by J B Drake
Letting Marshalla go, Anieszirel shook her head as she watched the mist float further upwards.
“And they call me barbaric,” she muttered.
Then, Marshalla coughed. Grinning, Anieszirel stared at the young elf as she slowly rose to sitting.
“Welcome back!” Anieszirel grinned.
“Let me talk to her, Ani,”
“Not just yet, my darling,” Anieszirel thought back.
“But really want to talk to her.”
“I know, my darling, I know, but there are a lot of bad people behind that door, and they will be coming in here at any moment. I just need to stay in control for a little longer. You can talk to her all you want once we’re all safe. Promise.”
“Okay.”
Marshalla stared at her. “Tip?”
Anieszirel shook her head.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
Closing her eyes, Marshalla sighed as she shook her head slowly. “Like…someone ripped my guts out and shoved them back up my arse.”
“Ha!” Anieszirel exclaimed. “I’ve never heard it explained like that before.”
“What did they do to me?”
Sighing, Anieszirel shook her head. “It’s best you don’t know.”
Coughing, Marshalla looked about her, and it was then her gaze met the anxious stare of Archmage Anise Fairweather. With eyes going wide, she stared at Anieszirel once more.
“Thank you, Tip,” she said aloud after a brief spell. “Didn’t think you’d—”
“She knows,” Anieszirel said as she shook her head.
“What?”
Anieszirel shrugged. “She knows.”
Her face ashen, Marshalla stared at the Archmage. Smiling once more, Anieszirel leant forward and placed a calming hand upon her cheeks.
“Rest, girl, gather your strength. You can worry about me later, when we’re free of this place.”
Marshalla turned to Anieszirel, her eyes full of worry and fear. “But it’s not just you, though, it’s—”
“Nobody is putting Tip in a void sphere, Marshalla,” Anieszirel replied as her eyes hardened. “Nobody.”
Rising, Anieszirel headed for the cage’s door. As she reached it, she turned to the Archmage.
“Go on, then,” Anieszirel said before turning her attention to the wind vines holding the gate shut. In response, Anise hurried over to Marshalla’s side, and as Anieszirel undid the vines, whispers from the pair floated to her ears. Gritting her teeth, the chronodragon ignored the words drifting to her, and, once all the vines were gone, she swung open the cage gate and stepped out.
“Kin-Slayer!” Anise called out before Anieszirel had gone far. “We must talk.”
“I’m sure we do,” Anieszirel sighed as she stopped.
“This is a serious matter,” Anise continued as she made her way to the chronodragon. “I’m sure you appreciate the delicate nature of my position here. I can’t very well stay silent over this, not with—”
Turning, Anieszirel faced the Archmage square, the smile upon her lips at odds with the heat of her glare. “Not with what? Hm?”
Anise moved to speak, but no words came forth.
“Not with what, woman, not with what? Not with such a murderous monster walking the streets?”
“That’s not what I—”
Anieszirel took a menacing step forward. “Isn’t it?”
Once more, Anise’s voice failed her.
Taking a step back, Anieszirel took the measure of the woman before her.
“You do what you wish,” she said at last. “but I came here to free my friends. If you cared for them, you’d be helping me instead of wasting my time with this nonsense.”
“And after?”
Waving her words away, Anieszirel turned her attention back to the door. “After, you do whatever your conscience dictates. If you have one, that is.”
“You won’t try to stop me?”
Anieszirel shrugged. “Left to me you’d already be dead…”
“Ani!” Tip exclaimed.
“Ani!” Marshalla echoed.
“…but if I did that, neither Tip nor Marsha would ever speak to me again.”
“I…suppose I should be grateful, then.”
Anieszirel nodded, a slight smile upon her lips as she turned her back to Anise. “Yes, you should.”
“So…what now?”
Sighing, Anieszirel turned to the Archmage once more. “What do you think? We get out of here.”
“How?”
Staring at Anise as if she’d spawned a second head, Anieszirel pointed to the door.
