Road to Newcastle-Day 2
When Kirche and Louise woke that next morning, the adrenaline and exhaustion powered bravery of the previous night was long gone. They felt cold, awkward, and not terribly interested in meeting each other's gaze as a simple and cold breakfast of dry rations eased some of the gnawing in their guts.
Dressing then armoring were also done in silence, Louise hurrying through the tying of Kirche's armor straps to quickly scramble up to the top of the foliage covered sanctuary and get a quick look around. She fumed as she did, fumed and cursed her own heart for getting the best of her! How dare she be such a terrible person!
To think she'd taken advantage of Kirche's own exhaustion to act out some, some, stupid fantasy out of a fever dream! And to have gone so far, to have given… given her sacred first kiss! To have stolen Kirche's own! She hadn't thought the Germanian such a pure of heart lady given her previous attitudes, but now Louise herself had gone and taken it! Founder but she needed to find a confessional, a holy place, somewhere to vomit out her sins and pray for penance and forgiveness! Not just from Kirche, her now betrayed friend, but her family, her friends at large, her family…!
She grimaces a grimace that kills a small flower. Founder, her family, just the thought of them made her shudder. Not merely for Eleanor's incandescent rage or Mother and Father's earth-shaking disappointment. But Cattleya… Founder, her loving sister would be beyond disappointed in her to have broken a vow like that. Broken a vow, been unfaithful if even for only a short time, letting herself be subsumed by the emotion she'd long tried to keep under wraps.
And poor Wardes… he'd given her nothing but sheer adore and understanding, even taken the time on that ship to work with and train them. It hadn't been much, of course, but even that little bit had been valuable beyond words near enough…
She felt herself start gnawing on a nearby root just to keep from screaming. If just crawling into a hole and dying of sheer shame was on the table, she'd take it, but for all it raged and attacked her for every moment she thought on it, her cold well of rationality managed to steady the sea of her mind. They had to try and make Newcastle today, they had to. Siesta hadn't contacted them, or at least she hadn't heard anything out of Kirche, but she had to believe her handmaid had arrived safely and was waiting for them.
The hard part now was they had to get there without Siesta's stealth to aid them. It was just her, Kirche, and a few dozen miles of enemy territory. Heh, when she put it like that, the sheer wall that they had to surmount almost made her shame shut up for a minute. Fancy that, life-and-death decisions kicked that to the curb fast. Or it would, if Kirche didn't settle in next to her, helm under one arm and sword belted to her back.
"So what're we looking at?" The Germanian asked, keeping her emotions far better under control compared to Louise's obvious seething. "Didn't wake up with a bunch of blades pointing at us at least."
Louise swallowed a biting growl at that. Curse Kirche for being so calm, like she hadn't just watched an entire promised oath go up in flames! Hell, she probably enjoyed it, she'd sure as the Founder was kind enjoyed holding her so tight-!
A sound like a strangled cat briefly got past Louise's lips before she managed to compose herself. "W-we… don't seem to have any enemies in the area. Has Siesta contacted you?"
Kirche shook her head. "No, I can still feel Flame and he's not distressed, but he's also asleep. I can't get much out of him right now. What about Neb?"
Louise frowned and closed her eyes to focus, a look down her bond with Neb showing him throwing a tantrum of frustration at the edge of land overlooking the wide sky below. "He's… by the coast it looks like. He must've gotten turned around in that fog."
"Guess we're not expecting him soon." Kirche mused. "Alright, guess we're just going to have to head up there and do what we do best. Ya know… through all the enemy territory and the like."
Louise gave her a withering glare. "No, really, I thought we were just going to stroll on up and have tea with the enemy!"
Kirche flashed her a trademark grin. "That'd be a lot more fun than getting into bloody combat with them, wouldn't it?"
Louise rolled her eyes, silently grateful for some of that irreverent humor to keep her mind off how gorgeous she found that smile. "Yeah, yeah, keep dreaming. We keep heading north. I don't know about you, but there's ground to burn and daylight being lost. Sooner we get moving the better."
"Already packed up and ready to go Captain."
Louise groaned and pinched her nose. "Please do not call me that. Anyway, do you want to take point or shall I?"
Kirche hauled herself up out of their hiding hole and slid on her helmet. "May as well let me take point today. If we run into people we need to fight, hopefully they'll be a lot more mundane than that hound."
She offered a hand, and, despite the howling shame and discord of her mind, Louise took it. With both out of their hiding space and back into the air at large, they each took deep breaths of the forest air. Took it in, did some small stretches to warm up for the long jog ahead, then did a habitual sign of readiness that Siesta had gotten riven into their heads.
Once all was set and done, the two set off at a jog back into the forest. Kirche took the lead as she wished, her heavier armor acting as a bulwark against thickening brush and small trees while Louise followed behind, keeping her eyes and ears peeled for absolutely anything.
"Oh, we're movin! Glad ta see ye had a fun night girlie!
Louise's scream of sheer surprise at Derf suddenly reminding her he could speak scattered birds for miles.
"YOU IDIOT!" She continued to scream while trying to strangle an object. "REMIND ME YOU'RE THERE AT A MORE CONVENIENT TIME!"
"WHAT WOULDA BEEN ONE?!" He yells right back even as Kirche's picked them both up and started booking it with all speed. "BEFORE OR AFTER I FIGURED OUT SOMETHIN COOL?!"
"WHEN WE'RE NOT IN MORTAL DANGER, NOW KIRCHE THROW ME AT THAT IDIOT LEADING THE PATROL THIS OTHER IDIOT SWORD MADE ME ATTRACT!"
"Aye-aye Captain!"
Louise didn't have a moment to give Kirche a piece of her mind for calling her that again. She was already flying through the air on the wings of a spinning wind-up throw! Right at some man in a helmet with a shield and little else, his spear barely raised to signal his compatriots of their quarry before Louise was already drawing and skewering him with Derf. This… was enemy territory.
Much as it galled her to kill people that weren't utter scum (the man could well have been forcibly conscripted after all) they couldn't let anyone see where they were going. Even knocking them out would just make it a matter of time until they were being hunted down. And demons were already threat enough.
The man didn't get a chance to scream before Derf flashed and opened his throat, crimson fleeing in a brief spurt to splatter Louise's armor. He'd barely fallen before she was already on the next of the patrol, this man managing to block her once, twice with his shield before Derf's blade hacked through it and, literally, disarmed him.
She didn't let him stay screaming for longer than it took to fall, another slash across his throat coating her in more spatters of crimson. Her eyes were cold and clear as she looked at the rest of the patrol, barely a squad of five reduced to three. Well, now two, as Kirche engulfed one of them in a blaze of fire before she was too close to cast safely. Then one, as her sword fled its straps and crashed down through the man's shield and smashed his helm in two.
Louise stamped her foot into the ground, her posture enough for the motion to let the staff on her back tap it in turn. "Earth Spike."
