"Hey, you." One of the soldiers walked up to Kaido as he sat back against a tree, watching the bonfire.
"I stood next to you in the circle, back when those fucking snakes attacked." The soldier said. Kaido nodded, although he hadn't recognized the man's swarthy, hard-nosed face. He must had been too focused on those fucking snakes.
"I saw how you leapt right for Trem, when they dragged him out." The soldier inclined his head in respect. "Good thing to do."
"It's granted." Kaido said. "We fought side by side."
"Yeah." The soldier gave Trem's memory a moment of silence, then spat. "Fucking snakes."
Kaido agreed without words.
"So, eh, a bunch of us got some old Dumbtrap cards, you want a hand?"
"Better not. You're good men. I'd hate to have your wages." Truth was, he had no coin to gamble on. Not that he wouldn't have robbed them of theirs, had he played. Just like he did in his old squad.
"Pfeh'," The soldier grinned, and gestured his direction with his chin. "We're over there, if you change your mind."
Kaido raised two entwined fingers towards the soldier as he left; a sign common amongst gamblers, wishing the Jester's luck. William used to wave it around often. Damn nostalgia, slapping him twice in a row. The blood trance was there to numb the impact though, ever so faithful.
A couple minutes later, Vera came towards him, the bonfire throwing her shadow ahead.
"I see Silverthorn had finally let you out of her sight."
"And I see Vineclaw loosened his bitch's leash."
Vera huffed in amusement, and squatted down against the tree next to him.
"So the skill with which sword gets you all her special attention, the one on your hip, or the one between your legs?"
A smirk breezed across Kaido's lips. "Why don't you ask her that?"
"I think I have tested her temper enough for one day." Vera replied.
"That will only make it funnier." Kaido looked at her. She had savage beauty about her, with the hawkish eyes, and predatory grin to her full lips.
"I am sure it will, for you."
"What," He fixed his eyes on hers. "You're scared?"
"Scared is a strong word." Vera didn't shy from his gaze. "Let's say, I'm avoiding a conflict I'm likely to lose."
"You don't seem like the easily intimidated type." He eyed her body, the firelight sheened on unclothed curves of purple flesh. "And I don't see any harm caused."
"I am afraid it was my pride to take the blow." She said, and he could hear the acrimony in the hiss of her voice.
"Better take it in the pride than in the gut."
"I'd rather take it in the gut." She said through a sneer.
"A shot at the pride doesn't crumple you to the ground, vomiting blood."
Vera grinned at that. "Fair point."
Asair approached them, his muscular frame backlit by the bonfire. He was a tall bastard, dwarfing even his own kin, and towering a full head over the tallest of the humans in the squad. Kaido had to tilt his chin up to look at him. He puffed on a pipe carved of dark wood.
"Ah, Vera," The elf called in a gush of rich pink smoke. "I see you are getting acquainted with Alora's favorite soldier."
His eyes shifted to Kaido, their glow barely a flicker, but their stare cutting like a knife. Kaido held it with ease.
That face-off might've lasted a while longer, if Vera hadn't spoken. "Pass that already."
Asair looked away to Vera's outstretched hand, took another quick puff, and passed her the pipe. She took in a lungful, and turned to Kaido.
"Try." She said, curls of pink smoke riding her breath to his face. Its scent tickled up his nostrils, both spicy and sweet.
"What is it?" He took the pipe as she handed it to him.
"Hazeleaf." She answered. He drew a slow, deep breath, hearing the leaves burn as the cinder in the chamber smoldered. The smoke rushed down his throat, so thick, hot and acrid he almost choked on it. He kept in his lungs for a long moment, then tilted his head back, and let it flow out his lips.
Kaido watched the pink cloud spreading above him. Then electricity hit, bursting at his breastbone, and dashing to his toes, fingertips, and scalp. It stood the hairs on the back of his neck and blanked his mind. He slacked back against the tree. His body became so light he felt he might float, and the world fell slow and lazy around him.
