Private Tales The Last Resort

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"...then we won't be here when the holocaust really begins," she replied. Fast as thought and as absently, power wove and took shape; another of the little buggers bounced off a shattering pane of light, and before it could regain its composure from being so stunned...

...the ancient sorceress burned the pixie from the world. A point of fiery light that flashed into being and was gone in the space of a breath, leaving nothing but ashes to drift away on the breeze. "These little bastards will not stick around for long. They are just here to kill what they can, poison supplies, and then fade back. It will be sorcery next...and then the rush of sword and shield."

Draedamyr was not familiar with sorcery on the scale that she spoke of, and did not even consider to think of the difference betwixt their perspectives. On Arethil, unless it was ritual magic involving dozens or hundreds of casters working in unison, spell-craft was limited too heavily by the Laws of Magic to be anything other than another tool, same as bow or blade. On Tonan, though...without the laws of magic, and with the source of that power stemming from the literal Gods themselves...

She shuddered. She did not think they would be able to avoid that awe-inspiring display of power, for it was often indiscriminate. Not being in the open was a good start, though.

She angled off towards the trees. They would provide little in the way or protection, but then she had her own way of protecting them. The only question would be if it would be enough. Ahead, two or three hundred men broke from cover, heading in the same direction they were as the clarion call of the horn rose higher. "When I tell you to, I need you to pick me up and hold me overhead," she said. She could feel something distant, but it was too distant to make out just yet. "No matter what you are doing, no matter what the situation...you need to do it immediately."

Ahead, a dozen soldiers wearing strange armor broke free, and then a dozen more. Raiders. Even as she watched, a group of them scythed into the back ranks of the soldiers she had seen breaking from cover, doing terrible damage to their rear ranks before they even realized what was happening.

One group saw the two of them. Saw her, in particular. The Sidhe were, after all, known for their sorcery - the most powerful of all the people on Tonan. She was a threat that needed to be eliminated, and a dozen men and women bore down on her and Draedamyr, less than honorable intentions in mind.

 

[Draedamyr]

He felt no sympathy for the pixie as it was burned away. It could have been on 'their' side of this conflict for all he cared. It was perhaps a little cruel to tar their entire kind with the same brush because they had irritated him. By the standards of his kind he was becoming quite old and given the situation he wasn't going to ponder that in any depth.

Draedamyr could think of no situation where picking Seska up could help them. It didn't matter. He trusted her implicitly. Not only that but she knew far more of what was going on around them.

He was almost relieved for the sight of soldiers coming for them. If they were far enough forward to meet skirmishers then he hoped they had time before the fire rained down.

There was no running away from this fight. They had to keep moving, but would be cut down if they turned their backs. Draedamyr took three quick steps forward and then to his left. He didn't want to stand directly between Seska and the tightest group of raiders, potentially in the way of destructive magics.

He had room to move. The first skirmisher had a long two-handed sword with a graceful curve. It hissed as it cut the air, but only the air. Draedamyr's strike was precise, surgical. Reverie slipped above cuirass and through the neck.

The next two came on with more caution.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

With the one thing out of the way - their lives, literally in the hands of the elderly elf - she turned her attention to the problem before them.

The ancient sorceress was not a martial titan. Only being tall enough to stand up to Draedamyr's chest, she was vastly outclassed physically by every single opponent she'd had the misfortune of dealing with, minus the pixies; beasts or man, all were stronger than she was. Long, long...long ago, she had realized that, and come up with her own way to deal with the problem.

Usually, if there was someone who was stronger than herself around, she would simply use them as a human (or humanoid) shield and settle with what she was best at. Unfortunately, the number of enemies that had presented themselves was not something the swordsman could handle on his own, no matter how good he was.

But she could tip the balance. The trouble was she needed to be ready at any moment for the maelstrom that would descend upon them. There was no if about this, only a when. A certainty.

