Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 05

The smell grew worse, ancient...hungry... a spell not done wrecking its terrible havoc... and Thikkit felt ittouch her. Had she been able to sweat, her body would have drenched with the soft-skin stuff... the magic, stuffing her mouth with the fetid sewage of corpses, rubbed sensuously against her scales -- but it was not the delicate rasp of affection. Rather, the insidious wriggling of athing that could feed by the merest touch. It chafed... itched...burned against her scales, and clouded her mind with knowing -- terrible knowing.

Her eyes alighted on the first of the twisted, hulking corpses of the Sidero -- frozen in agonized death, clawing air and earth alike in its final torments, swollen black ash clinging like melting wax as the body looked to have boiled through its own skin as it burned. Thikkit had seen petty magics or alchemy that ignited black pebbles of coal to snake and crisp as they vomited forth from the fire consuming them -- never to such scale.

Another body, and another -- each bent in its final throes, faces misshapen, contorted of furious suffering, dripping and caked of the thick, crusting masses of their insides where they had erupted, foamed, spewed forth and dried... the magical fire devouring all of it... still smoking thin, black streams of choking stench. Thikkit gagged, even as her own scales chafed and burned, and she became aware that her flesh was too hot. Looking at herself, she could see dark mottling on her scales... she couldfeel the insistent, digging ache blooming in her guts.

Canny enough to know she could not stay, if even she could survive this brief caress with such a horrible killing magic, but yet drawn with the knowledge that the sword... thesword... it waited for her, unguarded, now, and hers for thetaking.

...

Kobolds do not vomit. Thikkit reprimanded her innards again, as her stomach recoiled and emptied itself again -- black, noxious bile pouring forth as though she drank several tankards of pitch. It stung her eyes, which she narrowed against the offending gasses wafting from the puddle at her feet. Her scales had continued their slow charring, shedding painfully well after she'd escaped the open-air graveyard. Part of her was still trapped there, transfixed by the blackened and burnt faces -- still so alive that each horrible creation might spring upon her at a moment, their ash and bone floating from them like swarming flies, as their lifeless hands grabbed her to drag her into the Pit.

I am safe. She assured herself, clutching the long, broad blade of the magical sword to her thin breast and dragging air into her nose.

Fear and fatigue pulled down, and she stumbled. The cool canopy of the trees doing nothing to ease the rising fever beneath Thikkit's skin. She could hardly lift her head, let alone stand. Yet she stood, knees wobbling loose below and her stomach parading again in loud protest. A few paces further, and the afternoon sun sinking slowly and throwing low daggers of yellow and green mockery of morning. Thikkit was dizzy and held still a moment to remind herself that the sun had not played her a trick -- it was correctly falling to the west, and she hadnot got turned about in her distress.

Her steps grew slower, more labored. Her breathing slowed. She thought the world was growing dark and filling with ashes... sewage seemed to flow up from her mouth and out, at every step. Vile, wretched... searing...

Then, she felt the pain begin to ebb. Thick oil, reeking of her own blood and bile, ran down her scales. She felt weak, but that the fever had broken at last. Daring to look back, she could no longer see the silhouette of tents from the camp, or smell the foul rotting cloud hanging all about. A low moan of the wind lifted a few moldering leaf scraps, a faint echo of the intestine-twisting foulness lurching drunkenly through Thikkit's nostrils. With uneasy gulps of air, tasting the sickly sweet loam of spring beneath her feet, Thikkit put her shoulder high and plodded forward, head bowed, toward the distant hope of South-wold. If the Wizard Saran remained, she might just help her scout. After all, the Wizard had known doom was coming to Sidero... and her words of parting now carried weighty dread in all directions for the harrowing sickness clinging to Thikkit's scales and making the kobold wish very much she could cry to weep the stinging filth away from her eyes.

Managing another hundred paces forward, Thikkit gusted a defeated sigh and collapsed, too weak to do more than sleep.

When she woke, it was night... her belly grumbled with thirst and hale hunger; her flesh, though tired, free of the infirmity foisted magically upon her. Her mind felt clear, and she thought it a fine omen that the full moon shone brightly down upon her where she lay. Stretching, flexing, and taking a deep breath, Thikkit tenderly climbed to her feet -- wielding her magical sword like a grand walking staff (being far too long and heavy to wield in battle). A low moan rose behind her on the wind, a weak horn catching a stray breeze.

