords. "We have work to do, before all hell breaks loose," she said and made her way towards the inn.
When the barbarian went to work fully armed something was seriously amiss. Nirahr sighed and returned to the house, remembering the last time she spoke the words: "This is a good day to die." They had accompanied young and inexperienced adventurers, who had an important message to deliver, but were strangely reluctant to reveal it to their guards.
Like the army on this morning, the young mage's acute barbarian senses had smelled the well concealed trolls long before they were revealed. She tried to convince the group to change its course, but they were to stubborn to listen to the experienced mage. She had warned them, how terrible those creatures were, but not even that could change their minds, raising the suspicion, that they were under magical compulsion.
Two adventurers died, when the creatures leapt from their hiding places and attacked with large swords. Trolls were three metres tall, strong and hard to kill. The wizard of the adventurers had been able to cast one scorching ray, igniting one of the creatures. Lonewolf had already drawn her swords and charged the troll next to her. She parried its attack with her icy sword without slowing down in her advance and stabbed the creature with her flaming sword.
Nirahr engaged another troll, barely parrying and dodging its amazingly skilled attacks. He found his sword erupting with flame too, which made his opponent a bit more careful. A terrible scream pierced the sky. Suddenly there was a large dragon wreathed in flame, scarring the sky with its terrible heat. It leapt on the trolls, who barely had time to react to the new threat. The creature, which had faced Nirahr suddenly turned to Lonewolf.
There was no time to shout a warning. The barbarian did not need one. Grimly she faced the leader of the trolls, miraculously increasing in strength, as she did so. Lonewolf fought in an unusually defensive way, until the dragon bit off its head. She turned to the other adventurers, but they were all dead. The young mage killed the last troll, who was just about to rip off the arm of one of the adventurers, probably to eat it. The dragon flew away and was gone, before it could dive behind the horizon.
"It is a shame I cannot ask the spirits, what the secret they had was," Lonewolf spoke. "There is something very odd and terrible going on here." They searched the bodies of humans and monsters, but neither yielded anything useful to answer the questions. "I will burn the bodies," the young mage said. Nirahr did not entirely agree, but he did not feel like burying them either. They did, however, pile a cairn of stones over the ashes.
"I always though trolls were to stupid to fight like that," the warrior said when that unpleasant work was done. "You have no idea, what trolls really are," Lonewolf said gloomily.
When Ishra regained her focus, her husband Braktus was standing in the room. She would probably not have heard him, even when she had been less distracted. He was a master thief, to whom stealth was a second nature. He was a massive man, not really fat, but with quite a good deal of weight to him. Much of it was muscle, but more importantly, there was a lithe grace to his every movement, which seemed strangely incongruous with one as bulky as him.
"There is work to do," he said gently. "Today's work will be done with the blade of the sword, not that of a ploughshare," quoth she. "I am still wanted dead by several demon lords. I hope they don't have anything to do with this." Braktus said: "They cannot easily reach into the material worlds. Fiends have to be summoned and are usually forced to serve. They have far more they hate. Most have probably forgotten about you. Does a mortal warrior really matter, when you have rival demons and the lords of the hated devils to deal with?"
"Why did you never get caught?" she asked. "Observation and careful planning," he said. "I only steal from the filthy rich, who have more valuables than they could spent in a lifetime. It is always amazing how avaricious these people are. I have kept my share, but given most to charity." He smiled. "I even considered joining the ring-givers for some time, but I don't entirely trust their philosophy would work out in the end. Though they usually seem to have what they need, when they need it."
"Sometimes it is odd, how things do work out in the planes," Ishra said. "I always thought those bashers were completely barmy." Braktus spoke: "Many people would say that about someone who voluntarily fights in the Blood War." Ishra glared at him, then she said gloomily: "Maybe I did not plan to survive." The woman looked at her husband. "I will wear my armour," quoth she.
She walked into another room and opened a chest. She put on a suit of padded underwear and retrieved a rather fiendish looking suit of armour from the chest. "I need your help with this," she said. It was a suit of full plate armour made from the hide of demons, including a helmet that had once been the skull of a fiend, which gave Ishra a terrifyingly diabolic look, when all pieces had been fitted on her body.
"I have never seen..." Braktus began. The armour lost its solid form and shrunk and melded with the skin of Ishra, until she appeared to be skyclad. "You should dress in something," he said. "I am already wearing an entire suit of armour," she said, deliberately misunderstanding him.
Lonewolf walked through the village, her scant robe floating behind, revealing her legs and much of her body with each step. The village was stirring. People were cooking their breakfast, dressing and preparing for the day's work. Some of the men stared at the beautiful young mage, usually to get slapped by their jealous wives, who secretly admired the powerful barbarian, wishing for her strength and confidence.