Possessed of her power, the sorceress deftly wove the flows, and changed the battlefield - at least, the field nearest them. Weaving protection across Draedamyr and herself - difficult in the presence of cold iron that was not only what it was, but also impossibly imbued with a ward - and then she drew the air from their general surrounds. She did not have the strength or the desire to draw all of it...

...but she didn't need to. Almost immediately the effects became apparent; enemies that had been confident suddenly became confused as hypoxia struck them as one unit. It was not enough to kill them, or not quickly..but it made them sluggish, made their thoughts slow, and made their stamina wink out like a snuffed candle.

"Do as you need, darling," she whispered, eyes to the skies.

 

[Draedamyr]

No one would describe Draedamyr as a particularly kind elf. He was honest and efficient. He lived by the blade and that meant knowing when to use it. He didn't want this pack chasing them down as they tried to get away from the worst of the devastation.

He didn't know what the endgame was. He didn't know if they could get away from this place or perhaps appeal to those on the winning side of the battle. In this moment there were eleven hunters between Seska, himself and any chance of freedom.

Each turn of the blade was swift and sharp enough to cause the air to protest with a hiss. There was an economy of motion to how Draedamyr did his business. Nothing flashy, but precise and lethal strikes.

The sound of steel clashing rang out more sporadically as he went on the offensive. The first put up a fight, but the last were succumbing to Seska's magic and made pitiful protests that he ignored.

His expression was grim, his sword bloodied as he returned to her side for a straight dash for the trees. Even in their peril, part of him wondered if this would change how she saw him.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

There was no way for her to know his thought process, to see the doubt and concern that seeing him in his element would engender. It was a needless concern, though; whatever his efficient, ruthless methodology might be, he was and always would be better than her. More pure, less stained by dark debasement and clinical, cold calculation. He killed dozens, perhaps hundreds, but at least they had a chance to defend themselves.

She had killed millions, and never seen their faces. Given them no chance to defend themselves and perhaps even worse,had ordered the deaths of millions more.

The raiders fell, but more replaced them. The sound of fighting grew intense all round them, the mortal screams, the clash of steel, the song of arrows in flight. She stayed close to his heels, feeling the flow of magic in the air, feeling the rising crescendo..

...but not yet.

Another group scythe through the soldier to their left and came barreling towards them. "Not much longer," she panted, out of breath. "Hold them off," she managed. They were outnumbered in the extreme, but she thought - thought! - there might be a chance.

 

[Draedamyr]

It was quickly descending into chaos. It was clear that moving forwards was putting them into the terrain that was quickly going to be overrun by the enemy, whoever they were.

He held his sword straight upwards. A gamble. A sign from his world that he wanted to challenge the leader. It was ignored. The chaos would continue and his skills in a duel were fast becoming redundant.

He rushed forwards to meet them. If he hadn't he would be one slip away from letting them take a swipe at Seska.

A beast skin to a minotaur swung a double headed axe in a wide arc without even breaking its charge. Draedamyr had to dive aside, putting himself in great danger.

Up on his feet in a flash, he parried another blade from a fae and lashed out to make himself some space. His left hand flicked a spare knife straight from his belt towards the minotaur. It struck deep into its calf and sent it tumbling to the ground. He barely had his footing and two more swordsmen were descending upon him.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She had to be careful of the power that she called upon. Often, in a fight, it was not who was the strongest that one, but the one that could utilize their abilities with the greatest efficiency, eking out their strength as though it were a precious resource that could never be reclaimed.

Stamina was more important than stopping power, often. Although there were many shades of gray in that very statement, a big burst of power did not necessarily win an argument immediately...unless it was time right. And that was what the sidhe was doing...timing the bulk of her strength so that it could have the most meaningful impact.

She was excellent at efficiency. She'd had tens of thousands of years - more, perhaps - to perfect the Art, and its use. She was a sea of the prim, her flesh drenched in that archaic, primal power. She would have glowed like a beacon to any mage on the battlefield, but she knew that the magi were not going to be on this field. That was not how wars were fought on Tonan; on Arethil, mages marched with the army and served on the front lines.

