Private Tales The Last Resort

[Draedamyr]

"No shit."

Draedamyr was not a fan of such crude human expressions. They served a particular purpose and this felt like the time for one. Without horses they could not move the children quickly. Whilst the townsfolk had been scattered when the demons first came, there were not enough fighters to make a coordinated defence.

They couldn't move quietly. A cloud of rising steam followed the human caravan as the moved through the outskirts of the town. A father carried a small child, always running on the edge of balance.

One of the demons slipped down from the roof. Draedamyr angled his jog to put more distance between himself and the townsfolk. He didn't have a spear or shield. He needed room if he was going to stop one before it reached the children.

The demon seemed to take this as a challenge and rushed forwards.

"Save your magic," Draedamyr muttered. There was enough light to make out the form of the thing rushing towards him. An angular head with a wide maw, jet black skin, four arms ending in wicked claws. It leapt towards him.

Even if he skewered the beast, its weight and final thrashing would kill him. As smooth as water diverting around a rock he stepped aside. His blade glinted just once as it caught the light.

Draedamyr continued his run. His blade now corrupted with a sticky, black mess. The demon was left motionless in the dirt.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She was at a distinct disadvantage in mobility, struggling to keep up with her longer legged companions. It was a pace she would not be able to maintain for any great length of time, but for now she had little choice. Once again she wished her little mare were here.

She saw the demon at the same time Draedmyr did, and caught his words. They earned a disdainful snort. "No shit," she muttered in response, using his own words on him. The tempest remained in check, for now at least. "It is not for riff-raff, that is what you are for, my sword arm."

Her breath was already coming short, and she knew before long she would have to reduce her pace. The children at least had some adults to help them out.

She focused on one foot in front of the other, mystic senses questing outward for threats more significant than these lesser demons.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Your sword arm," he muttered under his breath. He heard a cry from the main group, only to find that it was nothing but the horror of what they found. Their path took the group past a cottage against which several dismembered bodies were propped up.

The wailing of children was certain to draw attention, Draedamyr thought. He could see that shadow tracking them on his side of the party. Another joined it. Were they just hunting because they ran, or were the demons building up a critical mass to make a charge through the survivors.

He didn't hear them communicating which led him to - inaccurately - assume that they were not that intelligent and coordinated.

He was dissavowed by that notion when they found the main town gates barricaded by an overturned cart and heavy branches. The townsfolk hadn't been given time to put that in place. The gate was little more than a stone archway. The borders of the town marked out by a mix of houses, palisades and simple fences. It didn't have a defensible border, but it kept trade flowing through several main routes under the gaze of the guards.

"Go left, for the fences!" called Ken. "Watch behind us!"

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

It was like being herded. Unlike Draedmyr, she had never assumed that the danger they were presented was anything other than sentient. What she questioned from the outset was the level of intellect that guided all of the various pieces.

She was certain she had dealt with something of this nature before, long ago. The problem was that the mind could only hold so much information, and memory only went so far back. There might yet be a fragment or two hidden in her mind, but nothing jogged it right now.

She could feel something, out there. Something powerful, something filled with anger. A bottomless, fathomless anger that filled the Sidhe with disquiet. Not because of the force of it but, rather, the familiarity. An echo from the past, a recollection distant, distinct, and bitter.

Lungs burning, legs burning, vigor warning, she kept up...but only by running twice as hard as everyone else. Something out there called out to her, and her heart surged.

Nightwind!

 

[Draedamyr]

The veteran had already gone over the fence so Draedamyr turned sharply. His feet knew the motions of a duel, but all that muscle memory was used to reacting to another armed person fighting in a similar fashion. He was no hunter, no ranger. All he could do was strike fast and move out of reach of those claws even faster.

He headed off a pair of demons that tried to charge the group as they slowly crossed the barrier. Children were being passed between adults or crawling over the fence.

Reverie sang for them. The Demons hissed and spat as he cut them. Long ago their kind had mastered the art of changing flesh and magic. Iron was immutable. It refused their to bend to their will.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The magic that surged through her flesh remained quiet, unused. Potential unfulfilled, violence held in abeyance. What would be the point in using such high sorcery for the purpose of dealing with fodder? The only thing she wished she could do was forbidden to her by the very nature of her Art. An end to suffering, and end to the burning in her legs and lungs. It was a gift she could give others, though.

