Bloodwalk

The druid looked into the astonished eyes of the gate guards and smiled. "Save your arms for your weapons. No need to make a fuss over me." She glanced up on the wall. "Elisandrya!" Eli leaped down the ladder to embrace her old friend. "It is good to see you, Lesani," she said over the surprised Ghedia's shoulders. "It has been too long."

"No such thing as too long or too short, child. We meet when and where we are supposed to." She stood back and held Eli's shoulders, then took a cursory look around. "Though I admit I'm glad we meet in this world rather than the next, considering the times." Elisandrya's smile waned slightly. Lesani's words weighed heavily on the hunter's shoulders. They stepped away from the gates, arm in arm, pulling hoods and cloaks tighter against the rain to speak of recent events. "When the blush first came in the north, I thought little of it. Plague comes and goes-it is the way of things." Lesani's voice took on the tone of long-past nights spent around the Ghedia campfires, telling tales of dangerous times. Eli shivered, remembering the dark morals of many of those stories. "But this time, the storms began, the cold winds. Early autumns have been known, even winters, but nature seemed too much at war with itself. "My auguries showed dark magic at work, a prophecy of ending." She looked at Eli from within her hood, rain dripping from its edges. "That seeing brought me here, Elisandrya, and as many of my order who would follow. What is happening here?" Eli stared at Lesani's wise face, hearing the words from someone she trusted. Ending. She looked around at warriors huddled against the rain, facing a storm that hid whatever evil crawled toward the walls.

She stared at the locked doors and shadowed faces of those who refused to take part in their defense. "A prophecy has been given to us," she began, but she felt contradiction blurring the lines of what she'd seen and what she knew. She shook her head, trying to put the words together. "No, not a prophecy. Something else. Something wrong."

Lightning raced above them. Lesani waited patiently, her eyes understanding. Eli felt comfort in those eyes, knowing that all she'd ever been was known to that wise countenance. "Sameska lied to us. To me," she said, borrowing the confidence she saw in Lesani. "She gave us a prophecy that told us to lie down, to do nothing and that all would be well. Before this vision, Targris was attacked and Logfell had already fallen." Her eyes darkened, looked knowingly into Lesani's as she repeated the word. "Before." "Ah," Lesani nodded, realization hardening her features. "A vision out of joint, like your parents."

Eli stared at those who stood with her, controlling the rage she felt at hearing another confirm her own knowledge. Lesani did not push the subject, for which Eli was grateful. They'd had that conversation many times in years past. Both considered the import of the other's tale while more of the Ghedia gathered around them, stepping through the gates and exchanging greetings with one another. More than twenty nomadic shamans arrived, with several more still making their way toward Brookhollow. They awaited the attention of their sister Lesani, who was the initiator of the green flame. Lesani quietly apologized that so few of the Ghedia had gathered, remarking that many still held ancient grudges against the Savrathan bordertowns. "I understand," Eli replied. "We are glad to accept any assistance at all. We still haven't heard anything from the oracles themselves." "In your youth, I remember, you wouldn't have wished to hear another word from those oracles ever again," Lesani said, pulling her hood back to meet Eli's gaze despite the rain. "I imagine it is more your sister that concerns you." Elisandrya nodded. She hadn't mentioned Dreslya, still hoping her sister would appear to stand with her. "I'm worried about Dres, I admit." "Now that's odd. As I recall, Dreslya was the worrier." Lesani smiled. "Should I speak with this Sameska? Perhaps she can be persuaded to see things differently?" Eli's face darkened and she looked at the ground, avoiding the looming silhouette of the temple to her right. "That would be wasted breath, I'm afraid," she said coldly.

"Sameska is lost to a madness of fear. Seeing a Ghedia in the temple might serve only to strengthen that fear." "I see," Lesani replied, then added, "I'm sorry, Eli. I should have listened with better ears when you were younger. You were right, then and now. Take strength from that." Lesani turned to address her sisters. Elisandrya walked to the nearby street corner, staring toward the eastern gates though she could not see them, and felt ashamed for her people. She imagined how they must look in the eyes of the Ghedia, whose forebears had counseled long ago against the evils of abandoning the tribal lifestyle of the Shaar for this northern stretch of land. As she stood in the pounding rain, staring sightlessly east, an odd noise filled the air. Quiet, almost whispering at first, it began to grow, droning deeply in her ears and filling her heart with a primal dread that chilled far more than any wind or rain. On the heels of the noise, three sharp horn blasts echoed through the storm once again, this time from the west, causing her stomach to lurch as the horn's urgent call faded.

"Let him answer, Khaemil," she said without looking at her servant. "I'm curious to hear his thoughts." Quin felt his jaw loosen as Khaemil whispered and altered the spell that held him, allowing him to speak. He saw the anxious look in Morgy

The old woman's thirst for power and influence was admirable and her control over her subjects was impressive, but her relationship with her god had dwindled almost to nothing. So, in her quiet moments alone, trying desperately to renew her faith and maintain her position among the oracles," Morgy

"And you-well, you should have moved on after slaying Mahgra. Your part in the prophecy was to make it more palatable." She stood close to him, looking him up and down again. "Allowing room for hope makes it easier to keep a victim lying still, don't you agree?" Once again, Quin looked away from Morgy

A strange glow burned there that belied the rust and corrosion of the ruined weapons around it. "Ah," Morgy