Wizards Brawl-Chapter IV

1

CHAPTER IV2

Pursuit Commenced3

Wardess Wekera stood in the statues shadow. Her diadem sparkled red and her eyes grey.4

I swear I will never aid the Vice-Regent again. She quoth, something she had actually sworn in days past, only she had meant to keep that silent and would make the Vice Regent think otherwise.5

Now, loyalties will be certain.6

She frowned feloniously and touched her fingers to her throat. She nearly wept and then sent her hand to clutch her heart.7

She had indeed went to the dungeon and the Healer there, he had healed, but, for a price that demanded her to scream.8

She slapped the memories from her thinking mind with out hesitance, but, with malice.9

She also slapped the diadem crown from her head, it hurt her head, for her aim was not perfect, but it hurt yet, further that the blood pearl encrested to it was fake.10

It fell theatrically to the mud-stone floor, yet, it shattered not, and she thought that horrid.11

"Wardess, the dragons have returned." said a thin, lispy voice of a Rat Fairy.12

The Wardess jerked in shock, and flattened to the statue.13

"How did yea come upon me?" she planned to demand but the words were sounded like a plea.14

"Yea wer' standin dare, I saw yea so..." the Rat Fairy explained and bowed.15

Wekera mentally measured the two-foot tall creature for the hundredth time and remembered that he was not a thing to be feared.16

He was short and stood on one leg, the other was always in the air, kicking about. He had four butterfly wings on his back that enabled him to fly a distance not too far. Other then that he looked no differed then a overgrown or undergrown rat. Some rats were as heavy as bears.17

"Yes, I had made that so." she snapped and stooped to his height.18

"The, my dragons have returned?" she inquired.19

"Eh, all of the three...every one, unharmed too..."20

"Good." Wekera jolted back to human height and even streatched a bit further with her toes.21

"Where are they now?" she asked in a low resounding voice.22

"In the Lair...they be'n there ten days from here." chirped the two-foot thing.23

"Once their spell suported again send them off, to...Gevon....something wry will work their soon, a battle, Vice Regent against Air Pirate!" she kissed the air and invisioned much fire and smoke.24

She snapped her brain to its usual stupidity.25

"Yet, only send two, yea know? I wilt need one fer my journey of...triumph!" She breathed as if a dragon and flapped her arms too.26

"Then yea doo not yet, know tha' Thrik Disord has thee Mount sieged?" the little creature said, then twisted his head about to end the stare of any. The crowded street gave the unsightly figure no eye and so he turned to her to speak again and met a scowl.27

"THRIK!!" she seethed.28

"Disord." the Rat Fairy added.29

"Added, they's been talks of tales of a Grey Witch craving the Kehdraus, an' a Crow winged Knight...evilish, evils..."30

Wekera slapped the thing half a foot back.31

"Yea tell me of evil once I have done my purpose. There is none as evil as I!" she gloated in glorious, glamour.32

"Well, well..." the Rat was taken aback, and so he took a step back.33

"Do fret when yea die, yet, not now. Believe me Ridgeon, I have all the advantages! The Vice Regent thinks me a wench, Thrik Disord does not yet, know of my existence and who else enters this..."34

"Game?"35

"Yea cluck!" Wekera slapped him again, and again.36

When she was sated she stated.37

"Tournament."38

Women do not joust. Was all the rat could think.39

..40

Regeerd's mouth was not a simper as he stepped the dark way from the Regents Hall, but, his cue was not too close to the adverse. He felt enough strength now to restore his powers.41

His right hand met his face and his top lips lifted into a word. The syllables were said silent but the magic erupted. He was yet, standing as if a custodian in duty, and infront of the half oaken doors. Magic flared, guards stared.42

His spell was racing to its final reason and beauty.43

Red wind streaked with blue lightning spun about his form that swayed in the motions of a blanket in the wind.44

His beard nearly fell from their roots, but then began to firmly adjust back into his chin. The scars thinned and dissipated. Even the muck of travel was washed away by matterless hands that could not be seen.45

More lightning struck and objects that appeared as sails of an argosy flapped and flew about him, and then, finally they landed on all the threadless holes in his thick storming robe. Concludingly a staff appeared in the air infront of him. 46

It was golden and crowned with five, finger-long teeth on the tip.47

The wizard looked extremely unchanged in expression. As if he had not been wearing tripe clout before, as if he had not been bare of wizard-prowess, he walked down and out of the antechamber. The guards all staring at him with suspicion. Their hands ready to furnish a blade.48

The wizard gave no offensive trouble. He walked swiftly away, satisfied that the Regent had agreed to aid him.49

