Fable - Ask From The Ashes

Zathria took a deep breath in as she watched Vyx'aria make her way into the square under the protection of their goddess and no one dared oppose her. She strode through the open as if she owned Zar'ahal again. She didn't yet, but she would. Zathria had seen it before and would see it again.

With sabers at either hip, Zathria moved through the square behind Vyx'aria, here to support her but also in search of her elder sister, Anluryn At'Arel. She had taken over Zathria's house following their mother's death. She had thrown her support behind the current queen, and Zathria had to rectify that. She had to wipe the stain clean from her family and more than that, she needed to secure her House's support and resources for the true queen of Zar'ahal.

But she knew that her sister was a powerful priestess in her own right, but if Maelzafan favored them, then perhaps that alone would rob her sister of her power.

Tyrnael Myrlochar stood just behind Valsharess Dalrithia, about to advise her that her forces were girded for battle. A dark, narrow, crisscrossing ascent into a sloping cavern faced them. Atop the perilous slope stood the obsidian gates of Bhatraik. They could safely assume that every single inch of the rise would be booby-trapped.

Tyrnael's elder sisters Yenael and Ssi'rachael had fallen. She had gone from being third-daughter of House Myrlochar to first-daughter of her house in less than a fortnight, and as other more senior daughters of the major houses succumbed to the fighting, she now found herself acting Sut'rinos of the Queen's vanguard.

It was clear that Maelzafan willed her to be here at the forefront in this moment, but Tyrnael could foresee little glory for the goddess in this vainglorious assault. It looked more like the composition of the final measures of a dirge for the drow race.

A messenger spider suddenly scuttled up her lithe, dark-armored form and chittered in her ear, then scuttled back off again. Her eyes flashed with purpose as she stepped forward, bowed, and whispered.

"Valsharess, it is time. All is prepared."

Dalrithia began to raise her standard, drawing a breath to shout, when a demonweb shot over her from the tunnel floor to its ceiling, binding the statuesque warrior fast, lifting her a couple yards off the ground. Tyrnael's sacrificial dagger whirled from its sheath into her nimble fingers with a faint whistle as she floated up into the air until she was level with the back of the vainly wriggling queen's head.

The youthful high priestess cooed into the queen's ear in a sing-song voice, "Maelzafan has left you, daughter of Rithiel." She paused, letting the words sink in. "And so, we leave you."

Her right hand reached around and plunged the dagger into the helpless warrior's neck below her left ear, blood spraying forward and down. With one firm yank, it severed her throat. As the fight left her limbs and the light drained from her eyes, the blade continued, yank by yank, until one final thrust severed the spine. The demonweb evaporated, releasing the queen's headless body and standard to clank front-first to the floor, blood splattering the tunnel walls on either side. Tyrnael floated back to the ground clutching Dalrithia's head by the thick white braid threaded out of her helmet.

Tyrnael held up the dripping, gape-jawed head before her in one hand, the dripping, bloody sacrificial dagger in the other, and addressed the vanguard in her clear, shrill soprano:

"Maelzafan has spoken! The sacrifice she demanded is paid! A new Valsharess awaits us in Zar'ahal! Spread these orders: we withdraw, immediately."

She turned to her lieutenants as she unceremoniously emptied a spidersilk satchel onto the ground and started to wrap up Dalrithia's head within it. "Keep this withdrawal orderly; Zar'Ahal can ill afford foolish losses. The goddess watches! Vornyx-knights and battlemages shall bring up the rear, with a unit of priestesses to heal and support. If the Duergar attempt to sally out to strike at our rear guard, we shall turn and obliterate them where they skulk."

As a stunned bodyguard gaped at the former queen, Tyrnael gestured dismissively.

"Just leave her corpse, right where it is. Her fondest wish was to pass those gates bathed in blood. Knowing the Duergar, I do believe it shall be granted."

As vanguard officers spread out to execute their orders and the rest of the host fell in behind Tyrnael's brisk stride out, she pondered the rest of the spider's message: she was now de facto Ilharess Myrlochar. Her mother, the Regent, had fallen, in the process of botching an important sacrifice. The promotion was a welcome reward, but also bittersweet. Not for the loss of her mother. Her house was in shambles.

Tyrnael's older brothers, respectively what passed for the house mage and the acting subcommander of the city guard, were an effete, spendthrift dilettante and a pompous, preening imbecile. Her younger sisters were all priestesses, but much junior, and decades from lending much help. What vicious irony that she found herself today at the head of an army! She could seize the throne with such ease! But of course, she had no hope of keeping it with her laughingstock of a power base. And so she must instead serve to survive, and thereby slowly reforge the foundation of her house.

Maelzafan's will was clear. And her cruelty, delicious.

