Gauntlgrym

THE DAMNED

The Year of Knowledge Unearthed (1451 DR) IT WAS A CLEVER DEVICE SHE HAD FASHIONED, A THIMBLELIKE, CONICAL PIECE of smooth cedar with a point like a spear and an opening that allowed her to fit it onto her finger. She slipped it on and gently rotated a knot in the wood, and the mundane became magical as the finger spear diminished and took the form of a beautiful sapphire ring.

The glittering adornment fit the majestic image of Dahlia Sin’felle. Her tall, lithe elf form was topped by a head shaved clean but for a single thin clutch of raven black and cardinal red locks, woven to run down the right side of her shapely head and nestle in the hollow of her deceptively delicate neck. Her long fingers, wrapped with more than that one jeweled ring, were tipped with perfect nails, painted white and set with tiny diamonds. Her icy blue eyes could freeze a man’s heart or melt it with a simple look. Dahlia appeared the artist’s epitome of Thayan aristocracy, a lady great even among the greatest, a young woman who could enter a room and turn all heads in lust, in awe, or in murderous jealousy.

She wore seven diamonds in her left ear, one for each of the lovers she had murdered, and two more small, sparkling studs in her right ear for the lovers she had yet to kill. Like some of the men of the day, but few if any other Thayan women, Dahlia had tattooed her head with the blue dye of the woad plant. Dots blue and purple decorated the right side of her nearly hairless skull and face, a delicate and mesmerizing pattern enchanted by the master artist to impart various shapes to the viewer. As the woman gracefully turned her head to the left, one might see a gazelle in stride among the reeds of blue. When she snapped back angrily to the right, perhaps a great cat would rear up to strike. When her blue eyes flashed with lust, her target, be it man or woman, might fall helplessly into the dizzying patterns of Dahlia’s woad, entrapped and mesmerized, perhaps never to emerge.

She wore a crimson gown, sleeveless and backless, and cut low in the front, the soft round curves of her breasts contrasting starkly with the sharp seam of rich fabric. The gown reached nearly to the floor, but was slit very high up the right side, drawing the eyes of lusting onlookers, man and woman alike, from her glittering red-painted toenails, past the delicate straps of her ruby sandals, and up the porcelain skin of her shapely leg, nearly to her hip. From there, one’s eyes could not help but be drawn to the base of the V, and up to the shining tip of the singular black and red braid, the image there framed by a wide, high open collar that presented her slender neck and her perfectly shaped head like a colored glass vase holding a fresh bouquet.

Dahlia Sin’felle knew the power of her form.

The look on Korvin Dor’crae’s face when he entered her private room only confirmed that. He came at her eagerly, wrapping his arms around her. He was not a tall man, not thick with muscle, but his grip was strengthened by his affliction and he pulled her to him roughly, raining kisses along her jaw.

“You will not be long in pleasing yourself, no doubt, but what of me?” she asked, the innocence in her voice only adding to the sarcasm.

Dor’crae moved back enough to look up into her eyes, and smiled widely, revealing his vampire fangs. “I thought you enjoyed my feast, milady,” he said, and he went right back at her, biting her softly on the neck.

“Be easy, my lover,” she whispered, but she moved in a teasing way as she spoke to ensure that Dor’crae could do no such thing.

Her fingers played along his ear and swirled amidst his long, thick black hair. She had been teasing him all night long, after all, and with sunrise nearing he hadn’t much time-not up in the many-windowed tower. He tried to walk her back to the bed, but she held her ground, and so he pressed in more tightly and bit down more forcefully.

“Be easy,” she whispered with a giggle that coaxed him on all the more. “You’ll not make me one of your kind.”

“Play with me through eternity,” Dor’crae replied, and he dared bite harder, his fangs finally puncturing Dahlia’s beautiful skin.

Dahlia lowered her right hand to her side and reached her thumb over the illusionary ring on her index finger, tapping the gem. She slid both of her hands onto Dor’crae’s chest, undoing the leather ties of his shirt and pulling the fabric wide, her fingers fluttering over his skin. He groaned, pressed in closer, and bit down harder.

Dahlia’s right hand felt his breast and slipped delicately to the hollow of his chest, and there she cocked back her index finger as if it were a viper readying to strike.

“Retract your fangs,” she warned, though her voice was still throaty, still a tease.

He groaned, and the viper struck.

