The Emeraldwind Chronicles: Awakening

by Alfarif

Based on the game Asheron's Call, we find Emeraldwind, a woman who willingly left the planet of Ispar for Auberean, caught in a race against time to stop the mounting armies of Drudge, Burun, and Grudge against the shelter dwellers as they make their home

The Emeraldwind Chronicles: Awakening

By Emeraldwind Orion (Warren Stallworth)

Chapter 1

I was fifth daughter in a line of six, not quite the baby and not old enough to be taken seriously. My father was a gilder by trade, but his reputation and business were so large he was able to pursue other interests while others earned money for him. And my mother was his lovely pretentious, superficial wife who prided herself on being a socialite of the highest caste. And she expected the same of her daughters. Unfortunately, for me, I was born with other pursuits in mind; instead of being wealthy and obtaining power through the feudal government I lived in were not part of them. I was born Emeraldwind Alizebeth Orion, named after one of my father's favorite gems as well as a continued tradition that he and my mother had started with my eldest sibling Sapphirewind, on a planet that many lovingly referred to as Ispar, in a land known as Aluvia. Born to a wealthy, noble family, I had the pleasure of watching endless bickering over petty matters of state take center stage while important matters such as famine, disease, and increasing poverty went unaddressed. It seemed I was the only one born into wealth who cared about more than that same wealth.

Unlike my sisters, I loved being outdoors; escaping into the vast countryside I called home, to explore the hills, valleys, rivers, mountains, and lakes of that beautiful land. I would stay away for days at a time, enjoying nature. The only time I was ever missed were during my mother's fancy social parties where all of my sisters would parade around for the unwedded lords within our lands, hoping to be married off and gain, for my family, more wealth and power. I would return home after being in my personal heaven for days on end only to have degradation and scorn at my doorstep for not following dutifully in my mother's golden footsteps.

Though the majority of my family were too self-involved to see passed their own slender, pointed noses, I did have one friend; my sister one degree my senior, Rubywind. Like myself, Rubywind was grounded, able to see where the common man stood, but she was also able to play the little socialite on cue. Unlike both my other sister's and myself, she took pride in learning things that women were discouraged from participating in: the fighting arts. She had become a seasoned fencer and macer, and though our mother was apprehensive about her dangerous activities, she chose to view them with a blind eye, as Ruby could be the noble daughter she wanted each of us to be. And unlike the others, she respected who I was as a person and a sister.

I remember the day I left with vivid detail. After a particularly frustrating evening at dinner, I had reached my wits end when dealing with my mother, my sisters, the household, and the endless schemes, scorn, and degradation thrown my way in an effort to mold me into the cowed, coached, and witless woman that they wanted me to be. A heated argument, coupled with a ban from me leaving the manor, drove me into a frenzy of verbal abuse directed at my mother. My father, like always, silently sat by watching the whole thing. I removed myself from the room and went to my quarters. Later in the night, I visited Ruby's apartments and told her of my plan. By the determined look on my face, not to mention my pack, bedroll, and other things ready to go, she knew there was no point in trying to stop me. I was ready to be on my own. The last thing she told me was, "Emerald, you and I are kindred spirits. We are destined for great things; we are the shapers of this great world we call home. This is not goodbye, because I will see you again. This is only good luck and happy exploring." It would be years before I ever saw her again.

I left that night and never looked back. I stole a horse from the stables and rode south; towards lands that I had heard about but never had the chance to visit. Being out in the world was both invigorating and enlightening. Though I was only seventeen, I was mature beyond my years. What little savings I had stashed away for years helped me replenish needed supplies for my travels and all of the knowledge I had gained from my time with nature helped me save every last scrap. I tried to spend as little time amongst people as I could and, instead, chose to endure the elements underneath rock overhangs and cone pines instead of the confines of a dry inn. This way there were few questions asked and far fewer questions answered.

Six months passed and I found myself nestled comfortably in a mountain range that bordered the forested lands of the Sho, a people whose customs were rooted in honor and whose culture was strict and poignant. I had been spending my time documenting the local flora, finding the correct leaves, roots, and flowers that had properties with which I was familiar, when I made the discovery that would forever change my life. Crouching at the edge of a precarious rock outcropping, I stared into a valley between two great peaks. Even from the distance I was at, where it would take me yet another hour to reach what I watched, I could both see and hear it. Its surface reminded me of a river bubbling over and into itself continuously while the noon sun played a symphony of light on it. Yet, I knew it wasn't water. It hovered above the forest floor and its tarnished silver color lent it an unnatural aura. But the sound is what drew my attention immediately to its location. It was a shrill, siren-like call, seeming to hum in a distinct way that seemed keenly favorable to me. I had to get closer.

I descended the slope, taking care to follow a path that switched back and forth on the face of the mountain, using smooth rock edges as handholds, until I found myself in the valley. From memory I traversed the distance to the object using landmarks I had made in my mind to coordinate myself to its exact location. When I came around the fat trunk of a tall oak, I froze. It stood only a short distance in its river-like tarnished stasis. I could clearly see it was a sphere-shaped object with depth. The light I previously thought came from the sun, didn't. It, instead, came from within the object itself. It still sang with all the clarity and persistence that I had first heard.

I found myself only arms length away from it when I was sure I hadn't moved. No animal came near and no birds sat in the canopy of leaves high above in curiosity. There was only me and the constant motion of the thing before me. Curiosity had given way to apprehension, which had given way to a quiet, peaceful reflection. I found myself drifting into a series of memories, all showcasing a specific, yet important and enlightening situation I had been through. From my mother's constant prattling, to the way my father threw himself into his work and pursuits with wild abandon, to Ruby and her smile. And then I found myself not only remembering these things but staring into the object and seeing them displayed before my eyes. And then, almost as if to read my mind, it showed me plains and valleys, hills and rivers, beaches and oceans, plateaus, cities, and people, all foreign to me, that I longed to explore, I longed to be a part of. Fauna I had never seen, roaming, and flora I had never seen, growing. Adventure. I knew this object was my portal to those things I saw and I knew it was calling for me to step into it, to go to those things. I put my hand out and watched as it slowly faded and my fingertips drifted away in a cloud of energy. And without hesitation, I walked through.

Chapter 2

The first person I met was a man who went by the name of Dirk Phoenix. I was disoriented when I first landed in a little town known as Yanshi, but there he stood, leaning against a signpost, wiling the time away with a thick tome. As soon as I landed, he neatly tucked it under his arm, glanced behind me at the portal I had fallen through, nodded to himself, then proceeded to help me up. He explained to me that I was in Dereth, one of several, but the only Isparian explored, continents on a planet known as Auberean. Though by instinct and habit I was distrustful of anyone I didn't know, I listened. I had, after all, stepped into a different place and left all semblance of my previous life behind.

Dirk was kind enough to be my guide on that first day and put me up for the night. His intentions toward me were never more than what I needed before I was on my own two feet, but I found myself strangely taken by him and spent increasingly more time at his side. I came to learn that he was a mage, which I highly respected since magery on Ispar was a complicated profession that few ever pursued. He even told me that what I once was astonished by in Ispar concerning magery was old hat and simple parlor tricks in Dereth. They were able to unlock techniques that would put even the most scholarly Isparian mage to shame.

He was a specialist mage, concentrating in the arts of war and medicine. He told me how he had once been an apprentice on Ispar before he came to Dereth and how his study only intensified as soon as he came to the new world. Under his guidance, I began learning the ways of magic, something I had never dreamed of pursuing back on Ispar. And through his knowledge, I learned much.

We found that my strengths lay in several areas of magic, those being the arts of battle such as he but, also, the way in which I used mana. During tests, we found that I consumed less mana than he did while using spells of the same strength. He said that he had studied many of the techniques some of the higher circle mages used, in which they could use significantly less stores of mana and personal energy to expel their spells, resulting in more time in the field. And my strengths lay in the same areas.

Under Dirk's study, I became a renowned mage in many facets of the Derethian mage establishment, advocating more study on the process of using less mana than I felt necessary for many of the specific spells mages had been using for years. I had many detractors who pointed towards my teacher and education rather than my own personal findings and tried to use their prestige to push their positions. I didn't let it bother me and continued my seminars and findings.

I met a woman by the name of Kigaru Misei during some time I spent in Baishi on one of the local digs I was conducting, trying to find tomes concerning mana management studies. She was a woman about as tall as myself, maybe only an inch taller, with dark red hair. Her green eyes belied her Sho heritage but complimented the rest of her. She was a student of the Hand, choosing to use her body as her weapon rather than steel or mind. Her story was tattered and shaky, with loose ends running rampant and secret alcoves with hidden treasures. What I did come to find was that she never came to Dereth; she was born there. And she had had problems with the Virindi, a race of beings that experimented, tormented, and relentlessly destroyed other species they deemed tainted, including Isparian. Several of her friends had met hideous fates as experiments to "better" their anatomy. Kigaru was mysterious but that mystery would soon catch up to her and pull me into a web that I would likely never get out of.

Kigaru urgently contacted me on my crystal one night while I was sleeping and told me of a plot the Virindi had to destroy several specific elements the Isparians needed to survive in this new world. The most important were the lifestones. I woke Dirk and we traveled to Baishi through the night, shortening the trip thanks to the portal system devised by Asheron, the last Yalain mage whose portal I had first step through to this brave new world. Arriving, the three of us quickly suited up and traveled to a location where we were to meet several of Kigaru's long time friends, members of an organization she had long ago established to try to deal with such threats. I met Alfarif, a man who had once been Kigaru's lover, Chin-wa, a Sho man whose skill with the blade was only out-matched by his charm, and Nerraw, a man who once was Kigaru's hired appraiser. Each was formidable in their own right, from blade, to staff, to magic, and with the six of us, a team was born.

When we entered the chambers where Kigaru said the Virindi were meeting, we formulated a plan to ambush them, and eradicate their Derethian forms, sending their energy back into the Singularity. With each of us in a different quarter of the laboratory, we silently watched, sending small cues to one another as the meeting started and came to an abrupt end. Dirk was marched out from a side room where he had been hiding and stood before the four Virindi meeting. In a flash of anger and desperation, I leapt from my corner of the room and sent balls of flame roiling towards the four masked shrouds in the center of the room.

As desperately as we fought, we could not save Dirk. The Virindi had learned an important secret that would soon be the death of our kind: a soul could be detached from a lifestone and a human could be killed in the traditional way. What we didn't know is that Dirk had already been detached. And in the midst of the fray, was slain. We hadn't been worried at first but when he didn't answer our requests, we feared the worst and only, later, learned the frightening truth. What we didn't know at the time was that the Virindi had also done something else: planted the spawn of an experiment they were conducting in which they could turn Isparians into the undead without the traditional dark magic rituals of the Falacot and Dericostians. Dirk, in his undead state, haunted me. As I was his lover in life, I would, too, be his lover in death. And his power had grown from both the spawn and his inhuman state. In an epic battle spanning weeks, with the entire continent of Dereth as our battlefield, Kigaru, Alfarif, Chin-wa, Nerraw, and myself finally destroyed Dirk Phoenix, but not without considerable cost; the lives of Alfarif and Nerraw.

Chin-wa was badly injured and bed-ridden for months before he was healed enough to begin walking again. It would be longer before he was exploring and swinging his sword. Kigaru was unscathed. And that was when I found out her terrible history. A spawn of the dark Bael'zharon, Kigaru had been an experimental troop during the Great War thousands of years ago that graced Auberean. And in that same Great War, she had been put into stasis. It erased her memory and, only several thousand years thereafter, she rose and walked Dereth without a single memory of her past. It wasn't until after she formed the group known as Jade Blossom that her past, through altercations with the Shadow and a personal meeting with the exiled General Isin Dule, unraveled. And she described to me, in vivid detail, how and why the Virindi were such a personal menace and opponent to her and her cause. A threat that needed to be exterminated. A threat, that if not, spelled the end of all existence.

Chapter 3

I had no chance to fight back. In bed, still healing from the injuries I sustained, I could do nothing but watch as they silently invaded my home. Kigaru tried to hold them off but was no match, lying frozen on the floor. Their leader, his mask different from the others, hovered over me. He put the tip of his shroud towards my face and as I stared into his eye slits, I thought I saw a glint of energy, light, and then the world went black.

When I awoke, I was upside down in a web of energy. Kigaru was at my side. Her eyes were closed and her limbs hung limply towards the ground. I tried to call her name but received no response. I watched as a group of Virindi did a debilitating experiment to a mosswart. As its limps went slack, I knew they had failed. I knew that we would suffer the same fate on that table. When they approached, they righted us and studied us from beyond the web of energy. They spoke to me inside my head and I was able to answer them in short snippets before they stopped my thoughts. They then woke Kigaru and did the same procedure to her.

Kigaru and I were unable to speak or look at each other as we were pulled from the light webs and slid across the room atop tables of energy that held us above the ground. When the Virindi stopped, they put us on altars, the same ones on which they had done the experiments with the mosswart. They interrogated me again and did the same with Kigaru, allowing us to hear each other's answers. It was a demoralizing experience.

I heard an explosion and then felt white-hot light slash over me. My binds shattered. I managed to sit up enough to see that Shadows had flooded into the room, battling with the Virindi. Instruments of precision were destroyed, eradicated, and mutilated by any Shadow that came near them. I knew it was the renegade sect of Isin Dule's troops who had come, sent because of a plea Kigaru had given out when we last were in my home. I helped Kigaru up and we both hobbled into a corridor to rest. The battle continued, the Virindi joined by their various loyal experiments and minions. Kigaru and I made our retreat, going deeper into the complex in search of a portal that would lead us further away from the fighting.

When we reached the bottom, we stumbled onto a machine that would change the course of my history forever. It was fashioned out of the lifestone crystals, a sort of permanent resurrection system. And the minions guarding it were the dead that the Virindi had stolen and changed into false undead. And their captain was Dirk. He led the attack on us but we were joined by Shadows, who valiantly fought the Virindi undead with everything they could muster. In the heat of battle, one of the Shadows managed to hit the machine and generate a discharge of energy. The machine began to rip the entire complex apart.

Kigaru and I tried, in our weakened states, to make it out alive but we couldn't. The Shadow, battling both the false undead and the Virindi, were too busy to help us to the surface and both the Virindi and undead were too busy battling to pay us any attention. As ceiling stones fell around us, Kigaru and I both collapsed in a hallway. We stared into each others eyes and embraced for the last time. She apologized for everything that had happened with the Virindi and I forgave her. And then I asked for the same forgiveness and she granted it. We saw the light before we felt it; white with the hint of prismatic colors on its outer edges. It twinkled and poured over us. I looked back at her and said 'Thank you' before the whole world went blinding white and then black.

Rain pelted the wooden overhang shielding her from the rapid downpour that had come with the gray overcast day. She let out a sigh, intertwining her fingers together after hooking her fiery red hair behind both of her ears. She leaned back, waiting, watching. He walked casually through the rain, as if it weren't there, wearing the traditional garb of a warrior of his station. One hooked sword fastened to his belt, the other his hand with the broad side on his shoulder, his gait was confident, seemingly arrogant, the way his race seemed to think of themselves. She traced his bulk with her eyes. Several heads taller and wider than her with more muscle than any she had ever seen. It wasn't a surprise that he was as ferocious a warrior as any she had known.

He stepped under the overhang, dodging a few of the wooden chairs and came to stand at her table. His eyes were set back in his gray head and she could detect no noticeable pupils but she knew when he was watching her. His thin, lipless mouth was devoid of both anger and humor. It was his standard, passive mood. He hooked his sword to the other side of his belt and bowed his head in his customary greeting before pulling the chair out opposite of her and sitting down.

She shifted her weight and crossed her legs under the table, watching his eyes with disinterest. "Good evening Hassan."

"Evening Emeraldwind." His voice was deep and commanding with a hint of friendly admiration.

"How does the day treat you?" She laced her own with a honey sweet accent. A corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.

"You enjoy that don't you? Pointing out the obvious; it's a terrible day to be out of doors." His humor captured his face and both sides of his mouth turned up into a smile before he leaned back in his chair and relaxed.

"I only enjoy doing it to you, my friend."

Emeraldwind would never have thought that she would be across the table from a lugian, talking to him in her native tongue. She never thought she would share information or alliances. And never thought she would call one a friend. But, then again, she never thought she would be alive.

"Yes, yes, baiting me only to strike me down with sarcasm. That's the way of your kind." Hassan folded his arms and smiled, letting out a deep rumbling grunt of appreciation. His dark eyes watched her face.

Emeraldwind crossed her own arms and tapped the tips of her fingernails against her jointed vambrace. She glanced off into the rain to watch a woman run from one awning to another talking to some of the crafters about their wares. She was one of the few. Emeraldwind's eyes turned back to Hassan. "So what did you find out?"

Hassan nodded and leaned forward, cupping his hands on the table, his fingers spread on each hand. His face took on an edge of distress. "It's as you first feared. It's the burun."

"I knew it." She ground her teeth and huffed as loud as she could to show her exasperation. "And is it exactly what I thought it was?"

The lugian nodded. "It is as you feared."

"Who is guiding their hand? The burun are neither smart nor organized enough to do this on their own. They may be able to extort the drudge into slavery, but how do they carry something this grand out?"

