DKMortals/SessionThirtyFour

[Avia] Even sleeping, Avia looked like an outlander. She had special clothes for sleeping, white robes , and she knotted up her long black hair in elaborate braids rather than let it lay loose on the pillow .She smiles in her sleep. She looks sweeter, sleeping.

[Avia] She wakes slowly, blinking fuzzy memories from her mind. She had been dreaming of White Raven, she recalled, and Rook had been there. They had both been alive and whole. The red twins had been laughing over some joke...She reaches for the memory, but it fades like mist form her grasp. She sits up, pushing the furs off, and the cold strikes her like a fist.

[Avia] "Damn north..." she mutters.The others, her new 'comrades' hardly noticed it, and stopped her from adding wood to the fire. Did she dare put her feet to the groud without finding her slippers first?

[ST] The barracks is gloomy and cold, with only a single lantern guttering fitfully. Rows of beds stand in ranks - enough to accomodate the entire scale and a few more besides, if needed. As far as Avia knows, they never have - the matresses are hard, lumpy, and bedbug-ridden. One doesn't sleep on them unless one is unfortunate enough to be on guard duty at the Tomb, as she and a few others are

[ST] on this dark, miserable night.

[Lynx] Lynx lies curled around the shaft of his staff, wedged between the bunk above, and the floor below. It had taken him a few nights to realize that he didn't ahve to sleep on the bed. After that, the nights had been better.

[ST] Avia hears movement in the dark as she wakes. The bobbing lantern moves across the other end of the room, halting by Lynx's bunk for a moment before dipping down to the floor.

[ST] Lynx feels a hand on his calf, shaking him awake. The touch is ice-cold.

[Avia] Avia locates her slippers at last, but even through the padded fabric she can feel the ancient cold floor. She stands smoothly. "Our shift already?" She looks longingly at a kettle strung over a fire. "I haven't even had my tea."

[Lynx] He pokes the foot of his staff at whatever it was instinctively - ddon't kick - might lose the other foot. When he remembers where he is, then he kicks.

[ST] "Dammit!" a voice swears softly. The figure staggers, then turns to Avia. "There's no time. Ironheart wants us to report immediately."

[Avia] Avia raises a delicate eyebrow. "Does she? Well. We must certainly oblige her." A little of the haughtiness leaves her voice. "Dress? Weapons and armor?"

[Lynx] Ironheart. He breathed a bit faster, in fear. They had given him a few days before she'd come for him, talking of duty. A week of people pulling him one way then the other, then yelling at him, until she came to talk to him againa nd added herself firmly to his universe of fears. He listened to ehr now, and her orders.

[ST] The figure steps away from Lynx's bed, holding up the lantern. Avia sees light playing across a gaunt, pale face, hollow eyes, short hair the consistency of straw and the color of milk. This would be Pallid Rose, known colloquially and derisively as Morta. Some say she is a ghost-blooded, some that she was born in a Shadowland. All say she's poor company.

[ST] "We have to go," she says again. "She told us to prepare for battle."

[Avia] Avia nods. "At once." A little blood would relieve the tedium. She strips without modesty and dons the silk underclothes, the padding, and finally intricate articulated plated, polished til shone. A white bird is enameled on the front. She straps her own sword Blue Heron to her waist and turns to Morta.

[Lynx] He wriggles out from under the bed, and stands up, in his rumpled and stained clothing. New clothing, far less stained than his old, but she had insisted, and then he saw that people weren't looking at the door before he came in it anymore. After that he bought new clothes every time someone told him to.

[Avia] "I'm ready." She watches Lynx silently as he finishes his own toilet.

[ST] "This way," Morta says, as if they haven't walked to Ironheart's office a hundred times before. She walks with her usual shuffling gait, but she seems to have picked up the pace. The lantern in her hand sways, casting light back along the bare stone walls of the Tomb. Behind them, the fire burns down in the hearth untended.

[Lynx] He was ready, of course, he always slept in his armor. He felt the bruises on its side where it had pressed into him over the night, but the pain was reassuring.

[ST] Morta doesn't make it as far as Ironheart's office - instead, she stops in front of Soldas', not even bothering to knock before she shoves it open and enters.