“That way?” Anise asked as she stared from the door to Anieszirel.
“You see any other way out of here?”
“But it’s sealed.”
“And I shall unseal it.”
“But won’t they be waiting for us out there?”
Shaking her head, Anieszirel fought to keep her mounting irritation in check.
“Is there a point to all these questions?” she asked at last.
“Why not just teleport us out of here?”
“What, and leave those two alive?”
It was now Anise’s turn to shake her head. “They won’t get far. Once I report back to the Matriarch, she’ll have the king hunt them down and—”
“And once he corners them, they will try to use our secret to bargain for their freedom.”
“Ah…”
“Precisely.” Shaking her head, Anieszirel turned back to the door. “I’m going through that door, my dear, and I intend to kill every single one of them.”
“What, all of them?” Marshalla asked.
Anieszirel nodded. “If there’s nobody left alive, there’ll be nobody left to tell anyone I’m inside Tip.”
“Except me,” Anise muttered.
Anieszirel smirked. “I can always end you, too.”
“Ani!” Marshalla exclaimed.
“Just saying!” Anieszirel exclaimed, then turned to face Marshalla square.
“I need you to stay here, Marsha. If they see you, they will try to kill you. I shall hide you in a shadow spell, and Gray will be here to protect you, but whatever you hear, whatever you see, stay put. Understand?”
Marshalla shook her head. “I’m—”
“Stay put, girl! Stay. Put.”
Marshalla sighed. “Fine, then!”
“Good,” Anieszirel replied, then turned to Gray.
“You, guard your mistress.”
In response, Gray stared at Marshalla as she sat glaring at Anieszirel before gently nudging her mistress.
“Good,” Anieszirel repeated, then closed her eyes and breathed deep. As she exhaled, Marshalla faded from view. Opening her eyes, Anieszirel stared at her spell with a critical eye until, satisfied, she turned to Anise.
“And you,” she asked, “are you coming, or staying?”
Anise frowned as she stared at the chronodragon, but soon sighed as she shook her head.
“I never was one for hiding,” she said as she pulled free two runic daggers, the runes upon them emitting an eerie glow.
“Where’d you get those from?” Anieszirel frowned.
Smiling, Anise shrugged. “I brought them in with me.”
“They didn’t search you?”
“Oh, they took them from me, of course, but with all the commotion from Larine and Netari, I figured nobody would notice me lift them from the sellsword holding onto them.”
Anieszirel’s frown deepened. “But you were in the cage with me.”
Anise’s smile grew. “You’d be amazed how…pliable…wind magic is to emptying someone’s pockets.”
Sighing, Anieszirel shook her head. “A thieving Archmage. Now I have seen everything.”
Anise’s grinned, but it was fleeting.
“There’s something you need to know,” she said.
“What?”
“My sister’s out there.”
Anieszirel’s gaze hardened. “If she j
oins them, she dies.”
Anise shook her head. “If she joins them, she’s mine.”
Anieszirel stared at Anise a spell.
“Fair enough,” she said at last.
Anise nodded in response, but she wasn’t done.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“My brother’s on his way—”
Anieszirel smirked. “A family reunion? Here?”
Anise shook her head as she sighed. “He’s bringing a rescue party with him.”
Anieszirel’s smirk faded.
“I see,” she said before turning to the door as she called forth her blades once more. “Then we’d best hurry.”
“You’re going to kill them all with those?”
Staring from Anise to her blades and back, Anieszirel shrugged.
“I’ve always preferred the more…personal touch,” she replied, then, taking a step forward, stood tall as she stared at the door. As she stared, the Kin-Slayer began to drink of the power within once more. Closing her eyes, she breathed deep as she drank deep, her wanton thirst driving her to drink deeper and deeper until her entire being radiated with a power she knew little of, but was there for the taking.
“Kin-Slayer, are you alright?” Anise asked, her worry plain in her words.
