Fable - Ask Breaking The Chains

She nodded and regretted it as she took to follow. Other parts of her body were starting to register their complaints now; the searing light nearly blinded her and made everything too bright. Worse, the flash-burns across her face and exposed belly and legs screamed agony. Her bruised throat was some distant thing by comparison.

She followed Zephyrine with a gasp of pain at the first step; the Dreadlord was a hazy shape in front of her. Behind her, the twisted shape of Traveler remained with back bent and masked face staring at the sky; motes of dust swirled in the light streaming in from hole in the dome. The creature was not dead; the stirrings of power rolled from it like some twisted heartbeat.

Most of the undead had collapsed where they were standing when the heavenly bolt struck down. Some of the broken bones began to shiver and pull themselves back together again as bits and pieces of Traveler pulled themselves back together.

"Don't go too far," she managed to say in a pain voice as she staggered along behind. "Not...see well. Not run..." she whimpered as she stumbled, only just keeping her feet. Blisters were rising on her skin.

"My...horse?" She couldn't see clearly enough to know. She hoped so, because she still had other weapons in the sling on her saddle. The spear she had struck Traveler with had fallen from her hands while they were choking the life out of her.

Behind them, Traveler continued to pull itself together. Oddly, there was the sense of many creatures entwined in the ashen figure.

And every single one of them was furious.

"Not mine," she said thickly. She strove not to put her weight upon the other woman but it was proving difficult. The flash-burn from whatever otherworldly sorcery was registering itself in an ever louder voice that her nerves found increasingly difficult to ignore.

Flashes of power rolled through her like a pulse. It carried a presence that she could not fathom with it - a thing of ancient and unknowable intelligence. She could see it in her minds' eye.

Half rotted, try and dusty. The coiled remains of a wyrm long, long, long dead. And yet... not.

That regard was on her now, the faintest whisper of something long gone to dust. You must eventually face the truth. Not her words nor her thoughts, not especially when delivered in an unknown language that spoke of antiquity. It carried much of the ancient way of speaking that her and other Seers used in their benedictions to the Seven.

Aeyliea stepped away from Zephyrine and clicked her tongue. Blurry though her vision was, she could see well enough now that the animal in question would serve. "This beast... will serve," she said. Power throbbed within her, beckoning her to use it. It was different in nature to that which the Dreadlord used. "Help me up," she said.

Behind her, the demon reshaped itself. Its missing pieces were nearly whole again and a song of rage began to rise from it on the edge of hearing.

Stubborn pride would not allow her to bend her stiff neck in the slightest. She made a noise at the back of her throat, part irritation and part pain as she stepped into the stirrup and swung herself up with practiced ease. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she was unable to easily lift her leg and the hiss of pain. She managed to catch herself and receive a boost from the young woman. Fresh trickles of blood from the lacerations on her back and from blisters on her belly and arms that burst at the twisting motion.

That she wobbled a bit in the saddle was understandable.

"Thank you," she said. One hand on the saddle horn, she offered a blood-smeared hand to Zephyrine. "Will not fall," she added. The certainty in her voice was at strong odds with reality though.

You shalt use my breath, something whispered in her mind. Aeyliea shivered in the saddle, makign a quick warding gesture with her free hand as the other tightened to a white-knuckled grip on the saddle. The shape of Traveler had blurred now. Something enormous was shaping itself from the now misty form in the middle. Bits of stone and ground sloughed away and trickled into the thing that was growing.

Aeyliea knew what it was. So did Zephyrine, likely. There were not too many things the size of a small house with wings on it and indistinct as it was, the shape was nevertheless familiar. <"You are a demon,"> she whispered to herself in her native tongue, addressing the unwelcome voice and completely careless of present company. The dusty-dry not-voice in her head laughed. <"I will not use the power of a demon,"> she added.

"What you...need me to do?" She asked of Zephyrine instead. The horse shifted uneasily beneath her, hand outstretched to assist in mounting whether capable of helping or not.

Her heart hammered out a quick tattoo as the beast beneath them lurched into motion. The powerful ripple of muscle beneath her reminded her of her own beast. Too late to worry about it now; the horse would either find her or else keep running in the opposite direction and not stop short of Elbion.

Aeyliea wasn't entirely sure she didn't agree. Fear was not a thing she was accustomed to acknowledging. Saying she didn't feel it would be a foolish lie. Displaying that fear for all the world was almost as shameful as running from a fight. Even one she couldn't win.

Behind them, the devil that they had briefly stood up to let out a bowel-shaking roar, launching itself skyward. The snap of great leathery wings echoed through the street; a moment later, the deep shadow of an enormous shape sailed over them. Aeyliea looked skyward and blanched; a great fucking dragon pulled sorcerous current around itself and climbed higher into the sky. There was something...wrong with it. The eye danced across it as though it were oddly out of phase.

It made her eyes water and her head hurt.

