by Joe Jackson
“The more powerful ones typically have holds in the west, to more effectively wall off the Crimson Huntress’ realm from the home of their father. Prince Amnastru’s holding lies in the northwest, for example, where he is expected to defend against both King Koursturaux and the more immediate threat of King Arku to the north. Though he has come here to the south, Prince Amnastru will be primarily aided by his younger, weaker brothers. And I suspect that most, if not all of them, will meet the same fate as the one you destroyed yesterday.”
“So Fesarri was weak?” Kari asked, curious that he had given them so much trouble.
“Well, remember that weak is a relative term. Weak for a prince or noble, not compared to one of us.” The assassin looked at Kari from the corner of her eye. “You are thinking to finish the job with Fesarri next time, no?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I think I am more content to aid you, and not be the center of attention,” Seanada said. “Revenge is a fool’s errand anyway. There are a multitude of things worth fighting for, but pride is not one of them.”
“I agree,” Kari said with a nod. “I had to stop myself from doing just that when I fought your sister.” Seanada regarded Kari from the corner of her eye again as they made their way from the south end of the town, headed toward Haestronn. “Your sister was easily one of the best I’ve ever fought. She got the better of me several times, and frankly, left me stunned at how much better she might be every time.”
“I can already tell you the mistake she made. She was the aggressor, and you are at your strongest when you are defending your friends and loved ones. This is no mystery...,” Seanada interjected, but she stopped short of saying Kari’s name. “It is the very reason the kings are so hesitant to attack Citaria. They have no idea how many people like you will be there to defend it. They are watching closely and gauging your strengths and weaknesses, but you have now beaten them to the punch, as your family so likes to say.”
“Hopefully that’s the case. When I finally bested your sister, I was afraid this world might be populated by people that fought just as well. I suppose it is, to an extent, but not the way I feared.”
“Both of our worlds have their share of champions of both light and dark. Those of the light here are simply more difficult to find, as they keep themselves hidden.”
“Well, some of them do,” Kari said, looking pointedly at her friend. Seanada smirked but didn’t look directly at her.
They walked along another shadowy woodland road through the forests of Sorelizar. The town of Haestronn was a couple of days’ travel away, and Kari wished briefly that it had been as beneficial to be turned into an elestram. She wondered what it was like to have the stamina to run for hours or even days on end. The mallasti body was strong and hardy, and despite what differences had to lie within, it allowed Kari to stay on her typical schedule with regard to eating and other basic needs. Over four years removed from the Apocalypse, and after having birthed two children, Kari found she was still on that military schedule.
They bedded down for the night on their cloaks, a safe distance from the side of the road. Aside from a cooking fire, there was no need to keep one going after their meal. The realm was warm and humid this far south, and their mallasti coats would fend off any minor coolness in the night air. Kari lay down on her cloak and looked up at the canopy high above them, imagining a brilliant sky full of billions of twinkling little stars. Somewhere out there, she knew, was the sun of her home world, and Citaria circled around it. Astronomy was beyond Kari’s education, but she still found it fascinating. Somewhere above, among those lights, was her home world, and that of the humans who’d come to Citaria so long ago. It was a staggering thought.
Seanada chuckled in the quiet. “I am imagining you giving your son a bath, and getting one in return,” she said.
Kari laughed. “I can’t wait to get back home, even if that’s what’s waiting for me. Or rather, especially if that’s what’s waiting for me. On another note, do you think we should turn westward and pay some of Sekassus’ other sons a visit? If the stronger ones live in the west as you said, maybe we should go kill a few of them and see what attention that gets.”
“No, we should stay true to the Wraith’s plan,” Seanada answered. “No doubt he has already considered that course of action, and this path he has set us upon is the best way to get Amnastru to attack us without bringing down the wrath of his father too quickly.”
“I know you’re not an elestram, but how do you like our chances against Amnastru?”