The brand on her hand, long since so used to it she barely remembered it was there, shined a dull green. Gritting her teeth a bit, she forced more of her will into the spell until the earth rumbled and cracked beneath the last man. He'd barely turned about to try and flee before three spikes erupted beneath him and impaled him through an arm, chest, and roof of his mouth. He was dead instantly, falling to the earth with a thud as the spikes retracted. Silence returned barely a second later, as Kirche ended the suffering of the one she'd engulfed in flame.
Quick, brutal, and to Louise's eyes slow as molasses in winter. The men had to be conscripts, there was no other way. Given some basic gear and sent out to patrol while the real soldiers and powerbrokers focused on the royalists. Feh, and Reconquista claimed to want all strata of society to come together to reclaim the Holy Land, what tripe.
She looked to Kirche, all earlier thoughts of shame and dreams of warmth banished beneath the sticky warmth of blood. "Burn them. Better a cremation than being food for demons."
Kirche grimaced but pulled out her wand to do just that. Each man became a pyre beneath her chants, and they swiftly moved on the moment they could. The smoke would attract more, they needed to be gone and their trail covered by ashes before that happened.
They ran for almost a half hour, ducking and weaving beneath the canopy as dragon patrols passed over and towards the pyres. More than a few detours had to happen just to throw off tracks, and not once did any of them speak until they were back to a state of relative safety.
"…I'm sorry girlie." Derf apologized at length once the tension faded somewhat. "Forgot where we were, ain't happenin again."
Louise growled at him as she ducked under a branch. Their flight had taken them almost five miles, and while she was inwardly grateful for all those runs Neb had put them through, she was still fuming with anger. "You better. Or the last thing I do in this life is snap you in half!"
Derf took that on the chin, Kirche speaking up as she navigated a steep slope of loam and slick moss. "Try and make it up to us. What was that 'cool' thing you mentioned?"
Derf cleared his non-existent throat and started explaining. "Right, so. Reason I got all quiet last night while you two were canoodlin."
Louise slipped on the loam and went for a very uncomfortable slide down the loamed slope as he said that. She yelped when she made the bottom and rubbed her sore tailbone before glowering again at him. "WE WERE NOT… WHATEVER THAT WORD WAS, NOW SPEAK SENSE!"
Not quite the scream she managed earlier, but Kirche still slapped a hand on her mouth with a big frown and wide eyes. Louise's anger took a moment to extinguish before she calmed down, a nod getting Kirche to release her. A few moments to make sure they hadn't brought one of the flying patrols down on their heads later and Derf cleared his non-existent throat.
"Anyway. After I sucked up all that Hellfire, found myself getting rather… lost in the chaos if that makes any sense to ya. I ain't never run into anything like it, it was like raw potential getting injected right inta me! Mosta the stuff I eat is pretty tame, pretty 'set' ifn ya take my meaning. This though… once it got outta that beast's hate engine of a heart, it didn't know what it was. So it started to try an copy me."
Louise and Kirche shared looks of alarm, but Derf kept going. "It was quite a fight to keep myself, well, meself. But, fer once, the big guy's patron decided to be helpful. Dragged me into that staff ya see, some kinda mid-way place like an outpost or whatever. Took all that potential and turned inta more of her darkness, drained me of it. Hate owin a big secret keeper a debt, but she showed me how ta deal with it. Just took something or other I half remembered from long ago, no rust off my blade."
Louise gave him a very careful look and unhooked him from her belt, holding the blade out at arm's length. "And… how are we sure it's you and not some… copy or whatever?"
Derf made a clacking noise of indignation. "Well, that's a fine thing ta ask someone! Ain't another me in all the world girlie, or the one the big palooka came from, an don't you forget it!"
Louise relaxed a bit. "Well if that's not enough proof-"
"Patron even showed me the proper events last night!"
"SHUT UP AND DIE YOU PIECE OF FILTHY METAL!"
Kirche just sighed with a small smile as Derf was sent flying into a wall of rock with enough strength to embed him into it and crack the whole wall. "Then that is. I'll get him out, we need to get back on the road."
Louise huffed and steamed, cheeks the color of her hair as the earlier shame reared its head in a terrible wave. Of course it'd be Derf to make such a crude and crass mention of what happened, just as she'd managed to put it out of her mind. There was her bad mood again…
Kirche patted her shoulder and Louise took Derf back automatically, the sword silent in his mirth while she belted him back on. A quick glance around showed no signs of pursuit once more, so the chosen path it remained. "…Come on."
Kirche frowned and took point again, clearly torn between trying to get Louise to open up a bit or keep focused. Ultimately, given the danger they were still in, she chose to keep focused and ears open. If a dragon dropped on their heads, they'd be in lots of trouble.
Another hour passes in thankful mundanity, only the sounds of birds, normal beasts, and the chitter of insects to keep them company alongside the wind in the trees and brush. If they weren't so on edge, they'd take the time to appreciate the beauty of this land. Now that they were out of the marshes and swampy sections, the forest was beautiful. Verdant greens, vines and patches of flowers, bushes and moss making natural artwork that they carefully skirted around, and some truly ancient trees. Some of them were as thick as Kirche's wingspan, and something like a hundred feet tall. If they were but tourists, here to awe and explore, they'd have picnics aplenty among such bounty.
Alas they were not tourists, and every step they got closer to Newcastle, the more signs of conflict appeared. They'd long since known they couldn't be on the main roads, hadn't even set out on them in the first place. But even here in the wilderness where animal paths marked the best way forward, there were signs. Discarded weapons, bent, and dulled, shattered shields, and more… grisly scenes.
Louise averted her eyes as they stepped carefully by the rotting corpse of someone who'd once been a royalist. The body was all but swarmed with flies and centipedes and other insects. Crawling through what remained of guts and sinew as carrion birds large and small fought over morsels. Louise wanted, down to the core of her being, to give whoever this was something more proper. To just be… left here, to be food for the crows and flies! It wasn't right!
Kirche audibly swallowed her own revulsion but gave Louise a silent negative. They couldn't give someone so long dead a proper burial, nor a pyre with how deep they were in enemy territory now. The sun was too high, and the dragon patrols were getting more frequent, it was too dangerous.
Louise bit her lip hard, sympathy having to be shoved back into that cold well of logic. She was in that pool way too much for her liking recently, but with Kirche's life and her own on the line right now… and with Henrietta's fate alongside it… their friends… she had to. Despite the horror of her own heart to leave someone who'd served their country so well… she turned away and followed Kirche.
Whatever hope for conversation there had once been was swiftly gone after that find and several others like it. It seemed the Reconquista left no survivors, and rarely had the decency to give the dead their due. Louise didn't want to think about what the actual battlefields looked like, but she had a bad feeling they'd find out sooner or later. The carrion birds alone seemed more numerous than any songbirds at this point too…
Louise shook her head and focused again. They'd left their safe spot at the crack of dawn, it was getting close to noon now. Kirche still hadn't heard anything from Flame, the salamander did like to sleep in, and if he was doing so then he had to be safe. Likely within the walls of Newcastle itself, if the Founder be kind. And Siesta too, if only so Louise could give her a big hug and make sure she was 100% ok. Hell at this point she'd hug Monmon without an ounce of shame! Even Guiche!