The young woman entered the inn, were one man was awakening, who had drunk so much that he did not make it home and Roland, the proprietor of the inn were waiting. The latter was an athletic man with greying hair, who shook his head. "Do you have any idea, what you are doing to men?" he asked. "Yes." Lonewolf replied. "First they stare and desire me, some even leer, then they come closer and see, how big and strong I am. Most then fear me and those who still don't get it..." She playfully slammed her right fist into the cup of her left hand.
Obviously the drunkard did not get her hint and tried to grab the young mage, who moved gracefully and sent the man flying out of the door. "I am quite capable of dealing with men who don't get the hint," she said unnecessarily. "You will run into someone bigger an stronger sooner or later," he said. "Then I will make myself bigger and stronger," Lonewolf said with a shrug. "The very strength of the mountain runs in my blood."
"Let us get to work. There is little time. An army of at least a thousand will be here before midday. I don't think they are friendly," the young mage changed the subject. Roland was a retired officer from the army of Coreanus, one of the remaining kingdoms which had once been part of the empire of Ionien. He knew better than to ignore the young barbarians warning, knowing how acute and probably magically attuned her senses were.
No-one in the village seemed to know, why he retired from the army, for he was still hale. Lonewolf suspected it was for love. Nirahr once suggested that Roland had a wife when he took over the inn, but she betrayed him with another man, who murdered her. Roland never spoke about those events and people did not ask him.
"Will Nirahr also come?" he asked. "I did him so hard last night, that he probably won't," Lonewolf said. "He should be here soon enough though, if he doesn't hunt some other skirts before." Roland locked the gaze of her smouldering grey eyes. "I think he is too afraid of you." He turned away. "Damn, you are beautiful," he muttered. "I doubt you are truly faithful. A woman like you..." Tha man's voice trailed off.
Lonewolf eyed him sharply. "You are lucky, you are still breathing," she said. The young mage moved over to Roland and put a hand on his shoulder, as a man would. He looked at her thankfully. "I just wonder, what happened to the small girl. I have not seen her. I hope that big husband of hers did not do something bad..."
At that moment Nirahr entered. He looked at the older man with a strange fire in his eyes. "Curb your jealousy," Lonewolf growled. He turned his gaze to her and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Looking at Roland again, he said: "Ishra Devilbane? I would be more worried that she did something bad to him. She fought in the Blood War and even the greater fiends feared her." The older man started to say something, thought better of it and closed his mouth again.
The young mage summoned a small dust devil, which cleaned out the sawdust, refuse and spilled drinks from the last night. She sighed and used another spell. Splinters and some of the dust just wiped out gathered again, making broken furniture whole again. "There is no time for real carpentry," Lonewolf said. She pointed at the garbage pit. "It should soon be magically cleaned. All kinds of unsavory things could live in there. I sense too much unbound magic. What the hell do you use in your cooking?"
"It's something about the storage cellar," he said. "It does not seem to have any effects on the guests and there was no magician available, before you came here." Lonewolf spoke: "We will check your cellar, when the battle is done, but before it we have real work to do." Nirahr followed her to the kitchen, where she did most of the chopping, because she was amazingly fast with knives.
Braktus sighed. Ishra had seduced him, wearing that melded armour, reminding him forcefully of both her beauty and her inhuman strength. She had just left him, supposedly to find something to dress, He had not actually felt any difference to other times they had sex. She had looked like a fiend for a moment, before the suit had turned invisible. He went looking for his own armour of dull and dark leather, well maintained to be silent.
It had been a long time since he had last used his armour, so it took him some time to find it. When he was done, he found Ishra staring into a wall with strange eyes. She turned to him with a look that seemed to belong to another person, then she suddenly seemed to wake up and her eyes became the brown pools of unfathomable depth, he was used to. There was a hint of anger in her expression. "Let them come," she growled.
He felt the terrifying anger, that seemed to surge within her from time to time, but Braktus had never been able to find out what caused it. Ishra had carelessly thrown a gown of rough grey cloth over her body, which did not really hide anything. "Why are humans so bothered about nudity?" she asked. "Just because they have to protect themselves from the heat and cold does not mean everyone does."
Ishra understood the idea and need for clothes even less than Lonewolf. The concept of modesty was completely alien to her. He had tried to explain it several times, but she just failed to understand. She walked to her husband and hugged him, putting her head against his armoured belly. "Something calls out to me... my... other side. A terrible ancient and evil thing. I sense that this whole village is one great deception", she said softly, her voice near tears.
"It is the most luring and... horrible thing I have ever felt. I have been in places so terrible that mortal minds cannot truly imagine them. I have felt the drain of the Grey Wastes, the howling winds of Pandemonium, the hostility of the Abyss, the despair of Carceri and things I have no words for, but whatever lurks here is closer and more terrible than any of these. I would rather deal with an angry Balor than face whatever is lurking here."
She hugged him almost convulsively. A moment later she was thankful for his bulk and armour preventing her from crushing him. He returned the embrace with his own strength. Braktus needed her nearness as much as she needed his. Something cold was crawling up his spine.