[Mkguild] Snow Storm: Storm Front (4/4)‏‏

[Hallan Mirayas]

    "Help!  Help!"   

 

    Even with keen animorph ears to listen and a
quartet of witchlights to light the dark street, Raven didn’t spot the woman
until they were almost on top of her.  Bursting from the curtain of snow,
she tumbled, panic-stricken, into the priestess’ arms.  "Lightbringer?"
she gasped.  "Oh, th-thank the Lady!  Please!  Help us!"

 

    Elemacil’s runes lit up like a hunting dog
scenting prey.  One sniff told Raven what the woman had been doing before
running out into the storm, as if the blanket that served as her only clothing
wasn’t enough to guess.  But it was what was on the blanket that drew her
attention- a splatter of daedra blood.  Before she could ask, the answer
tumbled from the woman's mouth.

    "D-D-Demons!" the woman gasped, still
out of breath and her teeth starting to chatter with cold.  "F-F-Fighting
each other!  P-Peddlers’ House, up the s-s-street!"

 

    The Peddlers’ House.  Rumor had it the
Sensates had been turning that old inn into a pleasure den.  It looked
like rumor was confirmed.  Raven invoked a blessing of warmth from the
fire goddess Yajiit for the woman to still her chattering teeth.  "Daedra
fighting each other?  Are you certain?"

 

    "Yes!  One was calling the other a
traitor, and said something about replacing her.  Please, hurr-eek!"

 

    Rickkter, in the midst of slicing a
blood-stained scrap of fabric from the woman's only garb, caught a ringing slap
for his efforts.  "Ow!  Dammit, woman!" the raccoon mage
protested, rubbing the sting out of his ear.  "It's for a trace
spell!"

 

    Raven stood the woman up, twisted free of her
grip, and summoned one of the witchlights.  "Follow this light.
 It will lead you to the Temple.  Go now."

 

    The faint whispers of daedra presence that had
flickered fitfully ahead of them vanished in an explosion of power just two
blocks beyond, like two candles being eclipsed by the full fury of the sun.
 Raven staggered as if physically struck by the blast, her worst fears
realized.  "An Oath," she breathed.

 

    "He’s here.  In person," growled
Rickkter.  The battle mage had felt it, too.   "There’s no
way a binding that powerful was done by proxy."

 

    "Agreed.  Sensate, get to the Temple
-now-."  With the Sensate woman out of harm’s way, Raven cast her
voice onto the winds again.  "Merai!  Tessa!  To-"

 

    "We’re here!"

 

    Heralded by a pair of witchlights, the cat and
the half-elf emerged from the storm, accompanied by every Long Scout currently
in Metamor.  Two of the healers who had been dispatched to the Euper fire
followed them.  "Where are the other healers?" Raven asked,
alarmed.

 

    "Some stayed at the Jolly Collie, the rest
are waiting out the storm at the Deaf Mule, Lothanasa," replied Tessa.
 "Fighting the fire exhausted many, and the climb from Euper was
treacherous.  We had several injuries from the ice."

 

    "Very well.  Staying at the Mule
should keep them out of harm's way."

 

    A flash of red lit the night, then another, and
a rumble like thunder followed.  Xavier's head jerked up.  "That
wasn't the storm."

 

    Rickkter's grip tightened on his sword.  "No,
it wasn't.  Come on!"

 

-----

 

    The blast of power shocked the duel at the
Peddlers' House to a momentary halt.

 

    "What has that idiot mortal done?"
 Thestilus only took his eyes off his enemy for a moment, but a moment was
all Alexastra needed.  Stepping into his weakened guard, she slapped his
knives aside and then slashed out his eyes on the backswing.  Not content
with that damage, she ducked back under his flailing arms, reached into a
pocket with a gloved hand, and flung several thousand garrets worth of powdered
mithril straight into his bleeding face.

