Kall hit the ground with enough force to drive the shield he had up around him six feet under snow and dirt. He splintered trees with the impact and the snow melted from the combustive energy of the attack.
He'd had the black flag in his sights. Up a tree that he had no intention of climbing and instead created enough ice formation on the high up limb to make it crack and fall to the ground, bringing the flag with it. Which had been, he'd thought, an end to the not completely unenjoyable game until the Zako-Damero spell hit him. Granted, it had not been at full strength, but the residue energy of the thing was damned uncomfortable. He could hear Schneider laughing, all too pleased with his timely save of his black flag. It was not hard to track him. All one had to do was follow the skid mark Kall's shield had left and it pointed a straight line to the enemy flag and the hence the enemy who had gone to retrieve it.
Sasarix Codalla-Lorotus. He spoke the incantation, filled with a sudden determination not to let Schneider get his flag quite so easily. A great howling wind swept through the wood -- one could only hope none of the ninja were about -- and seemed to snatch up every bit of snow, rock and not unfirmly attached piece of wood and hurl it with hurricane force towards the annoying laughter. That stopped it. He climbed to his feet, dripping melted snow and mud, thoroughly disgusted at the great fun, Gara and Schneider had insisted this divertissement would be.
He took a step forward. Every tree standing was coated with a thick layer of blown snow and debris. Fire burst out of a particularly large lump of it in the center of the path, fanning out in a spiracle globe that melted snow and singed wet bark and pine needles. Schneider burst out, clutching the black flag triumphantly in his hand.
"Take it if you can." He taunted. Kall narrowed his eyes, waved a finger and the soaked flag froze solid in Schneider's fingers.
"Ow." Schneider yelped, the freeze stinging his hand where he held the flag. He dropped it and it hit the ground, shattering into a hundred tiny, frozen black pieces of cloth. He glared at Kall. "The object was to take the flag, not destroy it. You really don't play very well. But, hey, it means all I have to do is get yours and I win."
He waggled his fingers and a sheet of wind, static with electricity swirled up between them. Kall shielded his eyes with a hand, not bothering with a shield since the maelstrom was not directed at him. When it was gone, so was Schneider. Fine. Let him plague Gara for a while.
He went looking for his horse, which had fled to who knew where once the air was rent with magic. Horses in general had a distaste for things of arcane nature. Wise creatures. He used a little spell to banish the dirt and water from his clothing as he walked. His horse had stopped its mad fight across the forested hill and stood watching him warily as he stomped through snow up to his knees to reach it. He patted its thick furred neck reassuringly and its ears twitched while it decided whether to forgive him for the fright or not. It decided on forgiveness after a little scratching under the forelock and pushed at his shoulder with its wet, dirty muzzle. It had been ferreting under the snow for edible bits of greenery.
He had ridden a little ways towards the edge of the forest when he felt the trimmer of magic in the air and heard the not too distant boom of explosive power. The ground trembled a little and the horse tossed its head uneasily. He calmed it with a pat and the pressure of his knees. Gara, he thought, releasing the power of the Murasume blade. Then a return volley and the sky through the foliage lit up briefly. He came out of the trees and into a whirlwind of snow and energy. He saw glimpses of ninja springing for cover in the trees. If Gara had appropriated the red flag, Kall couldn't see it on his person, but Schneider was in the midst of overwhelming him all the same.
One couldn't very well sit there and watch one's side be routed and not do something about it. He whispered the first lines of an incantation, deciding how he would direct the spell when it came to fruition. It was much harder to play at battle than it was to engage in the real thing. One had to curb the deadliness of spells and still defeat an enemy and that was a frustrating dilemma. He brought his hands together and wove a symbol in the air. Faint lines of luminescence trailed in the path his fingers made. The air coalesced between Schneider and Gara, rebuffing the last strike made by the Ninja Master with neat efficiency. It thickened and thickened, creating a wall that snaked around the spot on which Schneider stood. He was obscured by the hardening layers. It was a conical barrier of ice and energy pulled from the air itself. One could almost feel the moisture being sucked out of the air. It was open at the top and if Schneider chose to ignore the rules of the contest, he could have levitated out. Flames spilled over the rim, some twenty feet high, instead, eating away at the prison from within. It kept forming from the outside, growing in diameter as it did.
Kall rode towards Gara, still concentrating on the spell. "Do you have the damned flag?"
"Ours yes. Did you find his?"
"Yes."
"Do you have it?"
"No."
"Does he have it?"
"No."
