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Interlude 3: Sibling and Shadow

"Nils, this way." Ninian hissed quietly, waving her little brother over into the culvert. Hopefully the undergrowth that had almost hidden the ditch would also hide the performers. She didn't know how, but the Fang had found them again. Travelling with Lyndis' Legion had offered them some measure of protection, but they'd left that almost two months ago and now it seemed their overconfidence was threatening to be their undoing.

"Come out, come out wherever you are..." The woman's voice taunted in sing-song tones as she followed them on foot, having left her horse at the edge of the forest. "You know we'll find you, little children. You know, I have something that belongs to you..."

The two performers held still, hardly daring to breathe as the blue-haired witch walked past their hiding place.

"Such a pretty little stone... I wonder why it's so important to you. Lady Sonia said it was powerful, but it just seems like a worthless hunk of rock to me..." The voice was fading as Ursula went past and deeper into the forest, and the siblings moved again, crawling along the ditch in a hurry with no regard to what it was doing to their light-coloured clothes. The ditch came to an end, and they were running again, fleeing as only their kind could.

"Just a little further and we'll be out of the forest..." Ninian called to Nils, looking over her shoulder... but the bard was gone. "Nils? Nilanisae, where are you?" She stopped, turning and looking around frantically. She couldn't let them have her brother...

"No, let me go!" His voice came from the left, sounding like he was struggling. Throwing caution to the wind, she ran in that direction, only one thought in her mind...

"Ninian? Ninian, where did you go?" Nils asked, slowing and looking around. His sister had disappeared in the trees, even though she'd been just there... no, wait, didn't they already pass that tree? Nils looked around, turning rapidly on the spot as he tried to get his bearings, his long scarf flying in circles around him.

"Nils! I'm here! Urk.. help!" His sister's voice, from... behind him! He didn't know what he could do, but he had to try... if they took Ninian, their escape would all be for nothing. Turning, he sprinted towards the source of the voice...

He was there, Ninian saw, struggling in the blue-haired witch's grip. Ninian called what little power she could in this form and focused it as she charged into the clearing, centring it on her shoulder as she barged the fang Valkyrie... who vanished, laughing as she tumbled to the floor from her own momentum, the power she'd summoned discharging harmlessly into the ground even as Nils leaped on top of her and pinned her down, a sadistic glee on his face... which changed, shifted, grew older and not his. Even as Ninian forced herself to roll over and get leverage to try and push the weight off her, it grew heavier until Nils' image was replaced by a dark-haired, golden-eyed woman who looked to be in her early thirties. The only thing that didn't change was the unholy expression on her face as she leaned close, capturing the dancer's wrists in her hands and holding her down.

"Oh, so foolish... if only Nergal would let me play with you a little, but no, he wants his prize in tact... foolish man, you're such a precious, innocent beauty and he'll waste you with his mind-control..." The female morph leered before whispering words in some gravelly language, the spell calling earth to bind her wrists together and immobilise her.

"Let her go!" Nils yelled at the hooded man who held his unconscious sister by the wrist.

"Like this? Certainly. She's no use to me now you're here." The man - now that he'd spoken, he recognised the voice as Heintz, the shaman who had chased them before - threw the body to the ground. Before it had a chance to hit the ground, Nils was there, cushioning the fall and checking her pulse. It was going strong, fortunately, with no irregularity.

"Well done..." His sister said, her eyes snapping open even as her arms went around his neck, holding him in a headlock as she rolled to her feet and shed the illusion. Ursula sniggered to herself as she clamped down on the artery in his neck for a second, first cutting off the oxygen to his brain then overloading it with a huge burst as she released the blood vessel, knocking him out. "Heintz, bind him and lets get out of here. This forest gives me the creeps."

"As you wish, dame Ursula." Heintz bowed, almost mockingly, and summoned shackles of darkness to bind the unconscious boy.