On Mo'rpi...

A trickle of power. A strong gust of wind, brief and harsh, slammed into one of the swordsman attacking Draedamyr, enough to throw the man off balance. A little bit of grit, courtesy of some creativity on her part, dashed across the face of the second. Behind them, half a dozen more came, blades out and-

"Now! Do it now!" she cried out, stepping in front of Draedamyr. She held her staff high, and all the magic that she held surged into the staff in her hands. Something inexplicable surged in the air, and even the soldiers they fought felt it. The bleak look of resignation was writ large on their faces, and the fight went out of them almost immediately.

They knew.

On Mo'pri, the mages never fought on the front lines. Instead, they...

 

[Draedamyr]

I am going to lose this fight.

There were very few occasions in his life he had reached such a thought. He wouldn't have survived for so long by throwing himself into battles where the odds were stacked against him.

There were too many of them and they were fanning out to get around him. They were not the elite of whatever enemy force was beyond the horizon, but they were capable and hungry for battle.

Seska bought him space and he fought to hold it. There had to be a reason they were here, some sense to this madness. It would have been a shame to die before he found it.

Now! Do it now!"

Instinct told him not to drop his sword. It was the greatest show of trust he had given her that he let it fall to the grass. Draedamyr turned to lift her. He couldn't sense the distant magic being summoned, but he could feel her channelling.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

...worked ritual magic from within hallowed grounds.

Draedamyr might not have been able to feel it initially, but that didn't last. A split second only, even as he raised her high - and it became evident why she needed the height in moments.

A tickling at the back of the mind became and overwhelming sense of dread, and that preceded the fell sorcery by moments. A couple of soldiers thought to take advantage of the fact that Draedamyr had left himself wide open, advanced...

The sky went crimson. Not one part of it, but the entire sky. The howl of profane sorcery rose like a wind, the lurid light striking everything into stark red-orange washed life and deep, inky shadow. Seska said something aloud, but it was swept away in the sudden roar - a roar as though the world were a giant piece of paper and it was being torn slowly apart. At her word, a vivid shield of blue light - immediately purple - sprang into being, dropping round both of them.

One single second.

Something slammed the ground with enough force to make the earth jump. Trees snapped like match-sticks all round them, and burst into flame immediately. The firestorm grew in intensity as the power of thousands of mages scoured the earth like a pumice stone. Ash swirled in the air, and the air became so hot - even within the barrier - that breathing hurt. Soil flashed to ash, and places round the field smoulder, and then glowed as stone began to melt.

The soldiers all round them were gone in an instant, their lives snuffed out with as little fanfare or regard as one might crush ants underfoot. The barrier creaked, hair-fine crack spreading through it, and the ancient Sidhe threw all of her strength into pushing back against the fury of the old Gods. She swore she could hear the world screaming in pain, and then realized that the sound was coming from her own lips only when the world suddenly went dead silent, the roaring and the winds flashing out as if they had never been.

The barrier held. All around them, tinged blue by the shield, smoke swirled. The forest was gone. The grass was gone. In many places, the very soil was gone, and molten stone bubbled. The devastation stretched for miles in either direction. Her strained voice fell off, and the shield collapsed as the power feeding it fell away.

At their feet, Draedamyrs sword lie on the ground and, beside it, the last foot of some poor bastard's sword, who had thought to take advantage of the old blademaster's guard being doing, lie upon the smouldering earth.

Seska could say nothing. The sheer scale of what had just happened was not unknown to her...but it had been so long since she had borne witness to the horrors of her home world that she was simply struck dumb remembering the countless times she had done likewise.

 

[Draedamyr]

He had never wished for a boring, secluded retirement. But as the sky flared an angry shade of red he wished for a cottage out in the wilderness and a long, quiet summer.

