‘We’re looking for a band of elves, and it seems like they went east, Bane,’ I informed him as he continued to circle lazily overhead. ‘See if you can find any sign of them.’
I will find them for you, Sintári, he promised as he wheeled himself towards the rising sun.
We hadn’t gone far when I heard the sound of arrows whistling through the air. A series of cries rang out from all around as some of them struck home among us, while others were reflected back at our unseen attackers. I rolled to the side and ducked behind the cover of a tree just before three shafts struck the ground where I’d been crouching.
I only had a general idea of where the shots had come from, but that was more than enough for me to retaliate. As the shots and cries of pain echoed through the trees, I drew one of my Khelduin arrows, imbued it, and fired it in the area where I’d seen a flicker of movement seconds before. The shaft punched into the trunk of the tree I’d been aiming at with a loud ‘thunk,’ and the concussion of the Shockwave arrow I’d fired immediately tore through the surrounding forest. Although my proficiency with the talent wasn’t all that high, the added force that Retribution applied turned what should have been a relatively mild concussive wave into a maelstrom of pure destruction.
Tree limbs snapped with a series of loud cracks, and small bushes were nearly uprooted as the force of the violent impact rebounded through a large section of forest. Screams of pain and agony followed immediately in the wake of the devastation, and I rushed from behind my cover to capitalize on the confusion I’d caused.
Several arrows tracked me as I ran, one bounced off my Shield, and another was reflected back by Tási’s magic, resulting in a satisfying grunt of pain coming from off in the distance. As I reached the border of the devastation I’d created, I saw Bane’s form hurtle down from above and into the underbrush nearby, followed by another terrified scream that was abruptly cut off amid the sounds of rending flesh.
As I turned back to look over the destruction in front of me, I began searching for any foes, but all I found were the dead and dying. I quickly counted seven figures scattered about the immediate area, and none of them looked to be long for this world—the concussive wave had shattered their bodies and strewn them across the ground. With no threats left to deal with among the fallen, I ducked back into the undergrowth to seek out another target, but it seemed that our foes had been beaten back by our counterattack. The only movements I could detect were my companions and our soldiers tending to our wounded and rounding up a few of our enemies.
Stel quickly set a perimeter around us and I walked over to where Tási and Venna were looking after the injured. Although many had been saved by Tási’s reflection Spell, several had still been hit by the enemy’s initial salvo, and a couple had also been wounded in the close fighting that had followed once they’d engaged with our foes. Worst of all were the two who’d fallen in the ambush. One of the red-caped soldiers, and heartbreakingly, Rhia as well.
Fortunately, their fatal wounds were well within the boundaries of resurrection magic, and I wasn’t forced to decide between them. If one had suffered injuries like those that had been inflicted on our dead back on the road, I would have had to use all three charges of Death’s Embrace to raise them, leaving nothing for the other.
“Welcome back, Rhia,” I said as her eyes fluttered open.
“What h-happened?” She replied in confusion.
“You took an arrow,” I said as I held up the shaft that I’d ripped out of her neck.
“It was about the only thing that ever shut you up,” Ella taunted Rhia as she sat up.
“I don’t remember anything,” she whispered.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” I remarked. “I think you died rather quickly.”
“Wait… I died?” She asked incredulously.
“Yes, Rhia, you died, and I’ve just brought you back.”
She looked perplexed as the implications slowly dawned on her, and I left Ella to watch over her as I went to question the prisoners. I would have preferred to help Rhia deal with her trauma, but the need to find out just what we were up against was more urgent at the moment.
“Bring her over here,” I said, motioning to the lone female that sat bound between two male prisoners. Had we captured only men, I would have gone ahead and questioned one of them, but I already knew what I could do to a woman with my powers and didn’t want to waste time working with the unknown.
“Listen to me closely, because I’m only going to tell you this once,” I told her as I pushed her down roughly against the base of a tree a short distance away from the others. “I can tell if what you say is true or not, and I will make you pay dearly for every lie that you speak. I will ruin you if that’s what it takes to find out what I need to know, so it’s up to you whether or not you make that necessary.”
“I will tell you nothing, drassí,” she spat back at me.
“It means ‘worthless’ in our old language,” Venna informed me from over my shoulder.
I turned to look back at her and saw that she and Tási had followed me when I dragged the prisoner away for questioning. While Tási’s presence was no surprise, Venna’s certainly was, as she seemed to lack the stomach for the brutality I was about to inflict on the elven woman.
“I’m going to start doing very unpleasant things now, Venna,” I warned her. “You may wish to leave.”
“I need to see this,” she replied with no small amount of reservation. “At least once.”
“Then I will give you the same warning I gave Tási,” I told her firmly. “Don’t say a word, and if you object to anything I do, I will toss you as far away from here as I can throw you.”
“I understand,” she replied as she swallowed hard in anticipation of what she was about to witness.
“May I say something to her before you begin?” Tási surprised me by asking.
I simply motioned for her to proceed and listened closely to what she said to the elven woman.
