Quest for the Dragon Soul

I

They screamed – none could hear them, but they screamed nonetheless.

They had been driven from the cover of the retreating forest and into the clutches of the Quieting Angels – ash fell upon their heads as they entered the area of effect of the approaching Angel and all sound, even the thunderous gallop of the war horse that had been seized as a spoil of battle, was muted. Tayne had grasped Khaln's sword, hoping the extra length would allow a better range to keep the flying terror at bay, but though she had sliced through the creature's ash-covered chest when the Angel fell upon them and the long, silver blade silently struck true, the creature was undisturbed.

In the eerie silence, Khaln coached the mighty steed and it reared on its hind legs as the terrifying figure of the Quieting Angel maneuvered around it – spittle from the horse landed on the thick, metal plates that covered the Angel's eye sockets and the chain that held its oversized jaw sealed shut. But Khaln yanked the reins to the left and the horse threw its weight it that direction – while the horse changed pivoted, Tayne wrapped her arms tightly around Khaln's waist while he lead the horse to crash on its front hooves and kick the Quieting Angels with its hind legs. But the silent horror caught the steed's unusually powerful limbs and took to the air, dragging the struggling horse high above the ground. Khaln slipped from his saddle and hung from the reins while Tayne was snagged.

Khaln mouthed silent words meant to soothe the panicked horse, but its bulging eyes and swaying tongue betrayed its rapidly beating heart he knew was near failure. Khaln looked down and his stone gray eyes peered at a vast expanse of crashing, foamy waves and jagged rocks.

The Quieting Angel had carried them over the cliffs and paused for a heartbeat before dropping Khaln, Tayne and their mount into the water.

They screamed – none could hear them, but they screamed nonetheless.

II

Bailla'Tayne Jeva was a native of Dar'Achar – now known as Videsh'Achar -- the largest and most prosper of the eastern coastal cities, sitting high on the cliffs overlooking the Ardent sea and the fields of Zelh'Zuri. She had been born to a minor royal house that had developed a reputation for siring powerful mages. Bailla'Tayne Jeva had not been one of them as her failure in the ethereal scripture crucible had demonstrated. She could only sense a fraction of the mystical leylines that anchored magic and her mana – the well of her life energy – was too shallow to properly manipulate the leylines. Yet, she had inherited a physical grace and prowess that was native to her father's family. She was offered a position with the Blade Brides of Achar, warrior guardians of the Mages of Dar.

She had proven quite proficient with the twin cutlasses, but had to struggle as she had started her training later than her sisters – when the Mages of Dar launched a hunt against the dream eaters and their werewoods, she had joined the battle last and found herself caught in the Umbraland with the beasts when the mages had cast their final exile spell.

After being freed after half a millenia of exile, Bailla'Tayne Jeva currently wished she was still trapped in the Umbraland. She had been separated from the warrior Khaln when the creature he called a Quieting Angel carried them over the Ardent sea and tossed them to the wind as though they were a child's discarded plaything. She would soon crash into the water at an angle and she knew the water would be as unyielding as stone.

But Tayne remembered the lessons of the old sword mage – she spun in mid air and grabbed her two cutlasses and crossed the blades as she faced the closing, watery surface head-on. Requiring split second timing, Tayne summoned her weakening mana and read the leylines – the vectors of magic – and weaved the water to her blades. Just as she was about to strike the unforgiving sea, she opened her arms wide while chanting the shield spell. The water followed the arcs of her blades and opened up to a bubble that sealed behind her, erasing any trace of her fall beneath the ocean's rippling surface.

Before the sea closed above her, Tayne had managed to collect a deep breath before the bubble of magic she created faltered and she was engulfed by the cool water. Her grip on her blades loosened and she managed to sheathe the cutlasses despite the mighty current she had fallen into. The fast moving under current lead for the rocky base of the cliffs she had just flown over. Struggling with her bearings, Tayne found the dissipating columns of sunlight and began to kick with her arms and legs to break free of the current and breach the surface of the water and relieve the burning in her lungs as her body used up her breath.

