718 Vhalar 71...
“They will attack tonight.”
The fire popped and crackled, pushing back the darkness with its weak, carefully tended flames. There were five of them left – though only four were gathered around the glorified embers while their fifth stared out through the slit of a window and into the murk of the moonlit landscape, her eyes keen and sharp as ever.
“You’re sure about that, Madam?” Judite, an experienced, middle aged veteran of middling height, hair length, and physical beauty, spoke not as one questioning authority but confirming information she would rather had been denying. Her weary hazel eyes glowed dull, even as they caught the fire’s meager light, as Graciana nodded her hoary head. “Then we can’t stay here.”
“But if we head out there,” Du – Mathias believed it was short for “Eduardo” – vaguely waved a hand in Primrose’s direction to indicate outside the tower. “Then we’re as good as dead anyway.” His large, round, pale blue eyes had the most vigor out of all them – a direct product of his youth and tenacious refusal to allow the circumstances of his life to dictate to him which paths he would take. “We should stay and fend them off.”
Primrose, who continued to stare out of the window, scoffed at that. “There’s six of them out there already - just standing there. One of ‘em is big enough to break through the walls with enough time.”
“Then don’t give them the time.” Du’s voice rose enough that Judite deemed it fit to set a calming hand upon his knee.
“We don’t have the time to give, Du.”
“Eight now,” Primrose added. “And that’s just what I can see.”
For a moment, it seemed as though Du was about to shout something in return, but it passed as he let out a long, tired sigh.
“Do you have a plan of escape?” Mathias, stared at Judite’s weathered face, her expression of uncertainty masked with the confidence of one whose duty it was to lead easily readable.
“I do,” she began, scratching at the side of her face. “I don’t know how effective it’ll be but…”
“But there are few comparable alternatives?”
“Something like that.” Judite extended a hand towards Du, who had been rummaging in his pack before she’d even started to reply to Mathias’ question. He transferred over a well-worn map inked in leather, which she spread out near enough the dying flames that their weak light would illuminate it well enough without burning through it, and a stick of hard charcoal. “Primrose, positions?”
“Three by the gate, four back at least fifty paces – fanned out – and one crouching in that farthest building. The one shaped like and ‘l’.”
Judite nodded to herself as she marked the ferahom’s positions on her map with small circles. “We break through the three at the gate. The Madam and Mathias keep them back with magic, we make for the southern block,” she tapped on a maze-like area on the map, “Here. Even if the creep can see us, the big ones won’t be able to follow, and we’ll have a better chance of getting out of this damned placed if we can take them one at a time.”
“’Break through’ like ‘kill them’ or ‘break through’ like… ‘run’?” Du didn’t seem to like the idea, either way.
“The latter, darling.” Graciana lowered a slender finger, pointing at the three circles on Judite’s map. “The more time we waste with these-“ Her finger moved north, settling above the general area of four not immediately outside of the gate. “-the greater the risk of being overwhelmed.”
“You’re both mages though, aren’t you? Can’t you just… magic them away from us?”
Graciana and Judite exchanged glances with one another, but Mathias was the one who chose to answer him directly. “Magic has its limits; neither I nor the Madam will be able to restrain the creatures long enough for a prolonged fight.” The prospect of quickly dispatching an enemy wasn’t even considered – even Du seemed to understand that that was an impossibility given their current state.
“Fine.” His sigh was frustrated, but his voice was resigned for the time being. “So we run past, into that maze and… what?”
Judite used her charcoal stick to lightly trace a path through the winding paths of ink upon the leather. “We keep running.”
Du shot an uncertain look at Graciana but blushed a shade or two darker when she met his gaze with an amused raise of her brow. “Er- okay. Sure. We just run until we can’t anymore, then?”
Scratching at the back of her head, greying black hair rippling over her shoulders, Judite shrugged. “You got anything better?”
“Fireballs?” His voice had the sort of knowing hopefulness that one often employed when asking a question one already knew the answer to – and an answer was not wanted in the least.
“Not that sort of mage.” Mathias replied, expression apologetic – or at least close enough to it with a furrowed brow and a half-sad smile.
Du nodded, his short-cropped, fuzzy black haired head bobbing once. “Right. Running it is.”
