Calm Before The Storm
Dak'Yzal lived alone in a small farm near the village, only visiting once a month to trade food at the inn and meet Roland. He seemed to be the only older person in the entire village. Everyone else seemed to be between twenty and fourty. There were no children either. The woman always had a strange feeling of something being wrong, when she entered the circumference of the main village.
The inn looked almost unnaturally clean and there was the sound of busy work from the kitchen. Roland was nowhere to be found. Only two young people doing the kitchen work. Dak'Yzal's basket had already been prepared. Lonewolf moved out of the door and looked at the other woman. The young barbarian was fully armed and Dak'Yzal was experienced enough to see that she was wearing her magical armour.
"A storm is coming," Lonewolf said. "We will be at war ere the sun passes its highest position." Some strange impulse made Dak'Yzal attack the other woman with the long staff, she carried. Before the movement was even done, she felt the staff taken from her hands and continue its path until it stopped just an inch away from her head. Dak'Yzal shivered. She believed herself to be fast, but the barbarian made her look like a beginner.
"Roland is gathering and preparing the villagers for the battle," Lonewolf said. "But I fear we will need a wonder greater than my magic can provide if we are to survive this day." She did not tell Dak'Yzal to prepare herself to fight explicitly, because it was not necessary. Lonewolf returned the battle-staff to the other woman..
"What happend to Braktus and Ishra?" Dak'Yzal asked. "Did the little devil finally manage to break some of his bones?" The barbarian shrugged and said:. "We will know soon enough." The warrior took her basket and turned to leave.
Ishra flexed her muscles, gently loosening them, so she would soon be able to move smoothly once more. The struggle with her other self and the intense embrace with Braktus, that had been more clinging to each other, had stiffened her. "I don't know if you were really in the Blood War, but I can see you have skinned a greater fiend or two to make your armour. One would think someone in the Cage would rattle their bone-boxes about it."
"I have never heard about you either, before we met," she rejoined. "But your language and your bearing clearly show you have been in the outer planes and the city of Sigil." He shrugged and spoke: "A little jink goes a long way and there are many rich fools to be parted from their valuables. I have even stolen something from a god once. When I was near that target, I had a feeling similar to the one I have now."
"Only the Lightening Shadow ever stole successfully from a god and got away with it..." She made a pause and asked: "You weren't working for fiends?" Ishra asked. "I don't trust them," he said. "Neither do I," she said, catching an incredulous look from Braktus. "You worked for them, when you served in the Blood War," he said. "I hoped they would betray me to my death, but I was too strong," quoth she defiantly. "Sure," he grumbled.
She turned to him, her hazel eyes burning with frightening intensity. "I did not make deals with them," she said. "I just killed their enemies and occasionally I even got payed." Braktus said soothingly: "Spare your anger for the battle. You are going to tell me you met a friendly fiend." Ishra seemed to calm down and spoke: "More than I would like. I prefer the kind, who obviously try to do bad things. The subtle ones are the worst. Have you ever met A'kin?"
"I wouldn't trust that bastard with as much as my name," Braktus said. "Running a shop for magic items and calling it the Friendly Fiend." He shook his head. "Like no-one would suspect, he was actually up to something, even more so when you can't find anyone who will tell you what it could be." Ishra chuckled. "Maybe he is really trying to be nice, or he is the greatest cony-catcher in the multiverse."
Today even Nirahr worked seriously. He felt a strange sense of urgency. While still working with deft hands, Lonewolf said: "Try to be a bit more careful than usual. Whatever is going to happen today will be serious and I will not be there to watch your back." Without looking up, he spoke: "You worry too much." The young mage knew better, having seen his recklessness several times, but she did not press the point.
When they were done, Roland appeared again, his face grim. "This is going to be more difficult than I thought. People have come running from the outlying farms, telling of a vast army arrayed against us, spreading panic," he said. "They went into the wrong direction," Lonewolf said. "This village is a trap. I would already ba gone, but the people deserve a chance." The older man said: "I cannot see it, unless your magic is far more powerful than I know."
Lonewolf locked his gaze with her smouldering eyes. "Do not give up," she said. "As long as there is anyone who draws breath and has the will to fight, there is hope. I will not give up, neither will Nirahr, or Ishra or Braktus. You have led so many lost causes, that you will lead this one too and you will prevail." Nirahr could see Roland taking heart from the intensity of the barbarian. "Rally them and give them shields. Without a phalanx we will be overrun."
