FIC: Chosen Twelve (3?)

Although her face was its customary expressionless mask, Veritas' heart thumped in rhythm with the click of her high heels on the corridor's stone pavings. The passageways' bleakness failed to be alleviated by the flickering bronze braziers set in the wall every twenty paces.

Not that she was worried about the starkness of her surroundings; she'd grown used to them years ago. She was far more concerned about the look in Azarel's eyes. In any other person that look would have been considered fear, but that was ridiculous, Emperor Azarel didn't feel fear, he thrust it onto others. Whoever these interlopers were they had to be formidable.

Eventually she came to a tall grey door. Opening it, she entered and hurried across an open courtyard, the night's cold air biting at her less than appropriate attire of dark blue linen tunic and matching breeches. Upon reaching a door at the far end, she pounded on it impatiently.

"Hold your bleedin' horses!" a gruff voice bellowed a response. "Give a man time to get some clobber on!" A slow minute later and the door swung open. A tall, bearded man with bushy brown eyebrows, thick beard, and matching shoulder-length hair stared down truculently at her. "Damn you, Veritas!" the thickly-built man rumbled, one hand scratching at his distended belly. "Whatever it was, couldn't it wait to the morn? It's the middle of the damn night!"

"I don't know," she stared evenly at the aging warrior, used to and unimpressed by his histrionics. "Maybe we should consult the emperor?"

The man snorted and spat on the ground between them. "Aye," he nodded. "Azarel's not prone to nightmares. What's this about?"

Veritas passed the soldier the pictures Azarel had pulled out of his mind. "The emperor wants these people hunted down immediately. All bar the top four are to be slain. Those he wants for himself."

"Aye," Malus Bellum, Warlord of the Howling Hordes, tugged thoughtfully on his beard and chuckled. "Azarel's got an eye, no doubt for that."

"Quite," Veritas agreed with a sniff. The last thing she wanted to be doing was standing out in the middle of a freezing night discussing her lord's taste in wenches. "The emperor said immediately," she pressed.

"Aye," Malus' jowly face sobered. "I'll send out messages this very night," the army commander promised. "Who else will you be taking to, Areox Lex and Decorus Mors?"

Veritas hid a grimace at the mention of the respective leaders of the Imperial secret police, The Purge, and Azarel's elite cadre of assassins, the Shadow Fang. She doubted there were two people she disliked more than the sadistic butcher and the imperious killer. "Yes," she nodded. "And to Dotos Hex too."

"The Magic Tamers as well?" Malus raised a bushy eyebrow. "By the abyss, Azarel is taking this seriously isn't he?"

"Yes," Veritas nodded, her own expressionless mask once again hiding her own reservations. "And therefore so should you."

Malus nodded curtly. "I'll bear that in mind."


Petro Pyrgos crouched over Magoi Phasis' corpse, his eyes flitting between the twisted corpse and the dog-eared journal in his hands. "I came as soon as I heard."

Petro rose and turned at the deep voice behind him. The speaker was a tall, thin man with a weathered face and sharp grey eyes that matched his immaculately combed hair. The man was only dressed in a simple linen tunic and woollen breeches, his feet rudely sandaled but he carried an air of command and stately bearing for all of that.

A shorter but far more powerfully built man stood beside the statesman, his upper torso straining to burst out of his leather hauberk. Once this man had doubtless been a handsome, square-jawed hero fit for any balladeer's tale. Now though a black patch obscured his left eye while the remaining emerald orb glinted with bitterness. A jagged scar ran across the man's lantern jaw, pulling his bottom lip permanently down, while another twisted wound ran down from his left eye to his neck.

"Earl Fortis," he bowed at his waist at the first man, the leader of their rebellion before glancing at the disfigured warrior. "Probus," he greeted Fortis' bodyguard and the former leader of the Vowed Knights.

