"Old Friends and New Enemies
"Not
that I don’t like listening to a couple of pretty ladies," Ohk mused aloud,
"but, you do know we are FIGHTING right now, don’t you?"
Ohk’s rings each flared in turn as he began
channeling the essence of all of his animite through his growing Vinoc.
"Duh,"
retorted Ulk with a grin. Holding her
amulet aloft she grew serious long enough to activate the relic from Ombor.
Ulk’s grin turned sheepish as the collection
of monstrosities that her korrits held at bay swelled with misapplied energy.
"Oops!"
said Ulk, blushing. Using the Amulet of
Oombor was always a gamble.
"How many
times do I have to fix it when you do that?" ?
Grej was trying to hold back laughter at her friend’s mistake as she and
her Baldar moved to reinforce the straining korrit defense-line.
"Fix
what?" Ohk called over his shoulder
while waving his staff at a chaos plith, "What’s going on back there?"
The chaos plith shuddered violently as a bit
of its energy fled into the Vinoc that was moving to attack.
"Oh,
Ulk just tried to use her amulet again," Grej laughed as her hammer drove an
ugger through the floor of the platform that they stood upon.
"That thing never works."
"Your
just jealous because you don’t even have a full tunic, let alone jewelry."
Ulk’s words were jokingly catty, though Ohk
was hardly able to tell.
"Hey,
how would boys be able to see my perfect tummy if I wore a tunic like you?"
Grej pulled her hammer out of another hole
in the floor as she grinned back at Ulk. ?
Taking a moment to watch the Naroomian blush, the crèche sisters giggled
maniacally before they returned their attentions to the fight.
Ohk
ducked under a swing from his Vinoc, who had since been ripped from his control
by the foul magics of one of their enemies. ?
"Can we focus, ladies? If you
haven’t noticed, we’re falling behind." ?
Scrambling to find a spell to deal with his treasonous creature, Ohk was
failing to remain as calm as his companions.
"Relax,"
Grej spouted before uttering a long string of Kybarite incantations.
From the sky descended a massive, if only
momentary, hail of stones that barraged the treacherous vinoc and the chaos
plith behind it. "We have things under
control, see?" She smiled reassuringly
to the startled Naroomian.
"Besides,"
beamed Ulk merrily, "Sorreah and Zajan are here!"
v
"Mistress,
I ?I can’t remember what you asked of—MISTRESS!"
? Evu stumbled into the training grounds, searching for his
Empress. And found her he did.
Looking
up from Yaki’s quarhug, a winded Warrada instantly played the old geezer.
"EVU help me!
? This beast is trying to kill me! ?
Evu, I need you!" The old timer
would no doubt distract the Corestalker long enough for her to escape.
Evu
scurried forward, cursing unintelligibly in languages long forgotten.
"You have meddled for the last time,
Yaki. It is only fitting that it is I
who end your miserable existence." The
undersized librarian began pushing up his sleeves and donning animite rings.
"Do not
do this, Evu." Yaki’s words were cold
and full of dark portent.
"You
could not withstand my power before, boy. ?
And you will not withstand it again."
Yaki’s
eyes narrowed, but this time it was not with the anger that came so easily to
him these days ?though he tried to force it to be.
? This time all he felt was sorrow.
? With his gaze locked on Evu, Yaki whispered to his captive.
"I need something of yours, hag."
Twin howls of power and pain ripped their
way from both Yaki and Warrada as he again reached out with an ever-hungry
soul. Warrada’s dark energies would
have to slake his hunger’s thirst this time, and to battle his old friend Yaki
needed the boost.
Orwin
turned to witness the atrocity Yaki was commiting. As he did so, Hrada brought
his hands together, guiding a cloud of billowing black shadows toward the
distracted Naroom Elder. The shadows furiously
washed over the ancient Magi, turning his skin pallid and sickly.
As the power of Hrada’s spell railed against
his elderly body, Orwin lowered to one knee. ?
Reaching a hand toward Yaki, Orwin could only wonder:
What have you done, my friend? What sort
of monster have you become?
The
scream raced into the sky and Yaki and Warrada slumped against each other.
With a shudder of barely contained power,
the Corestalker reached up and brushed his victim aside.
Sprawling
to the ground, a near comatose Warrada landed in a heap.