Roland began to suspect that Lonewolf's young appearance hid many years of adventure and war. She was right. "I will do what I can," he said. The barbarian sighed. "He is right. This will be difficult." She felt a strangely familiar presence for a moment, but the feeling faded as quickly as it had come. Nirahr turned to her. "Why does he lead the villagers? You are a far more charismatic and convincing leader than he is."
"He has the advantage of age and thus implied wisdom, though he does not have much of that. Roland was officer in the army of Ionien and later Coreanus, which still has a good name. People will rally to that more likely than to a crazy barbarian shaman like me." She sighed. "Ishra could lead them better than him, if she does not freak out, which she probably will. You don't survive years in the Blood War without learning a thing or two, but people are fools.
"Half of them actually think Braktus beats her up. I doubt he would still live if he ever seriously tried. I will also rip your head off, if you..." Nirahr interjected: "I know." He wanted to say something else, but suddenly he froze in fear. Something seemed to take hold and freeze him from the inside. He struggled with hot blood, but it only made things worse.
Ishra picked up a large sword that had been hanging above the mantelpiece like an ornamental blade. It was a jagged two-handed blade, a part in the centre missing. A short test would have revealed, that the sword was sharp and well balanced. It did seem strangely misplaced in the delicate hands of the small woman, but she wielded it with frightening ease.
Braktus had seen her wield the weapon before, but he could not help but be amazed every time she picked it up. There was a sinister red glow in the hole of the blade made from strange greenish steel. The blade did contain an intelligent spirit, which was not evil, but frighteningly intelligent. Ishra believed, it was a mage who made a mistake dealing with fiends.
"I am afraid," the voice of the blade said in the mind of the small warrior. "I sense terrible power and even more frightening magic. I have felt such strength only once, when I was near a god, who killed a previous wielder. I don't want to change hands again. I like you. We should leave this place, before it is too late." Ishra said gently: "We have to defend the people first. There are armies moving here. Then we will leave with them."
With one hand Ishra whirled the blade in one hand easily and sheathed it. "I would not believe it if I didn't see it," Braktus said. "You don't look like a fighter." She said barbarously: "You think I should look like Lonewolf?" He considered this. "It would explain your strength," he said. Ishra fixed him with her gaze, making him feel he was looking right through them and into his soul, in the way of the fey.
He did not blink or flinch. Ishra turned away first. "I should have to fight with speed and finesse," she said softly. "But I have the strength of a large man and I am not afraid to use it. The spirit of the sword protects me from the other one that sometimes enters my mind. I don't know why it never tried to take over my body. It seems content to help me, but you may not be as safe. Do not touch this weapon. There is no telling what it might do to you. Sometimes I suspect it already did something to me."
She turned to her husband and asked: "How much did I change since we first met?" Braktus thought about their relation. "I... don't know," he said. "I think," he continued carefully, "We should get out and into the battle." More confidently he said: "I will sneak around and take care of snipers and others, who try to hide." Ishra smiled at him. An assassin of assassins. She liked that.
They left the house and wished each other luck. Braktus soon faded from view, leaving even his wife to wonder, how he was able to do this in the bright midday sun. She positioned herself near the central crossing of the village, where she could see in all directions, where she would be needed. Where were the barbarian and her partner?
Lonewolf felt the coldness herself, though she was not as paralysed as her boy-friend, but her movements seemed to have become frustratingly slow and painful. The young mage closed her eyes and concentrated on her body, feeling every muscle with the discipline, she had learned to control her magic. Why didn't she just call upon her power?
She concentrated on her lands and the energy of the sea breaking on the shore of an island flowed into her. It took too long to arrive, but when it did, it shielded Lonewolf from the effects of any hostile magic. A shroud of purple mist seemed to engulf her. When it had formed, her body reacted as it was supposed to. She drew her swords and looked at the spectre, whose freezing gaze could no longer reach her.
The ghost tried to reach through the magic veil, but the sword of ice blocked the hand, which suddenly became real and frozen and shattered. With a quick move of her wrist, Lonewolf moved the blade through the torso of the spectre, which also froze into reality. She followed this with a stab of the sword of fire, before the creature had time to react. The area where the heart would be in a living human shattered and the ghost faded into nothingness.