“After what I saw yesterday, I expect we will be victorious. It will not be an easy task or victory, but I think we will be his undoing, especially if we attack him as mallasti, and he has little idea of what to expect from either of us.”
“How strong are you with arcane power?” Kari asked, rolling over to lift her head and look over at her companion.
“Not strong enough to defeat a prince, nor likely even a studious mallasti or elestram, but the strength of my mother’s power is considerable. For the most part, I use it to fend off arcane attacks from others, and to enhance my martial prowess. In most cases, I find it unnecessary to even call upon.”
“Yea, I can imagine,” Kari said, flipping onto her back and looking up into the trees again. She had seen enough from Turillia, Seanada, and the Wraith to justify Seanada’s point. The thought of facing someone so devastatingly proficient in weapons and yet also able to call upon arcane power in the midst of combat was chilling.
“It will be necessary against Amnastru, though,” Seanada added, letting forth a sigh. “We will need to call upon every ounce of strength from every source we can to defeat him, Kari. Your gods’ power will be vital. Our training, separate and mutual, will make up only the backbone of our ability to strike him down. My arcane prowess, your divine protections…they may be all that stands against a crushing defeat, one that flows down to my people after we have failed. So we must not fail.”
“We won’t, that’s a promise,” Kari answered.
They went quiet, and Kari fell asleep to the peaceful drone of the nighttime forest. She had disturbing dreams of what they’d find in Haestronn, but they scattered when she woke to Seanada shaking her lightly by the arm.
Kari rose silently, and listened to the sound that had obviously alerted Seanada. There was the rumble of wagon wheels on the nearby road. Judging by the direction it was coming from, Kari suspected it might be trouble. No wagons had been prepared to head south from the town of Saovonn when she and Seanada were there. The fact that this one was traveling through the night spoke of urgency and trouble, and when Kari looked at Seanada, the woman nodded her agreement without a word being spoken.
They crept to the edge of the forest, keeping low in the shadows to avoid glowing eyes giving away their position. It was a covered wagon driven by a syrinthian, and Kari glanced at Seanada once again. Hyena-like noses drew in the air, and Kari was immediately put on guard: the scent of sylinth was strong. She wasn’t sure who was in the back of that wagon, but she was sure it wasn’t anyone friendly. A part of her wondered if it could be Prince Fesarri again, on his way to join his eldest brother in quashing the uprising.
“It’s a sylinth,” Kari whispered.
“Aye, and likely a prince,” Seanda returned. “Now that I know what to search for, I can sense his strength. We should attack preemptively; we do not want them to marshal their strength in Haestronn before we reach the town. There seems to be only two others with this prince: one elestram and the syrinthian driver.”
“Remember, though, last time we didn’t even detect Prince Fesarri until he was upon us.”
“Hmmm, yes,” Seanada said, her brow coming low. “Perhaps this time, we should just destroy the wagon first, and let them scurry from the burning wreckage unprepared.”
The wagon came to a stop, and Kari and Seanada crouched lower behind the trees. An elestram hopped down from the rear of the wagon, and drew out a short ramp. Down that r
amp slid a massive sylinth, and Kari did a double-take. Unless her eyes deceived her, based upon the clothing and the weapon, it was indeed Prince Fesarri again. He spoke quickly and tersely in the syrinthian tongue to both the elestram and the driver, and they nodded and took up a defensive position near the front of the wagon.
Prince Fesarri slithered ahead of the wagon and tasted the air. “Come out, maggots! I can smell you clearly.”
Kari bumped her fist against Seanada’s shoulder and nodded. The assassin, for all the bravery of her words, had to be nervous about facing this prince again. Kari led her out onto the road, and they stopped and faced the prince, side-by-side, a few dozen paces away. Kari kept the cowl of her cloak up, covering all sign that she was a vulkinastra, even though the dark of night did that well enough for the moment.
“Who goes? Are you the fool Mastriana Te’Dastra?”
“I am,” Kari answered.
“And you killed my brother?” the Prince asked with a furious hiss.
“Easily.”