Just not herself.

Draedmyr moved as she had expected him to, with the practiced motions of a trained killer. She was capable of it herself, but with the lack of physical strength virtually every foe she could encounter would outmatch her. So it had been for all of her long, long life. Perhaps that was a solid measure of her prowess with magic, that she still lived. Prowess, power, and resourcefulness.

And also the wisdom to know when she could do something without needlessly draining herself, and when not. As such, this was Draedmyr's time to shine, as well as Ken and the blacksmith boy and all the others. Not hers.

And so she made it to the fence behind most of the others, her shorter legs giving her the same disadvantage as the children while her status as an adult afforded her none of the concessions the young ones were granted. It was hers to crawl over the obstacle placed in their way by a cunning foe that they still did not understand. Making it over, she could watch on as Draedmyr dealt with the foes that did not come at them in force, as she would expect them to.

It wasn't really necessary. She was the object they sought, and they had found a weakness in her that she had never even considered for a moment.

The horse-like creature stood in the road leading to the barricade erected by the beasts of the mist, malevolent eyes glowing a faint red. The sorcery entwined in its flesh had been turned, claimed by the demons of Pandemonium as they had many others. The force that granted that mare its greatly extended life, and all the other benefits conferred to it in the long, hundred years' companionship...

All stripped away in an instant. There was no mistaking the animal. The saddle with her ancient weapon stowed in it was still on the misshapen beast. A dramatic rearing, other shapes moving in the mist behind it, and then it was charging them. Companion no more.

Deadly enemy.

 

[Draedamyr]

For hundreds of years he had refined his craft. His skill had been honed down to an incredibly sharp point. He could count on one hand the number of swordsmen he had met in the last century who could match him. That focus was, however, very narrow. Muscle memory didn't move his body to the footwork of the demonic creatures. Nor could he predict what they were trying to achieve with their great claws. They weren't applying the Tyr'nalade theory of defensive spheres, there was no application of Digetti disarming techniques.

Draedamyr wasn't as quick as he used to be, neither on his feet nor in learning. One of the Demons came at him with a wide swipe of its claws. They just caught him and sent him staggering away. The speed and ferocity was breathtaking. If that had struck deeper he had no doubt it could have taken his arm clean off instead of tearing his clothing and sending drips of warm blood down the inside of his shirt.

With a scream of defiance he took his sword in two hands and charged back at the creature. It hadn't expected the aggressive display. It had no tools to defend itself from the wicked kiss of steel.

Draedamyr let it fall to the ground and turned to the second beast. It eyed him and its wounded companion with an undeniable intelligence. It turned and fled.

The sounds from the other side of the barricade almost immediately opened up his focus. They had caught the group with the barricade and ambushed them whilst split. Like a force striking an army whilst it made its away slowly over a crossing. Even with the spell Seska had cast he could feel the ache starting to set in as he dashed for the fence.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Separated from the sword that could do this work for her, and she knew it. So did the demons,and she could feel the sudden triumph in them as they realized their prey was right there, ripe for the taking. Winded, flesh aflame with the overexertion demanded of her by the taller members of her party...

She dodged to one side as the former mare charged at her, twisted hooves tearing chunks of the ground loose as it went. The strange bond that she shared with Nightwind seemed warped and strange, and the desires of Pandemonium seeped through that connection. So much anger and rage, and the overwhelming desire to reclaim what had been lost.

Would it not be better to just...let go? The whisper in her mind was insistent and seductive. The ancient sorceress ignored it with some difficulty. She could hear the...offer...that was included in that bargain. Ascension to so.e greater being. A way to deliver vengeance...

She rejected it. She had been an avatar of divine retribution once, and the memories of it yet haunted her, ten thousand years and more later.

Creatures. Dark shapes that bore little resemblance to humanity came on, half a dozen. One had leapt upon the back of Nightwind, riding the ascended mare expertly. She could feel that their goal was not her death, and the attacks that descended upon her were merely an attempt to capture her.