An inhuman scream pierced the ears and mind of Lonewolf and Nirahr. The young mage thought the dissipating ethereal body was drawn into the earth. The man shivered from the scream, as it emanated a terribly inhuman dread. Lonewolf's magical veil dissipated. "Where did you find those swords," Nirahr asked. "I made them," the young mage replied. "I was in a strange trance, understanding the mystic and fey process, which creates moonsteel, something only ethar and fey can do."
Lonewolf sheathed the swords. "Someone used your own... dark side against you," she said. "I tried to overcome the paralysis with rage," quoth he. "Usually it helps when someone tries to mess with my mind." The young mage looked at him with fire in her eyes, making him wonder what she was about to do or say. Suddenly she turned away. "I hear the clash of arms. The battle has already begun."
They left the house and Lonewolf said: "That spectre must have frozen us in time. At least an hour has passed since Roland last visited us. Stay with me for a moment, if we have to go back through time." Nirahr looked at her for a moment, then he turned to survey the village.
The first stroke of the battle had fallen in a small stand of trees on a hill near the village. Dak'Yzal had walked there, dropping her food basket on the way. She could still pick it up, if she survived the battle. The woman was a warrior trained in the Empire of the Rak'ra. The claws of the cat-like people made their martial arts devilishly efficient, but they also worked surprisingly well for a human.
Idly she wondered, how she had ended up in this cursed village, many miles and lands away from the places of her birth and her training. Dak'Yzal looked at her wrists. A tiger was tattooed on one of them, a silver dragon on the other. They were smooth and bright, as they had been on the first day, making even her skin appear younger where the images were. How old was she actually?
Dak'Yzal tried to remember the winters and summers, but she did not know for sure, if she was thirtyone, thirtyfour or thirtyeight years old. Unconsciously she moved her hand over a smooth face, which seemed to support the first theory, but time did run strangely in this village. She knew that some of the best students of her school of martial arts did stop aging, but Dak'Yzal had not reached that level of mastery.
She looked into the evil grin of an orc, she had barely noticed in her preoccupation. The creature was armed with a great axe, but it was aimed at the woman with the blunt side. Dak'Yzal blocked the attack with her staff and let it swing with the force of the orc, crushing his skull. She continued her movement and hit another orc at the knee, knocking him to the floor. The staff broke the neck of another creature in the same fluent movement. The woman slammed her weapon into the face of the one she had knocked down, pushing his nose into his brain.
The five remaining orcs had clustered into a tight group, so that the agile woman could not move between them. An arrow whistled past the shoulder of the female from above. Dak'Yzal held her staff menacingly and charged the orcs, who grinned evilly. Before she reached them, she stopped in a harsh movement and ran towards the tree, where she suspected the archer to be. The orcs followed her, but suddenly she ran up the bole of the tree, as though it was solid ground.
The orcs were less agile and could not stop their charge, squishing one of their number, as three of them slammed into the tree. The woman had guessed correctly and knocked the archer from the bole, where he was sitting with her staff. He fell more than twelve metres, crushing another orc on the way down. Dak'Yzal regretted not taking the bow away from him, but then she shrugged and leapt out of the tree.
With a mental effort, she fell like a cat and landed on her feet, where the orc had been crushed. Dak'Yzal slammed the staff between the legs of one of the three, who remained. The creature howled and doubled over. She crushed another skull with a well timed staff attack and kicked the groaning orc into the face with enough force to make him fall to the floor, not knowing if he should hold his crotch or nose.
The last standing orc attacked her with a sword. Dak'Yzal parried with her staff, which was not cut by the blade. Surprise did not last long and the orc was able to parry the attack of the woman. The two fought for a time, the blade nicking the skin of Dak'Yzal a few times and the orc receiving several painful bruises from the staff. Suddenly a defensive move from the woman made the sword fly wide to the side and left the staff enough time to hit the nose of the orc and crush it into its skull.
Dak'Yzal shattered the skull of the orc, she had hit before, with the heel of her boot. She moved up another tree similar to the way she had climbed the first, looking for a route of escape, if the battle turned against the village. The woman sighed as she could see the plain. It was swarming with goblinoids in ordered regiments.