Very little time was wasted after that. They gathered up what they felt was absolutely necessary and left the rest. The fire continued to splutter, even as they filed down the solid stone stairs that wound around the curved wall of the tower’s interior. Mathias was first in line, followed by Graciana then Judite then Primrose then Du. Once they were on the ground floor, they spread out enough that they could pass shoulder to shoulder through the gate once it was opened.
“Ready?” Judite whispered, barely audible in the near silence of the evening, the pop of the peat-fire the only true noise to cover her words. Collectively, the rest of the group nodded, and she returned the motion a trill before she kicked the odd metal lever that seemed to be attached to a mechanism that raised and lowered the heavy iron portcullis. The clacking was loud, filling the quiet of the night with its noise, but none of them hesitated, ducking under the gate and heading directly towards the three gathered ferahoms at speed.
In unison, Mathias and Graciana’s arms rose, ether filling the air around them, as the twisted creatures they charged towards prepared themselves to counter-attack. The light of the moon provided enough detail that neither Mathias nor Graciana had difficulty erecting their barriers to block against the first round of strikes from the three hulking masses of plant and flesh, but not enough to see much more than that.
Whatever their forms, they only lingered for a half bit as the others darted off down the path they had previously agreed upon. Graciana shackled the creatures in place as they both turned to follow, leaving the gathering bodies of the beasts skittering, shambling, and crawling to chase after them with a comfortable padding of space behind.
The maze, narrow as the map had suggested, had been weathered by both time and the elements which caused many of the walls to crumble, closing pathways and opening up new ones. They did what they could to navigate through it, but it proved to be quite the challenge. The moon began to darken, shifting from silver to grey to black, and still they were lost, wandering and wandering and wandering and-
Soft. Warm. Familiar.
His bright eyes started up at the stone ceiling of his room, the lattice of brick and mortar as common a sight as the pale orange glow of sunlight upon his eyelids. He couldn’t quite tell what had been dream and what had been memory – it had been happening more and more often, something that was no doubt linked to Fiona and the Emean land of dreams. With a soft sigh, he, at last, sat up, the covers slipping from his body to pool in his lap.
Still not quite certain if he were awake, “awake”, or lost somewhere between them, Mathias opened his mouth and quite definitively spoke a clear, calm, “Good morning.”
There was no one else in his sparsely decorated room, and he received no reply.
With a nod, more and more certain he was, in fact, in the waking world, he slid his legs out of his bed, bare feet pressing firmly into the worn woven rug as he ran a hand through his tousled hair. Judite and Du and Primrose had all been very real. He could remember them clearly, only… one of them was dead. Or was it all of them?
Gradually he rose to his feet, shuffling across the floor to gather his clothes from his wardrobe.
How was it they had escaped? He couldn’t recall clearly – not with so many interfering dreams and thoughts but… Du. Du had been the one to die – and Primrose had stayed behind that time. He, Graciana, and Judite had returned as three – weary and worn with nothing to show for their efforts aside from their own fatigue.
Beyond that, he couldn’t remember…
His fingers moved clumsily over the buttons of his shirt, pants hung over the back of his chair.
He’d tried to stop Primrose – to force her to come with them, as he’d done with Caetano. She’d… she’d stabbed him.
Blinking, confused, Mathias stared down at his stomach, where the wound should have been, but there was nothing but pale, alabaster skin marked only by his own belly button. His fingers ran over the smooth flesh just to the left of it, trailing a thin line. She’d stabbed him there.
But he hadn’t bled, and she hadn’t stabbed him.
Black glass. That’s all there had been beneath the skin. Cold, unfeeling, impervious to her dagger. She hadn’t lingered, simply stabbed and stumbled after Du – but she’d been too late or too slow or simply too incompetent. They’d left them behind, he and Graciana and Judite.
Was that real?
With a frown, Mathias picked up his belt by the buckle. Pulling the prong from its place, he unceremoniously shoved it through the skin of his forearm, pushing it deep through the-
He blinked three times in rapid succession as he felt the tip of the prong press into something firm and hard just below his skin. There was no pain, no blood, nothing at all. A bit more carefully than before, he pulled down on the prong, the dull, slender metal rod tearing a rough line about an inch in length, which revealed the alien, black glass he remembered.
So it hadn’t been a dream.
…or he was still dreaming.
