Spellscribed: Resurgence (9 page)

Bridget smiled, "Capturing me and getting me to talk are two different beasts." she replied, taking a half step forward. "And you won't survive the first."

The two broke into action at the same time. Bridget dashed forward, the cleaver held horizontally on her left side as she wound up strength. The man shoved his palm towards her and shouted.

"Ignus!" The mage called, and flames exploded towards her in a shower of fire and force. Bridget ducked her head down and shouldered into the spell. The warm sensation on her arm exploded into a hot yet painless burn. The sleeve of her right arm burned away under the ferocious heat of the spell, but she was surprisingly unharmed.

Bridget came out the other side of the spell within two paces of the mage, whose eyes widened in shock. Along her wooden arm, thousands of tiny crystalline blue petal blooms covered the outer side where the spell had made contact with her.

"What!" he managed to exclaim, just before Bridget swung. All the wound up strength and momentum drew the cleaver in a slightly off center horizontal slash, cutting the man in half from his right hip to the bottom of the left side of his rib cage. The iron chair behind him screeched as her weapon cleaved through the bars that composed the back, raining iron bits down around the throne as the man's torso landed in the seat. Bridget took two more steps after the swing, catching her momentum before turning. The blooms on her arm filled her limb with a tingling fiery sensation, but otherwise didn't hurt.

She turned to take account of the battle, the ten knights stopped moving the instant the mage had died and her warriors were able to tear them apart quite easily. It turned out that there had been a body within the armor, but it had been dead for some time; likely the first time one of her people had struck a lethal blow. The mage had just been using their bodies to continue the fight against her troops.

"Sound the horns!" Bridget called. "We have slain the mage!"

One of the men ran out of the castle, a horn in his hand. Seconds later the call could be heard, a deep resonating horn in a long, deep, and then high note. She could hear cheering from elsewhere in the castle. Bridget nodded to the wolves and warriors, walking somewhat stiffly outside to survey the results of their skirmish.

The great gates to the Iron castle swung open, and Wrach's troops entered to find a cluster of twenty five Balatoran warriors spearheaded by Bridget. There was blood spatter across every single one of them. Nearly thirty wolves had survived, though more of them were badly injured than the men and women.

Wrach stood nearby and at a gesture, hundreds of soldiers poured through the open gates into the castle proper. Medically trained men and women rushed to the group, breaking up the cluster of warriors. Bridget finally let out a breath as more warriors secured the rest of the castle. One of the medics was hovering around her, noticing the blood dripping down her armor, but her strangely flowering armor was making him wary. Wrach approached, grabbing the medical pouch from the man and sending him away.

"You're injured." Wrach observed. "Sit down. I'll treat it."

Bridget rolled her eyes, sitting down on the floor and unbuckling her armor. The metal pauldron over her wooden limb came off first, and then the leather could be peeled away from her body along that side. Wrach methodically and precisely took to stitching up the slice in her skin.

"It's shallow." he said. "Shouldn't take long to heal, if you can somehow keep from tearing your stitches."

Bridget sighed. "I'll try."

"So come back when they tear, then." Wrach replied, humor evident in his voice. "Those flowers. I've never seen them before."

Bridget glanced at her arm. The blooms were starting to detach from her arm, drifting off in the faint breeze. "They're a type of flower that grows in one of the elven forests." she explained. "They told me the name, but it's really hard to pronounce. It means something like 'forest of eternal night'."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. These are starblooms. They are actually a kind of lichen. They glow in the dark. But when crossbred with another type of plant found on the other side of their country, it creates a short lived flower that has the ability to eat magic. The elves told me that it might help protect me against some of the more crude forms of magic, like fireballs or lightning spells, that kind of thing."

"They just let you have some?" Wrach asked, tying off the stitches.

Bridget shook her head. "Nope. I had to learn it on my own. Spent three years in Salthimere, you know. Learned a lot about plants and flowers while I was there."

"Seems a bit strange." Wrach replied. He applied a bandage over the stitches and helped her put the armor back on. "For a battle-maniac like you to take up herbology."

Bridget shrugged, feeling the wound was tightly closed. "Eh," she grunted. "I felt that, since I had a plant arm, I might learn more about how it worked. Thought maybe I could bring back the technique to grow more limb-seeds or something."

"Did you?" Wrach asked, curious.

Bridget shook her head. "Not really. It's commonly available there, but they also have people who can re-grow your original limb with magic. The seeds are meant to be their… battlefield patch job. They actually remove them once they get back home and have the original limb grown."