His eyes strayed to the bonfire, and everything else in his sight hazed as he was entranced by the flames. They pounced over the blazing coals, like thousands of bright and starved beasts, each pushing down and climbing over the others to get its bite. To exist just for an instant longer.
He blinked his eyes, and returned himself. It might've been a minute, and it might've been an hour he had spent staring. He hadn't even a guess. Vera still sat against the tree, her shoulder brushing his as she snickered at him. Asair sat on the ground, leaning back on one hand and holding up the pipe in the other. Kaido must've passed it without noticing.
"First times it hits you the hardest." Vera explained. He nodded, and felt as if the gesture raised and dropped camp before him, rather than his head..
"You aren't a soldier of the Bladeweaver," Asair's deep voice echoed, the words seeping like syrup through the cloud of pink smoke that hazed his consciousness. "That is as clear as the true reason you are here."
Kaido wanted to look up, but his head hung heavy on his relaxed neck, and Asair's face wasn't worth the effort. He cared little for his opinion too, but spoke up just not to lose track of reality again. "And what reason is that?"
"Because you've fallen head over heels for a pretty elven girl, you poor sod." Asair spoke his Velsarian broken, but he spoke it with confidence. "So deeply you are in love that you've followed her here – to where no human belongs – to where no human has what it takes to survive."
His voice was dark, almost a whisper, dripping with sadistic delight. "I will almost feel sorry for you when I take her."
Kaido couldn't take it anymore. Perhaps it was the influence of the Hazeleaf, and perhaps it was all Asair, but he hadn't laughed so hard since William died. He laughed until his abdomen ached of contraction and his lungs begged for air.
"Am I amusing you, Blackrose?"
"You are mostly humiliating yourself, Vineclaw, but it's amusing to watch." The laughter invigorated him, and he swung his gaze up to Asair. His anger was on tight restraint, but obvious to Kaido's blood-enhanced eyes as it twitched the corners of the elf's mouth.
"If you want to fight me, don't waste time playing on my ego, it isn't as fragile as yours." Kaido said. "All you have to do is ask."
"I will kill you soon enough." Asair promised with a smile, not shifting his eyes an inch from Kaido's. "You're only still alive because I want my father to bear witness along with Alora as I prove you humans are mere prey to the Vineclaw."
Kaido glanced aside and took the pipe from Vera. He puffed once, twice, thrice in quick succession. Pink smoke streamed out his mouth and nose, thick and soft as velvet. "I delved into the human filth that ran the slave trade, lived where the gangsters rivaled the enforcers in their corruption, and emerged red from dozens of battlefields. You know what never changed?"
"Enlighten me." Asair hissed.
"Big talkers make lousy killers."
Vineclaw became a blur of rapid motion in a world slowed by Hazeleaf. He was upon Kaido in a heartbeat, grabbing his neck in both hands. The elf was no less strong than he was quick. In a pulse of brute strength, he hefted Kaido onto his feet, and slammed him against the tree trunk.
"Are you so eager to test my killing expertise?" Vineclaw wrapped Kaido's throat with fingers that could throttle a neck with twice the girth.
"Let go of him." Alora shouted, from where he did not know, everything but Asair laid in haze. Kaido didn't give him the chance to oblige. He bent him closer with a kick to the inside of his knee, grabbed the pipe by the stem, and rammed its chamber up the gorge of the elf's throat. The impact dug in his gullet and sprayed his neck with embers.
Vineclaw choked and stumbled back. He should've had the courtesy to clutch his throat and drop any other man. Instead, regained balance, muttered some foreign cusses, and snapped his gaze to Kaido.
Kaido didn't hesitate. Once you hit someone, you keep hitting until he can no longer hit back. He took a dashing step forward, fist ready for flight when his foot caught behind him. Almost tripping, he glanced back. A thick root was coiled tight around his ankle.