 

    Thestilus' knives clattered to the ground,
unheard over the glass-shattering shriek of his screams.  He followed them
down, writhing in agony on the floor and raking at his smoking face with his
claws.  The holy metal ate into his wounds like acid.  Kicking his
knives aside with one foot, Alexastra continued the step to kick him in the gut
with the other.  In that moment of contact, she smashed through his
shattered mental defenses an illusion of being ripped apart by a ravenous pack
of hellhounds, just to twist the knife.  "What has he done?" the
furious daedress echoed, her voice icy with hate.  "The unexpected,
just like I said he would.  If you made me miss my chance, you miserable
piece of filth, I promise you that this level of pain will feel like bliss
in comparison to what else I can do!"  She kicked him again, this time
conjuring a flechette storm of flaying steel, then picked him up by the scruff
and dragged him to the hole in the wall that their entry had made.

 

    She was in luck.  "I've wanted to do
this for years," she growled, and then shouted into the wind.  "Hey,
Raven!  Catch!"  With that, she threw her former partner to the
wolves.

 

-----

 

    Raven’s head snapped up, partly from the shout,
but mostly from the sudden flare of daedra presence radiating from the two
bats.  One Elemacil identified as an exceptionally powerful imp, but the
other was unlike anything the holy sword had ever encountered.  Here was
the source of the flickering detections- it had to be, based on the
lightning-quick revelation.

 

    "Alexis Nightwind?" Merai gasped in
recognition as the disguised daedress heaved her compatriot from the exploded
third-floor room in which they’d been fighting.  Her aim was both
deliberate and accurate, and Raven only needed to swing once, parting the imp’s
head from his shoulders.  The bat dissipated into smoke, banished back to
the Hells with a fading scream.

 

    "Damn," the daedress swore down at
them, her foxish face a scowl.  "I was hoping you’d gut him first.
 He deserves it.  For the time being, Lightbringer, you and I have
common cause.  Under the eyes of the High Lord and the Dark Prince, I
pledge to you my oath of alliance."

 

    The archaic vow startled Raven.  The last
time she’d heard it used had been in an ancient Suielman text, dating back to
the last alliance of the aedra and daedra against the Titans.  She racked
her brain for the appropriate reply, but the she-bat gave her no time.  "The
words you’re looking for," she snapped with an impatient flick of her
hand, "are ‘I accept your oath and will not try to shoot you, stab you, or
otherwise banish you tonight.’  We have no time for niceties: my Edward’s
life hangs in the balance."  Raising her hand, she pointed down a
side street.  "Long Scouts, your leader is down that street, and
likely needs your help by now, if the collapsed buildings I can see out there
are any judge.  The rest of you, try to keep up."  Without
waiting to see if anybody took her advice, she leaped from the building and
took wing.  Her flight path twisted into a tortured corkscrew in case any
archer or mage below decided not to accept her offer of truce before she could
get out of range, flitting through the storm winds as if it were a calm day.
 At the same moment, and to Raven’s renewed astonishment, she vanished
from Elemacil’s detection with the suddenness of an extinguished lamp. 

 

    "Did she just-" Merai asked.

 

    "Yes, she did.  She’s something I’ve
never seen before.  Rickkter?"

 

    Rickkter was already running after the
departing daedra as the street ahead lit up with another red flash.  "Less
talking, more chasing!" he yelled back over the sound of collapsing
masonry.

 

    "Tessa!  Go with the Longs, and
search for survivors!  The rest of you, with me!"

 

-----

 

    Not all who crossed Drift’s path of devastation
that night did so by design.  For some, it was just a case of bad luck, of
being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  That the encounter was not
sought, however, did not make it any less devastating.

 

    Drift grabbed Wolfram's collar and lifted the
ram effortlessly off the ground by it, his lips peeled back in a furious snarl.
 Wolfram moaned in response, his face a rictus of pain.  His arms
clutched over his gut where Drift had kicked him.  The ambush had been as
sudden and unexpected as it had been devastating, and a small part of Wolfram's
mind marveled at the speed of it.  One moment, perfect health.
 The next, perfect agony.  How strangely poetic.  Blood
trickled from the ram's mouth and nose as he forced one eye open.
 Blinking past blood from his shattered right horn, he found a sword point
hovering barely an inch from it.  Beyond, the red glow of the blade cast a
demonic pall across Drift's white fur and strange, half-formed armor, and
Wolfram struggled against the pain to focus on his friend's face.  He
didn't bother to ask why he'd been attacked.  One look in Drift's eyes was
enough to see the insanity.  "If... you're going... to do it,"
he grunted, fighting for each word, "make it quick."