[Avia] Avia can't avoid noticing the state of Lynx's armor. She winces slightly, and feels compelled to observe just as they enter the office, "It's terrible for the armor to sleep in it. You have to let the joints breath-"

[Lynx] He hesitates, and then follows, confused for them moment before he saw Ironheart waiting there. There was a brief hitch in his step, and then he moved on, turning along the wall and stopping in the farthest corner, shuffling slightly hunched to keep his eyes on her.

[ST] Soldas' office is dark, only a single burning candle on the desk providing light. In the dim corners, one can barely make out Soldas' pointless campaign maps, ostentatious wall hangings, and display weaponry. Athela Ironheart stands behind the desk, haggard and pale. The sight of her is a shock - it's as if she has aged five years since the last time any of them saw her.

[Lynx] He nods slightly at her question, because people normally left things at that. He thought for a moment about what she'd said, but he didn't understand it, so he stopped.

[ST] "You're here," she says bluntly. "Don't sit. There's no time." Her knuckles grip the edge of the desk so hard they've turned white.

[Avia] Avia doesn't salute, but her eyes widen. "What's this about?"

[Lynx] He watches.

[ST] "The three of you are the only ones here." Her eyes are bloodshot and darting. She has the look of some ancient edifice about to crumble. "You'll have to do. I have received a... message."

[ST] "Magdala, the Lunar Anathema, has returned. She has allies. Shanarinara. The Fellai. They march on the League even now."

[Avia] "A Lunar Anathema." Avia smiles. "This is serious. Shanarinara- I remember that name from the maps. Beastly to pronounce. What do you want us to do about it? Do your order come from, ah, the kings and queens here?"

[Avia] She stumbles a little trying to find the right word in Icetongue for the Haslanti rulers.

[ST] "No," Ironheart says, hesitating for a moment. "A trusted spy source has reported this news to me. I leave immediately to inform the Oligarchs of this urgent information. Your mission is a different one."

[Avia] Avia nods, watching her.

[ST] "The Fellai have betrayed us. There must be spies all throughout Icehome. We must act quickly if we are to catch them off guard."

[ST] "There is a man. A merchant. He has been spending money heavily in the Old Market. His name is Aru. Take him. Capture him. Alive."

[ST] "We will have questions. There is no time to inform the Ears of the North. You must move. The Once Dead are up to the task." Ironheart glares, the candle flame flickering in her eyes.

[Avia] "As you like." Avia glances doubtfully at the others. "Any information on where he stays? Who is friends are? What he looks like?"

[Lynx] He hunches down slightly. More danger everywhere, she was saying. Well, he knew a lot of the streets near here, and where they bothered to cover the sewers instead of just having them run in a ditch along the side of the street.

[Avia] It irked her to be reduced to collaring common spies, but she supposed the Once Dead were not a particular organizaiton. The steady odor rising from the 'comrade' beside her proved that.

[ST] "He rents rooms somewhere in the Old Market. Near the Brixen Square. A white-tiled roof." She waves her hand sharply. "Tall, dark skinned, dark hair. You know what the Fellai look like."

[Avia] "Never heard of them before tonight," Avia admits. "Tall, dark skinned, dark hair. I do not anticipate any difficulty."

[ST] "Never heard of the Fellai?" Morta scratches her cadaverous cheek. "You are strange."

[ST] "Go. Bring him back." Ironheart's voice is hard. "Kill any who oppose you. When you return, we will be prepared for him."

[Lynx] He vaguely knew. He didn't see color well through the hood, not at night at least, but dark he could tell.

[Avia] Avia shrugs. "Who can recall all the petty principalities up here?" She wondered how Ironheart had learned of the spy. "Shall we." She gestures to the door, loosening Blue Heron a little in its sheath.

[Lynx] He doesn't move, yet. Her eyes were on him, and he didn't want them angry at him. "Ah, s-someome sees, we kill them?"

[ST] "Only if they try to stop you. No Haslanti is fool enough to stand between the Once Dead and their quarry."

[ST] Morta nods silently at Avia's suggestion.

[Lynx] He nods jerkily. There was nothing mrope to ask, so he left since the other wanted to. They probably knew where that address was, he didn't need to ask that.