The magic fell upon them and he had no space left for imagining a more pleasant day. All he had left was shock and horror. Even forewarned he was stunned into silence at everything he could see being reduced to nothing in the blink of an eye.

The heat didn't register, nor did her scream. The space of several long and slow breaths passed before he even thought to place her back down on the ground.

Nine centuries of life and he stood dumbstruck looking across the top of her head and at open, smouldering ground that had been a forest. They had been heading that way. Where was there left to even go?

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"We need to move," she said suddenly. She took him by the hand and tugged on it. There was little else to do, now, with the devastation that surrounded them. No enemies yet stood where they could see, but she knew. She knew that this was not the end for either side. Vast as the attack had been, it had not been total.

There was a rise in the land ahead, scarred black and smoldering, with thin rivulets of molten rock coursing sluggishly down the sides. It was that direction that she headed in, to get a better view of the land round them, to get a sense of scale to the magic that had laid waste to so much. Even before they were halfway up it, the sound of violent clashing could be heard - steel on steel, the screams of the wounded and the dying. It was not the sound of some hundred men fighting, but that of an army of thousands. Behind them, smoke wended its way into the skies, and before them...

...bedlam. Red banners arrayed against the gold, and it was clear from the outset that Leto's finest were outmatched by Barnabas. The horror of the sorcery behind them had not stretched beyond this ridge - behind, all was a wasteland, but before them the forest resumed. As did the battle.

"We need this to end. We cannot keep running, and we cannot face this. I...I do not know what is happening, but I have not seen its like in tens of thousands of years," she admitted, panting at the top of the ridge.

Remember us, breathed an etherial voice seemingly carried by the wind. She looked to Draedamyr as if to get confirmation that she had actually heard something.

 

[Draedamyr]

Iron. Steel. They were immutable materials that fae and magic both shied away from. Dwarves had a way of beating a kind of runic magic into metal, but elves had learned the art of weaving it into steel in the distant past.

His sword was a relic of the past. It was a link to the past, unyielding. It was normally reassuring to have that cold weight in his hands. Picking up Reverie brought him little reassurance now. He hastened after Seska. Only she could unpick this.

When they reached the top of the ridge, he found out that she was not going to unpick this. His life had always been in his own hands, always balanced on the edge of a sword. Not this time.

Remember us, breathed an etherial voice

He turned sharply towards Seska.

"I hope you have an idea what that was," he said softly. Instead of his sword, he reached for her hand. It seemed only a matter of time before another magical storm, or the rolling battle ahead engulfed them.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She took his hand with a death-grip, unable to hide the faint tremble in it. She would never admit to fear - almost never, anyway - but that ordeal had been about as close as she had come to failure in so many years that she simply could not recall. Ritual magic. She had managed to flows of sorcery on that scale before, but things like that were not crafted by the prim a long soul could conjure up, even among her kindred.

Even her. She had laid waste to parts of cities before, but of her own power there were limits. The scorched earth behind them was the work of thousands of mages working together - priests in their temples, praying to their God and beseeching his intercession in the endless wars. The source of that power was, of course, the aether offered up by all those priests and priestesses...but the guiding hand was a mage.

She could remember the intoxicating effect of holding so much power. So much...so much power.

"The Trinity forgive me, but I want to again," she said absently. Staring into a middle distance, she had to shake herself to free her mind from that enticing thought. Magic was every bit as powerful a drug as anything, and the sirensong of that ocean of power sang to her.

"If you mean the Inferno," she said, the capital letter slotting in place neatly, "then that was ritual magic of the highest order. A spell invoked by the faithful of Barnabas, guided by the hands of a mage like myself." She paused. "If you meant that faint whisper..."