And so she struck, then. A wave of chaotic power, a flow given shape and form. Intense heat radiated in front of her as the elemental power toom shape-

-and was torn from her grasp, corruptedby something foul and dark. The Sidhe fell to her knees, retching as that dark taint raced counter to the flow to touch her flesh, a taint as foul as a cesspit. She immediately released that wellspring of power last it be tainted, nearly collapsing into her own vomit as she did so.

As ascended mare and rider bore down on her, victory in their eyes.

 

[Draedamyr]

It was truly difficult to keep a calm, collected thought process in the circumstances. He had lived by the blade and had always expected to die by it. Draedamyr could keep his nerve when he was one misstep from death. The pandemonium all around pushed this to the limits. The group of townsfolk were penned in on the other side of the fence. Dark creatures closing in around them. The veteran and Ken were side to side. Several unarmed men were trying to keep a demon at bay, which was not working well for them.

The ether shifted as magic drew into concentrated power before something insidious changed the winds again. They could use magic, he realised. Or at least they could change it. He crossed the fence in a graceful leap just as Seska fell. He drew up to a halt as his gaze fell upon the charging horse. Not recognising the source that had been corrupted, he could only wonder if the demons had brought steeds to this realm. Another chain of thought in an overly complicated mind.

Without a spear there was little he could do to stop the mountain of muscle on four legs. An overhand throw from his left put his throwing knife hilt deep into the neck of the steed.

"Seska!" he growled. The demon leapt from the horse's back. It tumbled across the ground but found its footing quickly, bearing down on the Sidhe. It was a straight foot race now, but he just had the lead towards her as he raised his sword.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Her head shot up at her name, and then a heart-rending shriek tore her throat, a violent negation of what was playing out. The blade that sprung from the neck if her mount fell free as the twisted creature charged,spraying black, thick blood from the wound. "Nightwind!"

But the ascended horse did not respond to it's old name, did not shift from its path nor flicker in its resolve. Looking into those blood red eyes, the Sidhe saw nothing of her friend,felt none of the kinship they had shared.

And the loss drove her mad.

Tears streaming down her face, she screamed. It was a feral thing full of rage, pain, and loss. It tore at the soul, opened the path for vengeance within the tiny woman. Terrible vengeance, to those around her and to herself.

Blessed flow of power returned,but it returned tenfold, a frightening torrent that would make a human wizard wet themselves to contemplate. Even for her, it was too much...but she was lost to emotion, now, insensate to what she did to herself. Even the whispers of vengeance, promises slipped in her mind by the force guiding this nightmare, could not reach her now.

"Why did you take her?" Her words were raw.

And power flowed. Something tried to touch that tremendous flow of mana, but those hands were batted aside like a child's own would have been. The ground beneath both horse and rider exploded, shards of stone, humus, and dirt launching skyward. Buts of shattered demon, thick blood in sheets. A concussive wave of air that lifted the diminutive woman off her feet and sent her sailing backwards several feet to lie in a head as bits and pieces of the ground and demon rained down.

The Sidhe got back up, blood streaming from a gash across her face. There was more wrong there, though, with the wet sound of her breathing, mist of blood from sudden fit of coughing.

"This...will not stand," she gasped, voice rasping. Emotion burned un her pale eyes as an enormous tide of power flowed through her, as she searched for something else to deliver vengeance upon.

It was too much power, all at once. And it would kill her, was already killing her, if she did not stop.

 

[Draedamyr]

If that knife had still been in his hand it might have been for Seska. Draedamyr had seen many mages lose control. The sheer power that flowed through her now sent eddies twisting through the magical ether. The animal part of himself compared it to everything it had sensed before and urged him to run.

There were no more demons nearby to strike at. The sounds of battle became hushed. He caught sight of several dark shapes flitting back into the cover of the mists. Either they had collectively made the decision to retreat or something was giving them orders he could not hear.

Draedamyr turned towards the sidhe, the tip of his sword lowered towards the ground. His chest heaved as he drew in as much air as possible, despite the metallic tang of the mists. Blood streaked down his face and stained his matted hair.

