The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Neral Jaye rode with an odd sense of calm. She had her army behind her. It was by no means all of it, but the formations were substantial. A token force had remained in Erette and the populace enlisted should the Draleth have sent a force to try to sack the city. The rumors of the fire from the sky had not been dispelled and Evaline didn’t try. Those that fervently believed that it was the end of Erette if not the end of days would still believe it, and unrest would still fester.

Instead she chose to downplay those rumors. People knew that stories got exaggerated for effect, and one like that was ripe for it. Add to that that people simply didn’t want to believe that their lives could be snuffed out in a heartbeat, and you have a people willing to believe any plausible theory, so she played to that and, in so doing, quelled a great deal of fear. That there was a new weapon and that the King of the Draleth had issued a formal challenge was what she told them and that in this case it was her responsibility to meet it.

Even in the space of that day, by the time they left Evaline, Neral and the army they’d mustered passed through an impromptu parade. They had both put their worry aside, smiled, waved, and projected the confidence that the people needed to see as people waved and cheered them on to war and victory.

The formations grew larger as they pressed forward towards the inevitable as the forces of the kingdom met them on the path, swelling numbers. Civilians joined as well, hoping to defend their kingdom, homes, and families. They inhabited the back of the lines, some looking like the ragtag bunch they were, but they had heart and will. Artillery was left behind as well in favor of speed with even the infantry in wagon or on horseback.

Neral was content. Her troops were at her back, her queen was to her left and Dion and Nelina to her right. She would fight to her last breath to come home, but she had said her farewells and made her peace, and at least she went into whatever would come with some of those she respected most with her. She looked at the queen with her golden-armored brown steed whose plating matched the queen’s own armor, from breastplate with the noble bird-of-prey that served as the symbol of her people etched upon it, to gauntlets, to boots. It was ceremonial garb, given away by the perfect white linen that covered what would otherwise have been exposed skin and the cape that settled in a flourish over the saddle.

Then there was the crown.

Evaline noted the appraisal.“Have something to say, General?”

“No, Majesty,” she said casually, as though discussing the menu at a Court dinner. “I simply note that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in battle dress.”

“There’s a reason for that, not the least of which that I do not know how any of you breathe in it.”

“Perhaps if you lashed them down.”

“You have a flippant tongue for one of your station.” She tried a breath and felt the unintended and unwelcome hug of the bindings. “Besides...they are and I still feel smothered by this thing. I’d rather have your mail.”

She looked down at the fine silver webbing that adorned her. “I like to get down and scrap, so I have to move. You just have to look pretty.”

“Since you’re into that now.”

Neral sounded exasperated for the dramatic effect in reaction to the quip. “You’re the one thinking about it. Must you?”

The smirk she had played with grew. “Royal privilege. Is it distracting you?”

“Not at all, but it does seem to be consuming a fair number of your idle thoughts.”

In the ever-shrinking distance between them Neral could see the columns of troops in front of and behind the red banner with hashes of black that came together to form the head of a bear. Neral gave credit, their columns were tight and they appeared as professional as her own as they formed lines. She expected no less, honestly, but, to her it was at least a hint that there was some honor among them.

“A good day for a fight?”

She looked up and around. It was cold, but warmer than it had been. The sun was peeking out from under the clouds. “The ground will be slippery, she noted with detachment, “but no glare from the snow on the ground. “There have been better days, my queen, but I’ll take this one.”

The Draleth marched ahead, though they slowed. “Response?”

Dion watched Neral think it through. “Form the infantry lines, hold them here.” She raised her voice. “Cavalry, follow in five staggered columns, and let’s be casual about it.”

They moved carefully ahead, not rushing to them or expecting to be rushed, though she was prepared for that. Tanik and the White Guard fanned out behind the queen between her and the cavalry. As they closed the distance Neral could see Mareth’s own royal garb. No cape, but armor of black steel and red trim was, like Evaline’s own made to impress, but not fight. It was at that moment that Neral noted his right gauntlet.

Mareth tried to cover it in mud to cover that what had been cut to nestle into the leather was more something Deres would understand than she, but she was smart enough to know that the colored lights and text that fought to be seen under the dirt were likely the keys. She didn’t know what all of the lighte meant, but she weighed how quickly she could lop off his arm at the elbow and if it could be quickly enough.

General D’ravek, on the other hand, looked like a mobile wall all by himself. She had never met him in battle, but his reputation was known well. He was merciless to bandits and, in instances of unrest, he was almost equally merciless to his own people. His eyes were deep set and a light brown while his face was smooth shaven, but gnarled from age and battle. That he wore leathers told her that he too liked to move. Full armor had its place, but too many relied upon it, thinking it made them invincible or would make up for a lack of skill.

The bulk of the troops on both sides lagged enough so that when both sides with their honor guards met they were initially alone. Neral saw that Tanik was cutting them both up in the safety of his mind. D’ravek tried to wither Neral, who responded with practiced indifference. Mareth, for his part, looked upon her as one might look upon a bug. He was a man who believed he held all the cards. “Queen Evaline.”

“King Mareth. Welcome to Erette.”

“Thank you.” He laughed, allowing himself a moment to appreciate the humor. “Let me begin by saying that I forgive your, shall we say, lapse in diplomatic skill.”

She gave him a grin in return, almost as though she might banter with a friend. “A lapse in diplomacy perhaps, but every word was heartfelt.”

Mareth’s sense of humor faded slightly. “All you really had to do was invite me to personally accept your surrender. I would have been happy to come as you please.”

“I did not bring troops here just to surrender, bend knee, and pray for mercy that you’d never give me or my people anyway.”

“Brave words for someone that I can send up in flames at my whim.”

She looked up in the sky. She didn’t expect to see it, it was just too rare that she took time for herself to enjoy the day and this wasn’t a bad one in that snow wasn’t blowing. “From what I’ve heard your toy doesn’t discriminate, so, I’m willing to bet that at this range, if it happens to me, it happens to you.” Her expression hardened. “I can live...or die with that.”

Mareth studied those eyes. In that moment, he saw a hint of how the woman could be queen. She was fierce. She was ready to die to take him with her and it wasn’t bravado. She was going to fall one way or another, but in that moment she earned a sliver of respect. Still, the inevitable wasn’t called that for nothing. “Then why did you come, Majesty?”

“Erette has come to fight!” Her voice was loud and carried to the men and women on both sides, and the men and women of Erette cheered, and put weapon to shield to add to the ferocity of the sound.

“Fight?” He raised his voice as well, beginning to ride a slow circle around her, trying to meet the eyes of troops on both sides. “What will you fight? The Goddess herself has lent us her will, and, more importantly, her power. She demands a new order. She demands an order where Her righteous power brings the world under one banner: her banner.”

“Yet that banner looks suspiciously like yours.” Evaline circled him as well, her eyes narrowing to make him the world. She is the Goddess, what does she need you for? What does she need me for? Snap her finger and she remakes the world as it suits Her.”

“Let the Goddess come before me. Let the Goddess come before me, prove her divinity, and then tell me what she wants the world to be and I shall be her instrument in the world as I am now.”

“Are you jealous, Queen Evaline? Are you jealous that She has chosen me to remake the world and not you?”

“She has not chosen you as her instrument.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You’re an ass.” Laughter rippled through her troops and she shared a grin with them and let her voice carry. “I simply refuse to believe that She would choose you. If that were true, She would be unworthy of worship, so I submit that she hasn’t.”

“If you are chosen, then put your greatest soldier to mine, here and now. Put your General to mine in front of your men and mine. Let’s see who She favors, shall we?”

Neral didn’t tense. Indeed, she was already fighting the battle in her head, trying to glean by his posture and his body how he might move and fight, having guessed at the only card her queen had to play. D’ravek tried to kill her with his glare even then as she kept her expression neutral. For his part, Mareth looked to Neral, who was nothing compared to his man in terms of physicality. That wasn’t everything, he knew, but knowing him and knowing of her, he was supremely confident in his man.

More, he liked the notion as to how quickly this could be over.