Her back tensed and her shoulders shook, her scales shivering all over her body and she felt the pall of fear lay its clammy fingers along her spine. She could almost feel the dead of Sidero rising in vengeful wrath to hunt her, to reclaim their stolen property and steal the life from her -- remaking her in their horrid likeness as restitution for grave-robbing.

Even with unsteady legs, Thikkit found the will to run away, the sword tucked awkwardly beneath her arm.

...

Nabid worked a portion of fortified flesh from mid-torso, out the left shoulder and down the arm, forming the lump into a crude, three-fingered hand. Much of the clay-flesh was a deep, nearly black shade of maroon. Flexing these new digits, Nabid attempted to heft the pot from its heating frame and found the function to be adequate. If all went well for the Wizard, Esmeray might even go so far as properly shaping both limbs to match again. As it stood, the imp's flesh was a motley of reds, black, and hues between -- smeared and swirled like the surface of muddy waters stained by ink and blood.

The Wizard had gone, off to conduct its bloody deed, and left the imp as bait for the hunting nymph.

"Feh. Some bait." Nabid's thin lips grinned wickedly, yellow, needle teeth filling its narrow jaws. "Better'n done, but more like the bait's waiting -- and wait's baiting. I'm sure she knows."

The imp gave the matter more thought, then snuffed the coals with its wide, floppy feet, and darted out from the tent, trailing no small amount of smoke as it ran.

...

Esmeray's magic cloaked her, letting the full moonlight shine through her like fleeting memory. Though she was hidden, she kept her movements small and her breathing very slow... trusting to enchantment as little as possible. She would need every weighted stone and pebble -- every ounce or scrap thereof -- of her magical energy if the Elemental caught her or the nymph took her unawares. South-wold was subdued, low moans of sobbing or sex, grunts or groans in grief or ecstasy, muted in the shadow of Jyran's death only the day before.

The Wizard Saran had spent near the whole day running from hunters she couldn't see. She refused to gamble more on the nymph's strategy -- preferring to place interwoven nuisance traps and routes of attack toward the Elemental, than to spend greater arcane energies on scrying that hindered her mobility. To study the nymph, or move forward and conclude the murderous business to which she was currently bound? Magical compulsion kept the choice patently free of real choice.

She had watched as the nymph darted, fleet of foot, out of the village just as the moon was reaching its zenith. However foreboding, Esmeray decided it was time. If the luminous, impossible beauty she had seen was only an illusion, she had a least two or three more nasty tricks secreted within her robes to put the nymph on the defensive... long enough, she calculated over and over, toend this.

Inching closer to the Elemental's shack, she lined up along the exterior wall at the back of the dwelling. Her arcane sight revealed the shadowy outline of the Elemental -- a dense cloud blocking or contorting the flow of magic around itself -- alone in the hut. Esmeray knew this to be a ploy, as she picked out the faint traces of illusion masking the shack. Shutting her eyes, she drew a deep breath through her nose. Clay, soil, rotting plants, the weathered timbers, pitch, sweat, cinnamon, sage, sulfur, lime or some other pungent citrus... she let her nose sift through the aromas until, at length, she was able to sense the profile of a being... of several beings.

Something dark and terrible slept in the middle of the room, in or near the fire-pit. Something else huddled near, waiting, as immutable as the walls themselves... the nymph, if the sparks of arousal in Esmeray's crotch weren't indication enough. A third, more subtle creature... she couldn't place it at all. Ithad to be the Elemental. The blood-curse screamed within her, and Esmeray nearly lost focus on her magical shroud. If the nymph didn't hear the clarion of the hex, then Saran had all the time in the world -- until the magic drained her entirely and she collapsed from exhaustion -- to choose her moment to strike.

The figures within were still... if not too still, then nearly so... and Esmeray's body put forward the unbidden sweat of uncertainty. Wordless and soundless, she gave her own physiology reproach -- but could do nothing else without revealing her presence.

Her heart beat with the clamor of a war drum.

Ba-BOOM...Ba-BOOM...Ba-BOOM... beating the rhythm of life and death in her ears.

A snort, the shifting of furs, or linens. The illusion was interrupted, however briefly -- the telling focus of the initiate, rather than a master -- and Esmeray couldsee them clearly.

