MQ: Daedeloth

[Skie and Avery]

-Closed to Slayer of the Rot-

Night came with cruelty and beauty to Raiaera. The setting sun turned the crimson canopies of the Red Forest to fire, and when it set, it was as if the infernos of hell had gone to sleep as well. Skie'd been given a bird's eye view, as well. She struck at Kross' shoulders and neck with her elbows and tried in futility to kick him. She'd screamed against the obsidian gag he'd bound her mouth with, and in the end she might as well have been nothing more than a fly to bat at him. Her tears fell on deaf ears, her efforts all for nothing. She thought often about Godhand, Kahlina and Lillian. The Obsidian Tower was a fortress, but for more than one villain and hero it had made a formidable tomb as well.

She was tired, angry enough to think about striking at Kross' wings. That would have been silly, though. If she did manage to damage them, she would fall to the ground as surely as he would, and her ability to fly had been stripped of her as surely as her pheremones had. Now she regretted so much, but none so much as not having stayed in Concordia. This cursed land of Raiaera had given her so many unfortunate encounters, and had she never come under the possession of Griffin, she'd never have betrayed her brother, or done the unthinkable to earn her title and abilities as Moontae stripped away.

Now she turned to the neckband as comfort, the only metal she knew to be of any use aside from the sword at her side. Griffin, I'm in trouble! she sent, hoping and praying the warrior could come to her aide. He'd never been bothered in battle before, and surely someone as strong as he could swat Kross aside as if he were a mere insect? But the minutes passed, Kross shifted her on his shoulder, and she never heard so much as a whisper from her slave master. Had he fallen in battle? If he had, she was both free and doomed.

Kross shifted again, and though it was dark, Skie felt a tug at the pit of her stomach. They were falling, though not as if shot out of the sky. Instead, she craned her neck around, gasping against the gag. Firelight and movement was coming closer, banners and tents coming into view and growing larger as they approached from the sky. For a moment she wondered if Kross would land into an enemy camp. He was arrogant enough to do it, and she knew Raiaera had strength fighting for her.

Her hopes, however, were dashed in the blink of an eye. The wind picked up and a banner cracked and flared in the breeze, unfurling to show her the sigil that she'd been staring upside-down at on Kross' back the entire trip. He was taking her to the necromancer's camp. The hungry look of zombies made her cry out against the obsidian against her mouth, curl tighter against her captor. She'd always assumed that when she died, she'd go out with a fighting chance.

Instead, she was being offered as a sacrifice to the gods who brought Daedeloth to the Elven homeland.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Even miles away from the obsidian tower and Cydonia's further rotting corpse, Kross was still roaring with laughter. Oh, how his ribs ached, and it just grew in strength every second that he thought of the glowing blade carving the corpse queen, or the stranded jackasses that had trusted him. He almost felt bad for leaving Godhand to the ravenous jaws of his allies, but the guilt was fleeting at best. The Saraelian felt as though he'd been unbound; troublesome chains torn free to leave him to soar as easily through the air as he did now.

The joyful shuddering of his body began to fade, but his lips were still stretched into a mammoth grin. With Skie dan Sabriel, offspring of the Starslayer, in his grasp, there was no doubt in his mind that Xem'zund would draw his daughter up before him, unharmed and eager to see him. Then, the red headed little girl would be back in his arms...and along the side of the Black; he could tear down the world, and create something to keep Meredith safe.

Like a prison.

His grin faltered, and irritably, he batted the thought aside. Meredith's life was tantamount to his own survival. She was the last tether securing him to reality, sanity, stability. With her gone...he would be no better than a beast wearing man's clothes.

The Saraelian was suddenly aware he'd slipped into a rotten mood. The amusement over the other's plight had vanished, leaving only a flat scowl. Skie squirmed against the wings of black stone he'd created on a whim as they'd left the tower, and he was at once aware of the nuisance she was. The bloody sunlight of dusk lent a certain menace to the glower he shot over his shoulder at her, but the gesture didn't quiet her.