He made sure that all could hear. “Are you saying that, should your champion fall, you will surrender?”

She mulled the words for what felt like forever to her, but committed herself. “I would accept that as a sign that you had Her favor, and I would yield to that.”

He looked like a cat just about finished with the mouse. “I can accept that as well.” He didn’t really know if the Goddess had chosen him or not, but if the idea could be used as a cudgel to conquer his enemy without having to destroy his prizes, so much the better. He raised his hand and spoke to the sky, “Let us see, here and now, that the Goddess will use her vessel to usher in a new age.”

When Evaline turned towards her lines, Neral and the rest of the queen’s soldiers followed suit. As they closed in, Neral saw the worry and fear crease Nelina’s face, though she tried her best to hide it like any proper soldier. Neral understood. Neral felt it. If the worst happened, the part of death that she dreaded would be not being able to see how those people who touched her life would grow, love, and simply be. She would never see the woman Khylen would become. She would never see the proud soldier she knew Nelina already was evolving into. She did, after all, like to watch.

Nelina’s voice was distant. “Perhaps Tanik...”

The leader of the White Guard was quick to cut her off, but, he understood what the young woman grappled with. “It is not my place. I am the protector of the queen, General Jaye is the defender of the people.”

“But my niece knows that, doesn’t she.” It wasn’t a question, though the words did hang in the air as though a teacher pressed her student.

She swallowed so hard her throat hurt. “Yes, sir.”

“If the order is honorably given, my life is my queen’s to take. That’s the way of things,” she added, seeing the turmoil behind Evaline’s eyes that only she and perhaps one or two others could ever note, “and the order is honorable.”

“Let D’ravek’s men actually witness some honor for once in their careers,” Dion spat.

“Honor you cannot expect from Mareth once he loses,” Tanik said harshly. “He’ll never accept it.”

“He will not,” Evaline said, “but it doesn’t matter what he does. It only matters what we do. We will show honor today and when he does not, if he does not, his men will see that. Even if they don’t act, they’ll know. And so will he. If, in the quiet and dark of the night, it cuts him to the quick that I was right about him, I will be pleased to haunt him that way.”

“If he wins?”

The thought disgusted Evaline, but the truth brought hope, “Then I pledge support and work to keep my word as much as my honor allows, assuming he wants a figurehead rather than just my head.” She tilted her head and turned to Neral, “As someone recently said to me, this land has overthrown tyranny before and it will again.”

“To that end,” her voice low and formal, “if this is the end of the me, or the end or just the end of me as the sovereign ruler of Erette, Colonel Ynesa Dion, I charge you with the task of doing anything necessary to find out about, and how to nullify this toy of his. Turn him into the mortal man he is again, and our people would be anxious to snuff him out. Should I live, no future order I give you can nullify this one, even if I should state that it does. It is in force as long as the people of Erette answer to the Draleth and that...whatever it is still poses a threat. Is that understood, Colonel?”

With fist against her heart, “Yes, Majesty.”

Decorum be damned, Neral sidled Stenna alongside Nelina and leaned toward her as she put her hand to the back of her head and Nelina returned the gesture. After kissing her forehead, Neral spoke. “Be the soldier I know you are. Be her every day. Do that and know that I am proud of you. Should I not be able to tell them myself, tell our family I did my duty.”

Nelina squeezed Neral’s neck as she resisted the tears that threatened to fall. She nodded harshly to beat back the worst of the pain, “I am...always proud to wear my name, but never more so than today.”

Letting her go, Neral let her resolve take over, mix with her anger at the notion of the upended at best and lost at worst lives that so many faced and raised her arm defiantly into the air, her face a mask of determination. The cheers that followed shook the earth and strengthened that resolve within her soul.

As it died away, Evaline spoke with a quiet, reverent tone, “May I ride with you, at least part of the way, General?”

She searched those eyes, unsure of what to make what was behind. “Of course, Majesty.”

As they moved beyond the assembled troops and into the no man’s land that wouldn’t be so much longer, Evaline’s voice was still quiet as though she were afraid that she would break the spell of the moment. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? This? It’s a gambit that might work, or work in that it buys Erette more time. We’re each doing what we have to. And, as I said, if the command is honorable, my life is yours to take, and has been since the day the crown was placed upon your head.”

She hated the sound of that just then. She didn’t want to be responsible for just a moment. She didn’t want to be queen for just a moment. “Drop the ranks, please?”

Neral didn’t miss a beat. “Besides, you’ve tried to get rid of me before, and I still come back.”

“Try to get rid of you? Someone gives the kingdom a cross look and it’s you personally that has to go out and pick a fight.”

“It’s all for your benefit, Evie. The more often I’m gone, the less often I have to be home to beat you at Strata and watch you pout when I do like you’ve pouted since you were a girl.”

“Father always wondered why I allowed you to be so very rude to me. He overheard the way you talked to me...with no sense of propriety at all when you believed we were alone.”

“And what did you tell him?”

She remembered the conversation well, as it was one of the few times she felt he actually understood her. “Because that’s how she is with all her friends, and someday, queen or not, I think if I can get one hint of normal, I want it. She’s the best friend I will ever have. And you have been. Thank you, Bootsie.”

Hooves pressed into the ground to cause a sinking feeling Neral could just barely feel. “Easy to be your friend, Evie...even if you are talking like I’m already dead.”

“Just letting you know I’ll miss you is all, and I know you’ll miss me.” The corner of her mouth went up. You never even got to kiss me yet. You know, since you like that now.”

Neral laughed at the haughty and coy look Evaline carried then. “You’re the one that keeps bringing it up. I think you want to try that out and see if you like it. I think part of you wants to see me naked and if I can make your eyes roll back to the whites.”

“There you go projecting again, Bootsie.”

She inhaled the air, smelling the time of year in the way the crisp cleanliness of the air tickled her nose. D’ravek stood alone, his men cheering, his sword at his side and tightly within his grip, looking every bit the tree rooted to the ground. “Time for me to go to work, Evie.”

Evaline offered her forearm. “I know that this is, while informal, still a military gesture, I mean no disrespect. There is no one I respect more. I could never do what you do. I would wither on the first march.”

Neral clasped the arm just under her elbow. “This is friendship, respect, and fellowship. This is ours, too. And I could never do what you do. I don’t know how you manage Court. I don’t know how you manage the people and do it so that you keep most everyone pleased with you. We each have our gifts. I am as proud to call you my queen as my friend.”

She dismounted smoothly and faced Stenna as Neral caressed down her face, so black she could disappear in the dark, she grace, and strength, and loyalty. “You can’t come this time, all right? But root for me anyway.”

Stenna’s head bobbed at the caresses and Neral decided to take that as an affirmative.

“One favor, Bootsie?”

“Yes, Evie?”

“Make sure I get to watch him die.”

She drew her sword and felt the comfort of its weight as an instrument of her power. “That goes without saying.”

She stepped cautiously forward into fate.

Snow was falling hard from the gunmetal gray sky in fat flakes blown into their faces by the wind and the trio was happy for it, as it combined to provide cover for their approach. The falling snow helped them from a distance and Bryana played her magic twisting the wind near the ground to force the snow to smooth if not fill the impressions made by their footprints. Deres was focused on stretching his own magic outward to seek others practiced in its art.

The signal he sought was like a beacon in the ever-closing distance. Now that he knew what to search for, it was a simple twitch of his magic and he could see the twinkling trail of energy streaming through the clouds and into space. Very convenient, at least. Part of him simply wanted to have transported himself next to it, but he didn’t know exactly what he’d be in the middle of, so he refrained.

He felt the tremors of energy around him, and looked to Bryana who confirmed it with her own look back. Mages. They stopped in their tracks and Bryana fine-tuned her own search, looking for those tremors created by those that could pull the universe to them and twist it, as if the universe waited to be manipulated. He was more skilled in magics than arguably anyone else in the known world and Bryana, after years of tutelage was his equal in many ways. They could make a good guess as to the reach of the abilities of others and, any closer and they were likely to be detected.