[Avia] "So where's Brixen Square?" Avia asks cheerfully enough as they leave the Tomb and begin down the snowy streets. She walks gracefully, with straight shoulders and all the poise of a dancer.

[ST] Morta trails after her, her own shoulders slightly hunched, eyes downcast. "It's this way." She says. "Then you turn. Then you-" It would be far easier to take the lead, but she does not.

[Lynx] Lynx trails slightly, staying close the the buildings on the moonward side of the street, staying in the shadows from it's faint light.

[ST] Dawn must be, at best, scant hours away. The sky is dark, the moon long having sunken out of sight. Harsh winds howl through the streets, and so the Once Dead stick to the canopied Winter Streets, out of the worst of the snow. The streets are all but empty, with only the occasional drunk or desperate prostitute in sight. There are no homeless in Icehome - they don't last longer than a night.

[Avia] So Avia leads them, occasionally twitching when Morta gives her directions a little belatedly. "Are either of you a thaumaturge?"

[ST] Morta shakes her head. Avia doesn't see. When she turns around a moment later, Morta shakes it again.

[Avia] It wasn't there fault, but Avia grinds her teeth all the same. "Appallling organization." For all their reputation, if they coordinated talent at all, it was by accident. "Are there covens of thamaturges on call?" Avia is beginning to examine roofs. The problem was, they all looked white.

[ST] "Covens? No. The Guild hires some." She shuffles along behind. "They're expensive."

[Lynx] He saw everything around with little jerks of his head. Maybe she mistook one for an answer, or maybe she hadn't expected one in the first place.

[ST] "Here," Morta says. "Brixen Square."

[ST] The covered street opens into a snow-drifted square. Several homes rise nearby, their doors tightly barred. A tiny Immaculate Temple sits dark and deserted across the square.

[Avia] "Mmm." Damned snowy Icehome. "I'm not an investigator. How do we proceed?" She looks around for a beggar, or a street sweeper, or an urchin child. A creature of that nature.

[ST] A young man stands in front of the temple, leaning heavily on an ash cane. He watches the trio suspiciously as the emerge. The houses around all look to be similar in size and shape. Several have tile roofs that could be considered white.

[Avia] "I didn't think they had Immaculates here," Avia greets him.

[ST] "They don't have many," the man says guardedly. He has the shaved head of all Immaculates, and it makes him look very young. But he does not move like one who is young, and when he raises a hand from his cane to gesture in welcome, the hand still on the cane trembles slightly.

[ST] "I am Brother Thunder. What is your business here, sister?"

[Lynx] He shrinks back slightly, staying mostly behind the last building corner before the square opened up. Well, Ironheart said that he didn't have to kill the kid, so he could just stay there. He glanced over the rooves and streets and then at the windows, then Morta then Avia and then back at the kid. Nothing moving but snow, anowflies, and those three.

[Avia] "Mm. You get around." Avia smiles in a pleasant way, but with a hardness behind it. Immaculates had killed Roshan, for heresy; he had been the second to die. "We are looking for a man. He lives here. Anu? Do you know him??"

[ST] "Aru? The name is known to me. What business do you have with him?"

[Avia] "Aru, yes. We had questions for him." Avia curls her fingers into a fist, to show him the black raven tatooed on the knuckles.

[ST] "The Corpses." Brother Thunder looks up at her uncertainly. "My last dealings with your lot ended poorly. I have them to think for my limp. Though I suppose that was my decision."

[Avia] "Corpses." Avia laughs quietly. "I had not heard that one. All too accurate, I fear, for some of us." By not looking at Morta, she singles her out. "Tell us where we may find Aru, and you need have no dealings with us now."

[ST] "I suppose I do owe your organization something," Brother Thunder says. "And the ways of the Dragons are inscrutable. Perhaps they gave me the pains in my belly so that I would wake this night and meet you." He shrugs. "Aru is in that building there. He seems a friendly enough man, despite his worship of heathen gods." He looks at the Once Dead in judgement.

[ST] "I pray that you do not harm him. I pray there will be no violence. If there is, I shall do penance for helping to bring it about selfishly. My debt to the Once Dead is repaid."

