The Book of Ashe

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

From The Shadows

"From the blood of the Monarch of Shadow was born a breed of night stalkers. Immortal and fair. Nosfurato!"
~ Book of Creation

Shekara raged in her grand chamber at the very top of the Black Citadel. Lifestealer's forces had been defeated and the city of Midpoint had fallen to the Druids. Stormweaver had been captured and was being kept weak.
"Damn those infernal Druids." Shekara said to no one in particular. She walked over to a large table baring a map that was animated by her magic. Soft glowing green dots depicted the Druidic forces and brighter red ones depicted her own forces. What looked like puffs of dark red smoke were randomly scattered about the map, indicating the location of her Death Storms. They were few, but that would change. Without there magic they would be defenseless. She continued raging. Breaking things. Throwing things. She was an ancient being, but her patience were as young as a new born baby.
"I have conquered many worlds. They will not stop me from taking this one."
Shekara placed delicate hands over the map and closed her eyes. Slowly new dark red smoke appeared all over, numbering thirteen total. Seeming satisfied she turned and walked out onto a large balcony overlooking her empire in the making. A creaking sound erupted as one of here servants pushed open the big oaken door to her chamber.
"My lady Empress, the leader of the Bloodline is here now. Would you like me to send him in?"
Shekara raised a hand, signaling a positive answer. The servant bowed low and retreated back into the darkness of the hall. A few moments later a young man stepped in. His skin was as white was snow and his eyes held evils and torments from ages past. He was the Immortal leader of the Bloodline. A secret underground gathering of night stalkers known as The Nosfurato. He stood still as a rock and waited for his hostess to start the conversation.
"I see you made it back alive, Astel or would you prefer that absurd Sir-Name, 'Bloodpact?" She asked, mockery leaking through her voice.
Astel's eyes narrowed. "Whatever you wish Mistress" He said. No one else would dare talk to him like that. He had killed many for less, but Shekara wasn't just your average mage, she was a being more powerful and evil then he was. He had to be careful.
"And you bring me what I asked for?" She asked.
Astel was silent for a moment, but Shekara didn't need to hear his words. His thoughts were enough.
"No, Mistress. The Druids intercepted them and your Captain."
Shekara turned slowly. Her eyes smoldered with an insane rage. She slowly walked towards Astel. Flashes of darkness came and went around her, but were to fast for the eye to follow. Each time it depicted her true form. Something far more sinister then the beautiful woman approaching him. Large leathern wings, claws, and fangs. Astel backed up a few steps, but Shekara kept coming. She cornered him and came nose to nose with him. Her eyes were impossible for even him to meet. They burned through him like fire.
"You will retrieve them at whatever cost! I must have those documents!" She punctuated her sentence by smashing a lamp that was sitting to her left. She turned and walked back to her map. Astel nodded, curtly and left the room swiftly. Once he was gone a shimmer in the shadows behind Shekara asked, "Do you really trust him with those. His kind are unstable." The voice was low and sounded vaguely animal like.
"He will do as I command, or he and his shall die in the same fire as the Druids."
"And what if the Druids figure out what the documents are and what they can do?"
"They won't. I am the only one alive that remembers what transpired so many aeons ago. They will never figure it out. All that remain of The Imprisoned are myth and legend. Once I have them, nothing will stop me!" Laughter edged with centuries of madness rang out. Cruel, vindictive laughter.

Valmire sat across from the small, silent lady he now shared his cell with. Her once brilliant blue robes had faded with dirt and had become very ragged. She slept most of the time, when her magic began to replenish. Her sleep was an enchanted one, brought on by the Druid sorcerer, Jayden. When she was awake she seemed content not to speak with him or anyone else, which was just dandy for him. He never really liked Stormweaver that much to begin with, being in close quarters together didn't help their relationship any. Weaver stayed on her side of the cell, and Valmire stayed on his. Valmire glanced up at the door when he heard a whole parade of steps coming down the hall. A key slipped in the lock and clicked he door open. Stormraven, High Priestess of the Eastern Army, strode in, followed by six heavily armed men and the sorcerer Jayden. They ignored him and went straight to Weaver.
"Stand up!" Stormraven commanded.
Weaver gave her a chillingly look and stood. She faced her captor nose to nose, almost literally. Her face was as readable as a stone.
"If she so much as wiggles her eyes, kill her!" Raven said.
Weaver did nothing, but stare into Raven's eyes. Raven couldn't meet them. There seemed to be more between the two women then just the fact that they were enemies at war. Each seemed to have personal cause to dislike the other one. One of the soldiers moved forward and secured a pair of blue glowing manacles around Weaver's wrists.
"Bring them both!" Raven ordered and then stalked out the door.
Reluctantly, Valmire rose and presented his wrists to be chained. He was so tired of this shit he didn't care who won, he just wanted to go back home and forget the war. Was home even still there? It could have been leveled by the warring armies. He shook the thought from his head. He didn't need to think about that right now, he had more pressing concerns.