"Let go, Alora. This human need to be taught his place." Asair said, his own feet snared by similar roots. Kaido looked around to see them surrounded. The humans of the expedition stood on one side, and Vineclaw's elves at the other. With their glares tight and their hands on their weapons, both sides seemed ready to fight.
"Forget it." Alora said, the verdant of her eyes fierce and her lips pulled in a sneer. "I didn't go all the way to the Bladeweaver and back for you to kill each other here."
"I will only kill this one. The rest of you, I will escort back to my father, as planned." Asair said. Kaido checked the pipe's chamber to find it empty. He regretted striking the elf with it now. That Hazeleaf was good stuff, he could've used another hit.
"I would have welcomed you to try, but Chieftain Sajir will be much less inclined to trust the humans should one of them kill his son."
Asair laughed, pressing a hand to his broad chest. "I didn't remember you quite so comically, Alora."
"You think this is a joke, Asair?" Alora stepped before him, lowering her voice and raising her eyes to find his. "You used to come to my village. My brothers hunted with you. My mother made you food. My father, and his tribe, welcomed you as one of our own."
Asair winced from her gaze, and the next words she spoke were almost a whisper. Kaido wouldn't have heard them without her blood. "Put your pride aside this once. If not for the good of your tribe, and not for me, then do it for my dad."
Even through the blood-trance, Kaido could feel the pain in her voice. When Asair looked at him Kaido knew he felt it too.
"We will put this quarrel behind us." The elf said. With a slight nod, Kaido approved. Alora turned away, and the roots released their feet, withdrawing into the earth. The two of them stayed after the rest scattered. The air between them was tense, but not as thick with hostility. Kaido tossed him the pipe. Vineclaw caught it, bowed his head, just a little, and left.
-
Raul stood ten steps away from a tree, and pulled up the sleeve of his crimson robe up his arm. The skin of his hand was wrinkled with age and roughened with old blisters, but beneath it his fingers were as graceful and slender as they were in his youth. He extended two of them, pointing towards the tree.
As the High Magus of Veramor, Raul oversaw both the headhunting, and the training of Julian's magi. Magi's power is raw at its nature, a thing of instinct rather than will.
A magus may not be able to light a candle when he wants to, but burst into flames at the instant someone puts steel to his throat. Hence his first lesson - tame your power.
Raul needed not more than a thought to awake and channel his power to his fingers. He could no longer remember what it was like to battle it to obedience, as did the magi new to the craft. Over the decades, the power became more part of him than his own flesh.
His second lesson - instruct your power. A magus may have tamed his power to his will, but flames ain't going to leap and spiral around just because he wants it so. That you own an instrument, does not mean you know how to play it. If the power is a violin, then the magus's body is the bow. He can either slam it to produce random noise, or draw the strings with care and finesse to sound the pitches of his desire.
With tentative, barely noticeable shifts of his fingers, Raul tugged at the air. After a brief experimentation, he found the precise movements to stir a strip of air that stretched to the tree, and nothing but it. He gained tempo then, his fingers weaving in a swift and fluid pattern, and the stirring accelerating to match.
His third, and last lesson - maximize your power. The extent of a magus's power is like every other human aspect, some are born with less, some with more. However, at the price of temporal drainage of power and physical exhaustion, a strong-willed magus can challenge, and even surpass his power's extent. And like a muscle, the harder you strain it, the stronger it will grow.
Raul drew more and more of his power. His fingers blurred with the speed of their weaving, and the strip of air from their tips to the tree trunk hummed with agitation, accumulating heat that bent the moonlight across its length.
Human magi are born either with the gift of wind, or fire. Raul was born with both.
He snapped his fingers straight, and compressed every bit of his power into the fire that erupted from them. No flame went astray. The fire surged as a beam, combusting through the strip of heated air, shooting faster than an arrow, and burning brighter than a forge. Inferno broke loose when it hit the tree trunk illuminating the night.