Tayne fought against the drag her armored chest plate and skirt created in the water and finally twisted in the dark depths to free herself of their constrictions. Finally able to find the power she needed, Tayne looked back at her sinking armor and cutlasses and swam mightily towards the light until, naked as a newborn, she breached the surface of the sea and took the most satisfying breath of her life.

But as Tayne swam for the distant, rocky shore, her eyes sought Khaln. His fate remained a mystery to her.

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Khaln watched as the beloved horse he had won from the Yarczians smashed into the hard water, its bones splintering and piercing its hide, showering the blue water with crimson droplets of heavy blood.

Khaln hit the water atop the faithful horse, its shattered body dissipating the impact he would have suffered. He entered the water nonetheless, watching as the helpless steed struggled uselessly against the water, its shattered legs still writhing as it fought still to stay afloat. Winded and bruised, Khaln still swam to the animal, determined to end its suffering with a quick stab of his sword. But he was without his long, silvery blade, remembering that it had been lost during the truncated battle with the Quieting Angel. Feeling his belt, he was relieved to feel his two daggers.

Khaln continued to swim towards the wavering horse when he saw it suddenly disappear beneath the water. He took a deep breath and dived in, his gray streaked hair flowing around his head like a wavy crown. A long, clawed tentacle reached up from the murky depth of the Ardent Sea and pulled his horse downwards.

Khaln reached for the horse's mane as it drowned just as the beast submerging his former mount emerged from the abyssal depths.

Khaln had heard stories of the wailing squid, and the sight of it was more horrible than any legend he had heard. Its body was long – five times the length of a man -- and covered with hundreds of small, fanged, writhing mouths that snapped at whatever the ten long tentacles grasped and brought before them. He watched in horror as his powerful horse was quickly decimated into a bony carcass. The beast turned its attention to Khaln as the squid's four eyes, each mounted on a smooth, slimy tentacle, veered in his direction.

Khaln kicked away from the beast, aware that his lungs burned his breath while his veins glowed red in the water, giving him a frightening halo. He burst from the water and gasp, but only long enough for a clawed tentacle to wrap around his neck and drag him beneath.

Bubbles escaped his nostrils as Khaln was dragged head first towards the hungry mouths of the wailing squid. He could hear its multiplied cries as the mouths demanded sustenance. Tugging at the tentacle, Khaln fought to remain calm as his iridescent glow grew. He found the dagger sheathed at his back and he pulled it just as the first mouth chomped at his shoulder. Khaln grunted but managed to work himself into a position where he could place his booted legs against the squid's hide and he took the dagger to the tentacle – he sliced through it easily and the water filled with the beast's bluish blood and his own, leaking from the small bite wound on his shoulder

Khaln kicked from the squid, and as he hoped, the beast trapped his foot and dragged him back towards its angry mouths. As Khaln glided over the snapping appendages, he slashed and stabbed at them, cutting deep wounds in the sea creature. The squid released him and while it shifted its position with startling agility, Khaln had caught one of the stems that carried the beast's eyes. The sharp dagger made little work of the squid's eye and the beast squealed and retreated into the depths, the effort needed to feast on the strange glowing creature that was Khaln was not worth the wounds he was inflicting.

Khaln put his knife in his mouth and swam towards the surface of the water, but he misjudged how close his battle with the wailing squid had brought him towards the shore and he was thrown topsy-turvy by the rollicking waves and he struck a jagged rock. The current and the tide carried him onto the shore and Khaln, disoriented but willful, managed to stand despite the dizziness that impeded him.

Khaln looked up at the high cliffs, and where he warily expected to see a Quieting Angel, his eyes met a group of hooded, androgynous figures, one aiming a bow and arrow and focused tightly on him.

"Come and get me," Khaln groaned before falling to his knees, and then into unconsciousness.

III

Tayne had managed to find an abandoned path she had once taken to reach the beach as a child, hundreds of years ago. It hugged the rocks and she kept as close as possible to their shadows – she felt exposed in her nakedness but also emboldened with a sense of freedom. She was amazed by how little the path, an echo of her childhood, had changed over the centuries. When she reached the top of the path and looked at the base of the crystal walls she had once looked upon for protection, and then inspiration, she stifled a moan. The crystalline walls were tarnished with smoke and blood from the battles with what Khaln had called The Call of Skaelor.

