Bloodsword: War of the Leaf

Par Evisdril

Two days flitted by as rapidly as tace through the forest, filling Tev with more and more anxiety with each passing hour.  They had to be close, he found himself thinking as he stood atop the city’s front wall, the east wall, staring hard down the trading road his rag tag band had traveled up.  Behind him Par Evisdril bustled with the frenetic energy of the desperate as the refugees of Askannin and Tev’s own people worked to prepare the city for the inevitable attack.

It was as he stared out into the distance that he felt it; a strange stirring on the edges of his consciousness.  Frowning, Tev focused his blood magic-enhanced senses on the feeling.  And found them winging towards the seas of Quelaezaun.  In the blink of an eye, he plunged deep beneath the heaving waves, down into the inky depths, to the very heart of Quelaezaun’s seas.  To find himself gazing upon the great lairs of the Seven Dragons themselves.  He felt a chill run down his spine as the Third Dragon, with the Meridian as her home, stirred, her senses scouring space all around her.

Along with the Third Dragon, the dragon of Temperance, Tev watched as the other Six stirred from their lairs as well, throwing their senses outward to watch impassively as the Solavar and Mardish rushed towards their final confrontation.  ‘Burn me, they know!’ Tev thought with a sinking feeling.  The Seven Dragons that the Maker used to help Him create Quelaezaun were watching the T’sar as it began the final destruction of some of the planet’s most powerful of her current offspring.

It was then that Tev realized that the Dragons had also known about the destruction of the S’ia.  In fact, they had participated in it.  This time, however, they would only watch as the Mardish and the Solavar did the destroying themselves.

Tev closed his eyes against the vision of the stirring Seven.  But the sensation would not go away; he could feel their movement in his blood.  So entranced was he by it that he almost missed the bow shock wave of something else, approaching the town quickly from the southwest.  ‘Eh?’ he said silently as he pushed the Seven Dragons out of his mind to focus on the darting cluster of sensations that raced towards their small, fortified town.

It didn’t take long to sense the esoh magic that propelled the flashes of light that were men through the air.

“Solavar,” Tev bit out with a muted growl.  Reaching out with an abruptly bloodied left hand, he drew a sigil onto the top of the reddish stone wall.  It had only one purpose: to activate the shield magics in the walls themselves.  With a thrum, the shield ward came alive, a ripple of red fire racing along the wall and over its face until the wall itself glowed with a soft red light.

Then he was turning to bellow to the Askannin officer who had appeared at the foot of the wall just beneath him, a question on his angular features at hearing the alarm sound.

“Sound the readiness alarm, captain, and muster your troops,” Tev commanded grimly, glancing back over his shoulder in the direction he knew the crescent-shaped flying craft would appear from.

“We’re about to have company!”

The first knot of flyers streaked overhead in almost total silence, snapping by to fade into the distance.  Only to return a few heartbeats later, this time moving a quarter of their original speed, as their pilots heeled them over to take a look at the fortified town that past beneath them.

Tev watched impassively as the flyers dwindled for a second time, not going completely out of sight this time before turning to slowly make their way back towards the town.  The last time he had seen those flyers, they had destroyed the Dawn Princess and were in the middle of destroying the Cloudwalker in a vain attempt to capture the Sword of Blood.  Then they had filled him with utter fear.  Now they only stirred anger within him.