Frays in the Weave

Execution, part one

To find a home and then to have to leave it before ever seeing it. It was hard for any homeless, but for the tribe-less it cut to the heart. Gring felt that pain like a claw ripping at her innards, and only the steadfast guiding of Rahak dir corin Aghender got her through the first days of desolation.

That the leader had given her his name without a moments doubt also helped. She wondered if she'd been able to display such a show of trust in his place. Probably not, and that should have shamed her, but it never did. She had Rahak to thank for that as well.

The war leader made sure she never had a chance to grab the shame and hide it within her. How he knew she would have tried she couldn't understand, and as she refrained from even the subtlest of walking of his surface thoughts she couldn't learn without asking. That, however, would have shamed her no matter what he tried, and so she refrained from that as well so as not to place any extra burden on him.

The previous night they had crossed a border of sorts. They were back on the fields clinging to Ri Nachi.

One mission. To strike at the heart of a kingdom. She had expected to die in the attempt but not any longer. Every day they travelled halfmen warriors joined them, some accompanied by human warriors, all silent. How they found them they never told, and she never asked.

In what spread out on the moonlit fields Karia, his men and she was only a small group. There were hundreds of silent men methodically moving across the fields. Not in the disciplined but predictable pattern the colonel from Keen would have chosen, but with a confidence born of purpose nonetheless.

Small clusters of shadows reached the walls. A few swam the moat, and not once could she hear a sound. The warriors from Ri Kordari had brought their own mages. She could feel the power singing in her mind, but to those not brought into the secret of the senses they would be invisible and inaudible. She couldn't even smell the men around her. Not that it mattered. Ri Nachi had its own stench which would have covered the smell of sweat and fear, but whoever was responsible for hiding their approach wanted to be thorough.

When the first scaled the walls she held her breath like any halfman, scared she would give them away if her nostrils disturbed the air. Still no alarm was sounded and soon she climbed the walls herself.

Inside she knew they had only managed the easy part, and she saw how the killing started ahead of her. Not all guards were asleep, and a few had sparks strong enough to alert them to the wrongness of the night.

When they reached the castle they would be discovered. Nothing could prevent that. They were simply too many to hide from a strong mindwalker, and she expected nothing less than the strongest Ri Khi could offer around its royalty.

They waited. The moon vanished behind a cloud that shouldn't have been there and the final assault begun.

Whoever worked the gift dropped all subtlety and the shadows became a swarm of halfmen and humans dashing up stairs, climbing walls with grappling hooks and ropes and smashing windows to get inside.

A horn sounded. At the agreed signal she closed her eyes and covered her ears. The screech still forced her to the ground, and through closed eyelids she could feel how the night burst into glaring daylight. Then darkness, and silence.

She opened her eyes and ran.

All around her defenders flailed blindly before they went down under swords and daggers. She ripped through a throat and threw another into the moat. These weren't who they had come for. If they lived she didn't care.

Ahead of her soldiers closed the gates and barred them from the inside. Then sudden heat, but not of fire. Whoever the jump mage was he lacked Escha's strength and skill. Too much of the gift was used to control the power, and too little to achieve what the mage attempted, but it was strong enough. One half of the gates simply vanished before the mage collapsed to the ground.