The Forest and the Fright
Predicament
The Forest of Alaum was blooming in the height of spring, full of color and sound; the melodious concerto of various kinds of birds trying to impress their mates, the yowling of juvenile animals taking their first tentative steps out of their dens, the booming footsteps of a massive blue-scaled dragon crashing through the trees... the profuse swearing of its prey.
"'It's only a small one,' yeah right! 'Probably a baby frostwyrm,' my ass!"
A whip-like crack of lightning shot past Irika's right ear as she kept running as fast as her legs would permit, away from the hulking monstrosity that was one stumble away from making her its dinner.
The annoying part of her brain was reminding her that she should count herself lucky that it wasn't in fact a frostwyrm, for somehow a dragon the size of a small house had ambushed her while she was cooking some river fish. The dragon's first breath had hit her squarely in the back, but instead of the snap-freezing death she had expected, she had felt a comfortable tingle of the dragon's lightning energizing something in the pit of her stomach.
For she was a sorceress – or that's what they called the skilled ones anyway. To her surprise more than anyone else's, she had found herself very, very fortunately immune to this particular dragon's brand of electrifying magic. She doubted that having a deeper affinity with the element of lightning than she had previously thought would make her immune to being crushed by the dragon's jaws, though, and that's why she was now running. As glad as she was to be protected from the thunder wyvern's magic, the beast seemed to also be protected from hers by the same grace. The dragon had also noticed this, for it was now focusing increasingly less on trying to electrocute its prey, and more on simply trying to eat it.
Various scenarios of torturing her current employers flashed through Irika's imagination, as her mind was looking for reprieve from the abject terror and panic. She had tried thinking of a rational plan of action whilst running, but planning had never been her strong suit. All that came to mind now were ways of getting back at the bastards responsible for sending her on this 'easy' little hunt.
Her pursuer was no longer a youngling, but – thankfully, Irika thought – could not yet be considered mature. As far as she'd heard, dragon young were little more than large animals; easily distracted, easily tricked and fairly easily killed, for a trained soldier anyway. Which Irika was decidedly not. Mature dragons on the other hand were terrifying beasts of legend, which possessed a cunning, almost human-like intellect. They could easily outsmart and outmaneuver unwitting prey, and were equipped with both powerful magic and strong scales able to withstand massive amounts of punishment. The particular specimen hot on Irika's heels seemed to be in a growth stage somewhere in between the two; not yet smart enough to take flight, form a plan and cut her off, but not dumb and weak enough to easily lose an agile prey either. This did not make Irika feel much better. Neither did tripping on a tree root.
Irika fell face-first into the turf, reflexively tumbling into a crouching position. The athletic but pointless maneuver was not enough to make up for the lost pace, as the wyvern rounded in on her. Irika hissed and tried to find a way out. None came to mind that didn't end up in the wyvern's gullet. She clawed for a clump of dirt and flung it at the dragon's mean face. It bounced off its forehead, accomplishing exactly nothing.
"Crap."
Irika rolled out of the way of the giant beast's foreleg, as it tried to either pin her down or crush her – not like the end result would be any different either way. She dodged another paw. And another. There was no time to pick up and run anymore. The dragon let out an annoyed growl, took a step back, and started snapping at Irika with its huge but surprisingly agile jaws.
The burn of exhaustion from every muscle in Irika's body was starting to seep into her mind.
"This is really it huh? I couldn't protect you, mother... I'm sorry."
After a short, desperate dance for survival, Irika's legs gave out from under her. The wyvern lifted its head, and Irika was certain it was smirking. Mocking her. Reveling in its superiority and its victory of the chase. This made Irika even more mad than the fact that she was just about to get eaten.
"Come on then you big hunk a'crap, I swear I'll pull in your tongue with me and make you CHOKE ON IT!"
The dragon's eyes flashed with something like anger. It seemed to understand Irika's words, or at least their resounding rudeness. It let out a deep growl, and lunged at her with open jaws. The wyvern's feasting growl was cut by a strange sharp crash, as it abruptly lurched downward, its jaw hitting the ground with a dull thud. Irika looked up to see whether something heavy had landed on the beast's head, when a torrent of dark blue blood crackling with magic flowed out of the dragon's throat and around its head. The rapidly fulminating blood started pooling on the ground and forming small rivulets that flowed down into the undergrowth, wilting it as it enveloped the roots and stems.
Chest heaving with strain and shock, Irika stumbled backwards, up onto her feet and looked past the glazed eyes and majestic horns of the wyvern. Its great neck had been cleft clean through, quite probably by the person now crouching down right next to it, holding the hilt of a sword plunged into the ground.
