The day dawned bright and clear, but Lise and her lover were allowed to sleep in, waking up refreshed in the late morning. They would travel during the day, then make their move during the night.
Preparations to leave were almost completed, when Hawk met her in the grand entrance of the castle. Where Lise felt refreshed, invigorated, he looked careworn and tired, an expression rarely seen on the jovial thief.
He took her hand in his, giving it a friendly squeeze. "I haven't seen much of you lately," he told her.
She had no quarrel with him; the simple fact was that she had sort of forgotten. "Sorry," she told him, grinning a bit sheepishly. "I've been busy."
"I suppose so," Hawk replied, and though he smiled back, it was a bit forced, and Lise felt a pang of guilt.
Duran strode up then, his timing impeccably bad, and Lise tensed. Fortunately, the Forcenan was all business. "It's time to go," he said brusquely, and she only nodded, afraid to look at Hawk.
Though it was a small party that trudged towards the suspected base of the Altenans, they were enough in number that Lise was able to lose herself in the group. Her hand tensed on her spear, and her Rolantic clothing felt at once unfamiliar yet completely right, after weeks of Forcenan dress. She wondered how many of the ordinary soldiers had pegged her as Richard had, and every time she heard a whisper running through them, she imagined they were talking about her.
Resolutely, she stared straight ahead, towards their purported destination, struggling to focus on that single objective and to forget everything else. Slowly but surely, all those other nagging thoughts drifted away. She was a warrior, deep down, and that single-mindedness was what had always been demanded of her; and somehow, she found that dedication once again.
Right on time, the sun was setting as they found themselves some short but strategically significant distance away from the Altenans. As dusk settled, the faint glow of campfires showed that their goal was just within their reach.
There were no fires for them, however, as they ate a cold meal, shivering slightly in the evening breezes. There was little to do but wait, as twilight gave way to first the bluish darkness of the early evening, then the moonless night stretched towards pitch blackness.
Lise had lost track of time without the moon to mark it, but she figured it was something close to midnight when Duran abruptly stood. "It's time," he announced, and nearly as one, the troops silently rose and began to quietly assemble weapons and armor, she preparing herself as well. For now, she was one of them.
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The first part was Hawk's. It was his talents that led them closer to the camp without hint of detection, he moving stealthily and as silent as the night itself, sometimes walking, sometimes crawling, the others carefully following his lead.
He did know his work, noted Lise. Slow and steady was the order of the day for the thief, every move quickly and thoroughly calculated with the trained eye of one who had no room for error.
Surely enough, no mistakes were made; and had it not been for the need for utter silence, Lise would have breathed a sigh of relief when the tents came close within view. That, in the fact that the hard part was yet to come.
The Altenans had perhaps become overconfident because of their magic power, and the guard was light and nonchalant. Duran took over the command, wordlessly pointing his men to their designated positions, until finally it was only he, Hawk, and Lise who were left.
They were the heart of the mission, after all.
Finding the tent of the wizard and his regal wife was not hard; it was easily three times the size of any other structure in the camp. Rather arrogant, and most likely overconfident, Lise made the silent assessment of their enemy. Good; it made them job that much easier on them.
The Goddess seemed truly to favor them. The lone shadow of a male figure could be seen inside the lit tent, but no voices could be heard; nor were any guards seen in the close vicinity. Apparently, their target was alone.
Hawk deftly ran one of his knives up the full length of the tent, Lise tensing as she anticipated the wizard Koren turning, amazed he would not notice what they were doing. But the shadow inside did not even turn, as Hawk's knife reached the poles above, and he gave a satisfied nod to the others.
Hawk suddenly threw open the slit, and they spilled into the tent.
The wizard whirled around, now that he couldn't help but notice their presence. Lise noticed distantly that he was little older than were the three of them, a slender blond man who might have been attractive were it not for the cruel and slightly mad expression on his face.