..50

Clearing the ash and burning the dragon were two contradicting happenings thereafter.51

Now, that the evils were dead, women and servants actuated to clean the black clutter. Soldiers instantly sentenced the last dragon to the torch.52

Geron looked on at the dragon, blackly, charring and then let his jaw fall and his voice rise. 53

"Stay the torch!" he yelled thickly and ran towards the dragon, but, it was already burning.54

Tyber walked beside him, an expression assembling his face, one of deep question. Geron pointed his magestalf at the dragons talon, and pulled it high by sorcery. At most a score that were aggregated gasped and blewed in shock and fearing shudders.55

"So it was not yea, all know." flashed Gevon looking new and powerful at Tyber.56

Tyber stared at the brand under the dragons foot. It was the Wardess's. And a cough thereafter the foot was gone into adust bone. The afterfragrance was not wellcome and so the wizards worked their strides five streets afar down a yet, more secluded space in the city.57

"That mark, from who does it come?" beseeched the castellen, Lord Jheyphwir Grimtaper. The light of day was now dead. And the proof of night had come dangerously swift. Tyber the Conjurer and Geron the Necromancer had been beckoned to the castle of the Castellen. A Lord of medium coercive power and fortune. They now stood in the East Angle tower, overlooking the ward. Cursing wordlessly the Castellens approach the Conjurer spoke. 58

"A Wardess, of War, one of the two in the Vice Regents command. Wekera." Tyber allowed the words to verbalize briskly and added.59

"Would yea divulge Fonth the Pyromancer's whe..."60

"He left Grey Heath by way of a bat two days agone. He consigned no letter."61

Tyber nodded tragically.62

"He was entrenched in this cities service for years, Yea did not query him?" continued he.63

A beast of wind storked the tower then, If dragons whistled, it would have sounded like it. Tyber looked to the Castellen who turned from the wind to the inquirer.64

"I trusted he would return in time not too long. He abandoned his tower, but left it adamantly bolted." His voice matte and low pitched.65

"And that is hope." Geron let his eyes take the motion of a chariot wheel.66

"Magic, unpredictable, just as the user." the Conjurer un-literally spat.67

"Is that all yea wished from Grey Heath?" ended the Castellen.68

"It may be..." muttered one of the two.69

The Castellen now kept a unctuous, smug face. His dark hair and uncut beard glistened in the starlight and his eyes were triumphant.70

Adding a sordid pitch to his tone he said:71

"I do know of his whereabouts."72

The Conjurer decyphered both words and expression and decided something was wickedly askew.73

"He be in the cell of an Air Pirate. Not too far from what yea wilt be in. Do yea believe Darkhands merit any further?" A quarter sneer, then a full one.74

His pallid features took a another streatch as his throat broke into words.75

"Apprehend the Darkhand!"76

Tyber aired the baldrics as the swords slashed out. A door disclosed, silver plated Swordstrikers awashed into the tower chamber, and a wave of blades crashed forward. Geron had already taken a step back and was uttering an incantation. The sounds resounded as metallic men moved so strident that it beated out the sound of the outside windblasts. The first spell exploded. Swordstrikers found themselves feet above ground, soaring. 77

Then, crashing.78

"If yea kill and rebel, the charges wilt only fly." offered the Castellen. Grey Heath had the least militia in the entire expanse of Feerkaph, and they were not the best. To lose one was to lose to eighty in ratio to Baatskar.79

The words implementation ignited in Tybers ears and he averted a death stroke and sheathed his swords. 80

"I be innocent."81

"It was a spruce ploy, Conjurer, But the Wardess was dead five nights passed and the Vice Regent now, has evidence it be yea who ordered the Dragon assaults."82

"It being what?" demanded Tyber. Now, all the Swordstrikers were at a halt, but the weapons were still shining bare.83

"The Pyromancers letter."84

..85

The docked barque floated and rocked. A thick alder plank was shedded down and the Cloak Thrower prowled onto the stoned port. All that was wontedly visible was blackened. It was yet in the night hours. He scrunched low beside a bitt and bore his vision into the depths of the water. It buffeted, a black mirror, pliant and wrought.86

He caught the look of a bright scarlet eye twenty feet aways and called. A tone, imperative and masterful.87

"Sink it low." 88

None heard it save the monster.89

The black surface rolled, orbs of air floated up and a giant serpentine head altercately, ascended from its liquid home. Water showered about.90

Its grey scales glowed and a maw that could have taken a black-whale whole, crashed into the boat, a tail adorned in a thousand razers slashed aft and broke the stern.91

Vast amounts of water flooded the boat, coils of the Sea Serpent strangled the wooded vessel and in a striking plash the barque and the monster were far underwater.92