She shrugged. She had no idea, but an uncomfortable notion was creeping in. "We need to find the ruler of this lot," she said, scanning the woods ahead of her. The aftershocks of the sorcery behind them still rippled through the world, leaving a taste like burned tin in the air. "There," she said and pointed to a group of men surrounding some worthy in the midst of the battle. They were a quarter of a mile off, and the forces of Leto were focusing on them with savage ferocity.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr hadn't stopped to really consider that danger. She spoke as if magical power was an addiction to her. She had spoken with great sadness at being alone in Arethil. A sentiment they had shared as they fled chaos.

There was no option now but to trust that the lure of magic wasn't enough to draw her back to her old life. How they had found there way back into it was still a mystery. He had no starting point to ponder that, no knowledge of how this place could be in tact and how they could be here.

Faith and the draw of power. A potent combination. He had witnessed the humans scrabbling around to use such weapons on one another with increasing zeal.

"Are they going to recognise you?" he asked. "And even if they don't will they kill us anyway?"

With the battle raging, they would hardly be preparing to offer hospitality to visitors. Draedamyr was tired, confused and frustrated. He would still follow her into the abyss.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"Perhaps," she said in an absent tone, staring at the fighting. Making calculations in her head, weighing the risks and the potential rewards of her actions with the same care she had for thousands of years. One did not live as long as she without making mistakes, but one did not live very long at all by repeating them.

"Perhaps...it would be best if they did recognize me," she said slowly. The feeling of that immense wellspring of magic haunted her dreams, tens of thousands of years down the road since last she had tasted it. She could still remember - vividly! - how terrifying she had been to the leaders of that world. "Most would have avoided me had their causes not clashed with mine," she said after a moment. "I...I have the blood of so many on my hands - oceans of it. Man, woman, child - it mattered not. But the reputation earned..."

She turned and faced Draedamyr, looking up into his eyes. There was a quiet determination there - the one that had seen her through countless lives - and it gleamed like gold in her eyes. "If what I was can serve some small measure of good here and now, then what better use for it? Striking fear into my enemies was no small pastime of mine in my younger days..." A moment, and then she laughed softly, a light and free sound. "Probably my younger days. Younger than these I now live, in either case."

She stepped forward, pressing herself against his body, cheek against his ribs. Seeking affection, and some stability - a rock on which to tether herself, to prevent the tide from sweeping her along into ways that should - and would! - remain dead. "All will be well," she said, as if trying to tell herself more than him that it would be so.

 

[Draedamyr]

He wrapped his free hand around the back of her head, ignoring the blood welling around his scraped knuckles. Draedamyr held her to her chest.

She might have felt a flutter of temptation for the magics of old, but there was a wall of pain and regret between her and the lure of that power.

He wasn't sure that he wanted to say her playing the part of her old self. Hearing about her past and the mistakes she had made wasn't going to be the same as seeing it. If their bluff was called they weren't going to last for very long either. Given the destructive power unleashed behind them, he supposed they wouldn't feel regret for very long.

"I trust you," he said softly. "Just tell me what to do."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"All will be well," she said again. "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well," she continued, but did not pull away from him. Some things could not be denied, and the touch of another - one she loved above all others - was an anchor to the world, to reality, and to her self. Just standing there, listening to the thump in his chest, was soothing enough.

"I am not worthy of such trust," she said finally. She had worn so many faces in her exceedingly long life; bluff and businesslike, shrewd, cold, callous, impassioned. So few were truly her, so much so that there were times she questioned who she even was.

Now was not the time for such thoughts.

"Show no fear, and walk beside me," she said at long last. She touched upon the prim, letting the flow of primal magic flow through her, and worked magic she was all too familiar with. There were many that would say glamour was the sole property of the fae, and they might not be mistaken in this. She worked the glam in her mind, weaving the power subtly about both herself and Draedamyr.

In a matter of moments, both had changed in appearance.

Seska had truly not changed much, the attire she wore having simply become more elegant, the high neck of her dress replaced by something that dipped low enough to show cleavage, the color scheme altering to red, black, and gold. The coiled form of a skeletal dragon wrapped about her torso, stitched out in thread-of-gold, its eyes gleaming rubies that caught the light in a sinister manner.

