Private Tales The Last Resort

[Draedamyr]

"Do I really have to?" he asked softly. His expression was grim as he stood back up. The pain was less than he remembered, though the journey back to the forests was hazy now. Instead every movement seemed to sap the last of his reserves.

With his right arm still limp, he switched his scabbard to the other side of his belt and slid Reverie away. Draedamyr looked towards Seska. He had not suffered a defeat so heavy for a very long time and he doubted Seska had either.

"What is happening back at the town? What do we even do now?" he asked, swaying on the spot. "Run away and find a king who will believe the likes of us?"

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"You don't," she replied coldly. After a moment, and a deep breath to calm herself, she continued in a kinder tone. "But I would rather you did not choose to give up yet."

Beyond them, smoke rise in a new pillar. The distant echo of screams. The fae shivered at the thought of what might be happening down there; too many variables, too many possible situations to be sure. Perhaps the rebels - if that was what they were - would be subsumed by the Pandemonium demon, if that was truly what Lore was. Perhaps numbers could defeat what her magic had failed to.

Perhaps. But she thought not.

She turned to look at the elf after his question. Where there had been warmth and fondness there were only vestiges to be found, faint and ephemeral in that stone gaze. Her expression was winter itself.

"Bring a fool to deal with a threat that will have grown worse by the time we got back? And then a pitched battle, bloodshed and death on a large scale. Assuming they could even defeat this creature. It is not like the one from before."

She looked back towards the town. Taken as she stood now, it was the very picture of an immortal looking upon some irritation caused by those who were not. "She let us go. Why?" Cold. Direct. "I do not think she can face us, now. I must go back and excise this cancer."

 

[Draedamyr]

"The ward. Cost a great deal that. Its been burned up but it interfered with the demon, perhaps containing its magic. Theirs seems to work on twisting and changing this place. I suspect if it was taken away then they would just... A shame I haven't got another one."

He could not help but think that Seska too lived off her ability to draw magic. If she drew too deep, would she even wake up this time. That cod determination in her eyes finally opened a window to the sidhe who had conquered most of an entire world.

Draedamyr moved towards the saddle bags. He wished he hadn't lost his small crossbow. Not many things of any power or size liked having a crossbow bolt driven into them. He had another knife, but more importantly ration biscuits. He took a big swig of water, stuffed one in his mouth and pocketed two more. He did not run on magic. He was magic of the basic fabric of things.

"Let's got a third bout then," he grunted, wiping his brow.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She turned, regarded the elf a moment. The effect was spoiled somewhat by the fact that she had to look up to do it; it would not do, after all, to strain for every inch of height. She used to command by presence alone.

A long time ago, anyway. "Are you really up to this? I have healed your injuries but the effort was not free," she asked. For a moment, she al.ost reached out to touch his face, but refrained from it. It was neither the time, nor the place. "I would welcome the...your sword," she added, almost slipping and calling him a shield. "I am more difficult to kill than it appears," she said.

Maybe he would take the hint. He had been hit, and hit hard. She did not like to think what would happen were he to be gravely wounded...or killed outright.

 

[Draedamyr]

"I'm not going to be any use in taking on the demon again," he admitted. His wards were destroyed and he wasn't quick enough to avoid its destructive magic.

"But even with my left hand I can keep a few country bumpkins at bay. Just...throw it all at her. Put this thing down."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

In truth, she had been hoping he would try to talk her out of what seemed to be a rash decision. He had been bested by the possessed witch, same as she had. And both had been given a free path forward, away from the threat.

They should take it. After all, the people down there - the ones that were still themselves - would not thank them. And the demon and her thrills surely would not. With everything stacked against them, how were they to succeed? And, in victory over one, to escape from the other?

Her next words hurt more than they should have. Pride was a thing ground into her, century after century. Admissions of doubt were inconceivable, and conferred a measure of trust in her companion that he probably could not recognize.

"I...do not know if I can succeed," she said softly. "It is cunning and strong, and defies this worlds laws through unconventional means." She looked up into his eyes. There was doubt there,but there was also cold determination. "But if we do not stop it here..."

She shook her head. That fleeting bit of humanity in her eyes flared a bit, the ancient and implacable being fading a bit. "I need you," she said, and meant it. "For more than your sword. Be my backbone, and help me stay this course. It may all fall to ruin...but there is only one direction to go."

 

[Draedamyr]

Through the weariness something broke in his expression. Draedamyr sighed and looked down at his feet. He was still recovering from losing one of the few people left in this world he had come to love. Having it laid out before him that it could be about to happen again was hard to swallow.

The elf steeled himself and looked back up at Seska, meeting her gaze. He had to put a rod of cold logic through his feelings to keep them from collapsing.

