“I see them, over there!” Deuxdahl hissed, pointing off into the darkness. “Three of those dragon fucks, and they are carrying someone.” Lyric turned to follow his finger and, even with the superior senses gifted to her by her elven blood, she could not make out anything in the darkness save for the shadowy form of the abandoned farmhouse at the base of the old windmill. Still, the man seemed certain and so Lyric ran off in the direction the handsome warrior was pointing.
And boy did she run. Each foot seemed to barely touch the ground before it was lifted free and hurled forward, toes gripping the soil and navigating unseen obstacles instinctively. She felt fast and graceful and at one with the flight, a sense of exhilaration coursing through her as she readied herself for the battle ahead. It was not lost on her as well that, for the first time in weeks, she did not feel afraid.
She quickly reached the edge of the shack and peered around the corner and saw exactly what Deuxdahl had stated, three burly dragonmen, one of them carrying a still, slight form in its arms and heading towards the stone lip of a well. Without thinking, Lyric stepped around the corner and with one hand she clutched the amber stone of the pendant she wore around her neck that served as a focus for her magical energy while pointing at her target with her other hand, and she uttered the words of power that had been drilled into her head during her time with the Davidians.
“Hel-patet!” The words escaped her mouth, carried upon a wispy cloud of condensation, which was followed immediately by the sensation of goosebumps running from the base of her spine and traveling up her back and down her outstretched arm. There was a cracking sound, akin to an ice-laden tree limb snapping under the weight of its new burden, which was followed by a bolt of blue-white frost which erupted from her fingertips and streaked towards the scaly creature carrying the unconscious figure…
It missed by mile.
She could almost hear her mother’s favorite rebuke whenever she made a mistake in their daily sparring, Redeemers be damned girl, get your head in the game. The scaled brute dropped the kender to the ground and drew a cruel looking dagger from the belt at its waist and began running towards her with a roar, followed in short order by a second dragonman wielding an equally cruel-looking blade.
“Crap, two of them are coming, get ready!” Lyric whispered to the empty air behind her. Startled, she looked around in a panic and finally spotted her compatriots running her way a good thirty feet behind her. Double crap! She had been so focused on getting here as quickly as she could that she completely neglected to make sure that the rest of the party was here before she engaged with the enemy and she was soon about to be outnumbered and flanked and all alone. Triple crap!
There was nothing to do now but fight for her life and hope that her friends could get to her in time. She took a deep breath and readied herself for what was to come - afterall this was the moment she had trained for nearly every morning since she could remember. Green Trust came alive her hands, the hilt of the blade felt warm to the touch, as if the sword was burning with a desire to fight. She shifted Green Trust to a reverse grip with the steel blade running along her forearm, a position better suited for parrying incoming attacks than striking out on offense, as she shifted her weight evenly, standing on the balls of her feet so that she could readily move in either direction without giving up stability.
And then they were upon her.
The first creature towered menacingly above her, its face contorted in a snarl that could almost have been a smile. It drove the razor tip of its dagger down upon her with all of the force and strength it could muster in an effort to erase her from the Ledger of the Living with one blow. Lyric dropped her weight to her front foot and danced out of the way of the incoming strike. She had dodged the initial attack but the creature was lightning fast, instantly shifting its feet and driving the blade back at her from beneath her guard and she knew instinctively that there was no way she could intercept this strike in time.
Lyric cried out a panicked power word, “varilë,” and the air around her immediately solidified, encasing her body in a translucent protective dome. This simple spell had saved her from many a cut and scrape during her martial training with the Davidian taskmasters but now, when it really mattered, it did nothing. If the draconian had felt any resistance from her spell, it did not show upon his face nor in the arm wielding the long, cruel blade, as it plunged the dagger deep into Lyric’s side.
Tears of pain erupted from her good eye as the creature wrenched the knife free, its silvery edges coated in a patina of crimson blood; the beast’s mouth curling into a wide, toothy grin. Lyric wanted to curl into a ball and cry the pain away, as she did whenever her mother’s wooden sword found its way past her guard and to her soft bits, as it had done far too often. She wanted to throw down her sword and stomp off in a huff. She wanted to run away.
