Homecoming
by Hallan Mirayas
Heartbeat. Falling. Joy. Rage.
I know you were waiting for something.
Heartbeat. Falling. Glee. Sorrow.
Hoping for something.
Heartbeat. Falling. Obstruction. Shattering.
Find it.
Heartbeat. Falling. Pain. Fire.
And when you find it...
Heartbeat. Falling.
Kill it.
Impact.
May 19th, 708 CR
The day closed unspectacularly in the city of Lik, the sunset obscured with
a dull overcast and a clammy drizzle that set the ground squishing underfoot.
The hard-won flickers of late spring's warmth washed into the gutters like the
blood of killed prey. Aside from an occasional grumble, no-one remarked on its
passing. This was the edge of the Giantdowns tundra, in the shadow of the
Great Barrier Range, and spring was always late in arriving. This was normal,
and there were more important things to do than wish it were otherwise. The
vampires emerged from their crypts, attended by their retinue of skeletons and
zombies. The werewolves shrugged out of their human forms, preferring their
shaggy lupine coats. The moondogs prowled the forest edges, keeping watch for
prying eyes. The drakes and gargoyles patrolled the skies for the same
purpose. The lutins and men honed their weapons and burnished their armor.
The army prepared for war.
For that is what Lik had become since the collapse of Nasoj's empire: the
home camp for a growing army of invasion. Lilith, daedra goddess of predation,
had visions of succeeding where the prince of the daedra had failed: the
destruction of Metamor Keep, and the army she'd gathered at Lik was her weapon.
It was almost ready.
In another world, it might have struck hard and well. In this one, it
would not live to see the dawn.
-----
The same evening ended in a clear, gentle twilight a few hours later in
Marigund. Lamplight glowed golden in the courtyard of the World Bell as a
productively busy day neared its successful conclusion. Workers heaved on
thick hempen lines attached to pulleys hanging from an iron frame, straining to
settle a silvery statue of a toga-clad woman onto a tall ivory pedestal.
"Blast, this thing's heavy!" grunted one of the workers over the creaking of
the ropes. What's it made of, lead?"
"Among other things," replied a man on the scaffolding that encircled the
pedestal. "Down a little more... A little more..." The statue settled into
place with a muffled boom, and artificers immediately set to opening panels and
connecting linkages in its lower reaches. More began installing ten metal
dragons into recessed alcoves in the ivory pedestal, generating a hive of
activity now that the basic assembly was complete. Each dragon sat with its
tail curled around its hind legs, and each clutched a pearl sphere in its front
claws like a prized possession, held up before its slightly bowed snout as if
contemplating its beauty. The dragons, and the pearls they held, grew in size
as one circled clockwise around the pedestal. An eleventh dragon, a
bewhiskered old drake cradling a pearl the size of a man's head, completely
encircled the pedestal. His body and tail formed the base.
Seeing work progressing neatly, the man climbed down from the scaffolding
and clasped the hand of each member of the lifting crew in turn. "Gentlemen,
the Mage Guild thanks you for your help."
Most of the work crew dispersed, but a few of the more curious ones stayed,
including the foreman. He asked, "Just what is that thing, Guildmaster
Demarest?"
"It's a temporary replacement for the World Bell. More accurately, it's
the predecessor to the World Bell, made during the latter days of the Empire.
Master Thadeus has studied the device in detail and can tell you more than I.
Thadeus?"
A yellow-clad man buried chest-deep in an opening in the pedestal replied.
"The World Bell worked by sound, and by interpretation of the ripples caused by
that sound in the pool below. This statue, on the other hand, is an automaton.
No, not the 'living', self-actuating kind, like Madog or Salona, but a
measuring machine. I'd give you an overview of the inner workings, but it's a
bit cramped in here." The mage backed slowly out of the access port, making
connections as he went, each move precise and carefully planned. "It's not as
sensitive or accurate, but it will keep us informed of magical events while the
Bell is being recast.