"I can't stand on the side and cheer you on to your death," he said bluntly. "I can't. I will help and we will succeed or fail together. I still have some friends left or at least some mage hunters who could help.

"Like you, I just fear that if we walk away now, for any strength we gain that demon will have sunk it's claws deeper into this world and be even harder to root out."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She held his gaze, a mixture of conflicting emotion clouding them for a moment. All she could do was nod her head.

"It...is more than just that, though," she admitted slowly. "This thing...it is profane beyond my ability to describe it."

And it was. Magic was more than just a tool to her people. It had ascended to a religion, a deity cherished by a people steeped in its life-giving light. In much the same way that primitive people revered nature, so too did her kind hold magic with a reverence that could not be sullied.

These demons from another world twisted and tainted the natural order. Others had before them, obviously, and they all had been deemed heretics of the Art, dangerous beyond words.

She reached up, and touched his cheek. A flow of magic, a warmth spreading through his flesh, a return of some of his strength. "As always, we do what must be done." There was resignation on her voice. "Though none would mourn our massing, and none shall exalt us for our sacrifices..."

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr almost broke his own spirit with one simple action. As she touched his cheek he threaded his fingers through her silver hair until he cradled the back of her head. A gentle tug, half a step in and she was crushed against him.

He took a deep breath, chest rising and falling beneath her. Finally he placed a kiss on the top of her head and leaned away.

"Would be an awful shame to die now," he reflected quietly. Then, a silent determination seemed to settle over the elf. His left hand settled against Reverie. Just his sword, his skill with his off-hand and what little energy he had left against the demon.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Fierce. His embrace crushed the breath from her, speaking of a need that her own heart echoed. It was the woman in her, not the implacable immortal, that returned that embrace, albeit without as much force. When she leaned back, she found herself breathing harder than necessary.

Damn fool of a man! There was no time for this now.

She cleared her throat, and stepped back reluctantly. She felt the potential within her, then; vast, but not endless. Draedamyr had not seen the extent of her capabilities and, being fair, she herself had not really pressed those limits often, either.

"Death is not an option," she said, and turned a chilly regard on the town. What must be done.

 

[Draedamyr]

The palisades did little to contain the sound of fighting. Draedamyr had expected a handful of thralls surrounding Lore. Perhaps enough that he would be hard pressed to hold his own again. In his right hand he held a long knife in a reverse grip. He could barely lift the arm but it would give him a chance as a desperate defence.

Instead it sounded like a full skirmish in the streets between her supporters and the rest of the town. Perhaps their leaders, the ones they had been led towards originally, had rallied the town against the demonic presence. From what he had seen there could not be enough fighters in this town to stand a chance.

A woman rushed around a corner. She had each arm around a child. A young boy with a great mop of blonde hair and a girl that was perhaps on the cusp of becoming a teenager. She stopped, holding the children tight to her as she saw Draedamyr and Seska.

"The road is that way," said Draedamyr. "Go north as fast as you can."

They were close now. He could hear the shouting, feel the subtle eddies of magic. Lore was not ripping through the magic that bound the world together, she was barely tapping her power now.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

It was like walking backwards in time, to many different places at once. The crossroads of time itself, the echoing memories of things done long before. The half-constructed palisade round the town triggered memories of the bastions of Twilight, the halls of the Lost Knights. Scene after scene, one identical to the last in every respect except specific details.

A woman and her children, and they passed without comment from her. Just an ancient walking among the streets of mortals, the chains of power wrapped around her soul rustling periodically as she took each step forward to the confrontation.

"Why does it always have to be thus," she said suddenly to Draedamyr without looking up from her course. "Power draws power. Convergence, it is called in some places - the magnetic attraction that the powerful have to one another that inevitably leads to a conflagration of destruction." Walking, straight ahead with her eyes only on the street ahead, ignorant of the non-threats that were people fleeing the worst of the fighting.

"The more I try to melt into the world, to vanish...the stronger that attraction becomes. Why can I not just....avoid these conflicts? Why do they haunt me so?"

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr gave her concerns some silent thought. He had been sent, on several occasions, to deal with mages because they had started causing chaos by starting magical battles in the middle of cities. He knew that Seska referred to the problem on a more personal, philosophical level, but he had seen the damage done by great powers when they clashed.

He preferred to wait them out and deal with the victor quietly in his own way, not to he in the middle. There were other parellels.

"I have had several swordsman, mostly young, seek me out just to see if they could win. They hoped fame and fortune would come with defeating a renowned duelist. They would even risk their lives for it.

"It is not the same, but perhaps I know a little of desperately wanting to step away from...from what draws the world to you. Even if it is part of your very core."

The air thrummed with power. Perhaps Lore had been forced to call on her magic.

