This story follows as a sequel to The Fallen General, and concludes the backstory of Haru and Xerivan. There are no erotic scenes in this tale, but I hope you enjoy it none the less.
Welcome to Raska.
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Raska Tales:
The Risen Witch
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When the Valley Empire begins to extinguish its fires of war, when the blood-rivers start to run dry, a witch will rise from the death.
When fires of war lessen within the Valley Empire, when blood-rivers run dry, a witch will rise from the death.
Hair as colorless as the souls she may devour, eyes dark as the void from which she spawned, magic more powerful than any sorcerer from the mortal plane. She will be born from death, a survivor of the end, a deliverer of vengeance. She will be Risen, protected by the Fallen, and powerful beyond reckoning.
His eyes opened below the surface of a hazy, green fluid. Thick, gelatinous liquid creeped into his nose and mouth, filing his airways to deny him breath even if he were to surface again. Already he could feel his chest constricting; he was suffocating, and his vision dimmed from the lack of air.
After everything he had done and sacrificed, he had no intention to drown in his success.
Using what strength remained, he forced his body to sit up, expelling the last breath in his lungs. He broke the surface and spewed thick slime back into the murky pool, wheezing to fill his chest again. A violent cough sprayed more fluid from his throat and the terrible itch of a cornered sneeze plagued him as he fought to clear his nose.
His arms felt heavy as he grabbed onto the stone edge and pulled himself toward it. His legs shook, unable to stand as he sat waist-deep in the slimy trough still recovering from his spell. The floor of the cellar was frigid, numbing to his fingers, yet he still wiped his face, then his short, dark hair, flinging excess globs of green away before continuing to wipe down his torso. He broke out into gooseflesh as the liquid no longer insulated him, yet a broad grin quickly formed on his face. His solid white eyes cleared into wide pupils encircled by irises of light grey.
Clearing his throat, wiping away more bile trickling out of his nose, he thrust out a hand and snapped his fingers. A brown, linen housecoat was placed within his grasp and he stood up from the sickly fluid. As he slipped his arms into the sleeves and pulled the garment to cover his pale body, he found it a surprising challenge not to laugh aloud. At last he had his first success with a supposedly dead art!
Giddy anticipation consumed him as he stepped out of his pool and felt the last of the slime drip down his legs. Drops moved thick as honey over a floor with a slight incline, just enough to drain the substances back to its basin. The man himself drew a breath of cool air and stepped forward over the frozen corpses of those sacrificed to accomplish this feat. Their sunken faces still showed the agony they suffered in their final moments.
His last remaining servant, shaking in his shadow, gulped as he suddenly turned to her. A twisted chortle slipped out, echoing off the walls of the cellar..
"Fear not for now, my dear. I still have use for you. For the Risen is among us at last."
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In a valley some distance off any main road or trade route, a village was buried deep in the trees. No more than two hundred people occupied the town and its surrounding area. Few outside of it knew of its location, fewer still made the trip to visit such an isolated place. In this community of tight knit families and powerful neighbourly bonds, none bent knee for anyone save the gods.
Outside the village atop a ridge looking down, one creature sat up high in a fir tree under the shadow of a larger branch above. It had no defined shape to it, no limbs or torso. It appeared to be more of a ball of darkness that bled off a black fog with two glowing, red dots placed right in center mass. These eyes narrowed as another creature swooped in and landed upon the branch beside it, a bird hardly larger than one's hand with dull, red feathers and a white belly.
The shadowy creature glared at the bird, watching its movements as it pranced about the branch and turned to face its dark form. Then the fog stopped oozing off of it. There was a slight chill to the air as it shrank and reshaped its body into something smaller. Black feathers emerged as talons grew underneath it to grip the branch. A narrow beak sprouted from a small feathered head as red eyes opened and blinked.
The first bird flew off, taking to the sky as this shadow creature took its shape. Soon after, the second bird too spread its wings, but then looked to them in confusion. Its head glanced back and forth between the two new appendages before it tried flapping. Its body lifted slightly from the branch with the slightest amount of lift but not enough to go skyward. The dark bird pondered a moment before it looked to other avian creatures in the distance, coasting along the tree tops with wings spread and more leaping out of the forest canopy to join them.
The dark bird spread its wings again and leapt out into the sky, beating its small wings. Even as sunlight burned its back and flooded its body with a fiery pain, it pushed harder to gain height and speed, rapidly gaining altitude. The shadow creature felt elated as it banked right and turned its attention to the world below.
