Wysper - Betrayal

"What?"

The Ogri and the rest of them stare at the Shadow Fae in confusion, yet no one is as confused as I. My thoughts have finally reorganized themselves, but I still cannot string words together without effort, and I feel graceful as a puppet with her strings cut. Why are these warriors here? Did Greywolf… I called him ‘Woof’, I am so embarrassed… did he bring them to save me from the High Priest?

Still down on his hands and knees, the High Priest laughs. "What marvelous irony. The traitors, so smug in their deceptions, are themselves deceived."

"Laugh all you want, O bald one," the Shadow Fae… he called her Lys, retorts, "because it may be the last time for a while. All the other temples, not just here but all over the Sasnayam empire, are rising up this night against your ally, Ghash-Kimil. Once the carnage is complete, and they have gathered the evidence linking Ghash-Kimil’s ever deepening knowledge of necromancy back to you, the long knives will come for the temples of Yun-Kax."

Among the Brittani, necromancy is one of the few crimes no clan leader is ever permitted to absolve. The High Priest's eyes narrow. "What do you mean, deepening necromancy? Ghash-Kimil's priests dispose of bodies and occasionally raise the dead, which the other temples have known about since the founding of the empire."

Raise the dead? He knew, yet never commanded them to cease? Dread fills my heart as Lys smirks at him. "Oh, really? Before tonight, I only knew how to raise the dead and speak to them, which I understand Ghash-Kimil's priests cannot do. However, a priestess, who used Ghash-Kimil's teachings to turn herself into a Lich, showed me just how easy it is to turn Yrg into a Revenant under my control."

The High Priest's keeping his face in a stern mask, yet I sense the unease underneath. "You are lying."

"Am I? I have been hiding under your nose ever since I got here, and had I known how to create a Revenant before, I could have turned her into one several times over. Tell me something: why did Ghash-Kimil so strongly support your plan to conquer the Empire of the East's province of Antioch on the coast of the Middle sea?"

"So the empire would have a port there, to establish trade and for its shipbuilding-"

"Carthago. The Lich Cermet, who willingly placed herself under my control for her safety, told me she heard from Ghash-Kimil's own lips that they wanted to launch an expedition to the ruins of Carthago and find the secret of turning themselves, and their trusted retainers, into Shadowmen exactly like the ones Ba'al created."

The Germanic warrior who entered with Lys, adds, "She also said Ghash-Kimil planned to trick you into becoming a Shadowman as well, loyal to them, of course. She claims the proof's in their main temple in Tesiphon, with your name on the documents-"

Shouts begin from the bottom floor, with the sound of doors being slammed shut. All of us turn towards the doorway as someone calls out what sounds like a warning in their harsh language. A scarred, craggy faced warrior grunts and turns around. "Lys, you're right; my scouts just reported a company of archers has marched through the gateway into the Temple district, with a company of spearmen behind them." He gives her a grim smile. "I thought this raid was going too well."

Lys gives him back a jagged smile with teeth like icicles of obsidian. "Forewarning gives you the chance to be formidable against your foes. Shall we see if they wish to parley?"

"Titan," the craggy warrior says to the Ogri, "will you keep watch over Muzen while I speak to them?"

"I'd rather destroy that abomination," Titan growls, pointing his Greatsword at Yrg, "but under the circumstances I will do as you ask... for now."

"Good." The warrior begins giving orders to the warriors behind him as Lys leaps onto German's shoulder, who strides towards the closest shuttered window and unlatches the bolt. Yrg stiffly follows behind them as he opens the shutters to the cold night air.

A Daemo… she has silvery-grey hair like Greywolf’s… grabs my dress and pashmina beside the scattered cushions and hurries over. "Here, before Wysper catches a chill." As she hands them to Zanzabel, she gasps at Greywolf, "You're hurt."

As Zanzabel slips the dress over my head, he replies, "I'll be okay as long as nothing else attacks us. Help me up to the window ledge, I want to see." Zanzabel leaves me to struggle into my dress as she grasps Greywolf by the armor and hoists him up to the ledge.

I am having trouble getting my arms into the sleeves, but I stop struggling to watch as Greywolf grits his teeth in obvious pain, his left arm cradled against his chest. She gets him settled and he exhales sharply as his face eases. "That’s better. Thank you, mistress...?"

"Just Zanzabel," she replies, flashing her broad smile of white pearls in a rich black face. "Once a spy for Muzen, but now..." She breaks off, staring at the craggy warrior, who's looking out the window. She sighs. "Probably just a slave."

"Not necessarily," Lys calls back over her shoulder before looking out the window again. The Daemo fumbles with the latch before getting it open and pushing the shutters back.

A brisk wind blows in from the empty courtyard, my skin prickling as the other three glance back at me. I know I must look every inch a street whore with my dress half off, but I cannot get myself unsnarled as Zanzabel leaves him and helps me get the dress on. Then she wraps the pashmina around my shoulders and helps me sit down on the ledge behind Greywolf.