Wrach helped her stand, taking her wooden arm in hand. The rest of the blooms scattered into the wind as she stood, and the two watched the flower petals drift off over the city they had just conquered.  "You're fine to keep the wooden one, right?" he asked. "It's not going to kill you?"

Bridget nodded. "They said it was short term, so at first I was worried about that. Then I found out that elves considered fifty years to be a 'short term' thing, and I figured, by the time the limb withered and died, I'd be pretty withered and dead myself."

"Yeah, sounds like you're fine." Wrach said, turning to look back over the warriors gathering up the soldiers who had finally surrendered. "Good work here. You managed to save us a lot of time and lives in the process."

"Yeah. Still lost nearly thirty men and women." Bridget said. "I'd say they died a good death, but the fighters here were really… well, bad."

Wrach nodded. "I've get the feeling we'll know more when we catch up to Balen." he said. "You didn't find the king, correct?"

Bridget nodded. "Yeah he was gone. Just a mage left in charge."

Wrach's ear flicked. "Then I'm sure my theory is correct." he replied. "The Iron King, and most of his forces, are probably afield. They might even be sieging Ironsoul City."

"We need to get moving." Bridget said. "I need to catch up to Tanya and Balen. How many men do you need to secure this place?"

Wrach shrugged. "At most? Two thousand."

Bridget nodded. "Bringing around seven thousand five-hundred and news of victory should make Balen happy."

"Balen won't be happy." Wrach replied. "At least, not until the country that killed his brother is ground to dust under his feet."

"To be fair, it was a dragon." Bridget said.

Wrach chuckled. "That would be a good death, but I think Balen looks at it as the dragon was still the king of Ironsoul, and in the absence of that king, the country is to blame."

Bridget shrugged. "Whatever." she said dismissively. "As long as it gets me closer to recovering Endrance."

Wrach nodded. "Get some rest." he ordered. "And tomorrow morning, you can leave with the messenger to report to Balen."

Bridget sheathed her weapons and wiped the remains of the starflower from her arm. "Great." she said. "I think I'll do that."

When General Balen and his forces rolled past the Iron Kingdom and into the Onyx one, they had expected some kind of resistance. Instead, they found nothing for most of their march into the kingdom, until they came within sight of the capital city. There, they found thousands upon thousands of dead Iron Kingdom soldiers. There was no surviving leadership and the military was not able to operate in the slightest.

From what they were able to discover, the Onyx Kingdom, literally trapped in their small territory by a curved mountain range, were the first target of the Iron Satrap. It appeared that when the Iron King attacked, they had not been ready for the Onyx Satrap's method of dealing with hostiles.

It had been named Onyx for the volcanic activity in the region. Many of the mountains that encircled the country were volcanic; and though dormant, the mages of the country were able to stoke them to their purposes. Balen's warriors arrived to find the invading Iron Kingdom troops decimated by conjured lava flows, directed fiery ash storms, and at least one nine-headed fire hydra whose corpse dominated the center of the battlefield.

The remaining defenders of the Onyx Kingdom watched patiently as his people approached. They didn't ride out to attack Balen's troops, so he decided to err on the side of caution and send a lone messenger. Someone who had knowledge of Ironsoul social rules.

Tanya sighed, riding a skittish horse over a road made of a single obsidian flow, the volcanic glass forming a smooth black river that led almost straight through the kingdom towards the castle.

The heat of the region was almost as bad as the Sea of Glass, which she had personally experienced twice and did not have the desire to do so ever again. The difference was the amount of heat that was coming from below instead of above, where the two suns sizzled flesh and seared bone. The ground below must be hot all the time.

With the number of mines they had passed travelling through the Iron Kingdom, she had wondered where all the minerals had come from. She didn't wonder anymore. The closer they had gotten to the border, the more closed down mines they found. It looked like they got plenty of iron from the existence of the Onyx Kingdom, though the kingdom itself was too close to the firestone to actually benefit from it directly.

She rode under the shadow of the dead hydra, its massive size putting her in shade for several minutes as her horse walked along. It had to have been many magnitudes of size larger than the one that she had helped Endrance kill, and it had nine full heads while the other had only three. If they had fought this one instead of the other, they would have been killed before they could even have made a scratch on it. This one had taken no less than two dozen ballista bolts to its chest area to bring it down, and numerous stabs and cuts from foot soldiers as well. The body was partially buried in obsidian, leading Tanya to believe that the lava flow was the last ditch effort on behalf of the Onyx Kingdom, as their own troops had been killed by it as well.