Dor’crae sucked in a breath he didn’t need, let go of Dahlia’s neck, and eased back, grimacing every inch as the pointed wooden tip invaded his flesh and prodded at his heart. He tried to back away, but Dahlia expertly paced him, keeping the pressure just right to exact excruciating, crippling pain without killing the creature outright.

“Why do you make me torment you so, lover?” she asked. “What have I done to so deserve such pleasure from you?” She turned her hand just a bit as she spoke, and the vampire seemed to shrink before her, his legs buckling.

“Dahlia!” he managed to plead.

“A tenday has passed since I gave you your task,” she replied.

Dor’crae’s eyes went wide with horror. “A Dread Ring,” he blurted. “Szass Tam would expand them.”

“I know that, of course!”

“To new areas!”

Dahlia growled and twisted the tiny spike, driving Dor’crae down to one knee.

“The Shadovar are strong in Neverwinter Wood, south of the city of Neverwinter!” the vampire grunted. “They have chased the paladins from Helm’s Hold and patrol the forest unhindered.”

“Imagine that!” Dahlia exclaimed sarcastically at yet another bit of common knowledge.

“There are rumblings… the Hosttower… magical wards and unleashed energy…”

Wicked Dahlia cocked her shapely head despite herself, and eased up her prodding finger just a bit.

“I know not the full tale as of yet,” the vampire said, his words coming more easily. “It is shrouded in mystery older than the oldest elf, in a time long ago when the Hosttower of the Arcane in Luskan was first built. There are-” He stopped with a grunt as Dahlia’s wood-covered finger burrowed in.

“To the point, vampire. I haven’t an eternity.” She looked at him slyly. “And if you offer me eternity one more time, I’ll show you an abrupt end to your own.”

“There is magical instability there, due to the fall of the Hosttower,” Dor’crae blurted. “It is possible that we could create carnage on a scale sufficient-”

Again the woman twisted the words from his mouth, silencing him. Luskan, Neverwinter, the Sword Coast… the significance of that region was no mystery to Dahlia. The mere mention of the area rekindled memories of her childhood, memories she clutched close to her heart as constant reminders of the wretchedness of the world.

She shook the haunting images away-it was not the time, not with a dangerous vampire held at arm’s length.

“What more?” she demanded.

A panicked look came over the vampire, who obviously had nothing substantial to add and expected a sudden end to his existence at the hands of the merciless elf.

But Dahlia was more intrigued than she showed. She retracted her hand so suddenly Dor’crae fell to hands and knees and closed his eyes in silent thanks.

“There is no time you are near me when I cannot kill you,” the woman said. “The next time you forget that and try to afflict me, I will utterly, happily, joyously destroy you.”

Dor’crae looked up at her, his expression conveying that he didn’t doubt her for a heartbeat.

“Now make love to me, and do it well, for your own sake,” the elf said.

It had been a fine trip to the stream for water. The pollywogs had just hatched and the twelve-year-old elf lass had found hours of enjoyment observing their play. Her mother had told her not to rush, since her father was out on the hunt that day anyway, and the water would not be needed until supper.

Dahlia came over the rise and saw the smoke, heard the cries, and knew the dark ones had come.

She should have fled. She should have turned around and run back to the stream, and across it. She should have abandoned her doomed village and saved herself, hoping to rejoin her father later on.

But she found herself running home, screaming for her mother.

The Netherese barbarians were there, waiting.

Dahlia pushed away the memories, channeling them, as she always channeled them, into her need for dominance. She slapped the vampire aside and rolled atop him, taking full control. Dor’crae was a most excellent lover-which was why Dahlia had kept him alive for so long-and the woman’s distraction had given him the upper hand. But only for a short while. She went at him angrily, turning their lovemaking into something violent, punching him and clawing at him, showing him the wooden finger prod at just the right moment to deny him his pleasure while she experienced her own.

Then she pulled away from him and ordered him gone, and warned him that her patience neared its end and that he should not return to her, should not come into her sight, until he had more to reveal about the Hosttower and the potential for catastrophe in the west.

The vampire slunk away like a beaten dog, leaving Dahlia alone with her memories.

They murdered the men. They murdered the youngest and the oldest of the females, who were not of child-bearing age, and for the two poor villagers with child, the barbarians were most cruel of all, cutting the children from their wombs and leaving both to die in the dirt.