"I do not know the answer to that question. I only found the burun when I wove my way deeper into the inner chambers. Burun and shreth."

She tapped her fingers against the oak finish of the table, staring off at the lamp hanging on the inside poles holding up one of the four corners of the makeshift roof. It's soft orange light danced inside the glass chamber of the lantern. "Don't you agree? The burun can't do this on their own. They don't have the capabilities."

Hassan nodded. "I agree but, again, I don't know who is forcing them into this. I'm sorry."

Emeraldwind leaned forward and put both of her small hands in one of the lugian's large ones, holding onto the few fingers he had. Her eyes came up to meet his. "It's all right Hassan. You did everything you could. I would have gone myself but I couldn't get passed the front chambers guarded by the hunters. They were just too strong for me to handle."

He patted her hands with his other. "In time young gem, in time."

Emeraldwind leaned back again and turned her eyes out onto the bleak day. Clouds at the horizon moved slowly away towards the south east, towards the very land they were discussing. The sun, hidden by the storm clouds, gave off muted gray light, darkening her mood even more, along with the latest discoveries. She let out another sigh and turned her eyes back to Hassan. He watched her intently with his small, dark eyes and his silent mouth. He was as unreadable as he had ever been.

"Why do you always look at it?"

"Because it's strange for one of your kind to have done something that only tumerok do."

"I did it because it was suggested and because it's in remembrance of…"

"Of your past and what you have lost. I know, little gem, you have told me many times." He finished for her. She nodded and folded her hands on the table between them, watching her fingers.

"If you had lost everything, found out your entire history happened while you slept, and then awoke to find the entire world changed… I think you would have made the same choices I did."

Hassan's hand came out to hold hers in compassion. "I do not know anything of your previous world. I only know of this one we are now in. This is the world we know and the world we live in and in this world, you are still valuable and cherished. Not only by my self, but by the many who are fortunate enough to know you."

She swallowed the lump in her throat and measured him with her pale green eyes. She didn't know what it was about Hassan but she knew he always seemed to be able to read her and poetically administer the right words she needed to hear. He was her anchor.

"Thank you Hassan."

"My pleasure, gem." The corners of his square mouth turned up again in his odd lugian smile. He shifted his weight and tilted his head to the side of the table, glanced at the floor and then frowned.

"I don't always keep him next to me. He likes to play as well." Emeraldwind put two fingers between her lips and blew, puffing her cheeks out. She made no sound but blew in a series of short clipped puffs before finishing. "If I didn't let him play as often as he does, he would be angry with me."

"I was only concerned because he is your constant companion. I have never seen you two separated." Hassan rubbed his thumb on the hilt of one of his blades.

"Most of the time we aren't but there are rare times he… likes to be with his own kind for a bit. I let him go then. He always knows when to come back."

A pair of thin eyes stalked in from the rain, fur appearing as they moved further into the makeshift tavern. Longer hair rolled down the back in thick shafts, clawed feet clicking against the wooden floor. A mouth filled with elongated fangs faded into view followed by a long body and tail. The creature brushed against Hassan's leg while the giant ran his fingers down the back of the creature, playing with its tail as it passed by. It stopped by Emeraldwind, put its head on her lap and purred. She playfully ran her fingers through its fur and pet its head.

"I have never seen a lasher with more obedience and love for its owner than that one." Hassan commented.

Emeraldwind rose an eye to meet his and smiled. "That's because I'm not his owner. I'm his friend." She vigorously rubbed under the lasher's chin and he waggled a leg in the air in response. "Isn't that right, Wind Phoenix?"

Hassan chuckled and pushed his chair back to stand up. "Gem, I must be on my way. I have to get to Linvak Massif. I've been doing some investigating of my own on the gurog and their true intentions for working with the undead."

Wind Phoenix moved his head to let Emeraldwind stand up and she came around the table to stand in front of Hassan. "I'll see you again soon, right?"

The lugian smiled his odd lugian smile and touched her cheek with a finger. "Of course. I can't stay away from someone as special as you for too long."

She embraced Hassan and he gently embraced her. She laid her head against his stomach before she looked up into his small dark eyes. "Thank you for everything… I couldn't have done any of this without you. I'll be sure to let them know that you were the one who helped me with this. Hopefully we can move further now that we have this solid information."

"It was a pleasure, gem. Now, you get going so you can give them that information and I need to get back to the gurog." Hassan's eyes narrowed and he looked off in the direction of Linvak Massif. "For creatures who drove my ancestors away from their home, they don't put up too much of a fight." His grin returned and he looked back down at her. "Then again, they don't like it when someone my size decides to pay respects to the dearly departed."

Her lilting laughter floated out into the rainy day. "Get going you big brute and teach them a lesson they won't soon forget."

He nodded, unhooked one of his swords and stepped out beyond the protective overhang. "Until next we meet my little gem."

"Until next we meet. May the wind see you well and the mother comfort you always."

She leaned against one of the poles holding up the roof while she watched him walk away in the rain. His saunter was defiant, confident, and dangerous. She knew he had the muscle, knowledge, and technique to support that walk. Wind Phoenix rubbed his head against her leg and she reached down to scratch the top of his scalp. "Are you ready to go back home?" He purred in answer. "Then let us go. We have something that very well may solve this little mystery we find ourselves in."

Chapter 4

She stepped over another high root in the swampy wetlands. Wind Phoenix walked close by her side. Holding onto the stiff bark of a tree, she used the roots to walk across the water. She climbed up small rises that were provided with firm footholds and jumped down dips in the terrain where water eroded shelves into the land. Her terrain. Her home. She checked her swords secured conveniently and safely in the scabbards at her back fastened under her armor. She hooked her hair behind her ears again and climbed down another shelf in the terrain.

She didn't remember the last several centuries or anything that happened during them. She only remembered the blinding light and then darkness. The only other memory she had was awaking in a room, where holes in the walls let patches of sun hit the floorboards, while two tumerok hovered over her. They had revived her from her slumber. And more than five centuries had passed.

Over time she had slowly come to terms with the way the world was, learning that the home she once had called Dereth had broken into three distinct and different continents that, at one time, had been inhabited by the three mortal races of the world: the humans, the lugian, and the tumerok. Through both the people she met and the hidden vaults that were filled with knowledge, she came to understand that long after she had been asleep, there had been an age of great prosperity, where each of the three races rose up and allied with one another. Culture and enlightenment were in the ears and eyes of everyone. Until the great war began.

Emeraldwind stopped and listened to the sounds of the forest around her. She didn't hear anything that seemed odd, so she continued on, letting Wind Phoenix pick the route with his sense of smell, sight, and hearing.

Her tumerok companions, who cared for her when she first awoke, told her that the great war caused the continent of Dereth to shatter into the three separate continents that the world now had and that each of the three races ventured to a continent that met with their ideology and comfort. The tumerok found comfort in the forests, the valleys, the rivers, and nature and ventured to the lower southeastern end of Dereth that had broken away. In their tongue, they called it Omishan. The lugians had gone to the southwestern side of Dereth and named it Linvak Massif. And her kind had sought out Cragstone and named their land Osteth. She sat in bewilderment and horror as they recalled the stories of menace encroaching on each of the three lands, driven by an unseen deadly force. And, slowly, the menace drove them into the shelters.

Wind Phoenix stopped and Emeraldwind stopped behind him, crouching. She put a hand on the ground and another on the hilt of one of her swords, listening. Her eyes penetrated the gloom of the swampland, peering into crevices she knew no one who wasn't trained in her talents could see. Wind Phoenix purred and moved forward and Emeraldwind relaxed and moved behind him.

When she had been of health, she was brought before the oldest survivor of the shelters, a tumerok named Kheltet. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, touched her face and said 'You are one with the mother.' In confusion she asked what that meant. He didn't answer but, instead, drew designs on a papyrus scroll and held it before her. His voice was soft and he said 'This is your symbol. This is you. Wear it.' It took her a year before she finally understood.

Emeraldwind knelt next to Wind Phoenix and touched the moss covered rocks before her. She closed her eyes and stilled her mind. She let her breathing slow to a few shallow breaths. She felt herself reaching deep into her own spirit, pulling out what she needed. It radiated throughout her body and she squeezed the rocks beneath her hands in pain. As the stabbing pain reached an overwhelming apex, it dissipated and she took a few deep breaths. She opened her eyes and looked out at the world. Standing, she put her hand on Wind Phoenix.

"I'm ready, my friend. Let us go."

Wind Phoenix leapt down from the edge of the shelf they stood on and dashed across the plains below them. Emeraldwind watched him run before she leapt down and started after him.

She found that everything she had learned before under Dirk no longer worked. Magic had been changed in the great battles. She briefly studied under a few select mages and learned that the mana once running through the veins of the world was no longer accessible; it now took focus and personal energy to generate the magic people used. Her years of diligent study were wasted as she began anew. For months she tinkered away at the arts of magic, desperately trying to re-establish the knowledge she once held with a new perspective. She journeyed deep into dungeons, perusing hidden alcoves and libraries in search of vast stores of knowledge contained in tomes and scrolls from ages gone by. The day she stumbled onto the entrance of the old Cragstone library was also the day of her new ambition.

She let her finger glide along the spines of the books on the shelves, lifting off years of dust, until one caught her eye. The letters, gilded like the jewelry her father once made, still held their luster. Through the poor light of her torch she could see they were professionally worked. Pulling the book from the shelf, she silently read the title to herself – 'To Walk with the Wind.' She idly turned through the pages after setting the book down on a nearby table until a section caught her attention. The heading read, 'The Art of Calling Nature to Aid You.' She briefly read. The things she learned excited her and she found herself absorbed in the book, only noticing she had spent too much time in the buried library when her torch sputtered and died. Lighting her way with a flame above her palm, she wove her way to the surface and headed for her abode.

Wind Phoenix leapt from another shelf at the edge of the long marshy plains into a familiar tangle of brush, vines, and trees. Emeraldwind, not far behind, leapt after him, landing on the soft moss covered deadwood below. She lifted low hanging vines out of her way and stepped over fallen logs, following Wind Phoenix's familiar footprint.

The book possessed her ever-waking minute. She learned that with the correct sounds and technique, she could call the aid of one of the sentinels of nature to her aid. In her room, she experimented, first with low caste beetles whose loyalty she tried to win but failed. Yet, her unending drive towards perfection forced her to continue and explore the contents of the book further. She read, thoroughly, the arts of calling and found herself favoring the lasher as a companion for its undying, unquestioned loyalty and obedience as well as its ferocity when faced with adversity. After weeks of study, she stood in the center of her room in the building she shared with her two tumerok companions, book balanced on her forearm with the page open to the section she needed. With her fingers between her lips, she blew, feeling the air pierce and flow from the opening. And then she silently waited.

His eyes were the first things to appear, fading into view, watching her. His fangs followed next and then his body, with his tail casually swishing as it appeared. He watched her with remarkable intelligence. She tilted her head to the side and he did the same, studying her. She broke into a smile. She pointed a slender, pale finger at him. "You are one with the wind." She heard him purr softly in satisfaction. "Like a phoenix, you rise again from the ashes, borne anew." His crystalline blue eyes continued to watch her. "You are Wind Phoenix." His soft fur tickled her leg when he rubbed against her and she went to a knee, running her fingers down his length. She met his eyes again and held them in her gaze. Eyes that, she knew, would forever protect her.

She trained with him over the months, teaching him simple ways to communicate his desires to her and respond to hers. They showed their ferocity during training, pulling back only enough to avoid harm to the other. As the months wore on, she found that his attacks easily penetrated her defenses where once they hadn't. She read deeper into the book, more interested in the various ways of the wind, finding that those who walked with the wind favored the art of the blade and the art of the bow over the art of the mind. She acquired several blades of her own and with Wind Phoenix's help, learned to manipulate them in the deadly manner she had seen others use. They set up targets and, when not training against one another, would compete to hit the targets in the center. Time passed and during training with him she found that she was able to penetrate his defenses where once she couldn't and block his attacks where once he would have come too close.

On a warm night, Emeraldwind and Wind Phoenix lay out under the stars. He curled up near her, his head against her side, purring contently with his eyes closed. She let thoughts slowly parade through her head, remembering the life she once lived before her sleep, and the life she found herself living after her awakening. She remembered Kheltet and his words and the things she found after being confident enough to move beyond her bedchambers. Tracing the stars with her eyes, she let the thoughts continue where once she would have blocked any recognition of her past. She tumbled through the pain and longing of decades past and the loss of everyone she once knew, searching out a spark of understanding. Her loss, her change, the world. She connected lines between the stars with her eyes. A wave of cold realization slammed into her. She sat up, still staring at the stars. Wind Phoenix rose next to her, his crystal blue eyes playing on her face. The understanding washed over her and a smile captured her face. She traced the symbol into the stars again, the same symbol that Kheltet had drawn for her on the day he met her. It was her symbol. It was her meaning. It was her new life.

Wind Phoenix trotted to the base of a fat tree deep inside the enveloping marsh, rubbing his side against it in a gesture of familiarity. Emeraldwind stepped behind him and put her hand on the bark and gazed into its canopy of leaves high above. A pair of rope bridges draped between three trees, each one leading to a circular arrangement of planks around the wide trunks with log beams holding them high above the ground. Small huts in the center of the planks hid behind foliage tangled together. She smiled and patted the base of the tree. She bent to reach into the brush surrounding the tree to retrieve the rope that aided her in climbing into her home when something unsettling made her freeze. She listened for whatever seemed distinctly out of place. Without moving a muscle, she tapped the lasher's hindquarters in silent communication. She pulled her hand out of the brush and slowly pulled her swords from the scabbards strapped to her back. A survey of the ground around the tree revealed fresh boot prints that crossed her path not far ahead and disappeared on the other side of the fat trunk through a tangle of weeds and vines. She cursed herself for not being mindful as she returned home and letting her thoughts absorb her. Wind Phoenix shuffled behind her, moving towards the opposite side of the tree she was facing. She tapped her swords together. Their metallic ring hung in the air.

"I was careless coming back, but I won't be careless in dealing with you." She lined her voice with intentional threat. Wind Phoenix growled. "I want you to come around on this side of the tree with your back turned and your weapons sheathed. When you've done that, I will escort you away from here."

Emeraldwind waited. A soft breeze picked up, blowing the smell of swampy deadwood. She moved a strand of her fiery hair away from her eyes and groaned in frustration after several moments passed without activity. She tapped the lasher's flanks three times in silent communication before edging around towards the brush the boot prints disappeared into. A brief turn of her head revealed Wind Phoenix in position on the opposite side of the tree.

"I tried to be lenient. My patience is at an end. Now we do this the hard way."

She spun from around the tree and rushed the brush with her swords at attention, prepared for anything the perpetrator tried. She heard Wind Phoenix bound through the overgrowth on the other side. Her swords crashed against her intruder's, filling the swampy afternoon air with their distinct metallic cry. Arms locked, she growled, staring into his mud brown eyes. She noticed the fall of his black hair with the tip fading white. She yelled in rage and frustration when she saw his small defiant grin before pushing him away in anger. Annoyance etched on her face, she slid both her swords home in their scabbards.

"What is your problem!" Infuriated, she screamed at him. She put her hands on her hips to still their shaking.

He still wore his grin. His white teeth were a heavy contrast against his sun-baked skin. "Just trying to keep you on your toes, Emeraldwind."

Her hand came up, dictating her words. "I don't need anyone testing me. I'm not a child."

His hand drew her attention to the boot prints leading through the brush and hanging vines back the way she came. Only one eyebrow arched. "Oh?"

"It was one time, one mistake."

"One mistake is all it takes."

Emeraldwind sighed before putting her fingers in her lips to blow a silent whistle. "I know. I'm sorry."

Wind Phoenix trotted from around the trunk of the tall tree with another lasher at his hip. Its body was neither the length nor stature of her companion's but she knew the fangs were far longer and nastier than Wind Phoenix's. Wind Phoenix stopped next to Emeraldwind's side and silently waited. The man tapped his knuckles against his knee and the other lasher gracefully strolled to sit at his side.

"Sagra seems to like Wind Phoenix's companionship." He indicated the lasher at his hip.

Emeraldwind nodded and stroked Wind Phoenix's ear. His head leaned against her thigh and he purred in soft contentment. "She does and he enjoys hers as well. Much like us, wouldn't you say Wind Walker?"

Wind Walker grinned and let out a practiced chuckle. "Yes, I would say so."

"So what is it you're doing here?" Emeraldwind led him back around to the side she had been on, bent and retrieved the rope she sought. She looked up into the trees until she found the object of her desire and tossed the rope up. When it caught, she tugged to make sure of its security and waved for everyone to come closer to her. She wound the rope around her wrist and started to pull, ropes disguised as vines rising to pull taut against the missing slack. The wooden platform they stood on, hidden by false overgrowth, rose in the air inch by inch as she kept pulling.

Wind Walker steadied himself with a hand on one of the ropes. "When you told me you had a meeting with Hassan today, I surmised it would be about what the group needs investigated. I knew that you had had problems with the hunters and the most obvious person to employ thereafter to help is Hassan. I figured I would stop by and see how things went and make a report back to the group."