The prince hissed again, but he held a hand aloft and summoned an arcane light source, one strong enough to illuminate both parties. Kari pulled down the cowl of her cloak slowly for effect, then shed the garment completely and cast it aside. There were gasps of surprise from the syrinthian and elestram, but they remained where they were, making no move to join their prince in any coming attack. Kari wondered if that was a telling gesture, or simply discipline.
“Vulkinastra scum,” the prince spat. “Ashen Curs, you come out of the dark and attack like cowards. Have you no pride, no honor?”
“You would speak to us of honor?” Seanada returned.
“Save your excuses,” Kari added. “Your brother saw me coming, and could do nothing to stop me cutting his pathetic throat. You have two choices, prince. You may either return to your father and demand he relinquish his rule of the lands of my people, or you may die here in much the same manner as your brother. Either way, my people will soon be free of the rule of your father and family.”
Prince Fesarri turned his head and regarded them with narrowed eyes. “And where is the Lady Vanador, Ashen Cowards?”
“Carefully making her way to your father’s palace while we keep the rest of you dullards busy fighting us here,” Seanada said with a smirk. There was something about the mallasti teeth set in a taunting grin that was both hilarious and gratingly obnoxious, and Kari was glad she was on the side to better appreciate the former.
Prince Fesarri straightened up at that. He turned and snapped his fingers at the elestram before pointing back north the way they’d come. The elestram ran off without question, which left the syrinthian driver now looking – and obviously feeling – quite exposed. Still, he held his position, and tried to give an air of confidence as his prince moved toward the mallasti women.
“Now, you two are going to learn the power of a prince firsthand.”
Kari glowered at him. “And you, dear prince, are about to learn the power of prophecy.”
He masked it well, but there was the unmistakable twinge of fear in his expression. Still, it didn’t stop him from coming forward, his dual-bladed spear held menacingly before him.
Chapter XII – Successive Gains
Prince Fesarri first dashed at Seanada, but his tail whipped sideways suddenly, coming straight for Kari to wrap her up as it had before. She stabbed down hard, shocking him and bringing forth a hiss of surprise and pain. He was larger than the brother she’d killed back in Saovonn, so she couldn’t staple him to the ground, but once again she’d drawn first blood. He whipped his tail back behind him, but hardly had time to acknowledge Kari’s precise strike, as Seanada was on him in an instant.
Using the same tactic Kari had, Seanada tried to press him, force him to back up and coil about himself to avoid her attacks. It was of no use this time, though: Prince Fesarri was clearly a more experienced fighter than his younger brother. He wound sideways instead, circling around Seanada rather than giving ground to her. Even more impressively, his dual-bladed spear spun around and around, knocking aside attacks and keeping Seanada at a respectable distance even in the midst of her flurry.
Kari came around Seanada’s right side to stop the prince’s circling, but he met her with a great, cleaving swing that drove both women back. He lifted his hand then, and Kari felt the surge of power that was his birthright. The ground heaved and the nearby trees rustled as Prince Fesarri called upon the very realm of his father to be his ally. Within moments, the branches overhanging the road became living nooses, seeking to grab and hoist up the mallasti women, and the ground churned into a sodden quagmire that proved no impediment to the prince’s slithering, serpentine body.
Kari was suddenly mindful of several things: the weight of her mallasti form, the weight of the armor she wore, and the fact that she no longer had wings. She danced to and fro, trying not to get bogged down in the mud, and she found the mallasti body was well-suited to such a dexterous exercise. She supposed she shouldn’t be too surprised after having witnessed the athleticism of these people when engaged in their sports, but the bulkiness and lower center of her weight still made it a curious thing.
The temptation was there to push out Zalkar’s power as she’d done before, and use it to cancel the prince’s hold over the land, but she held back. To do so would give away who she was, and if she didn’t manage to kill him, even if she and Seanada escaped via stalemate again, it would be the end of this ruse. They would have to best him in a contest of martial prowess and, she realized after a few moments, their own arcane trickery.