"Louise." Kirche hissed, bringing her back to reality. "I hear movement. Up ahead, keep low."
Louise ducked on instinct, both crouching and approaching slowly. The eternal disadvantage of Kirche's armor was its clanking as it moved against itself. To counter that, somewhat, the Germanian had taken some of the local loam that seemed to grow on every rock and padded the joints with it. The sound wasn't gone, but it was muffled enough they could approach slowly.
Louise came up beside her as they reached a spot to view the next area. A small bluff that rose just over the rest of the surroundings, high enough to keep from having to crawl up it to get a look. The view beyond wasn't… great. It looked to be a company, something like a hundred people of various armament, stature, and rank. Most of them were akin to the conscripts they'd silenced earlier that day, with rudimentary and easily made gear. Others though… there were three or four that wore robes out here in the wilderness and had several of the conscripts carrying their things and setting up their tents. Mages most likely, and the leaders of the various pieces of the company. The more well-armed and competent looking amongst the rabble must've been the personal guards thereof. Great.
"They're setting up camp this early?" Louise whispered to Kirche, not wanting to be heard even the smallest bit. "You… don't think they're one of the groups sent to encircle Newcastle, do you?"
Kirche frowned, analyzing and trying to match what she'd heard from Siesta with the bevy of lessons Neb had drilled into her skull. And here she'd complained about those more theoretical texts being boring. "…I can't say entirely for certain. Newcastle's border is still a half-day out at the pace we were going, you'd think they'd be closer to the front line if that was the idea."
Louise grimaced, agreeing. "Then what are they doing out here? Trying to… catch stragglers?"
Kirche shrugged, licking her lips as she kept scanning. "I don't know and don't care at this point. We need to go around them, it may take us time, but a company thereabouts is more than we can handle even if we got the jump on them."
Louise's grimace grew. She… could try her explosion spell, of course, but the sheer sound and size of the blast would likely grab every flight patrol from here to the coast. If they weren't having to be stealthy like this, she could just blast them all aside…
Shivers ran down their spines and their gazes snapped back the way they came. That… they'd just heard howls. Raging, snarling, horrible… howls. Oh no… nononono, they couldn't have their scent again already!
"Shit!" Kiche swore as the howls came again, clearer and close enough they could hear the camp being set up behind them taking notice. "We gotta go, now!"
"Where?!" Louise hissed even as she cast her gaze about, a slight panic beating in her breast. "If we try to go around at this point they'll catch us!"
Kirche just gave her best encouraging smile. It wasn't very encouraging.
"Well, when the way forward lies between two walls… where else to go but forward?"
Louise gave her a flat look, glancing back over the bluff to see the company starting to get suspicious. She sighed, looked to the sky, gave a brief prayer, then looked to Kirche.
"If we survive this mad dash, I'll kiss Verdandi."
Kirche's grin grew just a tad larger.
-Moments Later-
"WE'RE NOT GONNA SURVIVE THIS YOU MADWOMAN!"
Kirche just ignored Louise's screaming indignation and ran helter-skelter through the company of Reconquista like the hounds of hell were upon her! And in truth they very much soon were to be, and she was making it as hard as possible for them to follow by swinging her sword about willy-nilly to clear space and spill some blood that would hopefully grab the hellhounds attention and give them time to get out of there!
Was it a perfect plan, not in the least. Was it working thus far?
YES!
She smacked three men aside before they even knew what hit them, the two girls wrapped in glowing energy armor for what little Louise could concentrate on it while a blessing of strength and fire alike ran through Kirche's body. Having three spells going at once was putting a major strain on Louise's ability to do much of anything else, and them all being the 'opposite' to her staff's natural element only made it harder! She was essentially a sprinting willpower battery while Kirche did her best battering ram impression!
"JUST KEEP RUNNING!" Kirche hollered as the more sensible of the company dove out of their way. "THOSE HOWLS AREN'T GETTING FURTHER!"
Louise grit her teeth and tried to keep from flinching as someone with more sense than panic took the appropriate reaction to take a shot at them. The arrow bounced off the energy barrier, but even that single shot was enough to make it noticeably dim. Founder but she hated having to multi-task like this, they needed to get through fast-
"HORSES, GET THEM!"
Kirche's cry was akin to an angel's at that moment, and Louise quickly spotted their new target. A trio of horses tied at what amounted to a rest stop, likely the mounts for the mages. Louise would normally wonder why they'd make easier targets of themselves with potentially angry conscripts outnumbering them so heavily and closely, but that didn't matter!
Louise and Kirche's feet all but flew across the ground, the refuge in their audacious charge through the company granting them precious seconds more as the Reconquista forces got their sense back together and began to chase. Louise could just vaguely hear, over the yelling, the chants of one of the mages at work. "KIRCHE, CHANT!"
"GOT IT, FAT CAT ON THE RIGHT!"
Kirche threw herself into a roll as the chant completed, the mage that had come storming towards them from the right flinging a storm of small rocks at them. Not exactly the most impressive of spells, but going at speed as they were and with so many flying, it would be enough to break the energy armor and throw off their balance. Kirche was the main target, her roll carrying her under most of the rocks while Louise did a running slide in turn, both of them popping right back up and sprinting again with barely a pause in stride to make it happen.
"DAMN WE'RE GOOD!" Kirche crowed as the mage and conscripts gave chase, the fat-cat already starting to turn purple from the exertion. His example made both girls promise to shower Neb in goodies when next they got the chance, the stamina they'd managed to get from his torture-style training was paying dividends!
Louise had more than that to her eyes. Compared to that beast they'd fought in the river, and the hounds of La Rochelle, and the demons that had assaulted them in the mist, these ones felt… slower. Their movements felt sluggish and easily predictable. Maybe they were just inured to having to deal with things that could rip them to pieces at the drop of a coin, but it did feel… kinda good.
"LOUISE, WATCH OUT!"
Her brief feeling of puffed musing swiftly ended as a blast of fire roared into her side, the shield and lucky positioning of Derf rendering it a stinging annoyance instead of molten agony. Another of the mages had gotten in sight of them, this one a good bit stronger and more able than his fat-cat colleague. Louise couldn't get a good look at him beyond a wispy beard before she was already vaulting onto one of the horses, thankfully still saddled. Gripping her injured side, Derflinger's blade slashed the rope holding the steed back, the same swing freeing the one Kirche had leapt upon. "YAH, YAH!"