The small man sat sleepily on the back of the donkey he rode. He had been on the road for four days, trying to reach a wizard named Flamedancer at the city of Scorn. His own wizard had sent him there with a vital message. Time crept by and soon a fat full moon rose in the east. The man sat drifting into sleep and then jerking awake off and on. On one such occasion, just as he was nodding off a faint shimmer could be seen in the shadows of the forest around him. The shimmer seemed to stalk the man as he rode, though never making a noise. There was sorcery here. Three hours after the moon rose, the shimmering figure received it's orders from a place far to the north.
The next morning people traveling down that road came upon a gruesome sight. A body of nude man hung from a large dead tree. The skin on his back had been flayed and spread apart to look like butterfly wings. He had been decapitated and his head had been taken. A thousand tiny cuts littered his body. Shocked and dismayed the people of the local village chalked it up to something best left uninvestigated. They didn't even so much as cut down and bury the body and each night the shimmering darkness returned to the hanging corpse and every night it would take coup.

Raven assembled her councel in the chamber that Lifestealer had used two days after the seige had ended. It was a massive chamber decorated richly in the very top of Midpoints central citadel. The poor bastard left without packing, though I'm sure important papers left with him, but his maps did not. In fact they were still set up indicating Imperial formations. Very sloppy of him. Raven and the others were busy arguing over what to do next.
"I've sent a runner to Flamdancer telling of our victory here. He will join us in time to take Mist and from there we can advance on the Black Citadel itself." Raven said, though it didn't seem possible. Our forces had won the battle but at a dear cost. We had maybe a thousand men left to field and Shekara had two complete armies left.
"We have hardly any man power left. We cannot hope to push any further north." I said.
"When Flamedancer arrives we will have the strength. His army is beaten up, but they will be enough."
"Our armies are grewing smaller and weaker everyday. The only armies large enough to lay siege to the Black Citadel are holding out in the Tri-Cities, trying to keep The Astral Rider at bay. When we run out of men to replenish our forces what are we going to do?" Raider asked.
Everyone thought a minute about that. It really hadn't occurred to any of us.
"We won't let it go that far." Raven said.
"And another thing we should consider are those storms. We haven't seen any around here lately, but it takes more effort to summon the energies to use my power." Jayden chipped in.
"Yes, the storms are a problem and I have felt it to Jayden, but they aren’t as important as you make it seem. They are to few and to widespread to really make much difference." Jayden looked at Raven puzzeledly, but said nothing.
"Prehaps we should stay here until Flamedancer arrives. Then we can move out. Our troops could really use the rest." Crossbow suggested.
"I think he's right Raven." Raider said and I nearly fell out of my chair. Those two agreeing on something for a change.
"Out of the question! We move as soon as we can. Flamedancer can catch up. We cannot let Shekara's forces rest for even a moment."
No one spoke. It seemed Raven was getting a little carried away. Raider opened his mouth several times to say something, but that better of it.
"We will stay here for the night and leave first thing tomorrow. There are several smaller towns on the way to Mist but they don't have a strong garrison, neither does Mist." Raven said. That was the end of the conversation. Raven had made up her mind and we were going on, even if it was a bad idea. We all stood up and stretched, then turned and moved to the door.
"Ashe, wait. You stay I need to speak with you." Raven said.
Confused I went back to the table. Raven sat back down, pulled her hair around in front of her and began unbraiding it. I just stood there feeling awkward. It took her a while to unbraid her hair, she had a lot of it. Once it was unbraided she sighed and asked, "Ashe I feel like I might be making a mistake moving out so soon and I trust your opinion more then the others, if for nothing else because Dragonmoon always spoke so highly of you. So I need your advice. What am I to do?"
Damn it! I hate when people ask me questions like that. On the one hand I knew Raven's plan was not the best in the world and would probably get us all killed, but there was just no nice way of saying that, so I tried to slide out from under the question.
"You have led us this far and your plans have always held up. Maybe the others are just tired."
She eyeballed me, knowing I was trying to avoid answering directly.
"Come on Ashe, spare me the bullshit. I need to know what you think."
"Well, I think maybe your getting a little to hurried and excited that you aren’t looking at the facts. I think it is a bad idea to advance to Mist until Flamdancer gets here. To much can go wrong."
A thoughtful "ok" was all I got from her before she waved a hand dismissing me.
Our force numbered a little over nine hundred men, assembled in a column four men wide and stretching back quite a ways. Flamedancer or no Flamedancer, Raven was going to march out by noon. Rails was the target. Another small farming town like Shepherd with a small garrison of locals. It was a two day march from Midpoint and a four day hard march from Mist. Raven was content to rest there and wait for Flamedancer. Thank the gods logic had broken through. Five hours after we left Midpoint, we encountered one of those earth draining storms. It was a good ways away from us, but we could feel it's fury. It seemed that this one was stronger and lasted longer then the first one we had seen. It raged for two hours, during which Raven ordered a halt, but after it passed, we were on the road and moving again. Jayden seemed very troubled about those storms. After we had made camp that night I went looking for him. His tent was located not far from Raven's. He was sitting cross-legged cleaning his armor and weapons. His fling, whom I know knew as Cassious, sat behind him sharpening a sword.
"Mind if we talk?" I asked as I walked in.
"Not at all." He said and snuck a look over his shoulder at Cassious, whom reluctantly got up and walked outside, shooting me a glare as he did.
"What's on your mind?" Jayden asked.
"Well first, how long are you going to lug him around with you? He is Imperial you know."
"Did you come here just to tramp into my love life?" He asked sourly. I rolled my eyes at him.
"Nevermind, what I wanted to talk to you about are those storms. They seem to worry you more then they should."
"I'm not worried about them, I'm worried about Raven's reaction to them."
"What reaction? She hasn't even done anything yet."
"Exactly! She just blows them off now, like they are no big deal, meanwhile they keep getting more powerful and killing off more energies."
"I don't think there is much she can do about them."
"Maybe" he said, resuming his cleaning.
"You and Crossbow, don't talk much any more." I said.
That caught him off guard. All he said was '"yeah".
"Well, is everything ok between you two?"
"Ask him." He said without even looking up from his armor.
"Does it have anything to do with Cassious?" I asked. That’s me the damn therapist of the army.
"Is it really any of your business?" Jayden yelled angrily. A clay jar of water toppled from it's perch on Jayden's bedside table and crashed to the floor.
"Weaver said that she thinks Shekara has contacted The Astral Rider, but why she doesn't know." He said, shifting the subject.
"She told you this?" I asked
"Yes, she seems to have a deeper emenity with The Astral Rider then with Lifestealer and she doesn't want him showing up when she is in such a weak state. Afraid he might do her in."
"Have you told Raven?"
"Yes, but you know her, she's all 'forget the details and charge forward." He used a small cantrip to make his voice sound exactly like Raven's. I thought it was a nice touch myself.
"She doesn't like the Astral Rider huh? Would she support us if we attacked him? She could turn the tide." I asked.
"No, she is still loyal to Shekara. She still hates us more then him."
Cassious came back in, hurriedly.
"Jayden, Raven needs your assistance, she is having trouble maintaining those magic barrels of mist."
Jayden sighed and stood up. "Another job for good old Jayden."
I followed him and Cassious out and to Raven's command tent. She was the only one inside. A Etheral barrel stood in front of her, but it wasn't misting like they used to. The broken specter of Shadowblade stood within the fog, disappearing every so often. She seemed frantic, but whenever she spoke her mouth moved but the words didn't come through. The connection looked like it was failing even with Jayden's help. They both struggled to keep the connection open, but the mist began to disappear rapidly. Raven let out a scream of frustration as the spell finally broke. Shadowblade's specter faded, still yelling angrily.
"Damnit!" Was all Raven said and stomped out of the tent.

