At last after three days of travel, Zenobia and Miri finally reached their destination an hour before the sun would rise. Looking around, Miri cursed. "There's no cover anywhere," she said. "These trees we're under now are at least 400 yards from that trail up to the castle. They have torches all along the pathway. There's no way we can get up their unobserved. Look there's at least two archers up there. We'll get picked of before we even make it to the path let alone the castle."
Zenobia gave a grim smile. "I think I can do something about that. She'll know we're coming, but that's fine. I want her facing me when I tear the life out of her."
Closing her eyes, Zenobia put her arms out in front of her, palms reaching towards the sky. Guiding her power solely through instict, she called to the wind, asking it to do her bidding. The wind complied bringing moisture rushing through the air as a thick cloud of fog surrounded them, building slowly, soon making it impossible to see more than a foot. Clenching her fists she wrenched them down, pulling lightening bolts out of the sky to hit the two towers that held the archers.
"There," Zenobia said. "That will get us to the castle at least."
Miri shivered, her eyes wide. "If we ever get out of this, remind me not to piss you off. I don't think even Numair can do that."
Zenobia shrugged. "Let's go."
"Wait," Miri said. "Let me do this first."
Quickly, she moved over the horses, making sure nothing would make any noise. She covered the horse's hooves to keep them from making a noise on the stone path. "Trick of the bandit hunting trade," Miri said. "Come on."
The two rode slowly and silently across the lawn, ears pricked for any noises. A fuzzy shine of light from a torch made them veer slightly off track, but eventually they made it to the stone trail up the mountain to the castle. Unsheathing her sai, Zenobia nodded to Miri, who had a spear in her hand, to begin the slow climb upwards. Hearing a voice, Miri motioned to Zenobia to stop. Zenobia slid of her horse, and silently padded forward, prepared for the person talking to come right at her. When the servants shape became a slightly discernable blob, she lunged forward quickly, chopping at his windpipe to silence any noise. Quickly, she held him in a sleeper hold, hand clamped over his mouth to keep him silent until he slipped into unconsciousness. After dragging him to the side of the road, Zenobia mounted Storm and continued the climb up to the castle.
Suddenly, Zenobia's senses flared. "Get off the path," she yelled at Miri, veering Storm sharply off the road, pulling the horse down on his knees behind a large stone and tugging Miri off her pony to lie face down on the ground. Fire ripped through the air, burning down the pathway. The air boiled with moisture as the fog , and sweat poured of Miri and Zenobia has the heat surrounded them. The fire passed them, moving all the way down the mountain before spreading and along the open range before the forest and going out, taking Zenobia's fog with it.
"Well, that was nice while it lasted," Miri said. "What—"
"How dare you try to trick me with your insignificant magic you street rat," a woman's voice rang out from the top of the path. "Come out and let's settle this. You and me. My daughter would already be sitting on that throne next to Kaddar, putting the kingdom back on the rightful path set out by Ozrone if it weren't for you."
Zenobia moved to stand up, but Miri pulled her back down. "Are you crazy?" she hissed. "Even if you are as powerful as her, you have none of her training."
"I have you," Zenobia whispered. "I'll distract her. You try and get around her. Maybe you can get lucky with an arrow if she doesn't see it coming."
Zenobia stood up. "Alright you slag. You want to do this. Let's do this," she said, moving slowly up the hill. "Give me your best."
Orange magic lashed out at Zenobia, forcing her to throw her power out in a shield. The orange magic deflected to the side, consuming a bush to the right of Zenobia. "That all you got," Zenobia shouted, wrenching another lightening bolt out of the sky.
Cursing, Maluza sent her magic out to wrap around the bolt, preventing it from ever reaching the ground. She only just managed to stop the second bolt Zenobia sent at her immediately after the first. Fear growing in her eyes, she said a word foreign to Zenobia, and one of the castle's three gates opened up. A wall of spidrens poured out from somewhere deep in the castle, perhaps even deep in the mountain. Unsheathing her sai, Zenobia slashed the first one down that came at her. Moving nimbly she, she cut down as many as she could and tried to dance out of the way of their blows and webs. Arrows took down some of the spidrens from further up the trail, always managing to kill the spidren just about to get her.