These red-leafed trees were taller than the green ones, their dark, almost black, trunks thrice as thick as a man. Where such a trunk once connected the tree to the skies, was now a smoky void. The tree bounced on its charred stamp, tilted aside with a long groan, and collapsed in a thud that awoke the wildlife.
I failed once again. Raul frowned, and scratched at the claw mark scars across the side of his face. How does she do it?
He wiped the sweat trickling down his brow with the back of his hand, and turned back towards the camp. Three soldiers had brought the elven prisoners he requested, waiting and watching him from the edge of the camp. They knew better than to disturb him in his training. Raul beaconed them with a sharp wave.
The female, Liara flinched away from him in the guard's grip as he brought her before him, terrible fear written across her youthful, unblemished face. The older elf, Adraes, her father, on a cane ever since his torture session with Raul, held his fear with more reserve, but it showed in his eyes.
"Sergeant, do have Miss Silverthorn tied to the brunt trunk. Now that the tree has fallen, I require a new target to practice on."
"Yes, Lord Raul." The sergeant said, and the two soldiers with him grabbed Liara by the arms. She struggled as they dragged her, shouting towards her father in the elven tongue.
"What is the meaning of this?" Adraes threw himself in a limping step towards Raul, and the sergeant moved to block him. "I've done everything you asked!"
"I asked you to lead us to the Eastern Tribes. Now, I might be mistaken, but I suppose that if you had, I would be burning them, rather than your daughter." Raul turned from him to the charred remains of the tree trunk, where the soldiers began to chain Liara. She didn't stop screaming for a second.
"Look at the trees, for the gods' sake, we are in the Blood Woods, that's where the Easterns reside!" Adraes shouted at him.
"So you keep claiming. But the facts are, more of my men die every day in these godforsaken woods, and there is no sign that we're any closer to the Eastern Tribes than we were two weeks ago."
"I am no Feral! It's been years since I've been to the Eastern Tribes, I led you here as fast as I could!"
"Not fast enough." Raul looked at him, raised a hand, and pointed his fingers to his chained daughter. Adraes leapt against the sergeant, trying to reach the old magus with a swing of his cane. The sergeant grabbed his arm in the midst of it, and the cane came short of Raul's face. They wrestled, but the elf yelped in pain when he tried to stamp his legs on crippled feet, and fell to the ground beneath the sergeant.
Raul turned his gaze back to Liara, and soldiers stepped clear. He fluttered his fingers in a swirl, and the air between his hand and the tree spiraled, blowing the elf's greenish hair off her pale, terrified face. With a flick of his thumb against his palm, flames sparked to life. They clung to his fingers, but their dancing tongues were sucked into the whirl of the air, as if eager to course through it.
Adraes wouldn't stop screaming, alternating between furious threats and desperate pleads. Raul spared a glance over his shoulder, and saw the sergeant struggling the thrashing elf pinned down. The magus dropped his hand, dismissing the flames and settling the air.
"You've got three more days." He said. "Fail me, and you will have you watch as I torture your daughter as I've tortured you. And this time, I won't stop at the toes."
The soldiers unchained Liara at his command, and escorted the elves back to camp. At Raul's gesture, the sergeant stuck behind.
"I almost feel bad for these two." The man said, scratching his thick dark stubble with a gauntleted hand.
"Our guide needed the incentive." Raul said, and smoothed the rolled sleeve of his robe down his hand.
"Lord Raul!" A soldier shouted, sprinting from the camp. He was young, and stretched his spine to limit as he jumped a salute.
"Speak." Raul ordered.
"A scout of the missing party just arrived wounded into camp. They spotted elves, hundreds, amassing with weapons, preparing for war. The party was hunted down on their way back. He's the only one to make it through." The adolescent dumped all the information in a single breath.
"How far?" Raul asked, striding back to the camp.
"A day's walk to the east." The soldier said, rushing to catch up with him and the sergeant.
"Have the captains break camp." Raul said to the sergeant. "We march through the night to midday tomorrow, stop to rest, and fall upon them with sunset."