The horse reared and whinnied as she leapt up and dug her heels into its flanks, but it wasn't her words and boots to make the beast start running. No, it was the clear and present howls of hellbeasts cresting the bluff and spotting their quarry that made the two horses take off at a gallop into the woods. Louise just barely saw it for a moment as her stolen steed turned, another great beast of three heads and such raw hate as to warp the air, its obsidian skin pulsing with hellfire and jaws bursting with unholy flame.
Yet as she turned to guide her steed after Kirche's retreating back, her friend's scarlet cloak blooming out from where she'd kept it tucked under her armor, she saw him. A hulking, black-armored form with hellfire for eyes, black horns rising from the brow of a scorched helm. It was barely a moment, just a glimpse, but in that moment… she heard the whisper of Madness.
A deep grimace crossed her lips, and she instinctively pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead, fighting off the sudden onset of a migraine. The world became a narrow corridor to her, all she could focus on was the sight of Kirche's flapping cloak and the thundering heart of the beast that ferried her. It had only been a moment, a glimpse of what had to be some… leading demon or whatever and… God her head was pounding…
"GIRLIE, TREE!"
The shout from Derf cleared her mind like a sunburst through clouds, Louise yelping as she ducked under a low branch that would've brained and unhorsed her in the same smack. Founder but that was close, where were they!?
"Glad to have ya back Girlie!" Derf cackled as the horse thundered away beneath her, Kirche a few lengths ahead. "Lots a screamin coming from the camp back there, good on Red fer makin em into bait!"
Louise cringed and found herself praying for those they'd left to die. Reconquista or no, Louise did not wish the fate of those hell-born creatures upon her fellow Halkegenians. Even the scum of criminals didn't deserve being torn apart by those infernal fangs…
A flash in the brush caught her eye and she drew Derf, the same motion cleaving a howling mad hellhound right through its skull, sending it tumbling through the brush and left behind as the horse whinnied and tried to speed up all the more. "KIRCHE, THEY'RE CATCHING UP!"
"I NOTICED!" Her friend roared as she kicked one that burst from the underbrush square in the jaw. "I CAN'T WIELD MY SWORD AND DIRECT THIS HORSE, I'LL HAVE TO DO FIRE SUPPORT!"
Louise almost laughed. "MAKE IT A BLAZE, HERE THEY COME!"
The girls thundered out into one of the rare stretches of plain on Albion, a sight where the windstones blew so strongly in the earth below that deeper rooted plants simply couldn't grow. Bare moments behind them came a great, howling menagerie of the hell-beasts, two of the three headed creatures leading the pack in bounding leaps that covered a half dozen yards each. The girls were only just barely staying ahead of much of the pack, Louise doing a quick count to mark twenty of them in total.
"KIRCHE, IF YOU'RE GOING TO START FIRING, NOW'S THE TIME! I'LL COVER YOU!"
"THAT'S MY JOB!" Kirche roared back at her as she whipped out her wand and started to chant, what aim she could manage only aided by trusting her mount's sheer want to survive. The poor mundane beasts were already tired from having carried their original owners, and fast as they were going, the hounds were faster.
Louise sliced an arc to her right as one of the creatures lunged for her mount's hind, the fanged maw sliced open as the claws just missed the horse's skin. Even that was enough for the horse to screech in fear and start pushing its limits, matching speed with the hounds behind it and starting to outpace Kirche's.
Kirche's wand birthed a lance of flame a moment later, the surge of fire roaring into the pack behind them as Louise maneuvered around it, the blast catching one of the hounds as another dodged aside. The roar of mixed pain and rage rattled in Louise's ears as the blast of fire sent the hit beast headfirst into the ground, sending it into a rolling, careening mess of a death that tripped up less speedy members of the pack. Yet all the same, two down wasn't a great thinning of the numbers and more were closing in fast.
"THEY'RE SPLITTING!" Louise screamed to Kirche as the pack used the sudden blast to break off into pincers, the hellbeasts burning with their infernal energy as they sped their pace even more, some manner of blasphemous power infusing them from a source unseen.
"I NOTICED!" Kirche shouted right back as she silently prayed her sword wouldn't come loose off her back. Neb may have gotten the sheathe specially made to quickly draw and stow the blade, but going from swinging it about to clear a path to riding helter-skelter from the hounds of Hell didn't do much in the way of securement! All she could do was belt quick and dirty chants, barely adding any of her usual flavor to it as single words had to hold blasts of willpower. Anything to head them off, even if it meant setting this area aflame!
Louise did what she could as well, the sheer noise the hounds were making as they started to close their pincer throwing all sense of stealth out of the window. With her spells on Kirche now gone, she made the decision to use some more earth magic. It was the only thing that made sense now, and trying to keep focused on the energy armor with all this going on wasn't going to help.
"STONE SKIN!" She barked as the magic settled over them, Kirche and hers bodies becoming less flexible but vastly more protected as the layer of stone formed over them. The hounds were upon them barely a moment later, Kirche blasting two out of the air as they dove for her while she kicked a third that tried for her mount's flanks, sending the hellhound spinning and trampled under Louise's own mount. At speeds like this, even a normal horse's shod hoof was lethal to these beasts.
Four came screaming at Louise from both sides as the pincers closed in, the pack reforming just behind the girls as the horses screamed in unthinking terror, the howls a constant din in their ears. Roars and shattering yowls of pain as Kirche answered with her blasts of fire meant little to Louise as she lashed and slashed and stabbed at the beasts with Derf. The first one got the closest, contorting in midair at speed in direct defiance of all common sense to sink its burning fangs into her shoulder. The stone layer over her skin stopped the bite cold, but the force of impact nearly unseated her.
Derflinger answered the assault and impaled the hound through the roof of the mouth. His blade slid straight out the top of the hound's skull, a stroke of luck placing it in place to catch the one that came after it right in the belly. The beast yowled and clawed and slashed at Louise, but the body of its slain pack-mate gave enough room between it and her for Louise to use the weight of the both to duck to the side they'd attacked her from, the third from her left souring over where she'd once been in a complete miss. But in her dodge, and subsequent ridding of the dead hound as its impaled packmate disemboweled itself in the fight to get at her, she'd forgotten the fourth one.
Her horse screamed as infernal claws sank into its flank, the blindly terrified beast bucking and kicking as it tried to keep speed, anything to get away from the pain that was being seared into its flank. Louise cursed and hauled herself back up as another trio of the beasts slathering jaws snapped at her, braid just barely avoiding a blast of hellfire as she slid back up and drove Derf right into the savaging hellhound's maw before it could deal any further damage. It died instantly as Derf sucked the hellfire right out of its core, Louise's staff blazing with light as it healed her horse and gave a boost to its flagging stamina. She couldn't just keep pumping it with heals either, they were going too fast. If anything tripped the beast up or took Louise off the saddle, that's it.
But there were so many of them, and even as they briefly peeled off to avoid their slain compatriots, she could see the two three-headed beasts angling amongst them for the best point of attack. She had to… to… wait, they were bunching up again!