She had heard the word, all those years ago as she trained to be a Blade Bride. It was hushed and whispered – it was the name of an enemy that even the gods should fear. And now, the enemy's servants walked the world and all mages and other users of magic had perished – she feared that her return might be cut short as she was a user of magic herself. But, when in the presence of Khaln, her ability to read the leylines of magic was enhanced.

She pondered his connection to magic while she scampered towards the tarnished, crystalline walls and felt around for a seam she had discovered, at first years – and now because of exile -- centuries before. Her fingers caressed the sooth covered walls until until her beaten nails found the minute space of the seam, a secret entrance built by the founders of the city and invisible to the uninitiated. She traced it until she found the corner where the mechanism was located – she pressed her shoulder to the wall and heaved with all her might until she heard the familiar click of the opening gate. A section sunk into the structure and Tayne sighed until she saw a shadow glide across the ground.

She looked up and a Quieting Angel flew overhead, a patrol she suspected was dedicated to locating her and Khaln. Pressed and breathing hard, Tayne launched herself at the door multiple times until it gave enough space that she could narrowly cross its shadowed threshold and enter the labyrinth of tunnels that crisscrossed the walls of Videsh'Achar. After she pushed the gate close, Tayne rubbed her shoulder – its tenderness told her a bruise was forming where she struck the fall-away gate. After a few seconds in the darkness, she was struck by the sickly sweet and acrid smell of death and decomposition. She took a few tentative steps as her eyes adapted to the filtered light of the afternoon sun that trickled down through the crystal walls that surrounded her; Tayne saw the bloated and destroyed bodies of the victims of the Call of Skaelor who had tried to escape the war, forgetting that war is a virulent disease for which there is no cure.

Tayne walked slowly over the broken bones and oddly reaching corpses, unwilling to disturb their final poses, while her eyes sought something wearable – she soon found a piece of heavy jute she could use. As she grab it, she was suddenly struck with shivers as her body finally reacted to the chill of the cold water of the Ardent sea she had narrowly escaped and the weight of her predicament. Leaning against the wall, Tayne fought the onslaught of tears that swelled in her eyes as she came to grasp that her entire life was long gone and that she had lost the only person she knew in this new world.

She ran her fingers through her short cropped, amber hair and looked to the ground and found two small rocks. She struck them together and one splintered, exposing a sharp and jagged edge. She used it to cut a hole for her head and she then slid the jute piece on like a dress. The fabric was large enough to cover past buttocks – she used the sharp rock to carve moccasins from the remaining fabric and then cut strips she used to hold the moccasins together and finally a last piece to cinch the makeshift tunic at her slim waist.

Tayne slipped the small knife she'd made in the cinch and moved forward more hurriedly as she remembered the path leading back into the ruined city.

Tayne had the mad hope that the Hall of Steel, home of the Blade Brides, still stood.

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The group carried Khaln through the meandering streets of the remains of Videsh'Achar, invisible to the watch of the Quieting Angels – they were all draped in the fabric that made the body of the Scything Souls. Around them, rats and other scavengers scurried across their path, collecting what food they could find. Some survivors of the siege of the city followed the rats, taking what they could from what the rodents ignored. They passed the fountain that marked the center of the city square – it still sprouted water tinged scarlet with the blood of the city's residents.

The sun was setting over the Ardent sea when the band reached a series of abandoned looking structures near the city's port. The buildings once stored grain, wine, spices and fish that once underlined the riches of Videsh'Achar.

Once the doors to a large wine repository were closed, they removed the cloaks and dragged Khaln to a hook that hung down from the ceiling and was looped through a pulley. One of them passed the hook through the shackles binding Khaln's hands, then another yanked the chain and the pulley screeched as its rusted iron rotated and Khaln was soon hanging off the ground by his arms. The thick chain was pined to the floor.