And for the rest, the Netherese shared their seed, violently, repeatedly. In their demented fascination with mortality, they sought the elves’ wombs as if partaking of an elixir of eternal youth.

Her dress was much like the one Dahlia had been wearing that same day, high collar, open neck and low cut, and none could deny that Sylora Salm wore it in an enticing manner. Like her rival, her head was cleanly shaven, with not a hair on her pretty head. She was older than Dahlia by several years, and though Sylora was human, her beauty had surely not dimmed.

She stood on the edge of a dead forest, where the diseased remnants of once proud trees reached to the very edge of the newest Dread Ring, a widening black circle of utter devastation. Nothing lived within that dark perversion, where ashes could be naught but ashes and dust could be naught but dust. Though she was dressed as if to attend a royal ball, Sylora did not seem out of place there, for there was a coldness about her that complemented death quite well.

“The vampire inquired,” explained her lone companion, Themerelis, a hulking young man barely into his twenties. He wore only a short kilt, mid-calf boots, and an open leather vest, showing off his extraordinary musculature, his wide shoulders exaggerated by the greatsword he wore strapped diagonally across his back.

“What is the witch’s fascination with the Hosttower of the Arcane?” Sylora asked, talking more to herself as she turned away from Themerelis. “It has been nearly a century since that monstrosity tumbled, and the remnants of the Arcane Brotherhood have shown no indication that they intend to rebuild it.”

“Nor could they,” Themerelis said. “The dweomers of its bindings were far beyond them even before the Spellplague. Alas for magic lost to the world.”

Sylora looked at him with open mockery. “Something you heard in the library while spying on Dahlia?” She held up her hand as her consort started to reply. The man was too dim to understand the insult. “Why else would you be in a library?” she asked, and she rolled her eyes in disgust when he looked at her with obvious puzzlement.

“Do not mock me, Lady,” the warrior warned.

Sylora turned on him sharply. “Pray tell me why?” she asked. “Will you take out your greatsword and cleave me in two?”

Themerelis glared at her, but that only evoked a burst of laughter from the Thayan sorceress.

“I prefer other weapons,” Sylora said, teasing him, and she let her hand come up to stroke Themerelis’s powerful arm. The man started toward her, but she moved her palm before him to halt his advance.

“If you earn the fight,” she explained.

“They are leaving this day,” Themerelis replied.

“Then be quick to your work.” She gave him a little push backward then waved at him to be gone.

Themerelis offered a frustrated snort and spun away, stomping back through the trees and up the distant hill toward the castle gate.

Sylora watched him go. She knew how he was so easily getting near to the wary and dangerous Dahlia, and she wanted to hate him for that, to murder him even, but she found she couldn’t blame the young man. She narrowed her eyes into hateful slits. How she wanted to be rid of Dahlia Sin’felle!

“Those thoughts do not serve you well, my pretty,” came a familiar voice from within the Dread Ring-and even if she hadn’t recognized the voice, only one creature would dare enter so new a ring.

“Why do you tolerate her?” Sylora said, turning back to stare into the fluttering wall of blowing ash that marked the circumference of the necromantic place of power. She couldn’t actually see Szass Tam through that opaque veil, but she could feel his presence, like a blast of a winter wind carrying sheets of stinging sleet.

“She is just a child,” Szass Tam replied. “She has not yet learned the etiquette of the Thayan court.”

“She has been here for six years,” the woman protested.

Szass Tam’s cackling laughter mocked her anger. “She controls Kozah’s Needle, and that is no minor thing.”

“The break-staff,” Sylora said with disgust. “A weapon. A mere weapon.”

“Not so ‘mere’ to those who feel its bite.”

“It is just a weapon, absent the beauty of pure spellcasting, absent the power of the mind.”

“More than that,” Szass Tam whispered, but Sylora ignored him and continued.

“Swashbuckling trickery,” she said. “All flash and dazzle, and strikes a child should dodge.”

“I count her victims at seven,” the lich reminded her, “including three of considerable renown and reputation. Could I not bring them back to my side in a preferable form,”-the manner in which he so casually referred to his reanimation of the dead sent a freezing shiver along Sylora’s already cold spine-“I would fear that the Lady Dahlia might be thinning my ranks too quickly.”

“Count it not as her skill,” Sylora warned. “She coaxed them, every one, into vulnerable positions. Her youth and beauty fooled them, but now I know, now we all know.”