He raised his hand to throw a spell in their direction, but he didn't stand a chance. Hawk's knives hamstrung him viciously from behind, and as he tumbled forward, before he could scream in pain, Duran's hand had clamped over his mouth and his arms had wrapped around him in a bear-like embrace. Koren struggled, but he had little strength, especially against the muscular Forcenan.
"This is yours, Lise," Duran said, positively grinning.
The smile Lise returned was smaller, and ever more vicious for that. She circled around him like a cat toying with its prey, the wizard going wide-eyed every time she feinted a stroke of the spear towards him, once towards his face, then towards his groin, as she casually wondered if she should torture him a bit first, or simply make it quick and clean so they could be on their way.
She had not killed since the Beast Kingdom, and now that dark desire burned with her once again. Buried for weeks in passion and pleasure, she now craved the almost sweeter sensation of life fading away before her eyes. It was the only thing that would assuage the hunger that the destruction of Rolante had placed within her, and it was ever more enjoyable for knowing this was someone who deserved it.
"Just get it over with, Lise," Hawk's voice teased her. Koren's eyes bulged at the casual comment, and Lise only nodded as she drove her razor-sharp spear into his torso.
Duran dropped the man in the same instant, letting him fall forward onto Lise's spear. She stumbled slightly from the weight, but kept her balance, twisting it slightly as she pulled it from his body covered in blood and tissue. She had deliberately missed the heart, but landed a strike that would be fatal nonetheless, purely so she could watch him writhing on the carpet and clutching his ruined insides instead of descending to a quick and relatively painless death. Her companions, she noted, seemed no less entranced.
It was a shrill scream that finally broke their attention, just as Koren's head lolled against the rugs of the tent for the final time.
It was a young woman, perhaps of an age with Lise, who stood framed by the tent flaps, her eyes wide at the scene of horror before her. "The princess," Hawk murmured to her, and Lise assessed her objectively. Extraordinarily beautiful, she noted distantly, delicate features framed by shiny, curling purple hair, and a slim figure surmounted by relatively large breasts and smoothly curved hips that she supposed no male could fail to appreciate. But past that, there was a trace of vacant dim-wittedness about her.
The princess was hardly a force to be reckoned with, Lise thought. No wonder they married her off. She would be an easy target.
Apparently, Duran felt the same, and strode towards her, not even bothering to unsheathe his weapon. To Lise's surprise, she reacted near-instantaneously, and with an almost scornful wave of her hand, a mix of powerful winds and sheeting ice appeared from nowhere to slam into Duran, knocking him to the ground, he groaning from bones that were sprained if not outright broken.
Part of her wanted to run to him; but now was not the time. Hawk crept towards the princess, but to Lise's surprise, she noticed him and disposed of him with equal casualness. Flames erupted from Hawk's clothes, and he dropped to the ground, trying desperately to squelch the flames before they could reach bare skin.
Lise wisely pulled back, scrunching herself against the walls of the tent as if she could somehow escape notice, and fortunately for her, the princess was suddenly distracted by the most injured person of them all. She ran to him, and cradled his head in her hands, Koren somehow finding the energy for some final words.
"It is over, my love," Koren groaned, and Angela pressed him closer, his dark blood drizzling over and sinking into the brighter red of her dress.
The princess quivered over the body of her fallen husband. "Koren... why..." she stuttered, cries threatening to turn into blubbers.
She is weak still, brittle underneath, controlled by emotion, as so many of the Light are. Hawk pulled himself up to hands and knees, meeting her gaze across the fresh corpse of Koren, both nonchalantly ignoring the Princess's falling tears.
As Koren's breath disappeared, the purple-haired woman lowered her gently to the carpet, then rose to face Lise haughtily. "I am Angela, Archmage and Princess of Altena," she announced. "You have killed my husband.
"So what," was Lise's simple reply.
"Y - you..." she stuttered, at a loss for words, then suddenly lunged for the other woman.
It was almost too easy. A few quick blows of her spear's shaft and butt, and Angela crumpled on the ground, whimpering. Lise wrestled her down, but realized too late she had made a critical error in forgetting how easily Angela had disposed of the men.