“Three? Four,” she said finally, “though one is farther away.”

Deres could almost create a layout of the land based upon that. When people got close to them, that created its own dimple in that force. “Guards, too...at least two in front, two back.”

“Two of the mages are farther off, maybe a rear guard, maybe just bored.” Bryana said.

He quizzed, “Anyone you know?” Mages tapped their energies in somewhat unique ways, so the silhouettes could be recognized.

“I don’t think so. I hope not.” There was no real regret. She knew what had to be done, and their losses were simply the consequence of the choices they made and their fate would perhaps save many other lives. “Elan and I will circle around and engage the two, which will cover your approach from the front.”

“If you need help?”

“We won’t. There’s only one of us with a real hope of doing what needs to be done when you get in there anyway, so go. We’ll be fine. I did what needed to be done long before you.” There was no bite to her first words, but the last words were bitter. “No mercy.”

“The last thing on my mind today, Bryana.”

“Good. Good luck, my love. See you soon.”

They already started off when he called to Elan. “Happy hunting.”

“It’s what I do, Deres. Be careful yourself.”

“I always make every effort.”

Bryana made her way through the trees in a wide arc, keeping her enemies from detecting her while Elan had been speaking quietly to her, “You choose your point, I will be there.” Then she weaved through the trees and then she was gone much like the beautiful wraith she appeared to be. Bryana didn’t wonder about her. She knew her job and how to do it best, so she focused on the best use of her own gifts. She could use their perception against them to choose where she would meet them.

She slowed, choosing every step carefully, in part because she had to concentrate. It was far easier to use magic as a club than a fine blade. She had to follow the tendrils of energy that bound everything just so, so that she could tweak the mages to want to go where she wanted them to go. Those without the gifts were harder to detect, which put her on edge.

Putting dimples in that energy like breadcrumbs, or a sound you barely hear, so you strain to find it eventually had the effect she wanted. The mages moved farther from Deres and where he needed to be and towards an area where the growth thickened. She hoped it would provide her with cover enough and was certain that Elan would find comfort there. Heavy wind in the past days had blown a lot of dead wood onto the ground that looked like talons and fingers reaching up from the ground. Good place for graves one way or another.

She saw the magic of them before she saw them; one older and more experienced, one younger, probably a mage and apprentice. She had hoped that they might separate, which would make fighting them easier, but that didn’t happen. She could sense the untaught now, so she knew they were close. Deres needed a distraction, so she needed a fight and a loud one. To that end, she waited for them surrounded by the trees as though they were her sentries.

Coming out from the cloak of the snow were two men, both roughly the same height with snow adding white to his dark brown hair. His face still looked young, but, closer now, she sensed that he was using a small bit of his power to slow his aging. She couldn’t fault him a touch of vanity or fear of mortality at least.

The other was young without magic, not much older than Bryana herself had been when she opened her first tome under cover of night. No mercy, she reminded herself bitterly. “You are Byyana Lia, head of the Erette guild,” the master mage said. What brings you here?” The tone was that of a question, but it was a demanding one.

She pointed casually, “I’m curious about your discovery over that way.”

“It’s an ancient artifact and no threat to you.”

“Not directly, I suppose that’s true...until your employer decides he has an issue with me...or the rest of the world, including you.”

“That remains to be seen and, whatever happens, we will deal with it.”

“Do you know what it does?”

“It gives power to the one who rightly found it. What he does with it is not my concern, or yours. A contract is a contract.” He harnessed his power. “Speaking of, are you out all this way on behalf of the queen?”

“Me?” She sounded girlish and innocent. “The queen would never hire the likes of me. Others near the queen have fewer issues, you know how it is.”

“I do.” He took a step forward. “How is she by the way?”

“Still well so far as I know.”

“You seek a cure for the poison then?”

She looked on as two soldiers came to eastern and western points of where she stood. “I do.”

“Leave and I will be certain that you’re provided with it. It’s my solemn vow, mage to mage, you will have it. Her death’s only purpose was to destabilize Erette and buy time, should it be needed. It isn’t needed, so if the poison is what you were hired to find, I’ll provide you with it. The queen lives...or she at least doesn’t die of poisoning, your contract is fulfilled, you can be gone from here, and we can avoid a confrontation that will end badly for you.”

Bryana measured his words and his body. He was ready to fight, but didn’t want to. His words suggested that he didn’t have the cure himself, but maybe he just had another piece, or that there was some other impediment so that ending them would make curing her impossible. The pondering was short-lived, however. What was at stake was beyond Evaline. What’s more, her queen would be the first to make that sacrifice for her people. My queen. Never had a home long enough to feel so tied to anywhere, but, now? “This is beyond that now. Give man power enough to destroy himself and he will. That we stand here now near a ruin of a world long dead is proof of that.”

“Help me and help yourselves, unless you just want to follow obediently behind while he puts the world under his boot.”

“He is less of a threat than he thinks he is,” the younger mage said before a biting glance from his elder silenced him.

It didn’t matter to Bryana. “Dealing with it now is better than trying to deal with it tomorrow when everything could be different.”

“Perhaps,” the elder agreed, “but a contract is a contract. At least it is to me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She truly was, even though she smiled. “I warn you though, I am more powerful than any mage in the world.” She met each pair of eyes. “I need but point to the person that needs to die and they will simply die.”

“We know how mage fire works, Lia,” the younger said with a sneer as wisps of orange coalescing from the air around him and wrapped around his hands, ready to be unleashed.

“Magic takes many forms, boy.” She raised her hands, showing that she had no power of her own at the ready. “See? No power. No magic as you know it. I point. Things die.” She liked how their eyes darted to one another in wonder and fear. As much as that lust was tempered now, she liked the power she had.

“Is what she’s saying true?” The soldier to Bryana’s right shifted his weight nervously, his sword in a white-knuckle grip in his hand looking to the elder mage.

“It’s not. I would see. She’s doing nothing.”

It amused her. “Hah. I thought as you did many moons ago. I thought I knew so much about magic. I thought I understood all that could truly be understood about magic. I was so wrong. My most recent Master showed me more in a month than I think I learned in my entire life. But now, I point and things die.”

“Who shall it be?” She extended her arm, open palm as she moved it slowly, right to left, gauging their eyes and the threat that they might pose. Neral had taught her that. You could see who would panic. You could see who would fight. You could see who would run. You would see who would come at her first. When her arm drew a line to the soldier on her left before she pointed her finger to him. “This one should die.”

The soldier jumped, fearing that he was simply going to vanish. Eyes went to him for the mere heartbeats it took to see that he was in fact still alive, and when they turned back to Bryana they saw that in those heartbeats it was she that had vanished as though she had never been. The elder mage raged at himself for his moment of carelessness. “Dammit...” He had no more than sent out his own magic in search of her than the air whistled and the soldier who had been on Bryana’s left and frantically looking for some sign of her stared ahead at nothing with the bloodied tip of an arrow in the center of his forehead. He didn’t even have time to register shock.

He fell backward with the dull thud of timber as the younger mage sent his magic forth to where Bryana knew nothing would be. It crackled through the air, a bold thread of orange cutting smaller limbs to the ground and setting greater ones afire, sending birds to the air squealing in dismay. The elder mage sensed the woman an instant before he knew exactly where she was. He wheeled around, his power at the ready. “Behind!”

The word reached the other swordsman’s ears just as he realized where she was, as she was using her understanding of the healing magics to tear her hand through his body, peeling skin, muscle, and bone free as her other arm was around his neck.

“You know where you need to go!,” she called to the heavens. “Go!” His body continued to convulse as mage fire from the younger consumed what was left to get to Bryana and, as a secondary effect, no doubt, to do him a favor by completing his trip to the void and ending his pain. His body to ash, the remnants carried by the wind just before the fire struck her defenses. The fire licked at the barrier around her, close to her body. She could feel its heat and its hunger.

The others didn’t matter. They were gone now and he was confident those that remained could handle whatever came. If they needed help, he would be there shortly...as soon as the bitch was dead. The elder mage joined with his apprentice, letting his rage fuel his magic, his eyes alive with it.

