War of the Races Ch. 09

The temple was large, able to hold several hundred people comfortably, and scattered around the hall were several priestesses. All of them women, all of them family of House Faline, and all of them dead. The corpses were so long dead they looked dried out and mummified, and they lay in pools of blood that was so old they had long ago dried to black.

"This does not bode well for your mother," Sinaan whispered.

"No...it doesn't," Sulahba agreed, "But, I should be able to find some clothes here. Stay put and I will be right back."

Sinaan nodded and then hissed realizing that she couldn't see his nod, "Sure I will be right here."

As Sulabha walked off Sinaan enjoyed the view of her copious buttocks as its fine form before she disappeared behind a pillar. When Sulabha returned, Sinaan's mouth fell open at her appearance. She wore red slippers with gold trim. Her legs were completely bare. She wore a gold chain around her waist with diaphanous red silk and black leather webbing that fell down like a sarong with a high slit up her right thigh. On all of her fingers she had a ring and on her wrists were bracelets. An enchanted golden underwire sculpted to the under-curves of her breast, and diaphanous red silk hooked to rings in the under-wires covered her nudity before clipping to a golden gorget around her neck that covered her shoulders and a great deal of of her décolletage. Above the gold waist chain Sulabha wore a black leather belt cinched tight at her natural waist with a pouch on her left hip and dagger on the right.

"Okay," She whispered as she slowly rung out water from her thigh length mane of red hair, "Let's go find mother. Wait, let me gather some friends..."

Walking to the center of the temple, Sulabha stepped up onto the raised dais and lifted her hand out as she gathered her power. Crimson magic grew from her hands and then wafted and roiled out and around her gaining speed and as its dark mass spun out from Sulabha until it encompassed the entire room. As the magic came near Sinaan, he didn't know what the magic would do if it touched him so he retreated from it all the way to the doors and looked back down the hallway as he pulled the hood of his cloak up and disappeared. Just as the roiling crimson cloud of magic reached the doors its rotation around the room sped up and it shrunk back into Sulabha and black shadows were pulled from the corpses of fifteen dead priestesses. When Sulabha met Sinaan at the temple doors fifteen crimson shades of naked svartalf priestesses accompanied her.

"What are you," Sinaan asked as he looked at the shades and then Sulabha in awe.

"I am a Wraithlord," She answered with a proud smirk, "A rare and elite warlock and necromancer."

"What about your...um," Sinaan asked as he ogled her shades.

"My shades," She purred, "I have to say they are a great deal prettier than skeletons or zombies, and they are more intelligent too."

"I thought you were blind," He scoffed.

"I am blind, at least, as you know sight," She reiterated, "But, I can see the magic in my shades as well as you. Do you know that the color of your aura is blue? I see my shades as clearly as you see me, and they speak to me and tell me to take revenge for their unjust slaughter."

"What can your shades do," He asked as he turned and walked with Sulabha down the hallway.

"They can do whatever they were able to do before their death," Sulabha answered then shook her head, "But they are not as powerful as they were when they died. When I raise them they are basically level one all over again."

"Then why summon them," Sinaan asked.

"They may be level one, but they can still distract, and kill," Sulabha motioned for fourteen to backtrack and kill anyone they came across. The fifteenth shade she called by name, "Lumarra, take me to my mother."

The shade nodded and took the lead. It led them down several corridors and finally to another set of double doors. The shade stopped and stood guard as Sulabha and Sinaan entered the room.

"Let me go first and look for traps," Sinaan whispered.

She nodded.

Sinaan opened the door and the stench of death and decomposition hit them like an avalanche. Sinaan gagged and Sulabha frowned and pushed him out of the way. Marching to the room she gathered her magic and prepared to counter whatever may come.

The room was dark.

Sulabha sent her magic reaching out and found a lamp that she turned on. At the foot of the bed was the corpse of a thick boned short male. Ebony skin sucked to the bone like dried leather revealing white teeth. The male had a thick plated red beard and long curly red hair.

"Oh goddess, I think we just found your father," Sinaan hissed.

Sulabha walked over and knelt down and put her hand on her fathers beard and let her magic flow out of her until it pulled a black shadow out of the bones. Standing up she commanded, "Come forth," and the shade of a short crimson jorndvergr seemed to rise up out of the shadows on the floor. The surly dvergr immediately marched over to his armor and weapons and began putting them on. As soon as he touched them they turned as crimson and himself, except for his weapon. A massive black iron and mithril maul, as soon as the dvergr touched it turned black as onyx with a crimson head. While Najorn Meadheim gathered his armor and weapon, Sinaan and Sulabha moved around the bed to find a lost and broken Forelain Faline sitting in her bed looking across the room blankly.

"What's wrong with her," Sinaan asked as he reached out and gently touched the woman's shoulder.

"I think she's gone insane," Sulabha answered, "I would probably be a mercy to just kill her, and then I can raise her as a shade."

"No," Sinaan disagreed with a shake of his head, "You and her are proof of your brother's treachery, both against your house and mine. I think we should take her and leave."

"Fine," Sulabha growled as she pushed Sinaan aside and put her hand on Forelain, "Then let me see what I can do to help her."

Sinaan stepped out of the way and let her do her thing. Once she had her hand on Forelain she began muttering the spell for Delve, she hissed at what she found, and started muttering again. When she was done her mother blinked and looked at her and her eyes opened wide in shock. Forelain began crying great heaving sobs and crawled off the bed and hugged her daughter.

"What are you doing in here!" Rweble hollered from the door.

Everyone's head whipped around to see Rweble and Grungrall a few steps behind. Sinaan summoned his daggers and vanished as he pulled his hood over his head. Forelain trembled in fear and loathing, and Sulabha growled and launched herself at Rweble. Crimson magic enveloped her and she disappeared into a crimson mist to immediately reappear behind Rweble where her shadow was lurking unseen. Her dagger was in her hand and she tackled Rweble and buried her dagger in his chest as he screamed, "Run! Get Hayden! Hurry!"

Grunngrall did just that. Turning on his heal he ran as hard as he could as Sulabha wrenched her dagger out of Rweble's chest and plunged it in again and again, over and over, and kept going until his eyes were long dead and it was her mother kneeling down beside her and placing her hand on her daughter's back that brought her back from her rage. She plunged it in a final time and she left the dagger there in his chest as she leaned into her mother and hugged her as they both cried.

"Come on, we must leave," Sinaan whispered insistently.