Draedamyr, similarly, had been clothed in red, black, and gold, and his faithful blade had become more ornate, somehow more dark and sinister.

"We are of the Ordo," she said in a low voice. It was a sultry thing, now, possessed of a quiet power that may or may not have had anything to do with her glam. "Servants of the Great Lord himself. It was to he that I slew myself, taking part in a ritual that would see me undead." Which had been a waste, as she was already effectively immortal anyway. "A part of my own power I had given to Him, in hopes to freeing Him to rule over the realm."

She paused and looked to Draedamyr. "Ostensibly, we serve Angelique. For this age, perhaps. Of the pantheon we do not look for guidance; it is to the void beyond, where He lay imprisoned for all eternity."

A pause.

"Give me a good, villainous laugh," she said. Her eyes sparkled at the thought.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Of the Ordo," he repeated, looking down at his own uniform. He didn't like uniforms and causes. Uniforms and flags and had burned his birthplace to the ground.

It sounded as if - he had witnessed - that these forces had committed far worse atrocities than even the most genocidal humans.

His attempt to grapple with a greater chain of fealty was suddenly interrupted by Seska's request for a laugh. She got one, but not the kind she was after.

Draedamyr laughed short and sharp from the belly and shook his head.

"Can I be the stern and silent villainous type?" he asked. He looked back out to the field of battle.

"I do trust you and at least your side of the wars had some style and flair."

If they got through this they were going to need to find some humour in the challenges they had faced. Mostly, he thought, they were going to need some wine.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The laugh earned a smile, but the comment did not. He couldn't possibly know the depth of the atrocities she had committed in the name of the Demon Lord, acting as the Heart of the Order. The things that she had done in His....his name would have made Draedamyr vomit to hear them.

Even after all this time, some of them still made her sick to think on.

"I am glad of your trust," she said. His trust meant a lot to her, though she would probably hedge a bit on how much if asked. Still, the temptation of so much power was strong. "The next bit is all about intimidation. I would do it without killing people if possible...but..."

But sometimes it was unavoidable. Their lives were more important than these warriors, each one of whom had signed up to fight and die for their lord or lady.

"Lead in front of me and glare condescendingly at anyone that approaches. The colors and sigil should be enough to give them pause, and so long as they haven't lived under a rock, they won't dare raise a hand against me," she said.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr turned his gaze to the battle. Humans were quite orderly in conducting their wars. It was their strength, as a great collection of frightened peasants. For large parts of a battle there were surprisingly few casualties, with organised blocks of men lining up and then colliding. It was only if there was a route and there was cavalry on the field that it mounted up.

This was different. It was a swirling melee of brutal chaos and magic. Draedamyr mentally picked out a path that would keep them from the worst of it. From up here there was some sense to it all. When they finished the slope down he knew that would be lost.

He didn't want to ruin the glamour she had cast, but Draedamyr decided they were too far to have drawn any attention yet. Turning sharply, he reached out to slide his left hand under her hair to slip about her neck. Draedamyr leaned down and drew her into a fierce kiss. It barely last a few staccato heart beats before he pulled back, pressing his forehead to hers before standing tall.

There. If this plan didn't see them through then at least he could think of that as the darkness claimed him.

"Condescending I can do," he declared as he marched them into madness.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She did not like to use glams, despite her racial predilection for such things. Often, among the fae, such magic was used for pranks - either good in nature or not - and quite honestly directed at mortals.

Mortality was a thing that she had mulled over much in her life. She had long decided that there was nothing that was eternal. Not her, not the pantheon, whichever one you decided to choose. No the sun, not the world, not the whole of creation. That she had lived so long was an aberration; statistically, she should have long been dead.

Math isn't any more accurate than her enemies of old had been, as it turned out.