Panic and death were not, typically, heralds of great changes in the positive direction. They were far more often the vanguard of a great and terrible future.

If she was more dramatic, Xunari might have been worried but it wasn't something she had ever been prone to. Her general melancholy since returning to the underground hadn't done much more to make her more outwardly emotive either but there was enough emotion around her that she didn't feel the need to add to it by overreacting.

There was a lot of talk and screaming and general wailing as she returned towards the square - she had gone to the bathroom to touch up her hair and, apparently, everything had changed in that short a period of time.

Pushing through the ranks of the assembled to get a good look at the middle of it all, Xunari froze for a second upon seeing her.

Vyx'aria.

Her Queen had returned in a fashion typical of her - bloody, awe-inspiring and undeniable.

Xunari had been here as a representative of her House but she stepped forward, away from the masses standing in awe, to stand a step closer.

Staring out across the distance to Vyx'aria, Xunari spoke with a deferential bow of her head.

"The Once and Future Queen returns!"

Oh this?

This was something that made her blood feel hot and urgent in her veins again, in a way she had not experienced in years now. She remembered, remembered what it had felt like to march in the wake of her Queen and it had been glorious.

Purpose!

Clean and pure and urgent and oh-so-bright that it pushed back the grey haze that had consumed her thoughts and feelings for all these long years!

Vyx'aria

So it had finally happened. The end of this cycle occurred. Sooner than expected, but here all the same. The ways of nature and history waited for no one's hourglass to drain.

Nimruil watched it all unfurl below him; tail swishing, cephalic fins twitching with dark anticipation. Vyx'aria moved like a malignant shadow given form, slashing the throat of a priestess before anyone could blink, declaring herself queen. His alien eyes tracked her movements, the hooks on his midnight wings latched onto Maelzafan's stony shoulder. From a distance, he might well look like some wanton cloak discarded in the furious melee, somehow blown atop the statue of the dark deity.

He could have gone for safer means of scrying. But when he had heard the news, he had to see it for himself. In his cloaker form, his vision altered into heat pumping through bones, battling with a black-and-white visage of the square.

Looking ahead, he could see and taste several sources of heat approaching, trapped within carapaces of steel. Boots marching in tandem pounded through the ground, all the way up through Maelzafan's statue and to his leathery form. With his aerial view, he could see their formation from afar. Reaching his heightened hearing, several strings of crossbow cranked back. Poison vials clinked, dripping onto sharpened bolts. Commands hissed, swords and spears unsheathed, shields raised.

Capturing one square was different from bringing a city to heel. The priestesses of Maelzafan would not submit their power willingly through such a brazen display. They were merely rounding up their forces, blocking off access to the square, pincering the once and future queen and any who would dare to support her. And who knew what side all the different Houses would support?

He would have to decide which side to support. Which one was most likely to prevail. Perhaps he could influence at least one House to the right end of this bloody scales.

The golden links supporting his spine clicked, one artificial vertebrae humming low with power. It was the only thing to distinguish him from any other cloaker monster in the Underrealm.

His psychic link to the golden hourglass he once gifted Beksesha activated. It would hum in a like manner as his artificial spine, its sands twinkling like the sparkles of a dying sun. If she touched it, she would receive the following brief message:

"Vyx'aria moves against the priesthood. They resist in wake of Elzyrra's death. Dalrithia's fate -- unknown. Where do the other Houses stand? Unknown. Others join her in Maelzafan square. Their chances look slim, though more may join them. Speak the command, and I will buy her time to sow chaos -- it may be our final chance to weaken our enemies."

Bekshesha lay on a spidersilk bier, her faithful rath'il working over those pesky obliques that had troubled her ever since the late queen's surprise visit. She heard the thrum, and beckoned toward the golden hourglass with a crisp snap of her fingers.

"Bring it. Do not touch the glass."

The young warrior hopped to it as the matron sat up carefully, haltingly. She received the bauble with a curt neutral nod, and dismissed him with a wave, allowing just the slightest smirk to curl her lips at the sight of his receding buttocks as he exited the room to dress and depart. Finally, she stroked the glass with a fingertip, and listened to the message, frowning, lips pursing in thought. She called into the next room.

"Bring my ceremonial regalia, and dress me. Maelzafan shall not be seen to oppose the Valsharess's return."

She stroked the glass again.

"We will support the returning Valsharess Vyx'aria, vallabha'dalninuk. All other plays are futile."

Beksesha knew she was outmaneuvered. All of any import who might support her in a contrary bid were dead or with Dalrithia. And Vyx'aria had ever held easy sway over the young and malleable whose shouts of support were audible in the square. So it behooved her to once again play the long game. Any other play would certainly mean a very unpleasant end.