[Avia] "Thank you," Avia says with a slight bow in the Eastern fashion. He counted his debts lightly, if it could be repaid by directions. "Come," she tells the others, sweeping her heavy black cloak behind her. "Morta," she says in a low voice. "See if there is another ground floor exit."

[Lynx] Lynx looks at pauses with his eyes on him for a moment, before resuming his scan. The man knew them, and he said that. He did not understand.

[ST] Morta nods, moving away. She returns only a few moments later, shaking her head.

[ST] Brother Thunder watches them for a moment longer, then turns and enters the temple, not wishing to watch what happens next.

[ST] The house he pointed out looks like many others, with a pair of heavily shuttered windows and a stout oak door.

[Avia] "Wait on the summer street., Morta Be ready to grab him if he runs that way." She frowns at the door. Provided they could get in, of course. "We'll flush him your way if we can't grab him."

[Lynx] He moves up behind Avia, and taps her shoulder, pointing up towards the windows of the higher story. He didn't know what she meant to do, but it seemed best to go without waking anyone by asking.

[ST] Morta nods, climbing a rickety wooden staircase to the summer streets. The snow up there is knee high in some places, but the cold doesn't seem to bother her.

[Avia] Enter like a Chiarascuro burglar? She shrugs her shoulder at Lynx."Alright, Noisy. We'll do it your way." She looks at the building. It couldn't be hard to climb to the third floor from the summer street. Not hard. But cold, and icy. Maybe the smelly man was braver than she gave credit for.

[Lynx] He takes the stairs to the second story of the street, cringing inwardly as he left footprints in the snow, but there was no help for it. There hadn't been walking to the place either. It felt like he was leaving a record pointing at him wherever he went. Outdoors at least.

[Avia] She follows Lynx up to the summer street. Then gestures him to the drainpipe. Dirty as he was, this seemed his field. And he wouldn't be climbing in half a hundred pounds of metal.

[Lynx] He tucks his spear through the back of his belt, and cinches it tighter around his waist, so that it wouldn't fall. She was right, the pipe was best, so he moved towards it, ducking slightly, so that his head stayed more than a foot from her had as he went. Fingers found purchase, and he slithered up the pipe, making the top floor easily.

[Lynx] The shirt over his armor muffled it, nothing was exposed on him to clank against the wall but thick cloth, and the cloth-like hood, the leather of his boots and the skin of his hands.

[ST] Lynx arrives first. Avia, clambering up in her armor, takes more time. Eventually, both of them find themselves perched on a narrow ledge that runs around the top floor of the building. A single large window is set into the wall between them, tightly shuttered and sealed from within by wooden shutters. Light emerges, soft and diffuse, around the rims.

[Lynx] He stepped from there over to the outer sill of a window, bracing with his hands on the underside of the eaves above him.

[Lynx] Light. Someone was awake. He didn't want to open the window now. He stopped breathing, and listened, trying to hear what he could.

[ST] Both Avia and Lynx can hear the sound of music, and of laughter. Numerous voices. If this is Aru's home, he most definitely isn't alone.

[Avia] Avia moves awkwardly down the ledge, looking for another window and cursing herself for not following her first instincts. These other Haslanti were allies. Theoretically.

[Lynx] He freezes, then hunches slightly, slow enough that you wouldn't notice the movement, just that he was smaller between one blink and the next.

[Lynx] Another window. Couldn't go in here. At least they would see if any of them left, since all the doors were in front. Unless there as a tunnel, or someone had knocked through to one of the other houses - wall to wall, they could ahve made it a warren.

[Lynx] All of them enemies. If any of them escaped, Ironheart would be angry. And she would know. Even if he didn't tell her that they were, she would know that he should have gotten them all for her.

[Avia] When at last she finds one dark she unsheathes Blue Heron and works it between the window pane and the ledge. Her old Masters would be appalled to see her using the blade so, but the sword was only a tool, after all.

[ST] Avia probes with Blue Heron, searching for the catch on the shutters. The tip of the blade finds it unerringly, but just as she nudges it, a massive gust of wind tears down from the valley walls of the Greenfield. The shutters blow open, striking the side of the house with a deafening crack. Avia's wrist is suddenly numb. Her sword seems to be missing.