 

    The sword seemed to quiver in Drift's hand as
if eager to strike but, surprisingly, he didn't.  A war of conflicting
emotions raged behind his eyes before he finally lowered the blade.  "No,"
he said, and then repeated it as if to convince himself.  "No."
 For an instant, he was calm.  Then the samoyed's gaze turned
eastward and his lips pulled back again into a killing snarl.  "No
more delays.  No more distractions."  He tossed Wolfram aside
with a negligent flick of the wrist, heedless of the crash of shattering timber
and the screams of shock and fright as Wolfram smashed through the wall of an
inn.  "This ends now!" he growled, and the last thing Wolfram
saw before darkness claimed him was his friend running off into the night.
 Then the falling snow closed in behind and blotted him from view.

 

---

 

    "ARKOS!!"

 

    Arkos' forge hammer fell from his hand with a
clatter.  Ice shot through his veins, freezing his blood in an instant.
 That scream in the night- it was right outside, and there could only be
one person-

 

    "ARKOS!!"

 

    The desert hound lunged for his forging bench,
where his sword laid waiting.  Curse Thestilus!  The wretched imp had
been supposed to warn him before Snow got this close!

 

    "COME OUT AND FACE YOUR JUDGEMENT!!"

 

    Linafex had allowed himself a few moments
tinkering in the forge to settle his nerves, expecting to be notified in time
to prepare a proper reception.  Now, in his haste, he grabbed too quickly,
and his knife's pommel bounced off his reaching fingers and clattered to the
floor.  He ducked, scrambling to reach for it... and a beam of red light
cleaved through the air where he had just been standing.  Sweeping across
the whole of the room with a horrible rending shriek, it left chaos behind.
 He cowered under his work bench as brick and timber crashed down around
him.  Another shrieking slice followed, and he heard the rest of the house
start to go.  His wife screamed, and his gut twisted with panic as that
scream cut off.  He froze, hoping, praying that maybe Snow would think-

 

    "COME OUT NOW!  I KNOW YOU'RE STILL
ALIVE IN THERE!"

 

    Throwing away any pretense of hiding, Arkos
yanked loose the hidden panel in the workbench and snatched his weapon of last
resort from its hiding place, a small green stone that had cost him a small
fortune to purchase without questions or record.  He'd almost certainly
have to flee Metamor if he used it, but surely-

 

    A black mail-clad hand punched through the work
bench and seized him by the scruff of the neck.

 

    "Found you."

 

    Ripped from the debris and flung with the ease
he might throw a doll, Arkos landed in a sprawl on the snowy roadway.  Icy
cold bit through his short fur after the warmth of the forge, but that
discomfort was forgotten the moment he looked up.  A nightmare awaited him
with hate-filled eyes, clad in armor black as night and wielding a jagged,
demon sword, wreathed in a red glow that blended with the growing flames from
his demolished forge.  "N-no... impossible... it can’t be," he
babbled.

 

    "I’m not as easy to kill as my father,"
spat the beast, its voice like hammered iron.  Nor my beloved."
 It stalked him, sword raised, striding through the knee-deep snow like it
wasn’t even there.  Its red eyes promised no mercy, only a painful death.

 

    Arkos floundered, panting with panic and
looking around wildly for Thestilus, or even Agemnos himself.  Where were
they? He was important!  He was an important client!  Why weren’t
they protecting him?  Something hidden under the snow tripped him, and he
landed in a sprawl again.  To his horror, he dropped the stone, and he
scrambled in the snow trying to find it again.

 

    The nightmare reached him first.  The
jagged sword hooked under his chin, drawing a line of blood as it forced his
head up.  Edward Snow, the tinker’s brat, the wretched whelp, snarled at
him from beyond the blade.  "For all your crimes," growled the
beast, "I think I’ll kill you slowly."

 

    Arkos laughed, high-pitched and hysterical,
barely registering the feel of urine running down his leg.  He desperately
sifted through the snow for that lost stone.  He had to find it!  He
just needed more time!  "You can't kill me!" he gibbered.  "Agemnos
promised I'd die the only tinsmith in Metamor!"

