- Chapter 15 -

 

Raven let loose with everything she had the moment her vision cleared, following the successful execution of Marishanna's spell of translocation. Her fearsome expression of power - a fan-like sheet of red flame, issuing forth from the illusionary eyes that floated just above her forehead - was a startling surprise for everyone, even the dancer herself, but thereafter, there was little of the Raven everyone thought they knew left.

Something more primal, more savage had emerged, just as it had done on the personal yacht of the Prince of The Sapphire Cluster, when the ship was attacked by the forces of the pirate princess Ikurlahaen. That Raven had been quite happy to snap men's necks while they were not looking, and this Raven looked prepared to do far worse.

The Dravwyrn roared in pain as its scales melted, and the membranes of its wings died under the heat and split, large oval holes appearing in them. The two Dravwaeri attendants leapt forward, hissing fiercely, and Raven hissed back, ready to tear them apart - but Sshraada got there first, leading the way with her slightly curved sword. Marishanna and Mararen split off to the other side to block the Dravwyrn's escape, and Raven was left to chose her own target.

Raven's main concern was Strides-Tall. The girl had been left on the ground, unconscious, and the black-tressed dancer could sense that the essential psychic essence that was Strides-Tall was fading rapidly, now that her mind could no longer actively resist the Curse. The Dravwaeri Sshraada was not engaged in combat with attempted to put himself between the elf and her rescuer, but Raven simply reached into his mind, and unleashed fears long since buried by devotion to his monstrous creator.

The monster collapsed onto the ground in a scaly heap, screaming like a scalded child, and Raven stepped over him to go to Strides-Tall's aid.

A fire long left to simply smoulder blazed afresh within Marishanna as she faced the father of monsters, and introduced him to Silver Death. This had been her life, all those years before, back on her home-world, where there had been monsters to fight, and wicked humans to slay, before she had been taken from the lands of her birth - and her native universe - by strange, otherworldly creatures. They had somehow come to grief in Lord Serpentine's Realm, and their vessel had laid in ruins on a lifeless lump of rock in space until the Succubus came, and accidentally freed her from what could have been centuries of deep, artificial sleep.

She had found her magic again, and now she had found a fight truly worthy of her skills. The Salvandireen adventuress, leaping into battle clad in feather-light enchanted armour summoned from a magical ring she wore, was truly whole again...

Mararen, too, found a whole different side to his being emerging as he looked his adversary in the eye, and swore to put out the evil fire he saw flickering there. He stopped being the wounded, soul-broken Dyal when there was a Dark Dravwyrn and its minions to destroy. No matter what he hoped or yearned for, that part of him would not let him die in battle.

Heslangithmanir knew who he was facing the moment Mararen's blade first bit into his flesh. The blade was enchanted, great power bestowed upon it by the monster's Bright cousins, and it was a power that had been exercised many times, and had matured over the centuries in the hands of many Waeribane.

The Dravwyrn had faced whole armies of Murgands, and had feasted on their corpses, but this was completely different. The Murgands had not used magic - it was not in their nature - but Heslangithmanir, slayer of armies, was now faced by two magical swords, both in the hands of expert swordsmen, and his only thought was to flee.

Raven sensed the Dravwyrn's fear, and looked up from Strides-Tall, who was starting to come round, apparently in far better shape than she had at first appeared. The monster was running, crouching down as it dived into a passage hidden in the darkness, and the winged dancer sent her inner fire out after the beast again, controlling it, shaping it into a narrow beam so that she did not accidentally harm her companions...

Heslangithmanir roared in agony as the lance of fire swept across his back, slicing a wing membrane down to the bone and severing the very tip of his tail. The winged woman had a power he had only encountered on one or two unfortunate occasions in the past, and he wondered how much the other intruders knew about their strange companion. If they were to know what he suspected, it could very easily stay the tide of battle, and maybe turn it in his favour.

The Dravwyrn swept through tunnels he had kept secret for many years, a escape route he had never expected to need, but had prepared never the less. He called out to all those who had received his venom, and were now its slaves, and ordered them to meet with him near what the Murgands had called the Cave of Jewelled Stars. ***Protect me, and we shall leave together***, he told them. ***I will prepare the Path...***

Raven felt obliged to join her companions in the pursuit, but she could not bring herself to leave Strides-Tall on her own. At almost the same moment, as though Fate had chosen to reward her bravery and devotion to her friends, a new set of emotions came within range of her subconscious empathy - hope mainly, accompanied by a certain degree of single-mindedness, and all laced with a healthy dose of fear...

Into the Dravwyrn's audience chamber trotted a large, stocky balding figure, a thick russet beard almost obscuring the heavily jewelled amulet which shone out against the finely-tooled dark leather of his breast-plate. In one hand, he carried a small, flat rectangular object, one face covered with buttons too tiny for his huge stubby fingers to press correctly, whilst the other was wrapped around the long handle of a hammer-like weapon, the business end of the hammer-head a flat, square face whilst the rear fanned out into the gleaming crescent of a well-polished axe-blade.