“She has broken people with what you are about to endure,” Tási told her. “You cannot hope to resist the forces that are about to be unleashed on you. She will get what she wants, eventually. The only question is what will be left of you once she does.”
“Fuck you,” the woman spat back. “I know you’re just her little whore. Go back and hide on your island and let the real people of Arrika tend to our affairs.”
“I tried,” Tási sighed as she stepped away from the vile elf.
“You seem to be in a rather foul mood,” I said as I knelt down beside the prisoner. “It must be quite some time since you’ve felt anything pleasant. With a face like yours, I understand why that might be the case. Perhaps this will help.”
I slipped off my glove while I spoke to her and then trailed a finger across her cheek before letting it slip down to the softer skin of her neck. She fought me for an instant, but was simply incapable of resisting the raw energy I sent flowing into her and seized up almost immediately as spasms of ecstasy rushed through her body.
“Tell me when you want me to stop,” I whispered as I continued to fill her with desire, but she only uttered a series of low moans as her body quivered and the unrestrained waves of passion brought her to an almost violent release.
“Seems like someone likes their drassí well enough,” I remarked as her head drooped and she recovered from the onslaught that I’d unleashed on her.
“Now, will you talk, or do I have to show you my other side?”
“Keep your filthy hands off me,” she barely whispered.
“No, see, that was the wrong answer,” I whispered back to her as I slit open her shirt and placed the palm of my hand against her skin.
Her screams echoed through the forest as I shoved a wide tendril of rage deep inside her body. I guided the thick band of black anger around inside her and wrapped it around the bones of her forearm before pulling it tight and shattering both of them in a burst of power. The pitch of her pained cries rose several o
ctaves as her bones were reduced to dust, and I withdrew the tendril and waited while she recovered once more.
“You’ve only tasted the least of my power, sweetling,” I whispered to her again when she regained her wits. “Do I need to start again at the beginning, or will you talk now?”
“What are you?” She gasped between breaths.
“I am Sintári, and that is all you need to know.”
“You cannot be,” she replied in disbelief. “Only my people can bear that title.”
“What if I can prove it to you?” I asked her as I seized on the opening she’d left for me. “Would you cooperate with me then?”
“It can’t be true,” she only muttered to herself.
“You have been lied to; misled,” I told her. “I will give you just this one chance to open your eyes before I continue.”
I pressed my hand against her chest once more, but instead of sending her pleasure or pain as I had done before, I fed her the unfiltered images of my power and my own memories of some of the meetings I’d had with Nentai. If seeing those for herself, along with the undeniable reality that the memories themselves conveyed didn’t convince the elf of who I was, then there was no hope at all. After providing more than enough evidence, I finally ended the display and waited for her response.
“Were those real?” She asked me shakily when I pulled away my hand.
“You tell me,” I asked in return.
“They felt real,” she whispered.
“They are,” I confirmed to her. “This is no trick.”
“He told us you were a fraud,” the woman said slowly. “Weak and inferior, like all humans.”
“You should know that none of that is true,” Venna said over my shoulder. “This woman is the strongest person I have ever met, even before she was Sintári and came into her powers.”
“Would a fraud own this?” I said as I lifted the hand of her undamaged arm and placed it on the sleeve of Melía’s Armor.
Her eyes flew wide open as the Artifact’s true nature was revealed to her, and she looked at me in horror as she suddenly realized the truth.
“He lied to us,” she said in shock. “Gilfri’s pitting us against the will of the Gods themselves!”
“Tell me what he plans.” I pressed her. “How many more of you are here?”
“We were sent to—”
Before she could finish the sentence, her words were drowned out in a series of gurgling sounds, and I heard the wet snapping of her windpipe being crushed by some unseen force. I hadn’t done anything to harm her and I pushed myself away in a panic as she died almost instantly from the severe trauma that had been inflicted on her.
“He made his own soldiers sign a blood clause,” Venna whispered in mixture of astonishment and disgust.
“That means it’s no use even trying to question the other two,” Tási sighed.
“I had her,” was all I could say. “She believed me. I saved her from his filthy lies, and he killed her.”
“You can’t save any of them until Gilfri’s been dealt with,” Venna responded. “He will have to release them or die for the magic of the clause to be removed.”
“I vote for die,” I growled as my vision shifted into shades of viridian light.
“Oh, fuck,” I heard Tási utter as she backed away from me.
I marched back towards the two remaining prisoners with my eyes ablaze and called out to them as I approached.
“Gilfri bound your friend with a blood clause, and now she’s dead because of it,” I told them icily. “Unless one of you were wise enough to avoid doing the same, you’re useless to me.”
“She only died because she betrayed her race,” one of them replied without any trace of remorse, while the other just stared at me in shock.
“What about you?” I asked the silent one as I loomed over them.
“I didn’t want to, but they made me sign it too,” he lamented.
“Then all I can offer you is a swift death,” I replied as I slammed the black orb I’d been holding into the side of his head.