"You're right, I did meet with Hassan. And it was about that." Emeraldwind grunted as she kept pulling them higher into the trees, occasionally looking out over the forest floor. "But I didn't know the group needed an answer right away."

"The sooner, the better. If it's what we fear, we may need to employ yet another person to help carry out the objective."

The platform swayed as they rose to the top. Wind Walker and Sagra stepped off, standing in the middle of the circular wooden platform at the top of the trees. Wind Phoenix followed behind with Emeraldwind last, slowly lowering the platform back to the ground so it was hidden once again. She finally turned her full attention on Wind Walker. "It is what you fear."

Wind Walker sighed and gravely nodded. "Give me the full details."

Emeraldwind walked across one of the suspended bridges with Wind Walker following her. "Do you want the bad, the worst, or the disastrous?"

"Whichever will explain our recent discovery and the disappearing shreth on Osteth and Omishan."

Emeraldwind opened the door to the hut on the far platform, leading the three inside. Two circular windows gave a view of the surrounding wetlands. A dash of sky blue draperies lending a colorful vibe to the wooden room. A small two-person table with two hand-made chairs sat off to the side where a curl of blankets lay next to them. A single person bed sat at the other side of the room with the covers freshly made. Cupboards on both the floor and eye level decorated the wall across from the door. Wind Phoenix stepped across the room to the set of blankets bunched up on the far side. He pawed at them before laying down. Wind Walker tapped Sagra once, letting her lay next to Wind Phoenix, who happily shared his bunched up blankets with her. Emeraldwind slung her gear from her back and tossed it down near a floor cupboard, using her freedom to open the eye level cupboards and pull small wooden cups from them. She set the cups on the table and retrieved a wooden cannikin. She poured water from the cannikin in each of the cups then politely invited Wind Walker to sit down before sitting in front of him.

"The burun."

He blinked. "The burun?"

She nodded before picking up her cup and taking a drink. "The burun. That's what's causing it. Hassan said that when he got deeper into the complex, he found burun with the mutated shreth."

"Did he say what they were going to do with the shreth? Why they are being experimented on and, furthermore, how they are experimenting on them?" Wind Walker pulled his cup to his lips and took a drink, keeping his eyes above the rim to watch her face.

Emeraldwind shook her head and looked out the window next to the table. The day's earlier storm clouds drifted away towards the east to lands she had never seen. "No, only that it was them. He doesn't know what they're doing or how they are doing it. Or even, for that matter, how the burun are getting the shreth." She found his eyes again. "Shreth are notorious for being vicious and unyielding to any… even their own kind, save their offspring and pack. How the burun can so easily capture hundreds of shreth is beyond me."

The man opposite her leaned back in his chair and rubbed his smooth chin. He stared off in wonder while she waited for his response, spinning her cup in her hands and watching the clear liquid wave back and forth. He let out a long, low breath before he clasped his hands together. "Their poison. I've been observing them for a while, longer than I think is properly healthy, and I've discovered that their poison is able to severely slow the responses of its victim. They can easily immobilize anything, even a shreth, in a matter of seconds. That could very well be the way they are getting all the shreth."

Emeraldwind clicked her fingernails against the table's surface. "Very well could be. But then the next question to answer is how they are performing the experimentations and, furthermore, when, where, and how did they concoct a plan this devious?"

"I haven't the slightest." Thought lines creased his forehead. "And another problem needs to be considered."

"What's that?"

"This very well may not be the only place the burun are keeping or experimenting on shreth. We've already breached their defenses twice; once when you tried to go down into the laboratory and now Hassan. And I'll surmise that he didn't kill very many of the burun down there."

"He did what he could but he told me that there were more than could be handled by himself alone."

Wind Walker gave an honest, reflective nod before formulating his answer. "As such, the burun obviously know that we are trying to figure out what they're doing. They won't keep the experiments in one laboratory alone. We have no way of knowing if those shreth are in the beginning stages of mutation or if they are fully mutated or, for that matter, if that is a storage pen or a rejection center."

They both sighed in frustration before she met his eyes. "So now what?"

"Well, now I go back to the group with this information and a decision is made. We are obviously going to have to employ some extra help for this situation and I have a recommendation for the person who would likely help complete the next objectives of this mission. A very tactful yet airy mercenary we've had to use before."

"I think I know who you're talking about. He's a handful but he does get the job done."

Wind Walker grunted in remembrance. "That he does."

She traced the outline of her cup in silence, listening to the fingertips of the breeze tap the leaves outside. With the urgency of the current situation, she couldn't find comfort in her secret abode. Even the simple breeze, which once brought great joy and an emancipated feeling, felt threatening. She took her eyes from her cup, tired of drowning her worries in the clear liquid and found his eyes. His intent stare penetrated her.

"Why did you do it?"

She licked her lips and let out a sigh. They always asked why she had done what she had done. Because it felt right. "I lost everything. It symbolizes my rebirth."

"But your face is so beautiful…"

Her face heated from the compliment but she willed herself not to blush. "It means something."

She went to Kheltet with understanding painted on her face. She knelt before him and beseeched his audience. He granted it. He had called her one with the mother. Told her she was one of the walkers. She told him she understood what he had said that day, the symbol he had drawn for her. And she knew she must wear it. She wanted to undertake the tumerok wind ceremony, a spiritual rebirth, asking for guidance and strength in the new world. They cleansed her, stripping her naked and stood her before hundreds of taut skinned reptilian bodies, their eyes watching her flesh with interest. She ate their customary foods and danced their dances. They took her into a private hut where three tumerok artisans squatted with their needles and dyes ready. She lay on the table with her eyes open as she was instructed. And then three agonizing days of pain ensued.

Emeraldwind traced one of the lines. "This means wind. In their native tongue, I am said to be one with the wind, to speed along like no other. To be here but be unseen. Silent but all at once a noise in your ear."

The pain had seared into the very flesh of her being, taking with it all of her worries and inhibitions.

She traced another of the lines. "This means earth. To be steadfast, unrivaled, grounded. I am stalwart."

They had diligently worked, poking, prodding. Art.

Her hands demonstrated the sweep of one of the sections. "Water. Calming, personal, intertwined. Intellect."

And then as it had ended, they hovered over her, smiling their odd toothy tumerok smiles. She was now one of them. She was awakened.

"But why on your face?"

Emeraldwind opened her eyes. Tears glistened at the corners. "To always remind me. I am no longer the woman I once was. I am now a different woman. I must have a different face."

Wind Walker reached out and touched her face, tracing the drawn teardrop by one of her eyes. "You are always beautiful no matter what. Even with a tattoo on your face. Because you are Emeraldwind and that alone makes you beautiful."

She smiled and touched his hand, giving it a tender squeeze. "Thank you Wind Walker."

His sincere smile comforted her. "You're welcome, Emeraldwind."

The chair skidded back as Wind Walker rose, downing the last of his water and wiping his mouth. He gestured with a single finger and Sagra rose from her spot on Wind Phoenix's blankets, stretched, then slinked over to his side. His eyes met Emeraldwind's. "I should probably be on my way. The group will want this information so they can make a decision as to what to do now."

Emeraldwind nodded and rose. She combed a few free strands of her hair away from her eyes. "You will be well, won't you? You won't get into too much trouble?"

His playful grin returned. "Now what would give you the idea that I would get into trouble?"

Her eyebrow arched. "I know you."

Hearty laughter filled her hut. "I believe it's I who should be telling you to stay out of trouble. But doing that is like telling a lugian to stop being a giant."

"You're terrible." She playfully hit his shoulder.

Wind Walker took her hands in his and rubbed her knuckles with his thumbs. "You be careful, you hear me? These lands are becoming more dangerous by the moment and you living out here alone is a recipe for disaster."

"I'll be fine. You take care of yourself. These are becoming exceedingly dangerous times." She measured his eyes before letting go of his hands and wrapping her arms around his mid-section. His arms found their way around her and she put her head against his chest as they embraced for a long moment. After parting, he held one of her hands for a few seconds before turning to the door and stepping beyond.

"Where will you be tomorrow?"

She came to the doorway and leaned against the wooden pane. "I should be spending the majority of my day in Cavendo near the forges. I've been looking to get my swords tempered with some of the new iron people have recovered from Linvak Massif."

Wind Walker turned from the middle of the suspended bridge and watched her with Sagra at his side. "If, for any reason, you need me, call me." He pulled on the chain at his neck, revealing a small thumb-sized blue crystal dangling there. She nodded in understanding.

She watched him lower himself on the platform and waved before turning back to her hut. Wind Phoenix lazily stretched out on his side and watched her walk around putting up dishes. Soapy water filled the wooden cups when she put them in her washbowl, gently rubbing a coarse cloth against their insides to clean them. She dried them off and put them back in the cupboard she got them from and sat down at her table. The lasher's crystal blue eyes kept watch on her.

"Phoenix, this is frustrating." His ear swiveled to listen. "The burun are experimenting on shreth but we don't know why or even how. And now there's the possibility that they have them in different places. There's far more to this than what I once thought was a simple matter."

The lasher rose from his spot on the floor and walked to her side. He put his head on her leg and purred to comfort her. She massaged his scalp with her nails. "I shouldn't work myself up; there's nothing I can do until the group has an answer and direction they're going to go. Even then, it might not involve me." Emeraldwind sighed and looked out the window towards a river in the far distance. "I think I should check in on Hassan. I haven't talked to him in awhile and he was going to check in on the gurog. It'd be safe just to make sure he's all right."

Emeraldwind rose and went to the door. She looked over her shoulder at Wind Phoenix. "Stay here. I need to go to the crystal room."

She pulled the door closed and walked across the suspended wooden bridge opposite the other, towards the hut at the far end. At the door she pulled a leather thong out of the protective enclosure of her armor and fiddled with the key on the end. She inserted the key into the knob of the door, turned, and pushed it open. Beyond, the confines of the room reflected the outside light in a thousand different places, some small, others large. Various colored interpretations gazed back at her from the circular interior of the hut. Starting from the frame of the door and wrapping around the room to meet back up with the other side of the frame, crystals sat on the floor, on shelves shaped to fit the walls of the hut, and a few hung from the ceiling. A naked fire pit with graying stones circling it sat in the center of the hut with a hole in the roof that let the smoke out. She closed the door behind herself and let the light from the roof fill the inside room with an almost ethereal luminescence. Her mouth turned up in pleasant remembrance.

She crossed the room to one of the shelves on the other side and retrieved a small finger-sized crystal on a golden chain. Holding up the crystal, her eyes gazed at it before she took her place in the center of the hut where the afternoon sun filtered through the trees to light her. She took a deep breath and held the crystal steadily in front of her. Her eyes stared into its depths, relaxed by the soft, azure color. Warmth radiated from its interior, calming her mind and sluicing the worry from her. The crystal grew in size, enveloping her eyesight, pulling her into its personable interior. Its formless walls surrounded her and she let go, holding her arms out to the sides. She closed her eyes, only to open them again moments later, looking around. Crystalline walls rose up on all sides, capping off both the floor and ceiling. She experimentally put a hand to one of the walls. Solid. She clasped her hands in front of herself and whispered the name of the object she desired, holding the definite image of his face, mass, clothing.

Dark sunken eyes traced her face and body. That odd lugian smile smiled at her. His head solidified and his muscles flexed as they came into view. He held one of his swords while his other dropped to his side as it faded into existence. When he came into full being he hooked his swords to his belt and bowed. Emeraldwind giggled.

"My little gem, it's good to see your warm smile."

"Yours too, Hassan, even if it is a little crooked sometimes." She combed her fingers back through her hair.

He straightened and showed teeth behind his square mouth. "That's my special smile meant only for you."

Emeraldwind felt herself blushing and quickly changed the subject. "I know you're busy and I didn't want to keep you, but I hadn't gotten to talk to you since you left for Linvak Massif earlier and wanted to make sure everything was fine."

"Everything is well. At the moment I'm knee deep in gurog territory. It's been brutal but something I'm fully capable of handling." His eyes brightened with the lust of retribution. It wasn't a boast. It was honesty.

"For our ancestors." She tapped two fingers on the center of her forehead, where the lines for wind lay.

"For our ancestors." He did the same.

"Have you found anything in relation to what you were looking for?"

Hassan shook his head. "I have yet to gather anything solid but there definitely are some threads unraveling that I'm interested in pursuing."

She scratched her wrist. "Good." She looked at the lugian with a grave face. "I met with Wind Walker."

"And how did things go?"

It was her turn to shake her head and emit a sigh. "The news troubled him. He's on his way to the group with the information and they should have a definite plan in the coming days. But the observations he had been making troubled me."

The lugian tilted his square head to the side in an expression of confusion. "What observations?"

"Like you and I, him and I went over the things we know: the burun are mutating shreth in a secret laboratory that you infiltrated. But we don't know how or why they're mutating shreth." Emeraldwind gestured with her hands in explanation. "I raised the question of how they were getting the shreth and he answered with an explanation that seemed plausible: the burun are using their debilitating poison to immobilize the shreth and carry them to the laboratory. But then he said something which could prove to be yet another obstacle standing in the way of unraveling this mystery."

"What's that?"

"The burun have more than one laboratory."

Hassan held her eyes for a moment before he looked up beyond her. The dark bulbs in his head filled with alarm before his eye sockets narrowed in anger. He glanced to the side and unhooked one of his swords. "Gem, I must go. I will contact you soon. Be safe." He roared a lust-filled battle cry and barred his teeth. Raising his sword to take a swing, he stepped towards the wall and his entire material existence faded away. Emeraldwind stood silent, looking at the vacant space her giant of a friend once occupied. The crystalline walls slowly shrank away until they were no more than the inner chamber of the crystal swinging on the chain she dangled in front of her eyes.

"You too, my fearless friend."

Chapter 5

Thin clouds darted by in the sky, hardly obscuring the rays of the noonday sun as it baked the city of Cavendo. Crafters, seated under awnings to shield both themselves and their wares from the heat, shouted at the top of their lungs, danced, or sang to attract attention. The smithing forge, off to the side of one of the roads running through the city, burned with the heat and activity of blacksmiths mastering their trade. People shuffled passed, running errands or gawking at the new items recovered from the caves of Linvak Massif. She cupped her chin in her right hand, lazily staring out across the center of town at a fellowship of intrepid adventurers headed for Omishan. Boredom washed her.

She leaned back and intertwined her fingers together behind her head as a cushion against the brick of the wall behind her. She idly wondered about the decision the group would make. If she would be privy to such a decision. Like most things the group did, she doubted it. Secretive to the very end.

The first few months with her new face, people stared when she entered town, never brave enough to ask her to her face why she made the choice to go through a tumerok ritual, but always whispering in the shadows. She was an enigma, silent and reserved. No one dared approach her. Not until a passing man caught her arm and turned her around. His mud brown eyes penetrated hers and she knew she wasn't looking into the eyes of any normal man. They were the eyes of someone with purpose. His long black hair faded into white tips, which complimented his earthen skin. He asked her if she was one with the wind and she answered him. He told her he was Wind Walker, named so by Kheltet. He was the same as she, having befriended his near constant companion Sagra months before. He had the same book as she and had studied it as intently as she still did. He understood her. Understood how she thought and felt.

They became fast friends and he told her about a group he was part of. He called them 'The Walkers.' They were a gathered collective, focused on debilitating the limbs of any foe bent on harm to either nature or the shelter dwellers. They prided themselves on secrecy, finesse, and initiative, taking care to uproot any evil seeds planted before they grew and became public knowledge. He invited her into the group and became her primary contact. She would never meet with or see the other people unless it was part of her mission. She only ever met one other.

Her missions started small, as nothing more than running errands to places, with instructions or supplies. She moved up slowly until she was part of the bigger missions, her point of expertise on Omishan, where she lived. Wind Walker would come to her with new instructions or missions. In return for her service, like all the others, she was paid a small fee. It was enough to live off of.

The group was her life. She prided herself in being part of an organization meant for the good of all, even if no one knew they existed.

A shadow fell on her. She didn't move her eyes from concentrating on the grass where it met the cobblestone road some strides away. She hoped the person wouldn't move. The respite from the baking sun was enjoyable.

"I hear tale your associates need some help with a little… problem." Mature, confident, the voice was familiar. She groaned inwardly.

"You hear correct. Didn't know you were part of that help."

"Well, if you want the best job done, you call the best."

She looked up at his face. A white scar slashed over his left eye and bronze hair hung down, complimenting his soft tan. His slender nose complimented his personality. "Phases Maxim, you're full of it."

He showed teeth in a lopsided grin, then gestured at the spot next to her on the grass. "Mind if I have a seat?"

"You can do what you want, it's a free continent."

Phases sat next to her and pulled his legs up under himself. He spread his red velvet robe over his knees and toyed with his hair, moving it first one way and then the other.

"What exactly do you need with me?"

Phases stopped messing with his hair and cast a soft gray eye at her. She tried not to look him directly in his face, instead, looking out at the sea of people near the blacksmiths or vendor tables. "Like I said, your group called the best because they knew that only I could get the job done."

"I'm aware of that. You've already said that. How does that involve me?"

He brushed his sleeves clean and picked at an invisible thread. "Well, I may be able to get the job done but, unlike your kind, I'm not sneaky. I have no need to be. But, for this, I do."