She found herself flung several feet in the air, unsure what spell Angela had hit her with, only knowing that it hurt and her prey was now on her feet again, gleefully looking down on Lise, the tables neatly turned from only a moment before. Whichever guards the other Forcenans had not taken care of finally noticed the commotion and appeared at the entrance to the tent, only to be waved off by Angela. "I'll handle this," she announced almost scornfully.
Lise stumbled, but somehow managed to dodge Angela's next assault, the other woman laughing all the while. She found herself imitating the sort of quick maneuvers she had seen Hawk use, mixed with her own Amazon talents, somehow successfully avoiding attack after attack but stuck on the defensive.
Angela was starting to look… frustrated, and as gratifying as that was, Lise knew she herself was being worn out. Angela launched a sudden, furious assault against the Amazon, and she braced for the inevitable impact and the pain to follow.
It was some unknown primal impulse that pulled the darkness from deep within her, hurling it back at Angela. Lise was no magician, and she blinked in surprise as Angela's spell… fizzled, then faded to near-nothingness.
"How…?" Angela gulped. "How did you do that?"
Lise knew, in a sudden moment of intense clarity, remembering the Stone at the top of Rolante, in the Ancient City of Light, and felt the power they had given her coursing through her veins. Angela seemed to recognize it as well, and stepped back in fear.
Hawk was quicker, but Lise was closer, and whipping the handle of her spear against Angela's back, the princess was brought to her knees. Lise leapt forward, and shoved her on her back, left hand holding her down, right hand neatly clasped around her weapon still.
Hawk moved, but Lise motioned him off, placing her spear neatly at Angela's throat. "Don't kill me," the princess of Altena whined and simpered. The guards looked on in uncertainty, and Lise whipped her face over to them. "Stand back, or she dies before you can reach her!" she cried; and the Altenan soldiers shrank back.
Duran stumbled over, obviously in pain, but still standing. "Is she carrying his child?"
Angela moaned at that, and Lise squeezed a few critical points on the other woman's abdomen. "No," she announced to Duran. "I would be able to tell if she was."
"Well, Princess," Duran said, pronouncing the title condescendingly, "consider that your reprieve from death." Angela's eyes goggled at that. "Instead, you will only be a prisoner."
The Forcenans appeared to push through the gathered Altenans, who stepped weakly back, and quickly got to the business of securing their captive. Some made crude comments on what could be done with such a lovely captive, but sharp words and threats from Duran quickly shushed them.
Lise whispered a few quick words to Duran; and he nodded. "We will escort the princess ourselves," he announced to his troops. "Secure the remaining Altenans, and proceed to Forcena." The men muttered among themselves in surprise, but quickly moved to do as ordered.
Daylight came, and it was sometime in the afternoon when the other Forcenans had cleared out, leaving only Duran, Hawk, and Lise with their frightened captive. At a signal from Duran, Hawk released the bonds from her legs, and Lise hauled her roughly to her feet.
"March," Duran ordered, and Angela did, eyes wide in terror.
It was to the west they want, opposite from the direction the other troops had gone, three of them striding forward steadily, the other struggling to keep up despite the binding of her hands behind her back. The prods of Lise's spear might have had something to do with that.
The sun was dropping as they reached their goal, one of the high ridges at the edge of Forcena, just at the edge of a cliff that dropped off for hundreds of feet below. Duran kept a firm grip on Angela as he allowed her to see the drop, and she stumbled lost her footing, now purely terrified, Duran's strong arms the only thing keeping her from going over the cliff right then and there.
Duran let Lise step forward to take his place, and Lise looked straight into the woman's eyes. There was fear, and open hate, but still a splash of defiance that Lise couldn't help but respect.
Lise stroked her spear head for a long moment, drawing out the suspense. Finally, she grabbed Angela's hands, and with one swift move of the spear, sliced neatly through the remainder of Angela's bonds.
Angela looked at her in surprise, rubbing her chafed wrists almost resentfully.
"Go," Lise ordered. "Never return to this place again." Without another word, she turned and strode back down the hill, not caring how quickly the men followed behind.