She clamped down on the fear and shoved it down, thighs tightening their grip on their shared mount. "Know how to ride," she said. The affront was forced; her eyes remained locked on the sky as the winged lizard shrank in the dusky sky. "Bigger question. Are you strong? Was...that magic all you can do?"

All. All. As if she could wield even a tenth of that power herself.

Frantic as it was, a plan was taking shape in her head. She didn't like it, but being alive was much more preferrable to keeping her pride intact.

"Aeyliea," was managed to grate out as the jarring motion lit her left arm aflame. Her back was a distant throb, leaking blood every now and then. "I am Aeyliea."

It would be beneficial to have another know her name. Especially if she was fated to die here. Far from home, far from the land of her birth. She didn't think overly much of that death, though; the plains and desert were an inhospitable place to begin with. An honor society like hers made it more harsh, and constant fighting with every other tribe and intruder made it harsher still.

But none of those things were a fucking dragon the size of a house.

Her unwelcome guest stirred in her head, shifting about like an uneasy sleeper. Aeyliea shivered as she contemplated.

"Maybe," she said. She didn't look up at the circling shape. They were not going to lose it amid the houses or in the country. Sooner or later it would come and finish what it had started. "Mine is... not so strong." A way to say that her unwitting companion was in a different league altogether than she herself was.

Use mine breath, foolish child.

The shaman winced at the acerbic voice in her head.

"I need my weapon. Spears. Shield," she said after a moment. A thunderous crack far overhead announced that the dragon had shifted its flight. The thing still seemed to be out of phase with the world, a haze of images not quite in focus. Even from here, she could feel the power of it. "Maybe...maybe then..."

A laughable image, her going head to head with a dragon with nothing but her short stabbing spear. Except she could feel a wellspring of power coiled round her spine.

Maybe...

"My horse," she said. "In scabbard on saddle. Bolted when fight started."

There was an edge of frustration in her voice. She was usually well prepared. The preceding days had shown that she was just as fallible as the other races she scorned day-to-day. Her human companion was certainly better prepared than she was right now.

"They are not. Spears, like so," she drawled thickly in her accent, sitting up and letting go of the horse long enough to show a narrow arms span of length, thighs gripping the animal beneath her with practiced ease even if her seat wasn't proper. "Long, heavy point. Steel. Small buckler." She paused for a moment, frowning as she draped herself round the neck of the beast they rode.

"No shield. What point? Great skarka dragon. No block." She laughed, and it was a mirthless thing. She could easily imagine trying to black and getting flattened instead.

She pointed skyward wordlessly. Even if she whistled for the beast, it would not come so long as that was there. No sane creature would. She made a frustrated sound at the back of her throat.

"Any spear. Can make it right." She shook her head in answer to the Dreadlord's question. "The wind and rain, the beating heart. Not... like you." Not strong. She could, given enough time and resources, shift the weather. Misdirect enemies, find water. Heal the sick and wounded.

Her strength lay in spirituality and honor and a stubborn will to not surrender.

"Will...fix, if need," she said shortly. She had had to do so many times before. She was no stranger to a battle, to broken weapons, or to improvising with what she had as needed.

She was surprised when the woman manifested a lance in her hands from nothing. It was definitely a much prettier weapon than she had held before, even if the quality was the same. She was accustomed to workman-like blades and hafts designed for durability without any care for appearance. It would be a shame to break the pole across her knee to shorten it properly.

She hefted it and grunted in satisfaction. "Shorter would be better but can break handle." She said as she nodded to herself with a confidence she did not feel. There was a note of shock and admiration in her tone at the ability to call forth something from nothing.

A giant shadow passed over them and a moment later the hulking form of the winged lizard slammed into the earth a hundred yards ahead of them. Dust billowed as it snapped its wings to slow the descent at the last second, wheeling tightly around to face them and opening a tooth-line maw.

It drew a breath.

Foolish children. No escape for you. Accept your fate...

Magenta fire flared at the back of the beasts' throat, and then a roiling ball of sorcery wafted out to engulf them.

Something reached out and through her in a rush of power that left her breathless. It was a struggle to maintain her sense of self amid the torrent - it threatened to wash her away like banks of a wadi in full flood. The Seer grunted and swayed in the saddle in front of Zephyrine.

Magenta fire licked over horse and riders but did not touch so much as a hair on their head. The intense heat washed over them like an overheated breath, but the killing magic washed over an invisible barrier before them. The draconic amalgam blinked in surprise as its magic failed to end their mortal existence.

"Seems like we live," Aeyliea said after a moment. Sweat rolled down her ashen face, her lungs working like bellows to get enough breath. Fire lanced down every nerve in her body except (perversely) her left arm and shoulder. There was a note of horror in her voice; she had channeled power that was not her own and through no volition of her conscious mind. She knew the source and feared it.

The pale, dusty remains somewhere beneath the plains and the otherworldly voice chained to it echoed in her mind.