Those eyes looked on with satisfaction as their combined powers consumed her.

Deres waited elsewhere.

He was on one knee, head down, floating in that elsewhere, just beyond the world in a variant of the spell that had allowed the trio to travel as they pleased. He could see it around him. He could see every tree, animal, every bit of grass, and even the snow had the appearance of rolling steam on the ground as everything took on an aura of blue or gray. They could walk past him or through him and not know he was there. He stayed beyond what he believed was the mage’s range and waited for the disturbance in the distance that would tell him that magic was in play.

In this place he also saw enough to know that the fourth mage was below him...far below him down in the place where this entrance led. If he moved quickly enough he could eliminate resistance and be on his way. He might have simply been able to travel where he needed to be, but he didn’t want anyone behind him if he could help it, so he waited for the sign.

And, when he felt the flutter in the distance that was the way she accessed magic, he moved.

Moving through the ether, time and distance measured themselves differently and Deres bounded across the earth, chewing through distance as though it were nearly meaningless. He saw the outlines of blue and white that marked the forms of the humans and animals near the entrance. The mage flared more brightly than they did and Deres closed on him first. The man sensed something near him at the last possible moment, but was far too late to do anything more than express shock.

The first the mortals saw of Deres was the scenery around him rippling in the way a rock tossed in a pond ripples a reflection. Suddenly he was just there and they stood dumbstruck as they watched a long, thin blade bury itself in the mage’s soft neck twice without a hint of resistance and pull free in a heartbeat with a soft, squishy pop each time. Deres stayed with him just long enough to know that it was too late for him and turned his power on the guards.

Just as he did, he felt a well-thrown blade drive through his cloaks and into his side. He grimaced, concentration momentarily broken at the biting pain and, just as he was beginning to regroup they were on him. Deres, powerfully built as he was, resisted and hissed through the pain as the soldier who threw the blade tried to use it as a lever to drive him down.

The rush of pain fed rage, and that rage fueled his power. With a howl from him, a force they could not see or fight tossed them aside, sending one into a tree before they met the ground and another tumbling many feet away, sending the horses away nervously. Before they could rise, Deres lifted both several feet into the air and used that force to rend them asunder. Their cries of pain died in their throats and they fell to the ground as Deres fell to his knees.

He looked down at his left side, cloaks now sticky from the blood and was somewhat awed by the sight of the blade sticking from them. Neral would scold me for sloppy. It was at that moment, when his body was beginning to calm from the effort that he felt a tingling bitterness from the wound worm its way inside him.

The poison.

He focused his magic to look down inside the wound itself. Seeing the glowing yellow of the poison ooze through him and the telltales of damaged flesh along with the solid of the blade, he determined that he could remove it without causing much more damage. Gripping the blade firmly, he pulled it free in a straight line with a whimper that ended in a snarl. The blade fell in the snow as Deres opened his cloaks and ripped the tear in his shirt wider to expose the flesh.

Harnessing his power, he willed it to rebuild the damaged flesh into what it existed to be, starting at the deepest portion of the wound and working upward. The pain dulled as he healed himself which sped the process by allowing him to focus. One problem solved, he needed to see to the other. If he concentrated he could feel the poison attacking him.

Finding a proper talisman in the gold band given to him by Neral the night they had slipped away in the dark to bond before a priestess, he began to weave again the spell that he and Cass had built to keep the poison from further invading the queen’s body. Each utterance and willful change in the vibration of life around him coalesced within the ring forming a powerful, lasting magic. Once created, it spread from the ring in a manner not unlike the poison itself.

This time though, things were different. The poison was different. It was more aggressive and powerful than the first incarnation. The alchemy of it had been changed. Where the queen was protected indefinitely, Deres only brought himself time.

He would have to make it time enough.

Composing himself and collecting power close , he rose from the ground, feeling renewed for the moment and headed through the door built by the old world.

As long as they were trying to kill her, Deres and Elan had time, though she knew she didn’t have much herself. Keeping the shield close to her body lessened the magic needed to maintain it, but it would only last as long as her strength did. The consuming heat made her skin prickly and threatened to cook her alive. If her concentration faltered for even a moment it would be over. To maintain herself and play her only card would be a supreme test of will and her command of her magic. The old Bryana would have thrived on the challenge alone, but the woman she was now knew that there was too much at stake for her to fail. But she had to act while she still had some reserves left to call upon.

Streaming the fire into her was a test of their own will, twisting the universe and then becoming a conduit for that energy was its own exercise, though less of one than having to defend against the onslaught. She knew the spell, as it was almost as old as mages themselves and one of the first offensive moves ever learned. Shields were different and far more complex, as they were a magic that had to run counter to other magic to reflect and absorb it. While the fire was a skill, shields were more of an evolving art.

Deres, having been raised in a near-mythical land of mages and mortals before returning to the world she knew had taught her much about shields over the years. It was now time to see how well she had truly learned. She reached out with her mind, fortunately not having to travel far to find the force trying to kill her and then followed that gingerly to the mages that controlled it. Looking deeply into the conduits they had become, she examined the spell and found the twists and whispers that acted as a safety valve for them. Weaving her own spell over them, she opened those valves even as she hoped she had enough power withstand what needed doing.

She pulled the fire to herself. She pulled it through the mages to strike her as she struggled not to be consumed by the flood. One mistake and there would be death for her, but her queen needed, Deres needed, Elan needed, Neral needed, and thousands upon thousands that may not even know they needed needed. So she stood fast against the flood even though she felt as though she were boiling already. In her eyes there was nothing but the sight of the mage flame. The crackling white noise of it was all there was to hear. Her mind screamed and she pulled. Her body shook and she pulled. She would pull from them until the fire destroyed her.

The world fell to black for an instant and then she felt cold, colder than she had ever remembered being. Is this the depths? The Works told of them being devoid of light, warmth, and anything that might give a human heart comfort, and if she were there now, she understood. A few years of doing the right thing more often than not would not have tipped the scales in her favor over all the sins that had come before.

Then she breathed. The cold air burned her nose and her lungs as it filled her almost as much as the heat would have, but it felt so good there were no words. She had never felt so good being cold as the air pulled the heat from her and threatened to freeze the sweat to her skin. Bryana dared open her eyes and was greeted with the lattice of the trees, gray of the sky, and the fat snowflakes kissing her skin. She wallowed in the feeling even as her leaden limbs had no interest in responding to her just then. Her nose then detected the acrid stench of burning cloth and flesh, which made her laugh a giddy laugh. “Alive. By the goddess, I’m alive.” Her own cloaks were smoldering from the heat.

She lay there in the snow, just looking up. She didn’t need to look over to know what condition her attackers were in. They were in the depths and she was not. Maybe after a long, full life she would be. Maybe tomorrow, but not yet today.”

I’m needed. With her muscles still resisting her commands, she rolled herself to her belly with some effort, planting her face in the snow, relishing the feel of how it chilled her and reminded her that she lived. Forcing her arms parallel to her head, she clawed her fingers into the snow and into the numbing wet. With a hiss, she pushed herself up and forced herself forward.

The decent was a long one for Deres. A series of stairs, tunnels, and ladders took him far underground. The elevators were long since dead and he doubted he would have trusted them anyway even if they appeared viable after so long. He could guess at what powered the place, but he would leave that to others. He knew a host of technomages in Adar that would happily trade a limb for a chance to pick it apart. There were broken pipes, dead fixtures, and stairs and ladders that had been braced or replaced by wood, no doubt from the Draleth who discovered this place, but the place may well have stood as it did now for another thousand years.

Air was being circulated. Even so, Deres’ skin felt cool and clammy, no doubt thanks to the toxin trying to rampage through his body. He surmised that without the magic he would be dead already. He had to be as close to ready as he could be for whatever he might face, so he pulled more magic to him and through him, borrowing from that force to keep himself nimble and fit, at least for a time. After one final long ladder that Deres took sliding, feet on the outside and grip loose to control his drop his goal was before him.