Khaln's eyes snapped open and his veins pulsed red light as the bucket full of cold water stuck his face and ran down his naked chest. He grunted and twisted against the chain, the pain in his shoulders burning as his weight bore down on his wrists. But he calmed himself and studied the people watching him from the shadows of the torches flickering in the distance. They were six androgynous individuals. Each was dressed in torn and tattered linen and leather. They adored tresses or shaved heads with jeweled piercings in their ears and noses and lips. Each was armed with a dagger and small fighting ax, except for the one Khaln focused on. It was then that he noticed that although their builds were lean and muscled, the lines of their necks and hips and their lips were unmistakably feminine.

"Where's Tayne?" Khaln asked as his eyes stayed focused on the woman with the bow and arrow. He noticed a large scar that stretched from beneath the leather band that covered her left eye.

The woman to his left stuck him hard in his ribs and snarled while he grunted. "We ask the questions."

"I have few answers," Khaln grumbled. "You're a Qoazti archer, aren't you?"

The one eyed woman nodded ever so slightly. Her had was shaven except for a long red tress of hair hanging down to her waist from the back of her head. She glared at him with a hard but beautiful brown eye – other than the scar on her left eye, her features were delicate and her skin was almost of pure alabaster. Her chest was strangely flat, which heightened the flare of her hips. In another circumstance, she would have been fiercely beautiful. Now she was just fiercely savage. He could feel her gaze as she scanned the myriad scars that intersected with the red pulses beneath his skin.

"Show me," Khaln ordered.

Upon those words, what Khaln set in motion was a blur for nearly all the onlookers: with surprising strength, Khaln rocked his legs and swung them, using the momentum to aim for the ceiling – he then folded his legs to his chest and cried out as his arms and shoulders strained and his body stretched along the length of the chain in a kind of handstand. While this was happening and the women around him stared in astonished wonder, the Qoazti archer was already nocking an arrow to her powerful bow. Khaln let his body fall towards the ground – his crashing weight snapped the chain just as the Qoazti loosed her arrow. But where it would have met his head had the chain not snapped, the arrow pierced the shackles binding his wrists.

Freed, Khaln turned and face the fierce warrior woman to his left – she had already her fighting ax in her right hand and she swung it with a reverse grip towards his neck. Khaln caught her wrist in his left hand and ducked beneath her swinging arm. As he came up behind her, he transitioned from his left hand to his right and twisted her arm hard and pinned it to her back while reaching around her waist with his left and yanking her dagger from its sheath. Although she had dropped her fighting ax, the warrior woman snapped her head back, crashing it into Khaln's nose. He grunted and blood ran down his lips and chin, but he remained undeterred and brought the dagger around. He held it in a reverse grip and when he placed the edge of his left hand across the right side of her neck, the blade of the dagger rested against the warrior woman's jugular. Khaln held her tight against his chest so that any attempt she made to escape would slash her own throat.

He stared at the Qoazti archer's arrow as she held it only inches from his eyes.

"Ziel-Tan, that's enough," a tired but commanding voice thundered from the shadows and a seventh person stepped out of the darkness. "I have been waiting for you, second son."

Khaln looked upon the man wearily – though his face and white hair were heavy with the passage of time, the older man's chest and shoulders and arms were thickly muscled. He carried a standard arming sword at his left side and a buckler hung from a hook strapped to his right shoulder.

"I supposed you want me to let her go," Khaln said as the warrior woman growled.

"It might make eating a meal more convivial," Ziel-Tan said as she lowered her bow and replaced her arrow in its quiver. Her voice was husky and sensual.

"Apologies, then," Khaln said as he released the warrior woman and handed her back her dagger and picked up her fighting ax.

"You're very strong," Khaln said as she yanked the ax from his grasp. "Next time, though, go for my balls." The warrior woman glared at him while her face twisted into a wicked, lecherous grin. She was smaller in stature than the others, with a noticeably curvier body. Her skin was dark and her head was shaved across its middle while two braids hung from each side of her head. Odd symbols were tattooed across the shaved portion of her head. Her features were broad and exotic and her lips full and inviting. She winked at him before retreating into the shadows.

Khaln then turned to the white haired man and said: "You were a soldier. From Uldrund?"

The old soldier smiled. "You recognized the sigil on the buckler, eh? I was. And I may well be your grandfather."