Gara lifted both brows at him skeptically. "You're having a hard time grasping the concept of this game, aren't you?" He thrust the red flag at Kall with a grin. "Here you hold it, you've got better defenses than I do."
Kall really didn't want it.
His eye caught movement from the south. A rider was coming up the path from Sta-Veron at a fast pace. The wall of ice suddenly shattered outwards, overcome by tremendous force from within. Shards flew in all directions, pelting snow and trees and men. Gara sliced a chunk with the Murasume and staggered back a step as smaller pieces hit him. Kall threw up a shield to protect them both, but was distracted enough by the rider to let it down after the initial spray of shrapnel ceased.
"My Lord." The rider called out.
Force hit him from the side. Not magical, he might have sensed that, but pure physical impact that knocked him out of the saddle and into the snow with not inconsiderable weight pressing him down into the white. Schneider leered down and Gara got knocked back by a wave of concussive energy when he came to help. Kall got an arm across the throat and the flag ripped out of his fingers.
"Mine." Schneider crowed triumphantly. He had the advantage of leverage and Kall couldn't quite manage to throw him off.
"Surrender?" Schneider demanded, pressing down. It was always a question of dominancy with him. Always a matter of impressing upon all the world and most importantly those closest to him that he was Alpha male. Leader of the pack of his making. Even his grin was wolfish. Kall did the only thing he could to get Schneider off him quickly and painlessly. He admitted defeat.
"You win. Get off."
Schneider laughed, rolling off and holding up the red flag in childish glee. The rider had come to a startled halt not far from them, staring at the ravaged land and the snow covered wizards with a white, shocked face. Gara came limping over, brushing snow from his hair.
"Lord Kall-Su." The rider swallowed, then drew breath and blurted out. "Marauders have attacked a village in the north in retaliation for the execution of their brethren. They left the heads of the villages at our gates."
"They did what?" Gara sputtered. Kall shut his eyes for a moment in consternation, fighting back a cold anger that made his fists clench. He sent troops to the south to guard against danger from that direction and it came in the form of vengeful bandits from the north. Bandits had always been a thorn in the side of honest towns and villages, but they had never dared to cast so blatant a challenge at the doorstep of the Ice Lord.
"Which village?" he asked.
"Thelda, my lord."
Thelda was a four day ride at best from Sta-Veron.
"When were these --gifts left for me?"
"Only this afternoon. The gate guards saw no one."
Which only meant that the bandits were good at their profession. But they could not have ridden far. If they were northern bandits then they would have ridden back towards the north. They might even have passed the pointless game Gara and Schneider insisted he engage in.
"Go back and see that the guard is doubled along the walls of Sta-Veron. Send a troop of men to Thelda to see what help might be given, if there are any left alive to help."
"Yes, my lord. And you. What shall I say you do, my lord? Mistress Keitlan and Lady Yoko were disturbed greatly by the message."
He glanced to Gara and Schneider. "Tell them we look for the marauder's trail."
"Better done from the air." Schneider said, when the rider had taken off again for Sta-Veron.
"Yes." Kall agreed grimly. "They would ride towards the mountains to the north. That is where they nest."
"Okay." Schneider uttered the words to a Raven spell and rose from the earth, cloak billowing about him. "This is better than war games." He remarked and was off over the forest and flying northward.
Kall didn't think so. Kall thought it was infinitely worse.
"I wish they'd come back." Yoko stood on the crenelated roof of the highest tower of Kall-Su's castle, bundled for cold weather, staring northward through a faint speckling of snow. "Or at least send word."
Keitlan stood beside her, shifting uncomfortably, looking highly uncomfortable at the sheer height of the tower. She stood well away from the edge and the sharp drop. The tower was at the back of the castle and itself helped form the northern wall of the city. Below - far far below -- was a snow covered rocky crevice. Yoko looked over the edge and Keitlan complained bitterly about the recklessness of the young.
"Men out hunting bandits don't have the time to send comforting messages." The house keeper said sagely. "They've other things on their minds."
"Its been five days. You'd think -- considering how much wizardly power they have at their beck and call -- they'd have caught a band of mere bandits already."
"Wizards or no, bandits are a sneaky lot. They'll know every hidey hole between here and the Northern Tundra. Will you come down from here now?"
With a sigh, she did. The stairs leading down were narrow and circled the wall of the tower. She could touch either wall with her hands as she climbed down. The stones were cold to the touch. Even in the stairwell her breath frosted in the air. Keitlan said another storm was on its way. Yoko was sorry to hear that, having enjoyed the short spurt of sunshine. She thought Schneider would be miserable out in the weather with a winter storm raging about him. She rather wanted him back where she could lay hands on him if she wished, chide him for his acid wit or his strutting ego, or just sit and watch him. No wonder she had been so miserable her first month here. It was one thing to miss him when she knew he would come back to her, and quite another when she thought she might never see him again.