He shifts around until we are sitting side by side. "Wysper, are you alright?" I open my mouth to reply as a guilty expression steals over his face, and he blurts out, "I'm so sorry I got you into this mess. I mean, it's all my fault, but you looked so sad when that horrid priestess told you no, and I thought I could just kiss you and disappear again."

I cannot get the words out to tell him everything is alright, but maybe if I touch him, he will understand. I reach with my hand to stroke his face…

No! My hand curls into a ball and I pull it back as every instinct tells me not to do it, that to touch anything without the High Priest’s permission is to risk losing both my hands forever, despite what he claimed about them growing back. He sighs. “Yeah, I figured you’d be sorry I dragged you into this mess.”

How can he think that? I shake my head no as Zanzabel says, "I do not think Wysper is sorry at all."

“Then why are her hands are still clenched into fists?”

Zanzabel glances down at my lap and I clasp my hands together with my fingers locked, my eyes downcast. She brushes one of my golden locks back behind my ear. "Yes, now I understand. Greywolf, Wysper would be touching you right now, except she has been forbidden to use her hands to touch almost anything."

"Truly?" I nod without looking at him. "Here." Greywolf slowly uncurls the arm he has been cradling against his chest and places it in my lap. "Go ahead and grasp it. Just don't whip it around like the Shadowcat did, or you're going to hear me shriek like a girl."

I cannot help but smile, yet it slides off my face as I stare at the scarred hand in my lap. "Greywolf wants to help you," Zanzabel says in a gentle voice. "But you have to take the first step.”

The first step. Even before Sasnayam raiders came through the Shadowlands to the Temple of Pan, the Brittani priests restricted what I could or could not touch, and it only got worse under the High Priest...

No, I will not call him that. Yun-Kax, the god, is a lie; my life has been one long falsehood, my blood and my mana given to beings called Celestials, who used me to keep themselves in power. Muzen is sitting cross-legged with the Ogri keeping watch, and seeing my gaze shift, lifts one painted eyebrow. My eyes narrow. Never again. Never again will I allow Muzen or anyone else to rip this mana node from my body, not while I have the strength to resist.

My gaze returns to Greywolf as I force my hands to unfold and struggle to speak. “Hard…” He nods in understanding, and I put my hand to my chest. “I… am… Brittani.”

Greywolf nods again. “Asena always told me the Brittani people were some of the fiercest fighters she’d ever known.” I blink. Asena the Wolf-mother? No, it must be someone named after her, yet hearing him speak the name of a legend, as if he knew her, gives me courage. Take a deep breath. Now, reach out with both hands and grasp his.

His fingers are rough and calloused, his fingernails cracked with dirt underneath. They are the most wonderful fingers I have ever touched. “Warrior… hands.”

“You have the hands of a princess, soft as velvet.” He grins. “See, that wasn’t so bad. I think-”

"They're coming," the German calls back to us, and Greywolf lets go of me to shift around on the ledge so he can see out once more. I turn as well and look past his shoulder. At least a hundred men in leather jerkins are marching more or less in step towards the building, each with a quiver of arrows at his side. Their legs are bare with sandal straps wrapped around each ankle to the knee.

In their hands they're holding short bows with an arrow set into the bowstring. Someone yells a command and they halt, well within bowshot, while several men in tunics come running up carrying pots of smoldering rocks by their handles. They place them between the archers in the front row before turning around and running back the way they came. The German glances back at us. "Flame-stone," he says in a cheerful voice. "Dip your arrow into the soft stone and it clings to the wood, letting you set fire to anything burnable."

"I thought it was expensive," the craggy warrior growls as a tall woman in white robes, and a shorter, brown haired burly man in robes of dark blue, stride towards us between the ranks of the archers.

"It is," the German says with a shrug. "But I'm guessing blood-corn's a lot more valuable."

The pair of robed figures step in front of the first row of archers and stop. "War-leader Kula," the woman says in a husky voice, "I am Tannaz, head priestess for the temple of Ix-Chel, and this is Farzod, head priest for the temple of Chaac. I apologize for this show of force, but the High Priests of our respective temples commanded us to alter the terms of our agreement and stamp out Bukhara's desire to regain their independence."

Priest Farzod shrugs. "Nor will they allow a new kingdom on lands the Sasnayam empire claims. We tried convincing them this was a spectacularly bad idea, double-crossing the White Horde, but you know, temple and empire politics and all that."

The craggy warrior Kula folds his arms across his chest. "How do you know so much about us?"

Priestess Tannaz gives him a painful look. "Kula, please. You have spies, but we have better ones."

"Had," Zanzabel leaning on me as she yells out the window, fury stark on her face. "Redhunter took a Battle-axe to the chest, and I am just sorry Muzen was the one who killed him and not me."

"Zanzabel," Tannaz purrs, "so glad to see you are still alive. I personally plan to send your head to Queen Zenobia in a sack."