Arms still deep in the pedestal's inner workings, Thadeus turned his
attention to the workers making the last adjustments to the statue and the
dragons. Already, the scaffolding and iron framework were starting to come
down. "Are all connections made, checked, and double-checked?" the mage called
to the last of the artificers still working within the statue. Receiving a
chorus of agreement over the sound of closing panels and descending workers, he
asked, "Acolyte Marcus, are you finished with that last pearl?"
Melissa Marcus, a dark-furred cat-woman from distant Metamor Keep, finished
closing the largest dragon's claws around its pearl, pausing in her reply only
long enough to buff a spot of tarnish from the old drake's face. "Yes, Master
Thadeus." Her whiskers arching into a faint, playful smirk, she brushed the
drake's articulated whiskers into place with the backs of her fingers and then
playfully kissed it on the cheek. "There, Grandfather. Now you look properly
dignified."
Thadeus chuckled. "Good. Everyone get clear. When I let go of these
control rods, the activation switch will swing shut, and the statue may move
quite abruptly if it detects something. I want everyone back behind the
ten-stride line. Elizabeth, would you signal for the calibration pulses to
begin, please?"
"Calibration pulses?" echoed the foreman as a green flare streaked skyward
from the magess Elizabeth's extended hand.
Master Demarest took over the instruction, Thadeus' full attention now
devoted to the statue as a red flare arced skyward from somewhere to the north,
well outside the city limits. "Watch the dragons," said the Guildmaster as the
statue rumbled round to face the flare, its arm rising to point directly at it.
The smallest dragon looked up from contemplating its pearl, turning its head
to look in the direction of the flare as well before returning to its original
position as the light faded and the statue's arm came down. A second flare
lofted to the east and the statue turned to point at it in turn. This time,
two dragons looked up, the smallest and the second-smallest. The pattern
continued for the third, and then the fourth, each successively brighter flare
drawing the attention of the next largest dragon.
"I think I understand," chimed in one of the other workers. "It's a
measure of strength, isn't it? The more powerful the magic, the more dragons
will react."
"That is correct. It's a one-to-ten scale, each step ten times stronger
than the last."
Unseen beyond the courtyard wall, low on the distant northwestern horizon,
a flickering light began to dance, so faint as to be almost invisible against
the moonlight.
"Ten steps, Guildmaster? But there are... eleven..." The workman trailed
off as the statue's pointing hand swung round, ignoring the blue flare rising
in the northeast to lock steadfast facing northwest. One by one, the dragons
awoke. One, two, three, four... Eyes began to widen. Five, six, seven...
Was it broken? Eight, nine... It had to be broken! A ninth-level event
occurring the moment the statue activated? Ten... Tenth level? A breathless
pause followed, and then the old drake roused himself and lifted his head,
casting his gaze to the northeast along with the others. Alarmed gazes all
across the courtyard turned as one to Guildmaster Demarest. "What does it
mean?" asked the workman.
The statue's arm stayed locked to the northwest, refusing to acknowledge
the flares still being lofted skyward. Demarest and Thadeus shared a worried
frown. "All eleven dragons activated means one of two things: either it has
broken, which I doubt, or the readings have gone off the scale."
"Where is it? How far away?"
"That's the biggest problem with this in comparison to the World Bell...
all it tells is direction and strength. I only hope the one we sent to Metamor
is complete enough to triangulate." Guildmaster Demarest turned. "Elizabeth?
Contact your brother. Thadeus, plot that line on the map. Even if Metamor
isn't ready, we might at least get some information from a direction."
-----
When Elizabeth's image appeared, not in her brother's quarters where she
expected, but in a strange room full of people, her eyes widened. They widened
further when she recognized them. She dropped into a curtsey from quick
reflex. "Duke Thomas. This is an unexpected honor."
The dark stallion shook his head, his tousled mane still rumpled from a
recent and hasty waking. "This is an emergency," he corrected. "Before you
ask, your brother tells me that the detector your Guild sent is not yet
operational. However..." He gestured, and a double door was opened in the
side of the room. Beyond lay an open balcony from which Madog and the Duchess
of Metamor watched a storm raging over the mountains to the north-east.