Right as it flew into the talons of a swooping hawk.
The predator squawked at its successful catch as it beat its wings and flew toward a nearby oak tree, unaware that its prey had started to bleed a black fog.
When the hawk came to land in its nest, the bird in its talons evaporated. The large bird squawked in surprise, looking to its feet before a shadow cast upon it. It looked up to a hovering, black cloud and immediately shrieked a threat, spreading its wings in an attempt to make itself more fearsome. It snapped its beak and screeched again, but the cloud reshaped into a funnel of teeth, twice the size of the bird, before devouring it whole.
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Standing in a pile of feathers and ruffling its own, a black hawk with red eyes looked out from its nest into the forest. Its position was too low to see the town or the paths that led to it but it was in the shade, the sole redeeming feature of the nest. As it stepped to the edge of the mess of twigs, preparing to take flight, it heard a snapping branch on the ground.
The creature exploded into its smoky form and darted around the tree to a branch below which provided deeper shadow. There it shifted shapes again, taking on the form of a squirrel as it circled around the tree to better observe whatever, or whoever, was below.
To its relief, and surprise, it saw a familiar face. A broad-chested human with a powerfully built body standing a half-head higher than the average man. He hoisted an axe over the shoulder of his wool long-coat, scratching his greying beard and then the side of his head through chestnut hair. Then, without warning, he turned in the direction of the watching creature. Both his hands took a battle grip on his axe while his hardened eyes narrowed to search for whatever was watching him. Muscles tensed under his loose tunic and trousers, his leather boots shifting their footing.
Hector knows Xerivan watches... the creature thought, recalling his own name as the large man unknowingly provided the anchor.
He scurried off behind the tree, out of sight of the retired adventurer who chuckled and stood up straight.
"Jumping at squirrels," Hector muttered before continuing on. "Felt like I had a demon watching me. Heh."
Not wrong, Xerivan thought.
He had to admire the man's intuition and sense for danger. It took years for him to calm that sense in the retired adventurer, and indeed he still had more to go. Somehow Hector knew whenever Xerivan drew close even if he was working his forge or crafting something new. If the Demon General took on a small, corporeal form, he could he delay that warning from alerting Hector to his presence but even then, not for long.
The Demon couldn't blame the man, nor could he complain. Hector was one of the few in the village with both history and reputation outside the valley. Once in a while an admirer of his would find their way to this town to meet him, to hear his stories of his travels and battles across half the known world and many parts of what is yet to be known. His senses developed out of need during these adventures and, in retirement, out of desire to protect his adopted daughter. Xerivan's daughter, from a time when he was mortal.
Leaving Hector to his task, the demon took off back toward town First continuing on as a squirrel but soon after he shifted back to his "natural" wisp form. He made quick time on his trip and was soon at the edge of the farmer's field which separated the human village from the nature that surrounded it. Across the freshly seeded rows of dirt the closest building to him was the smithy.
The blacksmith's building possessed only two walls meant for supporting the roof and the racks of tools one would need to run the shop. The open sides of the building allowed the heat from the smelter, forge, and the labor to air out and keep the smith cool. Whenever Hector came back from his trek in the woods, he would continue to practice his craft.
Behind the smithy was a single-room house of a modest size, with hardened clay walls packed onto wood framing and tarred wooden shingles on the roof. Smoke steadily rose from a brick chimney on the side and real glass hung in the window frames. There was even tar around the windows for weather-proofing, and the level of craftsmanship in this home was just one example among a hundred in this town.
Darting over to the house, Xervian scuttled up the wall and into a hole leading inside to the rafters, ultimately settling within the shadows above the fireplace. Below him was a woman in a simple, grey dress lying on her side with a book in front of her, reading by firelight. She was older woman, showing wrinkles lining across her forehead and dimples sinking into her cheeks. With an inquisitive look she pushed a leather-wrapped stylus into the bun of her blonde hair as her aqua eyes scanned over the pages of the book of magic in front of her.
To the woman's right, sitting cross-legged and reading alongside her, was a small girl. She was no higher than a grown man's hip with white hair that came down to the shoulders of her blue dress. Below her snowy eyebrows were intelligent eyes with black rises that were nearly indistinguishable from her pupils. Humbling warmth flourished within Xerivan as he watched the girl listen to the woman's thoughts on the book with wide-eyed wonder. Had he a mouth in his current form, no doubt he'd be smiling as the child waved her hand and the book flipped to the next page. It was an improvement compared to the previous week when she had slammed the book shut on her own hand attempting the same trick.