"Seska," he tried. Would she even recognise her name?

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Blood ran down her face as well, faintly luminous red, the same faint glow as in her eyes. Mana oozed from every pore, created a faint halo around the woman filled with crackling energy. It was enough to lift her hair, enough to stir the air.

Rage. It flowed through her like a river of acid, eating everything it touched. But worse than that was the pain that twisted her soul. Seska hurt,hurt deeply. It would be callous to say that the little mare had just been an animal. She had been her friend, a companion that had withstood the test of time. She had been as close with her horse as many would have been with a husband or wife.

Gone, now. Repetition of pain did not make it any less painful, did not make her soul any less wounded for it.

Movement in the trees, and her head snapped that way, lance's of power coalescing and taking shape with startling rapidity. Wood shattered as sap flashed to steam, a brief flare of flame as trees toppled, the gunshot staccato rattle of trunk after trunk bursting. The Sidhe staggered, fell to her knees.

Draedmyr's calling her name seemed distant, hollow. She couldn't tell if the red mist was real, or if it was just her vision clouding. Her flesh had the mottled look of a solid beating, black and blue bruises spreading across her entire body.

Hunting, still hunting for something to strike at.

And then a single, powerful surge of emotion from seemingly nowhere, and from everywhere. Love. Love and a powerful sense of gratitude, so powerful that she fell to her hands as well as knees, a sob wracking her body, blood drooling from her open mouth. She was a picture of pain,now, rage draining away and with it the last vestiges of power, its absence adding to the void in her heart.

 

[Draedamyr]

"We've got to go."

Draedamyr didn't even look over his shoulder to acknowledge Ken. The guard was already corralling the townsfolk into formation to head for the ridge. The crowd leaving revealed more bodies on the ground. The people of the town left the remains of loved ones in their wake.

Draedamyr knee they could leave Seska behind too. He could pick a different direction. Slip away and let the people of the town and Seska keep the attention of the demonic force.

That decision had, however, already been made. All that remained was whether he could bring Seska with them or if she was too far gone. She had said that she was an immortal creature, but the laws of magic had been found immutable over and over. He didn't understand what had brought on such a breakdown, but she looked broken now.

He sheathed his sword, but kept his hand on the hilt.

"Can you walk?" he asked as he dropped to one knee. The ground was all churned up and full of pale, dead grass.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She was a quivering ball of emotion, of pain and loss...but she had also been alive for a very, very long time. momentary lapses aside, she had not lived so long by being completely reckless, or through an inability to set aside problems in the face of more pressing ones.

Oh, but it was so hard! So hard to try and shelve such colossal hurt, to put a brave face on something so raw and fresh. With tremendous effort, Seska dat back, knees folded beneath her. Scrubbed a dirty hand across her face to try and wipe tears away, even if they were only replaced just as quickly.

Physical pain very nearly overshadowed emotional, just then. Every joint ached, every beat of her broken heart sent waves of agony through her flesh. She held her hands up before her, shocked at her state of being. Too much, she had gone too far much too quickly. A measured pace would have....

...but what could have been, wasn't. No crying over spilled milk, and no time to mourn her loss properly. "I do not....know," she said. Her eyes zeroed in on a length of polished wood stick from the ground. The staff her horse had been carrying for her. She tried to get to her feet, gasped in pain and dropped back to hands and knees, very nearly going down. She tried again, managing her feet unsteadily, coughing and spitting blood. She leaned on Draedmyr heavily. "Staff. Over there. Need it, then we can move," she rasped haltingly.

 

[Draedamyr]

She was congiscent and speaking reasonably. He still hadn't put together the demonic steed and the pony Seska had lost. It was a thread being woven at the back of his mind, but one hidden amongst all the others. The demons were not far. Too many life threatening concerns to stop and thing.

His right hand did, however, move away from the hilt of his sword so that he could adjust her weight. It didn't help that her shoulders were so far below his own. His grip under her arm was tight, his hands had a strong grip for his slight build.