"And that, again, involves me how?" Irritation lingered in her voice. She scolded herself for being harsh. Even he deserved a measure of patience

Phases turned his gray eyes out into the city and watched people pass by the two of them. "Greatness recognizes greatness. When it comes to getting someone in a place unscathed, I've heard it said that you're the only one capable of such a feat."

She twisted her mouth up in confusion. Her eyes turned to him. "I might be able to… why?"

He turned his full attention back to her and brushed a strand of his hair away from his eyes. "For this, they didn't want to lose any of their people. I'm a mercenary. They showed me the reward; I took their offer. Besides, in a bind, when all the stakes are against you, wouldn't you rather have a man who studied all of the fine arts concerning the mind then some bumbling warrior?"

Her mouth narrowed and eyebrows drew down. She directed her penetrating gaze into his eyes. "What is this mission?"

"I have to get into the Drudge Citadel."

"What!"

Phases shrugged and leaned back against the wall. "Like I said, greatness recognizes greatness. From what I hear told, you could even get someone into the citadel."

"Phases, that's insane! That place is heavily guarded around its perimeter, not to mention heavily occupied in the interior. Going there without an army is suicide."

He chuckled. "With what I was paid, we could buy an army."

Her temper flared. "How much did you ask for?"

"Only one hundred thousand gold marks."

"You what!"

He nonchalantly shrugged again. "Seemed a fair price for what they're asking me to do."

"Fair price? That's not a fair price! That's gouging!"

His eyes narrowed and turned to her face. "Like I said, if you want the best, you get the best. But it comes with a price."

She took a deep, settling breath and steadied her hands. "So you want me to risk life and dismemberment to get you into the Drudge Citadel while you pocket all the money?"

"I never said that I wasn't paying you. You're risking just as much as me; you're entitled to half."

She gestured with her hand in explanation. "That's not the point. Don't you see this is pure suicide? No one has been able to penetrate the outer gates of the citadel since it was first discovered. Whole leagues of able bodied warriors have been slaughtered by the overwhelming number of drudges there. What they might lack in strength they more than make up for in numbers. And you're asking me to get the two of us into the interior?"

Phases made a face of confirmation then nodded his head. "Yes, that's about right."

"And then once you get inside, what are you to do? Sit there and think of a plan?"

His haughty laughter almost made her feel small. "If you weren't so busy yelling at me, you might have heard the rest of what I was hired to do."

"Continue, I'll listen."

"Well, first, answer me one question: how much about the situation your group described to me do you personally know about?" His eyes, having surveyed the crowd again, turned back to her.

"I know that one of our members first made the discovery of the mutated shreth during a routine patrol on the northern half of Omishan. At the time, there was only the shreth and what looked like identification bracelets clasped to its arms. I was given the job of rooting out the origin of the shreth and my findings led me to a dungeon near the old city of Rakini. I couldn't get passed the first inner tunnel so I hired Hassan to delve deeper inside for me. What he found was a laboratory where burun were performing experiments on the shreth. And, thus far, that is all I know."

Phases nodded and combed his hair back from his eyes. "There's a bit more you should know."

"Go ahead."

"Yesterday, before I was called in for the assignment, one of your associates by the name of Linden happened to stumble on a private location where the drudge and several burun emissaries were meeting. Considering neither the drudge nor burun speak intelligible languages, he couldn't decipher what they were saying, but this led some of your associates to believe that the burun may be trying to convince the drudge to help them."

"And so they hired you to see if this was true?"

He nodded the confirmation. "Correct. I surmised the best place was the citadel. They offered me one amount and I made them raise the price, considering the citadel's history."

She snorted in disgust and shook her head. "So then you came to me to help you get inside."

"Also correct. Like I said, if you want the best job done, you hire the best. You're the best in infiltration. I need the best for the citadel."

Her eyes turned back to his face and she traced the point of his nose. "And what if I don't help you?"

Phases's lip curled in thought and he gave a half-hearted shrug. "Then I'll have to find someone less capable. But chances are, I will fail in my mission. I fail in my mission your group gets no information. If your group gets no information, then it's safe to say that whatever plan the Burun have will be initiated. And I'm pretty sure those plans are not in the best interest of your group."

Her brow drew down in heated anger before she turned her eyes away and looked out into the city. She tried to find solace in the naivety of the vendors and blacksmiths, in the naivety of people running errands, in the naivety of being out of the shelter. But there was none. Her interests lie with the success of Phases's mission.

After a moment of long silence, she let out a noisy breath. "When do we start?"

The corner of his mouth turned up in a self-satisfied smile. "That's my girl. In three hours, meet me at the ringway up the road. We'll use it to get into drudge territory and make the hike to the citadel. There's been a patrol set up to guard the ringway, so we shouldn't have any trouble with stray drudge until we're well away from the protection of the ringway."

She sighed and nodded, intertwining her fingers together. Her red lacquered nails were a perfect compliment to her pale skin. "I need to tell Wind Phoenix that I will be gone."

"I was wondering where he was."

"Off with his kind. He just needs to know not to come if we are… ambushed. I don't want him in danger."

"That's understood. Then I will see you in three hours." Phases used the wall to help himself stand and brushed grass from his robe. "Be well, Emeraldwind."

"You as well Phases." She answered without looking up.

Her fingers dug into a weatherworn crevice of the stone wall behind her before she looked over the side of the precarious drop. A gate, surrounded by massive stone walls erected around the outer perimeter of the building, was guarded by two hulking dirt orange colored creatures, both wearing crooked helmets, plate shoulder pads, and vambraces. Their legs and arms rippled with muscles. She groaned.

"Now what?" Phases whispered.

She looked over at Phases, then turned her eyes out towards the sprawling city in the murk. Small, feeble creatures hunched over, speedily running from one fire to the next, shuffling around the blankets spread out on the ground. They paid for items, put them in their pouches, bags, and baskets, then shuffled to the next fire. She marveled at the civility of the drudge.

"We've gotten this far. We have to keep going." She pointed behind herself. "There aren't any entrances we can break into like a window. The only way into this place is through the door down there. There are no back ways. And those two drudges down there are guarding the entrance."

Phases peered over the edge, hooking his fingers under the claws of a stone gargoyle above him. "But how are we going to get down there to take them out?"

"We're going to have to repel down there."

Emeraldwind leaned back against the wall, away from the edge of the stone jutting from the citadel's high spires. "I'll go down first and take out both of the guards. You come down after me and hide the bodies, all right?"

"Got it."

She unhooked her gear and shuffled to the side to access her pack. Pulling a long rope with a hook on the end, she stood and found a small place to wrap the hook around. She tugged on the hook to check it's security then hoisted her gear back onto her back. Her eyes met Phases's. "If, for any reason, I'm trapped or get in trouble, just cut the rope and use your crystal to pull yourself back to a binding place. Understood?"

"… I don't like the way you made that sound."

Emeraldwind shrugged. "It is the citadel. Anything could happen."

She gripped the rope in both hands, tilted backwards on the stone, and jumped, landing several feet below Phases. She used her strength and momentum to keep moving downwards on the wall, checking over her shoulder all the time to make sure of her location. Every so often she would look out onto the town before the citadel, amazed by the ingenuity of the drudge.

She softly touched the dirt at the bottom and made sure the two guards hadn't moved from their posts. Both stood with their arms folded and their ever-watchful eyes turned away from her. She bent and unhooked a knife from a sheath attached to her ankle. Her eyes glanced both ways to make sure she was clear before she silently crept behind the drudge standing directly in front of her.

Confusion was her ally. She reached around the first drudge, putting her hand on its hard, smooth chest. Its reaction was the confusion she wanted. Her knife found its mark in the opening of the drudge's throat, slicing open the skin and letting a cloud of blood spray out onto the road leading to the citadel. Its comrade stared in confusion as Emeraldwind yanked the falling drudge's arm and sent it sailing towards the ground like a top. The still living drudge watched in horror. She used the moment to pivot on her heel, spinning backwards with the point of her knife sailing into the back of the other drudge's neck, the tip jutting from the front of its throat. It made no sound as it fell forward on its face. She looked up and motioned for Phases to descend then waited until he was standing behind her.

"Help me move them." She yanked her knife from the wound and wiped the blood on the drudge's fur covered upper arms. They both grabbed the legs of the creatures and pulled them around the side of the citadel's base. They heaped them on top of each other and Emeraldwind stood back as Phases gestured a hand over them. Each cast of his hand gave the two dead twins an earthen appearance until they looked no more than a mound of dirt.

"Finished." Phases dusted his hands off on his robe and looked at her. She nodded and directed him back around to the front of the citadel, using the tip of her knife to unlock the door. After pushing it open and checking the inside foyer, she gestured him inside and closed the door.

Shafts of light fell from the ceiling of the foyer onto crystals at either end of the room. Soft candles in brackets gave off soft, orange light. The floor was freshly swept and the stones maintained with meticulous care. Emeraldwind lightly stepped through the small chamber to look out the opening leading into a hallway that ran from left to right.

"This is interesting."

She turned and looked at Phases. His hunched over form inspected one of the crystals. "What?"

He turned his gray eyes on her. "These look like the same type of crystal that the Menhir shards are made of."

Footsteps. She grabbed Phases's arm and pulled him into a small niche next to the wall where a shadow hid between the candle and crystal. One finger against his lips kept him quiet. Her eyes looked out the opening of the room into the hallway beyond. Two drudge, both suited in crooked helmets, plate shoulder pads, and vambraces, stepped by the opening. One looked in, its eyes playing over the interior of the room and passing the two frozen in the shadow, before they moved down the hallway on their patrol. The shadow let out a collective breath.

"Stay tight to my back." She held that finger up to him. He nodded down to her and adjusted his robes before stepping out of the shadow. She moved back to the opening, sticking her head out to check both ways. "Where is it we're supposed to go?"

"Any place. There's no telling what we're looking for exactly." Phases hugged the wall beside her as she slipped out of the opening and started down the hallway.

She slinked up a stairway and looked around the corner at the top. After she made sure the hallway was clear, she looked down at Phases, who stood behind her. "That's great. So we could, potentially, be lost in here."

"Like I said, there's no telling what we're looking for, or, for that matter, if the burun are even here. Our best bet is to find a place where there could be a meeting or where documents are stored that could possibly suggest drudge involvement with the burun." Phases combed his hair away from his eyes. She gave a single curt nod before starting off around the corner and down the next hallway.

She unlocked doors when she came to them, hid them in shadows when she heard footsteps, and snuck down hallways when she was sure they were clear. Her soft steps gave off little sound or echo as she went down the corridors with no idea of her whereabouts or direction. She simply sensed her relation to everything around her. The book had taught her things that weren't only useful in the forest.

Putting her hand against Phases's chest, she halted his progress and stopped behind the jutting edge of a wall. The hallway beyond was lined with stained-glass windows. The stone floor was colored in their images. Footsteps came down the hallway and a pair of drudge on patrol passed by without looking into the hallway they stood in, hiding behind the abrupt edge of the wall. When she was sure the drudge were beyond hearing distance, she signaled Phases to follow her again.

She turned the wall and stopped abruptly, running into a body. Small-elongated black pupils with yellowing irises watched her in wide-eyed surprise. She used the confusion to her advantage. Her elbow slammed into the drudge's throat without a sound escaping its pointed, beak-like lips. It's mouth opened and she used her other hand to plant her fist squarely in its face, knocking it back a step. Before it could recover, she pulled one of her swords from its scabbard on her back and thrust the tip into the abdomen of the drudge. It screamed. Gurgled blood was the only sound. Its fingers frantically clawed at the sword's razor edge, slicing its digits; some dangled by nothing more than threads of skin. She yanked up and pulled the sword to the bottom of the drudge's throat. Quivering viscera splashed onto the floor. She pulled her sword from it and watched the drudge slump to the ground in a dead heap. Her blade dripped its new crimson coat.

Phases came around the wall and stared in wide-eyed horror. She turned her pale eyes to him. "Help me drag him around the corner and hide him."

Phases helped her pull the drudge into the shadowed alcove the jutting wall provided and gestured over the body until it blended with the shadows. He cupped his hand over his nostrils and looked over at her. "I can hide its appearance, but I can't do anything about that smell." Her eyes showed no humor.

She sheathed her blade and started down the hallway again. Phases stayed close behind her.

At the end of the hallway she used her knife to open a set of double doors and checked the interior beyond before stepping inside and closing them only after Phases was beside her.

"I think this is what we're looking for."

Tall stone columns rose from the ground on either side of the vast hall, holding up the balcony she stood on as well as the one on the other side of the room. Fluted archways provided a view of the floor below the balconies. A stained-glass skylight played an array of colors down into the hall. Wooden pews sat in disarray, many chopped apart and thrown aside. A set of wide double doors stood closed to a hall in the wall on the floor. A stone path ran from the doors to the far side of the room.

"What is this place?" She quietly went to one of the fluted archways and looked down into the hall. A red carpet running from the doors to the far end of the room was ripped and torn in places.

"This would be the inner-cathedral. Where our ancestors would gather to pay homage to their Gods." Phases joined her.

She inspected the balcony again. "This is what we're looking for?" Her eyes turned back to Phases's face while he looked out across the indoor cathedral.

"It would seem so. I can't possibly think of a place more grandiose in this citadel than this. And knowing the burun, they like things big."

"We have, maybe, an hour or less before a patrol will pass by here." She bent over, looking at the stone. Her finger ran through it. Dust.

"How do you know?"

She held up her finger. "Inspecting the dust. That patrol that passed by us a bit earlier was the last one to pass by in an hour. There are several pairs of different prints. Those are the newest… all getting older by an hour or less."

"Ingenious. Then I suppose we wait until something happens or we have to find a place to hide from the patrol."

The doors below them opened. Emeraldwind rose and looked over the balcony. "It doesn't look like we had to wait long at all."

A pair of hulking guards stepped into the hall. Massive arms hung to the ground. Their green, oily skin rippled with muscles underneath. Long snouts let sharpened teeth hang down in menace. Their reptilian eyes flicked around, inspecting everything. Emeraldwind's eyes traced a stretch of chain one held but couldn't see what it was attached to. As the guards moved further into the room, she saw a rotund figure moving behind them. It carried a long staff with beads and jewels at the tip, chiming together with each labored step it made. A chain pendant hung from its neck. She noticed its horns of station. Unlike its escort, its skin was soft orange and crimson red without the muscles and presented more amphibious than reptilian features.

"Not long at all. That's an emissary." Phases whispered while looking over the edge of the balcony.

The chain pulled taut and the massive burun holding it yanked, pulling the object into full view. Emeraldwind's eyes went wide. "That's the shreth. That's what they look like when they're mutated."

The shreth hunched over with huge arms it used for walking. Its horns twisted downwards in demonic fashion. The ends pointed outward. Fangs protruded from its mouth. Its body was naked of fur, bulging muscles only out-staged by the pounding veins beneath its skin. It resisted the escort, only moving when the chain pulled taut and the burun yanked it across the floor.

Doors at the other end of the hall opened and a drudge stepped out with two smaller drudge at its side. Emeraldwind took in the middle drudge. Its muscles swelled like the two burun. Its chest muscles were bare of hair, as were its arms and legs. A single loincloth in the front hid its genitals. A soft azure crystal around its necklace swung from a gold chain.

"That's the lord of the, shall we say, manor." Phases gestured off down the hall at the large drudge as it walked to meet the burun. When it was in front of them, it went to a single knee and bowed its head. "I need to get closer."

Emeraldwind followed Phases to the center of the balcony and stared down at the drudge and burun. The mercenary held a hand towards the meeting. She didn't understand the words as the drudge rose and started speaking.

"What are they saying?" She took her eyes away from the congregation long enough to peer at Phases.

His eyes never left the meeting. "Listen." He cupped his other hand around her ear.

"I see the Osteth environment has treated you well." The massive drudge spoke. His voice was deep, authoritative but respectful. She heard him in the inside of her ear, almost in her mind.

"Not as well as I would have liked. But that is not why we are here… to discuss weather." The burun emissary was curt in his speech. "We are here to discuss this…"

The burun with the chained shreth pulled on the chain until the shreth stood between the congregation. The drudge folded his arms and nodded.

"This is the enhanced shreth."

"Enhanced, hm?" The drudge snorted in response. "It doesn't seem so enhanced to me. Less fur. That's just less time I have to spend skinning it. I can eat the meat right off the bone this way."

The burun laughed with cold confidence. "Show me two of your best warriors. I will give you a demonstration of this shreth's enhancements."

The lord put its fingers to its lips and filled the hall with a piercing whistle. Two muscular guards stepped from beyond the shadows of the columns and flexed. The lord pointed two fingers at the shreth and stepped back.

Both guards ran at the shreth. Its head swiveled to look at one in a flash of threat. An arm swung at the guard, hitting him square in the chest. He lifted off his feet and sailed across the room, smacking into a column. He slid down, leaving a trail of blood, and slumped dead. The other guard tried to halt in his advance but was too late. The shreth's head turned his way and its massive claws swept out at him. It ripped away his chest, exposing his lungs and beating heart. The guard looked down, realizing in his last horrific breath of life what was happening, before he stumbled forward. The shreth reached into his exposed chest and ripped his heart away, watching the quivering mass before squeezing it and slipping it into its mouth. It chewed then contented itself with licking its claws. Emeraldwind gasped in horror.

