Fable - Ask Breaking The Chains

[Zephyrine]

Getting rid of the underling had been easy, but the pain searing through her caused her to grit her teeth. She was a Dreadlord. This pain could not stop her, not when they were taught to overcome such small hurdles.

She got up, going to the girl and nodding as they ducked beneath the stone dome.

The Underlings came for them, but Zephyrine knocked them back with the bits of stone and dirt from the dome, buffeting them to clear a path for their escape.

"This way!" She had spied a horse, a desperate idea. "A horse is faster than being on foot!"

 

[Aeyliea]

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.

 

[Zephyrine]

Zephyrine groaned and came up to take some weight of the young woman, hastening her steps but slowing down the Dreadlord considerably.

"It's a black horse." She provided. There was a saddle and gear, probably too much weight to add two people to it. She would need to construct something, like a wagon to be drawn by the single horse.

The thought had come, and the recreation began to construct itself before them both, ready to be kitted with the horse to be drawn. She figured the stranger would ride the wagon, only made for one, just so Zephyrine knew that if she passed out, she wouldn't fall off a horse. But then a pain struck her. In her back, where the wound had been, it began to throb and threatened to riddle her with searing pain.

Holding up the stranger was taxing.

Zephyrine didn't have the time to heal herself. She was still too slow to mend flesh, but if they made it to the horse, perhaps then she would have the time.

 

[Aeyliea]

"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.

 

[Zephyrine]

Zephyrine was not going to argue with the Stranger, but she did not let go of her doubt that the woman was in no shape to ride.

Then they would leave the cart. The horse was sturdy enough to carry the both of them.

"Here." Zephyrine kneeled, prepared to help the Stranger up to the horse. She would give her that needed boost to mount, and only when the other woman had swung a leg around, the Anirian would move to sit behind her.

"Lean forward, keep low." She instructed, ignoring the pain that begged for her attention and discomfort. "If you fall..." Zeph left her frustration there.

Never had she met something she could not bring down with the might and strength she had learned from the Academy. Never had she realised how human and insignificant against something so Old.

 

[Aeyliea]

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.

 

[Zephyrine]

"Stay low." She commanded as she pulled herself up, with some help, to sit behind the stranger. Zephyrine pulled the reins from her, forcing her weight against the other to ensure she stayed still. She knew how to ride, knew how to manage with an extra person in tow. She dug her heels in and commanded the horse to move, to ignore the mass of a figure growing with evil and mystery.

Get away, that was all Zephyrine wished to do. To travel a fair distance away, to get away as much as possible. She could have left the woman there, but there was a sense of protection that overcame her, a need to fight and defend.

The streets were eerily quiet, devoid of any life or activity. It should have served as a warning of the kind of power and magic being wielded out here, but Zephyrine's understanding of magic was adapted for military efforts and not of the risks and might that transcends the magical understandings of Vel Anir.

 

[Aeyliea]

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.

 

[Zephyrine]

"I can do Recreations." Zephyrine's eyes narrowed, unsure of the angle this woman was asking questions. "House falls apart? I can recreate it back to new. A bridge breaks? I can recreate an entirely new one. I can make weapons out of thin air if I wanted to."

But what could she do against a magic she had never fought against before?

Zephyrine was trained to kill enemies, human enemies. Mortals. Something like that figure back there, something otherworldly and eldritch. Untouchable. The Academy had not prepared her for one day feeling inferior to another being.

"You got a plan, lady?"

 

[Aeyliea]

"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...

 

[Zephyrine]

Where had she left her weapons? They were not on her person when the lady — no, Aeyliea — had gone to the inn earlier.

"Where is it? Your spears? Your shield?" She asked, brows furrowed deeply with urgency. "Arm yourself if your magic cannot sustain you."

Because she knew the other woman was a fighter, just like Zephyrine. They were not going to run away and lick their wounds. They were the type of women brought up to stand and fight after recollecting themselves. Dreadlords wiped the blood from their faces and stand taller, and she would not abandon Aeyliea when faced with this threat.

"Are they special? Your weapons? Or can I just make you new ones?"

 

[Aeyliea]

"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.

 

[Zephyrine]

There, there was that language barrier between them. Zephyrine could have made an attempt at recreating this spear Aeyliea spoke of, but trying to get a clear description from her would prove difficult.

"Your horse can't have gotten far. Can you call for them?" The young Dreadlord could only resort to suggestions at this point. Out of her depth, but still prepared. Zeph was ready to go into motion when the other woman told her so.

The dragon in question loomed above, and she had been doing her best to ignore it. They needed a plan, they needed to recover. They needed to not be filled with apprehension...

They needed to do this right.

"Alright. So we are not defending ourselves. We are on the offensive." Zephyrine sighed. "Got magic that could catapult hundreds of steel pikes of my making up at that thing?"

 

[Aeyliea]

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.