His boots touched the concrete and turned to see the open metal door at the other end of the hall. As if on cue a strong, but gravelly male voice beckoned to him playfully. “Come in, mage. No one will harm you without cause.”

Deres’ stride was casual even though his overall posture was guarded. “I suppose I’ll just have to give you cause.” He pushed his senses into the room to find one mage and one not.

The other was indifferent. “That would be a mistake, but it’s your life.”

Deres entered the room to find a young woman slightly behind the mage, not exactly using him for protection, but ready to do so should the need arise. The other eyed him critically, and with some empathy. “You’re not well.”

“I’m fine enough.”

He appraised carefully. “You are...when you should be dead.”

“Just like the queen?”

“And here I just assumed that my own information was inaccurate and the blade didn’t actually find her.” He eyed the writhing coil of magic that infused itself into Deres like veins into his body. He shook his head. “Very nice. Tsk, but it’s not enough, is it? My alchemy is something I always tweak, and I always thrill at learning skills. Show me how you countered the initial poison and I will help you now by showing you the changes I made. Looks like you won’t have time to study them yourself. Your own magic looks gloriously complex.”

“Drax.” Deres smiled a genuine smile. The universe finally let something turn my way. “You have no idea how long and how far I have traveled to find you.” He raised his hand to look at the ring. “I can’t take credit for the spell entirely, but thank you.” He sighed. “I’d rather have the actual cure. This palliative is fine, but it’s going to become somewhat tedious to have to live one’s life around it.”

“I am Drax, yes, and you are?”

“Deres. The queen of Erette sent me to find you.”

He was almost amiable.“Here I am. I’m sorry though, it’s a trade secret. If I gave you the base, I really never could use it again and it promises to be useful. I do like my projects, but I’m very selective about who I share them with.”

Deres walked the width of the room in measured steps, watching the girl track him as he examined the consoles and monitors, “Projects like this?”

Drax surveyed the room himself. “Not mine per se, though I did all but upend my life in order to see it through. Letters to my friends were my only real luxury. I put years into this.” He grinned at Lystra, “We put years into this.. Look around you. This place is, for the likes of us at least, older than time, but you don’t seem to be the least bit impressed. One would think things like this were mundane to you.”

“I’ve seen similar elsewhere.”

Drax was intrigued by the tease, “May I ask where?”

Deres gave his head a little shake as he surmised from the information scrolling over the glass, that he didn’t know enough to do anything but make a mistake. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He resigned himself to what had to be. “Anyway, I know what this controls and what that something does. I suppose I can’t convince you to just end this whole thing, can I? Millions of lives snuffed out, mass carnage, despotism...none of this bothers you?”

Lystra could not contain her loathing and spat him, “It doesn’t bother the likes of you? Raping. Burning. Killing. The Draleth were no threat to anyone, but you attack without mercy.”

Drax touched his hand to hers as Deres was at a loss for words, “It’s all right, dear.”

“It’s not.” Years of anguish and frustration would not be denied as there was finally a face for it all. “All the misery and now, when your army faces annihilation, you don’t go to father and beg for mercy, you come here to destroy the only hope the Draleth have of saving themselves.”

His eyes bored into her and, while he tried to keep his tone that of trusted friend, his words carried an edge of coldness. “I will handle this, Lystra.”

“You deserve to die for what you’ve done, all of you.”

“Enough, Lystra!” A forced smile appeared, “Now is not the time to get yourself all excited.”

Deres had no idea what was happening, but at that moment it didn’t begin to matter. The people of Erette, himself included, were burning in fire of time, so he acted. His hand outstretched, a chair followed his will and slammed into Drax, twisting and splintering. Lystra cried out from that and then of shock at seeing a section of the table fly towards him. Disoriented, but not enough to be lost, Drax displayed his own power, flinging the table left into the wall, causing two monitors to shatter. Pieces of text scrolled for a moment more before there were pops of blue light and the screens became transparent.

By that time, the men were grappling. Drax, the side of his face bloodied from the chair seemed untroubled by it. In fact, he seemed exhilarated by the experience. Energy crackled between them, body to body and Drax asked, his voice strained from the exertion, “Are you sure you want to do this? If you kill me there will be no helping you.”

“Since you’re not looking to help me, I’m dead anyway, so I can say I don’t care.”

He grabbed Deres by the neck. “How will you solve your other little problem?”

“I’m a smart man. I’ll figure something out.” Deres felt the force build between them an instant before it pushed into him, giving him enough time to inhumanely strengthen his grip so the two went together through the air towards the opposite wall. In the weightlessness, Deres twisted his body, sending Drax into the concrete. A wave of dizziness threatened to overwhelm. That and the sudden movement created a follow-up wave of nausea.

He channeled more magic to quell the dying of his body as Drax took note. “How long can you keep that up?”

“Long enough.”

Deres heard the wild scream of frustration just before he felt the chair crash into his back taking the wind from him in a rush. The next build of force from Drax, Deres felt, but couldn’t repel it. He tumbled away and the nausea wracked him again and he coughed out a dry heave. The fire hit him and he was thankful that his instructors so drilled him lessons of a shield’s creation and maintenance that it was nearly instinctual.

What he did not know was how long he could resist. He only knew he had to.

The blaze around him ended almost as soon as it began. Deres slammed his eyes shut to put down the dizziness. There was mayhem around him. Drax was pained and angry and Lystra seemed hysterical. Things were falling to the floor and some were breaking into pieces large and small. Mage fire sizzled and he braced for it, wondering for a moment if he’d live. More movement around him, then the sound of exertion with a voice that tickled his hind brain, so he opened his eyes to see a mane of white hair and luminous eyes an icy blue.

He reacted with the reserves he had left, letting magic lift Drax from the ground and drive him like a projectile into the wall once again. There was no thought, only instinct to protect Elan, and the universe smiled on him one more time by leaving Drax limp and unconscious, but alive after the impact. Deres let the man pile himself into a heap on the floor. He then noted, with more than a little satisfaction, an arrow firmly embedded in the mage’s thigh. “Sloppy?”

She looked at him, put off by the suggestion, “I thought you might want him alive. Thank you for not making me have to try to outlast him without killing him.”

“Murderer!” Lystra lunged at him, but before she could put her hands to him, his arm stiffened before her and she rose from the ground, dangling in the air like a butchered animal. “Elan,” his voice weary, “could you keep this one out of trouble, please?”

Lystra struggled against the invisible bonds, raging obscenities as Elan used the leather straps that she normally used to keep herself from losing her daggers to bind the other’s wrists and ankles, knotting so that she would just constrict herself if she squirmed too much. Deres floated her to the corner and she grunted when she fell to the floor.

“Sorry...about that.” Deres felt as if he were slowly drowning, the world slipping away. Leaning against the control terminal, Elan came to him, tearing at his cloaks to see the dried blood.

“Poison,” he told her. “It seems that clever murder is a hobby of his. I can’t clear it without him.”

Dread and terror rushed through her at the thought of what might happen. “Then I’m doubly glad I didn’t kill him.”

They heard Drax’s broken voice. “You just...left it to me.”

Reaching him just as a small blade now streaked with his blood hit the floor with with two rapid taps, she took the hand roughly, examining the one inch cut down his palm. Deres saw the unchecked poison consuming him quickly and looked at him with more annoyance than anything else, “And what was the point of that?”

Drax, resigned to his fate, was surprisingly nonchalant about it. “As I said, I don’t like to share. And this is essentially over for me anyway. Mareth has what he wants. I’m far more likely to stay in your hands than be returned to his or go free. Even if he did make an effort to get me back, the work is done. No more puzzles to solve or jobs to take. There’s no sense in lingering in that case.”

“It is a shame. We could have learned much from each other in other circumstances.”

“We still will.” Deres looked upon him with disdain and a hint of relief as he fumbled with the tie of his pocket and retrieved the crystal. “In fact, I should thank you. I don’t...really have time to fight with you over your own mind. Thanks to you, I won’t have to.”

Drax forced his drooping lids to lift and looked curiously at the crystal in the other’s hand, “What is that?”