The lord glanced at the guard slumped against the pillar, and then the guard lying in his own spilled viscera. Its eyes came back up to the emissary. "Impressive. This is a very pleasant surprise."

"And there are a hundred more like him."

The drudge rubbed its chin. "And explain to me what it is that we will be doing."

"It's simple. For us to launch the invasion, we must store them in a safe place. The safest place is here, in the citadel. No one has been able to infiltrate your city. From here we can launch the invasion without the meddling of the… lessers."

"Invasion?" Emeraldwind looked up at Phases. He concentrated intently on the party on the floor. "Is that what they're planning?"

The drudge lord chuckled. "Of course, why didn't I see it? Hide the deadliest weapon right under the nose of those you're trying to conquer."

"Exactly." The emissary and the lord shared a laugh.

"So we can expect these shreth when…?"

"The first ones should be arriving shortly. And as soon as another batch of the ingredients are prepared, we will have another hundred or more ready for you." The burun chuckled and gestured towards the shreth. "But rest assured, the lessers won't expect a thing. You'll easily be able to overwhelm them with this first batch."

"Then we attack as soon as they arrive." The lord rubbed its hands together greedily.

"No." The emissary held a finger in the air. "You will wait until a team of our specialists arrive. We have also found a way to… control them all at once. You will need our specialists to do such a thing. Without them, these shreth are mindless and erratic."

"When will they arrive?" Agitation anchored the voice of the drudge.

"Soon after the shreth are here. Do not attack before then or you will answer our wrath."

"Then we will wait. And when they are here…" The drudge sneered in satisfaction. "Osteth will be ours."

Chapter 6

His words relentlessly pounded in her head, 'Osteth will be ours.' The mystery she never thought would delve deep into the workings of the drudge and burun unexpectedly took a sickening twist. Her hands felt along the walls of the corridor until she found the set of double doors. She pushed them open wide enough to look outside. Nothing. Phases touched her back and she slipped through the doors with him right behind her. Gray clouds hung in the air. A few drops of cold rain fell.

Chimes softly rang, like wind playing its music on a quiet afternoon. She clutched at the gold chain hanging down in her shirt and looked at Phases in alarm. His gray eyes were as wide as her own. She snuck around the base of the citadel and slipped into a stone alcove.

"Hide us." She looked up into Phases's eyes and he gave a single, understanding nod. His arms rose and he pressed his fingers against the stone of the building behind her. His once red velvet robe turned a murky gray color, the same shade of the stone.

She pulled the crystal from the protective enclosure of her armor and held it in her hand. She concentrated. Relaxed, her eyes drew the soft azure color into themselves and she felt her body pulled into the crystal. The walls capped off the roof and floor and surrounded her in their solid essence. Hassan stood in front of her. Both of his swords were covered in a fresh coat of blood and his armor was spattered with it. She wasn't sure if any of it was his. Her eyes came up to meet his sunken dark ones.

"Hassan?" She reached out to him in concern.

"I'm all right Emeraldwind. This isn't mine."

"What… happened?"

"We have a mess on our hands." His eyes narrowed and he stared off for a moment before turning his gaze back to her. "It seems there's more to this burun and shreth situation than what we first found out."

She nodded in understanding. "I just found out something terrible myself directly involving all of this."

"Explain." He glanced to his left for a moment and seemed to listen at the distant sounds only he could hear. "Be quick though."

She combed her fingers back through her hair. "Seems the burun are dealing with the drudge."

Hassan's eyes turned back to her. His face contorted in suspicion. "Go on…"

"The burun are developing the shreth and planning to hide them with the drudge. And then they plan on launching an invasion on Osteth with the shreth. They even have specially trained burun who know how to control the shreth."

"What! How did you find all of this out?" His sunken eyes stared at her in surprise.

"Because the burun went to the Drudge Citadel with one of the shreth for a demonstration and instructions. And I just happened to overhear them."

"What! You're at the citadel! Right this moment?" Anger and desperation twisted his face. His square mouth hung open.

"Yes. With Phases Maxim."

Hassan's eyes narrowed and she heard him growl low in his throat.

"He was hired to find out what the burun and drudge were doing. And he needed to get into the citadel to do it. I was the only person who could get us in here… I had to come." She swallowed sheepishly at the look in his eyes. She wanted to scold him, to hit him and tell him there were more important things than her being at the citadel. But she understood his feelings.

"Get out of there. Now."

"I was just leaving when you chimed me. What's the matter? What's your news?"

Hassan looked over his shoulder for a moment. "I must be quick." His eyes turned back to her and he licked the opening of his mouth where lips would be. "It seems the burun are not just dealing with the drudge, they're also dealing with the gurog. In fact, it would be the gurog who put the burun up to this in the first place. They're supplying the burun with the ingredients necessary to mutate the shreth."

Emeraldwind's mouth hung open in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

The lugian nodded. "Very serious. A very unrepentant captain happily babbled away the information before I pulled my sword from his chest. Seems one of their emissaries will soon meet with a burun emissary to exchange more of the ingredients that the burun use to mutate the shreth."

"They have to be stopped…"

"Oh, believe me, I was thinking the same thing, gem. But burun and gurog make for a formidable team. Unless you have an army, there's no stopping them when they act together." He looked to his right in alarm. "Listen, I have to go. Can you get to Linvak Massif?"

"Yes, I should be able to find a way…"

"Meet me in Whitebay. I know where the burun and gurog will be meeting. I'll take you there."

" I will… be careful, Hassan."

His eyes turned back to her. She saw sincerity. "You too, little gem. Get out of there in one piece." He looked to his right again. Before she could reply, he roared at the top of his lungs and dove towards whatever had been coming for him. She shivered in pain as he disappeared and the connection to his crystal broke, thrusting her back into the protection of Phases's magic. She let the crystal drop from her hand and hang at her chest. Her eyes closed and she waited for the uncomfortable tingle to subside before she opened them again and stared up into Phases's waiting eyes.

"Who was that?"

She rubbed her hand over her face. "Hassan." Distaste drew Phases's face into a twisted frown. Emeraldwind acted as if she hadn't noticed. "He told me that the gurog are the ones initiating all of this. They're giving the ingredients to the burun so the burun can capture and mutate the shreth."

"Oh, that's great news to hear." His voice echoed sarcasm. "The gurog, not only deadly, also outnumber the shelter dwellers by three to one. Even if we had the numbers, there's no way we could root out every gurog to stop them from giving the burun the ingredients."

"Yes. I know." Emeraldwind sighed.

"So now what?" Phases looked around before returning his eyes to her face.

"Hassan knows where the emissaries are going to meet but I have to get to Linvak Massif. Maybe we can't kill every gurog from making these ingredients, but we can stop these ones from making it back to Omishan."

Phases nodded. "Understood. I know a quick way to get to Linvak Massif."

Her face turned grim. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go."

A ribbon of blue ethereal light weaved around her body, propelling her faster, deeper into its widening stream. She felt euphoric; individual and at once divided and among the stars twinkling beyond the tunnel. Her arms flew out and she twirled in the air in naïve bliss with a smile on her face. She could stay there forever; floating through the tunnel at speeds she never dreamed possible. And just as abruptly as it began, it ended. She stumbled into the light of the sun shimmering on bright stretches of snow. Protective gray arms caught her before she fell to her knees and she looked up. Dark eyes watched her from sunken sockets. That lopsided odd lugian smile smiled at her. Her special smile. His eyes looked above her and she felt him stiffen in surprise and alarm. She looked over her shoulder at Phases stepping from the ethereal glow of the cloud behind him before it shrank and disappeared.

"What is he doing here?" Hassan growled low in his throat.

Emeraldwind stood on her own and took a step back, putting her hand against Phases's chest. "Like I said, I had to help him get into the citadel. Without him, I wouldn't know what was being planned. And he helped me get here as quickly as I could." She stood on her toes and touched the lugian's head to make him look down into her eyes. "He's as much a part of this as I am."

"Well… all right." Hassan's eyes turned back to Phases standing behind her. "Maxim."

"Hassan." Heavy disdain lingered on the word.

The lugian reached over his shoulder and pulled a pair of snowshoes out of his pack, handing them to Emeraldwind. "I brought these for you, since I don't think you have any. They'll help you walk through the deep patches of snow here."

"Thank you." Emeraldwind set them on the ground and knelt to tie them up.

"I didn't… bring any for Maxim because I didn't know he would be joining us." She detected a hint of sarcasm. She ignored it.

"Oh, that's thoughtful Hassan." Phases chuckled with equal sarcasm and word play. "But not needed. I've brought my own."

Emeraldwind stood and looked over her shoulder at Phases. He held his hands out to the side and snapped his fingers. Two snow shoes floated from his pack and one hovered at each hand. He took them, put them on the ground, and tied them securely to his boots.

"Hassan, how long will it take us to get to this meeting place?" Emeraldwind turned her attention back to the lugian. His eyes found her face again and his mood relaxed.

"It should take very little time. As I was coming here, I passed through the area I knew the burun would have to use to travel to the meeting place. They were still a ways away from the spot. We should get there just as they do or a little afterwards. But not too long afterwards."

Emeraldwind nodded. "Then let's go."

Hassan nodded and started trudging through the snow with her and Phases not far behind.

He took them through another twisting tunnel and she felt the euphoric touch of traveling well up inside her again. Their mission tempered the emotions and she surged along with speed, finding herself desperately hoping they could stop the burun and gurog. She colored her face with determination and clenched her fists. When they came out of the tunnel, she followed Hassan through a frozen wasteland of rising pillars and immense structures, deserted and broken from battles and time. She watched the lugian's back as he marched through a plain of white snow. Sympathy held her. His ancestors' home, paradise during an age long passed, was destroyed. She understood the look in his eyes when he gazed at the towns that his kind once called home. Longing.

Hassan stopped halfway up the ascent of a small hill. He found her eyes. "Over this ridge, in the center of these two hills, is where the burun and gurog are meeting. We can easily see them from this point here without being seen. Stay low."

She nodded and followed him to the top. He knelt and lay on the snow, looking out over the valley. She lay next to him with Phases next to her. The sun, lowering its descent on the day, hid the far hill in shade. She traced the figures standing alone in the snowy wasteland. Two towering, muscular figures stood on either side of the burun emissary, their oily skin glistening in the sun's light. The emissary, tan and slender, shivered from the weather. It stood on two legs with a small stumped tail. It clasped its webbed hands respectfully before itself. Amphibious eyes watched the gurog from above its frog-like beak.

"It looks as if it's already started. Not too long ago, though, from what the gurog are saying. They must have just gotten here." Hassan looked at her and she nodded. "I can translate for you if you'd like but I only know what the gurog are saying, not the burun."

"That won't be necessary. I can let her hear." Phases interjected and cupped his hand around her ear. He held his other out towards the congregation in the valley.

"…you will do well to mind these ingredients." The gurog in the center spoke. Two guards stood next to it, both their faces plastered in boredom. Chain linked plate skirts protected their upper legs while their hooves sank into the snow. The skirt matched their plate vests. Fur covered bodies sat content in the freezing chill of the air. Their menacing eyes watched the gathered burun with warning. She traced the rippled horns stretching from their heads. Both were the image of revulsion and terror she had heard stories about.

"We will my lord." The burn bowed humbly.

"And what of the plan we spoke of?" The gurog in the center spoke. Its elongated horns ripped through a hood over its head. A robe, ending in a skirt, covered its body. Small skulls on a leather thong hung around its neck. It leaned against a staff for support while it spoke, holding a small canister in one hand.

The burun bowed again. "We have an emissary, at this moment, demonstrating to the drudge exactly what the shreth can do. It is not a question of if they will do what we tell them, simply, when do we begin the next phase."

"Not until we have told you as such. And these drudge, they will not move before they are told?" The center gurog's raspy voice rose in suspicion.

The burun emissary bowed vigorously while shaking its head. "No, they wouldn't dream of such a thing. Even with the shreth, they would not be able to control or overtake us. I have no doubt that the emissary warned them of such treason and also explained that only we are able to properly control the shreth…" The burun paused a moment before going on. "… with your direction, of course."

"Good. I would hate to know that these drudge are… not under your control as you would so believe." The gurog held the canister out to the burun. One of the burun guards walked over and gently accepted the canister in its large hands before traveling back to the spot it had once stood in.

"Do well by this and there very well could be a substantial reward in it for you, Grahk'tan. If all goes according to plan, I would have every reason to tell my superiors of your attention to and execution of these plans."

The burun bowed again. "You have my word, Manadorine, that these plans will not be stopped. On my life I vow."

"That is good to know then. Use these ingredients well, as I said. Their potency should be capable of turning nearly one hundred and fifty shreth. I would advise only turning one hundred, however, as the formula tends to become diluted the more you use it. When you are out, come back to us and we will have more for you."

The burun emissary bowed vigorously again, keeping its webbed hands out before itself. "Oh, thank you, thank you."

"Oh, by the way, we will need to send another fifty of our best soldiers with you."

Alarm took the burun's face but it softened the look into anticipated interest. "Oh? Were there not enough of your troops sent to Omishan for when the specialists should make the journey to the citadel?"

"We felt that twenty was not enough. We have decided to send more. We will need plenty of men there to… discourage the lessers from any thoughts they might have."

Both the burun and gurog shared a laugh. Emeraldwind shuddered at the voices in her ear.

"Where shall we wait, then, for these troops?"

A clawed finger pointed towards the hill on the other side of the valley. "Over this hill, a short distance away, there is a wooded area that doesn't seem… as pleasant as the rest of this continent seems to be. It may not be as hot as your home but it should suffice for the time being. If you wait there, within the hour, we will have our men with you and you can be well on your way."

"Thank you, my lord. With these ingredients and your men, Osteth should fall without the lessers knowing what hit them." The burun rubbed its hands together in greed.

"That is the plan."

"I only understood half of what he said… but it doesn't look like this is good." Hassan found Emeraldwind's eyes. They were clouded with distress.

"I understood everything they said… I wish I had only understood half of it. Maybe, then, I wouldn't feel so sick to my stomach."

Hassan crept down the hill before standing up. He wiped the snow off of him. "So now what do we do?"

"We kill them." Emeraldwind felt determination turning her stomach in knots.

"You can't be serious." Disbelief shifted Hassan's face and he watched her. She nodded.

"We may not be able to kill every gurog on this whole continent but we can kill those three and we can kill the burun." She pounded her fist in her hand, emphasizing every word. "We cannot let that canister get back to Omishan. And it's equally as important that those gurog do not make it back to their lair to organize more troops. Both spell sure disaster to the shelter dwellers."

Phases touched Emeraldwind's shoulder and she looked at his gray eyes. His forehead creased in worry. "Emeraldwind, I understand the seriousness of this, but there is no way the three of us can fight them. They outnumber us two to one."

"Exactly. Not only that, but gurog are deadly when alone. There are three out there. And coupled with burun, they become even deadlier. You know how burun poison can literally immobilize you in seconds. What you're asking is for us to risk suicide. For what? So they can organize even quicker because they'd know we were onto them?" Hassan shook his head in distress. "We can't fight them. It's simple suicide."

"Fine. Give up." Emeraldwind simmered with rage. "But you be the one to tell those people on Osteth that you didn't want to risk fighting six of these creatures when hundreds of drudge, hundreds of burun, and hundreds of gurog, not to mention mutated shreth, are pouring into their towns, killing them. You be sure to tell the remaining people in the shelters that you didn't want to risk fighting six of these creatures when they are slaughtered without so much as knowing what is happening. You be the one to tell them that you didn't want to risk fighting six of these creatures when everyone is forced to evacuate to Omishan, where the burun rule and will ensnare them. You be sure to tell those people that you had the chance to stop these things and you didn't.

"I'm not a shelter dweller. I lived long before you were ever born, Hassan. We fought against beings that would make you sweat in your sleep. We were experimented on, killed, and enslaved. We were brought to this world as enslaved beings. I understand what it means to be frightened. But I also understand what it means to fight with everything you have until the very end. What it means to take risks, jumping head long into danger to come out triumphant on the other side. I understand these things because I've been through them.

"You had the shelters to save you once before. But that was when Asheron was still alive. He's dead. He is gone. And you have no one who can save you this time. No one to build shelters and no one to seal them off from plagues that run rampant in these lands." Emeraldwind's chest heaved with fury. "So you have two options. You run with your tail between your legs only to be found and killed later when the drudge, burun, and gurog are through raping your lands and shelter-mates. Or, you put it all on the line to kill these six creatures standing out here in a valley all-alone. You tell me which way you want to die: cowardly or honorably."

Hassan measured her eyes. She clenched her fists, desperately trying to stop their shaking. She wanted to hit him, hug him, and cry. She wanted to stop the feelings thundering through her. All she could do was hold his eyes as they measured her.

"You speak with such fire, such passion. You make my ancestors proud. You think beyond yourself. You think for the good of those who are not as mighty as we. You speak with honor." Hassan reached down to his belt and unhooked one of his swords. "If I am to die, I will do so with honor, fighting at the side of a woman who is a true representation of the word."