Draedamyr assumed the lead, and she followed. She followed behind him, gliding across the ground as though it were the hall of some court, and her every motion was grace given form. A raging battle all round her? The affront that any would even dare raise a hand against her seemed beyond the pale, and would not be countenanced by her, Draedamyr, or any that followed her. The old mannerisms might have been consumed in the mists of time, but Seska was quite adept at handling people, high or low.

A glam. The prim surged within her, flowed from her like a river of light. If you could see it; a brief pulse of light followed by quite visible gloom. Rather than try to hide the power she wielded, she enhanced the feel of it. What was already an extensive work of enchantment became oppressive to those sensitive to magic; the hand of a Goddess descending from on high. Oppressive, soul-crushing in its magnitude. There was no hiding her presence now. There would not have been any attempt to hide it back then, either.

Immortal.

It had the desired affect. The warring factions below took notice, their leaders looking up at the dark stain on the horizon. She was careful not to be too dramatic. The darkness she gathered round herself was impressively ominous without being comical. And it certainly drew attention.

"Do not waver," she said in a low voice as she continued down the hillside, grace picking up a certain sensual flair not truly intended for the elf's viewing pleasure. Her eyes were cold, disinterested, with the faintest measure of annoyance in them. Below, the forces were separating from one another, limping back. The forces of Barnabas had coalesced around a single leader, and a contingent of several dozen broke off from the main group. The Letites, broken from the fighting just moments before, found themselves being scattered by men on horseback, blades flashing to inflict one last harm before flailing at their mounts to close on the two on the hillside.

"I need a moment," she said. "Look disdainful, and stop a dozen paces on," she said. Pray, forgive me for what I am about to do. It would cost less to break these men before they could reach them. It would be better to break dozens than have to call upon all of her might and lash out at at least one army, with uncertain chance of survival.

 

[Draedamyr]

Do not waver

His task had seemed easier from above the armies. From up there had been an order to the bedlam. The forces were coloured banners and small dots closing.

Now there were living breathing combatants. Stained in blood and driven by fear and anger. No side had broken yet, the casualties were limited but he could already smell death.

And behind him, like a weight draped across his shoulders, came her presence unfurled and revealed to the armies.

Draedamyr closed his hand to stop himself from reaching for his sword and came to a halt. Cavalry thundered towards them. As sharp as his mind and blade were, it would be precious little defence if they decided to run through him.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

It was a little like dusting off book on a shelf that had been long forgotten, deep in the back of a forgotten library. Actually, that was a very apt way of describing the dusty halls and rooms that was the ancient sorceress' mind. Labyrinthine and twisting, halls caked in dust inches deep from disuse.

There was a certain satisfaction in what she was about to do. While there were certainly many capable wizards on Arethil, there were none like her alive today. She would know of it, otherwise. Mentally pulling a scroll off a shelf in her mind, she recalled the correct methodology, and grinned. Outwardly, it was a mean spirited sneer.

She drew deeply on the prim. A torrent of power flooded through her, bringing with it a sensation more akin to sleeping with a man than anything else. The deadly, seductive nature of such power was well known to her...and yet, she thirsted for it all the same.

I trust you... Draedamyr's words. Well, she would see if he still trusted her after this.

With a deft mental hand, she wove and shaped. Darkness spread above her head, and then fanned out to the left and right. The pulse of magical power was awe-inspiring to behold, but it was at least half artifice. She was fae, after all; glams were something she seldom used, yes...but she could use it well.

The darkness coalesced. The stony features of droben burnar, of giants, of drow and human and dwarf...all of these things took shape. They wore the colors of the Ordo, gleaming steel glinting in the sunlight. Thousands of them.

Tens of thousands. And every one of them looking as real as the ground they stood on, every detail faithfully recreated. Aside from a distinctly aetherial feel to them. The soldiers down below would know what this was, know it for their doom. A summoning, a thing normally accomplished by dozens of mages, or hundreds. A lone sorceress stood before them, and the galling power required beggared the imagination...that one could call upon them.