She shed her winter cloak in her room, and warmed her hands and feet at the fire. Then she went downstairs to the hall to sit with the women while they did their sewing and mending and gossiped among themselves. She knew that when she was not present a fair deal of their gossip centered around her. She did not mind. They weren't spiteful as a general rule, not like the ladies at court in Meta-Rikan. They rather liked her, she thought. She liked them, plain, simple women, the wives of men-at-arms, the women who worked for a living in their lord's castle. They were by far more honest than the rich ladies of the court she had known.
She was sitting among them, stitching a patch over someone's tunic, when one of the stable boys came hesitantly into the hall, searching out Keitlan.
"What is it, boy. Get your muddy feet off the rug."
"Mistress Keitlan. One of the gate guards escorted a lady to the castle gates. She says she's looking for --- for the dark wizard. Master Kelben told her he wasn't here so she asked for Lord Gara."
"And you told her he wasn't here as well, didn't you?" Keitlan said in exasperation.
"She said she'd wait."
Yoko's hands had frozen in their work. She stared at the needlework in shock, mind whirling with the certain suspicion of who such a lady might be.
"Well, she'll have a long wait if they don't come back before this storm. They're likely to be snowed in. See what she wants."
"She wanted to see his lordship's guests, lady." The boy said, as if Keitlan hadn't heard that the first time.
"Let her in." Yoko said softly. Keitlan looked at her questionably. Yoko shook her head. "She's more than likely come a long way. Let her in out of the cold."
Keitlan shrugged and waved the boy off. He scampered out of the hall, and not long after, the doors were opened again and he returned leading a heavily cloaked, hooded form. Gloved hands rose to push the fur lined hood back, revealing black hair and gracefully pointed ears. Some of the women murmured at the sign of elfin blood. Yoko just closed her eyes and tried to control the fear that hammered at her heart.
"And who might you be? A friend of lord Schneider and Gara?"
The dark head turned slowly, taking in the hall, finally resting on the housekeeper who had stood and walked towards her.
"I am." Soft voice, a flickering of amber eyes under thick lashes. Nervous to be here, then.
"Well, they're out chasing bandits with my lord Kall-Su and the fates only know when they'll get back."
The eyes swung past Keitlan and fixed on Yoko, who stared back with wide tremulous orbs of her own. "Arshes Nei." She said quietly and the women whispered, having heard that name in their discussions about Yoko and her affairs.
She rose, because she could see no other path for her to take, and inclined her head respectfully to the other woman. Arshes merely stared at her, unmoving. Under the cloak that dragged the floor was the glint of bone colored armor.
"Its bad weather for traveling." Yoko said, for lack of anything else to say. Arshes said nothing, never one for trivialities. Why are you here? Yoko wanted to cry, but she knew. She knew all to well.
"Well, Lady Nei." Keitlan said, her lips pressed tight in disapproval. "I'll be certain to let them know you were looking for them when they get back. Good day to you."
"All right." Arshes said, and turned to leave. There was such a look of uncertainty on her face, of disappointment and pain that Yoko's since of pity was pricked and badly so.
"Wait. Arshes, wait. Come in and sit by the fire. It's getting bitterly cold out and I've heard the inns are full of soldiers and trappers weathering the winter in the city." She could not picture Arshes Nei sleeping in a stable and that was likely the only space left what with the storm approaching.
"There's -- there's room here for you -- if you want to wait for their return."
The half-elf lowered her eyes, she shifted and one could hear the sounds of buckles and armor protesting. "I would not wish to impose on Kall-Su's hospitality."
Keitlan sniffed. Yoko cast the woman a warning glance. This was a lord of havoc standing in their hall and not a stable one from the look of her. "You wouldn't be. You know you wouldn't be. Keitlan, would it be too much trouble to make a room up for her?"
"Oh, hardly none at all." The woman said tightly.
Yoko's head was spinning. Her stomach rebelled. If she stopped to think what she was doing, she would start screaming at herself for being a fool. For inviting the woman Schneider had loved before he ever knew her, under this roof. But, for those very same reasons, how could she not? If that love was destined to take precedence over her own, then she could not stop it. Could not drive it away.
So there she stood, nervously babbling, while the women by the fire whispered behind their hands and the Thunder Empress stared at her as if she where some insect that she would just as soon squash as express gratitude for the charity. She didn't know of a sudden, whether she wanted Schneider to hurry back or stay indefinitely out in the wilderness.