[ST] From within, the sound of revelry suddenly stops. Avia finds herself looking into the astonished face of a naked Fellai woman. The woman backs away from the glass, mouth working like a fish's, and then lets out a shout

[Avia] "Doh." She lunges through the window and punches the Fellai in the face. She might be weaponless, but she still armored head to toe.

[Avia] "Lynx! Give me your sword if you have one!" she snaps.

[Lynx] Bangs and screams, and he can hear the commotion on the other side of his window. He flinches har denough that he almost slips and falls off the ledge, then scuttles to teh side, incase someone tried to open the window.

[Lynx] One hand retrieves his spear, the other bracing against the eaves above, holding his balance.

[Lynx] Just one of them to guard the two doors on this side, if he left. But She was yelling for him. He wanted to run.

[ST] Avia's armored fist punches through the glass with a crash, catching the woman in the face. She goes down, tangled in a silken bedsheet, still shouting. The momentum carries the warrior woman through the window's shattered frame. She strikes a bed, rolling over a prone, shouting Fellai man to crash into the floor. As she staggers upright, she sees that she's in a small bedchamber, dominated by

[ST] a large feather bed unlike those favored by the Haslanti.

[Lynx] Thoughts ran through his head again, but he had long ago decided he couldn't just run. Ironheart had made promises. She would find him, or the other Dead.

[ST] A small door in the opposite wall opens as she turns to look, revealing a tall, dark-skinned Fellai man with long, braided hair. He is barechested, wearing only boots and silk pantaloons. A knife gleams in his hand. As he opens his mouth to shout, the last, absurd thing that Avia realises is that it's very COLD in here.

[ST] The hearth doesn't even have a fire in it.

[Avia] At least it was the right apartment, she supposed. "Drop your knife," she thunders, scrambling to her feet and scrambling to recover her dignity. Damned inhuman monsters. Would a fire have killed them? She hadn't realized there would be so MANY Fellai.

[Avia] How was she supposed to tell one from the next?

[ST] The man in the doorway curses in a strange dialect. "Aodo! Mas valani mi Auli?" He narrows his eyes as he spots the blood running from Avia's gauntlet. "You! What have you done to my sister?"

[ST] The man on the bed babbles something in explaination. The woman on the floor is out cold.

[Avia] Avia grimaces. "You're wanted for questioning." Or perhaps the man in the bed was. "Will you come quietly?"

[ST] "Whore!" he shouts in response. "Who are you to demand such a thing. I will have your heart for this!"

[Avia] She lunges forward suddenly, to the cold fireplace, rollling to her feet with a poker held jauntily before her with as much confidence as if it were the Blade of the Empress. "Will you? I don't think you will. I'm Once Dead." She shows him her knuckles. "Come quietly, and you'll come less bruised."

[ST] Giving a cry of alarm, the Fellai springs into the room, feet sliding on the thick carpeting there. It's piled right up to the edge of the fireplace - clearly, it hasn't been lit often.

[ST] His blade flashes in the guttering light of the bedside lamp as it seeks Avia's throat.

[Avia] She tilts her head back, and her poker dances up, the tip slamming jarringly against his wrist. "You'll have to do better. MUCH better...to defeat me."

[ST] He curses, shouting in alarm. Several cries answer him from the other room, into which Avia can only dimly see. There appear to be many more bodies there.

[Avia] She teases him, jabbing the poker this way and that, so that he yanks his knife around trying to anticipate her attack. One such strike, she flows into the movement. He twists around,trying to keep her in sight, and suddenly, she is between him and the door.

[Avia] She grins. It wasn't nearly how it used to be, it wasn't fighting the Grey Fox in the Bodoir of Hanging Roses, but it was something. "Sure you won't surrender?"

[Lynx] These men, they weren't as bad as Ironheart, weren't as bad as the things, he could stop them, and then Ironheart would let him crawl away for a while, alone. She didn't bother him when she didn't need him.

[Lynx] He snapped the spear around, flicking the tip inbetween the shutters, and used it as a huge lever. The catch wasn't nearly as good metal as the spearhead.