"KIRCHE, GET NEXT TO ME!"
Her friend sent the briefest of boggled looks her way as another blast of fire sent another of her attackers screaming away.
"JUST DO IT!"
Kirche grimaced and shifted her horse to ride beside Louise, the pack of hounds lesser but no less ravenous for their blood. The big ones, those three-headed beasts, they were angling even harder now. They had to be getting ready to pounce, and if they got close enough with six jaws snapping at them-!
Louise refused to let that happen. As the hounds congregated, their design taking shape before her eyes even as she started to work the words, all she could do was pour just as much willpower into the stone barrier that wrapped them, even as it made motion stilted and breath difficult under its weight. The lesser hounds howled and dove for the horses' hooves. The greater beasts roared their victory as they leapt to where the horses would pull their riders in the panicked race to escape.
Louise spoke two words, ones she'd been practicing in secret since the day Neb began training them.
"TOTAL COLLAPSE!"
Well, screamed was a more accurate word as the bindings hiding the staff all but blew off, the great gem at its head blaring with a dark miasma. In the same coin, the hydra head that held it glowed with a burning light that ran headlong into the dark miasma, a contest of wills it seemed occurring in that split second before a mass of darkness haloed in light shot from the staff. It screamed through the air, almost parting the attacking hellbeasts as it flew at its target. The very center of the formation, right where the greater beasts were converging to tackle and rip the two girls to shred.
It slammed into one of them, the beasts looming over and Louise screaming her head off as she tried to bring Derf around. All of it moved in slow motion to her, the way the hellfire crackled and raged in their maws, the hate in those inhuman eyes, the way their obsidian bodies pulsed and moved with such unholy power. Kirche in the corner of her eye, trying to grip her sword as the flame from her wand burned at her own attacker. The horses desperately trying to keep their feet.
The magic crackled and pushed against the beast, the light pushing the dark miasma denser and denser and denser…
Air fled Louise's lungs in a horrid gasp. Her entire body lurched forward for a split second as her hair was yanked forward. She just barely saw Kirche suffer much the same, the great beasts and their lesser packmates suddenly arrested of all momentum. The darkness put up one last effort, expanded briefly… then completely collapsed.
For an infinitesimal moment, all the energy of the spell was concentrated into the space of a pinhead. All the willpower Louise had been able to muster, a gambit placed on the simple fact they could not outrun that many rage-fueled hellbeasts on their steeds, pressed into that space. An infinitesimal moment where Louise stared raging, agonizing death square in the face.
The light failed. The container of Will cracked.
And all the world was white and the dull roar of an explosion, beyond any she'd conjured before in all her life. She didn't feel herself get flung the entire remaining length of the prairie, heels over teakettle. She didn't know where her horse went or much of anything, save a brief return to consciousness as impact jolted her into the agony of the waking world. She just saw a massive cloud of smoke, the prairie nothing more than a cloud of black and raining soil and rock. She could just make out Kirche's body a dozen feet away, her friend likely just as if not more dazed.
Then… it appeared. The creature that she'd just spotted as they'd fled the pack. Its obsidian horns, scorched black helm, and hellfire blazed eyes… and more now… the blood-red scarlet of its body, a writhing metal of blasphemous symbols her mind dare not comprehend as its armor, and the hound-like legs that bore its hideously muscled form forward. Right… up… to her…
"I must say, apprentice of the hydra… you've impressed me." Came a grating, hissing, echoing voice like the claws of raging hounds striking rusted metal. "First you kill some of my runts, then the eldest of my youngest pack… and now you and your… little friend… have slain all my youngest… Your command of Might and Magic is… spirited, for one so recently into the bloom of her youth."
The… thing gave a slow, mocking applause to her as she struggled with all her might to remain conscious, even through the screaming pain of her impact. If she could just muster enough to use her healing spell-!
One of the canine legs slammed into her chest, instantly stealing the words and her breath with an agonizing scream. "Tut-tut, little flower… I don't want to prune you just yet. You're not yet ripe for my hounds to enjoy the feast… and what's more, you've only tenderized yourself. Every one you slay, every one you take from my kennels… only feeds their rage. Feeds my rage…"
The foot dug into Louise's chest, the breast plate keeping its claws from digging into her skin while the gambeson saved her ribs. "But I am a patient hunter… and there's simply no fun when I've no hounds left to savage you with. So go… find your little band, your little pack… and in due course… I will rip them to pieces in front of you."
The foot pulled back and gave her a vicious kick in the side for good measure before the creature reached down and gripped her head, tugging her head up to force her to look into the eyes of Madness, the hellfire in its depths attempting to show her things her hazed mind was mercifully too in pain to even notice. "But first… a little memento, just for you."
She didn't see whatever blade the creature brought forth.
She only screamed as it buried and carved itself across her chest, the breastplate no help against whatever the weapon was made of. Not deep enough to cause lasting damage, but just enough to send another storm of raw agony through her being before the creature threw her head back to the ground and she knew no more.
But it was… some time or another later that she did know more. Her eyes opened, bleary and mouth dry as the desert. Her throat begged for water and her entire body throbbed, chest in particular aching with the remnants of the agony that had sent her into the endless void of dreamless sleep. She… didn't think she was moving, so maybe she hadn't been out that long…?
A groan and sheer willpower forced her limbs to move, pushing off against the trunk of a tree to slowly sit herself up. A sharp pain in her chest made her wince, and she gasped a word. "Heal!"
The magic flowed over her, making her glad for a moment that the staff hadn't been taken. But still that sharp pain in her chest only soothed to an ache. Founder, it hurt… but… wait, Kirche!
The sudden surge of energy made her leap to her feet and look around wildly. She found Kirche barely a second later, right where she'd been thrown by the blast. Her friend still looked stunned and out of it, but slowly rising and holding her side. "KIRCHE!"
The Germanian winced but gave Louise her best smile. "Hey… what a blast that was, eh Louise…?"
Louise puffed and used the last dregs of her willpower to shine a Heal on her. "Founder, but what is with you and bad jokes? Are… are you ok?"
Kirche winced as Louise helped her up, still holding her side even as the spell eased most of her pain. "Mostly… something… something bad injured me while we were down. Don't remember much but it was… awful. Felt like I was getting burned and sliced and frozen all at the same time."
Louise shuddered and looked around, suddenly feeling very cold. "…Yeah, it hurt me too… but it looks like that's all it wanted. We need to get going, that blast was probably heard all the way in Newcastle."
"And our horses got killed by that thing too…" Kirche noted with a grimace, only sparing a guilty glance to where the savaged beasts had been dumped. Not pretty, and likely the targets of that thing's anger since it apparently had other plans for them. "But what was that?! I've seen your explosions before, and that was way bigger!"
"I'll tell you more, but first…. Gaah, blame my adrenaline for this and breathe not a word of it!"
She promptly seized Kirche by the neck of her plate and planted the Kiss of Life on her cheek.
