Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

"I'm not crazy, Corporal," Alwyn said, glaring down at the dwarf.

Yimt's shoulders started shaking and before long he was laughing so hard he had to stop walking. Alwyn looked around nervously, but nothing that might want to eat them appeared.

"Ally, you don't know how glad I am to hear you say that. I thought maybe I'd cracked my crystal ball," he said, rapping his skull with his knuckles.

It was the last answer Alwyn expected. "I don't understand."

Yimt looked up at him, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Neither do I, Ally, but I've been hearing trees in my head, too. I thought I'd finally gone over the edge, but if you're hearing them, then either we're both a few stones short of a castle, or everything you've been saying might just be true."

The sound of running feet and branches being swatted aside heralded the arrival of Scolly, who came to a halt before them, struggling to catch his breath.

"Oh, now look, laddie," Yimt said, his good humor disappearing at the sight of the soldier, "if you ask me one more time if we're there yet, I swear I'll be lacing my boots with your tongue."

Scolly shook his head and pointed back down the path, still trying to catch his breath. Alwyn walked a few steps past him and then heard it.

"No, Yimt," he said, as the boom of a five-pounder echoed through the forest, "he's trying to tell us we've finally arrived."

Visyna shivered and hunched her shoulders, trying to keep her focus on the wounded soldier before her as her fingers danced through the skeins of life. Musket fire popped and crackled down the hill, intermixed with the screams of the dying. She felt each death like rain on bare skin, each blending with the other until their pain and fear washed away everything else. And yet here she was, tending the very men who were inflicting that suffering on her people.

Her fingers paused, the beat of the soldier's heart palpable in her hands. She could let him die. He was a soldier of the Empire, a tool of oppression and death, and worse, bound to the regiment in a way that frightened her. She had first noticed something wrong when she had tried to help the soldier named Meri in the vines. Then, she had put it down to the general malaise that stalked the land, a vague stain that did not yet pose an immediate threat. She knew better now. This was Her doing, and Konowa had been the means, even if he meant well.

"It's getting cold," the soldier said, his lips pale and trembling. Three fires crackled and sparked around them, their heat doing little to warm the open air of the fortress courtyard where the wounded lay. Visyna motioned for a private standing nearby to put another blanket over the man.

"No amount of covering will warm him now," the man said, eyeing the soldier with the casual disdain of one who knew something about death. "It's that elf-witch that holds all the cards here."

Visyna bristled at the comment and started weaving again, eliciting a cry of pain from the wounded soldier. "I'm sorry," she said, slowing and chiding herself for being so easily goaded. "Shouldn't you be with your company, Private…?" she asked.

He sneered. "Zwitty's the name, and no, on account of my wound." He pointed to his left arm. The jacket was covered in blood, yet Visyna remembered dressing his wound earlier, and it had only been a small cut. "Safer to be here. Besides, the scenery is better."

She ignored his last comment. "The elf-witch you speak of does not hold sway yet. The sarka har are still young, their roots not yet long enough to feed them the power they seek."

"Wouldn't matter if they did," he said, winking at her. "As soon as the Prince gets his precious Star, we'll be leaving this place and She can do what She wants with it."

Visyna concentrated on the wounded soldier, blocking out the private's words. She found the faintest of skeins and delicately began to weave them together, slowly creating a strong thread to hold on to the life ebbing before her. There! She felt a clean strength and focused her mind on it. Zwitty was still talking, but she could no longer hear him. All her focus centered on the precious spark of life that yet burned within the man before her. She called on the last reserves of her power and laid her hands on the soldier's body. He gasped, his eyelids shooting open. Slowly, his breathing returned to a more normal rhythm as his face grew less pallid.

"…do a little of that weaving on me," Zwitty said, reaching out and grabbing her arm.

Visyna spun around and used what energy she had left. There was a shock of ice and heat colliding as she pushed him, and then Zwitty was flying through the air. He landed hard on his back, then clambered to his feet, one hand cradled in the other, a look of surprise and anger on his face. He turned and ran back toward the regiment.

Visyna turned away from him and was pleased to see, and feel, that the wounded soldier was indeed healing. She walked briskly to the far end of the fortress, ducking under the remnants of a half-collapsed roof, and sat down on a small keg. Her eyes closed on their own and she let out a shuddering breath. She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered.

"Do you still serve your people, child?"

Visyna stood up suddenly, swaying as she did so. The image of the Star shimmered before her, its form a shattered mosaic of light and dark. Her weariness vanished in an instant.

"My people are being butchered out there because they believe in you. How can you let this happen?"

"Their deaths are of no consequence when weighed against the greater need."

Visyna felt the color drain from her face. "No. You must stop this!"

"Foolish girl, why would I want to?" The image of the Star curved in on itself. Shadow ate light and ground heaved in front of her, crumbling apart as a black figure emerged from the earth beneath her, and Visyna realized the extent of her mistake.

"Deceiver!" Fury blossomed inside her. She brought her hands up to weave a spell, but she was much too slow.

Her Emissary drew forth a long, black dagger. Frost fire danced along the blade, the air sizzling around it. It had drawn back its arm, preparing to strike, when something small and white flew past her.

The shadowy figure shrieked and dropped the blade, a white feather quill stuck in its hand. Rallie emerged from the shadows, another quill held lightly between her fingers.

"I've always believed, but I must admit it is rather gratifying to see, that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword."

"You!" it roared, ripping the quill from its hand and incinerating it with a black flame. It held out its good hand and the dropped blade flew into it. "You should not be here. This is not your time."

"Oh, I don't know," Rallie said, twirling the quill between her fingers. "I usually think I should be exactly where I am at any given moment. You, however, are definitely in the wrong place, and very much at the wrong time."

"Your words are as weak as your weapons. This is becoming Her time, and all those that serve Her."

Visyna gasped for breath as two powerful forces consumed all the life energy around her. The natural order began unraveling and she tried desperately to stitch it back together, even as she realized her magic was woefully inadequate to the task.

"That remains to be seen. In the meantime," Rallie said, preparing to throw the quill, "it's time you left."

The ebb and flow of the competing forces suddenly surged in one direction, and Visyna caught her breath, a pleasant warmth filling the air. The dark figure howled, its form splintering, reforming, then splintering again. Visyna reached out her hands and grabbed some of the threads, giving what aid she could to Rallie to help her banish it.

"You cannot hold us for long. A new forest will grow here before the night is out." The ground shook and Her Emissary disappeared between the cracks and was gone.