[ST] "I'll never surrender to a dog like you!"

[ST] The man snarls, vicious, standing between his fallen sister and Avia. This alone seems to give him strength in the face of her superior skills. The man in the bed staggers out of it, hurriedly groping around on the carpets for a weapon, or perhaps his clothing.

[Avia] The grin slides away from her face, and suddenly she looks cold and hard. "Careful who you insult." She lunges forward, poker lashing out for his heart.

[ST] The window's shutters drift open, and Lynx sees within. It takes him a moment to process what he's seeing. Directly ahead of him, Avia's armored back is visible through a doorway. He looks into a room strewn with brightly colored paper lanterns, and full of Fellai. He spots women, men, hookahs, rugs, pillows. Figures race about startled, shouting, some disengaging from lovemaking or opium

[ST] smoking to grope for weapons. One man in tight fitting lamellar armor rises from his position by another door, hefting a huge war hammer.

[Avia] "They used to call me a hero,, after all." As he staggers from the poke to the heart, she suddenly slams her poker against his side.

[ST] Avia's attacks dart through the man's guard like it isn't even there. The head of the poker is nothing but cheap iron, but it stabs deep into his chest, pricking his heart. As she pulls it out, he staggers back, catching the stab in the side. The knife slips from his nerveless fingers. Blood courses down his chin. The woman on the floor looks up, screaming in anguished horror. "AYU!"

[Avia] Ayu. She wanted Aru. Not her prey, then. Curse these Fellai. "You stay put, if you want to come out of this alive," she warns him soberly. "You, girl, try to stop the bleeding." There was a time she would have felt a bully for doing that, or worse. A villain.

[Avia] Another lifetime ago-

[ST] The girl looks up at Avia with tears in her eyes, uncomprehending. That's when Avia sees the flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. The man from the bed has laid hands on a tube. A blowgun of some kind, a - he blows, and she prepares to block the dart. But what emerges is not a dart, but a stream of red dust, sparkling strangely as it swirls around her.

[ST] The powder settles in through the seams of Avia's armor, alighting on her face, her breasts, her thighs. She has but a moment to recognize it. It is something she has witnessed before in her travels, a mean little artifact from the First Age. A substance called Eight-Scream Devil Powder.

[ST] A moment later, a wave of crippling pain strikes her body. It feels as if her skin is burning and being flayed away at the same time. The agony is tremendous, the kind of pain only sorcery can bring.

[Avia] Bastard. Sneaky little bastard. She respected that. They'd done similar things- and then she can't think.

[Avia] "Little shit!" She flings herself at him.

[ST] As he cringes back, a pair of Fellai, a man and a woman, enter the room, behind her, shouting. They bear strange weapons, like clubs lined with chips of obsidian, and wear nothing but the same silks as the others. Not that Avia has much time to notice this as they charge her like a pair of jackals, chopping away.

[ST] Lynx looks into a scene of pandemonium. People dart this way and that, a few of them moving through the crowd with purpose. Most, a mixture of dark-skinned Fellai and paler Haslanti, attempt to flee or cringe away from the assault.

[Lynx] THey hadn't seen him yet, but he had to intervene. For all her confidence, Avia was getting swarmed. He stabbed through the window, the spear licking into the back of the thigh of a woman who had just stood and started screaming, delayed slightly by the haze of whatever she had been smoking.

[ST] The woman collapses, shrieking, and the Fellai turn to look at the madman breaking through the other window.

[Lynx] Good, he'd caught her hamstring, she wouldn't be running. He hopped through the window, glancing around to see everyone. More in his room. Find the stair and stop anyone from running? Help the Dead woman?

[ST] Lynx is buffeted by the crowd. Bodies smash into him, crawl in front of him, stagger and stumble aimlessly, many running to a door in the far wall, a few others to a door in the wall opposite. None seem to enter the room where Avia is fighting for her life.

[Avia] Avia falls back from the two new Fellai, and open wound on her hand. Her eyes are narrowed. She- the last of the White Herons- was not about to die to northern mutants. She owed it to her brothers and sisters to die with more pride than that. She stumbles on the silk shirt strewn across the floor, and she smiles. It had hurt.