House Uthral. Prismatic stained glass windows dappled the north east wall that culminated in a massive balcony that overlooked the bulk of Zar’ahal. Standing at the crenellation in all of the pomp and ceremony of a gala stood the matron of the house, Uldrezia Uthral. Her crimson eyes took in the scene below as a small satisfied smile pulled at her lips. Behind her, her son— Sol’aufain— stood at attention.

“Maelzafan’s blessing has fallen to another,” Uldrezia’s lips spread into a hungry smile, “The wind blows yet the web remains…”

Fain watched his mother carefully, House Uthral had been staunch supporters of the former queen, what would it mean for their house to so quickly throw in their lot with a usurper?

“Opportunity has arrived,” Uldrezia turned to look at her son, “The priesthood makes their move, stop them, and prepare the way for the new queen.”

Fain saluted his mother and turned, signing to his warriors to fall in, as he moved to carry out her order.

Fain’s forces strode into the Priestess's formation without objection, who would question the ever loyal house?

“Sol’aufain Uthral, your arrival couldn’t be more welcome,” said Priestess Auanmari. She wasn’t the head of the order, but she was close. Fain nodded and the Priestess smiled, “Still searching for words I see,” she looked at him, into his eyes, and in a voice low enough only for him, “I’ve missed you, and I’m glad to have you here… This usurper… she’s different.”

“So long as the blessing of Maelzafan is with us, it matters not how different any enemy is,” Fain replied. His voice was barely louder than a whisper. It was the sound of stone grinding on stone in the dark.

“Yes, well, may we forever be in the mother spider’s favor,” replied Auanmari.

Inside the square, word would reach Vyx’aria that House Uthral had taken to the field and had joined with the Priesthood that sought to close off their route.

The drow Az'a'drehk watched the first attack unfold from a distance. The betrayal had hurt. Being captured had been embarrassing and painful.

He would not forgive that, but he could not change the nature of a scorpion. It would always sting.

"Let the artistry of chaos begin," he muttered to himself.

Treachery and violence were the currency Zar'Ahal. Beneath every transaction, every family's power play, every slave's backbreaking labor, these two virtues stood above all else. Take what you can for your family. Burn down the rest of the world.

The heir of House Aylwin strode toward the square, towards the treachery, the violence. Alongside her, two beings: her brother Thecerin, and her saber-toothed mount, a fearsome sight in the city walls.

Her and her brother were no army - more like a gaggle of killers, ultimately a drop in the ocean of the forced gathered. But each one of them were an Aylwin soldier, worth a thousand city dwellers in combat, in Slaine's estimation. This whole city stunk of death. Slaine cleared her throat and spat into the ground, spittle turned brown by the chewing weed pouch in her gum.

She looked clear across the square, inclining her head towards her former and would-be queen. "Lady Vyx'aria." Her tone carried respect for the Queen she once was. She strode forwards, her hands wrapped around her glaive, as she stepped forward. She tapped her glaive's blade against the cobblestone square once, creating a flare of sparks. "Aye, your vision is sound."

"The city’s sick. Anyone with eyes can see that."

She shifted her stance, planting the butt of her glaive more firmly against the stone.

“But House Aylwin doesn’t give itself to visions alone.”

A murmur rippled through her hunters - not surprise, but recognition.

“We live on the edge," Slaine continued. “Out where laws thin and promises don’t carry far. Out there, a leader proves herself the old way. By standing when it’s easier to send others.”

Her gaze never left Vyx’aria.

“My mother taught me this,” she said. “You don’t just swear to a crown. You swear to the hand that can carry a blade.”

She drew the glaive up, resting it across her shoulders - open, not threatening.

“So this is my duty,” Slaine said plainly. “And my right.” The faintest of smiles rose to her face. Her skin felt flush, red with nervousness, tension, and a strange excitement.

“You’ve already paid for this crown once,” Slaine said, "An' I'm not here to stir up old wounds.”

She took a quick breath. Hurried. Her glaive caught the purple gleam of one of the thousand lights.

“I challenge you.”

Not shouted or dramatized, just spoken with the plainness of the weather. "For Clan Aylwin's loyalty and the rite of succession."

Theceran walked silently besides his sister, Slaine. The former Queen had returned, looking to regain her lost glory. His gaze shifted amongst the gathered host of Drow. It seemed most had bowed to the claimant without any form of resistance, a sad display of their nature.

He listened as Slaine laid the challenge. His hands pulling a pair of rune inlayed daggers from his belt. The runes shimmered with power as he seemed to prowl behind Slaine waiting to see the answer. He couldn’t allow the Heir, the future of their family to fall.

One thing he knew, this many Drow in one spot. A fight was bound to happen, so he had to make sure that Slaine wasn’t overwhelmed.