Kirche blinked at that, but Louise was already marching off, cheeks the color of her hair. "Come on! You get one because we managed to survive by Founder given luck, let's not waste it!"
Kirche stared after her a moment before smiling a small smile and hurrying off. After they'd checked their gear was still there, of course.
"What a big boom you make girlie!" Derf chimed in after they'd jogged another mile. "Here I was focusin on makin all that hellfire inta something useful and you went an blew up an entire prairie!"
Kirche had to agree. "Yeah, it was massive! That smoke cloud's still visible and we're long gone! How'd you do that?!"
Louise puffed a bang out of her face, the day's events long loosening her usually tight braid. "It's… complicated. I've been working on it for months now, ever since Neb started training us. Not exactly useful beyond a last-ditch desperation move, I put almost all I had into that one shot."
Kirche hummed as she shifted a brush aside, their path taking them through a thick section of forest. "I got that much from the fact it threw all of us ass-over-teakettle some quarter of a mile. And obliterated all of those hellbeasts at that!"
Louise huffed and followed along for several seconds in silence, gathering her thoughts. "It's… do you remember that mark Neb carved into my hand, before I started using the staff for my foci?"
Derf rattled in his sheathe as Kirche grunted an acknowledgement, a large rock in the way requiring some elbow grease to move. "Yeah, I member that! You usin it to practice?"
Louise patted his pommel, the only sign of 'got it' she could really give. "Exactly. The mark's not as… easy, as the staff is, so I thought using it for private practice would make my control better. I only did it when I was alone, so I didn't get too much time, but it was enough. It was during those practices, and a few blasts that Neb succinctly chewed me out for, that I noticed something. When the… Light and Dark styles of Neb's magic mix, the result is usually a negation. They just cancel each other out."
She made a vague motion with her hands, like she was shaping a sphere. "But I found out that if I put a lot of willpower into each side, but gave one of them just a bit more strength… the stronger one pressed down on and tried to destroy the other side. It wasn't a negation; it was all out war. But what I didn't realize was that when it was doing so, it was making a… shell, so to speak. Where all that 'violence' was happening and getting shoved into."
Kirche made a noise of understanding. "And that's why it happened. It was the willpower you usually put into something to make one of your famous explosions, but in an even smaller space."
"Like putting a lot of steam in a too small kettle!" Derf crowed, sounding proud as punch. "Quite a little thing to stumble on girlie, that's mighty nice!"
Louise pouted at him. "Not like it does me a whole lot of good. As I said, I have to give one of the two sides a little more power, and it takes a lot out of me to muster that much power in the first place. I can certainly claim I've got larger reserves than I did at the start of all this, but I am not able to throw that around at random. Not to mention we all felt what it was like being in the blast zone, we're lucky we only got bruises and no ruptured ears."
"Probably that stone protection you gave us." Kirche noted as they started down a slope. "The stone layer would've absorbed most of the blast, right?"
Louise shook her head and winced as the pain in her chest flared and she glared at the rent in her armor. Dammit… "…Yeah, that was the idea. Better than the ice armor at least, and I wouldn't have had enough power in me if I'd tried to wrap us in the light armor. Founder, but I keep draining myself down to the dregs… I'd almost pay for just a day of peace at this point. We haven't known it since we got to La Rochelle."
Kirche grimaced as their feet hit the dirt at the bottom of the slope. "Geez… We covered a lot of distance; you don't think we're almost at the front do you?"
Louise shook her head and glanced around. The sun had changed positions, but they were still heading the right way. "I don't know, but we've been heading the right way. Anything from Flame?"
Kirche shook her head. "Nope. He may have tried to contact me while we were down and out, but I'm finding it hard to concentrate. I may not be able to get anything until we find somewhere to sit down and get my head to stop pounding."
Louise tossed her a waterskin. "Here, drink mine. I drained most of it earlier, but you're needing it more now."
Kirche caught it and blinked. Huh… ok. "Thanks. This point I'd kill to run across a river or something, if only so I could drink the thing dry."
Louise shivered. "…I don't want us to do any more of that for a while. God, hearing those screams…"
Kirche sighed, taking a long pull (and delighting in the indirect kiss) before patting Louise's shoulder. "I don't blame you, but we can't dwell on it. We destroyed their killers, take some comfort in that if nothing else."
Louise grimaced and gripped at Derf's pommel before nodding. "All we can do… right. Let's keep going, we can't be that far from Newcastle, right?"
Kirche tossed back the waterskin and smirked. "Banged up and in pain as we are, I sure hope not. Wouldn't that suck? Going miles out of our way in the wrong direction because we got blasted so hard we couldn't tell up from down?"
Louise opened her mouth… thought about it… looked back up at the sun…
"…Fuck."
Kirche's eyes bulged. "No… no, you're shitting me."
"It was the noon sun, we got ourselves turned around!" Louise groaned as she tugged at her braid, unbelievably mad with herself. "We've been going northeast this entire time, not north! God, we could be a mere mile from a Reconquista fort or camp at this point!"
Kirche joined her groan with one of her own, both stewing in their own dumb self-assured hubris. They had to reorient themselves now and spend even longer in enemy territory now! And be in even more danger for anyone finding them that had less than peaceful intentions! Founder above, but if Neb didn't already have reason to flay them alive!
Siesta would likely join him in it too, for being such morons! This of course brought to Louise's mind a truly indecent image that she did all in her power to swat aside and stamp out in the dirt, embarrassment and the shame of just that morning coming back full force.
Kirche took it as her just being frustrated. "So… now what? We get back on track, sure, but we could be somewhere it's not realistic for us to be met halfway by the royalists, right?"
Louise made a noise of anger and kicked a rock into a tree. "Probably, it'd make sense for why Siesta hasn't tracked us down herself at this point. Probably trusting we'll get there on our own or trying to convince the royalists to meet us halfway… Founder, I feel awful about disappointing her now!"
Kirche rolled her shoulder, wincing again at the pain in her side, before giving her winning smile. "Then let's get rolling so we don't! Promised her we'd make Newcastle by nightfall, right? Well sun's burning with us being here all frustrated."
"That it is…" Louise had to smile at that. "Alright, let's get ourselves reoriented and get back where we need to be. Northeast for as long as we were going… turn ourselves northwest… then a little bit more to make up for it…"
The girls, with 'aid' from Derf and his terrible sense of direction, soon had their path forward. It was over another bluff, through some trees… and back through another Founder-forsaken swamp. As they waded through waist-high water and did what they could to ward off blood-flies, Louise couldn't help it anymore. "Why, in all the world, does Albion have so many swamps?!"
Kirche had to laugh as she ducked under a log, wincing just so as the swamp-water flowed over her wound. She really hoped they'd get somewhere to rest so Louise could heal it up, or maybe run into Monmon and have her do it. Anything to stop this burning. "Yeah, well… It does pass through a lot of clouds and hangs out over the ocean for half of the year. Got all that flowing over the land, and it probably soaked in."