“Even Lady Cahdamine?” said Szass Tam, and Sylora winced. Cahdamine had been her peer, if never really her friend, and they had shared many adventures, including clearing the peasants from the land for the very Dread Ring she stood before-clearing the peasants’ souls, at least, for their rotting flesh had fed the ring. During that pleasurable time, three years before, Cahdamine had spoken often of Lady Dahlia, and of how she had taken the young elf under her wing to properly instruct her in the arts carnal and martial.

Had Cahdamine underestimated Dahlia? Had she been blinded by her arrogance to the dangers of the heartless elf?

Cahdamine had become the middle diamond on Dahlia’s left ear, the fourth of seven, Sylora knew, for Sylora had caught on to the elf’s little symbolism. And Dahlia wore two studs on her right ear. Dor’crae was one of her lovers, of course, and-Sylora glanced toward the distant castle, along the path Themerelis had taken.

“You will not have to suffer her here for some months-years, more likely,” Szass Tam remarked as if reading her mind. “She is off to Luskan and the Sword Coast.”

“May the pirates cut her to pieces.”

“Dahlia serves me well,” the disembodied voice of Szass Tam warned.

“You speak so to keep me from destroying her.”

“You serve me well,” the lich replied. “I have told Dahlia as much.”

Outraged, Sylora spun away and departed. How dare Szass Tam elevate the wayward waif to her level with such an insinuation!

An important night, she knew, and so she had to look the part. It wasn’t vanity that drew Dahlia to the mirror but technique. Her art was a matter of perfection, and anything less would be a death sentence.

Her black leather boots rose up above her knees, touching her matching black leather skirt on the outside of her left thigh. Nowhere else did leather meet leather, though, for the skirt was cut at a sharp angle, climbing up well above the mid-point on the thigh of her other shapely leg. Her belt, a red cord, carried leather pouches on each hip, both black with red stitching. She wore a puff-sleeved white blouse of the finest silk, cinched with diamond cuffs to allow her free movement. A small black leather vest provided some padding, but her real armor came from a magic ring, an enchanted cloak, and small magic bracers hidden under the cuffs of her blouse.

As with all of her outfits, Dahlia left the top of the low-cut vest unbuttoned, and the stiff collar turned up to frame her delicate head. It would not do to be along the road under the sun with no hair to protect her pate, though, so she wore a wide-brimmed black leather hat, pinned up on the right, revealing her black and red braid, banded in red silk and stylishly plumed with a red feather.

When she bent her right leg and turned it out just so, striking an alluring pose, what man could resist her?

But what she saw in the mirror did not quite match the reality of her beauty.

They caught her easily and threw her down, but didn’t pile one after another atop her as they had with the others. Dahlia caught the gaze of one burly barbarian, the Shadovar of huge size and strength who had led the raid. While most of the raiders appeared as dusky-skinned humans, the leader was obviously a convert, a horned half-demon-a tiefling.

The young and delicate captive, barely a woman, was his, he decreed.

They stripped her down and held her for the sacrifice, and for the first time, Dahlia truly understood her foolishness in running back to the village, understood what she, and not just what her People, had to lose.

She heard her mother screaming for her, and from the corner of her eyes, saw the woman running at her, only to be tackled and sat upon.

Then he stood over her, the huge tiefling, leering at her. “Loosen and ease, girl, and your mother will live,” he promised.

He had her. She managed to turn her head to look at her mother as he lay down atop her, and managed to bite back her screams as he tore into her, though she felt as if she was ripping in half. The act itself was over quickly, but her humiliation had only just begun.

Two barbarians grabbed her by the ankles and lifted her up into the air, upside down.

“You will keep the seed of Herzgo Alegni,” they mocked as they pawed and slapped at her.

Eventually they lowered her so that her head twisted painfully on the ground. She turned it enough to keep an inverted, distorted view of her mother-enough to see the tiefling, Herzgo Alegni, cross into her field of vision.

He looked back at her and smiled-could she ever forget that smile?-then he so very casually stomped on the back of her mother’s neck, fine elf bones shattering under the blow.

Dahlia took a deep breath and closed her eyes, fighting to hold her balance. But only briefly did she swoon, for she was not that child of a decade before. That young elf girl was dead, killed by Dahlia, murdered internally and replaced by the exquisite, deadly creature she saw in the mirror.

Her hand went across her hard abdomen, and she recalled, just briefly, when she had been with child-with his child, with the smiling one’s child.