"Something tells me we won't have a problem suggesting a direction." Cascading
lightning exploded across the storm, turning night into day for more than a
quarter of the sky.
Guildmaster Demarest stepped into view just to the side of Elizabeth,
appearing seemingly from thin air as he moved into range of the transmission
spell. "That can't be right. Is it that close to you? Our direction-finding
suggested the event was far to your east."
"According to our weather mages, Guildmaster, that storm is over a hundred
miles away. I shudder to think what it must be like beneath it."
-----
Hailstones like clenched fists pummeled the life from any Lik resident too
slow or unlucky to quickly find shelter. Lightning bolts thick as tree trucks
detonated much of that shelter into flaming wreckage. Blinding rain drowned
those fires... along with many survivors pinned in the rubble. Worse was
coming.
Thunder shook the ground like a giant's tread, but it was as nothing to the
roar that split the sky. The actinic strobe of unremitting lightning vanished
in a searing blaze as a fireball the size of a house hurtled down on the temple
of Lilith in the center of town. The shockwave of impact obliterated the
temple, blasted every remaining structure in town into matchwood, and ripped a
hole in the clouds. A glowing rift burned in the center of that hole for a
fraction of a second longer, bright as a newborn sun, then collapsed with a
flash and a roar that sundered the storm like a rotten melon.
-----
"Gods be!"
The Metamor war council and the projected Marigund mages recoiled in shock
as the distant storm flared into eye-searing brilliance. The silhouettes and
shadows of the mountains slashed across the valley in knife-edged relief, first
in the light of the storm, then as lingering afterimages in the darkness that
followed after.
Whimpering, Madog jumped down from the balcony ledge and tugged on the
Duchess' skirt with his teeth. "Inside! Inside, hurry!" Almost dragging her
off the balcony, the metal fox then knocked the Duchess down and stood
stiff-legged astride her as if to shield her with his own body. All of the
doors and windows slammed shut, vanishing into solid stone as the Keep sealed
the room. A growing rumble began to shake the building. "Protect the Duke!"
Misha and George yelled at the same moment, and the lord of Metamor found
himself tackled under many bodies and shoved beneath the heavy oak map table as
the rumble outside became a roar.
The room shook like a rat in a terrier's jaws, violent, but mercifully
brief. Once the shaking faded, people began picking themselves up off the
floor, the Duke and Duchess' bodyguards only letting their own charges up once
the Keep reopened the doorways and windows, signaling that the threat had truly
passed. Duchess Alberta swayed slightly as she rose, one hand on her midriff,
an uncomfortable moue souring her face, but she waved off any concerned
questions with assurance that she was fine. The Marigund mages were gone: the
focusing figurine, to Misha's dismay, lay shattered on the floor next to the
table. But the spectacle beyond the mountains ultimately drew all eyes back to
it. The cataclysmic storm, nearly horizon-spanning mere moments earlier, had
been shattered into pieces. Flickering remnants fled in all directions,
leaving a widening circle of open, starry sky behind. "What in the Nine Hells
was that?" gasped the Duke, shocked into a momentary lapse of profanity.
"Not in the Hells, your Grace," replied a dark-clad figure who, until now,
had remained silent in a corner. The crescent moon medallion of a priest of
Nocturna gleaming silver on a chain of gold around his neck, Malger Sutt picked
himself up off the floor. "Not in," he repeated as he tugged his disheveled
waistcoat back into place. "Out of. Doom has come, but for once not for
Metamor." Dark musteline eyes narrowed and fixed on Misha. "Not unless you
fail to get there first."
"Get there first? Who else is coming?"
"Only those too mad or too hungry for power to heed warnings from both
aedra and daedra."
"Warnings from daedra and aedra?" Lothanasa Raven challenged. "I have
heard no such thing!"
"You will."
"What are we facing, Malger?" Misha's remaining ear had gone flat, eyes
narrowing in turn. "You seem to have so many answers. What has happened, and
why are you so specific about me?"