She touched the center of her forehead and felt a tear roll down her cheek. "For our ancestors."

Hassan touched his forehead the same as she. "For our ancestors." His eyes found Phases. "And you?"

She looked over her shoulder at the mercenary. He looked towards the crest of the hill, then back at them. "I wouldn't think of letting you two do it alone. You'll need someone to even the odds." Phases held his arm out. White light winked into existence and hovered above his palm before expanding into a rod shaped object. It solidified and lowered into his hand.

"Then we go." Emeraldwind turned towards the hill.

"We need a plan." Hassan caught her shoulder before she could move. "We can't just run at them and expect theme to all die at once."

She looked at the tracks in the snow they had left on their march. "I know the burun. I've fought them before and live in their lands. I know their weaknesses. I can fight them."

"I will fight them as well. That would mean less of their poison to deal with." Phases stared at the crest of the hill.

"That leaves the gurog. I've fought more than one at once before, so the two lackeys shouldn't be a problem. But that one in the center is a shaman. He could prove to be a problem."

Emeraldwind looked at Hassan for a long moment. "Could he?" She marched up the hill, slinging the bow over her shoulders off. Runic symbols swept up the handle. She opened a small quiver attached to her thigh and pulled an arrow free. When she stood overlooking the valley, she knelt on a knee and nocked the arrow. "We're just going to have to solve that little problem then." She put tension to the bowstring, found her sight and held the arrow until she felt it was ready. She found the mark on the shaman she wanted. The arrow whistled as it flew from her. The gurog gestured and its hand went limp. The party around and before it stood in bewilderment. It toppled backwards, dead, with the shaft of the arrow sticking from one of its eye sockets.

"Doesn't seem to be a problem anymore." Emeraldwind slung the bow back over her shoulders and pulled her swords from their scabbards. The burun and gurog unhooked their weapons and looked towards the hill.

Hassan spun his swords. "Well then, shall we?"

Emeraldwind screamed at the top of her lungs before vaulting over the crest of the hill and running down. She heard Hassan roar with blood lust as he swept behind her, headed towards the gurog. Balls of flame roiled down the hillside, melting snow as they went. One of the burun deflected a ball, sending it propelling into the air. Another wasn't as lucky. It caught the flame, shrieking and toppling into a pile of chard skin. Four.

She met its sickles with her blades at ready. Her foot found its mark in the soft underbelly of the tan burun. She spun and backhanded its beak with her metal gauntlet. The burun stumbled. She swung, hoping to catch it, but it dodged, rolling on the ground and springing to attention. The amphibian body lunged at her and she hit it with the broad side of her sword. It grunted, rolling in the snow. She kicked it in the chest as hard as she could. The webbed hands caught her leg the second time and pulled her feet from under her. She fell on her back and rolled, leaping to her feet. The burun swung at her with its sickles and she deflected the brunt of the attack, catching the trailing end of the sickle on her cheek. Fresh blood rolled down her skin. She used the momentum of its attack and spun behind it, smacking the back of its head with her sword. It stumbled forward, stunned. Her sword found a mark in its lower back. It shrieked in pain. She twisted the sword and pulled up before putting a boot to its back and pulling her sword free. Three.

Her eyes surveyed the raging battle around her. Phases swiftly stepped aside from the remaining burun's fists and gestured. Light exploded from the space in front of the muscled burun, knocking it back. The mercenary rose a hand and pointed his palm at the burun. Flame raged from his hand and covered the burun's oily skin. Its scream was drowned by the hungry roar of the conflagration. Two.

A body passed above her. She looked up. The top half of a gurog with its entrails waving at her in the wind flew by. It landed in the snow strides away from her. One.

She turned to look at Hassan. His pumping muscles swung his swords in focused, measured sweeps. A master of his art. He backhanded the gurog with his gauntlet, knocking teeth loose. The flat end of his sword stunned the gurog as it stumbled sideways, trying to regain its footing. Hassan swung a single sword through the gurog's middle, severing its top and bottom halves. His other fist found its mark on the underside of the gurog's chin, lifting its top half high into the air, sailing away. The legs twitched before falling over.

The lugian met her eyes. "They weren't as tough as their comrades." He hooked his swords to his belt and smiled a grim smile.

"No, they weren't." Emeraldwind touched her cheek and looked at the blood on her fingers.

"Let me take care of that." Phases cupped her cheek. She felt the skin knitting. When he removed his hand she touched her cheek again to find the blood and scar gone.

Emeraldwind walked through the snow to the spot the canister had dropped and bent, retrieving it. She held it in her hands. Clear glass revealed the pink liquid inside. She looked at Hassan, then Phases. "This is what they need to conquer Osteth."

"It would seem so. Just one little thing of that." Hassan shook his head. "Sickening."

"My thoughts exactly. Too bad they'll never find this. And if they want it…" She tossed it high into the air. Her bow came off her shoulders and an arrow out of her quiver. She nocked the arrow, pulled back, then sent it sailing into the canister. Glass shards reflected the sun's light in a dizzying array of colors. "They'll have to look through the snow to get it."

"So now what? Even without them getting these chemicals or the fifty other gurog getting to the citadel, they're going to launch the invasion. This may only postpone them for a short time but certainly not indefinitely." Hassan watched her.

She trudged through the snow, towards the hill they had raced down. She looked over her shoulder at the gray lugian standing against the white snow between patches of red. His massive build seemed poised on her words. "We tell the group. This can't wait. We have to stop this invasion with everything we have. Or, else, Osteth will be lost."

Chapter 7

They watched her approach on the cobblestone entryway with silent, grim faces. Both sets of eyes held hers. Apprehension tingled up her spine. Fat, lazy clouds floated by while the sun painted the sky in vivid orange and reds on its farewell descent towards the horizon. A ring of dust hung in the sky, striping the mixed palette with its bloody lavender tint. The scene was perfect. Beautiful and grim.

She felt the reassuring presence of Hassan next to her. She heard Phases's haughty, proud steps trailing idly behind her. The world seemed to be coming apart, crashing down around her. It had, literally, gone mad.

She entered under the awning and dodged the tables spread out, weaving her way to the central table where the two men watching her sat. Familiar long black hair faded into white tips, complimenting dark skin. His earthen eyes held hers. The other was unfamiliar. As she approached, she saw his straightened gray hair fell around his eyes and highlighted his dark tan skin. Amber eyes measured her with silent scrutiny. A thin mustache covered the corners of his mouth, with no center to connect the two sides. A thin strip of hair extended from the bottom of his lip to his chin.

Wind Walker rose with the guest joining him. His face never caught humor. "Emeraldwind." He turned his eyes to the lugian at her side. "Hassan." He measured the mercenary as Phases came up from behind. "Maxim.

"Greetings. I would say it's good to see you, but under these times, this is a meeting I would rather we had avoided."

Emeraldwind nodded. "We understand."

"Let me introduce my guest." Wind Walker directed their attention to the man standing at his side. "This is Dizzarian Malterss, strategist for 'The Walkers.'"

Dizzarian held his hand out across the table and shook Emeraldwind's hand. "It's good to meet you. You seem… oddly familiar. Have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Not that I know of." Her face curled into thought. "Though, you do seem familiar as well. Possibly coincidence."

"Stranger things have happened." The corner of his mouth turned up in a half-hearted grin before he shook Hassan and Phases's hands.

"Please, have a seat so we can… discuss the situation." Wind Walker gestured to the seats around the table and the three took their places.

"As I understand it, from what you three have told me, the gurog are pressuring the burun into capturing the shreth as well as providing them with the means to experiment on them, correct?" Wind Walker intertwined his fingers together and moved his eyes among the group before him. The three nodded with confirmation. "And the burun are then using their power over the drudge to coerce the drudge into holding the shreth. All of this so the drudge, burun, and gurog can invade Osteth."

"Yes." Emeraldwind clicked her fingernails together before returning her eyes to the men before her. "For the sole purpose, as I see it, of forcing the shelter dwellers to evacuate to Omishan where the burun could easily capture, enslave, and mutilate us. They then, also, could pour into the openings of the shelters and kill all of the people down in the depths."

Wind Walker leaned back and cast his eyes beyond the three. They waited silently for him to speak. "Three races that once drove us into the shelters allied together to again put their weight against us. Is there nothing that can be done?"

"We could fight." Emeraldwind addressed him. "We could attack them before they had a chance to push forward."

"We are outnumbered. The drudge outnumber us fifteen to one, easily. It's not their strength that keeps their lands dangerous; it's their numbers. We simply do not have the numbers." Wind Walker sighed heavily before moving a strand of his hair away from his face. "The gurog have the strength the drudge do not. We may only be outnumbered two or three to one concerning them… but no one, save Hassan here, could possibly best one or two gurog.

"And the burun… their poison. Their speed and their poison. Alone, one may be able to take them. Together, in groups with their larger guardians, their shaman, and their underlings, they are too formidable a force to attack directly." He rubbed his forehead in distress.

"And not to mention the shreth. If your account is accurate, one killed two drudge in less time it takes to blink an eye. And without becoming winded. The combination of all of these elements means only a sure death for anyone who goes against them."

"Wind Walker, numbers mean nothing. When faced with insurmountable odds, teamwork and wit win in the end. Every single time." Emeraldwind pressed the tips of her lacquered fingers against the table. "Do you remember the time you, Sagra, Phoenix, and myself were stuck in that twisting series of tunnels underneath those Empyrean ruins? When we were outnumbered at least fifty or fifty-five to one by burun? Pushed against a wall, we prevailed through those odds. It was our use of wit and team work. And we were, like now, against inconceivable numbers."

"That was different. That was only you and I, not an entire culture of people. If worst came to worst, we could have sacrificed ourselves. But this is different. This is about invasion. This involves not just the burun but the drudge and the gurog, all deadly in their own right for their own reasons and many times deadlier when coupled with their allied and extorted kin. And they have shreth that can rip through anything as if it were simple paper." Wind Walker gestured, objecting. "Their numbers combined are simply too much, not to mention, their talents and traits. There are simply not enough able-bodied warriors to fight against them."

"What of the monarchs? Could they not lend their aid?" Hassan offered a solution.

"It would take us too long to organize them, not to mention the petty, arrogant nature of some. Too many would focus on the writing of history to cover their names and deeds instead of concentrating on the actual battle at hand." Dizzarian clasped his hands together and gave his response.

Phases moved some of his hair aside and spoke up. "What of the bigger monarchies? Wouldn't they see the benefits of quickly organizing and lending aid?"

"After Emeraldwind let Wind Walker know the state of this situation, he immediately contacted me and I set about trying every option and tapping every string in my web of contacts. Unfortunately, the vast majority of lords and ladies I spoke with told me they need evidence of such an incursion developing and time to properly organize." Dizzarian pinched the bridge of his nose. "The few monarchs who did offer their support simply don't have the numbers to properly lend aid nor the cache of equipment and talent a situation of this seriousness requires."

Emeraldwind dry washed her face in frustration. She directed her gaze at Dizzarian's soft amber eyes. "Don't these people understand the serious nature of what's before us? By the time evidence is gathered and they are organized to defend Osteth, we'll be trying to desperately defend Omishan instead. Do they need us to bring them a dead drudge, burun, gurog, and shreth before them in an assembly for them to believe us? Why isn't our word good enough?"

"Sadly, because of who we are." Dizzarian frowned. "Because we owe allegiance to no one. Because when a number of these monarchs had various problems, they could hire one or two of our members to help them. They believe we're mercenaries only out for a gold mark. They believe we'd make up any story if it meant money for us in the end. And our blanket of secrecy, even within our own group, doesn't help to form a bridge of trust." The strategist shook his head and held her eyes. "The monarchs who did offer support are our close, personal friends. The people who know us enough to trust our word. But their members aren't possibly enough."

"And I guess even if we could, for the first time, organize our own collective…?" Fading hope lingered in her eyes.

"It wouldn't be enough."

Silence settled over the table as grim realization took hold of them. The busy sounds of the city around them floated by; laughing, talking, music, singing, hammers against metal. All would soon cease to exist. She looked out at the people. Children happily ran around tables after each other, enjoying the fading day. Men and women sat on hand-made, hastily constructed benches and gossiped. Vendors, with smiles on their faces, wrapped their wares in colored cloth to the delight of the purchaser. All happy to be out of the shelters. To see the rising and setting sun. All of it would soon cease to exist. She swallowed back a lump in her throat at the thought of those children screaming in absolute terror as the shreth mauled them. Her eyes found Dizzarian's soft, intelligent ones.

"Then what plan have you devised?"

He clasped his hands together on the table and measured her face before answering. "We are going to evacuate everyone into the shelters again."

Her eyes narrowed. "And how do you plan on doing that? If the monarchs will not help defend Osteth, what makes you think they will leave?"

He laid his palms open on the table. "Rumor is the most powerful propaganda. The people will evacuate themselves after a few seeds have been planted. The monarchs can only follow thereafter. You can't be a monarch without, first, subjects."

She clenched her teeth and spoke through them slowly. "And, then, when everyone is in the shelters, how do you plan on protecting them? Asheron's magic is broken and gone. The shelters have been revealed. How exactly do you plan on stopping the drudge, burun, and gurog when they turn their attention on the shelters?"

"The monarchs will see the reality of the situation by then. We will have suitable numbers."

Emeraldwind slammed her fist down against the table. "By then they will have three or four times the shreth! They wouldn't waste any of their own numbers against us. They'd just send the dogs of slaughter down on top of us. Backed into a hole with nowhere to go and the shreth pouring in. We would be destroyed."

Hassan put a hand on her forearm. "Calm down Emeraldwind."

She jerked her arm away from his hand and cast her narrow-eyed glare at him. A finger of accusation shot out at Dizzarian. "I will not calm down when my own group sits here and suggests delayed suicide. Running and hiding until pushed into a hole." She focused her glared back on the two men seated before her. "In all honesty, I want you to tell me if you believe running into the shelters will end this."

"Anything is possible. The way into the shelters are like high mountain passes; narrow and tricky. They wouldn't be able to flank our men in those passes, which are passes we know, not them. Our advantage lies in the familiar terrain of the shelters." Dizzarian answered in confidence.

She tapped her finger against the table to emphasize every word. "No, Dizzarian. I want you to give me a final, definite answer that you believe going back into the shelters without the protection of Asheron's magic, without the numbers of hold off a pressed assault, and without the complete confidence of every monarch working together in this, will end this."

The strategist sat silent. His amber eyes looked passed her, at the city beyond the make-shift tavern before returning to her stern face. He sighed and shook his head. "I can't do that, Emeraldwind. There are simply too many factors against us."

She snorted a disgusted laugh then pushed her chair back and stood. She leaned on her hands towards Dizzarian and Wind Walker. Her eyes narrowed. "Then I'm fighting."

Wind Walker stood in protest. "Now hold on. That's insanity."

"Is it?" Her chest heaved in determination. She clenched her fist to still her shaking hand. "I'm fighting. I refuse to back down or run. I was not freed from my prison just to run into shelters that I should never have known about. It may be natural for you to live in caves and on floating isles but I was born and lived under the sun. I will die under the sun."

Wind Walker's arms implored her. "We don't have the numbers to fight back a scourge of this magnitude."

"I will fight alone if I have to."

The group sat in silence. The sounds of the surrounding town passed around them. Wind Walker's voice came quietly distant. "Please rethink this Emeraldwind. There will be no gain if you run off to fight; only loss. If we have a little more time, I'm sure we can try the monarchs again."

Her face and voice softened from the look in his eyes. "We have no time left, Wind Walker. I wish it wasn't so but it is. With what Hassan, Phases, and I have done today in killing their emissaries, we put ourselves in a double bind. Though we stopped more of the ingredients from making it back to Omishan and the issuing of more gurog warriors to join with the ones already sent to the burun for when the specialists go to the drudge citadel, we also warned them. When their emissaries don't return, they will know something happened to them. They will move forward with their plans.

"We can not wait for the monarchs. And we do not have the numbers to fight them alone. But that doesn't mean I'm backing down. I can't, Wind Walker. It's in my blood to fight." She held his eyes for a long moment before she looked away.

"I will fight at your side." Hassan pushed his chair back, towering over Emeraldwind. His dark sunken eyes stared down into hers. His thin, square mouth showed neither humor nor anger. "My ancestors would want me to. They would have beseeched me to raise my blade and cleave my opponent. No mercy for those who show none."

Emeraldwind trembled. She put her fingers to the center of her forehead. "For our ancestors."

Hassan did the same. "For our ancestors."

"Hassan, you can't. Can't you see reason? We simply don't have the numbers to wage this war." Wind Walker ran his fingers through his hair, staring up at the lugian.

The lugian turned his head and watched Wind Walker. He measured him with his small, dark eyes. "I can see reason. But I also understand that in times of great crisis, reason can also be your downfall. The monarchs will not help and we do not have time for the ones who will to organize. Time has slipped through our fingers. An old lugian saying goes as such, 'For a time of great battle and peace will not be brought on by those who wait but by those who do.' This is our great battle. And this is our time." Hassan stared down at Emeraldwind. "In this, I must go with her. She understands that fundamental concept of doing. Of action versus words. Action is the only way to win this."