[Avia] She stomps down hard on the blade, and it flips cleanly to hand. "Still time to run, children."

[ST] "You'll pay for what you've done!" The woman shouts back at Avia. Together, the pair of Fellai spring at her, chopping and hacking expertly.

[Avia] The awful red powder still screams along her nerves. It makes her want to kill them, as if killing them would make it stop. Pain. "What I've done? Surrender!"

[Avia] Their primitive weapons rattle against her armor. "Surrender, before I kill you too."

[ST] "You defile our sacred fellowship!" The man screams, voice filled with rage. "Who are you?"

[ST] Through the press of the crowd, Lynx sees a lone figure dart over to a spot on the far wall, droppin to his knees and clawing at the timber there as if he's looking for something.

[ST] Meanwhile, the large Fellai in the lamellar armor is bearing down on Lynx, shoving his way through the crowd to sent people sprawling, a massive warhammer clutched in his fists.

[ST] "I don't know who you are, little man," the big Fellai laughs. "But you've made the last mistake of you life." He twirls the massive hammer expertly, whipping it back and sending it sailing for Lynx's skull

[Lynx] He ducks, and whipes the tail of his spear around to the handle of the passing hammer, to disrupt the man's timing. But the giant handled it better than expected, and caught him with the second swing.

[Avia] Sacred fellowship? She had been in temples like that back in Chalta. "I'm looking for Aru," she says. She sways on her feet, deflecting one smash than another from the hammer. "Do you know him?"

[ST] The giant Fellai swings his weapon back, off balance. The backswing catches a man in the head and busts it open, leaving him to bleed on the floor.

[ST] "Aru?" the woman says. "You will not have him!"

[Avia] The tip of her new sword dips suddenly, scooping up a lacy bit of cloth. She flings it at the man and then follows up with a delicate twist of her wrist to slice open his shoulder. "Yes, but why not? Then I can go back to bed." She slashes at the woman's thigh on the way back.

[ST] The slice shears through the man's shoulder and deep into his torso. He pulls back, gurgling, as a slash opens up on the woman's thigh.

[ST] "Haslanti dog!" she shouts. "You have looked at Fella with hunger long enough. We shall burn you all for the Lady!"

[Avia] It was very disheartening. She wasn't starting to smell like Lynx, was she? "You are very tedious. Where. Is. Aru?" Each syllable is punctuated by a rapid flick of the tip of her saber.

[Avia] She watches the woman's eyes. Even the hint of a glance...

[Lynx] He edges towards the man at the wall, but spends most of his energy dodging and wealing, batting at the awinging hammer with the ironbound shaft of his spear, deflecting it, keeping it away. Then one moment he breaks the pattern, letting a swing past him before darting at it with the spear-blade, trying to catch the man's hands.

[ST] The woman does dart a betraying glance back to the other room, but it's only for a moment. "You shall not have him!" She repeats again.

[ST] The man that Avia cut staggers against the bed, blood spraying wildly as he slumps, staining the mattress. The fallen Fellai, Ayu, was it, continues to bleed around his sister's hands. The woman, the last remaining, stares furiously at Avia, her hand trembling slightly.

[Lynx] Three fingers fly off into the room, and the man's curses. Lynx jumps back, still breathing even.

[ST] The blood that splatters Lynx's face is strangely chill. The man's eyes open wide, a vicious curse escaping his lips as he bears down upon Lynx, swinging his hammer down in a brutal overhand strike.

[Lynx] Deflects, skitter back. But the strike was far too strong, and suddenly the wall was at his back and the hammer exploded downwards. He hit the floor hard and unmoving.

[ST] As Lynx fades from consciousness, he sees the man busily working at the wooden boards finally wrench them apart, disappearing down the sudden hole in a swirl of dark hair.

[Avia] "Help your men live, if you want," Avia offers. "You can't stop me more than a few seconds longer."

[ST] "I am helping the nation of Fella to live," the woman snarls. "Do you think we do not know why you have come? By now Aru is away from this place."

[Avia] "Then get out of my way," Avia says very calmly.

[ST] "Never!"

[ST] She steps into the doorway, blood coursing down her left thigh, holding her ground.