"This is damned annoying." Schneider glared up at the sheets of driving white snow that obscured what should have been a daylight sky. Now there was nothing but gray and white and biting cold. He was tired of warming himself arcanely. He had been doing it a week straight now and it was starting to wear like a migraine pressure behind his eyes. When he let the spell slip away he was cold and miserable and quickly became cranky because of it. He didn't know how Gara and his ninja's tolerated it, not being creatures of the cold north. Kall, he understood. Kall had an affinity for cold and ice, just as he had an affinity for fire based things. The cold did not particularly bother Kall. Schneider hated it with a growing passion. He hated these northern mountains which made the southerly ones he had crossed getting to Sta-Veron look inviting and gentle in comparison. The God's Tooth range was a gaping, sharp toothed maw waiting to swallow any fool enough to tempt its heights. They weren't attempting the heights, they were barely in its foothills, but it was enough to sour Schneider on any desire to venture further up those slopes.
He was at the point where he could have cared less about the bandits they had been tracking over this desolate land. It had stopped being fun some days ago when the storm had hit. They almost had them. Kall promised they did, claiming that no mundane man could ascend into the range during such a storm. Which meant the marauders had to be holding up somewhere waiting for it to pass, which was what they should have been doing. But, no, they had to delve into the storm to find the hidey hole before the bandits could leave it and disappear up the mountain. So they were all out in the storm, looking for sheltered spots where a group of men might hide. If he found those unfortunate men, they were going to be so very sorry for inconveniencing him.
There was a broad ice filmed lake almost indistinguishable from the color of the air that sat at the foot of a tree studded rise. The upper half of the slope was camouflaged in snow and storm, making it unclear how high it rose. Across the lake there was a tiny flare of fire magic. He might not have felt it at all, had not he been thinking about recasting the warmth spell himself. It was weak and untrained, the efforts of someone with small talent and even less ability to use it correctly. But it was very obviously the efforts of a man. And none of the men who accompanied him had a talent for creating fire.
He rose from the saddle of his horse with a whispered spell and soared through the snow high enough above the lake to scan the expanse of shoreline. The spell had come from the shore, he was certain of it. A protected cave hidden among the rocks, or even a campsite nestled among the trees. No matter, he would find it.
There, he sensed the crackling life a flame amidst all the endless snow and was drawn to it. There was the dark opening of a cave overlooking the frozen surface of the lake. He sat down before it, dropping the shields that had been protecting him from the onslaught of snow. Flakes gathered in his hair, almost invisible against the silvery white strands. He stepped into the cave, having to bend just a little to clear the ceiling. There was a faint flickering light coming from within it. The smell of smoke and fresh blood; the low voices of men. He strode down the narrow mouth of the cave, avoiding obstacles in the near dark. A group of men, maybe six, sat around a fire. There was the newly gutted corpse of a young boar on the ground before the fire. They were working on skinning the thing, eager to get the meat over the fire. Schneider crossed his arms and stood at the edge of the light, wondering how long it would take them to realize they were not alone. He got bored with the game finally and added a little extra energy to the fire. It flared up like a jug of hard liquor had been dumped into it, spreading out to lick at feet and and hands too near it. There were yelps of surprise as men scrambled back. One of them backed almost into Schneider's legs. The man looked up. Schneider looked down and smiled.
"If you're going to make a fire. Make a fire." He parted with that bit of wisdom a moment before the small cave was filled with the sound of weapons being drawn and men uttering curses and threats. They were most certainly a surly, mean looking lot. Grizzled and heavily bearded, smelling of rancid foods and improperly cured skins. They were prickly with weapons, swords, axes, knifes, clubs with curved hooks attached to their ends, gloves with metal claws banded about the knuckles. A veritable sea of sharp, hurtful weapons aimed at him.
The first three to reach him simply exploded as if someone had planted bombs in their stomachs. Body parts spattered everything but Schneider who had deflected the mess from himself with a shield. The others were stupid enough to follow in the footsteps of their comrades and two of them passed out of this life in the same grisly manner as the others. The last merely lost the hand holding the spiked club. His cries of attack were suddenly reduced to screams of purest agony as he held a profusely bleeding stump to his chest.
Six of them. Six was certainly not the extent of a group that had taken out a village that Kall said had been home to more than forty folk. So the six were only the emissaries of a larger group that had probably never left the mountains. Not good. He did not wish to traipse further into the wilderness after bandits that were probably more elusive than these had been. What needed to be done, was impress upon the bandits to mend their ways. And one needed a spokesmen to carry the suggestion to his fellows. This fellow with the blood pumping from his stump would have to do.
