Elemental Witch: Child of the Earth (Part I)

Destruction

Verana had let herself become distracted, feeling an elation as one after another the humans had stood up and supported honouring their truce with the Feysha. They were agreeing to what she had been sent to get them to agree to, this was her test and she was passing it. In her elation, Verana had stopped turning her attention to the sensations beyond the stones until Shelby and Oliver had sat down after saying their peace on the matter.

 As she turned to see Cavin stand and speak, the scent she had been afraid of all day filtered through her awareness as the breeze brushed over her skin. It was here and it was far closer than it should be.

Human blood filled the air, spilled and mingled with dirt and pain. Hate, war, death, washed over her like a landslide and she found herself drawing her blades and leaping to the table as the first guard in the stones fell. She couldn't cross the distance to the man who took the dead's place in time, so she turned towards his intended target. She raced the few steps she needed, spinning and flashing her blades to cut the arrow from the air before it found its home in Cavin's chest. 

The enemies had surrounded them and she couldn't spare a thought to wonder how.

Spinning and slashing another arrow out of the air before it reached Cavin, she then turned and sprinted back across the table as she saw two more of the warriors appear in the spaces where living, breathing guardsmen had been moments before. Both of them were aiming at Kavenay, who was their clearest target. He was slow, surprise over the attack freezing his mind and reaction, the man staring dumbly as the other Lords began to move out the the way and draw their swords. 

Verana didn't stop to contemplate that this was the man she wanted to kill only days before, the one she would have been happy to rip to pieces. The man who had all but said he wanted to eliminate the Feysha from the Island and done everything in his power to convince others not to commit to the truce. He was, for that moment, an Ally if only because the real enemy was here and needed to be dealt with. 

Verana tossed one blade in the air, catching the first arrow with her hand, feeling it rip through her skin from the velocity she was stopping with her bare hand and tossed it to the ground, even as she continued moving.

Only the span of a heartbeat later, she felt a punch to her shoulder, knocking her flying into the air and hard to the ground beyond the table. She dazedly thought for a moment that she had been hit by Kavenay somehow, though the direction of her tumble did not make sense. It wasn't until she had jumped back to her feet and grabbed her sword before it clattered to the table, that she realized her arm was near useless because there was an arrow sticking out of it.

With a yell of anger she cut the the shaft with her sword and forced her numb hand to grip her second blade, watching the attackers turn and run back towards the river. The pain was a dull, quiet murmur compared to the roar of anger she felt, sprinting after the fleeing enemy and easily outdistancing whatever humans had decided to give chase. 

The enemy were human, slow but with a good head start as they retreated across the fields, skirting the river as they fled. Alone, she hunted after them, letting out a howling cry to the Feysha, alerting them to prey.

Verana slashed the hamstrings of the first of the humans she caught, spinning around him with the force of the blows and hobbling him mercilessly. She barely paused to watch him fall, screaming, to the dirt as she heard the howling cries from Sencha and the twins, followed by the others who were even further away.

She knew they could smell blood, that they could distinguish Feyshan blood from Human blood now that both filled the air as she continued to bleed from the aching hole in her shoulder. Verana snarled as she dodged to the side when one of the fleeing warriors turned and loosed an arrow at her. 

She heard it whistle through the space she had been running a moment earlier as she rolled to her feet and kept sprinting. She chased him down, leaping viciously to meet his drawn sword with two of her own. He didn't manage to make another attack or defence, her blades slicing through the leather and fur covering his body, digging into flesh until she drove both her blades up through his throat and into his brain, barely seeing his look of surprise as the life faded from his eyes.

Verana ripped her blades free and took off after the remaining fighters then, feeling the thrill of the hunt, of killing coursing through her in its intoxicating pull that fed on her anger. There were three still running from her and as they crested the hill she saw a long, low boat with four more, waiting in the water by the cliff she had climbed only a few days ago.

 Two of the figures got out of the boat and began to knock arrows, seeing her giving chase to their fleeing comrades, oblivious to the three more forms moving like shadows across the land towards them.

One archer was able to loose an arrow before the twins fell upon them, spinning and slashing, cutting the enemy down with ease. Sencha sprinted past that fight to catch the fastest of those who had been fleeing her, his serrated blades catching the sunlight as he engaged that human. 

Verana spun out of the way of the arrow that she had nearly forgotten about and cursed as she saw the boat begin to drift away from the shore, the two still on board abandoning their people to their deaths and throwing off whatever weighted lines held the ship to the river shore. Even as Sencha was finishing his first opponent and turned to the second, she reached that fight, catching an axe meant for Sencha with her blades. 

She managed only a moment of sword play with the fighter when the twins leapt in to take over and Sencha yelled. "Now is a great time to use those powers we can't seem to stop you from using!" And then he nodded towards the boat that was speeding away.

Verana spun away from the dwindling battle and sprinted down to the river's edge, struggling to sheath her blades with her injured arm. Her hands were slick with blood by the time she managed to put the second blade it its sheath and stumbled into the soft sand. She raised her hands painfully as she reached out with her magic. 

Verana focused on wrapping her power around the wood like rope, holding on and tightening until she could get enough force to reverse the pull of the river. She struggled against its heaviness for a moment before her power gripped the vessel fully, finally pulling it backwards. She fought against the current,  the sails straining the wind and  the two men as they desperately tried to row it free.

Determined to keep them from escaping, Verana increased the pull of her power,  wrapping it tighter and tighter to drag the boat back up the river towards her. Her magical grip was so tight that she could hear the wood crack and groan, lifting the boat and the two occupants up out of the water to fly over her head and into the fields beyond. 

It was then that she dropped her hold on the boat, the momentum carrying the vessel onwards to send it skidding across dirt that now thundered from the approach of horses. 

Late to the battle, an entire calvary of Humans raced down the field towards them, though they scattered in surprise as a boat carved through the ground towards them.