"Bross...Brossganth...", murmured Strides-Tall, struggling up onto her elbows.

"In the flesh, and surprisingly alive", replied the Cinderbeard heir. "The monsters seem to have gone. Didn't come across even one of them."

"Are...are you the only one...?", asked the elf.

"No - Broxka Brightstone lives as well, and sends her regards", said the Murgand, handing her the little box-of-buttons. "She said you might be able to make use of this. I saw the war-machine on my way here, and it looks to be in working order. Didn't stop to poke around in its innards to make sure, though - not that I'd know what's broken and what isn't, mind you."

Brossganth then looked up at Raven, and retreated a step or two when he saw her wings. "My...my friend Raven", introduced Strides-Tall. "She came all this way to save me...hope the effort's not wasted."

"Is the way to the harbour clear?", Raven asked the Murgand prince. Her tone was a little sharper than she had wanted, but getting Strides-Tall off of Jaglundar's Rock was only half of the task of rescuing her.

"It certainly looks that way", Brossganth replied. "You have a ship?"

"The Succubus", answered Raven. "If the monsters are nowhere near, they'll come in and pick you up. I'll catch up with the others, and get Marishanna to send word."

Raven left without speaking further, her bounding steps turned into great leaps by intermittent beats of her wings. Brossganth gazed around blankly for a moment, not quite sure what to do, then caught sight of the Dravwaeri Raven had laid low. "This is for all my people that you scum have slain", the young Prince snarled, and with one double-handed blow of his hammer-axe, smashed the whimpering monster's skull flat.

Feeling reinvigorated, he then scooped up Strides-Tall, cradling her in the bend of his arm like a child, and made for the harbour. He stopped only twice; once to help Broxka out of the prayer hole, and the other time to accommodate a pleading request from Strides-Tall.

"Now this is what I call entertainment", Mashilahantradar purred to herself as she sat in the extreme comfort of her secret casting-chamber, fanning herself lazily with one wing as she watched events as they happened, on far-away Jaglundar's Rock. "I definitely picked the right pet - she's found herself such fascinating friends. Now, if only I could get her and the little one to go to bed together..."

The albino Dyal stretched, the glistening synthetic leather of her long black gloves and thigh-length boots making exciting crinkling and flexing noises as they stretched with her, and let the idea of Strides-Tall and Marishanna making love run wild through her mind. The battle was still to be won, she reminded herself, but the elf's companions seemed skillful and powerful enough to prevail. Just in case she had overestimated their abilities, the Dyal got up anyway and went to prepare the spells and potions she would need if it fell to her to break the Dravwyrn spell.

"No-one, but no-one is going to take my pet away from me", the sorceress said out loud, even though there was no-one around to hear her. "I've only just started to enjoy her..."

The harder Bjalser tried to get through to anyone who would listen, the harder it seemed to become. He could no longer reach Strides-Tall's ever-weakening psyche, and Raven's mind seemed to be closed to him, at her end. There was no-one he could contact, no-one he could warn about the "Great Mother", named after the supposedly mythical death-deity that appeared in the mythologies of many races.

The only other source of active minds was Raven's ship, and the Shaelin prayed that someone onboard was receptive to his mind powers...

In her cabin, Ta'awen awoke suddenly, roused by dreams that someone she could not see was shouting at her, telling her that she would die if she stayed. The more she thought about it, however, the less like a dream it felt, and more and more of the dream-voice's words, sometimes jumbled together in a panic of disjointed syllables, started to come together.

"This doesn't make any sense", muttered Mararen. "Why is it going deeper?"

"When we catch up with your monster", sneered Marishanna, "maybe we can ask it why it didn't have the common decency to adhere to your rules. Living things have a tendancy to be unpredictable."

Apart from that, neither she nor the recently arrived Sshraada could offer an explanation they felt worth putting into words. Most of their attention was devoted to the task of hunting down the apparently fleeing Dravwyrn, but Marishanna still found time to question Sshraada about her actions.

"Do you think it wise to leave Raven on her own?", she asked. "Your employers will surely take a dim view of your losing one of their star performers."

"Recent past experience has taught me that Raven needs no nursemaiding", answered the Naagian. "You saw for yourself what she can do."

"Yes", murmured the Salvandireen adventuress. "It was magnificent..."

The sudden appearance of a Dravwaeri, thundering up the passage towards them, put an end to the warriors' chatter, and refocussed their attentions. Sshraada and Marishanna were quite happy to be distracted in this fashion, unused steel growing heavy in their hands until that moment, and one monster did not last long against the three of them. The two warrior-women sliced the dragon-man's paws off with swipes of their swords, and as the creature staggered forward, blinded by pain, Mararen lunged in and pierced its heart.

"That won't be the last of them", warned the Waeribane, twisting his sword to free it from the monster's ribs. "This is typical escape tactics - a Dark One will gladly sacrifice its slaves in its own defence, for it can always create more. The slaves are psychically linked to their master - breaking that link is part of curing the Curse - and he can communicate with them at will, no matter where they are."

