Chapter 4
It didn't feel as if she was with her one true love. In fact, it felt as if it was just the opposite. She highly suspected some Fallens had captured her and they were doing some tribal dance of whacking their clubs on her head.
Maybe they had sealed her eyes with some tree sap and bee's wax. Maybe they also had bound her arms to the floor, impairing her movements. Or maybe she was just dead.
She sure hoped so, even as she pealed her eyes open, and slowly tried to regain her other senses. Her ear started to hear sounds, of people crying and soothing talks. Her skin began to awaken, as her body started to ache as if she really had been danced on. There was something she couldn't quite get back – the feel of her hands.
Or rather, her shoulder and down, just the left.
She could see the blurred out picture of the top of a tent and the sound of wailings was starting to get louder. Not that it was a good thing, even if it told her that her senses were still ok, it made her head throb more.
She tried to move her left arm, all it did was twitch. She tried even harder but it felt like it didn't budge an inch. 'God damn it' she muttered before pushing herself with her right arm.
A black head popped up from the movement. First groggy, then at full alert. Her head bounced up and she exclaimed, "It's unwise to try and sit! You should lie down!" She wanted to force her down by the shoulders, but then she stopped. Euryleia saw her gulp, clutching her own hands to her breasts, staring intently at her shoulders.
"Really, you have your shoulder; Akara is just trying to make it better." The paladin appeared from the doorway. "She just numbed it so you won't feel the pain."
On instinct, Euryleia reached out to grasp her own shoulder. But the girl reached out and grabbed her hand. Euryleia pulled back and almost slapped her. A Shiver Armour appeared as the Sorceress pulled back, afraid.
"Look carefully." The Paladin advised.
Euryleia looked at her shoulder. At first she didn't see anything, since she couldn't move it for a better angle, but then she caught the gulping head of something leeched onto her shoulder. "Hell."
Xavier stepped forward and gripped her moveable hand before she could reach out and pull the Sehceel off. She twisted her arm in his grip. "Get that thing off me!"
"You have to let it heal, or you won't be able to fight, Amazon."
"I don't like the feeling of having a Sehceel on me, sucking my blood"
The two of them were like Tigers, baring their teeth at each other, intimidating the other to give up. Meidi was at a lost, looking between them right to left, not knowing what to do.
In her sudden loss and confusion, Meidi started to cry. For whatever stupid reason it was that she was just afraid that these two will draw their swords, it worked. It kept both the paladin and the Amazon's attention to her wails.
"I-I'm s-sorry" She apologized between hiccups. "My mother used to use this a lot, so I suggested it to Akara, thinking it would help you. B-but"
Xavier was about to comfort her before the Amazon shot in. She made a sound of frustration that had Meidi and him looking at her. "Gee, ok! Ok! I get it. I hate when girls cry." Suddenly, she really sounded like a man. "I'll heal myself ok? Get out or something. Shoo!"
After they had left her in the tent along, she fingered the bow lying next to her. She had got this Windforce by herself when she had journeyed with Leonard. She smiled, remembering how he complained that she had got the best bow he'd ever seen while he was till using a lousy sword.
Alcippe looked from the corner of the long tent that held hostage all the injured people. She herself had got slashed by an undead and the poison was just too strong. She watched as the Amazon's green eyes turned dark with shadows of painful memories just as the smile on her face stiffen like a paste on feature.
Toying with the empty bottle of bitter black antidote she just drank, she moved to the Amazon. "Hey." When the woman responded by looking back at her sceptically, "Are you alright? You look sad."
The shadows faded and the emerald in her eye glittered with arrogance. "Of course I am alright."
Alcippe smiled. Amazon's pride definitely rivalled that of theirs, if not only their skills. Then she remembered the woman's bravery and the cause of her injury and sobered immediately. She stared at the Sehceel on the Amazon and wondered if she'll ever heal. "We the Sisters of the Sightless Eye wishes to apologise for our unruly welcome, Amazon. Moreover, we are thankful of your aid despite our hostility."
Euryleia looked surprised for a second, and recovered. She grunted and stared at the bow, wondering how long it would take before she would be able to pick it up again. "It was just my luck," she commented.
Alcippe hitched herself onto the table and smiled at the Amazon. "We have yet had the honour of knowing your name, Hero."
"Euryleia, what's yours Rogue?"
"I'm Alcippe, you can always call me Al."
"The name of a hero," Euryleia looked at the woman on the table, with her brown hair and hazel eyes. "You Rogues even name people like us."
"Hero?" Al got off the table.
"Alcippe was one of Hippolyte's Amazon; the ninth and last Amazon to die by Herakle's hand." Euryleia gave a small smile. "A martyr."
"Al!" Another Rogue rushed in and bowed towards Euryleia before whispering to Al and taking off with her. The Amazon was alone again, as always, left alone again. She supposed it was a good thing, with all the sobbing and crying from outside the tent, she was unsure she wanted company. The others would be happier with it.
But it was hard being alone, even if it was destined. She was forever chasing a shadow. Maybe her mother knew her destiny, which was why the Gods named her Euryleia, the "Woman Wanderer".
She wasn't always alone. In fact, she had Leonard, right until he left her. They had fought together, striving through the forsaken land. The amount of experience they had together was not enough. If only, she had been closer to him, he wouldn't take Diablo's soulstone. He wouldn't have stuck it into himself.
Was it because of temptation? Or merely a challenge to himself, to try and keep the demon within the stone? All she knew was that he begun to lose himself, the moment he stuck that evil within thy self.
Her voice could not reach him; her love could not be felt. That was evil, in itself. He never joined in the celebration of Diablo's defeat. He would often wander off out of town till she found him and brought him back. He would spend time just staring off to space and talk to himself. She knew when she looked at him, that he was losing.
But she never said anything, just silently prayed that he would wake up and come back to her again. She hoped, hope until the day he raised his sword at her. Until today, she wondered if she should thank his love for her, or that he was simply too weak to hold his sword.
He had fractured her skull, and she woke up in God knows where. She didn't think, didn't need to, and just tracked the weak lumbering steps of the woman she loved. She, as a Hero, failed her job. What had happened to the Townsfolk, she did not know, and she did not care.
But what of Deckard Cain? Has even the last of the Horadrim been erased?