He beamed, The Witch was dead, drowned in a blooded cape at the Fourth Watercourse. And he savoured what was to come. 93

He was sable haired and had a liver-hued beard. His eyes were red but so dark they came as black to almost any lighting. His air was assertive and brutish, a massacre was his rendition of a feast.94

He turned aback to the bantam port. There was none to pay dockage to and no other ships. He cared little.95

Dark raven wings blazed from his back. They folded anon and streatched the full of its length, no feathers fell and the wings were flawless, too perfect for its purpose.96

Cold winds followed him as he ripped off the dock in a swirl of beating feathers. The dark knight was gone. 97

Yet still, that brought no hope...98

.. 99

The floor's stoning was bestrewed with bones. Ancient and recent. The walling and trivial windows were barred with old steel, rusting, but cogent.100

Leaned and throating against a deformative bar was the Conjurer. A blindness was amassing over him, hope seeping afar. By what Castellen Jheyphwir Grimtaper spoke of, the Vice Regent was currently warring with an Air Pirate. Wars, if it be one, lived for weeks, months. The Vice Regent would not know, or did he already?101

"Tyber." the Necromancer smiled, a forced, frail one. He had had bones hooked onto his boots and had only a breath ago rid himself of the menace.102

"There is a way of escape, should you think it wise."103

Tyber gazed up then, "What be it?"104

Geron uncharacteristically shuffled, then impelled his beard avaunt and shoved his fingers in his robes.105

Subsequently he rended out a silver wand.106

"This wand passes all detection spells, it has a shield."107

The Conjurer bearly nodded.108

"Thee wise quoth its foolish to bar a wizard. It be true to almost any extent." 109

"Unless the barred room permits no magic, is ours not so?"110

"It be, yet all below the stars have flaws."111

"And this cell's is?"112

"Us."113

"We are not part of it Geron."114

"We wilt be."115

"So you intend to turn us into walls? Or bones?"116

Geron, cast a gaze to the window. "Nay, we'd further your purpose as bars."117

Tyber chuckled at that, "Yea are to do it? In here? Transformation is not the craft of a Necromancer I supposed."118

"Not to the shread, but I care none." he brought the wand up to his tall nose and pointed it into Tyber.119

"The wand is of Ocean Iron, its superior to the power of the cell."120

"If your correct."121

"Steel Bar!"  A slight glinting cloud appeared about the Conjurer, he left his stance at the wall and stood on his heels. Then, he dissipated.122

And an steel bar from the window laughed.123

"I'd be silent, metal tends to create reverberations and echoing." Geron informed, he then, repeated the spell on himself.124

"We're bars!" chuckled the two. A large black field was beneath them, a half moon above. The small window of the tower was a peculiar site. Two of the tower bars had protruding faces.125

"Beautiful as this dark scene may appear, we'd do good to be on our road, I fear a crumb that Fonth is in no good. Might be that he's locked in a dungeon with no fire."126

"The Castellen did infer that." Geron admitted. Cold winds began to hit them then. Knights began to gallop below, their sudden appearance loud and terrifying. Shafts were spearing the air. Geron cursed.127

"Curse yea for what?" queried the Conjurer.128

"I have not hands, not hands to hold a wand, not a wand to cast a spell, not a spell to..."129

The Conjurer created a steely stare exclusively for the Necromancers sight.130

"Yea should have not stabbed yer nose from the realms of your profession. Had you even practiced the wand before?" 131

"Nay, yet..."132

"Do not speak, let us stay and rust. That is all bars are meant to accomplish." growled the Conjurer, and he spake not another word.133

Geron steeled himself and scourged his mind. But his thinking could not and did not continue long. 134

Heavy foot clumping dove up the tower steps, fisted hands boxed the latch up and a thick, boot kicked the door ajar. A barbarian looking wizard emerged. His buff hair and beard blazed in the night wind. His feral teeth appeared behind his smile, which then turned into a frown.135

"Yea be gone." he damned and hissed behind his double rows of teeth.136

"Wekera wilt loathe this." he stomped his feet back to the door, a cry was heard, and he turned back. 137

Geron and Tyber heard it too, it was a deathcry, shrewd and sharp. Grey Heath was under assault yet, again.138

The new wizard did not look any sorrier then the two bars did. But he had to know, he ambled to the window, it was small and barred.139

He snickered.140

He punched.141

..142

By the walls of Grey Heath, a women in scaled armor stood stationed as a statue, a scarlet skin mantle on her distinct shoulders, a thin, long-pointed blade in her grip. Soldiers in similar wear dashed quietly passed her, arrows whizzed a finger from her elbow, she grinned.143