 

    The beast’s jaw opened slightly, a moment of
disbelief.  Then he sneered and raised the sword to strike, and his words
dropped the bottom out of Arkos’ plans.  "I quit a month ago, you
stupid son of a bitch.  Die."

 

    "Daddy!"  Mariah, Arkos’ little
girl, ran weeping from the wreckage of their home and threw herself across her
father's chest, clinging to him.  "Please, mister.  Please don't
hurt my daddy."

 

    The beast froze, stalled by tear-filled eyes,
and Arkos dared to hope.  His fingers had finally closed upon the stone.
 His daughter was in just the right spot to shield his movements.  If
he could just keep the weapon out of sight for a few seconds more, get it into
line-

 

    "Stop this madness!"

 

    "Misha!"  The beast spun away,
distracted by a warrior fox in full battle gear, a giant axe held at the ready.
 Behind him, every Long in Metamor materialized from the night.  This
was just the distraction he needed!  He brought the stone up-

 

    "Watch out!" came a voice from high
and to the right, and Drift whirled just in time to see an impossibly familiar
silhouette outlined in green between him and Arkos.  He only saw it for an
instant before the bat vaporized, immolated by the light.  Beyond,
crouching behind his child like a shield, Arkos held his hand straight out
toward them, a green gem glowing in his palm.

 

    For a moment, all was shock and silence.
 Then Drift screamed.  "ALEXIS!!!!"

 

    Arkos snatched up his daughter and tried to
run.  He made it two steps before his world exploded.  The sword
speared through his back, jagged spikes ripping apart his spine and lungs, but
the blade through his heart snuffed his life before he had even started to
crumple.  But he was not the only one to die, and his daughter managed an
aborted shriek before the blade stabbed through her as well, stealing her life
away.  Almost unseen, the gem slipped from Arkos’ lifeless hand and
disappeared into the bloodstained snow.

 

    The moment the sword left his hand, the madness
left Drift, and reality slammed back into him like a mountain avalanche.
 He watched in stunned disbelief as Arkos and his daughter crumpled
lifeless to the ground.  "What...  what is..." he
whispered.  His hands started shaking.  "No!  This isn’t
what I wanted!  She didn’t deserve to die!  She wasn’t supposed to-
ack!"  A bolt of light leapt from the sword to strike him squarely in
the throat, forming a ring around his neck as the rest of the armor faded away.
   "Misha?"  Drift's voice rose rapidly in panic
as he tugged and jerked vainly at the black metal collar, latched with a
five-sided shield with a thin black wedge down its center.  "Misha,
help me!  It won't come off!  It won't come off!!!  Help-
aaaahh!"

 

    A flaming chain snaked from the darkness and
latched onto the collar.  Without a moment's hesitation, Misha lifted
Whisper to sever it, but he froze into stasis mid-swing as a dark-haired man in
black armor stepped from the shadow.  The man scowled.  "Oh,
joy.  A Patildor.  He should have been shredded to pieces by that
spell."  His irritation was short-lived, though, and he smiled with
malicious delight as he turned his gaze on Drift.  "Oh, look... an ex-Patildor.
 I always wanted a war dog."  He pulled on the chain, dragging
the samoyed closer. 

 

    Moving with the blinding speed he'd been
gifted, Drift reached for the one weapon he had left, the dagger he’d bought
long ago to end his life if he were ever trapped by fire.  Jerking it from
its arm sheath, he hurled it at the man, and it flew like a bolt of lightning.
 The dark-haired man caught it in front of his face as if it had hung
there for days.  Smirking, he declared, "This is a good knife,"
and then discarded it over his shoulder like a small child's toy.  "You
won't need it anymore."

 

    Drift grabbed the chain, tried to jerk it
loose, and screamed when the fire seared his hands.  Raw, primal terror
screamed through his mind, and his feet dug furrows in the ground trying to
resist that inexorable pull.  "Who are you?!"

 

    "Who do you think?  I'm sure you've
heard of me.  Revonos.  The Lord of Rage.  God of murder.
 Your new owner."

 

    "No!"  Drift's eyes showed white
the entire way around.  He thrashed against the chain, ignoring the burns
it caused on his hands, his tail held tight against his belly in fear.  "No!
 I won't go with you!  Misha!!"