"Demon," she breathed but without any real conviction or strength. "But if a demon can grant me enough strength..," she said and then trailed off. Her eyes narrowed, lips compressed into a thin line. She hefted the spear she had been given and looked round to Zephyrine. "Can you make haft shorter? Bring back round and let me down. Have plan."

She swayed in the saddle again, face somehow even more pale.

"Something...stupid," she said after thinking about the question a moment. Something breathed a kind of certainty into her accompanied with a flash of empty eye sockets and the cold dread of an open grave. "We attack not together. Separate. Can only attack one at a time."

She thought that through and nodded to herself grimly. There was another part that the ancient wyrm had whispered to her. After so many years of faith given to the Seven, it felt almost blasphemous to grant even a sliver of it to some long-dead monster buried in the plains.

But it spoke of...

She shook her head. "You have weapon? I need to ... touch it," she said, stumbling a bit. She felt the cold of that grave, and her flesh was chill to the touch with it. She could feel another dragon riding her soul, reaching out from beyond its tomb to thread fingers of power through the hair of her soul.

Her breath misted in front of her.

Scarcely knowing what she was doing, the Seer grasped Zephyrine's blade hard enough for it to cut into her tough skin. As her blood stained the blade, she felt something sweep through her in a dizzying rush of power far beyond her ken. The ice in her veins seemed to deepen, the chill in the air grow sharper.

Recalling the things that this woman had already accomplished, Aeyliea grinned fatalistically. "If swing big tail at us, raise wall of stone," she suggested. Anything that might blunt the weight behind such blows would be welcome. Hurling stones would be ineffective; she could practically feel the layered wards that the dragon had woven round itself like a shell of adamantine. "I will take lead. May the Seven protect us," she said. There should have been dread in her voice but strangely she felt nothing but a fatalistic determination.

The dragon huffed a laugh at her invocation of the Great Ones.

No'rei did not fear death, but they were not eager to be sent back in to the gleaming Sea overhead. She herself had stared death in the eyes enough times before.

Just never a dragon.

"If I die, burn this vessel," she said briskly. Shortened spear in hand, she cursed at the lack of a buckler until she realized that trying to stop anything this creature did with a bit of wood and leather was as pointless as trying to stop the sun from rising.

She darted forward, braid flying like the tail of an angry cat as she went. The terrain was smooth enough - a boon and a curse all in one. The dragon chuffed a draconic laugh and drew breath again. Didn't work once, won't work now either.

Scorching sorcery lashed from its gaping maw and washed over her in a tide of cold, burning magic. She felt the rush of answering sorcery within her and the chill in her blood and bone that announced the channeling of the unknown power and the presence of the undead Wyrm.

The bitter cold nearly made her forget where and what she was doing. She had to stop short and nearly tumbled into snapping teeth and blood red, furious eyes. "...!" she managed to exclaim, sidestepping and avoiding being eviscerated.

Narrowly.

Her blade cut through magic that was as strong as mithril, as adamantine. Traveller huffed a laugh as it felt the blow land, supreme confidence in its superiority over the humanoids that thought to fight a god with weapons of steel and wood.

The blade struck belly scales and tore through them in a fiery lance of pain. In a lesser being, it might have been a critical wound. Given the size and the power of the dragon, it was still painful if for no other reason that it was completely unexpected.

The beast let loose a bellowing roar that carried the seeds of magic in it in an oppressive wave. It washed over the two women in a tide that the warding presence of Lorien could only blunt. The beast twisted its serpentine neck round and snapped razor teeth at Zephyrine. The strangely resonant voice of it hammered into their skulls without being bothered by such physical things as ears.

"One a traitor, the other an outsider," it said. The voice shifted between male and female, deep and soft and completely at random. "The traitor should fall on her knees and accept the will of the Seven made manifest," it said.

...but they are not Seven, are they? Wry amusement in the voice within her skull. They number but five. Five ungrateful souls bound together...

...to barely equal their mother.

"The Seven would not wish my end. I am faithful," she replied in her own native tongue. Anger edged the words, making the music of that language jagged and cruel. "You are a base beast," she snapped.

Before it could turn to face her - preoccupied as it was with Zephyrine - the Seer shifted and darted forward. Like the Dreadlord, she was well trained in combat even if the means were different. Sensing her approach, the Traveller began to swing its horse-like head round, but she reached its great body first. Only a shifting of its leg saved it from having the spear driven into its chest. As it was, the wards it had wrapped round itself folded in like wet paper and the foot of steel sank into a foreleg until it was fully buried to the haft.

It screeched in abject rage, and spun round with a fleetness that belied its size. Its leathery tail connected solidly with Aeyliea's side in a sickening crunch and sent the tribal rolling bonelessly dozens of feet to the side. When she landed, she remained unnaturally still.

The dragon ignored both the No'rei and the Dreadlord, snapping at the wooden shaft protruding from just below its shoulder and streaming iridescent blood down that limb, bellowing and shrieking in wordless rage as it did so.