“I’m going to place everything you are within it, peruse it at my will to get everything I need from you, then destroy it. Then, of course, you’ll actually die.”

“Impossible,” he said with labored breath. But what if it’s not? How? What will it be like?

“Very possible. And in those moments between unconsciousness and death you have no defense. You are mine to take.” As sickly as he felt now, he managed a satisfied look. “All I have to do is wait you out and I’m willing to bet I won’t have to wait long.”

That much was true. Drax’s vision was already dulling at the edges, and color draining from everything else. “Seems you’ve...won after all. The world hasn’t though. Still...they were all interesting puzzles to work.”

His eyes were now too heavy to fight and they drifted closed. He could feel his heart slow and a weight descend on his chest making each breath harder to take. It wasn’t painful at least as he waited for what would come next. In the distance, his eyes perceived a light that they, by all rights they shouldn’t have been able to. It’s in my mind, he realized. He was being pulled closer to it. He could think the thought to resist, but it translated to nothing as it continued to draw him closer. He felt the tells of magic like nothing he understood and it intrigued him.

He knew this was going to happen and he could not fight it. Knowing he was dead either way, he rushed to it, for, as long as he lasted until he simply ended, it would be a new puzzle to savor. It’s a better end than expected. he declared as the light consumed and a road of near infinite paths opened to him.

Focused on the task at hand and employing magic needed to take Drax and then peruse every bit of his life allowed Deres to ignore his body for a time. Every day, every memory...even things that Drax himself never would have remembered. It was all there to be watched and listened to and lived with him. He saw it all. He rushed to find that which he sought and he did so. The formula was there; every chemical combination and every twist of magic used to enhance its lethal nature and its resistance to being undone. Pieces of it had come from still another friend of his that also enjoyed ‘theoretical exercises.’ He saw the changes made and knew exactly which knots to undo and how to clear it from the body.

He saw everything that Drax had done.

Yet there was no real malice in any of it. Each act was just necessary to solve the puzzle and explore the mystery at hand. His greatest failing was simply a lack of empathy. If something aroused his curiosity, it really didn’t matter who or what stood in the way of sating it.

The real world returned as he wheezed and coughed through a breath even as Elan guided him to the floor. She touched his face and ached. He looked to Lystra who watched with satisfaction as he fought to breathe. “You killed a man who helped raise me. You killed my second father. Die.”

“You may get your wish.” So tired now and every breath was becoming a struggle. He looked to Elan. “Bryana?”

Elan caressed his cheeks. “She sent me for you almost as soon as the fight started.”

“It’s complicated and it’s getting hard to focus. I don’t think I can… I can show you what needs doing, but I don’t have time to...show you how to do it. ”

“Shhhhh...it’s all right.”

“It’s not.” He wept, which made his chest rattle a bit louder. “You’re not like Cassea. You’re bound completely to my will. If I...”

“I know. If not to you, than to Drexa and I would have been dead years ago.” She wept with him, but more for his pain than anything she might have felt for herself. “I had years of life that I would not have had otherwise. And I had you. I am happy to be yours and, if I die with you, I can ask for no better end. More than that, I die with you for a noble cause.”

“I love you, Elan.”

She nodded, kissing his cheeks, running her hand through his hair, just trying to extend her time with him. “I wish I loved you. That was something I could understand and articulate, but it is nothing compared to this. I breathe because of you. I am the person I always was only because you willed it. I would be lost without you, yet I have peace and happiness. Thank you for your kindness and your love. All I can truly say is that I am yours and I thank you for it.”

“Did you get yourself in trouble, love?”

The feminine voice carried through the air that was now wavering at the doorway an instant before Bryana appeared, clothes scorched and hair matted. She knelt before him as he turned to look upon her, his breath ragged. “I have the spell, but I don’t...I can’t...”

She looked around the room, piecing together what likely happened before dismissing it and focusing upon him. “Let’s get to it then before you finish dying.” She put her hand over his as it still loosely clenched the crystal while his other closed around Elan’s. “Open your mind.”

He did and her steadfast, caring presence was there, looking through his already familiar mind rather than try to sort through a stranger’s using a device that she wasn’t nearly as familiar with as he. He could take her to the knots and layers and she could see how they fit and how to undo them. She tuned out his weakness and anything that would distract her from the task at hand. She saw the chemical bonds break apart as the magic that bound them was itself undone. She could see his body grow stronger as the poison began to die, the magic from the talisman Deres had created tearing at it too.

Elan squeezed his hand, her expression bright as the sun at the knowledge that he who owned her was well and growing stronger.

He looked at Bryana and her disheveled state. “Are you all right?”

“Things got warm, but I am well enough.” She kissed him, relishing the feel of his lips because that was life, too. Whatever would you do without me?” She rose and reached down to help him to his unsteady feet.

“May I never have to know.” He gripped her hands tightly, still feeling like he’d been awake for two days straight. He hoped that would pass in short order because there was no time for that. Bryana glanced over her shoulder. “Who is this and what’s to be done with her?”

Lystra had struggled with the bindings, her hands now a bright red. The anger in her eyes turned to fear as the mages approached her and she tried to mold herself to the corner in a futile effort tp. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.”

“She’s the only one that can help us.”

“I will never help you,” she hissed, uncaring for anything other than her own rage at the horrors inflicted upon her people.

He dropped to one knee and looked upon her sympathetically. There were really no words to offer to give her solace, but his tone was as soothing as he could make it. “You will once you remember.”

She shook her head violently to try to get away from his fingers as his first two fingers drew the runes on her skin to open her to him. “Remember what? The pillaging? The slaughter of innocents as they have begged for mercy? Remember your people...”

Her voice died and her pupils widened as Lystra remembered.

She remembered the parents who loved her and the raucous discussions at the dinner table with them and her brother with topics that ranged from gossip to politics, knowing that on the loftier topics she couldn’t leave the table until her parents felt that they’d exhausted every avenue of discussion. Even at a young age Lystra knew her parents were trying to teach them how to think and reason, but it was always fun.

She remembered sports with her friends under the perpetually gray skies of Adar, city forged where nothing human was meant to live by a people who embraced both technology and magic and were driven to those wastes by a world that feared and misunderstood the power of both.

She remembered embracing the technological aspects of the world around her. Machines, whether enhanced by magic or not, always intrigued her. Put these pieces together this way or that and you could extract the energy of the sun. Put pieces together another way, and you could create energy that could keep a city free of the lethal air and weather of the wastes.

Lystra remembered wanting to explore the world outside home, as some, hoping to learn about how the outlanders did things and perhaps lend some help where she could, whether a town with a well or just a family putting their home right after a disaster. She wanted to explore and work simply for the experience, and perhaps to bring some knowledge of value home.

She remembered running afoul of the authorities in Draleth, still not really knowing why. Perhaps just being unfamiliar was cause enough. She remembered them going through her belongings and finding the well hidden items from home that outlanders were never meant to find. While they had no hope of understanding them, the lesser officials knew enough to send them up the chain of command where they caught the attention of Mareth. Lystra would tell them nothing, even after enthusiastic interrogation.

Mareth, however, knew a mystery-loving mage with skill.

It didn’t take long to knew what she knew. Even if Drax couldn’t fathom most of it, it was enough to suggest to Mareth that she might be able to understand the Draleth’s greatest secret: a ruin from the old world. And when they finally knew what it was about and what they might be able to do with it, Mareth’s tools finally matched his ambition. The king of the smallest of the kingdoms could take the world and create a legacy for himself that would last millennia.

If only their captive had the skill and could be convinced to cooperate.

The latter had to come first, or course. Humans are simply the sum of their experience. Change one’s experiences and one fundamentally changes the being. Hide a memory here and suggest pieces of a new one there, and a magic-addled mind that abhors gaps will fill in details to create a new life. It was Drax’s delicate, yet personally entertaining solution to the problem that was least likely to damage the knowledge she possessed and still allow her to think, innovate, and problem-solve when no one else could do what they needed her to. Time and skill was all it took to turn a technomage from beyond the known world to a devoted daughter using her unique skills in a last ditch effort to save her people from a marauding horde bent on their destruction. Years lost. Life lost. Now the truth of Lystra of Adar clashed with the lie of Lystra, daughter of Mareth and she began to sob, body wracking as her sadness came out in heaves.

