Wan Moonlight shone onto a rough stone floor. A window!
She scanned the room, looking for rope, or something from which one could be made, though inwardly she knew that she wouldn’t have time for such an endeavour. It was then that she realised she was not alone.
Sat in a corner with low burning candles either side of her was the Fleshmancer.
She appeared to be in some kind of trance. Her hands moved rapidly over a great book laid out in front of her, her fingers tracing the pages and flicking to pages seemingly at random. She seemed quite unaware of Yarlae’s presence.
Yarlae stole only a moment to hobble over to the window and sneak a look below. There was nothing but an inky blackness. Even the threat of a distant dawn failed to provide anything more than a certain oblivion.
So be it then. Just revenge.
She crept over to the oblivious Fleshmancer. Waves of pain swept through her, her vision became as little more than a tunnelled gaze. She saw the haggard face, Vasilya’s face, eyes open but clouded. Yarlae could see now that her fingers were tracing runes and glyphs in the book, flickers of sorcerous energy arcing between her roving digits and the paper. If paper it was, in the low light Yarlae could not be sure that it wasn’t something more terrible. It seemed to Yarlae that faint screams issued from the book but in her dazed and impaired state she could not be sure. She knew her strength was fading fast, she was at the limits of her endurance.
It was now or never.
Yarlae stabbed down with her dagger, aiming for the carotid artery. It was a swift, clean strike, although torturously slow by her normal standards to her eye. Bright arterial blood fountained as she ripped the blade out through the sorcerers neck in a geyser of gore. The Fleshmancer's head fell back and the body toppled into a spreading pile of blood. Yarlae stood, exhausted, fading, above the laughing corpse.
She frowned. Why was it laughing?
A blink.
The Fleshmancers clouded eyes were looking straight at her, her throat was quite uncut and she was indeed laughing.
Yarlae confusedly looked at her weapon arm. It was held in a vice like grip by a meaty pale paw. Wulf-Thing looked down at her, one eye blazing yet dead, the other a black gooey ruin.
“No,” she gasped.
“You know, they say that attempting the same thing while expecting a different action is the sign of a diseased and troubled mind.” The fleshmancer’s eyes cleared; “Your mind is certainly troubled, but diseased? Either way, it is mine.”
“And, thanks to a new rite i have been learning, it will not matter if you are alive, as long as you are not TOO damaged. Besides, more will follow you soon enough. I have many thralls out there, each with tales of treasures and a key to draw would be adventurers and heroes here to become new subjects for my work.” She smiled nastily.
“You, my dear, have sadly become more trouble than you are worth.” she looked at Wulf Thing;
“Kill her”, she snarled. “Snap her neck”
Yarlae braced as Wulf-Thing’s other hand clamped onto the nape of her neck. The hand that was gripping her wrist shifted slightly whilst still maintaining its hold. She prepared for the end.
But the end did not come.
“Do it!” the fleshmancer screamed. Her eyes flashed.
Yarlae somehow found the strength to look up. Wulf-Thing was still looking down at her, but the one remaining eye…
It was human.
It was Wulf.
The eye shifted and she followed the gaze and was that Wulf-Thing (no, Wulf) had twisted it's (no, his) arm so that the wrist had been sliced open on the dagger's blade, black viscous fluid running afresh from the wound across the weapon. Seeing her understanding, Wulf’s eye moved once again, this time in the direction of the Fleshmancer who was getting to her feet.
“KILL HER” the sorceror howled, she started to conjure dark energies in her palms, clearly preparing to strike down the half-elf herself.
Wulf released Yarlae’s wrist.
With every last ounce of strength she had left Yarlae thrust the ichor covered dagger into the Fleshmancer's heart, splashing Wulf’s converted lifesblood across the floor. She sank to the ground, barely conscious as the Fleshmancer gasped and staggered, clutching at the wound, her hands covered in her own blood.
She was dimly aware of the candles flaring into a wall of flame as the stinking black liquid splashed across them. At the same time, the door crashed open and she heard multiple bodies tear into the room. As awareness left her she felt herself be lifted in huge arms before being hurled into the air. She managed to partly open her eyes and saw grappling bodies wreathed in flame as she crashed through the window and fell into the gaping void below.
****
The inferno was visible for miles around as the tower became a blazing conflagration. Burning debris tumbled and ignited other parts of the Manse and before long the entire structure was aflame. It would burn for days before becoming a smoking desolate ruin.
Mikael Renniger was watching the blaze whilst fishing. The fire was clearly too far away for him to render any assistance but he kept staring at it regardless as the sun rose in a red early morning sky. His rod jerked nearby, quite forgotten. He didn’t notice the body in the water till it washed ashore practically in front of him. Spell broken, he rushed to the slight, bedraggled form.
It was an female Elf, at least he thought it was, he couldn’t be sure and wasn’t overly familiar with the fey folk. She was slumped over a large piece of driftwood, unmoving. One hand gripped a tarnished dagger that was embedded into the wood. Kneeling by her side he was able to see that she still lived, though barely. She was unconscious, bedraggled, battered and bruised, bleeding from dozens of cuts. But she lived.
Gently prising the dagger from her grip, Mikael scooped Yarlae’s limp form into his arms and bore her back to his village.
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