It took a moment for Irika to notice that her mysterious savior was also straining to breathe, and seemed to be convulsing in great pain. Realization hit her as her foot touched a puddle of the dragon's ceaselessly sparking blood, and produced an arc of static that tingled her toes. She might be unnaturally resistant to this particular strain of magic, but others usually certainly weren't. She rushed to round the dragon's severed head and laid her hand on the stranger's fist, knuckles white and clutching the sword like a lifeline. She'd been right; the stranger was desperately struggling against the violent electric energies within the blood that was freely flowing from the dragon's neck. Long, disheveled dark red hair was covering the stranger's downcast face like a curtain, pained groans issuing from beyond.
Irika found herself acting on instinct. She had never seen or felt anything magical of this magnitude before, and the entirety of her sorcery training so far had been restricted to accidentally shooting bolts of lightning at her mother whenever her temper had flared. She forced herself to even her erratic breath, closed her eyes and tried to focus on the dragon's cursed blood assaulting the stranger. Her teeth vibrated unpleasantly as the foreign magic started flowing out of the stranger and into herself, as if seeking shelter.
As soon as she felt the stranger's fist relax and unclench, Irika gave them a strong push to separate them from the sword and the blood, now focusing instead of culling the flow of the perverse draconian magic. Her own muscles spasmed intermittently and sweat was pouring out of her body, as the vast supply of thundering magic within the mystical beast's lifeblood flowed seemingly endlessly into her. The pools of unnaturally gleaming blue blood on the ground started evaporating, releasing clouds of static and filling the forest with harsh crackling.
Irika's body rose several feet off the ground, slightly arced backwards as if floating in water, with thin tendrils of lightning shooting in and out between her and the remaining blood. Her eyes flickered a blinding blue with every thunderbolt, her mind was numb with the overpowering magic, her lungs paralyzed with the breath she'd been drawing in for Gods knows how long... Irika screamed.
Ariel in Alaum
Heavy, metallic footfalls shattered the peace of a small forest clearing that small animals often used as a food gathering ground. The clearing was a spot at which the main road split, extending straight east, west, north and south like a compass, shaded by a canopy of oak trees untold centuries old. Some ways to the west the forest thinned and turned into farmland, through which the road eventually lead to the small but wealthy Mercenary State, the home nation of the forest's steel-and-leather-clad invader.
Ariel had kept a good pace since crossing the border between the State and its neighboring country of Stenning, within whose borders the Alaum forest also resided. Eager as she was to keep moving, the clearing and its curiously symmetrical crossing made her stop to look around. Shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy here and there, yet the thick oak forest provided a refreshing reprieve from the late spring sun overhead.
The road from the State and through the farmlands had been extremely well-maintained despite seeing much travel; the same deliberate quality of gravel and dirt extended towards the west, but not the north and the south. Those paths looked significantly more worn, and seemed to narrow down considerably not far from the clearing. On one corner of the crossing Ariel could see a fire pit and some long benches, although they were not currently in use. Two large, rectangular patches of slightly cleaner ground stood out at the roadside next to the resting spot.
"Caravan carriages or merchant stalls perhaps?"
This seemed like a popular resting spot for humans and animals alike. Another corner bore a large sign with a stylishly carved plaque pointing in each cardinal direction, and smaller wooden plaques fastened to each one with hemp yarn. Ariel had to step in closer to take a look at the signpost in the shade of the canopy.
North
Cuanwar - 40 miles - WARNING! Orc band sightings!
Cuanlast - 88 miles - Do not travel alone or unprotected!
Cuanheim - 180 miles
West
Brunn - 38 miles - Beware of landslides during the rainy season!
Hilders - 77 miles
Erwayn - 162 miles - Ferry service back in business - 24th day of the Fourth Moon
She had to bend down to read the lowermost plaques.
South
Thousand Pikes Mountains - 25 miles - Olivar's rest stop closed until further notice.
Crag Hell - 60 miles - Feel free to take refuge inside – but please clean up after yourself! -Olivar
East
Weilz farmlands - 10 miles - Fresh spring produce, see Scher's Shoppe in Weilz!
Weilz - 20 miles
Capital City - 52 miles - FVkk MErCIE CVNTs i HOP U aLL Di
The last sub-plaque gave Ariel slight pause. It was a neatly crafted wooden plaque hung onto the main signpost just like the others, yet the jarring unprofessionalism of it compared to the other information signs made Ariel bark out in laughter. Several of the critters around her bolted away from her in alarm. A squirrel was angrily chattering at her from the branch of a nearby tree.
"Mercie cvnts indeed," Ariel said to herself in amusement. "Do you think so too, little friend?" She looked up at the angry squirrel and sighed. For she was indeed one of the famous and infamous Mercenary Knights of the Mercenary State.
The Guivvallon Militant State Mercenaries, as they had been known in the past – now known to most people as merely 'State Mercs' or 'Mercies'. The latter name was often a cause of much ironic scoffing, as mercy was a non-mandatory virtue for the State Knights. They were known to be brutal, efficient, and extremely open to offers of employment, as long as they were not pitted against their own, or against unarmed civilians.