"I will carry you up to the others if I have to," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. Step by step the closed on the staff. Nothing yet emerged from the shadows and he could still see the townsfolk following the gentle slope towards the ridgeline.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She nodded as they reached her staff, closed her bruised fingers around its polished length. She could feel the potential it held,what it had been crafted for so very long ago. A focus, something that had granted her obscene power in a different place, at a different time. Here...

"It might be best," she gasped at him. It was going to be a very unpleasant day, she decided. She hurt, and the suffering had yet to truly begin. "I hope...I have not doomed us all," she added in a whisper. Guilt, to have allowed emotion to so cloud her judgement and guide her hands to her own ruin. That pain had been pushed aside, for now. Physical pain was a different matter.

At least she weighed next to nothing. Small mercies, there.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Hair on end shrouds even slim shoulders," he muttered in elven. It was an old saying about animals that could puff themselves up to frighten off predators. Seksa could barely stand but the display of destructive power had sent the shadowy creatures back into the mists.

Draedamyr had absolutely no qualms about lifting the Sidhe into his arms. He assumed the longer they were here the more likely it was that the creatures would return.

Don't leave. Stay with us.

It wasn't a sound. Draedamyr still found himself turning towards the source. The mists were struggling against the sun, but still obscured the form crawling across the top of the gatehouse.

It wasn't as if he heard each word ring out in his mind. It was closer to meaning being slid directly under his thoughts. The creature said 'us' but he could tell it referred only to itself. Several pale faces seemed to peer down from its shoulders.

Draedamyr turned and ran after the group.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Lifted like a child. Not the first time, and not the last, though as his arms settled beneath knees and back, she let slip a mewl of pain, face paling to something only a few shades darker than snow. More damage to herself than she wished to admit, and a silent curse to the immutable laws of magic that governed this world, that left her chained and shackled to this rock.

A lassitude settled over her, cradled as she was. Keeping her thoughts focused enough to avoid drifting off to sleep was proving to be more of a challenge than she would like to admit. She heard his words, spoken in his own tongue (the dialect a little different than she was accustomed to), but said nothing. The words of the other, if words they could be called, were powerless to reach her. She did not care, and would not heed their call in any case.

They had taken her companion from her. The rage at the thought was enough to keep her awake and alert, or as alert as she could be. Every step the elf made jarred her enough, sending stabs of pain through...well, through everything. That helped keep her from drifting off, as well.

"If they...come again," she began, trying to give her voice strength, to hide the truth of her condition as best she could. "If they come, drop me and defend thyself," she finished. She clutched the staff, the last link in the chain that would either save them or get them all killed. There was no relish in the thought of actually using it.

 

[Draedamyr]

"The thought had occurred," he muttered. Magic could only do so much and he was already tiring. The ground was sloping away from him. It seemed as if some magic, or perhaps the mist itself, had killed off the grass. It made the ground treacherous underfoot as everything that had bound it had already decayed. Draedamyr didn't have time to dwell on the spark of concern at what that meant for the rest of them. Had the mists already condemned them to death?

"It's just the elf!" came a voice from ahead of them.

"It's only the humans," he muttered to himself. Emphasis on the 'humans'. He'd spent too many years being called 'the elf' in cities overflowing with humanity.

Draedamyr slowed to a walk, whispering an apology as he readjusted his hold on Seska. The visibility was definitely improving. As he turned back he imagined that on a clear day the entire town would have been sprawled out below them. The group set out alone the ridge line, but he could not imagine that this was over yet.



We chase? A group of the lesser demons had formed a semi-circle around the many-faced creature on the town gatehouse. They kept their gazes low, twitching their limbs in an odd fashion in some show of respect.

Follow at a distance, they replied. With the grace of a feline predator they slowly climbed down from the gatehouse and drew themselves up to their full height.

They must die! One of the demons retorted in anger. It had lost an entire limb.

Simple creatures. After all this time we finally return and you want it to be over already. They turned their eyes towards the defiant demon. In an instant it was writhing in agony on the ground. It twisted and contorted until at last it fell still.