"Let them come", purred Marishanna, the blood dripping from Silver Death, but never leaving a trace on the glittering metal. "I welcome their best efforts..."

Ta'awen almost never ventured onto the bridge of the Succubus, having been forbidden to do so by her previous master, the Dyal Raniv. Marishanna was a different kind of master, but the warrior-woman made it abundantly clear that she was still the master, and the Aa'Saani was not daring enough to see which of Raniv's rules might still be in effect.

This time, Ta'awen ignored every rule, bursting into the control room, panting for breath. "Death is coming!", she cried, breaking one of her own people's unwritten laws by raising her voice. "The Great Mother herself...!"

The crew were startled by the outburst, but only Nayodil paid the pale telepath any lasting notice. "What's the matter?", he asked, gently taking her by the arms.

"A voice speaks to me", sobbed the girl, trembling. "It tells me that death is coming this way. We must leave, or it will destroy us!"

"We can't do that", said the first mate. "We take orders only from the captain - and she'll be very interested to hear about this..."

"Look into the stars!", begged Ta'awen as the first mate grabbed her, and escorted her to the door. "The shadow is already upon us...!"

Nayodil hated to see anyone treated so harshly, but he could not bring himself to speak out. Instead, he did as the girl had asked, turning the main scanning system out into space.

Almost immediately, he saw it. A vast dark grey cylinder, rounded at the ends, with a small winged object straddling its back. Space seemed to ripple and blur in the wake of this ominous new arrival, a monolith as big as a harbour-tower, but threatening rather than welcoming.

Nayodil did not wait for the first mate to return. He turned to his immediate superior, Kol-Rasmen the tall, hawk-nosed chief navigator, and told him "Call the captain. I don't like the look of this."

The chief navigator dismissed his subordinate with a snort, but his attitude changed instantly when Nayodil dragged him over to the scanner display, and showed him what was bearing down upon them.

Raven did not find the others hard to track, for their aura of satisfaction at every victory shone out like a beacon. Twice she passed the corpses of slain Dravwaeri, and bloody footprints often helped show her the way.

The winged dancer knew she was getting closer when it became her turn to face one of the Dark Dravwyrn's rear-guard. It sprang out of the darkness right in front of her, and the glowing brooch pinned to the front of Raven's suit, one of which Marishanna had handed out to everyone, illuminated a huge expanse of scaly chest which stretched beyond the light, and into the darkness.

"What?", hissed the monster. "Just one girl? Surely the master can't be running from you..."

Raven retreated one step, and reached inside herself for the fire she had wielded before. She could burn this monster down to the bone before it could even attempt to close the gap...

...but it did nothing. The creature appeared puzzled, and instead of attacking, it bent forward, nostrils flaring. It's smelling me, she thought. Does it think I'm one of its own kind, with my wings...?

"That scent - there it is again", muttered the Dravwaeri. "It is stronger on you. Why? Why does that smell haunt me?"

Raven needed to know if she was in immediate danger, and reached into the monster's mind, to try and find just what brought it such confusion. It was difficult to penetrate the psychic fog that blotted out much of the creature's psychic landscape, but beyond that darkness lay a tiny pinprick of the original victim's mental essence, a spark that would not be extinguished.

Raven gazed into it, and a startling understanding came to her in an instant.

"Ashyra...", moaned the monster, Raven's presence bringing new strength to the hidden spark. "Lilsis...!"

The spark had a name. That name was Almin.

"Who are you?", snarled the monster, bringing its head down so that it could stare straight into Raven's eyes. "Who...who am I...?"

"The brother of a beautiful, lively girl, who misses you with all her heart", Raven told him, placing her hand on his narrow snout as she looked back into eyes that, only now, reminded her of Ashyra's. "Come with us, away from here, and I will do all in my power to help you..."

"No", mumbled the Dravwaeri. "I can't - the master calls..."

"The master will be gone soon, and you'll be free", said Raven, but somehow she felt her words would not be heard. A great storm of confusion was building inside Almin, his love for his sister warring with his compulsion to protect his Dark Dravwyrn master, and before she could offer any more words of comfort, the winged giant bolted, howling in anguish.

Raven was glad that he was running up the slope of the passage, in the opposite direction from his monstrous master. That way, he stands a chance of not dying on Mararen's sword, she thought. Fly from here, Almin, and one day I'll find you, and bring you back to Ashyra. I've been cursed myself - cursed with the secret that you were alive, and helping you is the least I can do.

"But first, I have another friend to save", she said to herself, and continued in pursuit of her companions.

The stern expression fled from the face of the chief navigator of the Succubus as he listened to the automated transmission from the far-approaching monolith...

"All vessels: heed this. This is a high-yield tactical energy delivery device, property of the Reclamationist Guild, with a payload lethal to all know life. You have...seven...minutes to move out of range of this transmission..."

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