Louise grunted as she sank a few inches, a small hole hidden by the murky water. Founder but this swamp water made her chest hurt. "Just because it makes sense doesn't mean I gotta like it!"
She pulled herself back up… and swallowed a squeal as a big, slimy, pulsing black leech appeared on her flank! It was trying to dig under her gambeson, GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!
Instinct took over and the little knife she always kept to hand for camping tasks hacked and slashed at the leech, the creature squealing and wriggling and squirming as she carved wounds into it until it finally let go of her gambeson and fled into the murky water, its slimy innards bleeding out into the swamp. With that now succinctly established as being in this place, Louise felt a shudder of utter disgust and picked up her pace. Kirche didn't bother asking why, she'd heard the squeals, and she was equal in her zeal to get out of that swamp.
Thankfully, they got out of that swamp about five minutes later. And just managed to avoid a whole swarm of those leeches that had sniffed out their wounds. Louise shuddered as she saw the wriggling, struggling mass trying to slither over each other onto the shore after them. Demons, Reconquista, now the local fauna trying to kill them? Waking up that morning felt like a lifetime ago now.
"Nasty things those." Derf chatted as the girls beat feet out of there. "Great Swamp Leeches, I member hearin bout em before. Used ta be a fad amongst the more indolent bunch a Albion nobles ta juice em and use the stuff the things make to suck out ya blood as an aphrodisiac! Weird damn bunch that was."
Louise and Kirche turned a bit green at the sound of that. They knew there were… different circles amongst the nobles of every country that dabbled in 'unusual past-times' but that? Louise could suddenly find sympathy in the rebellion that occurred if she had the mention of that gross activity pinned to the right date. What a world she'd discovered.
"Don't go lookin green on me yet girlies, we got something else now!"
The girls forced their gorge down and took hiding spots, both slinking through the brush and vines of the swampland until they'd reached a new spot. It was a bit of lower ground, a depression long since hollowed out by the swamp around it. But here, they saw their next challenge.
A wall of carved stone blocks.
A fort.
The girls exchanged grimaces, a daring peek up by Kirche showing the wall's battlements with torches in place and the glint of weapons. Patrols observing the surrounding terrain, but given they hadn't already spotted the girls, were being lax.
Louise started signaling to Kirche, their position way too close for anything else. "The fort has to be one of the old Royalist posts, there's no way it'd be this vine-choked if it was one of Reconquista's!"
Kirche took another glance up and frowned, signaling back. "Yeah, but how do we get around? If it is one of their forts, then we could well be in spitting distance of Royalist territory. But that doesn't mean much if we can't get there!"
Louise gave her a glare. "I don't know, ok! We're right up next to the wall near enough, if we try creeping along it without some kind of plan, we're doomed!'
Kirche returned it and gave a rude gesture that almost made Louise laugh. "Well, we can't exactly walk out there and put on a show to distract them, so there! And before you think to suggest a big fire-display, there's not enough juice in my tank to overcome all this swamp water soaking everything!"
Louise shot back her own rude gesture that nearly made Kirche cackle. "Well hell, I don't know! We can't just go tunneling under here, I don't have enough energy to do it! Not to mention who knows what undermining around the wall would do! Grrrrrrr…!"
Growling in sign language was essentially Louise just pounding her fist into her palm. How'd they even get this close to the fort without noticing it, it towered out of the trees and fog-!
Louise all but leapt at Kirche and pulled her close enough she was about to kiss her! "That's it!"
Her hiss and sudden invasion of personal space barely got Kirche sputtering before Louise launched into her place. "I don't have much left, but with all this fog rolling around, I can do it! Just stick close and follow me!"
Kirche blinked rapidly, torn between bemusement at this sudden surge of manic energy and sheer worry that Louise had just gotten them spotted! What was the point of all that signaling if she was just going to come over and hiss at her like a swamp-stained strawberry?!
Louise ignored that simple question and focused on the fog that wreathed the ground. The sheer amount of it, still hugging the ground and swampland behind them despite the sun above in the strength of its descent towards the horizon. All she needed to do was focus, channel her will, remember the spell…
"Fog shroud…"
The fog rolled in over them, coating them in the namesake shroud that instantly muffled both hearing and sight. Louise's breath misted in the sudden chill of the fog that wrapped them like a blanket. Derf, sensing the magic at work, kept himself silent despite wanting to ask how she'd know where she was going in this fog.
Only for Kirche to gasp. "Flame! Kirche, Flame just reached out to me, he's saying that he's heading towards us but a fort with a lot of fog is in the way! I think that's us he's seeing!"
Louise grinned her best grin as she kept her focus on the spell. "Best… lead me then… I've got all my… concentration keeping this on us…!"
Kirche nodded, the sheer thrill at hearing from Flame and that she'd see him again soon guiding her to grab Louise, hoist her into a piggy-back, and take off at an excited, but cautious, jot. The fog was thick around them, and Louise was concentrating hard to make it look like it was just another bank rolling in. Just another part of the environment, nothing to see here as it covered their last… hopefully kilometer or so of danger.
Every step brought them closer. Flame's little updates marking the motion of the cloud and confirming they were in the same place. Every slight dodge, every pause felt like an eternity as the girls weaved through trenches and earthworks, hugging the stone wall where they could for a time before having to venture into the dug in defenses of the Reconquista. This was not a time for espionage or secret gathering or even silencing officers and the like. This… this was an escape. Plain and simple.
And as Flame croaked his glee, Kirche knowing he was just in sight, Louise gasped, and their cover vanished. She simply didn't have enough energy to keep the fog together as they'd moved further and further from the swamp she'd sourced it from. Not after that blast she'd set off. And in a turn of fate that just seemed to be theirs today, the fog faded away…
To show them right next to a squad of actual soldiers, their gear nowhere near as poor as the conscripts. The girls stared at them, grimy and wounded and in no shape to take on the dozen well-trained men. The men stared back at them, taken aback at their appearance when they'd just been wondering at the fog clearing up.
A moment of awkward silence passed between both parties as they processed what was going on.
"…SEIZE THEM!"
And Kirche took off at a dead sprint.
Louise barely had the energy to keep her eyes open, but she managed to grip Derf. "Hey… bout that… making something useful… think you can do that now…?"
Kirche ducked as a quiver of arrows sliced through the air over her head, a few better aimed shots glancing off her and Louise's armor as she ran helter-skelter across muddy ground and leaping over trenches. There were other bits too, stakes and wooden barriers, but with a Louise over her back and a growing commotion as the soldiers pursued and tried to shoot them down, she didn't have time to just blast them aside. Even a single pause was likely going to get them both filled with arrows!
Well, Louise would be. And that was already enough of a problem with her friend riding piggyback as was! Come on, come on… she could see the forest edge, they were so close to meeting Flame, she could all but see his excited, scaly little face! Just a couple hundred meters, just a little more!
