The horse charged at her in a full gallop, flecks of spittle frothing from its open mouth and a wild look in its dark eyes. Its rider hung low in the saddle with a razor-sharp spear tucked securely under the crook of his arm, the point of which he pivoted slightly in order to aim the blade directly at the center of Lyric's chest as they bore down on her. “By Haruk, he’s trying to kill me!” she thought in horror, her feet frozen in place as the horse and rider raced at her, seeking to erase her place in this world for some reason unbeknownst to her. What had she ever done that someone wanted to actually try and kill her?
Her training instincts took over at the last moment and Lyric threw herself out of the path of the spear, which whistled past her and struck nothing but empty air, but passed close enough to actually tousle the braids of her hair as the point streaked past. Lyric had narrowly avoid being skewered by the soldier’s lance, she wasn’t out of the woods yet though, as the horses these riders used were trained for battle. The giant steed reared up on its hind legs and struck down at her with a massive steel-shod hoof. Instinctively, Lyric threw up her hands and screamed a word of power – a word that had been drilled into her head ad nauseum by a stern red-robed maester over the course of several grueling weeks in the Davidian Spires. “Ara Sancti!” she cried, and no sooner had the words passed her lips than the air around her exploded in a shower of faintly glowing iridescent golden runes. The horse’s hoof smashed down upon one of these sigils with a thunderous clang and the air in front of her seemed to crack and break under the force of the strike, which was thankfully stopped cold scant inches from Lyric’s face. She breathed a sigh of relief, extremely grateful for all of those arduous magic lessons now.
Lyric jumped backwards trying to put some distance between herself and the horse and rider while frantically tugging at the dagger on her Release me! hip. No! Not here! Why had she only brought a knife with her, and not a staff or spear as she had trained with most often? The soldier tugged on the horse’s reins and turned the beast to face her once again, dropping his spear to the ground and drawing a cruel steel sword from a scabbard at his side, a weapon much more suitable weapon for close quarters fighting. “Gods, why me?” she thought frantically as the rider spurred his horse to charge at her again. Spark to tinder, unleash my fire upon them! No! Not in front of them! Lyric finally wrenched the dagger free of its sheath and positioned her weight on the balls of her feet as her mother had trained her, opening herself up to move in either direction at a moment’s notice. Perhaps if she could get to the horse’s flank as it charged, she cou…
Before she could complete the thought, Arnie, wielding a sword nearly as big as she was, charged straight up to the horseman and swung the blade wildly, drawing the attention of both rider and steed. The ferocity of the kender’s attack was such that the well-trained warhorse was taken off guard and it reared up suddenly, depositing the soldier on its back unceremoniously down on the hard ground with a painful thud. “I got this,” the young halfing said flashing Lyric a quick wink, before driving the point of her sword down at the prostrate soldier who cried out in pain as the tip of her blade found purchase between the folds in his armor and in his soft flesh, Arnie's muscles rippling as she drove the blade in deep. “Even her muscles have muscles,” Lyric thought to herself as she watched the kender work her blade, trying not to think too hard on what that blade was doing to the unfortunate soldier laying at the kender's feet.
Confident that the ferocious hafling had things under control here, Lyric stumbled back and tried to regain her bearings and make sense of the tumultuous scene around her. She spied Eros easily, his mask made for an easy identifier. “What is behind that mask?” She wondered idly as she watched the man pull an injured soldier to his feet, throwing the wounded soldier’s limp arm over and began moving him away from the fray. Eros was promptly overwhelmed by swarms of townsfolk that began clawing at him as he tried to work his way through the crowd with the injured soldier in tow. Terrified that Eros was being attacked by the throng, Lyric began to ready her magical energies and made to come to his aid, but it quickly became apparent that the townsfolk were reaching out to him tenderly. Almost reverentially. “What in the heaven’s is going on with that? What did I miss?”
As she was watching Eros move through the adoring masses, she caught sight of Donnie as he…well, had she seen him? She thought she had but... a grunt of pained surprise from a mounted soldier to her left as an arrow blossomed from his neck betrayed Donnie’s position for a brief second as he fired, but then he was gone again; at least until he popped up again several yards away and finished the soldier off with a second well-placed shot. Then he was gone. Something about this enigmatic elf reminded Lyric of her mother: the way he moved, fought, and slipped away into nothingness. Silence and lethality. Shadow and steel. He would make a terrifying opponent, she noted, for how could you hope to fight that which you cannot see?