The dark energy rushed into him and he died almost instantly as the power of my rage turned his skull into a misshapen lump in mere seconds. His body spasmed in its death throes and fell to the ground as the orb continued to course through his remains, reducing his corpse almost entirely to ashes before its energy was spent.
“You will die much more slowly,” I said as I turned to the unrepentant elf.
“I would rather die an elf than live for even a second as one of you vermin,” he spat back in defiance.
“Then I shall grant your request,” I replied as I launched my second orb at his feet.
The ball of blackness hit him just above his ankle, and immediately shattered every bone in his leg. The dull sound of wet, snapping bone filled the air, competing with his primal screams of pain for dominance as they both echoed loudly in my ears. I watched with a sort of detached interest as the orb’s power wound its way up his body, shattering his bones and rending his flesh as its energy gradually reduced him to a pile of black ash beside his companion. When the last trace of his screams faded away, I finally released the anger I’d been holding and let the light fade from my eyes as I began walking forward once more.
“No need to take any more prisoners,” I announced flatly as I began searching for the rest of the band of elves Gilfri had sent against us.
Although everyone followed as I resumed the search, no one spoke or even approached me too closely until Tási cautiously came to walk by my side.
“Are you alright?” She asked hesitantly.
“Mostly, yes,” I replied to her honestly.
“That was… somewhat disturbing,” she commented. “Even for you.”
“What other choice was there?” I responded, as I tried to keep my composure. “Drag them with us? Leave them behind, tied to a tree?”
“I understand what you did, it’s how you did it that makes me feel concerned for you,” she explained.
“You know what’s inside me,” I reminded her. “You know I’m not pure. You’ve not only seen it, but you’ve been inside me and felt it for yourself. I’m not going to hide my darkness, and I’ll use it whenever it’s necessary. To be honest, I sometimes find a great deal of comfort in just letting it go.”
“What if one of those times you let it go, it doesn’t let you come back?”
“Then you’d better run,” I replied with deadly seriousness. “Fast.”
We continued from there in utter silence, as neither of us had anything more to add. Both of us had spoken our truths, and there was simply nothing left to say.
Tási renewed her reflection Spell on as many of us as she could while we walked on, and we tracked the elves back towards their camp as quietly as possible. We’d traveled nearly another hour through the wilds before Bane’s thoughts entered my mind again.
There is a camp not far ahead, Sintári. I counted 22 of them.
‘Did you see any sentries outside their perimeter?’
No, I did not, but they could be hidden in the forest.
I stopped and quietly called a halt to spread the news. Knowing that we were close was helpful, but unless we could eliminate their lookouts, we would lose the element of surprise.
“Khorim and I will sneak ahead and see if we can locate their sentries,” I decided.
“Out of the question,” Venna objected forcefully. “Send someone else—you can’t go out there alone.”
“Actually, I can,” I replied as I glared at her.
“Sintári, please,” Stel tried to reason with me. “You are the Empress now, and you shouldn’t even be here. Think of what you are risking if you are captured.”
“No more than anyone else,” I responded.
“You’re wrong,” Tási added her own voice to those against me. “Without you, your fragile new Empire will crumble, and everything you’ve worked so hard to build will fall with it.”
“I don’t like it when
you’re right, Tási,” I gave in with a thin smile. “But Khorim and I have the best chance of succeeding at this. What’s our other option?”
“I can do it myself,” Khorim volunteered. “It will take a bit longer, but I’ll clear the area between here and their camp. Then the whole lot of us can sneak right up on them.”
“If you die again, I swear I’ll kill you, master dwarf,” I teased him.
“And I’ll let her do it, too,” Broda added.
Khorim left, melting into the forest as he went off in search of the enemy’s lookouts. The rest of us hunkered down in the underbrush and hid ourselves as best we could while we waited for him to come back. It took over an hour for him to finally return, but when he did, he pronounced the area clear without reservation.
“There were three of them,” he informed us. “The last one gave me a bit of trouble, but I’m sure there’s no more.”
The plan from there was fairly straightforward; we would sneak up to the camp and launch a surprise attack as soon as we were in place. With over twice their number, we felt it would be fairly simple to overwhelm them, and so, we made no intricate plans for our attack. It would be brute force alone, and we would take no prisoners.
With the sentries eliminated, we marched forward quietly but confidently until we reached the edge of their encampment. It was an extremely orderly affair and showed obvious signs of a level of organization that was almost exclusive to military units. The tents were arranged in neat rows, and the camp itself was tidy and nearly spotlessly clean. Even if we hadn’t already known what we were up against, the camp itself gave away the fact that we were not faced with a simple group of bandits.
The elves we could see were going about their normal business, performing the various tasks of maintaining the camp. A few sat around idly, while more were doubtlessly concealed within the tents. When the signal was sent down our line, everyone with a bow nocked their arrows, and we took aim at the targets that were in our sights. The one lone piece of strategy we employed was that the attack would commence after I sent a Shockwave arrow into their midst to take out as many as I could and generate as much confusion as possible.
Second Skin: Unified: A litRPG Adventure (Second Skin Book 3) Page 68