The cities within the Onyx Kingdom had been constructed with earth magic; large natural walls making the cities within volcanic craters shielded with sheets of volcanic glass. It was dark, yet pretty. Ash sprinkled from the sky almost constantly, though, and she was having difficulty breathing without coughing. She ended up taking a strip of bandage and making a mask out of it, so that she could keep from constantly inhaling the stuff. Her bow wasn't even with her; she had left it with Balen, instead opting to take an axe and shield and going otherwise unarmored.

She got within a hundred yards of the city gates before they responded. Ten yards in front of her, a speck of fire appeared floating in the air. She pulled her horse to a stop, though it needed little convincing to do so. The speck of fire exploded into a small burst of fire and smoke, and a young woman appeared in the flame's place. She coughed, patting at her robes and putting out the small fire that had started on the front of the garment. Her hair was only chin length, reddish orange, but almost luminous, as if the original color was red with some kind of fire inside the strands. She looked up and smiled, and Tanya noted a proliferation of freckles across her face, her eyes the same glowing ember color.

"Hiya!" the woman greeted her cheerfully. "You look like a messenger. You are a messenger, right?"

Tanya stared at the woman. She had a young lady's body, slim and not very full in curve, but still attractive. Tanya slowly nodded her head and wondered if she could turn the horse and run away while still looking dignified. "Yes." she responded, knowing she was already too deeply in trouble.

The woman's smile broadened. "Great!" she said. "We've been waiting for you!" She said. "If you would, we would like to hear your terms of surrender."

Tanya tilted her head slightly. "You… want to surrender?" she asked, confused.

The woman shook her head. "Oh, magic, no." she replied with a chuckle and a dismissive wave. "Not if you have unreasonable demands. Let's just say that father's willing to hear what you have to say before deciding."

Tanya nodded slowly. "All right." she said, drawing out the last word. "Lead the way."

"Great!" the glowing-haired woman replied, holding up a hand and pinching two fingers together. Tanya had a split second to realize she was casting a spell before the woman snapped her fingers and she, Tanya, and the horse disappeared into a literal puff of smoke.

The Onyx city's roads lay on a slight spiral, carving through the stone in a whirlpool design until it came to a gazebo thirty yards in diameter at the center of its spin. A disk made of a single piece of perfectly even, cut and polished obsidian formed the floor, and gold was inlaid into the patterns carved into the seven pillars that held up a single ring of gold that supported the obsidian roof.

In the center of the gazebo a speck of fire burst into existence. In a flash, the flame exploded and Tanya appeared astride her horse, and the flame-haired woman stood the same distance away she had been before they had been teleported.

"Whoo!" The woman exclaimed. "I love doing that!"

Tanya coughed. "Warn a person next time!"

The woman looked up at Tanya, blinking. Recognition dawned on her face. "Oh!" she said. "I'm sorry! I totally forgot humans don't like being popped around like that!"

Tanya dismounted, only slightly surprised that the horse seemed entirely unphased by the sudden relocation. "You say that like you aren't one of us." Tanya grumbled, patting the horse on the neck.

"Oh yeah." the woman replied, rolling her eyes. "How many humans do you know who have glowing eyes or hair?"

Tanya hesitated. "I guess no one." she hesitantly replied.

"See?"

Tanya held up a hand. "Ah, but Endrance has glowing eyes sometimes."

The woman's eyes widened in surprise. "You know Endrance?" she exclaimed. "Oh how exciting! How do you know him?"

Tanya sighed. "I'm Tanya." she replied. "One of the Draugnoa to the Spengur, Endrance. I'm one of his wives." she said, adding the last bit in to gauge the woman's reaction.

The fiery haired woman grinned. "Oh, then you'd really know!" she replied. "Oh wow! I heard he has a real Fjallar for a familiar, is that true?" she asked, her hands clasped together, pleading for information.

Tanya was about to answer when another voice spoke into the gazebo.

"Don't mind Ashia." a man's voice said softly, yet somehow heard clearly from twenty yards away. "She's a very easily excitable girl."

The woman turned to the newcomer and frowned. "I am not!" she protested.

"Ashia." the man replied, stepping into the gazebo. Tanya got a good look at him as he approached.

He was lean, almost slender, but with broad shoulders. His skin was lightly tanned and he had features that were somewhere between angular and blocky, though somehow he managed to look handsome. He wore expensive looking clothes, much of which were gauzy and translucent for keeping cool. Tanya lastly noted that atop his head was a golden crown, with a large star ruby set as the centerpiece.

"Father!" Ashia complained. "I'm trying really hard."

