"So." Was Ranni's first word after a week of preparations. "Where to?" She hefted her pack onto her back again as she sighed with its weight. She had forgotten how tiring flesh could be. She wished for a brief moment it had stayed forgotten.
"I suggest we head directly for..." Fia soon lost much of her train of thought, unsure at all where to go in this whipping blizzard. She had never traveled this far north.
Melina sighed, reading over a map as well as she could, but it was incomplete. Blaidd said he had gotten it from that strange cabin woman, but she was skeptical of its accuracy. The map detailed vast places that looked halfway crumbled to pieces and a massive valley traversable only by a thin, craggy ledge that stretched across it. "Surely this place hasn't deteriorated that severely..."
Marika patted Melina on the shoulder. "Whatever is ahead, we shall face it little Candle. Together." She bore a warming smile that made Melina feel a warmth again, a natural warmth.
Blaidd sniffed around the snow as they watched him, looking for any sort of trail. His nose began to catch a whiff of something. Old blood. Old wounds. Dried blood. Fire. Fire that never seemed to cease. "I've got it!"
Luma laughed as she patted Blaidd's back before tossing Malli onto his pack with a dual laugh from wolf and girl. "Then let's get a move on!" Luna hefted Ranni onto Torrent as she took Marika's hand. Fia and Melina soon mounted up alongside Ranni, and the group set out to begin their quest. To burn the tree.
...
"Faster, Torrent!" shouted Melina as she clutched the reigns, dashing up the snowy, winding cliffs with Marika swinging her hammer in a powerful crash against one of the charging priests. Melina wasn't quite sure what or who they were, only that they seemed eager to attack.
"They are relentless!" shouted Marika as she cracked her mace across another red coated priest as they rushed up the whirling, windy mountains side. She caught a glimpse briefly of Blaidd and Luna, blurs across the snow as their blades grew wet with their chasers. Shenwas confident they would keep up.
"Weeee!" Giggled the childish Malli as she clung to Fia's chest, their hair whipping rapidly in the snowstorm. She was thankfully unaware of all that was occurring.
"There! The crossing!" Fia shouted against the wind, pointing towards the next ledge. Just past it, they saw a massive pass. A long, broken, thin line of rocks that extended far beyond sight. "That has to be it!"
Marika could feel sweat growing on her forehead. Torrent could run across it. It was wide enough, but they'd be sitting ducks if anything chose to attack them. Still, she knew it was their only avenue as the priest she had crushed seconds ago began tonrise. Their twisted bloody magic was foreign to her.
"Melina! Go for it!" She shouted as Melina turned Torrent and made a mad dash for the pass. Marika saw a heftier mage, crowned with a burning bowl atop his head that began to bubble and spew magma. He was right in their path. "Fia, protection now!"
Fia raised a hand off the giggling Malli, her eyes turning a strange and heavy black as a veil formed around them, like a shadow of grey mist in a perfect sphere. The blast of showering magma bounced off, burning harmlessly aside as they ran right for the mage. He raised his hands and began to glow.
"No, you don't!" Marika pulled back her arm, holding out her forearm as if grasping a bow. A thin weave of white flaming light danced from her fingers into the brief shape of a great bow and an arrow the size of a spear, firing it with a lash of wind even heavier than the winds before dispersing as she panted with exertion. There was nothing left of the mage who had been in the path of the shot.
"Woah... " Melina had never seen either of these forms of magic before. Both were totally free of the kind of feeling sorceress or incantations caused. Though both women looked exceedingly exhausted by both feats, Melina was still marveling for a few moments before forcing herself to focus again.
She lurched Torrent onto the bridge. Her knuckles tight on the reigns as the horse neighed with stress. He had been running for hours now for them, and he wasn't so invincible as a spirit would be. She leaned down as they rushed down the stones, feeding him some of the magic berries that she found healed him the way the tears healed tarnished. He perked up and soon regained speed.
"Oh no..." Marika began. "DUCK!" She pushed everyone down just as a massive piece of metal barely missed them all, burying itself in the cliff to their backs. Ahead was a stone sentry, a massive construct of circular connecting pieces and stone, glowing with fiery power inside in the rough shape of a man. It hefted a bow that could weigh that of a small building and began to notch another of its titanic arrows.
Fia panted softly. She could not summon a shield again, nor did she even assume it could take such a massive force. She began to mutter rapidly under her breath, running through ideas before she turned. Just like she thought, the two blurs soon left the cliff and had begun charging alone the stone bridge after them. Luna and Blaidd likely saw the first arrow. She clapped her hands together as Melina kept them going.
"There's a gap!" She shouted back to the group as they saw a large gap in the bridge. She was sure Torrent could make it, but not with that thing shooting at them.
"Luna!!!" Fia shouted to them as she aimed her open palms down, slowly forming roots in a woven pattern like a net behind her that Luna quickly ripped up and surged by them with. She had already read her mind and acted so swiftly that Fia was slightly startled by it.
She shouted back to keep going as Melina ushered Torrent into a full sprint toward the ledge. There was the loud thump as the arrow loosed another arrow, only to be completely thrown off course as a net of black roots was thrown in its way and caused it to fly off and crash. Melina saw both blurs clear the gap easily, just as she yanked the reigns, and Torrent leaped into the gap with a loud neigh. A few silent seconds, and his hooves crashed onto the stone of the bridge again so barely that Melina swore she saw him sweat for a second.
Marika took in a deep breath, collecting herself a bit as she leaned off the edge of Torrent before leaping off as they cleared the bridge to the protest of Melina. She rolled, leaping to her feet alongside the two warriors as she brandished her hammer. Her furred cloak was coated in snow, and her scarf resembled a glistening shard of ice against the brown and white. She gripped her hammer tightly as the great sentry who fired on them turned and hefted what could be called a column held like a sword.
"The ankles!" She shouted to the two fighters as both nodded. She aimed a finger up, firing a small bolt of light that dinged the entry's eye and drew its main attention. The two knights soon rushed towards its ankles as it started to swing at Marika, their blades crashing against its armor as it fumbled kid swing.
Marika caught its blade, her muscles burning and blood boiling, but the stone blade did not fall further from its fumbling owner. Instead, she roared furiously as she wrenched the stone from its hand, twisting her entire body and turning the blade on its owner with a crash of shattering stone against its head. It fumbled back, forced into forward tumble as Blaidd's blade tore right in between the plates and destroyed its left ankle joint. It roared like a dying furnace as its body crumbled across the uneven stoney snow. Marika walked up towards its main core, a throbbing orange and red glow in an indent in its chest, and she rammed her fist inside. A few moments later, every inch of it went still as she ripped her fist back out. She hurt all over.
She hadn't used any kind of strength like that in ages. She had thought it lost with the favor of the Greater Will, but she could feel something new at her back. Filling her, gifting her strength that truly belonged to her, a reward for her works. She felt the great mother again, fully.
"Damn. Talk about muscles." Luna joked as she approached, just to be snatched into a hot kiss by the still steaming Marika, body hot with exertion. Blaidd decided that was the best time to make a break for the others and give them some space.