"One answer will satisfy both questions, Misha, and it is this: the War
Wolf of Revonos is un-leashed, and has been ejected from the Hells." Malger
paused just long enough to let his very deliberate phrasing sink in, and then
stabbed a finger into Misha's chest. "Prepare well. Know without question
that you will not overmatch him in a direct contest of strength, so choose your
companions wisely. And above all, do not be late."
-----
What remained of the army at Lik stirred only slowly in the sudden silence,
deafened ears just beginning to register the moans of the injured and dying.
The werewolves and the vampires, gifted by Lilith with supernatural strength
and healing, were the first to push free of the wreckage and even they,
hardened killers through they were, gaped in shock at the absolute devastation
they beheld. The city of Lik was, quite simply, gone. Its buildings had been
almost uniformly leveled into smoldering ruin. Of the temple at its center,
only a smoking crater remained. Still, discipline under pressure and obedience
to hierarchy remained fundamental to Lilith's ethos, bred into the very marrow
of her servants and slaves, and a chain of command was soon salvaged and put
into action. The werewolves, with their sharp noses and sharper claws, started
searching for survivors. A pair of giants who had survived the bludgeoning
hail, the searing lightning, and the rending shrapnel heaved themselves from
the rubble and began digging where the werewolves indicated. The vampires, in
imminent need of shelter from the coming dawn, investigated the smoking crater
where the temple had been. Perhaps somewhere amidst that sulphurous haze, some
remnant of the catacombs had survived.
Some remnant had, but that was not all to be found there. Something
stirred, hidden in the haze, battered by a long, pain-filled fall, but blazing
with power from back-to-back victories over two hated foes. The pain was
ignored. Ears pricked in anticipation. Devastation incarnate waited for his
third battle with golden eyes alight.
-----
May 21st, 706 CR
"Somebody killed her. Somebody killed my Alexis. She went in and... and
somebody killed her."
The cold wind of dragonflight stabbed through Misha’s fur, and he tugged
the parka he wore tighter around him to block it. If only he could protect
himself from memories so easily.
"Stay down, Drift! You’re not getting past me!"
"Whatever the price, whatever the cost, give me the strength to destroy my
enemies!"
"Don't follow me, Misha! I won't spare you twice!"
He closed his eyes against the wind, and immediately snow swirled around
him. A red glow pierced the night.
"Stop this madness!"
"No! This isn’t what I wanted! She didn’t deserve to die! She wasn’t
supposed to-"
{Misha.}
"Misha, help me! Help- aaaahh!"
{Misha!}
Saroth’s telepathic shout startled Misha out of his unwanted reverie.
“What? What is it?” he shouted back, pushing his voice to reach through the
wind to the dragon’s ears.
A strong gust of wind buffeted Saroth and the blue dragon Tychicus, forcing
them to swerve out of formation to avoid being pushed into a cliff. {It is
difficult enough cajoling the winds into our favor without the screams in your
mind to distract me. No, I’m not intentionally reading, but please direct your
thoughts to another topic.} The buffeting lessened and the dragons eased back
into a streamlined offset, the larger Tychicus taking the point. {The sky is
in pain, Misha, and the winds off the mountains are even wilder than usual. I
wish Electra were here so I could focus on flying.}
The snow-capped heights of the Great Barrier Range had always served as a
nigh-impenetrable guard to Metamor's flanks. Torturously high passes, thin
air, bitter cold, and sudden, savage storms made crossing in large numbers,
whether by ground or by air, almost unthinkable. Only dragons flew this high,
and not without effort. But it was the safest way to get quickly to the area
where the storm had been, without the danger of running into an air patrol from
Nasojassa or Lik. The 'nobody goes here' mystique of the Great Barrier Range
worked both ways, and Misha's reconnaissance didn't need large numbers. It
just needed a dedicated weather mage to cope with the maze of storms and
shifting winds that barred their path.