"You'll need someone for them to write about when we're done." Phases stood next to Emeraldwind and watched her face. His eyes traced her tattoo. Even in his arrogance, his humor was gone. "A heroic mission requires a hero. I will need to be that person."

"Thank you Phases." Emeraldwind nodded. She met Wind Walker's eyes. "I'm sorry Wind Walker, but I can't wait. I have to go to that citadel, I have to open those doors, and I have to stop them the best way I know how."

"You'll need another hand." Dizzarian cast an eye at Wind Walker then turned his attention to Emeraldwind. She nodded grimly in thanks. "I've studied the arts of war involving the mind. In this, using the elements will be the best way to defeat the numbers we're faced with."

"And even the strategist loses his ability to reason." Wind Walker's voice trailed off.

"No. I haven't lost reason. From the start, after you told me the information she gave you, I knew we had too many factors against us. Even the shelters aren't a definite plan. All of it was conjecture. Too many lives rest on this."

Wind Walker's muddy eyes turned to Dizzarian. "And lives still won't be lost? When you fail, what then? They will still pour from the citadel onto these lands. We will have no time then."

"If we fail, then I can only hope the monarchs can organize themselves and push the combined efforts of these three mortal enemies back. And if not… then we tried." Emeraldwind walked around the table and stood in front of Wind Walker. "But promise me one thing."

Sincerity and apprehension echoed in his eyes. "Anything."

She touched his lips with a finger and stared into his eyes. "You will get to safety if we do fail. You will do what you can to get these people back to the shelters or Omishan, whichever is the safest place for them to be."

Wind Walker nodded. She embraced him and put her head against his chest. His chin rested on the top of her head. She heard his heart beating. Fear.

She departed and turned from him. She put two fingers in her mouth and puffed her cheeks out without making a sound. "We will need one more."

Crystal blue eyes faded into view as they approached, dodging tables. Elongated claws clicked against the wooden floor while fur shot in an arch across its back. The fangs and ears faded into view with the body and tail solidifying last. Wind Phoenix sat in front of Emeraldwind and stared up into her eyes.

"You know and understand the seriousness of what lies before us, Wind Phoenix?" The lasher clicked a single claw on the floor in answer to her question. "And you are prepared to sacrifice yourself for this?" He answered again with a single claw on the floor. "Then join me. We go to the Drudge Citadel, in hopes of stopping a war that will take countless lives." She looked above his head into the city. People went about their business with no knowledge of the proceedings. She envied them. "And if we are to fail, then may the shelter dwellers rise up and prevail."

Chapter 8

She had no full recollection of the things that had brought her to this point. Only vague remembrances of things that had happened. Like a dream passing in a brief instant with only the key moments hanging in memory. Everything had been instinct. Her limbs had moved in measured, focused steps. She had dodged without thought, slain without overt motive. Survival.

Sound escaped her constantly. For full minutes she would hear nothing, startled only moments later when what she did finally hear was herself screaming at the top of her lungs in a blood-thirsty war-cry. She looked down at her blades. Both were covered in blood. Her fingers and arms were splattered with it. But she knew that none was her own.

Her eyes shifted to the creature next to her. Its fur was caked in fresh blood. Strips of skin hung in its elongated claws. Its attention stayed focused ahead, watching with alerted interest. She looked at the lugian standing next to the creature. His blades were covered in blood up to the hilt and his hands glistened with it. His forearms and biceps flexed in anger and blood lust. Sunken eyes focused ahead of them.

She turned and looked over her shoulder at the road running between the enormous stone walls circling the perimeter of the yard encasing the citadel. Bodies littered the stone path all the way to the front gates, some headless, others disemboweled, and yet more severed from head to toe. Charred, smoking, bloated, yellowed and sickened bodies. There were all varieties.

Realization slammed into her as reality finally sank in. She heard the distant sparse bird calls in the crooked trees rising out of the rugged ground. Fires burned with impunity. Puddles of water rippled. She remembered entering the city, the terror of the citizens. The scurrying feet of the drudge. The ones who did fight back rushed at them with whatever utensils were handy. They died swiftly. They were not seasoned fighters. The ones who came after joined their kin with a swiftly placed sword or a ball of corroding fire. Phases and Dizzarian had stood side by side, raining the city with magery. The once civic area of drudge culture burned brilliantly in the murk of their shadowed home.

Hassan and Wind Phoenix had torn through the few warriors there were in the city. They were not a fight. She had followed slowly behind, in a stupor, slamming her blades into any passer-by who dared strike out at her. They wove their path to the double doors leading into the citadel; into the belly of the beast.

She turned and looked at the oak doors again. Moments away from the heart. Seconds away from the end.

"Are we going to go in or stand and look at a door all day?" Hassan's normally gentle voice was lined with heat and rage. She understood. She felt the same.

Emeraldwind offered Hassan a cold smile. "It won't just open itself. We'll need a couple muscles too… convince it."

The lugian twirled his swords in his hands and offered a tight grin of satisfaction. His eye sockets narrowed. "My pleasure."

Hassan tore the doors off their hinges and sent them spiraling into the inner sanctum. The outside light revealed the few drudge inside. The doors spun across the room, slicing a pair of drudge who couldn't move out of the way fast enough in half. Their tops flew into the adjoining hallway. Their bottom halves lay pinned beneath the doors as they skidded to a halt.

"It begins again." Emeraldwind tapped her swords together and dove into the foyer.

She met the attack of a drudge who came at her. Wind Phoenix's familiar presence ran behind her. The drudge swung and she ducked the blow, ramming its mid-section with her back and shoulder. The lasher bounded from behind and leapt above her, slashing at the drudge's exposed face. The creature toppled to the ground and Emeraldwind used her momentum to stab the drudge in the chest, pinning it to the stone floor. Its horrific death knell was lost in the rage of battle around her.

Her eyes took survey. All drudge were dead. She moved to the hallway and looked down either tunnel. Clear.

"Where to?" Hassan came up behind her.

Emeraldwind met his eyes then motioned with her head down one of the hallways. "We can take this to the central chambers. I remember how to get there."

Their steps weren't as light as hers. They were not all trained as she was. But they didn't need to be. She wanted their enemies to know they were coming. She took them down another set of hallways and through doors. When they met the enemy, they quickly disposed of them and moved on. She traced the path she remembered and took them along side routes that she reasoned led to the place she wanted to go. She didn't rush. She didn't sneak. She simply walked, with them following behind.

The doors were closed. She watched as Hassan sent them flying into the room beyond. They skidded across the floor and bunched together the long red carpet that ran down the center of the room. The room was covered in soft amber candlelight, each bracket on the rising pillars to the side filled with a white stick. The skylight overhead was dark from the night beyond the citadel. She could barely make out tiny stars beyond the colored panes. Fluted archways ran along the two side balconies she had once stood on and admired. Her eyes searched every shadow. There was nothing out of the ordinary but a tingle in her gut warned her.

"What is this?" Hassan entered the room and walked to the fallen doors. He looked around, inspecting the room.

"A cathedral. A very old cathedral." Dizzarian passed her while she stood tracing each archway, looking for anything. She detected nothing but the tingle in her gut constantly warned her. Instinct. "This is what our ancestors would have gathered in to worship deities or pay homage to their old ways."

"Flattering that the drudge would use such a sanctified place as their home." The lugian spit in disgust and moved further into the room.

Emeraldwind followed behind them, constantly inspecting the shadows beyond the columns rising from the floor to hold up the balconies. Nothing.

"So where are these creatures? We've run through their entire city and, now, their citadel, and they choose not to face us?" Hassan's laugh echoed along the stone walls surrounding them. "Cowardly. Only five of us and untold numbers of them and they hide."

Phases scanned a pair of overturned pews. "It's the way of the drudge; to hide."

"No. The way of the drudge is to draw lessers into a trap."

They stopped. Emeraldwind looked down the carpet at the other end of the room underneath two candles next to the door. A drudge stood with a sneer on its face. Its muscles flexed and it opened and closed its hands rhythmically. Dark beady eyes watched them.

It rose its hands. "Why should I expend my real forces, when all I need do is have you walk right into our trap? In here, in the heart of our citadel, you meet your end." Emeraldwind looked at the columns. Gurog stepped from behind them, flexing furry muscled arms. They wielded swords, axes, hammers. She looked up at the balconies as burun climbed up the archways and walls, rotating their amphibious and reptilian eyes to look down on the gathered party. Hundreds.

"A talking drudge. I never thought I would see the day." Hassan growled through his teeth.

The drudge turned its eyes on Phases. The corner of its beak-like mouth turned up in a self-satisfied smile. "It's been long Phases. Never thought I would see you with…" Its eyes took in the others. "… lessers."

"Lessers, they may be, but with more heart than you have ever shown."

The drudge chuckled. Its clawed fingers toyed with the crystal hanging on a chain around its neck.

"Why are you doing this?" Emeraldwind took her eyes away from the gurog and burun surrounding them to stare at the drudge across the room.

It rose its arms again. "Why, don't you know little human?" Its arms came down and anger narrowed its eyes. "To take back what is rightfully ours."

"Rightfully yours? Osteth is not rightfully yours." She readjusted her grip on her swords.

"Ah but it is. Ours long before you humans ever came to this world. And you stole it. You drove my kind beneath the ground." It looked towards the skylight high above them. "But then we touched it. We found the power. And we drove you underground like you did us."

"And we rose from the ground. We took back Osteth." Emeraldwind's eyes narrowed.

"And we will once again take it back." Its eyes stared directly into hers. Malice danced between them. "But this time, there will be none of you to steal it from us."

She found herself laughing. "You're petty and dim-witted. You sell yourself into slavery to the burun and gurog. You think you will gain this land again. You won't. You've lost your freedom. You have gained nothing."

Its claws pointed towards her. "So says someone with the mark of a tumerok who stands shoulder to shoulder with a lugian."

She shook her head. "You already lost long before you even began. You've sold yourselves into slavery without realizing what it has cost you; the land you so desperately wish to regain."

The drudge snorted. "I tire of this. You humans joust far too well with words. But it is not words that will win you the day. It is actions. In that you have lost. Skarn fan trae. Now you die. Then we will rain onto our lands again and rid it of the parasites who leech it dry."

The drudge snapped its fingers.

Burun leapt from the ceiling. Gurog pushed pews out of the way. She moved away from the others. Hundreds.

Her blades met with the curved sword of a gurog. Its strength pushed her back a step. She regained her balance and moved away from its furious hacking. A burun behind her tripped her. She rolled away as its blade came down on the stone. Another burun jumped at her. She used her rolling momentum to kick it in its soft underbelly and stand. She spun, back handing it across its face. The burun stumbled into the one headed for her. She swung one of her swords and sliced open the exposed gut of the stumbling burun. Its entrails sloshed onto the floor. Her blades worked by instinct. One blocked, the other slashed. She dodged, leaping across a set of fallen pews. Hundreds.

An explosion sent her sprawling on the floor. A limb bounced passed her head. Gurog. She leapt to her feet and parried the downward stroke of a gurog axe, its blade inches from her face. She stepped to the side and out of range. Her sword found the exposed head of a burun. It sailed across the room. Another burun fell from a sword wound to the back. She caught the calf of a gurog. It cursed in its native tongue as it crashed into a set of pews. Hundreds still.

She took stock of her allies, each busied with their own skirmishes. None dead. Wind Phoenix leapt behind her and clawed at the eyes of a burun. She pivoted and decapitated the stumbling amphibian. Her boot kicked the back of a gurog. It turned. Her blade found its open neck. Hot blood spurted on her face. She spit it out and continued moving across the floor.

Roiling balls of flame sailed passed her into a cadre of gathered gurog. They roared in agony. Burnt hair hung in the air. Another explosion knocked her across the room. She regained her feet, stepped behind a column, and put her fingers in her mouth. Two puffs. Wind Phoenix appeared before her with watchful eyes. Relieved to see him unharmed, she tapped her blades together and the lasher slipped around the column she had hidden behind back into the open battle rampaging across the cathedral floor. Emeraldwind followed hot on his heels, taking stock of the scene. Still hundreds.

A blood-curdling battle cry caused her to stop in mid-stride. She glanced to her left. A gurog sailed through the air with his axe, easily twice the length of her body, descending towards her. Without hesitation, Emeraldwind stepped back as the gurog crashed into a set of splintered pews that littered the floor just paces away from her. Her anger at full rage, Emeraldwind used the pause created by the creature regaining its bearings and recovering from its wild attempt at cleaving her in twain to dismember it. As her blades slashed into its arms and met bone, she gritted her teeth at the jarring impact of her swords against his armor-like skeleton. Stinging pain shot through her arm as she finished and delivered the blow that beheaded the gurog. The sounds of an explosion and falling rock caused her to turn.

Dizzarian, with Phases watching over him, had managed to collapse part of the balcony with fluted archways hanging overhead onto a group of burun with long tan legs and amphibiously stumped tails. Their death knell wailed through the cathedral and joined the others around the room. Still hundreds.

Emeraldwind deflected the curved blades of a burun leaping at her from behind a group of columns holding up the part of the balcony still standing. Using her momentum, she spun and kicked the creature with the full brunt of her boot. It doubled over and she sliced its exposed throat while still spinning. With her back to the burun, she took quick stock of the room. Phases and Dizzarian, both masters of elemental war, pummeled entire groups with their magic, all the while avoiding physical contact. Wind Phoenix, slinking through the rubble and columns, swiftly ended the lives of drudge and burun alike with a well-placed bite and swipe of a lethally sharp claw. Many never knew what had killed them. Emeraldwind almost paused when she saw Hassan. He vigorously fought with a gurog, knocking the furry, demonic beast back several paces with coordinated and practiced sword strokes. The lugian's fury was only out-matched by his skill with the blade. But it wasn't the lugian's deadly accuracy with the blade that gave her pause; it was a sight she had seen many times before. It was, instead, the gurog standing several lengths away from him, which he seemed unaware of. In alarm, Emeraldwind saw the gurog pull back and heave an axe towards the lugian.

Backhanding the burun frantically grabbing at its throat, Emeraldwind turned towards Hassan and screamed. Everything seemed to slow down. The lugian's head turned slowly towards her as he felled the gurog he had been battling. Emeraldwind gestured wildly towards the axe spinning towards him through the air. Desperately, she screamed for him to fall, to be out of the way of the axe's vigorous twirling. The lugian stood silently, as if not hearing her. Slowly his head turned towards what she pointed at. There wasn't enough time. The axe was too close. She screamed as the axe hit Hassan square across the neck and spun up into the air. The lugian stumbled backwards from the blow and toppled over. His gigantic mass caused needles of the shattered wooden benches to pop into the air and spread outwards as he landed.

Time seemed to renew its headlong rush as Hassan fell to the ground. Emeraldwind turned towards the last place she had seen Dizzarian and Phases. Both mages, busy with their groups, ignored her. She screamed. Dizzarian, closer than Phases and less busy, turned his amber eyes towards her. The two drudge that had been dancing between his balls of flame misstepped and fell scorched to the ground. Emeraldwind screamed Hassan's name and gestured towards where he had fallen. The gurog who had thrown the axe started moving towards her comrade. Emeraldwind wasted no time in dealing with the hooved creature.

She made it to Hassan the same moment Dizzarian did. Her eyes, all the while, checked the state of the cathedral floor. Hundreds of burun and drudge still swarmed around the debris and bodies, most ducking behind the columns after Wind Phoenix or Phases. What few stragglers attempted to assassinate the two bent over the lugian met a quick end by either blade or magic. Dizzarian knelt beside Hassan, waving his hands over the lugian and silently checking him. The mage quickly knitted the wound in the lugian's neck to stop the bleeding.

"What's wrong with him? Why isn't he getting up?" Emeraldwind swept her swords across the abdomen of an approaching drudge and kicked it squarely in the chest. It fell backwards over the remains of a burun she had only moments before similarly disposed of.

Dizzarian looked up shaken. "There's something inside of him, something that's different. I can't heal it. It's like poison but I can't heal it."

"Poison?"

"It's like a poison but it's something different. I can't heal it with my magic." Dizzarian held his hands over Hassan. She could see the palms of the mage's hands glowing soft white as he tried to revive Hassan. The lugian didn't stir.

"And now, you will experience our greatest creation. Your kind shall die for what you have done." The drudge wearing the gold chain with an azure crystal at the end held his arms high into the air and screamed over the pitched battles still raging. Emeraldwind looked up at him. She was his only audience. His measured eyes gazed into hers. Unbridled bloodlust thundered towards her. "Release the shreth!"

"The shreth! Emeraldwind, you have to stop them!" Dizzarian looked up hurriedly from his work at Hassan's side.

Across the room, burun wielding long rods with seemingly harmless red gems attached to the end ushered groups of shreth into the room from behind the double doors. The shreth, just as hairless as the one she had seen before with rippling muscles and pounding veins beneath their pale skin, growled with lethal intent. Vacant eyes stared out at the battle. The thick smell of blood, burnt fur, and sulfur started driving the creatures into a frenzy. The commanding drudge, with nothing more than a loincloth covering his genitals, grinned as he stepped behind the line of shreth stretching across the floor.