With an eerie roar, they surged forward, streaming past Draedamyr and Seska, thundering down the hill. The cavalry hesitated momentarily before pressing on. The triumphant looks on their faces had been replaced by grim despair. They saw their death running towards them.

Seska stood there, cold and distant, as the horde crashed into the cavalry.

Illusion. Glamour, deftly woven. One in every hundred of those creations had the ability to touch their foes and to be touched by their foes as well; had this been a real summoning, all of them would have been able to effectively fight. As it was, she saw illusions dispeled in puffs of darkness, mingled with the spilled blood of a aetherial warrior smashing a man off horseback in a welter of blood, broken bone crunching loud enough to be heard here. And then another.

Another.

Before long, dozens of mounted men lay on the ground, dead or dying, and the rest of the summons had evaporated like mist in a summer sun. The toll of that spell weighed on her, coupled with the shielding that had saved their lives before. She was certainly going to regret this later...but for now, she would bear it.

She walked forward, and stood beside Draedamyr, seemingly unbothered by the bloodshed before her.

"Let us continue forward," she said.

 

[Draedamyr]

He had held almost no expectations for what Seska was going to pull to prevent them being overrun by cavalry. It had not been the summoning of an entire army.

His eyes darted between collisions as the cavalry met the new force head on. For a moment it seemed as if one of the riders had picked a lucky path through the illusions and would break for them.

As Draedamyr dropped his hand towards Reverie the rider struck a solid infantryman. They went down with their horse in an awkward heap and stayed down. Draedamyr closed his fist once more.

Giving a sharp nod at her request he continued onwards. What did they even think he was here for? He didn't know their customs, or what kind of entourage the old Seska would be expected to bring.

Their path was cleared. The leadership on the field waiting for their approach.

"Here we go then," he muttered under his breath.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Gliding along like the ruler she had been, once. There was a certain flair to it; she belonged here, this was her realm and the men and women arrayed against her were invaders, allowed to live only because she suffered their presence. All of these things and more, every measured step told.

"Be at ease, dear one," she said low under her breath. Her eyes never left those gathered before her.

The clash had fallen apart below, the two sides separating and melting away. Impromptu as it was, the leadership of the opposing factions had separated from their soldiers, and stood under their respective banners. Each had a dozen or more sword-and-bows gathered nearby, although it had to be understood by the commanding officers that they counted as little more than token shows of force.

She did not hurry. She wouldn't have in a different age and, truth to tell, she wouldn't have now either. She, after all, had all the time in the world. Those before her, as far as they knew, did not.

Hundreds of yards away, a soldier vaulted on to the back of a horse, and kicked the beast into motion, heading straight for the pair walking across the field of battle as boldly as they pleased. The distance was quickly closed, and he reined in well out of range of Draedamyr, eyeing the apparent Ordo warlord uneasily.

"Stay your path," the man said suddenly. It was strong and full of authority. Seska immediately did not like the level of arrogance in that voice; she made her decision on what to do about him almost before his second word was uttered. "Desist in this attack, you heathen cow-" he began.

He did not finish.

She raised a hand lazily, and fire bloomed. The horse on which he road screamed at the searing heat, but the man himself didn't have time to. Blown from the back of his horse, he landed on the ground a few feet back, smoke drifting from the hole in his chest. Armor had melted at a touch, and flesh flashed to ashes; the fireball still sailed off into the distance, not slowed in the least by its brief encounter with a mortal.

She stepped over the corpse as though it were a log, and continued on.

"I need you to intimidate them a little," she said, and stepped alongside Draedamyr, laying a hand upon him. A new strength flowed into him from her, heat that burned in the heart. "You should be able to toss a few of them about without much effort. The effect is temporary, but they will not know that," she said.

The soldiers and their commanders were but a hundred yards away, milling about uncertainly.