Fable - Ask From The Ashes

[Vyx'aria]

The obsidian square of Zar’Ahal reeked of panic and death.

Smoke curled in lazy tendrils through shattered stained glass high above, casting prismatic shadows across the flagstones slick with blood. Elzyrra’s charred crown lay crushed beneath the boot of a panicked guard; the body of the regent had long since been dragged away, her death leaving a vacuum that the surviving priestesses had filled with breathless infighting and futile chants to a goddess who had already turned her face away.

She had arrived.

Bootsteps rang clear and slow across the broken marble of the hall. No horns heralded her. No guards flanked her. And yet as Vyx’aria walked through the shattered arch of the city square, the air itself seemed to draw taut in reverence or dread.

A ripple of gasps swept through the assembled ranks like a shiver.

Vyx’aria came clothed in shadow, her white hair unbound and crowned only by her stature. Eyes like twin coals surveyed the carnage with neither shock nor sympathy, only disdain. Behind her, the great stone effigy of Maelzafan towered, her many-eyed face worn smooth by centuries of reverent touch. But she was silent now.

Vyx’aria had returned.

Two priestesses stumbled forth to meet her at the base of the dais. One older, one young, both draped in vestments now stained with soot.

The elder found her voice first. “Y-you… You cannot-”

Vyx’aria’s voice cut through the ruin like a blade.

“Is this what the once-glorious city of Zar’ahal has been reduced to? Disfavor with our goddess, incompetence festering in the bones of its regent, and a queen who bleeds her own kin dry to chase phantoms across the ash wastes? A campaign that earns us nothing but empty graves and emptier alliances?”

A murmur spread through the crowd. Somewhere, a blade was sheathed. Somewhere else, a banner was quietly lowered.

The younger priestess surged forward, fury flushed across her cheeks. “You are not welcome he-”

She never finished the word.

Vyx’aria moved like the lash of a whip, too fast for ceremony, too sure for hesitation. Steel flashed, silver and crimson in the same breath.

The blade sank into the priestess’s gut with an obscene wet sound, Vyx’aria’s other hand already curling around the woman’s shoulder as she leaned in close, her voice low and silken against her ear.

“Maelzafan opened her arms to me, girl. Tell her when you meet her that Vyx’aria returns her favor… with devotion.”

With one cold motion, she tore the blade free and kicked the priestess with her boot, letting the body crumple in a heap at her feet. Blood pooled like ink beneath her.

She did not spare the corpse another glance.

Instead, she lifted her gaze to the assembly, to the pale and frightened faces of those who once whispered of her downfall, who had scorned her exile and sung false hymns in Dalrithia’s name.

“Weakness has gripped this regime like a cancer, spreading unchecked through sinew and spirit alike. But I shall carve it out. Root and marrow. By shadow and fire, I shall cleanse what remains.”

She stepped forward, unfazed by the spreading blood. Her sword still gleamed.

“Zar’ahal will endure. But not as it was. Not as it is. It shall be reforged in my image.”

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

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]

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.

 

[Xunari Auceus]

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

 

[Nimruil]

Spoiler: Music

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."

Spoiler: A Drow Regiment

 

[Beksesha Suulet’jabar]

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.

 

[Sol'aufain]

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.

 

[Azrakar]

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.

 

[Slaine Aylwin]

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]

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.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Everything had been proceeding as Vyx’aria had willed it, as she had orchestrated for Maelzafan to ordain.

The priesthood was being silenced. The blood of the weak still slicked the stones beneath her boots. House Uthral’s moves were precisely what she had predicted. The city was trembling on the cusp of rebirth, and her will would shape its bones.

But there was one thing she had not yet done.

Not yet.

And then, the challenge came.

Gasps rippled like a cut vein through the gathered Drow as House Aylwin stepped into the square. Slaine, the wild one, and her brother with the prowling eyes. Their saber-toothed beast snarled, pacing along the edges of the torchlight. Murmurs spread quickly. Fools whispered of ancient rites, of legitimacy, of strength tested by tradition.