With another deep breath, she adjusted her hat then swung away from the mirror to grab up Kozah’s Needle. The slender metal staff stood fully eight feet, and though it appeared glassy smooth from even a short distance, its grip was solid and sure. Its four joints were all but invisible, but Dahlia knew them as well as she knew her own wrist or elbow.

With the flick of a hand, she cracked the staff at its midpoint, letting it swing down to fold onto itself into a comfortable four-foot walking stick. She noted the slight discharge of energy as it swung, feeding her, and the muscles in her forearm twitched under the soft folds of her sleeve.

She took a last glance around her bedchamber. Dor’crae had taken her larger packs to the wagon already, but she let her eyes linger a few heartbeats, wanting to ensure that she had forgotten nothing.

When she left, she didn’t look back, though she expected that several years, perhaps many years, would pass before she again looked upon that place, which had been her home for more than half a decade.

The roots tasted bitter-she couldn’t help but gag as she stuffed one after another into her mouth. But the Netherese would return, the elders assured her. They knew where she was and knew she carried the child of their leader.

One old elf woman had tried to talk her into killing herself to be done with it.

But that girl who had foolishly run back to her village instead of away was already dead.

She felt the pangs in her abdomen soon after, the terrible convulsions, the tearing agony of childbirth through a body too young to accept it.

But Dahlia didn’t make a sound, other than her heavy breathing as she worked her muscles and pushed with all her strength to get the beast child out of her. Covered in sweat, exhausted, she at last felt the rush of relief, and heard the first cries of her baby, of Herzgo Alegni’s son. The midwife placed the babe upon her chest and a mixture of revulsion and unexpected warmth tore at the woman as surely as the Shadovar had torn at her loins, as surely as his son had ripped her in birth.

She didn’t know what to think, and took a tiny measure of comfort in hearing the women discussing their success, for she had beaten the return of the father and his brutes by several tendays.

Dahlia rested back her head and closed her eyes. She couldn’t let them return. She couldn’t let them determine her life’s path.

“You are not gone yet?” Sylora Salm surprised Dahlia almost as soon as she had exited her room. “I would have thought you halfway to the Sword Coast by now.”

“Seeking to claim what fineries I’ve left behind, Sylora?” Dahlia replied. She paused to strike a pensive pose for just a moment before adding, “Take the mirror, and let it serve you well.”

Sylora laughed at her. “It will prefer my reflection, I am sure.”

“Perhaps true, though I doubt many would agree. But no matter, human, for soon enough, you will be old, gray, and haggard, while I am still young and fresh.”

Sylora’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Dahlia clutched Kozah’s Needle a bit more tightly, though she knew the wizard wouldn’t risk the wrath of Szass Tam.

“Peasant,” Sylora replied. “There are ways around that.”

“Ah, yes, the way of Szass Tam,” Dahlia mumbled, and she moved suddenly right up to Sylora, face to face so that the woman could feel her breath hot on her face. “When you entwine with Themerelis and inhale deeply of him, does it feel as if I am in the room beside you?” she whispered.

Sylora sucked in her breath hard and fell back just a bit, moving as if to slap Dahlia, but the young elf was quicker and had anticipated the reaction. “And you will be pallid and unbreathing,” she said as she cupped her free hand and grabbed Sylora’s crotch. “Cold and dry, while I remain warm and…”

Sylora wailed, and a laughing Dahlia spun away and skipped down the hall.

The wizard growled at her in rage, but Dahlia spun back on her, all merriment flown. “Strike fast and true, witch,” she warned as she put Kozah’s Needle up in front of her. “For you get but one spell before I send you to a realm so dark even Szass Tam couldn’t drag you back from it.”

Sylora’s hands trembled before her in nearly uncontrollable rage. She didn’t speak, of course, but Dahlia surely heard every word: This child! This impertinent elf girl! Her small breasts heaving with gasps as she tried to regain her composure, Sylora only gradually calmed and let her hands fall to her sides.

Dahlia laughed at her. “I didn’t think so,” she said, then skipped down the hall.

As she neared the keep’s exit, two corridors presented themselves. To the left lay the courtyard, where Dor’crae waited with the wagons, and to the right, the garden and her other lover.

She had picked the spot well, and knew it as soon as she came to the edge of the cliff overlooking the encampment of Herzgo Alegni’s Shadovar barbarians. They couldn’t get to her without running for nearly a mile to the south, and could reach up the hundred-foot cliff with neither weapon nor spell.

