Chapter XVII - Recovery

Senlui · Post #1 » Sat Mar 17, 2018 6:15 pm

The Commander blinked as his full awareness returned to him, as at last his mind was freed from the spirit that had used him as a host to escape from the Chaos Realm into this reality. The possession had removed weeks from his memories. Leaning onto his halberd, Caranordor pushed himself up, a look of confusion upon his face.

“But... this is Nagarythe...” he uttered, surprised as if being woken from a vivid dream. “I have no recollection of this. Last thing I remember was a blinding light in the Blighted Isles.”

“Yes it is”, replied Ithilsyn, her voice breathy and weak, “and you led us here.”

She glanced to her trusted Grand Cabalist and uttered, “Sildra, will you explain to Caranordor what has occurred?”

Ithilsyn then simply turned and walked away, too exhausted to describe the details of the recent weeks to the Commander. The ordeal of her arrest and march to the garrison had risked the lives of the whole Regiment. There had been no respite at journey’s end; only a mockery of a trial, accusing her of treason, with a sentence of death placed upon her. It would have been laughable had she not needed to nearly tear herself apart to summon enough power to rip Caranordor’s parasite from its host.

The voices around the camp became nothing more than buzzing to her ears as she took a seat near a fire, absently nursing her ankles with a bloody hand.

Sildra studied Caranordor with a frown, the crystal on her staff still faintly shimmering, before turning her head to her arm, streaked with dried up blood. The entire Regiment seemed battle worn, bearing their own injuries of varying severity. Amarthandir rubbed his chin with one hand, looking in the Commander’s direction sceptically. Vithari brooded and scowled with her good eye, the other swollen shut. The Commander’s left arm hung limply at his side, as in a daze he looked on at the Cabalist. Slaa looked on, despite her wounds, in a high state of awareness, ready for combat.

“The events since your last memory are many, Commander,” Sildra explained. “You have led us to battle against a Thalken mage, and with you we have defeated a host of Slaaneshi invaders. After that, you accused the High Seeress of treason against you, the Regiment, and the authority of your Iron Writ. You judged her before a court of peers, right here, only to find her guilty and give the order to have her executed.”

Caranordor stood silently for a moment, turning his head one way to another as if he was searching for something inside his mind, “I did no such thing!” he finally replied.

Sildra continued coolly, “It was in the final moments of her despair, that she attacked you and in doing so, drew out some manner of Chaos spirit that had, apparently taken hold of your body since you were lost to us the first time.”

“Chaos spirit...” he uttered, again looking as if he was lost, “Wait. I remember.” As the memories flooded back of what he had endured in the Chaos Realm, he fell to his knees screaming out in agony as if reliving the torment again in every dreadful detail.

“Khaine!!!” cried Gretka, the maibd instinctively uttering the name of her god as if invoking him to protect her. Vithari raised an eyebrow at this, shaking her head.

Sildra frowned and regarded Caranordor with concern, “Commander?”

The Regiment’s leader struck the ground with a mailed fist, cursing under his breath, before looking up at the Regiment gathered before him. “Did you tear the one who did this... limb from limb?”

Sildra smiled faintly, nodding, “That thing has been violently banished from this plane.”

“And it was the Seeress that has exorcised it?”

“The Coven contained you whilst Ithilsyn herself did all the work of removing that wretched creature from you, Dread Commander.”

He nodded, once more rising to his feet. Seeing the Seeress alone, he made his way towards her, Vithari watching carefully as Amarthandir extended his hand and closed his eyes, looking for any remaining signs of corruption in the air, sighing.

Light from the fire flickered across Ithilsyn’s face casting dancing shadows about her. Her robes tattered and torn, her skin was marked with countless bruises, wounds from the bite of her shackles still raw around her ankles and wrists. Caranordor appeared distraught, taking a long while before he uttered his next words, “I... thank you.”

Sildra moved nearby, beginning to tend to her wounds, careful not to be seen to be eavesdropping. Yet her ears were sharp, and she was careful to listen to the conversation between her Seeress and the Commander.

“There was a point when it seemed that you were beyond saving,” Ithilsyn replied, “For a moment it seemed as if I really would have to crush your heart”. She turned her gaze to Caranordor, leaving him of no doubt of the power that she was able to wield.

“All of this may be interpreted as a sign of your weakness, Commander”, laughed Gretka, dancing past them with her knives as she appeared to be chewing some Lustrian root, known for its invigorating powers and pain numbing properties. Vithari glared at the witch elf, grumbling about cutting out her tongue if she didn’t stop wagging it.

The Commander growled under his breath. He knew the penalty upon those who became daemon hosts. The Seeress would have been well within her rights to have slain the host as well as the one inhabiting him. They looked at each other with silent understanding, as the garrison gates swung open, Ithilsyn’s retainer Aegnyr marching in with a mercenary force, weapons drawn, expecting the worse. Having tracked the Regiment at a safe distance all the way from the Blighted Isles, one word was all it would take to see the band leap into action. Ithilsyn regarded him with a quiet calm, which satisfied him that there was no need for bloodshed. As the Seeress shakily stood, the retainer stepped in, offering his strength to support her, as he ushered her carefully to a tent, taking care to observe the Druchii about the garrison along the way.

Caranordor closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “Regiment, we rest here. Recover yourselves. This place is well guarded.” The shrill cry of a warhawk pierced the silence as it circled the skies above, and the Commander could not help but shiver.

Isanduel stopped in his tracks, viewing the devastation at Narthain. Merely days ago the pile of rubble before him had been a majestic tower rising like a needle into the sky. Now the town was deserted, ruined buildings smouldering as the flames that had consumed them had eaten them away. Bodies littered the streets, and he uttered a curse against the traitor kin as he glanced to the shadow warriors under his command from beneath his hood. Gesturing to them with silent hand signals, his shadow warrior kin split into three smaller parties to search the ruins for any survivors.

A noise attracted his attention from the heap of stones in front of him, as fragments of rock cascaded down from the larger blocks. The asur with his group followed his cue, dashing forwards to investigate what might have caused it. As they moved with careful urgency, lifting stones from the tower's remains, one of the nomadic warriors gasped as an arm defiantly burst forth from the rubble, fingers extending outwards from a bloodied hand.

“Quickly!” he called, “This one’s alive!”

With haste they saw to their task, until the head and shoulders of a dark haired elf could be seen, weak and wounded. As the other parties rejoined the group at the call for aid, they uncovered the survivor, hauling him out from the tower’s remains and onto the square, not a moment too soon; the stones around the small pocket within the collapsed building in which he had been buried, falling in. They coughed to clear their lungs from the dust, helping the survivor to sit up, his cloth tunic torn. Lifting his chin, one of them offered him a water container, tipping it towards his mouth, from which he drank his fill.

“Asuryan be praised.” the shadow warrior remarked, giving thanks that this survivor had been spared from the slumber of Mirai. “Come, we shall tend to your wounds. Our camp is nearby.”

Two elves lifted the survivor, taking an arm each around their shoulders. As he was led away by his rescuers, Duvaindir smiled. What an interesting turn of fortune.

Return of Reckoning

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Chapter XVII - Recovery

Chapter XVII - Recovery

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