With a slow smile, Anieszirel turned to the Archmage. She’d drunk deeper than she’d ever done before, and it had her utterly intoxicated. She moved to speak, but her tongue was heavy. So instead, Anieszirel closed her eyes, forging and channelling the power swelling within her until at last she had it all firmly under thumb. Then, she opened her eyes once more.
“Never better,” she whispered as her eyes glowed with a soft azure hue. Turning back to the door, she took a deep breath and, letting it out slowly, whispered a single word of arcane before forming a wind vine as thick as she was tall, and as the effects of her haste spell took hold, the sneering chronodragon slammed the wind vine against the door, smashing it asunder and spraying the small army behind it with its splinters. Then, the battle was joined.
They were ordered in rows, a steel row protecting a row of spell and bow, shields at the ready and swords drawn. It was formidable formation, one designed to stop an attacking army cold before destroying it utterly. But they were not facing an army, they were facing a chronodragon.
The first to die was the warrior stood at the fore, shield ready and sword raised, as if preparing to give the order to engage. Only the order never came, for as he closed his eyes to the dust and splinters, Anieszirel sprang forth, her right blade slicing through his neck in one clean stroke, death claiming him before his sword arm fell.
Then, she was upon the rest, her haste spell transforming her into a wrathful harbinger of swift death, and before the air was filled with the sound of the sellsword commander’s shield hitting the floor, Anieszirel drove her blades into the hearts of two of the warriors in the first row, vaulting over them as she pulled her blades free before bringing her blades, and indeed her weight, to bear upon a particularly bulky mage, piercing both lungs as she forced him upon his back, his last breath a surprised gargle.
It was then the screams began. The chronodragon laughed as they scattered about her, their terror delighting her senses in no small measure. But she would not allow them pause to regroup, oh no. She preferred them like this, scared, rudderless. Like cattle. And so, rising, she sprang forth once more.
“Kill her!” Anieszirel heard Netari scream, and it brought a smile to her lips. They couldn’t kill what they couldn’t see, and with a haste spell whose power was greater than any she’d cast in an age, she was near impossible to see, let alone strike, and as arrow and spell flew harmlessly by her, Anieszirel struck, and struck, and struck again, the bodies of her enemies littering the floor until the floor itself ran red with blood. Then, when their number was thinned to a mere fraction of what it once was, she paused.
Panting, she watched as they finally regrouped, quivering weapons pointed at her throughout. With a grin, Anieszirel brought one of her blades up to her lips before licking still-warm blood off it, and as the blood trickled down her throat, the wrathful chronodragon closed her eyes as a sensuous shiver ran down her spine. With a smile, she opened her eyes once more.
“So,” she said, sweeping her gaze across the survivors. “Who dies next?”
Lying flat on the cobbled earth, Thalas watched as more and more sellswords poured into the main building, the sound of battle unmistakable.
“I’m telling you,” Thane hissed, “this is already lost. It’s the Tower, it’s got to be. That spy must’ve opened a portal, it’s the only explanation!”
“And I tell you,” Eldred whispered, “that is impossible. I know the quality of the mages in there. There’s no way they’d allow a portal to even flicker to life, let alone stay open long enough to allow that many from the Tower through.”
“You don’t know that for certain!”
“Yes, I do!”
“Then what other—”
“Enough, both of you!” Thalas snapped, only for a rough hand to latch onto the back of his neck, driving his face deep into the earth.
“Do not speak to me like you command me, Thalas,” Thane snarled, his face close enough for Thalas to feel Thane’s breath against his cheek.
“Alright!” Thalas pleaded, mud and grass worming up his nose. “Alright!”
At last, Thane let him go. As Thalas cleared his nose, he could see from the corner of his eye the smirk upon Thane’s lips.
“Tower’s not in there,” Neremi said after a brief spell.
“How can you be sure?” Thane asked as they all turned to her.
Shaking her head, Neremi stared at the central building still. “Too much steel, too few spells.”
“What?”