Four days we spent in Rails after cleaning up the local garrison, many of whom surrendered when they saw us coming. A few needed a little convincing, those were hung from the city wall. Everybody got the message. Raven completely took over the town and for once in a long time I got to sleep in a real bed in a real house. I slept like a baby, until the fourth night. Something kept me awake. I tossed and turned and finally gave up and went for a night time stroll.
The first people I ran into were Muffins and Crossbow. Both for leaving the Red Lilly, the local grog shop. Both were so drunk they had to prop each other up. They were laughing and cutting up till they saw me.
"Who goes there!?" Crossbow slurred, pointing the wrong end of his sword at me.
"Ashe!" Muffins said surprised. "Oh god I'm glad it's you!" He advanced on me with arms open, wanting a hug.
"Hey! Hey! Watch it!" I yelled ducking his hug. "You two are drunker then a couple of two dollar whores." I said.
Crossbow looked insulted, "I swear to drunk Ashe, we're not god!" Crossbow said, now faking a dignity only a drunk can muster.
"You better hope Raven doesn't catch you two. She'll have you digging latrine pits for two months."
"Ha! That little witch! I'd. . . I'd. . . I'd do something, I'm just not sure what." Crossbow said.
Muffins obviously found something extremely amusing about that statement and had a giggling fit.
"Gods, you two are going to regret this in the morning. Go back to your shack and sleep it off!" I said, turning to leave. I didn't really want the company of drunks right now. I decided to go check on Silverwolf. I had not seen him since the battle at Midpoint.
The cleric's had converted the town hall into a hospital. Silverwolf was up and helping the clerics with there healing, though he was moving slow and seemed to be a little woozy. When he saw me standing at the door he raised a hand in greeting and slowly made his way over to me.
"What are you doing up at this hour?" He asked. His voice was a shadow of it's usual strong-willed self.
"Couldn't sleep, what are you doing? Shouldn't you be resting or something."
"Folly, I'm fine. Just a little weak at the moment. Mana burns do that to you. The good thing is I think I found out how to duplicate Lifestealer's spell."
"That’s good. . .I guess." I said. He laughed softly.
"You should really try and get some rest. You look like hell."
"Thanks, I'll try" I lied.
I left Silverwolf alone to do whatever it is mages and clerics do when nobody is watching. I thought about taking Silverwolf's advice, but decided a walk would be more worth my time. The sun was going to be up in a couple of hours anyway. Silence reigned in the streets as I walked. Besides me, only a few night patrols were out. I walked over to a small, forested park area and sat down on one of the stone benches there. The night was beautiful and so peaceful. The twinkling stars over head, the tall trees reaching upwards, the shimmering of shadows among the trees. I did a double take at that shimmer, but it was gone now. Was it my imagination? I could have sworn something was standing there, watching me. Damn, my eyes must be going, but I got a bad feeling looking at that shimmer. I stayed only long enough to scare myself silly with the possibilities of that shimmer, but in the end I counted it up to a trick of the eyes. Besides,
No one could get into the town without someone on patrol seeing them, could they?