Spinning out of his considerable reach, Kari pulled forth that power in her blood, the little voice in the back of her mind that spoke to her of strength. She still had little idea how to focus or use it, but she concentrated on the effects she wanted: to either still the trees or bend them to her will, and dry out the road. It was as much focus as she could muster, particularly when Prince Fesarri came at her in a blinding dash.
She met his attacks with a hard parry, setting her clawed feet in the mud. The claws gave her some purchase, and though she slid a little bit, her lower center of gravity let her stay upright and in that locked position. He tensed his arms and tested her strength, but despite his size and weight advantages, Kari held firm. She and the prince both withdrew from their contest of strength in the same instant, and there was a brilliant shower of sparks and the clang of their weapons meeting several times in the span of breaths. He slithered to the side, mindful of being flanked by Seanada, and Kari could see the respect in his eyes now.
The trees tried to grapple Seanada, but she was fending them off easily with the elestram longswords. It was clear to Kari that she, too, was a bit surprised by the weight of the mallasti form with armor, and she was working just as hard as Kari to keep from getting bogged down in the mud. Thinking better of pursuing the prince around and around, Seanada dropped back behind Kari and began to call forth her own arcane power. Kari hoped she was trying to counter the prince’s trickery, and left her companion to that task.
Kari stepped in, side-to-side, zig-zagging her way toward Prince Fesarri. She tried to use a blend of the Wraith’s offensive and defensive techniques, but at the same time, she didn’t want to clue Fesarri in to who she truly was. She used the Wraith’s techniques, but worked to disguise the routines and feints she had used against Fesarri the first time. If he had any clue he was fighting Kari for a second time, he gave no indication; she suspected a lot of that had to do with how much differently the mallasti body looked, even if its movements felt the same.
She feinted left, but then went that way. Clearly expecting a ruse, he misjudged her intent, and Kari scored another hit. A minor one this time, drawing an angry red line of blood across his upper arm, but she had barely cut through the scales. In retaliation, he curled around on himself, something Kari wasn’t expecting, and he unleashed a flurry of short jabs with one end of the spear before he spun it into an overhead slash. Kari stayed with him, dri
ving each jab aside and then sidestepping the overhead swing.
She barely caught her footing as she tripped over his perfectly placed tail. Following up on his trip, he hit her from one side and then the other, using the twisting of his body to drive his spear blades with even greater speed. She parried the attack from the front, but misjudged her leap to get clear of the follow-up. Without her wings, Kari landed scant feet from where she’d started the jump. The spear blade crashed into her back, below the shoulderblades, and ripped through a section of the scaled armor.
Kari felt the wind blasted out of her, but she hardly had time to recover before his tail was around her ankles. He swept in, and Kari got a glimpse of those great fangs as time seemed to slow down, his bite imminent. She managed to get her armored shoulder between his mouth and her head, but his fangs sunk through the armor and she felt a chilling cold as they dug into her flesh. His tail continued to coil about her, and Kari felt a sudden freezing fire spreading from the wound as his venom flooded into her veins.
Kari felt desperate, but she didn’t panic. Now she called upon that aura from her deity – or was it deities, if she included Sakkrass? – and gave the prince a taste of something he surely wouldn’t like. He released his biting grip, a grimace of pain and disgust on his face, and he backed far enough away to meet Kari’s eyes, held in the grip of his serpentine body.
“Who are you?” he demanded, bringing up his spear threateningly.
“A daughter of Be’shatha,” Kari said.
The prince released her suddenly as he was blindsided by Seanada, whose elestram blades cut several quick, vicious slices into the scales of his back. He turned his back on Kari and made for Seanada, and the demonhunter wondered at that. Did he think his venom would render her unable to fight? Kari was injured, but the wounds were already closing, and if the venom was supposed to have some longer-lasting effects, her body was fighting them off. She brought her waushims to bear and prepared to flank the serpentine prince.