"What a coincidence," Kula calls out with a savage smile. "I'm planning to send both of yours to Tesiphon the same way."

"Enough," Priest Farzod roars. "Kula, these are the terms we offer. You and all your warriors will give up your weapons, whereupon you will be marched out the front gate and across the bridge, to go where you will. Muzen will be given to us, wrapped in golden chains, as will the Shadow-walker, Greywolf.” They want him as well? Are Shadow-walkers that prized? “All of Muzen's retainers must be killed, especially the three Celtic Priestesses who are obviously not human but Revenants of Ghash-Kimil, and their bodies laid out in the Temple of Yun-Kax.

“You may loot both temples of their valuables, but the blood-corn remains here with us. The White Horde will then pack up and move eastward, out of Bukhara's lands, or north if you want to terrorize the Lords of Khor. We truly do not care. These are our terms which are not negotiable. So, are you ready to accept these conditions?"

Kula bursts out laughing. "Let me offer you another choice. How about I shove my sword so far up your arse it tickles your nose, while the woman beside you dances naked for the Great Khan before we make her a bed-slave. Those are my conditions, also not negotiable."

Muzen must have spoken to Titan, for he's on his feet with the Ogri's sword point against his back, moving towards the open window. "Tannaz, Farzod," he calls out, "bide a moment while I speak with the War-leader."

Kula whirls around, the suspicion on his face mirrored by the two head priests, but Muzen speaks to him in a quiet voice and Kula's face grows thoughtful. "Fox, bring the African woman and join us." Zanzabel and the small Daemo trade suspicious looks, but both move towards them.

This is not going to end well. I am going to die tonight, either by fire or at the end of a blade, and I will not squander what little happiness I can get. My fingers touch the side of Greywolf's face; startled, he turns back towards me, trying not to wince but failing badly, and I smile. "Last... kiss?"

"It's not going to be a last anything for us. I swore I'd protect you and I mean it. I-" Putting my face next to his, our lips touch, and I wrap my arms around his neck as our tongues meet. I feel wicked, but I do not care as I press my body against his armored chest. No one is going to steal this last moment of sweetness away from me.

Then Priest Farzod calls out, "War-leader Kula, if you do not accept these terms right now, I shall order the archers to-"

"Farzod," Muzen walking to the window as I let Greywolf go and we both look out onto the plaza, "you know these terms are meant to spark a war with the White Horde."

The burly priest grimaces. "Exactly what am I supposed to do? You need to be ground into the dirt, and the nobles distracted from their desire to wage war against the Empire of the East. By the time the barbarians decide to attack, our army will be strengthened by the blood-corn, and ready to hold out until the Emperor's forces arrive."

"Or the warriors now assembling downstairs, all of who wear Artifact armor, will come charging out and not stop until all of your soldiers are dead. Farzod, I am too weak to do anything requiring more than a trickle of mana, so let me come down and discuss a compromise." He opens his arms. "Beginning with a full confession of my guilt upon the steps of the Bukhara temple of Chaac."

I whisper in Greywolf’s ear, “That would be a major coup for Farzod.”

Tannaz gives the other priest a dark look as Farzod smiles. "Such an action would please our High Priest."

"We cannot trust him," Tannaz hisses.

"I shall come down empty handed," Muzen says, "and give you my word of honor not to unleash any offensive spell against you." He chuckles. "To be honest, I am so spent I would likely fall down if I tried. Bide a moment and I will be right there." He steps away from the window and walks deeper inside, Titan still at his back with the sword.

Muzen's gaze sweeps over all of us. "Since I am to confess my crimes, let me begin here. Truly, I am guilty of hubris, and underestimating my opponents, especially Greywolf." His gaze fixes itself upon us. "I was wrong; you are your mother's son... and on the day I slay her, you shall become mine."

Fatigue must be washing over him, for he has begun leaning against me, but for a moment anger pushes it aside as he sits up. "Never. If you go up against her, Asena will kill you and I'll be there to help."

Muzen raises one painted eyebrow. "We will see. This is not over between us, Greywolf, but is merely beginning. The same goes for the rest of you, but especially Wysper." His gaze seems to look past Greywolf and into my eyes. "You have not seen the last of me."

"Perhaps," Titan rumbles, pushing Muzen towards the door with the point of his sword, "but the first of you is trying my patience." Muzen chuckles and lets himself be herded out the doorway.

A few moments later he walks out alone onto the plaza, stopping midway between the building and the archers, and turning around. "Kula," he calls out. "The enemy of my enemy is my ally, at least for now." The Daemo summons a gateway and vanishes into the Grey...

Reappearing right in front of Muzen. She is handing him something, and now stepping through another gateway back into the Shadowlands. She reappears beside me. "And so it begins," the Daemo whispers.

Muzen, holding the blue Gem of Return in his hand, turns around and begins speaking words of invocation, Tannaz whirling around and running as Farzod screams at the archers. They lift their bows and take aim.

Muzen disappears as the plaza explodes.