"Take the wall!" she commanded, the loudest utterance of that night, her men went savage, her knights raced at maximum pace. Swords were appearing in their gauntlets. Blood began to spatter.144

Grey Heaths response was frantic, the main of their bowmen and spears were dead before the attack was announced. Eighty of the cavalry made it to the courtyard by the moment the assaulters had scaled the walls. 145

"Kill them!" both sides damned and charged, Grey Heath with sparkling Swordstrikers and the assaulters with dark red capes.146

And a blood filled engagement began...147

..148

Lord, Castellen Jheyphwir Grimtaper sat, arched over a desk, a scroll locked in his grasp. This was the third message he had acquired from the Vice Regent Dequivar. The third message concernning the three Dragons that had already appeared to five seperate holdings, destroying each one mercilessly. Grey Heath would have been no different, had the wizards not been here. He breathed for the second time in the last minute.149

The Vice Regent had ordained that he was to not harm the two. He was not convinced they were the dragon detatchers. In any condition, they were yet, of the Wizard Wall, the Vice Regents own protection. And now, hence the doing of barring them, the Pirate Hunt had been abandoned, time for it would come later. Jheyphwir knew there was further cause to this then the capture of the Darkhand. He felt it.150

Wizards about, in any realm, were conducting differently. Those of the magic craft were traveling, killing...traveling. One thing in his present world was errant, and the powerful knew what it was, the most powerful at least. Dequivar, Regeerd, Wekera, Thrik Disord...Tyber?151

He closed the scroll and dropped into the hearth. And when the parchment burned and twisted black, he heard it.152

A deathcry.153

They were assailed...154

..155

The woman; who had not adjoined the fray, stood at the forefront of the open gate; at the end of the fortified approach. The carnaging ahead was obnoxious and stabbing. Yet, she seemed to have probed into another battle. A one of the future. With eyes still in a distant look, she hurled her doeskin pelerine towards the ground. 156

Its motion of descent suddenly, died in the air, it stopped; then began to fall gently.157

As it floated, it began to shape, and as it touched the grass it meshed into a solid form. A black couldron. She would have smiled or gave a word of renown, but she had witnessed this crone-made-spectacle a thousand times; her habitual dialogue dried in her mouth. Instead, she pulled out a stone phial from her bandolier, uncorked it, then, let it stream to the floor of the couldron. The liquid was purple, it sizzled and began blebbing. It enriched and clabbered. She crooked above it to inspect its heat. 158

In the same moments span, a rod of steel crashed through the blackness of the air.159

Her head moved skywards to see what had caused the sound.160

She saw a long, sheer tower. A wizard, bilging from its window...damn him! GaReydil of Blaedour!161

And...162

The iron caught her face heavily, bruising and knocking her low and out of awareness. And her shock.163

She fell like a dead crow to the green grass.164

The bar splashed into the purple liquid...165

Geron exploded from the purple substance. Making it fly away and afar. His frame was wet to the face. He coughed and hacked, then fell away from the couldron.166

"What be'eth this..." he crawled a foot, then somehow stood, still seeming as a dog, wet, just born. His robes heavy with enchantment.167

He saw the black form, crumpled up in her long dark hair and weaponary.168

"Wekera." he swore in shock.169

She gave no movement.170

He flashed out his silver wand, it was, like him, enveloped in the purple slime. He cursed again. He then knew.171

The liquid soaked into the wand of Ocean Iron, and a breath later, the wand had transformed into blackthorn wood. Gerons wet face was a hopeless consussion. This signified his power was now dead. His innate power as a wizard. The slime had filched it all from him. He turned and looked upwards to the tall tower above. The savage barbarian was no where near the trivial window. Unfortunate for Tyber, but then he still had hope.172

And safety.173

The world seemed cold, derogating, nothing could protect him now. Had he been treading ice he would have thought no different. He felt spineless and numb of anything but anguish, woe.174

His master warred leagues afar, his friends, he would settle a dragons riches to know where they walked.175

"Pardon my idiocy, Conjurer." he whispered as he made his way from Grey Heath. 176

That was his only chance, he had to find Fonth or Therg. Or who could aid him? Tyber would be forever bound, and he, forever powerless...177

As downcast as he felt, he would find them. 178

I will not be diparaged...179

His feet had him in a path against a cliff, steep and threatening. He had been walking for no less then an hour. He felt drained, still. His magic was gone. He walked another mile. He stopped, the thin, high path still lead on. He damned his location and set a foot in the front of the other. 180

And then he felt the bite a spear in his back.181

And the flicker of fire.182

The glimmer of an eye...183

The claws of dragons?184