Chapter XV - Snowblind

Senlui · Post #1 » Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:36 am

A quiet fell amid those gathered for the victory feast; sounds of joy and boisterous boasting soon turned into an uneasy silence, only occasionally interspersed with apprehensive murmurs as the Ithilsyn stood flanked by two guards, a sword pressed against her throat. Holding his wine cup, the Commander calmly ordered, “Sathari, Vithari, remove the Seeress’ regalia and staff.”

Sathari nodded, almost reluctantly as she cast her gaze around the tent, until her decades of training took over to carry out Caranordor’s commands. “Milady, your staff, do not make this bloody please.”

“Don’t bother asking, just do it” grumbled Vithari as they begun their work. The Seeress held herself with dignity as she handed her staff to Sathari, before her spell crown, collar, vambraces, and finally her boots were removed from her. Stripped to her robe, she was transfixed by Amarthandir as the sorcerer poured the contents of his wine glass out onto the ground, before letting the crystal glass fall and shatter into a thousand pieces, his unseeing eyes fixed onto the scene before him. What ill portent was he trying to relay? Her brow creased into a frown, before she looked to Sathari, who seemed conflicted by her task, snapping. “She is a Seeress, accord her some respect regardless of whatever crimes she is accused of.”

Ignoring the remark, Caranordor smirked at the seeress ordering his guards to restrain her. “Now... put her in chains. I’ve brought these just for a special occasion like this one.” Gesturing to a chest, therein lay a set of shackles, marked with runes; their purpose to inhibit any attempts of their wearer using magic. Should they attempt to do so, the iron bands would cause great harm to any sorcerer. “I’d advise you be on your best behaviour now, Seeress, or you won’t live long enough to be tried”. Ithilsyn held her head up and held eye contact with her accuser as she was shackled at her ankles, then her wrists. Her hands held in front of her, she allowed her senses to test the wards, feeling a dull pulse running through the metal, touching her pale skin with a feverish ache. Gretka turned away from the scene, the witch elf surprisingly upset by what was occurring. “Have I ever refused your command, Caranordor?” Ithilsyn asked quietly, regarding the Commander with a look of disdain. He grinned maliciously and hissed a reply, “Why yes, and we shall determine exactly their number.”

The Commander’s words ebbed off as his the din of a gale rose all about, beating against the tent noisily. As the winds rose, the invisible currents of the winds of magic unfurled with a crackle of energy, peaking in a thunderous sound across the valley. The weather shifted suddenly and unexpectedly; thick grey clouds obscuring the sun, a chill sweeping about the land. Snowflakes began to fall dancing in the swirling wind; moments later forming into a heavy blizzard so intense that the horizon could not be seen. Sensing magic at play, Sildra arched an eyebrow as her lips curled into a faint smile, as the Commander glared at Ithilsyn, “More thalken trickery... or perhaps your friends, Seeress, hmm?” Ithilsyn coolly replied, “Perhaps...”, gazing at Caranordor with a thin smirk. Let him think that, she thought. “There is treachery afoot, that much is certain”, mused Amarthandir.

Andyrion stared at Ithilsyn, a relative newcomer posted to the Regiment he was yet to become accustomed to their ways. What an introduction this would be. The seeress looked him up and down, before returning her attention to the Commander, who exclaimed, “No matter, we shall head out regardless. Regiment! Forward, regroup outside.”

“This will end poorly...” Vithari muttered, as she and Sathari followed Caranordor out of the tent with the Seeress between them, the rest of the Druchii behind. Sathari nodded, gripping Ithilsyn’s arm tightly. Taking in the swirling blizzard before her, the wind pulling her hair and robes, Ithilsyn stepped barefoot into the snow. She shivered. It had nothing to do with the weather.

Above the howl of the snowstorm, Caranordor cried out, “Form a column, we march!”

Amarthandir stepped boldly into the blizzard, seemingly unaffected by the cold. Sildra inhaled deeply as she turned her eyes to the sky, greatly enjoying the shivering cold. Andyrion watched Ithilsyn with distrust and readied his glaive to fend off what surely was coming, as the Regiment pushed through the snow that lay thick about them towards the Valetear Road, or at least where they recalled it to be. For all was concealed from their view. “Stay vigilant!” Caranordor barked, “Can barely see anything in this damned snow...”