The nymph huddled by the fire pit, the Elemental tucked into his cot beside her rather than in his sleeping chamber... and no-one... nothing else within. The Elemental was stirring in fitful sleep, and the nymph offered soft, soothing words and touches -- caressing that wrinkled, tattooed forehead like a babe at bedtime. Her perfect fingers traced the barest of runes over that ancient brow, warding the Elemental from harm.

Esmeray frowned, in spite of the hammering drum in her ears, in spite of the palpabledesire searing her veins tokill that creature... the Elemental was so very old, and frail... how many times had the nymph cast this one ward upon him? Over and over and over, all night, and perhaps all the day prior... for how many nights? Every time the magic eventually faded, did she cast the sigil over him again? If so, was it truly the Elemental that had forgotten the march of time -- or was it this nymph? Refusing to relinquish her most prized possession to the cold, uncompromising, loving embrace of death.

The Wizard picked up a small stone and flicked it up, over the roof of the shack -- lunging through the wall like smoke before the gravel skittered along the thatch and drew the nymph's attention upward, away from the shadow and her blade... the blade, naked in Esmeray's hand, drew all eyes.

The hulking beast that lurked within the hut did not manifest, and Esmeray feared it most... the unknown quantity... but the nymph...she attacked even as Esmeray's blade struck true.

"Bane Blade", the arcane smiths would call it... a weapon whose sole purpose was to slay a Wizard. Like shaping a powerful cannon of glass, only to fire the weapon to pieces to unbar a door in a single ruinous shot. Unlike a cannon, the arcane weapon was nearly a thing alive unto itself... driven by magic to fulfill its purpose... a divine cleric delivering a prophecy of doom with a dying breath... the last, venomous bite of the serpent even as the head is cut from the body...

The sliver of steel found Matta's throat, as he lay sleeping, and his eyes flew wide in silence.

The nymph's magic poured over the Wizard Saran... theassassin Saran... and the woman's body buckled with painful longing. Esmeray had thought she knew a nymph's power... butthis was a hunger that could not befed. She shook to her bones with need. Unable to draw breath, so urgent her desires became painful. The space between heartbeats drawing on forever.

Ba-

And the nymph took in the horror of Matta's demise, saw fully the pitch-black night gripping the barb of steel glittering in his neck -- piercing his windpipe where his voice would rise and fall in so much song it had made a nymph do the unthinkable...

Magic swirled around the Elemental, coalescing the promise of a world-ending storm...

-BOOM

The light of the world vanished into darkness, blinding everything thatdared to witness this atrocity... what should have been a bolt of lightning became a tendril of the void, darker than the abyss... what should have been a curse became a scream... what should have been a warning became a whispered pleading...

Ba-BOOM

Esmeray's limbs were frozen, shaking with a fever she could never hope to quell, a lust she could never hope to slake... already dizzy from it, her fingers went slack on the handle of the blade -- even as the nymph struck at her with blind rage.

The Elemental's lips moved wordlessly, and the slashing, angular bolt that had been lightning... had become a river of the Void itself... did nothing... it had never been -- though its passing filled the whole of South-wold with unknowing dread, rousing them all from sleep.

The nymph shrieked, the blades of her wrath only just touching the assassin before wards and charms on the white-haired Wizard exploded to life.

Ba-BOOM

Matta's shack exploded with arcane energy, walls obliterated and roof vanishing in ash as the nymph and the Wizard were hurled violently apart.

Ears ringing, Esmeray could scarce comprehend the violent force of the moment... her lungs still seized in desperate carnal need, her thighs clamped so tightly she could not stand... her hands clutched at her sex, but were also paralyzed -- too weak to move, too strong to move.

The nymph stood, dazed and bleeding, her eyes unfocused. Smeared of soot, hair tousled and unruly like a sputtering flame, she looked like a waxen candle caught mid-wick... and her beauty was fearful to behold. When her gaze touched Esmeray, the Wizard knew she had only given herself green eyes in a futile parody of the nymph's blazing balefire of green... the whole of South-wold was bathed in venomous light, and Esmeray knew her heart would stop from that fearsome beauty. The smooth, supple arm of the nymph reached out as though to draw her closer...

A blurry, misshapen mass of blood and midnight clapped about the nymph's head.