“Troops! Position! Close ranks and make for an orderly retreat. This place is lost!” DD had somehow found a horse and was riding through the melee, looking positively majestic against the backdrop of the chaotic field of battle, the blood of the Knights of Vashir flowing through his veins. Lyric had only heard of the Knights in legend and song and, more often, from occasional curses uttered by drunken farmers who felt that the Knights had abandoned the realm in their time of need, but seeing DD here taking charge in the midst of this bedlam, she realized the true nature of their training. Fearless. Confident. Demanding of respect. His words took root inside of her, beckoning her to obey his commands, and she snapped to attention without thinking. He was calling out for the defenders of Volger to make a tactical retreat, and most of them seemed to grasp the retreat part of his orders, though very few seemed to understand the tactical part.
One person who didn’t seem to understand either part of DD’s command was Darrett, Commander Becklin’s young squire, who was bedecked in a suit of shiny armor and wielding a giant sword that must have weighed more than Lyric did. While most of the townsfolk and militia were working on running from the approaching soldiers, Darrett instead waded into the middle of the enemy forces, swinging his mighty sword in giant arcs and laying low any unfortunate who got in its razored path. “How could anyone hate the Knights of Vashir?” Lyric mused, thinking of the heroism of DD and now Darrett. DD was wise and practical and tactical, but Darrett was pure bravado. His bravery was unparalleled upon the battlefield, or was it the stubborn boldness of youth and inexperience? Either way, his actions stirred something within her
Lyric looked around in a panic. Most of her group had rallied around DD and were following his orders – sort of – and working their way away from the encroaching enemies, leaving Darrett alone amid the swarm of angry steel. “We have to help him!” Lyric yelled, but her voice was drowned out by the tumult of the battle that waged around them. A bolt of frost erupted from her fingers, and she sent it speeding towards one of the spearmen that surrounded the squire, but in her haste and unable to control the adrenaline flowing through her, the spell sailed harmlessly past the soldier before dissipating harmlessly in the distance. “Gods, I feel so helpl….” Release me! Like a scythe to wheat, they will fall before us. No! I cannot let them see the monster that I am! That you made me...not now!
A mighty roar from the south end of the battle heralded the arrival of Gragonis, the notorious half-ogre Lieutenant of the Iron Clad legion. A full ten feet of rippling muscle and murderous fury, he slapped his bloodstained battle-axe on his open palm in anticipation of the further killing yet to be done as he strode confidently into the fray. Lyric shot a glance at Darrett to see if he had noticed Gragonis – how could one not? – in the hopes that rational thinking might override squire’s foolish bravado. It did not. Darrett dispatched one of the soldiers around him with a deft turn of his giant sword and turned to face this new challenge, a confident grin on his young face. “Nooo!” Lyric thought as all hope washed from her. She couldn’t leave him to die, nor could they hope to persevere against such a f…. Release me!
And this time she did.
She relented to the insistent urging of the voice that lived in deep inside her. When she did, she felt her body shift and grow, her delicate fingers morphed into long talons and her dark skin bleached to bone white in an instant. A river of ice flowed down her spine, spreading to her hands and feet; somehow freezing and burning at the same time. And the hunger…the hunger was something else. She yearned to feed. She craved the sustenance of blood and battle. Somehow she Yessss! My thirst shall sate, like rain upon the desert sand! was unafraid of the giant Gragonis and his armed minions, as she…they…it...had seen its fair share of it over the millennia, and it yearned for the fight.
She let the beast take control and moved to intercept the giant half-ogre, flinging bolts of freezing ice at the creature as it advanced. She relished the looks of fear and indecision in the faces of the enemy soldiers – why had she ignored the pleas of her…master? Patron? The sense of raw power it imparted unto her was exhilarating, and not something to be feared and shunned, was it?
Lyric, in this monstrous form, strode confidently to Darrett’s aid, a fanged smile on her gaunt, desiccated face, and she was dimly aware that DD, Eros, Donnie, and Arnie were also at her side. It was aware of them as well, and it was pleased. Yessss! The flames of our wrath have spread! Now let them burn out of control! She normally would have been grateful to have her friends at her back, and seemingly uncowed by the visage of the creature she had become. But now all Lyric could think about was that she needed to feed; and oh what a glorious feast lay before her.