“They will attack tonight.”
The fire popped and crackled, pushing back the darkness with its weak, carefully tended flames. There were five of them left – though only four were gathered around the glorified embers while their fifth stared out through the slit of a window and into the murk of the moonlit landscape, her eyes keen and sharp as ever.
“You’re sure about that, Madam?” Judite, an experienced, middle aged veteran of middling height, hair length, and physical beauty, spoke not as one questioning authority but confirming information she would rather had been denying. Her weary hazel eyes glowed dull, even as they caught the fire’s meager light, as Graciana nodded her hoary head. “Then we can’t stay here.”
“But if we head out there,” Du – Mathias believed it was short for “Eduardo” – vaguely waved a hand in Primrose’s direction to indicate outside the tower. “Then we’re as good as dead anyway.” His large, round, pale blue eyes had the most vigor out of all them – a direct product of his youth and tenacious refusal to allow the circumstances of his life to dictate to him which paths he would take. “We should stay and fend them off.”
Primrose, who continued to stare out of the window, scoffed at that. “There’s six of them out there already - just standing there. One of ‘em is big enough to break through the walls with enough time.”
“Then don’t give them the time.” Du’s voice rose enough that Judite deemed it fit to set a calming hand upon his knee.
“We don’t have the time to give, Du.”
“Eight now,” Primrose added. “And that’s just what I can see.”
For a moment, it seemed as though Du was about to shout something in return, but it passed as he let out a long, tired sigh.
“Do you have a plan of escape?” Mathias, stared at Judite’s weathered face, her expression of uncertainty masked with the confidence of one whose duty it was to lead easily readable.
“I do,” she began, scratching at the side of her face. “I don’t know how effective it’ll be but…”
“But there are few comparable alternatives?”
“Something like that.” Judite extended a hand towards Du, who had been rummaging in his pack before she’d even started to reply to Mathias’ question. He transferred over a well-worn map inked in leather, which she spread out near enough the dying flames that their weak light would illuminate it well enough without burning through it, and a stick of hard charcoal. “Primrose, positions?”
“Three by the gate, four back at least fifty paces – fanned out – and one crouching in that farthest building. The one shaped like and ‘l’.”
Judite nodded to herself as she marked the ferahom’s positions on her map with small circles. “We break through the three at the gate. The Madam and Mathias keep them back with magic, we make for the southern block,” she tapped on a maze-like area on the map, “Here. Even if the creep can see us, the big ones won’t be able to follow, and we’ll have a better chance of getting out of this damned placed if we can take them one at a time.”
“’Break through’ like ‘kill them’ or ‘break through’ like… ‘run’?” Du didn’t seem to like the idea, either way.
“The latter, darling.” Graciana lowered a slender finger, pointing at the three circles on Judite’s map. “The more time we waste with these-“ Her finger moved north, settling above the general area of four not immediately outside of the gate. “-the greater the risk of being overwhelmed.”
“You’re both mages though, aren’t you? Can’t you just… magic them away from us?”
Graciana and Judite exchanged glances with one another, but Mathias was the one who chose to answer him directly. “Magic has its limits; neither I nor the Madam will be able to restrain the creatures long enough for a prolonged fight.” The prospect of quickly dispatching an enemy wasn’t even considered – even Du seemed to understand that that was an impossibility given their current state.
“Fine.” His sigh was frustrated, but his voice was resigned for the time being. “So we run past, into that maze and… what?”
Judite used her charcoal stick to lightly trace a path through the winding paths of ink upon the leather. “We keep running.”
Du shot an uncertain look at Graciana but blushed a shade or two darker when she met his gaze with an amused raise of her brow. “Er- okay. Sure. We just run until we can’t anymore, then?”
Scratching at the back of her head, greying black hair rippling over her shoulders, Judite shrugged. “You got anything better?”
“Fireballs?” His voice had the sort of knowing hopefulness that one often employed when asking a question one already knew the answer to – and an answer was not wanted in the least.
“Not that sort of mage.” Mathias replied, expression apologetic – or at least close enough to it with a furrowed brow and a half-sad smile.
Du nodded, his short-cropped, fuzzy black haired head bobbing once. “Right. Running it is.”