Unfortunately, they didn't have one. The storm shield that protected
Metamor's southern reaches, still recovering from the Marzac Shockwave of the
winter before, had had its freshly recast anchors damaged again by whatever had
shaken the skies to the north. Xavier Marcus had abruptly left Metamor for
parts unknown bare weeks after Drift's fall to the daedra, which left the Duke
caught between two fires with only one storm mage apiece. Thus, Saroth had to
pull double duty as flying transport and weather mage in difficult terrain, and
the strain was beginning to show. Even threading their way through mountain
valleys for much of the day, they had not been able to avoid crossing any fewer
than five high passes, and each took a visible toll on the bronze-scaled
dragon. An overnight rest in the forested valley just behind them had given
both dragons a chance to recover before the final push, but even so Misha
fingered the teleport disk in his pocket, glad that he would not have to ask
for a repeat performance on the way home.
Tychicus, who had scouted this route before, promised that this was the
last high pass before the way out. It was also the highest and the most
dangerous: the snowscape buffeted and swirled under the dragons’ wings only a
rooftop's height below, but the air was too thin to climb any higher for
safety. Too thin even for dragons. Misha looked up, up at the mountain peaks
looming still higher above and felt something in him quail. Never in his life
had he felt so small. There was great beauty here: the snow gleamed and
glittered like a field of diamonds in the light of the rising sun. Dark cliffs
and crags lanced through the white cover, carved by time and cold into
razor-edged perfection. But it was a hostile and deadly majesty, and the
mountains guarded it jealously. Outsiders trespassed at great peril. A
mistake now would mean a slow, cold, torturous death.
Arms tightened around his waist as the dragons slewed around another rocky
outcropping. Behind him rode the rat Charles Matthias, his face burrowed into
the back of Misha's parka for protection from the wind. The arrangement
mirrored itself on Tychicus' back with Wolfram and Merai, the other companions
Misha had chosen to bring with him. Wolfram had worried that pausing at Glen
Avery to pick up Charles would delay them too long, but the rat had shown up at
Metamor's gates that very dawn, uncalled-for. "I had a dream, Misha," he
explained when asked. "Shattered manacles, dipped into a crystal pool. They
didn't come out as manacles, though. They came out as a brilliant sword,
gleaming like the sun. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
Misha did. No more questions were needed. They left on time.
"The creature you will be facing," Malger had said just before their
departure, "is called the Beast of Revonos, and he is aptly named. He was once
a Keeper that each of you knew. What he has become now is a weapon, a living
embodiment of chaos and destruction, deliberately and powerfully designed by
Lord Revonos. We do not know how much of his mind remains, nor what state it
is in. I'm sorry, Misha, but the odds are very good that he will not remember
you. If you want to survive, you must help him to do so."
Raven had weighed in next. "When you find him, remember this above all
else: do not attempt to combat him by matching strength against strength. You
will lose. Contests of power are what he knows, and where he excels. If you
play by his rules, he will destroy you utterly. Remember from where he comes:
the court of the Lord of Betrayal. The Sixth Hell does not countenance
co-operation, so it is unfamiliar to him. Work together... or die separately."
The wolven priestess turned a worried gaze on Merai. "The gods have forbidden
me from going with you, and you will be both uniquely strong and uniquely
vulnerable against him. You know of what I speak. Beware the shadows.
Remember your training." She unbuckled the holy sword Elemacil from her waist
and handed it over to the young priestess. "Bear this well, Priestess Merai.
May the High Lord Kammoloth guide you and keep you safe."
The final word had come from Duke Thomas. "If you take him alive- I'm
sorry, Misha, but I will not risk your lives with anything more restrictive
than that- if you take him alive, he is to go directly to the dungeons, to be
kept under strict ward and guard. If he is found competent, he will stand
trial for the deaths and damages he caused three months ago. If he is not
competent, then... we'll see. Be very, very careful."