Pushing onwards, the harsh blizzard showed no signs of abating. Slaa struggled to keep pace with the Regiment as the cold cut through her, more deeply than any natural storm would. The swirling snowstorm rendered them to barely visible silhouettes, matching any storm of the peaks of Naggaroth in ferocity. Andyrion trudged forwards, watching the skies and the surrounding area for any foes. “Not even in Naggarond did I witness such a blizzard. I wonder if it is the wrath of a god or mere sorcery?” he questioned out loud, glancing ahead to Ithilsyn, struggling with shackled ankles through the snow. “This weather is unnatural...” replied Amarthandir.

An hour had passed, maybe more. The field of waystones was lost behind them, the way ahead unclear through the swirling flurries of snow hurling itself upon the hillsides. Cold and weariness gripped them, their breath misting before them.

An all too familiar sound joined the din of the howling wind. “Behind!” cried Sylleth, with alarm, as the whine of arrows reached their ears. It was barely enough time for the Dark Elves to react as the volley of black fletched arrows that fell upon them. Restrained so and denied any means of defending herself, all Ithilsyn could do was try to crouch, ducking her head to try to protect herself from the rain of death their unseen assailants had shot forth. She cried out as an arrow struck her between her collar bone and shoulder, lodging itself in her flesh. Surprisingly Amarthandir too took a hit, narrowing his eyes as he experienced the unfamiliar sensation of pain as an arrow lodged itself in his arm. Sylleth moved swiftly, reaching out with her hand and plucking an arrow from the air, a moment from it striking her head. Having heard the warning cry, Vithari turned her gaze to the rear of the column, just in time to allow an arrow through an eyehole in her helmet. By some fortune the arrow did not find her eye, instead scratching down through her brow into her cheek, sending a runnel of blood to cloud her vision. Affected by the cold of the storm, Slaa was in a daze, barely noticing the roars around her. Only the sensation of an arrow piercing her right shoulder jarred her from her daze, as she found herself rolling to the ground in agony and bewilderment, Gretka nearby dodging an arrow by a hair’s breadth. Slaa took an elixir from her belt, and downed its contents. As its warming effects took hold, she raised herself to her feet, determined to make it through the storm. Andyrion had taken an arrow to the right arm. He glanced down upon it and paid it no attention, as another bit into Caranordor, lodging in his shoulder plate. “We have to push through this snow!” he called out, “Or we’re dead!”

The arrows continued to come, as the Regiment, cold, dazed, and wounded tried to seek out their source. Visibility made it impossible, they could only guess where their enemy might be. It was chilling to realise that a few yards away their enemy could be gathered unseen, waiting for the kill.

Rolling her eyes at the failures of her peers, Sildra lifted her staff up high, peering about herself before slamming it into the ground before her. Large torrents of snow billowed up from the path in front of the Druchii, flung sideways to clear the path as if it had never snowed to begin with. The Druchii ran as the storm closed in around them again, concealing them from their foes.

Amarthandir reached for the arrow lodged in his arm, breaking it and pulling it out, vowing vengeance under his breath as Vithari ripped her helmet from her head. Throwing it into the now before her, she tried to regain some vision, one eye stinging from the blood that had flowed into it. They had only a moment to gather themselves before ahead, distant lights bobbed back and forth, dancing through the blizzard. After what seemed like an eternity, a bone-chilling howl cut through the storm, quickly followed by another, and another still, before three shapes lumbered through the snowstorm towards them. With snarls and howls, three abnormally large white-pelted wolves rushed towards the Regiment, snapping their teeth as they quickly closed the distance.

Andyrion plucked the arrow from his forearm, and flung it to the ground. Silent and grim, he gazed upon the beasts racing to attack, and lowered his glaive. “What manner of wolves attacks a Regiment?” queried Sildra, surprised by such an onslaught. Lions perhaps would have been more expected. She rolled to her side, narrowly avoiding a lunging bite from the first of the wolves that came leaping towards them, Gretka bowled over by the matriarch of the pack, who slid in an arc towards her with a snarling maw. As Vithari swung her sword out in a wide arc intending to keep a wolf at bay for a moment, Andyrion raised his glaive and lunged at the beast flinging it back into the snow with a mortal wound. The third wolf bound into Sathari, knocking her to the ground, before turning on Amarthandir to close its teeth around the sorcerer’s leg. The beast looked perplexed as its teeth closed on thin air, Amarthandir merely appearing in another place. Grinning, the sorcerer unleashed shadowy tendrils from his hand which entered the animal’s eyes and mouth. Without a sound, the wolf fell dead to the ground.