Vyx’aria stood motionless, her expression unreadable. On either side, Zathria At'Arel and Xunari Auceus were both seasoned killers, both dangerously loyal. She could feel the tension in their limbs, the anger sparking behind their eyes. They would lash out for her without hesitation.

She raised a hand.

The command was silent. Final. Neither woman was to move.

Her eyes found Slaine’s. She listened to the speech, the hunter’s rhetoric, the edge-of-the-wilds wisdom, the poetry of clans clinging to honor through sharpened steel.

When Slaine finally spoke the challenge, Vyx’aria’s lips curled into something like amusement.

“Spare me the lowborn sermon, girl,” she said at last, her voice carrying through the square.

She stepped forward, descending a single step from the raised platform.

Her gaze flicked between Slaine and her brother with unveiled disdain.

“You posture like warriors, but you speak like orphans begging the world to notice you. Is that what passes for nobility now? A mutt and her sniveling little bitch of a brother?”

Gasps again. But Vyx’aria was already moving.

In one fluid motion, she unclasped her cloak and let it fall behind her, dark silk pooling at her heels like spilled shadow.

She drew her twin blades obsidian-forged and rune-etched, cruel in form and beautiful in balance. They hummed with silent promise.

“Come on then,” she said, voice rich with venom and certainty. “Come earn what you think you’re owed.”

She didn’t take a stance. She didn’t need to. Her very presence was the stance.

Slaine Aylwin Theceran

 

[Nimruil]

Spoiler: Music

From his vantage point, Nimruil spied two regiments reaching the square. One was entirely made up of priestesses and their own reserve guard, crossbows walking ahead of shield-bearers -- nothing but the standard of Maelzafan carried above them. About a tally of hundred warriors and a handful of priestesses. A considerable threat.

The other regiment came from the Palace side. It carried both the standard of House Uthral and priestesses. A larger force, but hemmed in by the limited width of the road. Its soldiers filled the street like a black river filling a gorge.

It was time to take action. And to weave his magic, his cloaker form would not serve.

The artificial spine clicked and hummed a sonorous drone. His wings folded around him, head sinking inside the cavity. It writhed, twisted, bones cracking and reshaping, leathery wings giving way for grey-blue skin. At last, the folded cloak shaped into humanoid musculature and a bipedal shape. Only the golden spine remained.

Nimruil retrieved the clasp of his robe, attached behind his neck, near the stem of his golden support. Pressing it against his bare chest, it clicked into a series of interlinked contraptions, like a twitching and shifting beetle, before spitting out golden motes of magic and summoning the layers of his robe and cloak, draping him thread by thread like the web of an invisible spider. While this occurred, he spread his arms reverently, whispering indecipherable words of power; and three, murky green orbs of light exricated themselves from his spine, hovering about him like faithful guardians.

Thus arrayed, he could now take his next step. The elevation of the statue granted him all the cover and overview he could desire from enemy crossbows. He pointed a long finger, and the three orbs swirled around his wrist, circling with exponential speed.

First, the finger pointed at House Ulthrel. But then, it shifted to the smaller regiment. His incantation ended on a sharp hiss, and the orbs launched.

They fell onto the street, diving over the heads of Xunari, Zathria, Slain, Theceran and Vyx'aria like passing comets. Then they plunged into the flagstones, and a flood of green, viscuous liquid surged up like an inverted waterfall, blocking off access to that street.

A semi-transparent wall separated that regiment from the square. The soldiers stopped; casting dark, armoured shadows through the mirage of liquid. The wall churned and frothed like a living creature, but it remained where it was, a barrier. The melting lanterns and hissing flagstones scorching under it gave credence to its nature: acid.