Very little time was wasted after that. They gathered up what they felt was absolutely necessary and left the rest. The fire continued to splutter, even as they filed down the solid stone stairs that wound around the curved wall of the tower’s interior. Mathias was first in line, followed by Graciana then Judite then Primrose then Du. Once they were on the ground floor, they spread out enough that they could pass shoulder to shoulder through the gate once it was opened.
“Ready?” Judite whispered, barely audible in the near silence of the evening, the pop of the peat-fire the only true noise to cover her words. Collectively, the rest of the group nodded, and she returned the motion a trill before she kicked the odd metal lever that seemed to be attached to a mechanism that raised and lowered the heavy iron portcullis. The clacking was loud, filling the quiet of the night with its noise, but none of them hesitated, ducking under the gate and heading directly towards the three gathered ferahoms at speed.
In unison, Mathias and Graciana’s arms rose, ether filling the air around them, as the twisted creatures they charged towards prepared themselves to counter-attack. The light of the moon provided enough detail that neither Mathias nor Graciana had difficulty erecting their barriers to block against the first round of strikes from the three hulking masses of plant and flesh, but not enough to see much more than that.
Whatever their forms, they only lingered for a half bit as the others darted off down the path they had previously agreed upon. Graciana shackled the creatures in place as they both turned to follow, leaving the gathering bodies of the beasts skittering, shambling, and crawling to chase after them with a comfortable padding of space behind.
The maze, narrow as the map had suggested, had been weathered by both time and the elements which caused many of the walls to crumble, closing pathways and opening up new ones. They did what they could to navigate through it, but it proved to be quite the challenge. The moon began to darken, shifting from silver to grey to black, and still they were lost, wandering and wandering and wandering and-
Soft. Warm. Familiar.
His bright eyes started up at the stone ceiling of his room, the lattice of brick and mortar as common a sight as the pale orange glow of sunlight upon his eyelids. He couldn’t quite tell what had been dream and what had been memory – it had been happening more and more often, something that was no doubt linked to Fiona and the Emean land of dreams. With a soft sigh, he, at last, sat up, the covers slipping from his body to pool in his lap.
Still not quite certain if he were awake, “awake”, or lost somewhere between them, Mathias opened his mouth and quite definitively spoke a clear, calm, “Good morning.”
There was no one else in his sparsely decorated room, and he received no reply.
With a nod, more and more certain he was, in fact, in the waking world, he slid his legs out of his bed, bare feet pressing firmly into the worn woven rug as he ran a hand through his tousled hair. Judite and Du and Primrose had all been very real. He could remember them clearly, only… one of them was dead. Or was it all of them?
Gradually he rose to his feet, shuffling across the floor to gather his clothes from his wardrobe.
How was it they had escaped? He couldn’t recall clearly – not with so many interfering dreams and thoughts but… Du. Du had been the one to die – and Primrose had stayed behind that time. He, Graciana, and Judite had returned as three – weary and worn with nothing to show for their efforts aside from their own fatigue.
Beyond that, he couldn’t remember…
His fingers moved clumsily over the buttons of his shirt, pants hung over the back of his chair.
He’d tried to stop Primrose – to force her to come with them, as he’d done with Caetano. She’d… she’d stabbed him.
Blinking, confused, Mathias stared down at his stomach, where the wound should have been, but there was nothing but pale, alabaster skin marked only by his own belly button. His fingers ran over the smooth flesh just to the left of it, trailing a thin line. She’d stabbed him there.
But he hadn’t bled, and she hadn’t stabbed him.
Black glass. That’s all there had been beneath the skin. Cold, unfeeling, impervious to her dagger. She hadn’t lingered, simply stabbed and stumbled after Du – but she’d been too late or too slow or simply too incompetent. They’d left them behind, he and Graciana and Judite.
Was that real?
With a frown, Mathias picked up his belt by the buckle. Pulling the prong from its place, he unceremoniously shoved it through the skin of his forearm, pushing it deep through the-
He blinked three times in rapid succession as he felt the tip of the prong press into something firm and hard just below his skin. There was no pain, no blood, nothing at all. A bit more carefully than before, he pulled down on the prong, the dull, slender metal rod tearing a rough line about an inch in length, which revealed the alien, black glass he remembered.
So it hadn’t been a dream.
…or he was still dreaming.
Well written and enjoyable.