Storm and Sunny ran over from the rock they had been hidden behind. Sunny raced through the spidrens, jumping up and ripping out their throats. Zenobia hauled herself onto Storm, finding it easier to fight them from up higher. Storm kicked out with his front hooves, keeping the spidrens back and wounding any stupid enough to come at Zenobia from below. A blast of orange magic came at her out of nowhere, forcing her to put more energy then she had left into a shield. Distracted by the magic, she allowed the spidrens to close in around her trapping her entirely. Swearing she moved her Sai constantly, trying to will strength into her tiring muscles. She saw a spidren put a sharp claw through Sunny and toss him to the side of the road. A group of spirdrens had moved toward Miri, forcing her to fight them with her spear rather than her bow. Zenobia despaired and she desperately tried to come up with an option. Something anything that would let her get to the mage.
Out of nowhere a reign of arrows took down the spidrens downhill from Zenobia. A battalion of soldiers appeared out of the forest, galloping hard for the castle as archers in the forest trees took down spidren after spidren. Amad battled his way through until he was next to Zenobia.
"You couldn't have waited for me in the first place could you? Had to go off on your own and make things complicated," he growled, hacking down a spidren with a double edged spear.
"Good to see you," Zenobia said. She pulled back from the spidrens into the soldiers behind her, giving herself protection to look for the mage. Cursing, she saw two horses galloping towards the forest edge with women on their backs. Wheeling Storm around she kicked him into a gallop. "I know you're tired boy," she whispered, "but I need to you to go as fast as you can. Come on now."
She saw them hit the forest line, making it to the trees within minutes of the two riders. She weaved through the trees, dodging the flaming balls the mage sent behind. That's it, Zenobia thought, use up your power with those useless balls. Slow yourself down turning to look for me. I've got you now.
She kicked Storm to one last burst forward to meet the women. She dodged a flame and stood up on Storm's back, a trick Buri had taught her and Una. She leapt off her horse and tackled Maluza, ripping the woman from the saddle and tumbling on the ground. About to slam a knife into the woman's side, she was thrown backward by Maluza's magic.
"Keep going," Maluza yelled over her shoulder towards her daughter. Throwing fire at Zenobia, who rolled out of the way her magic too drained to protect her.
"You're going to die wench," Maluza snarled, unsheathing a sword, her once pretty face twisted by hate.
"Yeah, yeah. Ye keep sayin' that, but ye ain't brought it yet." Zenobia examined the woman in front of her with her Sight. She was almost as drained as Zenobia, but not quite. She let Maluza come to her, unwilling to use any more energy than absolutely necessary, knowing she'd taped into her life source with her last spell.
Maluza moved forward and hacked at Zenobia with her sword, a blow Zenobia easily tossed aside with her right Sai. As she blocked Maluza's second blow, Zenobia slid her second Sai at the woman, missing plunging deep into her side by a hairsbreadth. Realizing she was outmatched, Maluza tossed the last of her magic at Zenobia, ripping the Sai out of Zenobia's hand and sending it along with all her other weapons flying away.
Cursing, Zenobia dropped and rolled as Maluza lunged at her again, jumping to her feet and searching frantically around her for a weapon. Exhaustion making her slow and her thoughts fuzzy, Zenobia dodged blow after blow, unable to form any thoughts other than dodge and roll. Catching her boot in a patch of mud, she slipped, slamming hard into a tree behind. As she slid down, she nearly lost conciousness as Maluza moved towards her slowly, her sword drawn back for the final blow, a smile full of the knowledge that her pray would not get up again. Zenobia found herself watching the streak of dawn sunlight that fell across her hand, its presence bringing a flash of memory, the early morning light falling across the sheets, the kisses on her back, hands stroking her skin, laughter, sunshine, love. Maluza's voice brought her to the present.
"See. You're nothing more then a street slag. Take away the weapons and the magic and nothing is left at all. What do you have girl?" She thrust her sword straight at Zenobia's heart, only to have the hilt slam back into her face as Zenobia caught the blade between her palms and thrust it backwards.
"I always have me," Zenobia growled, kicking her leg up and around hard, knocking the blade out of her hands. "You can take everything else away. Evin, weapons, Sunny, magic, but you still can't handle me." Putting all her energy into one last mighty kick she slammed her stilleto heel deep into Maluza's chest. She yanked her foot out and stood over the woman as she fell. Zenobia's eyes were pitiless as she watched Maluza gasp her last breaths before lying still.
Swaying, Zenobia reached out to Storm who had come to stand next to her. She tried to haul herself into the saddle, but failed, finally giving in to the darkness and collapsing down next to the dead mage.
--
Um, I suck too much at fight scenes to think up my own, so the characters and the world are Tamora Pierce's but that end part is all Buffy moves.
Review!