Spoiler: Wall of Acid

 

[Beksesha Suulet’jabar]

Clothed in her high priestess’s regalia and flanked by an honor guard of her favored ri’thil and a quartet of young spearwomen. Beksesha proceeded from the gate into the square, briskly walking toward the head of the phalanx of priestesses and temple guards.

Someone in the young crowd stepped out as though to accost her, earning a baleful glare and a muttered ‘Waela.” The instant the matron uttered the curse, the impudent warrioress in the crowd fell back stricken, grabbing at her bleeding face, as though an invisible clawed hand had slapped her. The fell aura of Maelzafan gloamed briefly around the matron as she proceeded, stride unbroken, the slightest curl of a cruel smirk on her lips.

She assumed her position in front of the phalanx of priestesses, her personal bodyguard joining the guard ranks, her ra'thil falling back to the rearguard as was proper. She turned and halted the procession a respectful distance away from Vyx'aria and Slaine.

"A challenge has been proclaimed. Victory shall provide the evidence of Maelzafan's favor, and thereby our acclaim to the new valsharess."

She ended the resulting clamor with a withering glare through the ranks, daring any priestess to challenge her supremacy.

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

Zathria's blood boiled as she looked to the challenger who dared step forward. Her hand wrapped around the handle of her saber, starting to pull it halfway from her sheathe before Vyx'aria stopped her.

I'll cut out your tongue, she thought to herself. If looks could kill, she would have already cut this one down.

Do not sully your blades, my Queen. Allow me to rip her tongue from her throat on your behalf, she said. She had no fear for her Queen's safety. She had seen Vyx'aria fight and they had dueled many times during their days fighting together. She was a more potent warrior than even Zathria, but it was beneath the Queen.

The words were loud enough not only to demonstrate to others the loyalty that the women under Vyx'aria's command had to her but also to denounce and insult the challenger. Even should Vyx'aria choose to stand against the other Drow personally, the statement that Zathria's pronouncement made spoke volumes to everyone gathered here. Loyalty. Strength.

Slaine Aylwin Vyx'aria

 

[Xunari Auceus]

Xunari clicked her tongue.

Always someone who wanted to step up and claim that the Old Ways needed to be observed - that it was by a younger heir to a House was rather disappointing though. Perhaps, though, it was Xunari who was the strange one, to be the head of a House and care for the future more than the often professed "Old Ways".

As though they were inherently better because they were old, as though making a mistake for a thousand years suddenly washed away the fact that it had been a mistake all along.

Still, runes glowed bright blue along the entirety of her body as magics she had carved into her very flesh and soul began to activate once more. She raised an eyebrow when Vyx'aria bade for her to stay her hand but she did nothing more.

"It is the Queen's prerogative to play into the fantasies of the young heiress." she spoke softly to Zathria, her voice dipping lower as she added, "Been some time Zathria..."

Drawing her blade, a ritual dagger good for slashing, she cut the tips of her first two fingers on the left hand. Blood began to drip from her fingers as Nimruil's magic soared overhead. Rather than fall to the ground, however, her blood stayed hovering in the air motionless until she ran her fingertips through it, layering rune after rune atop of each other in her own blood hovering, hanging, in the air.

It was a defensive runic array she had employed during the war that Vyx'aria and Zathria both would be familiar with. Something of a drain, that would draw hostile spells towards it rather than herself. To store the power of said spells for use by her other runes. Still, she pointedly did not allow it to form over Vyx'aria, offering it to Zathria as she accepted it as an enspelled buckler on the back of her own left hand.

The Queen would fight without it but Xunari was a runic mage - prep time was her friend.

 

[Slaine Aylwin]

A flash of a smirk grew to her face. Her challenge had been accepted. There was little more to say. "She called ye' a bitch, Theceran." She drew the word out, just to salt the wound. But the truth was the truth - Slaine was a lowborn mutt, wild and free. She’d have it no other way.

Empty threats followed from the rest of the would-be Queen’s lapdogs.