Punched in the stomach, Esmeray gasped for breath, clawing numbly at the ground to drag herself even a handspan further away from the wrathful fae. That she had been rescued by Nabid would not reach her mind for several hours, as she felt the most primal of human panic making her limbs move with mindless will of their own -- each committed to getting as far from the nymph as possible if it meant hurtling over the ends of the world.

She left a trail anyone could follow, though none dared...

...

"Gotcha, bitch." Nabid snarled, spindly arms and legs wrapping like manacles about the nymph's head, and the grotesque, limb-like phallus squirming with its prehensile might to force its way into the nymph's mouth in effort to stall her voice if only a moment.

The nymph's fingers dug deep furrows through Nabid's back and shoulders, shredding away the clay-flesh until one of the construct's arms fell away... then a leg... Prende was able to hurl the wriggling homunculus from her bodily... gagging as she pulled the arm-length snake from her throat and dashing the thing upon the ground.

Prende's magic flailed, as the nymph flailed, and Nabid was rent asunder -- magic severed and body scattered bits of clay... a dog worrying a child's toy to pieces.

Tears filling her eyes, Prende's next thought was only for Matta, and she threw herself into the wreckage of his home, her voice wailing the shrill winds of winter.

Matta's eyes were wide and staring, rivers of tears falling from the corners... his wrinkled, shriveled lips were still moving, trying to speak, even as blood gurgled and foamed in his throat. The blade was gone, either dislodged or destroyed, Prende neither knew nor cared. She laid her hands upon him and called forth her magic... called forthany magic... to heal him.

Again and again.

Until her voice was gone, and her hands shook and could no longer make the proper movements.

Until sunrise came.

Until Akuji of South-wold, at last, dared to lay his hand upon her shoulder.

"He is dead, Prende."

...

As the wailing grew more faint, more resigned, a half-dozen orks gathered from their vigil around South-wold.

"So... the Shaman is dead." one ork said to another.

"Kamakshi would hear of this."

"Stupid humans."

"Stupid bargains."

"I'm thirsty."

"You're always thirsty."

"No, I'm always ready to rut."

"Let's go home."

A few tired shrugs and nods of agreement later, and the mules were loping back toward camp.

They stopped only briefly, at one of the springs along a game trail, where many animals stopped for water. It was becoming a popular place, as they and one other group of orks had beaten a wider path through the Willow Wood and flattened several shrubs near the spring during their recent visits.

As they neared the Sidero camp, a strange odor brought them up short on the narrow trail, causing no small amount of cursing and shoving.

"What are you doing, stupid?"

"Smell that?"

"What is that?"

"Burning meat."

"Lizard."

"No, it's burnt lizard."

"Look, I found it."

And Thikkit startled awake, small hands clutching the magical sword, as an ork lofted her up by the ankle. With a strangled scream, Thikkit lashed out -- the silver blade gleaming in a stray lance of dawn light. Blood. Swearing. Thikkit hit the ground and rolled, smacking against a tree and scrambling to her feet.

"Kill it!"

"Where'd it go!"

The voices faded as Thikkit dashed madly through the underbrush.

"It's there... there!"

A whistling sound... javelins. Thikkit groaned and lunged behind a tree, landing flat.

...

"Over here." The ork stepped on the saurian head and yanked the javelin from its skull. "Caught it through the brains!"

"Prove it."

"Look!" the ork offered up the corpse with a hearty shake, the body flopping and dancing in its grip.

"You look." another ork grumbled. "It killed Shum-shum."

"So what?" the ork sniffed derisively. "More lizard for me."

"Fine... you carry him."

"Aww..." the ork grumped, holding its prize. "But I got the lizard-thing."

"Good, then you're ready to carry corpses."

"Rut yourself on that bit of steel, then."

"You first, dung-brains." The ork chuckled. "That's magic steel, the north-man used, before Chief-kin broke him in half."

"So, this lizard-thing is a thief."

"Kobold."

"What?"

"Kobold."

"Fine, this lizard-thing is a kobold."

"No, thief."

"You said it was a kobold!"

"It can be two things!"

"Gimme that sword, I'll makeyou two things!"

"No. No! Thekobold is athief!"

"That's whatI said!"

"Let go, flea-rutter!"

"Your mother's a flea-rutter!"

"Your face is a flea-rutter!"

"Gimme that sword!"

One bellicose orkish discussion later...

"Right. That's avery sharp sword."

"Right. No more rutting-around."

"Good. You and me, we report to Kamakshi-chief."