The smaller nations of the continent had all but abandoned their own efforts at forming an official militia out of their populace, and instead relied on State Mercenaries for border protection. As long as the contract held, those Mercs would effectively be members of the nation they were guarding, and would go down fighting for it. This unwavering loyalty to the contract had made State Knights both respected and shunned, for most common folk tended to consider them nothing more than emotionless war machines fueled by greed. The fact that they would often unabashedly use magic in public didn't help, either.
The country itself had long since shed its original founder's name, and adopted a much more succinct 'Mercenary State' as it's official moniker. Their national crest of three crossed swords atop an anvil was still known as the Crest of Guivvallon, and all Mercenary State officials bore it from initiation to honor their first General. It was a small country, but possessed the most skilled military force on the entire continent. Over ninety percent of its inhabitants were somehow involved with the military. The remaining small percentage were mostly merchants and craftsmen, merely enjoying the perks of the State's protection while not exclusively catering their craft unto it.
Ariel was brought back from her short mirth-turned-melancholy reverie by a nut that fell down from above and hit the top of her head.
"I get it, even the forest wants Mercs out," she said to herself sardonically, and resumed her solitary trek towards the east. She had only been walking for a scant few minutes, when a loud noise from further ahead raised her neck hair upright. The noise was not unfamiliar to her, but neither was it welcome. The roar of a dragon.
"Here, In Stenning? Why?" Ariel mused. Dragons were almost never seen this far south of Cuan. She broke into a brisk jog, moving as fast as she could without her armor causing too much of a clamor and possibly drawing the dragon's ire. The dragon seemed to be rushing – oddly – along the ground, crashing trees out of its way.
"Is it hurt and unable to fly? Is it running from something or after something?"
The sounds of the beast's thrashing veered off the main road and into the woods. Ariel considered her main mission for a split-second, before deciding a slight detour would be pertinent – especially when it concerned something as unusual as dragons. She gave chase after the beast, now abandoning stealth altogether, for the dragon was unlikely to hear her over its own rampage anyway. Soon enough Ariel caught sight of the large blue wyvern, who was now roaring and snapping at something.
"Thankfully not a mature one," she thought, exhaling in relief.
She slowed down and took into the trees away from the rough path the dragon had cleared, and circled around to witness the scene. Finally she saw what the dragon was after – a young girl in tattered traveling clothes, shouting profanities at the dragon and narrowly avoiding getting crushed by its forelimbs. Ariel didn't have time to be impressed by the girl's agility in the face of the gigantic beast, as the girl fell backwards, evidently thoroughly spent from the chase. Ariel dashed from amidst the trees, unfastening the massive greatsword strapped onto her back in a single swift motion. If not for the short pause the dragon took to admire its prey, she would not have reached the dragon in time. And if not for her immense faith in her strength and in her sword, she wouldn't have even dreamed of attempting what she was doing right now.
She turned her sprint into a spin, the muscles in her chest and arm bulging under the strain of the furious blow, as she brought down the giant blade down one-handed at the dragon's exposed neck. The peculiar, pale ivory blade cut through the dragon's scales, sinew and bone with more ease than even she herself had anticipated, and crashed into the soil under the beast's freshly severed head. Ariel barely had the time to pull the sword away from the wyvern's corpse, as a spatter of the magical beast's blood caught her uncovered arm. Her body immediately seized as if electrocuted. She instinctively grounded herself with her sword and crumpled over it, struggling to breathe. Disorganized memories of the corrupting influence of dragon's blood in the few books she had grudgingly read flickered in her mind, but were drowned out by the electrifying pain that scorched her sanity and cause every muscle in her body to convulse.
"So much for the contract, I guess." The thought burst out of a defiant part of Ariel's mind, like a final bubble of air from the lungs of a drowning person. She was sure she would die right then and there, untrained and unable to withstand an internal magical assault such as this.
She had been unaware of the warm hand of another pressed upon her own, until the chaos in her mind cleared enough for her to realize that she seemed to be not dying, but instead rapidly regaining breath and control over her mind and body. The excruciating burn of the lightning magic was swept out of her body as if someone were sucking it away through a straw that was inserted into her right hand. Ariel breathed hard, now noticing that she was drenched in sweat, numbed by pain and lying on the ground, thoroughly alive. She grunted and reached at her sword for support, only to notice that it was now several feet away.
"How did I get over here?"
She looked up at the person she vaguely remembered having come to her aid. The young girl, who had been designated the dragon's prey, was now suspended in mid-air, crackling with unbound energies like an elemental straight out of a magical tome. Ariel shakily clambered onto her hands and knees and gaped at the small, frail-looking victim of the storm before her.
"Is there anything I can do to help her? Surely she's going to die!" As soon as Ariel finished the thought, the girl screamed.
The scream pierced Ariel's skull harder than the dragon's blood had. She covered her eyes just in time to block the incandescent flash of blue-tinted light lashing out of the hovering girl, as the electrifying magic finally settled into her body with a strange, drawn-out rushing din that sounded as if reality were playing backwards. The forest was still.