The man smiled at her as he approached, reaching out and patting her head. Flickers of fire puffed out as he did so, and Tanya noted that touching the inhuman girl would be dangerous. "That's fine, Ashia, you've done plenty for us."

Ashia smiled, as pleased as a child praised by her father. The man looked to Tanya and gave her a knowing look. "She's actually a lot older than you or I, but she still acts like this." he said, humor in his voice. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Onyx King, Adrian Venn, brother of Golen Venn the inheritor."

Tanya looked a little puzzled. "I was told that your brother was King." she said cautiously.

Adrian tried to look calm, but Tanya noted grief eroding his calm demeanor. "He… was killed in battle with the Iron King."

"I'm sorry." Tanya said. "I feel for your loss."

"It is what it is." Adrian responded, his eyes downcast. "I think your people would say it was a good death."

"Dying in battle is the most we can ask for, but your people are not mine." Tanya replied. "I know you think more complicated things are best."

Adrian rolled his shoulders. "Very true." he admitted. "Shall we begin negotiations?" he asked, glancing at Ashia. "Ashia, please go and make sure there aren't any stragglers from the Iron Kingdom."

"Got it!" she exclaimed, disappearing in a flash of light and smoke.

"Just what is she?" Tanya asked.

Adrian gestured, and several servants who had been waiting out of the way came forward, one led her horse away to hopefully be tended to, while four others approached. One set a steel and gold wrought table between her and the king, and another offered her an alabaster washed wooden chair. The third gave a similar seat to the king, while a fourth set a pitcher and two glasses on the table.

"I know it's not much, but it is a time of war and we've never had much luck growing our own grapes." Adrian replied. "But I hear Onyx wine is considered a delicacy in the Amber and Ivory Satra- I mean, those kingdoms."

Tanya reached out and poured the wine into her glass. It came out a deep red that was almost purple, and very nearly black. "I can see why they name it after your kingdom." she said. Taking a sip and setting the pitcher down.

Adrian watched her, and then reached out and took the pitcher for himself, pouring his own drink. "Most people would have waited for the host to drink the wine." he said factually.

"Most people didn't just get teleported into the heart of your domain by a creature that could incinerate them to ashes before they could blink." Tanya said plainly. "If you were going to kill me, I think you'd not waste the time with a ruse."

Adrian took a sip of his wine, his elegantly trimmed eyebrows rising just a little. "You are far better spoken than I thought you would be, considering where you come from." he observed. "I don't mean you offense, of course."

Tanya liked the earthy, yet slightly sweet taste of the wine and downed the glass, pouring another before she spoke. "You are the ones who started calling us barbarians," she said casually. "We just look at life differently than you. And, to be fair, I spent a lot of time working alongside a mage who insisted I continue learning for as long as I served him."

"Ah." he said. He was quiet for several moments, watching her finish off the second glass and then pour a third. "She's a magma drake." Adrian stated. "She hatched on this very spot about four centuries ago, and one of my ancestors managed to be there at the hatching. She somehow bonded to him and ever since, the kings of Onyx inherit her alongside the crown."

"That gem?" Tanya asked.

Adrian shook his head. "It's a gift from her, but it only symbolizes the bond. It's not necessary."

"I see." Tanya replied. "Why is she interested in Endrance?"

Adrian sighed, shaking his head. "She's childishly enamored with his familiar. She heard about him having the Fjallar as his familiar, and she seems to think that they're destined to fall in love or something."

Tanya lost her grip on her wine glass, scrambled to catch it, and only managed to send it tumbling away through the air to shatter on the obsidian a few feet away. She winced, glancing at the king. Adrian closed his eyes with a sigh and gestured, and a man rushed up to sweep away the fragments of glass while another brought a replacement for her. This one was a silver fluted glass.

"Love?" Tanya replied. "That's… strangely, I don't know."

"Human?" Adrian provided. "Yeah, I thought so too."

"So do we need to make that part of your surrender terms?" Tanya asked, taking another drink. One of the serving men paled and gave hushed orders, sending another runner to get another pitcher of wine.

"Well," King Adrian started, finally pouring a refill. "I wouldn't mind it, but first let's hear what your people want from our surrender."

"Okay." Tanya started, touching a fingertip to her chin as she thought back.

"You didn't write down demands?" the king asked, concerned.

Tanya shook her head. "We don't put much importance in writing. Many of us believe that our memories would be better if we weren't capable of recording it in other ways. Personally, I learned to write and read, but the General is a traditionalist and he's the one setting the terms."