"Shut up," he hissed maliciously, shifting her roughly on her shoulder. Graciously, in the closing darkness, campfires had begun to appear like eyes in the horizon. Clenching his teeth, Kross pressed harder on his grasp of the magnetic field swathing him and his captive, and picked up speed. The flickering lights grew closer and closer, and soon, tents and poles with flapping banners outlined themselves in the glow. 'Maybe it's an enemy camp. It'd feel good to spill some blood and get my mind off this brat.' The wild thought brought his smile back, but the closer he came to the small fires, the quicker he returned to his black mood. Eventually, he began to descend. Skie noticed; he could tell as she began squirming again.

The worms had spotted him, and were shambling into a crooked semi-circle to watch his approach. With a gesture, the black stone wings crumbled and he straightened his posture. Snatching a wad of cloth, Kross yanked his captive off his back, and held her like a misbehaving pet at his side as he touched down upon the ground again.

Relief came to him. While flying was certainly invigorating, the stone and dirt was his domain, and afforded him a great deal of comfort. As long as his feet touched the earth, he felt like he could tear down the sky.

The dead shambled around him, mumbling and hissing. Only a few kept their posture, though their attempt at maintaining an air of authority was utterly lost on the Saraelian. Insects crawled unnoticed across discolored, moist flesh. Dirt crumbled away from wrinkled rags. Patches of bone shown through decaying flesh and withered muscle. "Where's Xem'zund? I've got a present for the old man."

"Dirty Krossss....filthy beasssst, ssstill beating heart. Not fit to ssserve the Black, not yet we ssssay. We won't tell you a thing, breather." The Saraelian's humorless gray eyes were drawn to one of the undead with a misshapen skull. It reminded him wryly of a pumpkin. The thing was hunched and hissing, constantly wringing its claws of hands against its grave dirt sodden ribcage. Smirking, the Saraelian dropped Skie unceremoniously to the ground, and turned on the thing instantly.

"And you think you're fit to serve the Forgotten One? Look at you. You're falling the fuck apart. A good axe blow and you'd be dust. You? You ain't worth shit. But me?" Kross drew in a breath and exploded in a rapid blur of motion. He spun forward and dropped down into a crouch, slapping his hand against the grassy ground. With a ripping sound, two large stone slabs of rock swung up from either side of the ghoul and clapped shut in a messy spray of foul gore and bone splinters.

"I'm magic," he finished, standing up and brushing off his shoulders. "Now, the rest of you maggots had better start talking, or I'll start sending you twelve feet back under."

"The Lord isn't here, Kross. He wanted, however, for us to tell you to visit the seer. She's in the tent in the south of the camp." The Saraelian stared blankly at the dead thing that had spoken. Then, he turned his eyes down the campsite, through the smoke of the fires and the hastily made tents, to a much more competently constructed shelter. It was larger than the rest, and the material was heavier, like wool, colored dark. An amber glow came from the flap of it, and he felt himself grimacing.

Seers. He put little faith in them, and he couldn't understand why Xem'zund trusted them in the slightest. It was a dangerous thing to tamper with a man's future. Life was to stay its natural course...and of course, the seers didn't believe that. With a sigh, Kross picked Skie back up, hooked a finger between the stone band and the flesh of her cheek, and pulled. The gag shattered, and he glared at her sharply.

"You can talk, but I suggest you watch what you say." Kross closed his eyes, and his hair began to darken, grow around his ears. His skin lost its healthy sun kissed hue, and became pale, almost ashen. Vague wrinkles folded themselves on his face, and dark circles formed under his eyes. The Saraelian pressed his palm into the girl's back, forcing her to walk beside him. The bindings on her wrists and torso stayed.

"Yeah...watch your shit. Because Xem'zund would probably be just as happy to have your head and your daddy's sword instead of you, still warm and breathing."