"Let's cauterize that, shall we?"
Flesh began to sizzle, the screams grew more frantic. The man crumpled to his knees, on the verge of passing out. Schneider caught him by the back of the collar and dragged him out of the cave and down to the shore of the lake. Kall would probably have fits over this, but he didn't care in the face of all this miserable weather and the prospect of returning to the warmth of the castle.
He lifted the man off his feet and snarled into his face. "Do you know the trouble you've put me through? I'm sure you don't. I'm sure you have no notion of how perturbed I am to have to trek through this storm after you misbegotten, putrid, petty thieves. It was not a good thing you did, throwing heads at the gates of the Ice Lord's city. He is very upset about it. He has a strong sense of responsibility for the people who pledge him fealty, so he'll go to great efforts to keep it from happening again. I don't wish him to have to go to those lengths. I very much wish him and myself back under a decent roof with a decent fire burning and that will not happen unless I get your vow to hurry back to your fellows where ever they might be and let them know what will happen if I have to come back out here."
He dropped the bandit. The man hit the ground and landed on his rump, staring up with dark, slanted eyes filled with pain and fear.
"Don't you want to know what will happen?" Schneider asked when the bandit didn't. The man slowly shook his head, cradling his arm.
Schneider shrugged. "Well you're going to find out." He formed a triangle with his thumbs and forefingers and chanted the ancient words of an incantation. The bandit was too terrified to back away. It was no minor spell. He needed an impressive enough display for the man to witness that would scare him enough to spread the word fervently to his fellows that a great and angry power would descend upon them should they attempt another strike of retaliation against Kall-Su's people.
The surface of the lake began to crackle. A sheet of black energy began to swirl about the surface, gathering in an ever expanding sphere at the lake's center. He spoke the last word of the spell and light flared. A vortex of energy exploded outwards from the black sphere, thrashing the shore with enough backlash to bend and break trees. Schneider shielded himself and the hapless bandit. The man screamed and threw his arms over his face regardless as the lake evaporated and the clouds overhead were blown away by the force, leaving the sky a clear gray pallet in a large area over the lake. Or what had been the lake. There was nothing there now but a deep, muddy pit of earth where water had once been, but now steamed and hissed as the cold air come into contact with its superheated surface. The clouds rushed to fill the void they had been forced from. Schneider dusted his hands off and turned an expectant look to the petrified bandit.
"Well? Do we understand each other? Speak up, I don't have all day and neither do you. Lord Kall -Su will probably be here soon and he'll not be so inclined to let you go about your business as I."
"I -- I understand, my lord. There will be no further strikes. We won't bother you again, I swear it."
"Excellent. Go on then."
The bandit scampered off. Schneider forgot about him as soon as he disappeared and turned to survey his handiwork.
"What is this?" Kall-Su stared aghast at the great gaping pit that had once housed a lake. He stared at Schneider, who leaned against his horse, his cloak pulled tightly about him not far from the edge of the former lake.
"It's a big hole in the earth, Kall. What do you think it is?"
Kall clearly did not know what to think. There were ninja melting out of the forest, drawn out of their habitual hiding by curiosity to actually see the anomaly Schneider had wrought.
"Was there a reason -- or was it merely a impulse?" Gara kicked a rock down the now frozen mud at the side of the great cavity.
Schneider arched a brow at him. "The bandits are gone. At least the ones who dropped the heads on your doorstep, Kall."
"You found them?" Kall turned on him sharply. "You killed them?"
"Mostly."
"I needed them alive. At least long enough to tell me where their fellows winter camp is."
"Don't worry about it, Kall. I took care of it."
"How did you take care of it?" Gara wanted to know. Kall was frustrated enough to snap his mouth shut and glare silently.
"I let one of them live and explained in detail what would happen if they bothered anything of yours again." He gave Kall a look that clearly said he expected gratitude not glares.
"Hence the lake?" Gara deduced. "Your little way of getting the point across."
"It seemed to make an impression."
"I'm sure it did."
"They won't honor it." Kall said. "They don't think that way."
"Oh, you'd be surprised what a well placed fear can do. How do you think I molded the beast-men into an army all those years ago? Give me a little credit for being able to put the fear of Me into the minds a handful of bandits. So, now we can go back. You want to go back, don't you Gara?"
"I'm dying to get back."
"See, your outnumbered. I've solved your problem and now we're going to all go back to your nice warm castle and hibernate until the snow stops. The snow does stop, doesn't it?"