“Herzgo Alegni!” she cried.

She presented the baby in the air before her. Her voice boomed off the stones, echoing throughout the ravine and reaching beyond to the encampment.

“Herzgo Alegni!” she shouted again. “This is your son!” And she kept shouting that over and over as the camp began to stir.

Dahlia noted a couple of Shadovar running out to the south, but they were of no concern to her. She shouted again and again. A gathering approached, far below, staring up at her, and she could only imagine their surprise that the foolish girl would come to them.

“Herzgo Alegni, this is your son!” she screamed, presenting the child higher. They heard her, though they were a hundred feet down and more than that away.

She scoured the crowd for a tiefling’s form as she yelled again to the father of her baby. She wanted him to hear her. She wanted him to see.

She couldn’t quite read the look on Themerelis’s square-jawed face as she came out into the garden. The night was dark, with few stars finding their way out from behind the heavy clouds that had settled in that evening. Several torches burned in the stiff wind, bathing the area in wildly dancing shadows.

“I didn’t know if you would come,” the man said. “I feared-”

“That I would leave without a proper farewell?”

The man started to answer, found no words, and simply shrugged.

“You would make love one last time?” Dahlia asked.

“I would go with you to Luskan, if you would have me.”

“But since you cannot…”

He started toward her, arms outstretched, begging a hug. But Dahlia stepped back and to the side, easily keeping her distance.

“Please, my love,” he said. “One moment to remember until again we meet.”

“One last barb I might stab into the side of Sylora Salm?” Dahlia asked, and Themerelis’s face screwed up with puzzlement for just a moment until the notion fully registered, replacing curiosity with a stare of disbelief.

Dahlia laughed at him.

“Oh, I will stab her this night,” she promised, “but you’ll not stab me.”

She brought her right arm forward in a sweeping motion, then flicked her wrist, uncurling her staff to its full length.

Themerelis stumbled backward, eyes wide with shock.

“Come, lover,” Dahlia teased, bringing the staff horizontally in front of her chest. With a slight move, unseen by her opponent, she cracked two joints, leaving a four-foot center section in her hands, with twin two-foot-long sections dropping to the ends of short chains at either side. Again barely moving, Dahlia set those two side-sticks spinning, both forward at first, then one forward and one backward. She began rolling the center bar in the air in front of her, dipping its ends alternately, heightening the spins of the respective sides.

“It need not be-”

“Oh, but it does!” the woman assured him. “But our love-”

“Our lust,” she corrected him. “I am already bored, and I’ll be gone from here for years. Come then, coward. You profess to be a grand warrior-surely you’re not afraid of a tiny creature like Dahlia.” She worked the tri-staff more furiously then, rotating the central bar in front of her and all the while keeping the two side sticks spinning.

Themerelis put his hands on his hips and stared at her hard.

Dahlia grabbed the center of the long bar in one hand and broke the rotation. As the side sticks swung back to slap against the central bar they created lightninglike bolts that Dahlia expertly directed at her opponent.

Themerelis was lifted backward by the stinging bolts, once, then again. Neither did any real damage, but Dahlia’s laughter seemed to sting him quite profoundly. He drew his greatsword and hoisted it in both hands, taking a deep breath and setting his feet widely-just as Dahlia charged.

She leaped in, slapping Kozah’s Needle’s center bar forward and back while the side sticks extended and rotated yet again. She dropped her left foot back suddenly, pulled in her left hand, extended her right, and turned so that the spinning side stick whipped at Themerelis’s head.

No novice to battle, the fine warrior blocked it with his sword then brought the blade back the other way in time to pick off the other spinning extension as Dahlia reversed her pose and thrust.

But she rolled the leading edge back and over high, reversing her grip on the center bar as the weapon turned under. She stabbed straight ahead with the leading butt of the center bar, jabbing Themerelis in the chest.

Again he staggered backward.

“Pathetic,” she teased, backing a step to allow him to regain his battle posture.

The warrior came on with sudden fury, slashing his claymore in great swings that hummed powerfully through the air.

And he hit nothing but air.

Dahlia leaped sidelong, a full somersault that set her again to her feet, with her back to Themerelis. When the warrior pursued, thrusting his weapon at her, she whirled around and slapped his sword with the left side stick then turned the blade with the angled center bar and struck it again with the spinning, trailing right side stick, and all three sent jolts of electricity into the sword and into Themerelis.

