Quendalon/Session10ZeraInterlude
Night had fallen in the woods outside of Idris, the comforting presence of the Unconquered Sun hidden away by a canopy of darkness and stars. Zera Thisse and Thorwald of Stonehold finished the last of a cold, cheerless supper and set about looking for somewhere to sleep. Thorwald agreed to take the first watch, and set his back against the trunk of a thick oak, his eyes seeming to plead for an intrusion to their rest. Zera tossed and twisted in his bedroll, with dull aches shooting up from his wounded shoulder, and the rocks and the roots below all seeking purchase somewhere in his back. As uncomfortable as all this was, Zera was far more troubled by the presence of the deathknight Forty-Four Devil Blossoms - hiding out somewhere in the forest looking for another chance to kill him. Her single-mindedness concerning him was disturbing, and the fact that she was in much better condition than either one of them also set Zera on edge. She would attack them again tonight - he knew it. He twisted again, stifling a cry of pain and trying in vain to find some rest. After a time, he slept…
Thorwald glanced down at his sleeping companion, and felt a pang of sympathy. First, there was that odd behavior of the last few days. He didn't act in the same manner as Zera did, but something similar had happened to him. It was worth considering. Now, there seemed to be bad dreams. Zera writhed and muttered in his sleep, calling out at times for old relatives. Thorwald guessed he was probably revisiting Thorns in his mind, and he didn't blame the man. He passed the hours with thoughts of home - of cold winds, drifts of unforgiving snow, and the warmth of Northern women. All of a sudden, the realization came to him that something was very wrong… the wood was too quiet.
He snatched a hatchet from his belt and threw it across the camp without a single consicous thought, and saved Zera's life. A slouched and silent human figure fell backwards next to the archer, the axe-blade buried deep into his skull. As the body hit the ground with a dull thump, Zera rolled to his feet, snatching his bow up. He glanced ahead and behind, and poured Essence into his senses. He nocked an arrow, and went back-to-back with Thorwald.
“Have you heard anything else?”\\ “No, Zera Thisse, but that creature was no living thing… I think there will be more.”\\ “If that is true, perhaps this is the work of that filthy Deathknight child.”\\ “She is frightened to do battle with us now, Zera? Then no matter, we will slay whatever paltry minion that steps foot in this clearing!”
The wait was brief, and the rest of the zombies were on them so quickly even Thorwald was caught off guard. They came from all sides, eyes burning red and jaws working involuntarily, perhaps already tasting the blood they could smell. The Northman immediately charged into the fray, a wordless battle-cry on his lips. The greatsword swung in vicious arcs, and mottled-gray limbs and blackish ichor flew around him. He laughed as the sticky substance wet his arms and chest, and he spun behind him to lop the head off another attacker. Zera sent a shaft whistling through the air, and it caught one of the dead men in the eye. He tumbled to the leaf-strewn ground, and immediately three more were streaking past his corpse. The archer leaped up and grabbed a low branch with his free hand, and pulled himself up into the tree. He reached for another arrow, sent it home into another zombie, and reached again. He found nothing in the quiver. The dead began to climb the low-hanging branches…
Thorwald grunted as claws raked across his left arm. These blasted creatures were fast, he'd give them that much! The blood of proud Northman ran through his veins, and the tradition of protecting the Southern Lands from creatures such as this was his to claim. He shoved the sword blade into his attacker's torso, and spun mightily, flinging the corpse off his blade and into two of its companions. He was no longer surrounded, having cut a great swath into his adversaries. He laughed and shouted insults as he cheerily laid about him with his formidable blade. He never saw the deathknight melt out of the trees behind him, and draw her wicked bow…
Zera's sight was Essence-sharp, however, and he caught the motion. He didn't have much time to come up with a plan. The first zombie would reach him in moments. Suddenly, his eyes lost focus of the moon-bathed wood, and saw flashing, fitful visions of another Age. Kuro the Raven and her Circle - engaged in battle with creatures of the night. Shambling, mindless things, but there were many. Her paramour Blessed Wind about to be struck from behind. Pulling her bowstring back and loosing a bright-gold bolt of pure Essence. The creature exploding into flame.
Zera pulled the bow back and shot before his sight even returned to normal. An arrow of essence laced through the air, lacking the sunlit majesty of Kuro's technique, but was more than up to its' task. Forty-Four Devil Blossoms gripped her vile bow tightly, nocked an arrow of pure black, and smiled as she envisioned the shaft finding flesh between Thorwald's shoulder blades. She stood in perfect harmony with the bow, with the arrow, even with Thorwald, and she exulted in the joy of the kill. She saw the flash from her left, but didn't have time to blink as the Essence-arrow lashed through the air and into the haft of her bow, knocking her hand aside and sending the arrow flying into one of her own minions. She cursed and swung to retaliate, but another arrow of Essence was already in the air, and she hissed as it bounced off her soulsteel plate. This was not how she anticipated this ambush, and she immediately took off through the trees, leaving the rest of her minions to be cut down by the hated Solars. There would be another time...
“I saw you do a strange thing, brother. How did you think to do that, in the heat of the battle?”\\ “Kuro showed me how, Thorwald. You might find it helpful to try and listen to your past…”\\ “Bah. I am competent enough already!”\\ “That deathknight's arrow would have begged to differ, my large friend. Think on it…”
The two friends and brothers gathered their things and found a more amenable, zombie limb-free campsite, and passed the rest of the night in relative peace.