[Skie and Avery]

As the binding around her mouth shattered like too-hot glass, Skie gasped. Opening her mouth perhaps had been a mistake. Her lips were jabbed by shards of obsidian before they fell away from her mouth. One particularly large piece balanced on her lips for a moment before she ducked her head away, tonguing it away into her mouth. She wasn't sure how she would use the small shard, but she hoped it could come in handy somehow. Her wrists ached as she was shoved just in front of the Saraelian, her breath shallow. After all, she knew well that his words weren't mere threats. They were promises as cold and as real as death itself.

While they walked to the barely illuminated tent, she wondered why he had changed his appearance to look so unhealthy. Now he didn't stand out quite so much among the scores of undead that milled around them. She could feel evil as thick as chilled grease radiating from each and every warrior they passed, and she shuddered. Only once did she allow herself to stumble, and was rewarded by a sharp jab to her shoulder from her captor. With a hiss, she was born with him into the tent of the seer.

"Kross...." the greeting was spoken before the tent flap behind them had taken the chance to flutter closed. The light was warm, but not as bright as she thought it would have been. A small firepit in the center, with fragrant smoke billowing upwards through an opening in the top of the tent, was the only mortal light. Around the seer's dirty gray hair, lights wove, glittering and weaving as they moved. Skie thought for a moment they were fireflies, and she was right in a sense. Instead of a verdant light found in mortal bugs, these creatures glowed with a dark, near violet glimmer. One looped out far enough for Skie to see what it truly was; a hollowed out husk with ragged wings and gaping holes were insect eyes should be.

The seer herself was shrouded in Njal Spidersilk, kept wound around her and thrown over her head like a hooded cloak. From the fabric, two gnarled gray hands were spread out over an assembly of cards, the long yellowing nails clicking acoss the tops of the rough paper in a strange rhythm that nearly made the Moontae princess sick to her stomach.

"A warning I bring you this night." Her voice was rough, the sound of a dead man being scored by the claws of vultures. A small joyless laugh, almost a sneer in itself, came, and she was talking again. Her hand passed over a card that seemed to radiate death and destruction.

"The Tower falls...and with it falls the world all over. The foundation isn't nearly as strong as it would be thought, and when the bricks and mortar crumble, the real truth will be revealed, the insides and secrets ravaged and born to the surface."

Her hand moved, passing over three cards that were clustered together, and again the laughter came. It was a sharp, barking sound that might have carried with it the hint of a sob.

"But the tower that topples doesn't have to be. If you will listen to this old hag, the future can be torn from it's course. The Devil is cast on his head! There is a need that once released, He shall never set his hand on your heart again. But if there is something that you cannot let go of, he will use it to pull himself around and you will be His forever! And your future will be nothing but the man who lies with ten swords in his back! Something dead, something new. Quiet and useless in this world."

She spat then, her phlegm crackling into the flames before her. From the pile of three cards, she drew one, holding it just above the small fire. An image glowed, lit from behind, an innkeeper with nine filled cups before him.

"I have a gift for you, Kross. A wish, for when you are looking at the Devil and Tower and wondering which shall fall in the end."

The card outstretched, Skie panicked. She knew that if this medicine woman was worth her salt, the card would hold magic detrimental to Raiaera. Steeling herself, Skie gritted her teeth and kicked out. Her hands were still bound tightly in obsidian, but there was no way she could stand by and not use what else she had at her disposal to keep that card from Kross. But as her foot was hindered from striking at the Seer by a meaty hand that gripped with no mercy at all, and she fell to the side, her face slamming down close to the outer coals of the fire, she watched as an errant flame leaped up and consumed the card.

It's ashes fell around the last dan Sabriel, and she almost smiled, until the Seer began to laugh mirthlessly again. Every syllable was like the end of times, and the voice was no less calm nor serious when the Seer spoke again.

"That which you seek waits for you in what remains of Eluriand. Three keys will open the doors you need, and the first is within the rubble that was once the outer walls."