"Petro," the noble nodded at him before stepping around him. The lines on the aristocrat's face deepened as he stared down at the corpse. "It's true then," the rebel leader croaked. "I had hoped-," Fortis shook his head before turning to him. "I see from the damage it wasn't an assassin?"

Petro swallowed inwardly at the tight note in his leader's voice. "No sir," he shook his head. "It seems that the mage cast the Dimension-Summonsing spell."

The noble's eyes shadowed. "Damn fool!" Fortis growled. "I told him it was too much of a bloody risk! And now the damn fool's-," the noble shook his head. "To the void with him!"

Petro didn't dare comment on his lord's rage although he understood it. The rebels had other mages in their ranks, but not one of them approached Phasis' power. His death was a potential hammer blow to the revolt.

Deciding to attempt administering a balm to his leader's anger, he offered the book he'd been reading to the noble. "This is an account of the people that were brought here by the spell. If even half of what Phasis recorded is true, they are mighty heroes."

"Uh." His words were rewarded with an unenthusiastic grunt. The noble's long fingers wrapped themselves around the journal. "Both of you," the earl's penetrating gaze swung from him to Probus and back again. "Get out."

"Yes sir," Petro inclined his head before following Probus in marching out of the cottage.


Fortis let out a rattling sigh as the door crashed shut behind the departing warriors. "Damn you, Magi," he whispered, his eyes fixed on the corpse at his feet. He imagined the two soldiers thought his reaction was fuelled by anger at the mage's fatal actions. That was part of it, but at the moment his mind was filled with the memories of the children he and Magoi, 'Magi', had once been. "How many must I lose?" he muttered, chest tightening.

He forced his gaze away from the corpse and to the drawings of the summonsed lying innocently on the desk. "I just hope it was worth it, old friend," he muttered.


"Is she awake?" Mate Dane asked as he ducked his head into the low cavern, grateful to be in from the unceasing downpour, his drenched fur cloak sticking to him.

"Yes, Chief Dane," whispered the jowly woman who served as nurse to his most valued asset. "She's awake."

"Praise be," his mumble echoed through the tight, dank passageway. Eyes squinting in the darkness. He trudged the now-familiar route through the tunnels leading to his goal.

Eventually he came to a small cavern, barely illuminated via what little sunlight stole in through a crack in its low roof. But then the person who called the cave home couldn't bear the light, not any more. Dane nodded at the two burly men hovering in the shadows to the back of the chamber, their hands resting on the shafts of the battle-axes shoved in their belts. A wry smile tugged at his lips as he noted that the men wore differing clan kilts. Two rival clansmen, sharing an honoured duty would have been unheard of before their conquering. Azarel bringing them together, who'd have thought it?

Except for the Snapping Otter clan, his mood dipped, no one would ever work with them again.

He turned his attention to the trembling figure sat huddled on the ground. The person was female, but you'd never have guessed that if you didn't know her personally. The woman's skeletal frame was clothed in a muddy-brown smock that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. Her filthy blonde hair obscured her face and hung down past her waist. Dane's breath caught, chest constricting as he remembered the proud, almost regal, woman the quivering crone had once been. "Greetings, Condrad."

"Greetings, warrior," the woman didn't look up from her inspection of the pock-marked ground.

Dane sighed. Condrad Orth had once been his people's most powerful bonecaster, their strongest mage, in several centuries. As leader of The Watching Circle she'd called the fourteen clans' mages together when the Howling Hordes had invaded.

Azarel and his cadre of magic-users had torn through the Circles' defences. The attack had left Condrad a torn wreck, in constant agony and no longer capable of controlling magic. But she was perhaps fortunate. Dozens of her fellow bonecasters had died instantly, others had been driven insane, some had been mutated into monsters, and a number had aged 40 – 50 years in a single day. Such was the wrath of the emperor to those who opposed him.

Dane swallowed his pity. He knew full well that even in her wretched condition Condrad would not appreciate it. "You sent word that you wanted to speak to me?"