It's final cries echoed after the townsfolk as they fled.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The jolting steps hurt her, but there was nothing to be done but to endure them. What could not be avoided, must be endured; an ancient axiom of some forgotten scholar. She could almost see his wings, the shape of his face. Clouded, ancient, decaying.

Gone.

She surfaced from her torpid state,rolling in his arms like a rag doll with each step. She still had strength to give but it had to be measured out, eagerly rationed. With a great deal more difficulty than she would like to admit, she opened her eyes, tired slits gleaming. "If you require my boon again.. hesitate not to ask," she whispered. It was a small thing to offer, but the cost would be greater now than before.

At least strength was flowing back into her. The mist seemed to harbor mana in larger quantities than background, else the background was fairly high here to begin with. The only shame was it would not undo the harm already done.

And she had to ask herself: would she sacrifice herself for these other, fleeting lives? It was disquieting that she did not have a ready answer.

 

[Draedamyr]

"I will," he said. Draedamyr knew he was already starting to flag, but she didn't look like she was in a good state to be performing magic. There might come a time soon when he would need it more.

It was unnervingly silent. From the ridge there should have been old kinds of animal sounds. There was absolutely nothing. He could hear every footfall, every breath from the survivors. Death had settled over these lands now. He already suspected that a human wizard had meddled in something and brought it here.

Unless, of course, they had always been here for Seska. He buried that thought away for now.

"That was your horse." The words lingered somewhere between question and statement.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Emotion welled up, and for long moments she struggled to push it away. This was not the time, but it was hard. So hard.

She heard more in his words than he had said, and a single hiccough escaped despite her best will. "Friend," she said, voice low and raw. "The only one that stayed beside me these last few hundred years." It bespoke of a life of loneliness, of isolation. Such that a horse would provide that only link with another, or at least the only one more meaningful than passing acquaintance.

She did not want to think about that now, though. Physical pain could be - with some difficulty - ignored, but loss was that. There was no returning things to the way they had been. An eternal truth, but so bittersweet just now. "You...probably think it silly," she whispered.

 

[Draedamyr]

"I do not," he replied with some force. Draedamyr held her gaze for just a few moments. For an immortal being she was not so different from the creatures of this realm. Her pain was no different.

There were many things held in the depth of the eyes that looked down at her. Just below the surface was a deep well of sorrow. Pain that would take another century to heal, if the world saw fit to let him live those out. It tended to swell in the base of his stomach, but would crawl up the back of his throat until it was difficult to breathe if he let it.

They walked behind the children now. Draedamyr looked up and cast his eyes around the survivors. They hadn't lost many escaping the town. Perhaps they could have defended it had the monsters not been amongst them before anyone had realised.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She looked into his eyes for that brief moment, and she could see. For a moment, she could glimpse the pain he himself knew, and could not help but flinch back from it. It was a thing she known, time and again. A cycle without end, like the turning of a wheel; first the emotional high, then the reliance on stability, then the crushing loss and then, finally, the years where the wounds scabbed over, gradually, slowly. The pain would fade, and then the wheel would come aright again, and the process would start over.

She looked away. "I...see," she whispered. There was no hiding the truth from one who had lived it. Just then, the two of them shared a bond of mutual suffering that could not be broken, not for a brief time.

The flow of mana continued. It was sickly, tainted in some way by whatever malady afflicted this land, but it was still sweet enough to the Sidhe. It was life, after all, the building blocks of her very essence. With that slow trickle, came healing and revitalization. The bruising of her flesh was deepening, all the little blood vessel sundered by the overwhelming tide of power leaking into where they should not.

She shifted in his arms. "Now what? The...presence remains..."

 

[Draedamyr]

"I was rather hoping that it would leave us alone. Then perhaps I could spent the next century purging the image of that thing from my mind."

It was a very weak attempt to lighten the tone of the conversation. It was in too dark a place to brighten it up, but Draedamyr needed to try and take the edge off. The image of that many-headed monstrosity watching them with almost idle curiosity wouldn't go away any time soon.

Nor did he suspect that the demons would leave them alone any time soon. They were not mindless beasts and they were no creation of alchemy.

"Have you encountered anything like that before?" he asked. If she had lived as long as she said then perhaps she might have known more than he did.