Raven's daily councel left everyone tired and in a foul mood. Crossbow and Muffins were so hung over that they didn't contribute much. I had gotten three hours sleep before Raven sent for me, so naturally I was as about as happy as a wet hornet. Raven complained of not being able to sleep because of a strange presence, but the town had been searched over and over and no where was there anyone of such an aura.
The oddest thing of all was that Flamedancer hadn't sent a runner back with a reply to Raven's message. Raider feared that Darksaber had destroyed his forces and possibly Flamedancer himself, yet Raven wanted to continue the advance. She felt we had gained so much ground, just to give up. I didn't agree with her thinking. We were too small of a force and anything could happen, but she was the boss.
We were on the march the next day when we got word of Flamedancer's army gaining on us. The relief was almost visible. We were deep in the heart of the Empire and too small a force to do much good, but with Flamedancer's army joining with ours, we could easily take Mist. Raven decided to pitch camp along the road and wait for the approaching army. The scouts said they guessed they were three days away and gaining, but Raven insisted that I tag along with the scouts to double check. I was thrilled needless to say.
The only mount they could get me was a big, black bastard of a horse with a mood surly enough to match my own. Under normal circumstances it would not have been a bad ride, but circumstances were far from normal. I fell off my horse twice in our two day ride, before we crested a small rise and saw a large army marching towards us. Something didn't seem right about the army below. It seemed far to big to be Flamedancer's. I inquired about that to the elder scout.
"Well, I'm sure they replenished their forces before they set out. Got to be a full strength this far into the Empire."
I still wasn't satisfied, but couldn't see any reason to disagree with him till the banners came into sight. Large black wings of cloth with a single, wicked looking saber on it. The approaching army wasn't Flamedancer, it was Darksaber. His army looked to be about fifteen thousand men.
"Oh shit! That’s not Flamedancer! That’s god damn Darksaber!" I yelled, as I turned my mount and headed off at as fast a gallop as my mount could manage.

"Darksaber! How could that be!" Raven said, dumbfounded. She was as white as a ghost. She knew we had walked into a trap somehow. We were hundreds of miles behind enemy lines and only a rag tag force. "How long till he gets here?" She asked.
"Two days, maybe three if he isn't pushing it." I responded
"And how long will it take to get back to Midpoint?"
There was a long uncomfortable silence as no one wanted to deliver the most dire news. Finally Raider volunteered, "Raven, we can't get back to Midpoint. He is closer to the city then we are. Any attempt to would be suicide."
Well, Stromraven wasn't happy about that! She knew she had made a critical error and it might end up costing us our lives. She should have waited at Midpoint for Flamedancer to arrive instead of getting ahead of herself.
After a long moment of deep thought Raven asked, "What can we do?"
"As we see it we have a number of options, but only three decent ones. We can wait for Darksaber's arrival and surrender our forces. . . "
"Out of the question! What else?" Raven interrupted Raider.
"We could try and out maneuver him, because we are a much smaller group, and head east to the Tri-Cities to reform and refit."
Raider paused to give Raven a chance to inject a comment. She passed up the opportunity.
"Lastly, we could dig in here and try and beat him back, but his force is more tempered and larger. Much larger."
Raven thought a while. Obviously neither idea appealed to her.
"If we leave for the Tri-Cities, we will give up ground we have already won. If we stay and fight we will surly be destroyed and lose that ground anyway." She paused briefly, "I guess we have no choice. Will shall return to the Tri-Cities."