"Aye," Condrad looked up, giving him a glimpse of the intelligence burning in her eyes and her yellow, rotting teeth. "Last night there was a disturbance in the magic stream. A mighty force for good has been drawn into our dimension. A force capable of facing Azarel."

"Aye?" Dane's blood quickened at the prediction but was careful not to get drawn in. The past few years had been too full of setbacks to easily allow hope to prosper. "An army capable of standing against the emperor?"

"Nay," the bonecaster's body contorted, her face tightening as pain shot through her. The bonecaster didn't speak for almost a minute, the cavern echoing to her breathless pants. "Sorry chief," Condrad apologised, "someti-."

"No apologies needed," Dane rumbled. "I know the sacrifices you have made for us. Please, continue when you're able."

"Thank you." The haggard woman nodded gratefully. "The force isn't an army. I doubt even Azarel himself could manage to drag an army through the dimensions." He winced as Condrad descended into a fit of coughs, blood dribbling down her chin. The witch wiped her face clean before continuing with a shake of her head. "No, I sensed that around twelve warriors came through before the spell failed."

"Twelve?" Mate snorted. "Azarel will barely notice when he squashes them underfoot."

"Fool man!" Condrad scolded. "These people cannot be judged by numbers alone, these are heroes born!"

"Aye," Mate was less than convinced. "Well if we ever needed heroes it is now."


"Are you going to The Sheathed Sword after our shift is over?"

"Yeah, I've got an eye on that new serving wench."

"Yeah," the first man chuckled, "she's a lusty one isn't she?"

Ka' Tra's knuckles whitened as he watched the two night watchmen saunter past, oblivious to him watching in the shadows. It would be so easy for him to glide out of the darkness and cut their throats. He'd done it countless times since his homeland had been conquered, but he had other business tonight.

He waited until the two sentries had moved on before stalking soundlessly out of the shadows and heading in the opposite direction. His eyes moved constantly, missing nothing as he searched every nook and cranny for anyone foolish enough to attempt an ambush on the foremost Ishanti Blade-Lord of his generation. His nose wrinkled at the stench of the refuse littering the once orderly streets. How far his people had fallen in so short a time.

Finally he reached his destination, a nondescript house in what once had been one of the city's merchant districts. When he knocked on the house's door he was careful to knock in a precise rhythm, three fast, two slow, and one fast, knowing full well that any deviation would result in the springing of numerous traps.

He'd barely finished the code when a peephole swung open. "Password!" demanded a pair of suspicious green eyes.

"The crescent moon rises in the east," he replied.

The peephole slammed shut. A half-second later and Ka' Tra heard the sounds of bolts being pulled back and chains being rattled loose. The door creaked half-open. "Enter."

Ka' Tra slid through the slight gap and into a comfortable-looking hall, its walls an inoffensive orange. "I'm here for the seer."

"Upstairs," the short man finished locking the door before nodding towards the threadbare carpeted stairs.

Ka 'Tra strode up the stairs, his feet so light that the steps forewent their usual protesting creak. After a cursory nod at the two Blade-Warriors posted on the narrow landing, he ducked through the door opposite.

The room was sparsely-furnished, with only a bed, chair, and desk of the most basic quality. But then it was a lot more than many Ishanti had these days.

"Seer," Ka 'Tra nodded at the man sat in the chair. The seer was a short, scrawny man almost entirely bald save for a few last stubborn wisps. His green eyes were rheumy and his entire personality lacked any force whatsoever. And yet the fates had made him the most powerful remaining Ishanti mage, those stronger than having already been culled. "You have news."

"Yes," even the man's voice, like his personality, was muted. Ka 'Tra had to strain to hear him. "Last night a great force for good arrived in this dimension."

"Yes?" Ka 'Tra crouched before the old man, blood quickening. "And where did this force arrive?"

The seer hesitated before replying. "In Parhea."

Ka 'Tra's heart dropped. Not one of the client nations or even the Free Trade Alliance but the very imperial seat itself. "Dead before they know it," he pronounced the likely sentence.