Tychicus and Saroth heaved themselves over the top of the ridge, the
downward slope opening up before them... stained red by the blood of a black
dragon dragging itself upward in the other direction. It collapsed and died
before they could reach it, its wings shredded, a foreleg broken, and its head
partially caved in. Around its neck it bore the teardrop ankh of Lilith. It
was not the only body they found on the mountain that day, nor in the foothills
beyond. Flyers of all kinds littered the area: dragons, drakes, gargoyles, and
more, all of them with their wings destroyed, and most looking as if they had
fallen from a great height. It was not difficult to guess why. The sudden
storm, and whatever had happened after, had wrought utter devastation on
anything airborne.
It had also started fires. Many of them. Smoke stung the nostrils and, as
they emerged from the foothills, darkened nearly a quarter of the horizon.
Misha heard Wolfram yell something, his tone sharp with alarm, but the wind
snatched away the words. {Only the fringe, and only for a moment} came
Tychicus' reply. Like Saroth, he spoke telepathically. The two dragons banked
sharply away from the denser forest to their left, turning toward the fires on
their right.
From this height, Misha could see a distinct arc to the columns of smoke
and, as the dragons wove a path through them, a concentric pattern of damage
established itself on what portions of the forest had escaped burning. First,
leaves had been stripped from trees, then branches, then entire limbs the
farther east they went. The air turned strangely chill, a dull white gleam
mottling the forest floor. "What is that white down there, Saroth?" Misha
asked. "Can you see it?"
{I can. It's hail, and it's getting thicker the closer we get to Lik.}
"So is the damage," Charles added, peeking out from behind Misha. "It
looks like the hail came first- see how the downed trees cover it?"
"Good observation, Charles, and it makes sense given what we saw from
Metamor. If it was centered near or over Lik-"
Saroth's wingbeats faltered, a telepathic bow wave of shock radiating from
him. Misha's head snapped up, wondering what had so startled the dragon, and
his jaw dropped open as the veil of smoke parted. Absolute devastation
unfolded before them, stretching from horizon to horizon. As far as the eye
could see, trees had either been blown down or snapped outright, stripped of
limbs and even bark. Fire had scorched them where they lay. Hot patches still
smoldered, lingering embers from a great conflagration that had since passed
on. In the middle of it all gleamed a strange, perfectly circular ring of
barren, darkened ground. And inside that…
"Lik."
"Or what's left of it. Oh, Eli." Charles narrowed his eyes until they
were lost in the gloom of his brow, and made the sign of the Yew. When he
opened them again, the surprise had gone from them, but the uneasy amazement
remained. He had warned them all of the power of the Beast he'd encountered in
Revonos' arena, but even he had not been prepared for this. A yawning crater
like an empty eye socket marked the epicenter of destruction: not a single
building remained standing. "Are those..."
{Yes. Bodies. Lots of them. And it looks like many of them weren't
killed by the blast. Misha, I don't think you should use the teleport disk
here. The magic…} He struggled for words. {It feels as if reality itself is
scarred. The sky is in pain. I would advise against any use of magic at all,
if it can be helped, at least until we are well away from here.}
{Priestess Merai believes it to be some sort of burn from the portal},
Tychicus sent. {From the Sixth or the Ninth Hell- she's not certain which.
The auras are mixed, but they're also the strongest she's encountered outside
of direct presence. It seems to have opened almost directly above the temple.}
"So that's the point of origin. Saroth, can you see anything alive down
there? Anything moving?"
{No, Misha. Nothing moves. I see bodies aplenty, but-} His head jerked
sharply, eyes fixing on something below, to the side of the city in an area
that had somehow escaped burning. {Wait.... there! Follow me!} Saroth heeled
over, wings opening to sweep into a wide, descending spiral. Tychicus followed
a moment later.
After criss-crossing above the town to draw any hidden archer's fire, and
receiving none, Saroth and Tychicus found a clear spot amid the rubble near the
edge of town. In a whirling backwater of wings, each landed facing out from
the other; teeth, claws, and flame poised to strike. Wolfram and Merai rolled
off Tychicus to cover a third direction, while Misha and Charles readied
themselves against a fourth. It was a potent defense executed perfectly to
plan, ready for assault from any front... but none came. Only a faint, distant
moan greeted them.