She whistled once to her own proverbial dogs. Theceran would recognize it - the sign to strike. So too did the tiger by their side. She tilted the tip of her glaive towards Xunari, the sorceress. Whatever

The sabertooth lunged, fang and claw tearing towards the Drow wizard as the blood ritual began to take shape. Its prerogative was simple: Rip and Tear.

Slaine herself beelined towards the greatest warrior on the field: Vyx’aria. She was deceptively fast, crossing the square nearly as quickly as the great tiger beside her. Her glaive swung in an arc aimed towards Vyx’aria’s waist, below her grip on her blades.

She anticipated a riposte as her blood boiled beneath her light armor. Rumors spoke of Vyx’aria’s prowess in duels - she longed to see it for herself.

Theceran, as usual, would have to find his own opening as the clan heiress flung headlong into battle yet again.

Theceran Xunari Auceus Vyx'aria Zathria At'Arel

 

[Theceran]

Theceran let out a snort of air at Slaine’s prodding. His gaze watching as others showed up. Various types and even magics being used and shown off. Then he saw the blood being made into runes. His eyes tried to quickly discern was it was meant to do when Slaine whistled.

The sabertooth, one of Slaine’s animals, lunged towards the other runic mage. The assault of his sister left an open target. The one who’d tried offering taking the tongue of Slaine herself.

Theceran flicked his wrist at her (Zathria At'Arel), the dagger in his right hand singing in the wind as it moved through the air. The runes on it pulsed, waiting for the activation rune on his hand to be activated. But, that wasn’t the plan, a cord of flames whipped out at Drow with a rapier. Maybe he’d be able to wrap her up with it and bind her from joining in the main fray. The less foes the better.

As the combat began, a member of Clan Aylwin began rustling the instrument they held. Bagpipes bellowed as they played a song.

Vyx'aria Xunari Auceus Zathria At'Arel Slaine Aylwin

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria’s grin came slow and sharp, like a blade unsheathing.

Zathria tensed at her side, but Vyx’aria didn’t so much as glance her way.

“Patience, Zathria,” she murmured coolly. “You will have your hands full soon enough.”

She stepped forward, meeting the roar of House Aylwin’s assault with the gait of a queen returning to her throne.

The heir of Aylwin surged across the square like a storm loosed from the highlands, glaive arcing low and wide for Vyx’aria’s midsection. A wildling’s strike full of fury, reach, and pride.

But pride had never won a duel.

Vyx’aria didn’t block. She didn’t step back. She moved forward, faster than the eye could follow, a blur of charcoal. Her boots struck the stone with hardly a whisper as she slipped inside the swing before it could complete, the glaive’s haft hissing through air behind her like an afterthought.

Vyx’aria’s blade did not rise.

Instead, her off-hand angled her sword just so and she drove the pommel upward in a brutal, decisive strike, aiming straight for the space just beneath Slaine’s cheekbone.

A blow meant not to kill. A blow meant to break bone.

Zathria At'Arel Slaine Aylwin

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

Just like old times. Getting the gals back together, she said to Xuanari.

Vyx'aria opted to handle things herself, not to Zathria's surprise, but she remained at the ready.

As Xunari worked, Zathria's murderous gaze never left these imposters, and it was a good thing. The snap of a fight began all at once, an animal lunging, a arm in motion, and Zathria was already moving, lunging to the side and forward, dodging an attack that she wasn't even sure what it was.

Her sabers whipped free from their sheathe but she didn't go hurtling into him just yet. The anger inside her demanded blood and retribution, but she was an ice cold killer. She wouldn't allow emotion to cloud her judgment or put her in danger.

She moved forward at a steady pace toward him, scowling with murderous intent.

Congratulations, you blew your big surprise, she said, her left saber arcing in horizontally from her own left to right in an attempt to cleave the man in two, an opening blow to get things underway. There hadn't even been enough time to let the adrenaline settle in.

Thoughts of her sister and House At'Arel were now far behind her, but Anluryn At'Arel was watching.

Theceran