“The sounds, Thane,” Eldred replied, smiling. “Too much swordplay. If our Tower mages were in there, we’d be hearing more explosions and thunderclaps.”
Staring at the building himself, Thane frowned before at last nodding.
“Now what, then?” he asked.
Neremi sighed. “Thalas is right, whether we like it or not. Killing those two and implicating the Fairshrouds is our only way out of this mess, and the sooner we get it done the better.”
“Who do you suppose they’re fighting?”
Neremi shrugged. “It could be the king’s guard for all I care. All I know is, those two need to die, and we need to pin the blame on the Fairshrouds.” Then she made to move forth.
“No, wait!” Eldred exclaimed. “You mean to go in there?”
Neremi turned to him, her face one of supreme seriousness. “Are you able to kill them from out here?” Without waiting for an answer, Neremi rose and scurried forth.
“Damn it!” Eldred exclaimed before hurrying after her.
As Thalas watched them go, Thane’s rough hand returned to his neck, this time to force their eyes to meet.
“You’d better hope and pray no harm comes to either of them. If it does, I shall end you, Thalas.”
Shoving Thalas forward by his neck, Thane glared at his former friend until at last, Thalas hurried after the others
“Not if I kill you first, Thane,” Thalas thought as he hurried forth. “Not if I kill you first.”
Wrenching free her dagger from the ranger she’d plunged it into, Archmage Anise Fairweather surveyed the carnage about her, the ranger’s lifeless body adding to the slaughter. A gasp drifted to her ear, followed by a whispered plea. Turning, Anise watched as a smiling Anieszirel held aloft the last remaining sellsword, her feet kicking wildly as the chronodragon held her high with a spell, one that was slowly suffocating her.
“Oh gods,” she muttered as she marched over to the chronodragon.
“Just end her already!” she exclaimed as she reached the chronodragon.
“All in good time,” Anieszirel smirked.
“Time is something we don’t have,” Anise replied, gritting her teeth. “Or h
ave you forgotten the rescue party?”
Turning to the glowering Archmage, Anieszirel shrugged before, with the twist of a wrist, broke the neck of the sellsword before flinging her corpse away like so much refuse.
Staring from the dead sellsword to the chronodragon, Anise glared at Anieszirel with all the venom she could muster.
“What?” Anieszirel demanded.
“What in the hells was that?”
A dark smile parted Anieszirel’s lips. “That, my dear, was the glory of battle.”
“Glory?” Anise demanded. “You hung her like a piece of meat! That was uncalled for, Kin-Slayer, she was helpless!”
“Helpless? Have you forgotten who they are already?”
Anise shook her head. “That woman was helpless. She was beaten, she had no way to resist or fight back. You should have granted her a swift death!”
Waving Anise’s words away, Anieszirel turned about. “When you take up arms against someone and fight to the death, you deserve whatever fate you are granted should you lose.”
With a deep frown, Anise shook her head at the chronodragon. “It was barbaric, Kin-Slayer.”
Anieszirel chuckled. “Oh, my dear, don’t be so naive.”
Anise stared at Anieszirel’s back with growing revulsion, words lost to her.
“And how does Tip view you now?” she asked at last, then smiled as a wave of righteous pleasure raced through her the moment she saw the Kin-Slayer stiffen.
“Tip understands,” Anieszirel said after a brief spell, but in a voice that was soft and lacking her previous bluster.
A tense silence fell upon the pair, but it was fleeting, banished the moment Anieszirel turned to Anise, her brows furrowed in concentration.
“What is it?” Anise asked with mounting worry.
“How many ways in are there?”
Anise shrugged as she frowned.
“We came in through there,” she said, pointing to the broken window at the far wall.
“We?”
“Gray and I.”
“Oh,” Anieszirel replied, distracted as she turned from Anise.
“Why?” Anise asked as she followed Anieszirel’s gaze. It was upon the door near them, the same door Anise had seen when she’d first entered the building, the same one she’d seen the Fairshrouds slip through during the fighting.