"We're close." He turned to look at Seska, almost feeling a flash of fear at the determination in her eyes. He had nearly been killed by getting between them. This time he wasn't even in a state to dare step into the crossfire.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She nodded as she walked along. All was poise, a stately and elegant gait down a dirt street. That detail did not seem to matter; it could just as easily have been some palatial hallway. It was all in the attitude, in the way one carried oneself.

Too bad there was a tremor of fear there. It might be well hidden, but there it was to the trained eye.

"At least there is more to who and what you are than the sword you carry," she replied. A young woman with a rusty short sword in her left hand popped around a corner, noticed the pair of them with a Yelp and an anguished, despairing sound, then backpedaled the vcd way she had come. "Not being defined by somethi-"

A flash of light, something about its quality profane and revolting, and then the street before her whipped into dusty fervor. A body flew through the air trailing threads of blood, landing in a boneless, crumpled heap a dozen feet from the corner. The woman she had just seen, she realized. Cold logic found she was neither surprised nor dismayed by this.

A half dozen blankee eyed people rounded the corner. The sensation of the possessed sorceress was coming from quite a bit further away...but it was apparent they were expected.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr sighed. "I take no shame in having built everything I am around the sword," he said, even as the villagers started walking towards them.

"I had nothing and everything I earned was with the sword."

Against this crowd he wished he could use his right arm, but he was more dangerous with his left than any commoner.

"When they approach, can you do anything to split them up or distract them?" he asked.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"You have children that were not earned with a sword, and you have a woman whom you were married to that was earned by not using it," she said. It might have been playful if the circumstances were different. They weren't. They were in the thick of it now, and there would be no time for such things until - if - they reached the other side.

"There are," she replied to him. The pressure of magic suddenly built, a sense of oppressive force that made it a wonder that any consider magic so fanciful and beautiful. Perhaps it was all in what it was applied to, after all, and nothing that was about to pass could be deemed beautiful. The sorceress stopped in the middle of the road, and made a curt gesture towards the oncoming drones.

The effect was immediate and obvious. Dust skirled through the air as wind cut through the group, a thin blade that swiftly widened, abruptly shifting direction to a whirlwind of leaves and dirt. Two flew off to the left side of the street so swiftly their feet left the ground, and three to the right, neatly tossed aside like so much rubbish. The last continued on as if he had not seen what had happened, or did not care.

"The witch moves," she said. The ominous presence was moving again, but still distant.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr stepped forwards, a brief song of steel and the way ahead was clear. He moved to the side and ensured two of the thralls moving to stand up would stay down.

"If I didn't know you better, I would think you were using sword as a euphemism," he replied.

"Which way is the demon?" he asked. He felt a brush of confidence, but kept it in check. It was easy to do so when his body was an orchestra, with every discordant section vying for his attention. There were just a few parts left that didn't hurt. Much of his effortless grace was absent from his movements.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She replied to the humor with a snort, but there was no smile gracing her lips now. Cold determination was the only thing to be seen, gleaming in her eyes and pressed into her features. "There are swords, and then there are swords," she said without missing a beat.

Two more thralls came into view, and stood watching her. She gestured towards them, too, muttering something melodic, flowing like a river. The language was older than anything she knew, unknown to this world. Wind lashed out again, air in the form of something nearly solid, and both staggered backwards as if struck, dropping to their knees. "She is a few streets away, but she is not coming to meet us. I do not think she intends to charge in again."

Around them, thralls moved. Behind them, in front of them, in every direction. The crunch of boots on grit behind them alerted her of that threat, but she did not even turn to face them. Half a dozen more in front, five to the left, and a handful to the right. It was clear why Lore did not move; she was using her pawns instead.

It seemed like a waste, though. There had to be more to it.

"Steady yourself, Draedamyr. I sense something amiss..."

 

[Draedamyr]

"She's hemming us in," he replied. "Controlling this many can't be easy."

Had Lore taken hold of so many over a long period? Solidified her power over them slowly until she could hold sway over what seemed like have the town? It seemed now that it didn't matter.

Their lighthearted exchange of words reminded him that he really didn't want to die here. Seska had crossed his path as he was coming away from a truly low point in his life. Neither of them had intended to get caught up with one another, but it would be a damned shame not to explore it further.

Draedamyr lashed out, driving some of the thralls back. There were too many. If they rushed in, heedless of the damage he could do, then they would have him.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She opened her mouth to reply, ready to stride forward despite the drones when a cry rose from behind them.

A warcry, in fact, even if it sounded weak. Despite herself, she turned at the waist to look upon the source. She expected more thralls bearing down on them with blank stares. But what charged forward was instead two dozen wide-eyed men and women with weapons drawn. Several of their number had the look of those that knew the difference between hilt and business and of their weapons, eyes harder than the ccx rest if no less fearful.