[Avia] "As you wish." And swift and deadly as a swooping heron, Avia's sword flicks up and slices open the back of her head.

[Avia] The blade cuts sweet and true. Avia has recovered from her lunge and is walking past the Fellai before she even realizes she's dead. The Fellai takes a step, then stops, mouth gaping open like a fish, as the top half of her head slides slowly off.

[Avia] The Fellai woman's body slumps to the groud. Avia's boots cut tracks through a widening pool of blood. "Excuse me!" she calls. "Aru!"

[ST] The woman's body falls to the floor, twitching. The naked man has curled himself up protectively in a corner, babbling. The naked woman sobs over the fallen Ayu. Blood no longer pulses from his horrible wounds.

[ST] "Aru is gone, woman," comes the gravelly shout in answer. "But I am waiting. I have already killed your reeking comrade. Come, face me."

[ST] There is a sudden commotion behind Avia. Morta's head appears over sill, then the rest of her. She's breathing heavily - any other woman would be flushed. And there, cradled awkwardly in her arms like a cheap parcel, is Blue Heron.

[ST] "Brought your sword," she says, looking around at the carnage.

[Avia] Avia notices the little man knocked to the floor. Damn. She was not looking forward to explaining this debacle to Ironheart. She grins at Morta and casts the clumsy slashing sword aside. She catches the Blue Heron by its hilt and salutes Morta. "Thanks."

[Avia] "Very well, man. I will you kill you as I killed your fellows. And then, be sure, I will find Aru."

[ST] Morta looks blankly back, past Avia to the advancing Fellai. Blood stains his armor, but he's moving recklessly through the crowd. By now, it has dispersed, many breaking down the door in fear, one or two hurling themselves out the windows, the others simply cringing against the walls.

[Avia] She steps forward as delicately as a swan on water. The blade Blue Heron shimmers in the candlelight, the patterns in the steel rippling.

[ST] With a frenzied scream, the man leaps through the last few scattering partygoers, his weapon whistling down at Avia's breastplate.

[Avia] She catches the hammer on the edge of her sword, and such is the strength in the weapon that the edge isn't even blunted as the hammer screams down along it. Blue sparks fly from the weapon. Avia grins. "I've fought Gods-" she slices at his head, pivots "Demons-" she chops Blue Heron down against his shoulder. "And Exalts." She puts all strength behind the blow, turning the rip at his shoulder into a long

[Avia] bloody tear across his stomach.

[Avia] "They have never killed me."

[Avia] "What makes you think you could?"

[Avia] Sprays of blood follow each wound, coating her face in the manner of a demon. After the last, the hero of the Fellai is driven to his knees. Ten years ago she would have clapped him on the shoulder and called on him to rise as a friend. Five years ago she would have turned away.

[Avia] Today she takes his head from his shoulders in one clean cut. Blue Heron drips red.

[Avia] She kicks his head against the wall. It spins, rolls, and bounces against a door, rocking to a halt with eyes wide and staring. "Tell me where Aru has gone."

[ST] After a moment, one man hesitantly raises a trembling hand, pointing to where a ragged hole has been torn in the wall. Behind Avia, sobs continue to ring out from the woman. A murmur goes through the crowd

[ST] "-not human-"

[ST] "-monsters-"

[ST] "-devil- a devil-"

[Avia] Avia walks to the hole, curls her fingers around it, and yanks.

[ST] Wood breaks away in Avia's fingers, revealing a narrow passage that vanishes into darkness.

[Avia] Their whispers bother her, but it doesn't show on her stony face. The White Raven was eight years in his grave, what did it matter if faceless peasants from a place she'd never heard of feared her?

[Avia] "Morta. Call constables and get that Immaculate to tend to the wounded." Such as they were. She'd killed most of hers. "When they're here, we're going after Aru. So hurry."

[ST] Morta is kneeling on the carpet, poking experimentally at the Fellai woman with half a head. At Avia's call, she quickly stands. "Very well."

[ST] She hastens out past the cringing crowd.

[Avia] "You." She points at a woman at random. "Bring me water. LOTS of water."

[Avia] Adrenaline had got her through some of it, but her lips twitch with the pain.