She rose enough to hug herself as she shook. Deres, hand on her shoulder, tried to lend her strength. “None of it was your fault.”

The sobbing had stopped, but her voice quivered. “How many?” She inhaled sharply, fighting another whimper. “How many on the island that I destroyed?

Deres sighed. “It was a small fishing port. I don’t know for certain, but probably in the hundreds. No more than two thousand.”

It was almost unfathomable to a woman who’d never even contemplated hurting another in her life. “Two thousand people. I killed them.”

“It wasn’t you,” he repeated. “We aren’t like that. He had to change you, and even then he had to put the lives of your entire people in front of you to get you to be a person that could.”

“I understand how you feel more than you know,” Bryana said, “but we don’t have time for this. It will be the island a thousand fold if you don’t stop this now.”

“I’m not sure I can,” Lystra said, ignoring the pain in her wrists and ankles as she braced herself on the wall as Deres aided her, severing the leather that bound her her eyes moving left to right as they gazed at the floor while she thought. “I’m not sure I can.”

She hustled to the terminal and began typing furiously, waiting for the response, and then typing furiously again. “I...he wanted me to slave it to a control that only he commanded. Once I knew how these things worked it wasn’t that hard.” She fought her heartbreak again.

“Just take that control back,” Elan said as if it were an order.

“He’ll know if I try, and he could act before I could. Who knows how many he could kill?”

“What if we destroy this place?”

Lystra answered Bryana without looking at her.“The satellite already accepts Mareth’s control as primary; it wouldn’t matter.”

Deres retrieved his communication crystal. “Adar is waiting to help if it can. This thing threatens them as much as everyone else.”

Lystra shrugged off the suggestion, “It took me years to even get this far and I don’t fully comprehend it all. If this thing had been more complicated than point and shoot it would be years more before I could make it work, and still maybe never.”

“It can keep doing what it was designed to do, it doesn’t matter. We just need to know where it is. Can you tell me exactly where it is above us? If you can, the mages can do the rest.”

The sound of metal on metal cracked through the air like small explosions as Neral and D’ravek traded blades. Troops from both sides had gotten closer to the piece of field the two had claimed so that they could witness it and encourage their generals, though neither noticed. To them it was simply white noise. All that mattered was the next thrust, parry, or dodge and measuring their next steps in the soft ground.

D’ravek was relentless and struck with all the force she had expected and had the reflexes she expected as well. She was faster, but her arms were numbing from blocking the blows. They had been able to nick one another, but no one got close to a killing blow yet.”

“Tired, girl? Drop to your knees and I promise that it will be done in one quick strike.”

“Is that how you and your king lead people,” she asked over the clang of a parry, “they all just laid down and obeyed or died for you? Erette has sturdier stock.”

Without a response, he hammered his blade down over her head, charging his bulk forward a step to plant his fist hard into her face. Dazed, she staggered backward by two steps, the mud giving way just a bit more than she expected sending her onto the ground on her back, upending the world.

Raise. Your. Sword. She heard her old instructor and commander, the late Devine Kress in her mind as though she were there screaming in her ear as was normal in Neral’s days as a young recruit. Listening to that voice saved her life as the blades crashed together again, Neral having to use both hands on the hilt to absorb the force. Even so, her own blade nearly touched her nose.

Instinct put both of her boots where his knee should be and she felt it give enough under the force that it was his turn to stagger, giving her enough time to roll away and back up, stance wide. Her body protested. She knew he could win through attrition alone. He had greater strength and probably stamina to match, but she was perhaps better skilled at defense. Her soldiers had laughed at D’ravek, their fear being expelled in a wave of relief as Neral extricated herself from her near-death experience. She knew that he could wait her out for that last critical mistake.

His eyes darted to them for the merest fraction of a second and his full cheeks tightened as he clenched his jaw.

Kress was in her ear again. If your enemy gives you no opportunity on their own, nudge them along.

They parried one another again, this time his arm was just a little high. Rather than trying to sweep under to try to cleave neck from shoulder which he would have probably adjusted for quickly enough to meet and she was unsure she had the momentum to carry through on anyway, she turned her blade flat and touched his shoulder with it, the coup paired a broad, flirty smile, her beauty undiminished by mud and blood, as many of the male troops with her, certainly those that could see, saw that beauty mixed with strength and she knew that appealed to them. She knew a few fantasized, and so what? If that made them a little louder now, so much the better.

They cheered her as he stepped back quickly even before fully registering that it was just a tap and her mocking tone was a screech in his ear. “Some reason I’m not dead yet, bitch?”

He took a full breath, held it and released it, spinning his sword and shifting his weight left and right to dig himself into the mud. Neral took the opportunity to quickly shake the fatigue out of each arm in turn. D’ravek gave a quick, fake grin before his face became stone, “Why in such a rush to die, bitch?

“Just wondering what the problem is. Could it be that you’re not used to people that fight back? All your job is is burning out protesters and people that don’t have Mareth’s tax money, no?”

The Draleth booed, hissed, and shouted epithets to drown her out, but all she cared about were his eyes and the twitch of his body and his limbs. “That’s an idea.” A new round of parries and thrusts began. He faked left, and, when she moved to counter, he lunged right she ducked, hearing and feeling the blade slice the air over her head.

She came up as she asked, “Ever had a woman of Erette, General?” Ever had a powerful woman who knows what she’s about, knows what she wants, and has a pussy that can milk a man like no other?”

The men and women of Erette cheered the truth as D’ravek struck again. “Since you so highly recommend them perhaps I’ll try your queen,” he offered, feinting a lunge. Neral’s instinct suspected it would be a bluff so she jerked backward without giving up position.

She loosened her stance. Inwardly she was keeping her body loose to be able to call on her speed at an instant’s notice. Outwardly, with her also casually hefting her sword, it appeared that she had simply stopped caring. “If you do, I pray you have the decency to have the blacksmiths create a harness and some pulleys before you try lowering that bulk onto any woman.”

The men and women of Erette roared again, for a moment drowning out the hisses of disdain from the Draleth.

“What are you playing at, General?”

“I’ve fought you,” she began, wiping blood from her nose and lips that was only now beginning to cake. “I have come to the conclusion that, much like your kingdom, while you should be guarded against like one guards against any vermin, you really aren’t a threat to me, much less Erette, so come on.”

He snorted as he circled her. She appeared open, but he knew that was a fraud. “You seem pretty winded and bruised for going up against vermin. Perhaps you aren’t the warrior you think you are?”

The Draleth cheered.

“I admit I was trying too hard.” The reality now was that she was saving what she had left in the hopes that her goading would work him into a mistake. “You really aren’t worth the effort. The Draleth aren’t worth the effort. That you exist at all is because the rest of the world simply doesn’t care enough to crush you.”

He lunged again, this time not as a feint, in a low sweep aimed at opening her belly. It took both hands driving her sword with a cry of strain for her as her joints threatened to give way. She deflected the sweep enough to give her a second to close the gap. Giving a feint of her own simply by tensing her right shoulder, his eyes went to that just enough so that he could not react with more than shock when her lips met his. Once she saw his eyes reflect the passage from shock to anger and focus again on the source of it, she pushed away with a laugh. “Yeah. This is getting fun.”

“Fun for you to kiss vermin?”

She shrugged. “You’re a fucking joke is all, General. You fight against people that can’t fight back. Your own men see how well you can do against someone who knows how to hold a sword.”

“She’s just toying with you, idiot,” Mareth snarled, his patience nearing its end after the fight lasted more than a minute, much less now. “Finish the bitch and be done with it.”