Pain bloomed and a scream tore out of her throat as an arrow found the smallest weakness in her armor. All it took was one, slamming into the top of her calf where the mail was thin by sheer necessity. It was not a deep wound, but as the broken armor tore through skin and flesh, she felt herself lamed by the hit. But that burn was nothing to the sheer want she had to get out of here, forcing her leg to keep moving and bearing her weight as she had her sprint turn into a hobbling skip. What was it about all this armor that made her such a target, wasn't it supposed to stop this?!
The one that hit her crowed their shot finding its mark, and the rumble of charging boots came ever closer. They were so close dammit, she could see the roots of the trees!
Louise, jolted to some energy at Kirche's scream and hearing not a word of Derf's rambling explanation at what to do, merely drew him and gave the strongest swipe she could back at their pursuers. "WHATEVER IT TAKES, DO IT!"
Derf, much better able to see the few dozen soldiers charging after the girls, only sighed and focused on the potential he'd absorbed from the hellbeasts. Purified, given purpose… that's all it needed, follow the arc of the swing…
"BRIMIR I'VE FINALLY LEARNED TO SHIT!"
Louise didn't have time to look at him in scandalized horror. That was his battle-cry?!
She had no room to complain a moment later as Derf's blade shined a blazing orange-red, an arc of raging fire screeching out from the slash. It tore through the air with the scream of super-heated atmosphere, slamming into the first line of soldiers before they'd even had a chance to stop and dodge. Those behind them had enough time to hit the ground and avoid the arc as it screamed past and exploded against the earthworks.
The ones up front hit the ground a moment later, seared in two along the arc of the fleeing blast.
Louise felt her gorge rise hard as she saw the sectioned bodies fall to the muddy ground with squelching thuds, Kirche not seeing so much as hearing and smelling it. "What was that?!"
Louise coughed and croaked, her energy at the very edge of depletion. "Just… keep running…!"
Kirche, never one to question any fortune that went her way, simply nodded, and kept up her hobbling sprint. The soldiers getting thrown to the ground and stunned by the display of power had left them stunned, and moments later… they were in the trees! Flame was close, she could feel it-!
The injury on her leg was smacked by something, making her scream and stumble, another impact to her injured flank sending her and Louise to the ground, the smaller girl sent rolling across the ground for a moment before she was pinned by a foot in her back too. Kirche tried to rise, but a heel dug into her wounded leg and she roared in pain, two more pressed into her back to pin her.
"Well-well, that was quite a fright." Came such a generically nasally voice it made Kirche cringe. "I don't know what you spies were doing about our fort, but! It doesn't matter… such lovely cloaks, clean as can be despite your grime and muck caked bodies."
A pair of overly painted boots swung into view, the voice over Kirche's head. "And what a nice body this one has too… Hmhmhm, boys, I'll be taking this one for a more personal interrogation. Do relieve them of their weapons and kill that salamander while you're at it. I hear their leather makes the supplest of coats."
Kirche's eyes shot open in a panic, both at the slimy and sick tone of that nasally voice and for the struggling croaks she heard just beyond her line of sight. No, they had Flame! He must've been so excited to come get them he hadn't noticed the ambush!
"As for the smaller one… meh, you can toss her to the rabble. They'll have their fun with her before she's worn out-grrk!"
Kirche knew that gurgle. That sudden tension in the boots and the warm spatter that splashed across her helm. Now that she thought about it, how the creep had figured what she looked like pinned like this didn't make sense, but as his corpse collapsed to the ground with a knife sticking out of his throat, she felt the ground around her grow less tense. And for a moment, she'd never felt more violated in all her life.
The ones holding her didn't get a chance to cry out in alarm. The one with their foot on her left shoulder started choking on his own blood in the same moment the mage leading them had been killed, giving Kirche enough leverage to lift her arm and turn into where the other was pressing on her. She heard the crack of bone as her elbow shattered his knee joint, the soft dirt letting her turn much more than normal. She didn't give him time to scream, already rising and closing her hands around his throat, throttling, and shaking some random face with a beard she'd likely seen a hundred times amongst the common folk. Throttling, squeezing, and snarling until she slammed his head back into the ground hard enough she heard his neck snap, his futile scratches and punches at her to try and save himself instantly ended.
Kirche breathed hard and deep, hair falling out of her helm as she stared at the purple, bruised, bulging eyed face of the man she'd killed. For a few moments, just feeling the horror and sickness of what she'd been threatened with course through her veins. But then she heard Louise scream, and she was instantly focused on the present again, scrambling to her feet and drawing her sword at last.
The one who'd pinned the smaller girl had grabbed and hauled the girl up, dagger pressed tightly to his hostage's throat. If she so much as tried to bite him or otherwise free herself, the dagger would open her jugular. Kirche didn't bother listening to his rambling 'demands' all she was focused on was Louise…
A glint caught her eye to the right, and she glanced over, heart lightening as if in flight to see Flame waddle over, his former captors charbroiled with knives in their necks too. It could only be one woman able to do that… and Kirche had a feeling she just needed to give her an opening.
She leveled her sword at the screaming man, his back to a tree and making all kinds of heinous demands in his terror. He tried to shift, the mistake of one who was realizing his demands weren't going to be met, and that's all Louise needed. She turned her own revulsion and horror into strength, her captor's brief shift enough to bring her arm up and down into an elbow strike against his ribs. The air was driven from him instantly, his grip briefly loosened, and Louise wrenched herself free in a feat of adrenaline fueled strength. She dove away, came back up with Derf bared.
And witnessed the most beautiful streak of dark cloth fall from the branches on high, a silver glint in hand. Down as if the Founder's judgement, shrouded feet kicking into the man's back as he stumbled. Down, came the silver glint, as the dagger killed him in one strike.
Louise, in that moment, as she watched the figure rise from her kill and lower her hood… had seen only one sight as beautiful as Siesta's big, teary blue eyes. And that sight was next to her and hugging Flame like he'd never be hugged enough.
"Louise…" Her handmaid whispered as she came over and took Louise's hand. "God, but it's been not even a day… what…"
She saw Louise's grimace and glanced over to see the dead mage nearby. The handmaid scowled and tugged on her friend and lady's hand. "Come on. They'll have heard the shouting; we need to leave."
Louise just nodded, numb from the sheer expenditure of energy and the fading adrenaline. Kirche wasn't far behind, the wound in her leg forcing her to lean on Flame for support. They had to go, had to get away… but first…
Louise very strongly gripped Siesta's shoulders, looked her right in the eye.
And kissed her soft on the cheek.
"Thank you, Siesta. Thank you."
And the last thing Louise remembered was Siesta's visage of shock, relief…
And hope.
Louise didn't know what to do with hope.
Let alone as the last thing she heard met her ears.
"Oh, hey, you too!"
Ch. End