With a gesture, Misha sent the two dragons back into the sky, circling
overhead like aerial cavalry, while the four groundbound Keepers closed in on
the source of the sound. The dead lay everywhere: under the wreckage, on top
of it, whole, in pieces, and every possible variation in between, all under the
unforgiving glare of the merciless sun. Those that had not burned outright
were quickly beginning to putrefy. The stench of death was indescribable. The
silence was almost worse. It pressed down with almost palpable weight,
magnifying a whispered comment into a careless shout, a minute shift of rubble
into an echoing avalanche, and transforming the recurring moan from afar into a
beacon of unending suffering. Misha was reminded of the days after the tornado
had struck Keeptowne- it had taken three days for the songbirds and insects to
return, and the silence had been just as deafening.
The rubble came to an abrupt end at the dark ring they had seen around the
city from above. The buildings, the bodies, toppled trees, bushes, even the
ground itself, all of it ended at the ring as if sliced off by a red-hot knife.
Beyond the knife edge, three feet of ground had been melted down into to
glassy, black rock. Wolfram poked it with a length of wood he'd pulled from
the rubble and frowned. "It's like glass. What happened here?"
"Hellfire," Merai answered, springing with feline grace over the stretch of
glassed ground to examine a burned jumble of bones beyond. "This one probably
tried to leap through, and was incinerated in midair." The lutin's blackened,
fleshless skull stared up at them, its jaws gaping open as if still screaming
even in death. Stooping and making the sign of the twin cross, Merai rested
her fingers on the bones and whispered a short prayer for the dead. "Even
lutins don't deserve to die like that."
Not trusting the hell-touched strip of obsidian glass, Misha vaulted it
using Whisper as a pole. Charles did likewise with his Sondeshike, and then
tossed it back to help Wolfram across. The lutin was not the only creature
that had tried to leap the flame wall: as they closed on the sound of the
moaning, they found many other skeletons and half-skeletons. The worst was the
giant that had fallen half across the blaze and then dragged its cauterized,
half-incinerated body for another ten feet before dying. Misha prayed that the
trail of blackened, roasted organs would not haunt his nightmares.
Then they found the werewolf. Twenty feet up a splintered oak, impaled
through his chest, gut, and thigh by scorched tree limbs as thick as a man's
arm, only his lycanthropic regeneration had saved him from instant death. Even
that was more of a torment than a blessing, as he could not free himself.
Grizzled fur streaked with coagulated and dried blood, a pink froth bubbling at
the corners of his mouth, the beast moaned in agony with each breath. His lips
twitched as if he were trying to say something, but Misha couldn't make it out
from the ground. Wolfram stepped up next to Misha, drawing in a breath through
his teeth as he sized up the situation. "I'm assuming you want him alive?"
"If possible. We need to find out what happened. But if we can't get him
down safely..."
"We can," the ram interrupted. "It will be tricky, but we can. Better get
started." Scaling the tree with surprising efficiency, he revived the beast
with a careful drink of water. The offer of help received a faint nod in
reply, and the ram signaled for Saroth and Tychicus to land. It took both
dragons at their largest size to ease the tree down without jostling its
captive, and the beast bit on Charles' Sondeshike while Wolfram and Merai
carefully extricated the tree limbs from his body. Misha kept Whisper close as
the wounds healed, but even when physically restored, the werewolf proved to be
in no shape to fight. He didn't much care that he'd been rescued by
Metamorians, just so long as "that beast, that bloody Beast" was gone. His
hands shook with fear, trembling so badly that he spilled as much water as he
drank. He didn't seem to notice.
"Eyes. G-golden eyes," he finally stammered through chattering teeth.
"G-golden eyes and bloody fur. That's what I remember most. Burning fire.