Sylleth dodged the matriarch, which then reeled around to make a kill. Seeing the wolf, jaw snapping, Ithilsyn was in no position to fight. An arrow still lodged in her collarbone, chains restricting her magic, she gathered herself and met the gaze of the head of the pack, to stare her down. The wolf regarded her, testing her will, before deciding better of it. Sildra waved a hand, freezing the wolf’s paws to the ground, then nimbly dove in with a knife, slicing open the beast’s throat. Vithari smiled at Ithilsyn, remarking “Good work, Seeress, even without magic you scare the dregs.” Ithilsyn glanced to Vithari curtly, then back to the path, calling on all her mental fortitude to see her through this.

As they regrouped, Caranordor looked on in astonishment, the white of the snow decorated with sprays of red from the fight. “Wolves attacking heavily armoured soldiers?” Sildra sheathed her knife, replying “Either they’re rabid, or they are bound with this blizzard.”

“Press on, I do not like the look of this” the Commander ordered.

Slaa had been left behind, buried under the lifeless body of one of the wolves. Snow collected in its fur as the wind continued to howl, the Druchii moving on without her. “Halt!” the Commander called, “We’ve lost one of the Brides.” The Dark Elves looked to him as they tried to assess his course of action, “No matter, it’ll keep the wolves off us” replied Vithari, expecting more where the earlier pack had come from. Caranordor frowned. “Casualties are to be expected,” murmured Amarthandir, Vithari glancing at the male sorcerer as she replied, “You should be careful then.” Ithilsyn could not help but smile to herself at lightly veiled threat. “Always,” he replied, meeting her look with a distant yet deep gaze of his own.

Before they could continue further, the road on which they trod suddenly gave way, revealing a previously well-camouflaged pit brimming with razor-sharp tips of ice. Vithari narrowly avoided the trap, chucking as she remarked, “Oh well, that’s quite the pit... We could very easily lose a sorcerer down there!” Others were not so fortunate.

Sildra attempted to leap away from the chasm opening beneath her, but caught herself on a thin patch of ice. Losing her balance, she tumbled downwards, quickly blasting apart a shard of ice that would otherwise have impaled her outright. A fragment caught her right arm, leaving a deep laceration. Andyrion could not see his hand before his face, so thick was the blizzard. With the limited visibility provided through his helmet, by the time he was aware the ground was falling away, there was nothing he could do, and the armoured guard fell heavily into the pit below, a spike piercing his leg through his armour, shortly followed by Sylleth who tore her leg on her way down against the sharp edges.

In the middle of the path and directly behind Caranordor, Ithilsyn could see nothing much ahead besides swirling snow. Suddenly she felt the ground beneath her fall, and with a cry found herself plummeting downwards. The chain connecting her wrists snagged somehow on a root on the edge of the pit, leaving her dangling mere inches away from the wicked spikes below. With an arrow still embedded in her collarbone, she glanced up helplessly, wondering if anyone would pull her out, as Sathari tumbled down into the pit, falling past her. A mailed glove reached down to her, and she grasped it before being hauled up to her surprise by the Commander, his face twisted with hate. “You don’t think you’re getting away so easily, do you?” he glowered as he pulled her free from the trap. “I am forever in your debt,” she replied, her voice thick with sarcasm.

As Andyrion and the others pulled themselves out of the trap, the Commander roared, “Andyrion, protect the prisoner!” he limped to his feet, and pressed his glaive against the Seeress’ neck. Whether through cold or exhaustion, or no longer caring of what else they might do, she ignored the edge against her throat, asking “Pull this arrow out, would you?” She gasped as Vithari yanked it free with one brutal movement, nodding with gratitude as she blinked against the pain.

“This accursed snowstorm has to end. Move out!” snarled Caranordor, urging them to keep moving. It was then that the hillside roared, a torrent of snow hurtling towards them. There was nowhere to run.

Return of Reckoning

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Chapter XV - Snowblind

Chapter XV - Snowblind

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