Feldare Tales: High Society Ch. 07

"Who's that?" asked Kennet, looking over Crissa's blood spattered shoulder.

Crissa spun about, lifting the dagger before her again. The person she had stabbed with the fighting knife lay there, the magic bending the light around her gone in her death. She was clad in a silken gown and was only, perhaps, a few years older than Crissa, with raven hair.

"A sorceress," said Crissa, kneeling beside the corpse. "I think it was she which I felt in you, Peris." She looked down into the triangular face of the woman, with a delicate, pointed chin. The young sorceress closed the witch's staring, dead eyes and said a quick prayer to the one, though she doubted he would hear an entreaty for someone of evil.

"And what is that?" asked Peris, still clutching the kitchen knife in both hands and pointing its bloody, no longer pointed blade at the creature.

Crissa shrugged and shook her head. "I've no idea, but I'd wager some magical construct," she said.

"Flesh hound," said Kennet in a low voice, as if he were afraid to speak.

"What?" asked Crissa.

"It was a flesh hound, a demon," repeated the young man. "I learned about them in church, or in the church's archives."

"You think these two are related to Wenn's trial?" asked Peris

"Unless we're just attracting random witch and demon attacks, yes," replied Crissa, sarcasm edging into her voice.

Peris sat down on the partially shredded couch. "Well, you are a sorceress, yourself. Perhaps it was professional jealousy."

"I'm not that kind of witch," hissed Crissa with more venom in her voice than she intended.

Peris' eyes grew round and worried. "I didn't mean. . ." she said. Every aspect of the petite brunette's pose and features showed great fear and concern.

Crissa interrupted her by saying, "I know, sorry. But I also know I'll be battling that image for my whole life, if I let even a tiny bit of it pass."

"What should we do now?" asked Kennet.

"Find another hiding place," said Crissa without a pause. "We have to assume the others know about this one also, and this was just the first wave of a storm.

Kennet picked up the glass orb that had emitted the blinding flash. "Just don't say 'flah' while you hold that," said Crissa as she kneaded her limp arm, feeling started to return to it, though it now hurt.

"Does that make it flash, as it did?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied, a tired tone in her voice. "Wenn made it, one of the first true enchantments he's done."