In his head he'd come to call her "the angry woman". It was certain that at some point, someone had told him her name, but it wasn't knowledge he'd made a point to remember. Kashya had told her to lead him to the Burial Grounds, but not to enter, and she did exactly as she was told, glowering at him as she gestured to the pathway ahead. A crumbling stone wall, low enough to be stepped over, sat on either side of the path, weeds taking advantage of its state to slither up between the cracks, clinging to the stone for support. It was deceptively picturesque.
"Blood Raven isn't like the other Corrupt Rogues," the angry woman told him, her eyes staring wistfully down the path, "she defiles the dead, enslaves them to her demonic will. She won't be alone."
He tilted his head cautiously. Was she warning him? How unexpected. He dryly asked the angry woman if she might be worried about him, and the remark was enough to snap her back to her regular mood. Her face flushing red with regret at trying to say anything to him, she dug her boot into his calf, howling at him, "Go do what you were sent here to do, and I hope you manage to kill each other!"
He curled his lip, stepping quickly away from her kick. Better not to keep stirring the hornet's nest, he considered, and darted down the path toward the Burial Grounds. The path was short but twisting, uphill but a mild climb, eventually opening up to a small graveyard. Enclosed by iron gating, some of it was currently falling apart, other parts of the rusted metal probably held up by the thick climbing vines crawling over it. Crumbling architecture was one thing, but the aggressive level of overgrowth suggested it really hadn't been visited in a long time.
Well, visited by anyone who capable of tending to the dead.
The angry woman spoke truth: as soon as he entered the Burial Grounds, he'd already caught the rotted eyes of several undead, already raised by some dark power to stand guard. A few of them were so old they'd become nothing but bone, flesh and cartilage replaced by foul magic to bind and animate them. These were the ones he preferred. The others were not so old, the meat still clinging to them, putrid and black with rot. The smell of them carried, suffusing the air with the perverse stench of decay. It didn't matter how far from them he was, or that he tried to breathe through his mouth, they were so far gone that they seemed more stench than substance.
He squatted down in the grass, slowly crawling through it as stealthily as he could. The rotten zombies, he lopped off the legs at the knees, his blade cutting through flesh so old and rotten it'd almost turned to jelly, before hacking off their heads quickly and making his way on to the next. The skeletons he launched himself out of the grass for, shattering limbs and skulls with the pommel, loathe to blunt a perfectly good edge on dusty old bone. Clearing the immediate area around him of any threats, he settled cross legged in the grass, closing his eyes.
Then opening them. Gold rings with a hint of madness. Hisher eyes saw further than human ones saw through light and shadow and colour. Heshe was undisturbed on the tree one among many a hundred beaks two hundred wings and feet all of them carrion all of them scavengers. The false raven didn't bother them and didn't see heshe was among them. Heshe tilted hisher head and looked at the false raven with her jutting horns and blood soaked clothing as she crouched over a grave her fingers threading through the dirt reaching further than her flesh could with dark magic. Heshe understood she was sending her magic down into the soil into the flesh into the dead and beckoning to them. Heshe understood it wasn't just evil will that guided her it wasn't just a savage instinct it was a child lost and alone earnestly calling out and the only responses she received was her own voice echoed back in the depraved glow of demonic magic in the sockets of the dead. She kept calling waiting for a response because she was so desperately alone more than anything she no longer wanted to be alone trapped here torn in two by separate pulling forces as the demon's magic fought against the natural call of death each ripping her in two differing directions drowning her in immense and profound agony and so she screamed-
The raven closed hisher eyes.
Then he opened them. Through the eyes of the old nag, he'd confirmed Blood Raven's location at the centre of the Burial Grounds, hard at work raising an army of undead. Lonely? Afraid? Pitiful, she was just a child throwing a tantrum.
He stood, unsheathing his sword and rolling his shoulder. He'd be sure to put her out of her misery then.
Through the old bird's eyes, he knew that each shambling undead in the graveyard was linked through a fine spider thread of magic to Blood Raven, and that if she died, they would fall with her. There was clearly no point wasting the time and energy on culling the undead loitering around the outskirts of the Burial Grounds, and he was sure the old bird's unkindness would harry the others within the gates of the graveyard to keep them from mobbing him. While he wasn't optimistic enough to believe that if he overwent the two hour time limit he was on the angry woman might grieve for him after presuming him dead, nor was he gentlemanly enough to be concerned at the idea of her trekking back to the Rogue Encampment by herself, he'd been saved by the group of survivors after all. The old witch had taught him to pay back his debts, and so he must.
As he ducked and weaved behind gravestones, he heard a soft hiss. The voice of a woman, and a hundred other voices echoing over the top of it, matching each syllable.
"Intruder! Join my army of the dead!"
Damn!