 

    "You say that like you have a choice."
 Revonos' laughter echoed over Drift's screams of agony as a flash of
light snapped down the chain.  The samoyed's body warped and grew and
changed, bones crunching as he was thrown to all fours, his remaining clothes tearing
away.  His screams turned to howls as his body grew larger, wilder, the
softness of his canine fur giving way to the coarseness of a dire wolf.  "No
more puppyhood for you, boy.  You are -mine-."

 

    The wolf writhed, muscle bulging under the
shaggy pelt, long, sharp fangs slipping past his lips, but his fur stayed as
gleaming white as it had started.  That is, until Revonos pulled his blade
from the corpses of Arkos and his daughter and wiped the blood off on it.
 "Yes... I like that.  White shows the red so well."

 

    The wolf lay still, panting for air as the
changes completed, shattered and reformed into a dire wolf the size of a horse.
 His eyes were wild with terror for the bare second Revonos gave him to
recover before jerking him with a yelp onto his paws by the chain.  The
wolf whirled and bit Revonos on the thigh, but his teeth scraped on armor and only
caused the god to laugh.  "That's the spirit, Carcarak.  Go for
the arteries."  He then slapped the wolf hard upside the head,
jarring his teeth loose and sending him sprawling again.  "Save it
for the pits."

 

    He didn’t let him stay down for long.  "Up,
boy," Revonos said with a cruel smile and another yank of the chain.
 "Time to go."  Black smoke swirled around them both,
nearly concealing them from view when-

 

    "Halt!"

 

    The street lit up with a brilliant flash, and
the smoke recoiled from the light like a living thing.  "Who dares?"
roared Lord Revonos, rounding on the source of the flash with sword drawn and
teeth bared.  His furious expression flashed over in an instant to one of
disgust and annoyance as Lady Akkala stepped into view, decked in full armor
and flanked by Raven, Merai, Xavier, and Rickkter.  "Oh," the
daedra lord sneered.  "It's you.  You're too late: this one is
mine."  He yanked the chain cruelly, jerking a yelp from the nearly
insensate wolf for emphasis.

 

    Lady Akkala held out her hand and a chain of
silver light snaked from it to the wolf's collar, disputing the daedra lord's
claim.  "He is mine by prior oath."

 

    "Which he broke when he asked for my aid!"
Lord Revonos retorted, taking a step forward and lifting his sword as if to
attack.

 

    Every weapon except Akkala's rose to resist,
but the Lady of Healing remained a bulwark of calm amidst the storm.  "That
will be for the Celestial Court to decide," she proclaimed, loud enough
for all to hear and be stilled.  When Lord Revonos started to scoff, she
interrupted him.  "By order of Lord Kammaloth."

 

    The invocation of the high lord of the aedra
finally halted the Lord of Rage.  Balked, he lashed his chain of fire with
enough violence to strike sparks off the cobblestones.  "Fine!"
he snarled as the wolf's collar changed its aspect: one half fire-blackened
iron, one half gleaming silver.  "Fine," he repeated, a dark
dragon banking its fire, but only for the moment.  "I can wait."
 Waiting for a faint glimmer of hope to cross the wolf's features, he
crushed it with a sadistic grin.  "I can always hurt him more later."

 

    "Tend to your wounded," Akkala
instructed Raven, quietly so her words would not carry to the daedra lord.
 With a nod to the stasis-frozen fox, she added, "Both physically and
mentally.  I will do what I can."

 

    She started to draw away, but stopped when she
felt a hand on her arm.  She turned to regard its owner, a black leopard
who looked like he couldn't believe he'd had the temerity to touch her.
 Swallowing the heart in his throat, he drew up his courage and asked, "Is
there any hope, my Lady?"

 

    Lady Akkala looked across at the trembling wolf
and the daedra lord standing over him scowling impatiently to be away.  "Hardly
any, Xavier Marcus, but I will do what I can."  She touched the
leopard-man once on his shoulder, a gentle comfort, before drawing away.
 The three vanished in a flash of light and shadow, leaving only a
terrified wail to linger behind.

 

    And then even that was swept away by the fading
storm.

 

TO BE CONCLUDED...

 		 	   		  
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