The man fell back, clamping his jaw against the shocking sensation.

Dahlia put the staff into a dazzling spin before her again, the side sticks moving too quickly to follow. She feigned a charge but fell back instead, extending her arms fully to leave the center bar horizontal in front of her. She came forward, retracting her arms so that the bar slammed her own chest, and as it did it broke in half.

Themerelis could hardly follow the movements then as Dahlia put her two smaller weapons, each a pair of two-foot-long metal poles bound end to end by a foot-long length of chain, into a wild dance. She rolled the flails sidelong at her sides, brought one or another, or both or neither, under and around her shoulder-or one around her back to be taken up by the other hand while the other moved across in front to similarly and simultaneously hand off.

And never with a break, never slowing, she began smacking the twirling sticks together with every pass. Each strike crackled with the power of lightning.

Above them, the clouds thickened and thunder began to rumble, as if the sky itself answered the hail of Kozah’s Needle.

Finally, her fury unabated, Dahlia reached out at Themerelis with a wide swing.

She missed badly.

She missed on purpose.

Themerelis came in right behind the strike with a burst and a stab.

Dahlia never stopped her turn and continued right around, stepping back as she went to stay out of reach of the deadly blade. She came around with a double parry, her weapons smacking the greatsword one after another.

Neither, though, released a charge into the sword, something Themerelis didn’t register. The effective double block had him slowed anyway, retracting the blade, but as Dahlia broke her momentum and reversed the swing of her left hand, he came right back in.

Her parries came simultaneously, one metal rod smacking the greatsword on either side, the right lower down the blade than the left, and Dahlia released the building charge of Kozah’s Needle.

The powerful jolt weakened Themerelis’s grip even as the woman drove through the swings, and the greatsword was lost to him, spinning end over end and falling away.

He reached for it, but Dahlia and her spinning weapon blocked his way, smacking at him in rapid succession. She hit one arm then the other, again and again, and that was only when he managed to block them. When he didn’t, the stick cracked him about the chest and midsection, and once in the face, fattening his lips.

She quickly got ahead of his blocks, the weapons coming at him from any and every angle, battering him, cutting him, raising welt after welt. One strike hit his left forearm so forcefully they both heard the crack of bone before he even knew he’d been hit.

Stunned, off balance, and nearing the end of his strength, the warrior desperately punched out at Dahlia.

She dropped, turned, and swung her right arm up, looping her weapon under and around his extended shoulder. She continued her turn, throwing the back of her hip into his, bending him over her, and with a sudden yank on the entangling weapon, she flipped Themerelis right over her shoulder.

He fell flat on his back, his breath blasted from his lungs, his eyes and thoughts unfocused.

Dahlia didn’t slow, spinning circles, finally squaring up to the fallen man as she brought her hands clapping together in front of her, rejoining the central four-foot length of Kozah’s Needle. She waved the break-staff up one way then reversed, expertly aligning the side sticks and calling upon the weapon to rejoin. The instant she was holding a singular eight-foot staff again she drove one end to the ground and pole-vaulted off it high into the air, turning the weapon as she went and screaming, “Yee-Kozah!” to the dark clouds above.

She landed right beside Themerelis, driving the break-staff’s forward tip down like a spear into the man’s chest.

Fingers of lightning crackled out from the impact and the weapon slid through the man, clipping his backbone and pressing down into the ground.

Dahlia screamed out to the ancient, long-forgotten god of lightning again as she stood victorious, one hand holding the impaled weapon at midpoint, the other arm straight out to the other side, her head thrown back so she was looking up to the sky.

A blast of lightning coupled with a tremendous thunderstroke hit the upper tip of the staff and channeled down. Some of its burning force entered Dahlia, bathing her in crawling lines of blue-white energy, but most of it jolted into Themerelis with devastating effect. His arms and legs extended out wide, to their limits and beyond, kneecaps and elbows popping in protest. His eyes bulged as if they would fly from their sockets, and his hair, all of his hair, stood out straight, dancing wildly. A great hole was blown right through the man along the length of the metal staff that impaled him.

And Dahlia held on, basking in the power as it flowed through her lithe form.

She looked down at the gathered barbarians.

Finally she spotted Herzgo Alegni among them, moving forward through their ranks.

“Herzgo Alegni, this is your son!” she cried.

She threw the baby from the cliff.