Vanysa's masking of her scent with blood served its purpose, or seemed to, as there was no evidence that her presence drew any notice from the beastman village. The moon was bright in the night sky and the lack of any clouds made the whole sky appear to be an endless sea in which twinkling diamonds floated and winked down at the world below.
Ahead of her lay the two hills which she now knew to be burial mounds. 'So many dead here. If there's a spot to trigger another… whatever that is, then this is it. I have to hope it works. If it showed itself to just anyone, they'd know about it. The only reasonable conclusion is that they have to be followed in sequence, if this doesn't work, I'm sunk like rock tossed into a marsh.'
She crept closer, a circle of crude stones lay on the ground, each one roughly the size of her body, they were surrounded by grass, but the area was not overgrown, not like the field around her. The grass was trimmed down to be no higher than her ankles, and the little blades tickled her hardened demonic skin.
Vanysa stopped just outside the circle, straightened, took a deep breath, and stepped within the border of stone.
Then the village was gone, the hills were gone, the world was a gray mist in which she was engulfed, and in front of her stood a handful of mace carrying humans drenched in beastman blood. Barintacha's face was smeared with red, and blood dripped from the mace in his hand. The horses were behind them with their mouths stuffed with cloth and hooves wrapped with furs, keeping them silent in their agitation.
"She's in there somewhere, I know it." Barintacha snarled, a low growl emerged from his throat, and around him, his armored warriors nodded in silence.
"There sure are a lot of em." One of the warriors whispered.
"They're drinking… and they're not expecting us." Barintacha whispered, "Surprise and alcohol will give us an advantage. We're not trying to destroy them, just reclaim my bride and get out."
A low rumbling answered him from those gathered at his back, and Vanysa watched them remount their horses and align themselves into a V formation with Barintacha at the head. "Straight in, grab her, and get out, no heroics. No needless sacrifices." He said, and the little band drew their maces out in silent answer to their liege.
If there was a word spoken, Vanysa didn't hear it. If there was a signal given, Vanysa missed it, they spurred their horses forward all at once, faster than even horses at a run should have been able to do.
She spread her wings and shot out after them, they were shadows in the mist, screams and howls and the smell of blood were all thick as stew in the air, maces rose and fell as they battered their way into the intoxicated beastmen ranks. Curses flew from lips while unprepared and intoxicated magic casters made things worse by launching fireballs which completely missed their human targets and put the smell of burning fur into the air. The fog was thick and obscured even her own vision, 'How much worse it must be for the beastmen…' She realized and couldn't help but feel a twinge of admiration for the bravery and cleverness of the human warlord.
The chaos of his attack spread throughout the camp, but despite that, Barintacha proved easy to find. He went, after all, in only one direction.
Straight ahead.
He made a beeline for the center of the camp, assuming correctly that treasures and tributes would be guarded against from all sides. She caught up with him just as he broke through the last obstacle, two minotaurs who crumpled when his mace rose and fell, crunching their skulls into their brains and turning them into bloody corpses, tongues lolling uselessly out of mouths that would never speak again.
The center of the camp was as ephemeral to her as all else, shades of the past played out before her eyes, and she took it all in with the intensity of an arena spectator watching their favorite fighter take the sands against a worthy foe.
"No! No! No! No! No! No!" Barintacha cried out as he found the only treasure he sought. The beastmen encampment might have been like any human one, save for the scale, with tents established for various purposes and laid out with width enough to pass between them, carts for holding goods and practical items kept together for regular use… and of course, plundered goods in the center.
'They plundered much before they ever got here.' Vanysa guessed from the exotic stone sculptures and various cuts of currency that included circles of copper, ingots of gold, and small bars of silver shaped like long triangles. Hatred for her lifelong enemies burned like red coals given renewed life, stirred again by a poker and sending sparks into the air.
The warlord however, had eyes for only one treasure of gold laid out on a table of stone. Vanysa could see through the shade of a man, and what tore open his absent heart.
The golden woman was restrained spreadeagle on the stone, her wrists and ankles bound by cuffs of leather, her chest was cut open, a gaping hole in her chest over her heart, her breast half gone from the deep cuts. And her heart lay separate, sitting into a marble bowl at her left hand.
"No!" Barintacha howled as he came close, his hands smashed down on the stone table, shattering the thick rock where he struck and sending the chunks to thud into the ground at his feet. "They won't keep you… I won't let them have you, I won't…" He said to her, his breathing hard as he grasped the cuffs of her wrist and ankles one by one and tore them open to free the limp corpse.
When it was done, he grabbed her heart and shoved it into her chest as if hoping it would beat again, and then put his arms under her back and legs and picked her up.
It was repeatedly evident that Barintacha was exceptionally strong as humans went, his bloody clothing, armor, and face, the ease with which he shattered the table and the seeming lightness of carrying the dead weight of his lover all attested to his exceptional strength.
But nor was he alone, one of the handful of mace bearers broke into the clearing that was the center of the camp, like a kicked over ants nest, the whole of the encampment was now in utter chaos.
"Sire! We've cut a way out, do you h-" His question ended with an open mouth when he saw the gaping chest wound. His jaw clenched tight and a low rumble grew in his throat, "We have to go, we're going to be cut off if we delay."
Barintacha never lost his grip on her when he drew himself up into his saddle and set her ruined chest against his own.
"Let's go… let's get out of here…" Barintacha growled and his retainer grunted, leveled his mace toward another part of the camp, and spurred his horse forward.
"Where do we go, sire?!" The retainer shouted the question when he smashed his mace into the face of a charging and clearly intoxicated jackelman. The jaw shattered and the body spun away into the grass and rolled until it toppled a tent.
"To the mountain! Go to the mountain!" Barintacha shouted… and then the scene was gone…
The field was clean of blood and bodies, and the hills were back in their proper places again.
'At least I know where I need to go next…' Vanysa thought to herself and took to the air and with a flap of her wings, she chased the next vision.