"Cut them down," a woman cried out over the sound of mismatched armor clanking. A ragged cheer went up, and a moment later the horde was slamming into the vastly outnumbered drones behind them. The mindless things did not even cry out as they were cut down, only at the last second spinning to face the threat, still slack-jawed. Arrows zipped through the air, scything down two or three in front of them before-

A splayed hand, the air before the Sidhe crackling like glass breaking as an arrow struck, shaft splintering with the force of the blow against the magical shield she had hastily thrown up.

"Great," she hissed. "Stuck between a rock and a hard place." Somewhere distant, cackling laughter rose, echoed from the mouths of the drones, even those dying on the ground.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr looked down at his sword. The weight of the pommel was perfectly balanced with the blade. The edge had the perfect curve. It's keen magical edge took a specialist to sharpen, but only needed attention every few years.

It had not been forged for him, but it was a family heirloom that he had fought, and killed for. He had thought for a long time that he would go down with it in his hand.

One last gambit to try and send these soldiers away. They were either the towns serious guard or a company of troops that had been on the road.

"The demon is that way!" he shouted as clearly as he could. He lifted Reverie and pointed in the very rough direction of Lore, slightly altered to try and stop them running him down.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The elf's words did not spur any different reaction from the assailing men and women. Another drew and loosed an arrow with surprisingly practiced ease, and a zephyr, courtesy of the sorceress, sent it wide. Men streamed by, ignoring the pair of them. Not all, though.

A woman and a pair of men allowed, weapons at the ready, eyes hard. "The witch might have gone mad, but it did not happen until this witch arrived," one of them said in hard tones. He held a sword in either hand, held them like he knew what he was about. "You so-called elder races bring trouble with you everywhere you go."

"Damn straight," the other man said. He had a pinched face with a dark cast to it, and more than a hint of some other ancestry-possibly elfin - in his features.

Seska stated at the three, always aware of the approaching threat, cackling in the distance.

The woman said nothing, staring at them with cold eyes

 

[Draedamyr]

Maybe, he thought, he was not drawn to Seska for her power or her wit or her wisdom and courage or her beauty. Maybe he was just stuck in a world of fucking morons and fed up of the fact that when they spoke their idiocy gave him a headache and Seska was a blessed reprieve from that.

"Should you be so inclined to punish us for this then I promise that I will let all three of you have at me. Take out whatever retribution you see fit. Right now you want our help dealing with that thing.".

It had taken all of their resolve to get back here. Draedamyr could barely stand, let alone fight an acoomolished swordsman. They did not need to know that just yet.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The cold eyed woman stared at him, the barest hint of a smile on her lips. She eyed Draedamyr quite deliberately up and down, then spit off to one side un a very unladylike manner. "Me, I think you wouldn't last thirty seconds against just me," she said matter-of-factly. She had replaced her swords in their sheaths on her waist. "These knuckleheads can handle a sword almost as well. Too bad they're idiots," she finished, while those in question made angry protests.

There isn't time for this, the Sidhe thought. "We are not the ones that started the trouble. You abducted me, or the leaders of this place did." If there was a little heat in her voice, so be it. She did not ask to be entangled in this mess yet again.

The woman ignored the diminutive lady. "Pretty sure you got things backwards, long-ears. Pretty sure you want our help dealing with...with whatever that witch is." A slight hitch in her confidence, a betrayal of fear expertly hidden. All the same, the her brown eyes did not reflect any fear at all.

"Why should we help them?" The taller of the two men spit but did not say a word while his companion proved the women's point. "Lore did not start acting like that until she came here!"

"You know that isn't true," the nameless woman snapped. "She's your sister, you just refused to see it." The man made angry noises, but did not say anything else. It was quite clear he was very angry, though.

Seska looked to Draedamyr, and then back to the sword-bound lady. "Any help is appreciated," she started to say, but was rudely cut off by the woman.

"Of course it is, dear," she replied.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr looked down as Seska and met her gaze briefly. He was tired, oh so tired. This whole business with demons was supposed to have been a brief stop along the road. Perhaps a bit of retribution for the burned children. Now they were at the centre of world changing events. And yet there was still chaos and bickering.

"At this point it does not seem that it matters much as to who is helping who," Draedamyr sighed. "She's going to come and she's going to fucking kill us all shortly anyway. Or at least try to. Just don't group up when fighting a mage. Spread out, keep to cover. Look for your chance."

Generic advice, perhaps it wouldn't help them. Every second that others delayed Lore was another moment to find a way to kill her.

"So why don't we set about stopping her first and stop flapping tongues?"