Wearily holding her eyes open, she almost
didn’t notice the trinket from about her neck as it skittered away across the
ground. In absolute agony, writhing
with the pain of her energy being torn from her, Warrada crawled after the
bauble that she had acquired in the great library; struggling to see it through
the swirling morning mist.
Straightening
his shoulders, Yaki squared up with the man who betrayed him so many nights
ago. Grasping at the empty air, Yaki’s
glove found purchase on the handle of his summoned staff.
It had been a long time since he held the
tool that Pruitt had made for him; in fact he had not wielded it since the very
day that the Twins had first attacked and his spirit was forever twisted by
this dark hunger. With a heaving
breath, the raging Shadow Tracker glowered at Evu with now crimson eyes.
"Traitor, your masters have shown this land
no mercy and I will show none in return."
Evu grit
his teeth in determined agreement. "No
mercy, old friend." The librarian’s
words dripped with venom.
Yaki’s
sinister face split with a sly grin. ?
"It’s playtime, stumpy - and I got all the toys, oh yeah."
v
Thast
crept ahead of the cadre of Narans, stalking silently through the wafting mist
about his knees. What is this junk? he
thought as he scouted ahead of his clan.
Peeking
around the corner of a building that seemed to grow right out of a great tree, the
Magi breathed a sigh of relief. ?
Motioning back to his people, Thast offered a confident ‘all clear?as
he started to creep to the next building.
A few
steps away he was tackled by a Magi dropping from the rooftop.
"Try to
take my city, punk, and I’ll tear you a new? Tiller stopped with a fist raised
and a perplexed look on his face. ?
"You’re blue."
"You
wanna get off me, bub?" Thast’s
question was growled rhetorically.
Rushing
to Tiller’s side, Kazm rested his hands on his knees to get a better look at
the newcomer. "I thought Cories were green."
The Kybarite’s eyebrows rose, running into
the lip of his flight goggles. His next
question was interrupted by a sharp poke on his shoulder.
Looking, he found the tip of something that
seemed as much like a sickle as it did a staff.
? Following the battle-worn item’s handle to a pair of massive blue
hands, Kazm took in the impressive sight of an old Magi ?his long white beard
and moustache flowing in the breeze while the rest of him remained still as a
statue.
"H-h-h-hello,"
was all that Kazm stammered out before he noticed the rest of the blue-skinned
strangers standing behind the Magi, all with weapons readied.
Thast
grunted again. "Get offa me!"
Tiller
shot to his feet before the scowling Magi finished with "bub."
At that, the sickle-staff wielding Magi
offered a massive hand to his grounded friend. ?
While Thast regained his feet, a statuesque woman stepped from the mass
of new Magi. In a stately tone, the
woman spoke clearly, "If more of you lie in wait, they had best step foreword
now. It will be a shame if you have to
fight with these odds."
Pruitt
stepped into view in the window next to Laranel.
? "That will not be necessary," the Ringsmith’s voice bore the
strain of her experiences but resounded fearlessly.
? Zannah stood behind her friend, ready for anything.
"I am
looking for Orwin. Are any of you he?"
Kazm and
Tiller exchanged glances as Koza stepped foreword.
? "My Queen. How do we know
that these four are of Orwin’s folk? ?
They could be the shadows." With
unhidden offense, both Kazm and Tiller made to protest, but a low voice from
the rear of the Narans firmly took the floor.
"Queen
Laranel knows that a shadow melts like thin ice when the flame draws near.
Shadows care not for each other, nor for the
bodies that cast them. They care only
to hide from the light. Would one
shadow expose itself to the sun for another?" ?
The Owtee clan turned their attention to wise Odavast, while Tiller and
Kazm remained speechless; neither of them could follow what he said, let alone
sound as smart.
"Now,
young Naroomian," Odavast leaned down to peer through the window between he and
Pruitt, "where is your king?"
v
Woot
stared at the impaled Shadow Magi for several minutes before he could pull his
eyes away. ?Did we do this?
He then swung a slow look to his friend and
shivered.
Chayla
had huddled herself in the corner of a ruined house ?her ruined house.
Sitting only ten or twenty paces away from
the horrific sight, she could not tear her quivering eyes from her fallen
foe. Woot did not know how long she had
been there before he woke up.