“Yeah, bitch,” Neral said to the sounds of shock from her own people as she sheathed her sword behind her back and drew her dagger given to her by her mother the day she graduated war college. It was simple, sturdy, practical, and had saved her life more than once. She flipped it from one hand to the next, making a show of how she could make it dance for her. This was a show as much as anything else at the moment. She needed to drive her people and the Draleth because they would both push him like she could not.

Moving away from him, she acknowledged that she needed it too for her own reasons. Knowing her people were near, seeing her queen from the corner of her eye looking on in both curiosity and satisfaction renewed her. War was a dance. A partner moved and you countered. Indeed, dance in her youth helped her now. It fostered coordination, strength, tone, and flexibility. It had also fed her ego in her young, impetuous days when she sought to impress.

Her moves then all had flourish and she had embraced acrobatics to dazzle her opponent and push her superiors to take note of her for reasons other than her name. That had lasted all of half an hour before her second sparring partner had sussed her out and throttled her ass to the floor. Since then, to her benefit, she had abandoned flourish for technique, though she had never given up dance and the movement. Still, she wasn’t sure how it might work out, but all she had to do was be faster than he was once.

Pushing into the mud enough so that she touched firmer ground, she pushed off, running towards him in ground-eating strides, needing to gauge her next movements based on his final body position. He stood, body open to whatever attack she would try looking like he was ready to give Neral a deadly embrace.

Neral leaped.

High enough to just miss the sword strike as her boot landed on his forearm, forcing his sword downward. Using him as a step in the instant before his arm could take her off balance she vaulted again, taking herself over his head and behind him. She turned, letting her dagger speak for her and it cut cleanly as she darted away to gasps from both sides of the battle.

D’ravek turned like a whirlwind to find her several paces away, winded but smiling. All of Erette that was with her erupted in laughter as he turned to see her breath still ragged with a wad of his once long hair in her hand. She did a pirouette before opening her hand wide, letting the hair fall to a clump on the mud with some flying randomly during the fall and more being taken by the wind as it lay in the mud. “Heed your king, bitch. Finish me, because I am bored of you, tired you and your piddly army playing war, and I simply wish to go home.”

He grabbed at where his hair used to be simply as a reflex to confirm the evidence offered by his eyes. His blood boiled and his face twisted as she drew her sword once again. “Perhaps fighting is the only thing you do slowly?” When he looked upon her quizzically, she opined, “Do we compensate on the field, General? Are we quick elsewhere? One thrust into a woman after she counts her gold? Two? Or can you make it for at least as many moments as you have fingers and toes?”

His face twisted as he contemplated hacking her to bits once the surprise passed at the few hushed titters of laughter from those he could neither see nor name, but he knew came from the Draleth.

“I suppose I shouldn’t mock you,” sword in both hands, closing the distance by half steps. “All people are different. Perhaps that passes for ‘good’ in your circles. The women of Erette expect better from their men and their men provide it. You’re just a thug from Draleth.”

D’ravek rattled the sky with his scream of frustration and charged like the bull he appeared to be and she charged in kind and matched his shriek, mainly because her plan to head directly for his sword arm required courage, or at least more instinct than rational thought. Neral raised her sword high and he did the same. Merest glances told her where their bodies were and she sent the tip of her sword towards him before he could close the gap on his target.

She jerked her body down and right after her blade tip touched him. The shock sent his massive arm back towards her and the pommel of his blade struck the back of her head. She reeled away sliding through the snow and wet earth, enjoying not only the weightlessness, but the momentary unconsciousness. In those seconds she was free of fear or care.

Both sides gasped again and Neral forced her eyes open at the sound, expecting to find her lower half several feet from her upper. Weaponless, she moved her body rather than her head to see what was coming. If she failed and it was death coming for her in the form of a Draleth general, she would damn well stare that down, too.

She saw him standing there looking pleased with himself for a moment before realizing that his king and his soldiers were not basking in the moment with him. It took a moment more for him to realize how much the fight had truly taken out of him. Rage spent, he was growing tired.

A moment more and he noticed the small but gushing wound under his arm as arterial blood flowed freely. She watched as he dropped to his knees. She watched as he grinned at her. “Well done, General Bitch.” She watched as he slammed face first to the muddy ground. She watched him die.

She owed him that much.

Her limbs having the solidity of wet pasta, she forced herself up, almost falling back once before she felt herself steady enough to put fist to her heart in his direction as a salute to one warrior from another. He had faced her in single combat for his king and home and had fought fairly. She felt she owed him that, too. And let the soldiers of the Draleth see it.

She looked to her left and up to see that, to Tanik she had simply met expectations. Nelina looked upon her with young, prideful eyes that seemed as though they were looking upon the Goddess Herself. Evaline herself wore some of that pride. Chin raised, she looked every bit the queen, corners of her mouth up just the tiniest bit. She paid respect to her General. So Neral did the same, beaten and bloodied, by saluting smartly before stepping carefully to her sword, having to put one foot consciously before the other.

As she walked Evaline spoke with every bit of majesty she could muster Evaline spoke to her counterpart. “It seems that the Goddess does not favor you today, Mareth. Her will has been made known. As I would have kept my word, I demand the same. You will be allowed to leave our lands in peace, but you must leave.”

He laughed at her and it was a disgusted, bitter cackle. “You were never going to keep your word. You would never have surrendered to me, so the little bargain has no meaning. We both know it was just a diversion to buy time and for you to pretend to be queen for a moment or two more.”

He caressed his gauntlet. But we all know that I am the one with the power. The Draleth were chosen. I was chosen. I will rule and the world will yield, or it will burn. You’ll be an example, Evaline. What’s left of Erette and you will be an example to all others who oppose me as I lead the Draleth to the place of prominence we have been too long denied.”

His mount took two him steps forward at his urging. “You will see the power I hold. You will all see. You will still kneel before me, Queen of Erette. The only difference is that Erette will be a bit smaller than it was at dawn.

He didn’t understand the text, but he didn’t need to. The machine was agreeable and his “daughter” had been more than helpful in marking the red dots on the small map with numbers that denoted the positions of various cities. The line showing available power arced upward to what he assumed was maximum, and a red bar flashed.

He pressed it.

Neral, in that instant, wanted to cry. Her immediate family was clear for the moment. All the families of Court were clear at the moment. She was going to kill the piece of shit before her that masqueraded as a king and ruler. She was going to kill him and hack that machine off his arm and to bits almost regardless of the consequence and she’d take her men as far as they could go. Erette as a kingdom would survive.

But many would not and her eyes burned for them.

She looked to the sky, waiting to see the fire blaze over the horizon. Instead, she wept with joy, the trails of tears from her brown eyes doing what little they could to clean her bloody, muddy face as she watched fire streak, not over the horizon, but across the sky like a comet to be seen in broad daylight. Gasps of shock and awe came from everyone, save the queen, Tanik, and those of Neral’s number that had seen it. The queen and Tanik would not let dignity falter, even for this.

Mareth looked down at his gauntlet knowing what he would see before he saw it. The numbered dot that was Erette was still there and the arcing line in the lower left corner was all but gone. It wouldn’t fill quickly enough to make a difference even if he did have any clue what had gone wrong or how to fix it. The stream of fire eventually faded and the sky returned to its simple blue with patchwork clouds.

All assembled knew what he knew as he stared down Evaline, wilting as the color drained from his face.

“It seems that the Goddess is fickle today,” Evaline told him with no small amount of wry glee. “Perhaps because you broke your word, or perhaps she had nothing to do with it at all. In any event, there is only one response for what you have done.” She took a deep breath, and paused to feel it and let it cleanse her soul. “General Neral Jaye, leader of the armed forces of Erette and defender of its people.”

She wiped the tears away from her face while relief and anger burned the mist from her eyes before she stood straight and tall facing Evaline, seeing the gold she wore gleam anew. “Yes, my queen.”

Evaline saw fear in Mareth’s eyes and savored it. “Remove these invaders from our home and my sight by any means you see fit.”

Neral savored her own anger and she turned, her dark eyes fixing themselves upon Mareth and, more specifically, his forearm, though she would take a rare amount of glee in parting off the rest of him.

“As my queen wills, so shall it be done.”