She wanted to, but this was a real fight, and the stakes here were actual life and death. This is what her mother had drilled into her during all of those painful morning trainings. This is what her Davidian instructors had spent countless hours during those dull, monotonous lessons. This is what the heralds and skalds sang of when they recounted the heroics of those who fought against overwhelming odds and forged the world into a better place with their bravery and skill.
Get your head in the game, girl. Lyric gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the searing pain in her side, pirouetting out of the way of follow-up strike by the creature that had stabbed her and trying to navigate to better position against the one that had settled in behind her. She needed to find a way to maneuver him off her flank as these were far too deadly op…
Her thoughts trailed off as the second creature’s dagger found its way past her magical guard, the blade burying itself in her chest all the way to the hilt. All the strength left her as her legs wobbled and tried to give out as a kaleidoscopic explosion of pain erupted throughout her body. She threw herself at the wall of the farmhouse in a desperate attempt to remain standing; to stay in this fight somehow, despite the futility of it. “This is it. This is how I die,” she thought dispassionately, feebly raising the Green Trust in a last-ditch effort to stave off the inevitable…
Arnie was on them in a flash, the tiny kender with a sword almost as tall as herself smashed into one of the draconians with enough force to nearly knock it off of its feet, even though the creature stood almost three times as tall as the diminutive warrior and probably outweighed her by a margin of ten. A razor-tipped net slid over the second creature, securing it in place as the net’s teeth tore into the beast’s scaly flesh locking him in place. Two daggers sprouted out of its chest as DD strode into view, drawing and throwing his deadly knives in a single, smooth motion. Two more blades slid into his hands as he pivoted to secure the field of battle, looking every bit the master of battle that he was.
A warm wave of relief washed over Lyric at the arrival of her friends, and she actually felt stronger and more capable in the presence, as the approaching finality of death turned and faded into the distance. Even the searing pain in her chest and side subsided, washed away in a warm glow. “Wait, what…?” This was something more, she could feel Eros there somehow, the masked elf’s will coursing through her, like golden fingers made of pure divine light knitting and suturing the wounds closed, sealing them and washing them away in the cleansing glow. She had witnessed the man heal others and had even benefitted from his mystical treatment after the Battle of Vogler, though she had been unconscious at that time and had no memory of it. She had marveled afterwards however as to how thoroughly the burns had faded so completely and had somehow left no scars behind.
Renewed, she threw herself at the unfortunate draconian still encased in one of DD’s nets and repaid the wound he had inflicted upon her with a more grievous one to his neck with a quick slice of the Green Trust. A streak of fire from the rocky embankment to her rear that streaked overhead that engulfed the third draconian with a dreadful hiss and the smell of burning flesh announced that Deuxdahl had entered the fray and it quickly became clear that the enemy could not withstand the combined forces of this group…
Lyric sat by the small campfire, idly tracing the spot on her chest where the draconian had stabbed her with her finger as she watched Eros tend to the wounded kender scout. As she had suspected, there was not even a scar where the dagger had punctured her soft flesh, the only indication of the wound was the bloody tear in her cloak, the streaks of dried blood on her dark skin, and the fading memory of the unbelievable pain. Her mother had told her that scars were the body’s way of remembering mistakes, serving as a lesson not to make particular blunder again; but what was the message if that reminder was completely taken away?
She stared at Eros as she reflected. She could still feel his presence within her somehow, as if part of him lived within her now. Or was this sensation an artifact of the celestial power the man wielded…was a spark of the divine somehow inside of her now as the result of the healing? Lyric had never considered herself very devout, the small symbol of Habbakuk she wore around her neck was a gift from her stepfather that brought her comfort when she was away from home, but it never held much more significance than that to her. Why would she waste her time following those who had turned their backs on them, like a lover still pining over an ex?
But, if the gods…Gods…had returned and they had chosen Eros as their herald, then it was not lost on her that this strange, masked man might be the most important person in the world, the very manifestation of their returning divinity. And this sensation she felt, the celestial ember that resided inside her, now might actually serve as a scar upon her soul, a reminder of her brash folly in rushing into battle when she should be focused on staying alive so that she could protect this Messenger of Hope.
And, it was not lost on her that when she had seen the looks of rapt devotion upon the faces of the those who had prostrated themselves on the ground before Eros after they had witnessed his divinity, she had found their adulation troubling and even comical; but now she was more than aware that she stared at this man with that same look of adoration stamped upon her face. Messenger of Hope indeed.