"Fuzz,
we should go." Offering a shaky hand to
her, Woot tried to get his best friend to look at him, to take his hand, to do
anything. Chayla merely drew a tattered
blanket about her shoulders. Woot
recognized the blanket, as his mother had made it for Chayla when they were
young. Crouching beside her, he softly
tried to bring her back to reality. "I
remember when I ruined your other blanket, trying to catch that Eebit for
you. I thought I could use it like
net." He laughed nervously, "My mother
was so angry with me. She was
going to make a winter dress out of that cloth."
Chayla
spoke weakly, "We killed him."
"She
said that the cloth came from Paradwyn," Woot continued, encouraged by
provoking any response.
"No
one has died in Vash Naroom since before we were born."
Chayla’s voice was growing in strength, a
clear note of panic rising with the volume.
"She
actually made me do twice as many chores to pay for?
"DON’T
YOU GET IT, WOOT? HE’S DEAD!"
She finally turned a furious stare at her
lifelong friend. "Magi don’t kill each
other? we didn’t even know him, didn’t
even know his name!"
"Chayla,
I?
"Take
your stupid blanket!" Throwing her
favorite blanket in his face, a sobbing Chayla scrambled out of the wreckage of
her home in search of solace - leaving Woot behind holding his "stupid" attempt
at giving her just that.
Scooping
a still snoozing Trug up and over his shoulder, Poad watched Chayla stumble toward
him. "You alright, girl?"
To Chayla, it seemed obvious that Poad had
not seen the dead Shadow Magi. ?
"I…Woot…the? arrrgh!" ?
Chayla broke into a fit of sobbing, leaning against a nearby wall for
support.
"Look
Chayla," Poad leveled with her, "the poor guy is free now.
Think of it that way."
Between
sobs, Chayla managed to look at Poad inquisitively.
? Could he have seen?
"It
is terrible, what happened. But there
will be more of that if we don’t stop the Twins.
? Much more of it." ?
The little innkeeper groaned under Trug’s weight as he shifted the
unconscious Underling to a comfortable position.
? "And next time, it might not be someone who gets a fighting
chance."
Chayla
sniffed hard.
"The
others need us. We’ll mourn him later,
when we are sure it is just him that needs it."
? Poad’s calm shocked her. ?
This war seemed to be changing everything and everyone she knew.
v
Orwin
shrugged off the pain of Hrada’s last attack. ?
"Is that all you have, Hrada? ?
Please don’t tell me that all these years, Rehk’s fate was just luck."
"How
dare you use that name in my presence!" ?
Hrada instantly fought off the fog of history.
? "Rehk was weak, and she kept what I deserved from me!
She mocked me with her
condescension!" A halo of energy,
fueled by years of repressed hate, began to crackle about Hrada.
"She knew I was right, she knew that
creation stems from destruction. She
was jealous of my power!"
Orwin
gritted his teeth, he was not as prepared for revisiting these memories as he
thought. "She was a fine teacher, and
she cared for you." Orwin’s voice had
ire dancing along the edges.
"You
LIE! Rehk cared nothing for me, cared
nothing for my skills! Like you cared
nothing for my sister’s. You were both
just playing us like pawns, keeping us under your thumbs so you could
manipulate us! You didn’t want
students, you wanted slaves!"
"You
wanted power you could not control," Orwin began to quake with fury. "We tried
to reason with you. Instead you chose a
darker path and Rehk is dead because of that choice!"
"She
is dead because she got in my way." ?
Hrada lowered his voice to a feral snarl.
"And
your sister nearly died because she got in mine."
? Orwin willed tears away with fury.
? "But this time, Hrada, she is unable to save you."
With a forceful gesture, the Elder of Naroom
called the angry twin’s attention to the unmoving form of Warrada, lying in the
mist.
"You
and your forest will burn for what you have done to her, Orwin.
I will start with you and blaze until
nothing remains." Hrada’s smoldering
eyes found their way back to Orwin.
"We
shall see, Hrada." With a stone like visage, Orwin produced a wooden ring with
a single piece of animite mounted on it. ?
"You bring the fire, I’ll bring the forest."
What happens next? Read Part 7 "A Brave New Naroom" |
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