Keith Strohm - Bladesinger

Selov!

She knew that the old fool was somehow behind this. He had ever been a bootlicking lackey of the wychlaran. No doubt he used his knowledge to help the outsiders. Once she ruled Rashemen utterly, Yulda would deal with the doddering idiot herself. Until then, she would just have to try and salve her seething temper and-if she were being honest-her growing fear, in the blood and pain of her servants.

Unfortunately, Fleshrender's current plaything had stopped screaming and simply lay there like a piece of meat. Yulda's assembled minions watched with barely concealed terror. Human and goblin servants huddled in clumps, pointing and whispering at the stiffening corpse, no doubt wondering if they would be next.

The stink of their fear rose up in the vaulted room like sweet perfume. Yulda breathed it in deeply, savoring its pungent aroma. Still, it could not ease the clenching of her stomach, and the witch found herself grinding her teeth in frustration.

A curse on Selov, the blasted wychlaran, and their foolish pawns, she thought acidly.

Yulda turned to face her gathered servants. Their whispered mewling irritated her. With a sharp clap of her hands, she captured their attention.

"Leave us," she shouted at them, "and prepare for your duties!"

At that, they scattered into the shadows of the room, and Yulda drew a small sense of satisfaction from their hasty retreat.

"Not you," she called out to Durakh as the cleric started to walk down the hall to her private chamber. "We have things to discuss."

The half-orc checked her movement and turned back to Yulda.

"As you command," Durakh said in an even tone.

Careful, Yulda thought-though if she meant it as a reminder to herself or as a mental warning to the cleric, she couldn't be sure. Her world had begun to spin out of control with the revelation of the strangers' presence in Rashemen. It wouldn't take much to tear things irrevocably from their moorings, leaving her only with the ruins of a plan and the ire of the wychlaran and vremyonni pursuing her through the darkness. She licked her cracked lips before speaking.

"You know that our plan has failed," she said, more as a statement than a question.

Durakh nodded.

"Yes," Durakh replied. "I felt the wraiths' destruction." Her gray eyes met Yulda's. "It was… unexpected."

Yulda's temper rose at the cleric's equanimity.

"Unexpected," Yulda nearly shouted. "You assured me that your undead servants would destroy them."

Durakh raised a single eyebrow in response. The scars on her chin and throat gleamed angrily in the light of the chamber.

"They were powerful," she said after a moment. "More powerful than I expected, and"-she paused, casting another glance directly at the witch-"they had help."

"Help?" Yulda asked, her voice rising. Not for the first time, she regretted the necessity of her illusion, for as Chaul the hag, she could not bring her empty eye socket to bear on the impertinent cleric.

"Yes," Durakh replied. "Could you not feel it-a wave of energy that did not originate from any mortal spellcaster?"

In truth, Yulda had felt the unexpected surge of power. Its passing echoed through the bones of the earth even as far as the citadel. She was surprised, however, that the half-orc had felt is as well. She was forced, once again, to revise her assessment of the cleric.

"It was the power of the staff," Yulda said, "though how the outsiders discovered how to tap in to the Red Tree's power remains a mystery to me."

"Have you been able to locate them?" Durakh asked, fingering the outline of her ebony holy symbol.

Yulda gazed at the half-orc warily before answering.

"I have tried spells of location and detection as well as scrying," Yulda said. "So far they have eluded my arcane eye."

Though the cleric's face remained impassive as she spoke, Yulda could sense the feeling of satisfaction that crested through her thoughts. However hard she might try and disguise it, Durakh clearly enjoyed the witch's frustration.

"Then we must assume that the strangers have rendezvoused with the othlor," the half-orc said. "The wychlaran must be protecting them from your spells."

"Perhaps," was all that Yulda said in reply.

The cleric's words galled her, even as she heard the truth in them. Soon they would come after her and try to destroy what she had worked so hard to accomplish. The witch knew that she would be vulnerable in the citadel with her forces heading out into the field.

"Even so," Durakh said, "I have tripled the outer sentries and prepared a few surprises for anyone trying to use the tunnels to gain entrance to the lower portions of the citadel. It would not do for them to catch us unawares."

"Good," Yulda replied, though inwardly she seethed at the liberty taken by her lieutenant. This was her citadel. Clearly the witch would have to take steps in order to reinforce that reality for the half-orc.

Yulda was about to do just that when a piercing shout rang in her mind. She nearly pitched forward from the force of it but found Durakh's strong arm holding her up.

"What is it?" the cleric asked. "What has happened?" Yulda could hear the anxiety in the half-orc's voice, but she had no time to revel in it, for the voice in her mind rang louder.

"They dare," she said, shrugging off Durakh's support and forcing her will to clamp down on the inner alarm.

When she had first come to the citadel, Yulda spent tendays preparing arcane defenses in case anyone should try and magically breach the boundaries of her demesne. One of them had just activated.

"The wychlaran are trying to teleport something or someone into the citadel," Yulda continued. "No doubt those damn outsiders."

"Can you prevent them?" Durakh asked.

The witch shook her head. "No," she said then began to smile, "but I can do something even better."

With a quick motion to silence any further questions, Yulda closed her eyes and cast her mind into the complex web of spells she had spun over the citadel. In a moment, she located the tendrils of power that would coil and grow to teleport her enemies within the walls of the keep. Quickly she gathered her power and sent a surge of arcane energy through the webwork of her defenses. It flared and expanded once the energy met the incoming teleport spell, and Yulda felt a satisfying vibration as her magic intertwined with that of the wychlarans', shunting the location of the teleport to a place of her choosing.

Her smile broadened as she thought about the incoming invaders. Yulda opened here eyes. Durakh stood quietly to one side, her head cocked as if listening for the sounds of battle from somewhere within the citadel.

"Do not worry, Durakh," the witch said quietly, "our guests are nowhere within our walls. I've arranged a little detour for them. I doubt that they shall trouble us further."

Though she remained smiling, Yulda focused every ounce of will on stilling the trembling in her limbs. It had been several tendays since she last drew energy from her vremyonni captive, and the teleportation spell drained her severely. She had no wish for her lieutenant to see her so utterly weakened. With a single command, the witch summoned Fleshrender to her side. The telthor obeyed immediately, loping past Durakh with easy strides.

"I must return to my sanctum and replenish my power," she said briskly. "I trust you can hold the fortress until my return."

She did not wait for the cleric's response but instead whispered the words to another spell and faded quickly into the shadows.

The Year of Wild Magic

(1372 DR)

They hovered like ghosts around the well.

Marissa spotted them first as she stumbled into the clearing, half-supporting, half-dragging Taenaran. White robes billowed and shifted in the still night air, catching and reflecting the dim starlight. Sharp eyes, like diamonds, regarded them from behind the cold, impassive mien of stark white masks. There were five of them, living statues, standing still and terrible around the stone lip of the well.