One by one, the burun lifted their rods towards the shreth and murmured words she couldn't hear. One by one, the shreth, as if released from their shackles by their masters, broke from the line and started running towards the skirmishes around the room. In cold fright, Emeraldwind realized how bleak their situation was. She glanced at Phases. After disposing of two gurog furiously hacking towards him, he had a clear view of her. As if called by her mere thoughts, he stopped and watched her with his soft gray eyes. She pointed towards the shreth, screaming their name. He held an arm out and felled a drudge blocking his view. Lines of shreth descended upon the room, eager for the flesh of her and her allies. They tore through anything in their way, drudge, burun, and gurog alike. Phases looked back towards Emeraldwind in resignation. He gave only a single nod.

"Dizzarian, protect me."

In obedience, the mage rose from his place next to Hassan and turned towards a group of drudge descending on the two of them.

Emeraldwind sheathed her blades and pulled her bow off her back. She retrieved three arrows and held them between her fingers. Bringing the sight to her eyes, she aimed, called the targets to her, and released the arrows. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Phases felled a drudge coming from behind a column and turned his attention to Emeraldwind. His eyes caught hers as she watched him slowly and he turned to stare at the three arrows in mid-flight passing by him only mere strides away. He pointed his fingers towards them and released his magic. Soft white light swirled from his hands and coated the arrows' tips. As they flew by, he returned his gaze to Emeraldwind's and she nodded.

The arrows sped through the air towards their three intended targets. The first one hit solid bone in one of the shreth's shoulders. The shreth, seemingly unaware of its injury, kept trampling anything in its way on its headlong rush towards Emeraldwind and Dizzarian. The second arrow struck a shreth in the chest. Neither it nor the first seemed to take stock of their wounds, never once slowing. The third struck the ground just in front of the line of shreth as they hurriedly ran towards Phases. Emeraldwind waited only a split second before covering her eyes.

The arrows ignited. Rubble erupted into the air as pews and rocks were tossed into the balconies and through the skylight high above. Glass rained down as the rocks crashed through the stained glass. Shreth, burun, drudge, and gurog near the explosion joined the bricks in their brilliant display of carnage; detached legs, arms, and heads, viscera, ripped chests, fingers, toes, and teeth, splashed against the walls as they showered everything near. Light flickered inside the chest of the shreth and it frantically clawed at its body before it ruptured. The shreth around it stumbled and fell over themselves as bits of bone and innards knocked them from their feet with the ferocity of their expulsion. Two shreth joined the first as the arrow in its shoulder ignited and decapitated it. Their bodies slide across the ground in their own wet greeting.

Emeraldwind nocked three more arrows and sent them flying. Phases turned towards the arrows in mid-flight and cast his magic towards their tips again. Each one glowed soft white. They landed in three shreth and moments later burst those shreth across the floor of the cathedral. The room erupted into chaos. Gurog furiously hacked at the shreth, having seen the demented dogs shredding their comrades. Drudge fought to escape, clawing at each other on the ground. Dizzarian decapitated a burun trying to use the confusion to its advantage. Emeraldwind nocked three more arrows and sent them flying. Phases again brushed them with his magic and they fell to the floor. Moments later, brick and debris rained the floor and rock dust hid the battle beyond.

"Kill the controllers! If the shreth controllers fall, the shreth won't be controllable! We can use it to our advantage!" Dizzarian called over another explosion from a group of arrows she had sent flying beyond the mist.

"I can't see!"

The mage turned towards the rock dust and cast his hands out. As if bidden by his will, the dust parted long enough for her to get a clear shot. She nocked her arrows, aimed, and sent them flying. They met their marks only moments later as the burun toppled backwards dead. The shreth, freed, stopped in mid-run and turned towards the nearest warm body. Bloody entrails and pulsing veins rained the air as the shreth tore into the drudge and burun vigorously fighting with each other.

Emeraldwind pulled an arrow from her quiver and dove over fallen rock and through the rock dust clouding the room. A burun stumbled through the cloud, desperately waving its hands. She stabbed it through the eye with her arrow before moving on and retrieving another from the quiver attached to her leg. She stepped over a pew and into the open beyond. Gurog, engaged with a group of shreth, paid her no attention as she passed and searched. When she couldn't find him among the dead, she searched the columns. A fleeting shape with the stature of a man in his prime revealed what she sought. She nocked her arrow and put the drawstring to her cheek. She saw it flicker by again. As if in a trance, Emeraldwind called the target to her. The next time the shadow appeared it slowed to a deathly crawl in her sight. Like releasing her breath, she released the arrow. The dust and blood on her fingers misted the air. She could see through it towards the target moving between the columns. The arrow twirled through the air. It lusted for the blood as much as she did. She watched as it slid into the shadows between the columns and out of sight.

A solid thunk told her she had struck her target. Without needing to verify the contact, she slipped back into the dust cloud slowly dissipating across the room. Traversing the room in the direction she knew Hassan laid, Emeraldwind heard scattered skirmishes echoing through the room. Phases, slightly bloodied and winded, joined her as she stepped over some of the rock that had rained from the ceiling after the first explosion of her arrows. In silence they both stepped from the cloud and into view of Hassan and Dizzarian.

"Where's Wind Phoenix?" Emeraldwind neared Dizzarian and looked around. In answer to her question, the lasher appeared from behind the columns and trotted towards the group. He wore a mask of blood.

"I suppose those sounds are everything else fighting the shreth now?" Phases looked over his shoulder.

Dizzarian nodded. "As soon as Emeraldwind started using those arrows of hers, the organized chaos of the three groups quickly dissipated. It became every creature for itself."

"I had some help from Phases." Emeraldwind surveyed the bodies lying limp across the floor. Many, severed, beheaded, and disemboweled, twisted and turned with the shattered furniture, fallen glass, broken candleholders, and rock.

"Well, as soon as those arrows started exploding, everything turned on everything else. The drudge, not exactly the bravest of creatures to begin with, started killing each other to try to get away. And when they started murdering burun, the burun started killing them and each other as well." Dizzarian gestured towards one of the fallen shreth. "And once Emeraldwind killed the burun's controlling the shreth, no one wanted to be left in here. I guess not even these creatures wanted to deal with the shreth."

"When these things are done killing each other, we can easily dispose of the stragglers." Phases turned his attention back to Dizzarian.

Her mind on other things, Emeraldwind knelt next to Hassan and laid a hand on his chest. She stilled her trembling jaw and stifled the emotion back into her stomach. Swallowing the lump in her throat was harder. "Is he going to be all right Dizzarian?"

"He's breathing. That much is certain. But he hasn't woken up yet. Whatever happened to him was something more than a simple neck wound." Dizzarian bent beside her. He combed his hair away from his eyes.

"It was an axe. A gurog threw an axe at him." Emeraldwind searched the ground. Beneath the fallen bodies off to the side, she saw its handle sticking out. Rising, she retrieved it and brought it back to Dizzarian. Its handle, wrapped in cured leather covered with both dried blood and sweat, bore foreign emblems. Etched across the blade were lines in a language she couldn't begin to decipher. The mage studied the edge and ran his finger along the blood streaked blade.

"I'm going to have to study this axe in better light. These symbols seem familiar but I can't place where I've seen them before. And there's something not quite right about this blood. It seems lighter than lugian blood; much lighter than Hassan's."

"I think I know how we can get to the bottom of this." Emeraldwind rose and brushed her hands on her pants. Dizzarian watched her.

"How?"

Emeraldwind looked back into the darkness at the thing standing silently behind the columns. "I have a little… pet, that I caught. We can ask it questions."

She started across the room, trying to control her anger. She wanted nothing more than to draw the knife in the sheath attached to her ankle and plunge it into the thing's chest but they needed answers. Climbing the last of the debris and diving into the shadows obscuring the backs of the columns, Emeraldwind held her hand out and willed her old knowledge of magic to the surface. A tiny flame caught above her palm. Phases, following behind, stopped beside her when she stood in front of the thing standing beside the wall. It gurgled blood.

"I didn't hit you where it counted. You can still speak." Tightly controlled rage gripped her voice.

"Bitch." The drudge spit at her. Blood splattered her face and she wiped it off with her hand. Rubbing it across the drudge's chest, she found his beady eyes.

"Now, I have a few questions for you."

"I won't answer them." The drudge wheezed through the puncture of the arrow wound. "Your kind is beneath me."

"If you believe so. But I'm not the one stuck to the wall by an arrow in my throat either." She rose a scolding eyebrow. "Now, what was it that struck down Hassan?"

"The lugian?" The drudge smiled. Wet blood on his teeth stood out against his pale orange beak. "Your friend got what he deserved. The gurog wanted him …" The drudge coughed violently. Emeraldwind and Phases moved to the side to avoid blood. "… the gurog wanted him to suffer the same as he's made them."

Emeraldwind was near to pulling her knife from her ankle sheath and twisting it into the drudge's heart. She stilled her shaking hands. "What was on the axe?"

"The mutagen." The drudge grinned. "We learned… against your kind… it's like a poison. Without an antidote."

Emeraldwind and Phases shared a look. "Who was behind this?"

The drudge smiled. It was evident the pain of the wound was almost crippling it. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Emeraldwind looked at Phases. "The drudge are too stupid to come up with a plan this devious. They're only good for manpower and numbers. The burun might be able to come up with something this dastardly, but they're far too subservient to the gurog to try anything that might upset their delicate relationship. And the gurog are smart enough to invent a plan of this complexity, but they're a war tribe. They'd just as easily have come over and fought in the streets of Osteth themselves if they could, instead of beating around the bush and inventing mutated shreth." Her pale green eyes traveled back to the drudge stuck to the wall. "So the question is, who was behind all of this?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" The drudge wheezed. "Stupid bitch. You think I'll tell you that?"

She smiled sadly. "I didn't think you would. I suppose we'll have to find out another way."

Emeraldwind turned to leave, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. "You know, I have half a mind to kill you on the spot."

"Do it." The drudge sneered. Its voice was mockingly cold. "Then you would get your vengeance for your poor friend."

"No. That wouldn't bring me vengeance. Knowing that you stood here for weeks on end suffering would bring me vengeance." She gestured off handedly at the arrow sticking from the creature's throat. "You see, the arrow I shot you with won't kill you outright. There are tiny razor sharp pins attached to it. It's stuck in you for good. Even if you tried to remove it, the pain of pulling just a single inch would cause you to pass out. But the wound wouldn't kill you." Her smile was devoid of humor. "No. Instead, you would slowly, over weeks, by bleeding to death. It would fill your lungs until at last you felt flames up and down your body. You wouldn't be able to stand it, but you would be too scared to pull that arrow out of you. And then, in a gurgling convulsion, you would die pathetically, still attached to that wall and that arrow.

"That, you see, is vengeance. For someone like you, who allied with the burun and gurog to take away our home from us, that's what you deserve. I wouldn't spare you a quick death for any reason."

Emeraldwind turned and started passed the columns.

"The undead."

She stopped and looked over her shoulder at the pathetic creature standing limply against the wall. Its haughty attitude had evaporated. In its place was fear. "What did you say?"

"The undead, that's who came up with the plan."

Emeraldwind stepped back into the shadows with the drudge. She held the flame above her palm. Its beady eyes flicked between both of hers. "The undead? But they're extinct. There aren't any undead. They were destroyed a long time ago."

"Shows how little you know. The undead rule the gurog. The gurog act as their convoys and couriers. They rein in the burun and drudge so the undead don't have to expend their powers doing so." The drudge quickly gave her information.

Emeraldwind and Phases shared a glance before they both turned their attention back towards the drudge. "And, so, they devised the plan? Did they also provide the mutagen?"

"Yes."

"And what were their overall plans? The same as yours?" Emeraldwind hurriedly questioned the creature.

"I would think so…" The drudge coughed. "We were told to secure Osteth and Omishan and destroy your kind."

"But you could have been told anything to go along with their plans. What would the undead want with Osteth and Omishan?" Emeraldwind, lost in thought, returned her eyes to the drudge. She narrowed her eyebrows in question. "Where are the undead?"

"Deep inside Linvak Massif." The drudge wheezed. "Your friend, the lugian, got too close. The gurog were told to deal with him when they saw him. We never thought you would be stupid enough to come into our citadel. Once we knew you were and saw the lugian with you, we quickly put our plan into action."

"And so you poisoned him." Emeraldwind stared off before returning her eyes to the drudge. "Tell me, creature, what were you given in exchange for helping the undead with their plans?"

The deviant grin returned. "More than you could imagine."

Her eyes fell to the gold chain wielding the same azure crystal as the one hanging in her armor. The resemblance was more than uncanny; the implications were frightening. "Were you given a calling crystal? Were you given riches? Power?"

"You couldn't imagine what I have been given in exchange for helping the undead." Its grin belied its knowledge. "But if you want to know the true extent of my rewards, you have but to look only right next to you."

"Right…" Emeraldwind's eyes followed the drudge's gaze. She met Phases's calm stare. "… next to me. Phases, what is he talking about?"

"This creature is out of its mind. I don't know what it's talking about." Phases glanced at the drudge before looking back at Emeraldwind's pale green stare. He stood unreadable in the light of the flame above her palm.

"Come now Phases." The drudge settled after a fit of coughing. "Tell her what you know."

"I know nothing creature."

"Phases, what is this drudge talking about? And how does it know your name?" Emeraldwind had always been suspicious of Phases, but to have the drudge calling him by name wasn't simple coincidence.

"Tell her now Phases. Tell her what you know." The drudge smirked.

"Creature, I know nothing." Irritation drew the mage's eyebrows down in cold threat.

Emeraldwind put a hand against Phases's chest and pushed him back a step away from the drudge. She put herself between him and the creature and forced his eyes on her. "Phases, what is this drudge talking about? What do you know? Is it something about the undead? Do you know something about the undead and their plan?"

"Tell her Phases. You knew of the undead. You've always known of the undead." The drudge gurgled with glee behind them. Emeraldwind shot it a wicked glare before returning her attention to Phases who stood mute in the light of her flame.

"Phases, this is important. Do you know something about the undead? Hassan's life may depend on it."

The mage snorted. "Have you so soon forgotten Hassan and I are not on speaking terms? If not for you, he and I would have seen fit to fight to the death on Linvak Massif when we landed." The mage took a deep breath and released it. "And, also, if not for you, I would let Hassan lie on the floor back there and die from the poison in his body."

She drew her eyebrows down. "How kind of you Phases. What do you know about the undead?"

"If not for you…" Phases released his breath. "I've known the undead existed for a time. And I think I may know part of their plan. But I don't know the why."

"Tell her Phases. You know because you were…" The drudge behind them started speaking in excitement. Phases lifted a hand and pointed it towards the drudge. The creature fell silent. Emeraldwind looked over her shoulder and saw the drudge slump against the wall as dead weight.

"Phases, what did you…"

She could see the hint of anger in his eyes. "I was tired of his mouth."

"You killed him! Phases, we didn't get all the answers we needed." Emeraldwind grit her teeth and growled under her breath. The mage nonchalantly shrugged and turned to start back towards Dizzarian and Hassan. "Phases, you know because you were what!"

The mage stopped and turned to look at the woman standing in the shadows. "You know, Emeraldwind, I like you. I don't ever want a reason to not like you. But you're coming dangerously close to crossing that line and creating one." She couldn't see his narrowed brow but she was sure he drew it down. "I know there are undead. That is all that matters."

"Phases, the Walkers need to…"

"And you think, because you're in that group, you have the right to know everything about this world? We stopped this invasion. That's what your group wanted. Anything beyond that, you have no right to know." Phases turned and started through the rubble towards Dizzarian.

Emeraldwind, infuriated, looked back at the drudge, their only source of information, now dead. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs but swallowed her emotion into her stomach again before following Phases's path back towards Dizzarian.

"Dizzarian, I'll weave a portal way. Can you and Emeraldwind lift Hassan and drag him through?" Phases worked at clearing a section of floor near Hassan's fallen form. The lugian lay as still as death. Emeraldwind saw beads of tense sweat on his brow. She retrieved a clean cloth from a pack on the belt around her waist and dabbed at his forehead. The gnawing worry over Hassan was beginning to sap what little strength she had left.

"I can. I'll try to make him lighter so it'll be easier for the two of us to carry him." Dizzarian shuffled to stand at the lugian's head. He knelt and placed his hands under the giant's shoulders. She saw soft blue light radiating from underneath the lugian.

Phases gestured outwards and the air in front of him funneled away, creating a tear in the very fabric of space. She could see through it, to the city of Cavendo. Vendors, oblivious to the disaster that had just nearly claimed them, snuffed their fires for the night at their tables. The last few people needing to run errands whisked away their purchases and headed to the hastily built homes in the distance. The edge of the portal drifted out into a cloud of energy.

Dizzarian nodded down to Emeraldwind and she took Hassan's legs in her arms. The mage lifted the lugian's shoulders and let his soft blue light radiate further down the giant's body. With Phases at their helm, Dizzarian negotiated Hassan into the portal and disappeared. Wind Phoenix trotted beneath the giant's back and was gone. Emeraldwind, before stepping into the portal, took one last glance at the battle ruins that had become the citadel. The only thing she could think of was her fear for Hassan.