Burning ice. Madness. Slaughter. He slaughtered us. Some got away, I think,
but the rest? Screaming. Burning. Freezing. Dying. It came out of the
crater, I think. Froze the vampires solid. The sun burned them to ash where
they stood. I remember that, too." He gulped down the last of the water,
handed the canteen back, and then pulled his knees to his chest and rocked back
and forth, shivering. "Golden eyes, bloody fur, black claws and teeth... fire,
ice, walking death... burning, freezing... It looked like a wolf. A giant,
terrible dire wolf. And when it howled..." He cringed, his massive,
dark-clawed hands rising to clutch his ears. "Red! Red everywhere!
Everything red! Everything rage! Death and death and death and death..."
Charles' hand drifted to his neck, brushing his fingers across the fur as
if half-expecting to find something there. His eyes narrowed and he carefully
lowered his hand back down when he realized what he was doing. "So... it's not
just hellhounds he can drive mad." After a moment's reflection, he appraised
Misha with a worried glance. "No wonder Raven was warned not to come with us."
"Stupid vampires!" the werewolf whimpered, resuming his rocking. "Stupid!
Stupid!"
A screech cut through the werewolf's anguished rant, and the two dragons
landed in a thunder of wings. {We need to go. A swarm of giant spiders are
coming.}
At the same moment, Merai gasped in alarm and spun westward, raising
Elemacil in a warding guard as shadows began to coalesce. "It's not just
spiders. Get on the dragons and get airborne, now!"
"'Let's catch it!' they said! 'We'll sacrifice it to the Queen!' they
said! Stupid vampires! Stupid! Stu-"
"Hold." The voice was neither loud nor harsh, but radiated such a potency
of command that everyone froze in their tracks as if paralyzed. A woman
stepped from the shadows, her hair the color of pitch and her eyes like a
starless night; like a raven, bereft of pupil or white. Clad from neck to sole
in intricately tooled black leather armor and flanked by a pair of glowering
dire wolves, she radiated an aura of dark nights filled with watching, hungry
eyes. The werewolf toppled forward and kowtowed instantly to the ground, his
rant silenced. Behind her, the spiders could be seen arriving from the west, a
black-and-gray swarm that made short work of the tree-strewn ground.
Ears flattened and hackles rose throughout the group as Merai put a name to
the new arrival. "Lilith." The Keepers backed away from the daedress and
closed ranks, spells and dragonflame ready to blast an escape route if
necessary.
The woman nodded slightly in mocking acknowledgement of the move, but waved
her hand in a dismissive gesture. "At your ease, Lightbringer. For now, I
have no quarrel with you, nor with your companions. We share a common cause:
you want your wayward beast, and I want him gone from my lands as soon as
possible. Do not invite more trouble than you already have." As the spiders
encircled the group, she pointed to the ground before her. "Come here,
William."
The werewolf crawled to her on all fours, whimpering and groveling.
"I-I'm sorry, m-my Lady. I failed you," he stammered when he finally reached
her, his tail tucked and his ears lowered, his trembling returning twofold.
His head and eyes he kept averted, expecting punishment. "I sh-should have-"
Lilith stopped him with a single finger laid on his nose. Cupping her
hand under his chin, she lifted it until he met her eyes and, to the
astonishment of all, she smiled. A reserved smile, the smile of a queen to a
lowly and meager servant, but still a smile. "You were completely out of your
depth, my boy. I would sooner expect a mouse to kill a mountain lion than
expect you to battle the Beast of Revonos. Even the fiercest of predators must
run sometimes." She stroked his gray-furred cheek with an almost maternal
touch. "That you've survived at all suggests you're strong enough for greater
things." She stroked his fur for a bit longer, soothing him until his tailtip
wagged, and then turned her attention to Misha.
"You have done much to advance my ethos here in the northlands, Janaluk
Shaltu. Entire races have grown stronger from fear of you. For that, I grant
you this small boon: safe passage through my lands for the span of two days."
A gesture of her left hand materialized a silver ankh in midair before them,
dropping it into Misha's hands with a clink of metal on claws. "Show this to
any who would stop you, and they will let you pass. Do not linger. Get the
creature for which you've come..." Her eyes narrowed and teeth flashed as her
condescending magnanimity vanished instantly into deadly threat, sudden and
certain as an arrow to the heart. "And then get out."
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