He rolled away from the tombstone just as it exploded under the force of an iron arrow colliding with it. Such unholy strength! One hit from that bow and he'd be a new resident of the Burial Grounds! No longer bothering with the slow, stalking approach, he bounded straight for Blood Raven. The skull of some sort of horned animal had been appropriated into a burial mask, placed over her face. She let out a low, ghastly chuckle, a sound more appropriately akin to the soft escape of gas from dying lungs. She flew backward, firing off another shot, which he barely dodged. She wasn't at all like the possessed women he'd fought out on the plains, wasn't a bundle of pure killing instinct. Blood Raven was better with her bow than even the angry woman had been. He barely skidded and leapt backward to avoid a shot tracking his direction, growling softly under his breath. She was leading him toward a ring of gravestones, penning him in. It wasn't fun being herded around like an animal by a rotten old bitch. He snarled, feeling his blood boil with a black rage. Better to kill her soon, kill her quick, but nicer to kill her slow, rip off her legs, nail her torso to a tree and let her hang there, let the ravens yank her hanging entrails from her worthless body to feed. Sweeter to rip out her eyes and puncture her ears and trap her in a dark world with only the pain to keep her company-
No! the old nag screamed from the tree, bury it, stupid child!
She swooped down, talons aimed for Blood Raven's face. It didn't matter that the mask covered it, the bird was a vicious flurry of feather and claws, scraping lines into the bone, until she was knocked away by Blood Raven, with an enraged scream. It was only a moment, but enough for him to swallow back the vicious bile building up in his throat. The savage anger and the dark longing were swallowed back with it. He gripped the wrist of his sword arm, trying to force the shaking to a stop. The rage always terrified him to his core, terrified him to be filled with such ferocious sadism.
He threw a thankful look toward the old nag, currently grooming her feathers, before quickly turning his attention back to the original monster at hand. He let out a soft whistle, ducking low and moving forward once again toward Blood Raven. The air on either side of him rippled, and for a moment, reality ceased to be. There was just a pair of gaping wounds, from which an icy spread, and then two white flashes, before the air shifted, and it was as though nothing had ever happened. The two spirit wolves ran on other side of him, before splitting off, moving around Blood Raven in a pincer move. Whatever vestiges of cognizance she had, it wasn't wasn't enough to deal with this situation. She began firing off toward him and the wolves with reckless abandon. Beibhinn, as always, was faster, and as she reached the undead first, her teeth buried themselves in the soft flesh of her calf, keeping her pinned. Fintan was next, not as fast in step as his mate, but when his jaws sunk into the undead flesh, it tore through to the bone, crippling the woman for good.
"My army will destroy you!" Blood Raven howled, and light visible to the naked eye arced out. Multiple graves exploded in showers of dirt, as undead manically crawled to the surface, screaming in shared fury. The woman at the centre of it all was panting, exhausted from the expenditure of raising so many at once. She had no strength left to draw back her bow, and could only glower at him in her final coda. He spun the blade in his hand, grimly staring back at the woman, then drew back his blade, hurling it violently toward her. It found it's mark, spearing her directly in the stomach. Not a killing move in normal circumstances, but whatever magic that propelled her had already exploded out in her final suicide raising en masse. Everything left wasn't enough to keep her undead body running, and she crumpled. A final scream twisted out from her lips, as lightning arced from her body, slamming directly into the army she had just raised, as well as to the others left shambling around the outskirts of the Burial Grounds. One by one, they folded down to the ground soundlessly, a mass of limbs and scattered bones. None of them remained once their mistress had fallen.
He retrieved his blade, shaking off the gore from its edge. The old nag flew down, landing on his shoulder and pinching his earlobe painfully in her beak - enough to draw blood.
"I know, for a moment there..." He responded softly, wincing. "But it didn't happen."
The old nag looked at him reproachfully, as if to say, This time.
He knelt over the body of Blood Raven, ignoring the one on his shoulder, gently lifting the mask off her face. Hair as red as blood, a face half rotten away. He recalled that chilling loneliness he had felt, shaking his head. Whether she was in a better place now or not, at least she wasn't here. He'd done all it was necessary for an outsider to do, as for handling the remains, it was better to leave it to her sisters back at camp to decide. He stood, wiping his sword clean before putting it away, and left the Burial Grounds. The wolves looked after him, then the air around them rippled, and they were suddenly simply not there.
The angry woman was standing with her back to the grounds, bow at the ready. He had to admire her discipline, really. He cleared his throat, alerting her to his return. She glanced over her shoulder at him, her face calm, her temper clearly cooled. Sorrow briefly flashed through her eyes, then relief. Sorrow to say goodbye to a sister, but relief to know her free from her undeath.
"You cut it close. Your two hours were almost up." He glanced at the sky. In fact, it'd probably been more than two hours, though given her temper, probably better not to point such a thing out… She snorted at him, probably having figured out his thoughts, but only barked sharply, "We need to get going, Raven."
He smiled. Right. He was Raven now. It was nice to have a name again.
He followed back across the Cold Plains.