“Lyria, please stop,” I screamed knocking the air out of my lungs.

She stood with her back turned towards me. Only a dread air with a rancid smell of death surrounded her.

“These people invited us to their homes,” I tried to appeal to her gratitude.

I rushed dragging my limping leg.

“They shared their food and what little they had with us,” I cried out again.

The pain shot from my broken leg. I made one desperate push ignoring the sharp throbbing wave of agony.

“They accepted you as one of their own and even gave you a position,” I uttered with unconcealed anger.

I finally reached closer to Lyria and placed myself between Lyria and the children.

“You reciprocated by slaughtering these innocent folks,” I blamed.

“Innocents,” Lyria spat out those words as if they were poison.

For a long agonising moment, we glared daggers at each other.

Finally, Lyria gave in.

“They are not so innocent if they could forge soul-ordained weapons,” scoffed Lyria.

“Do you even know how they are made?” she continued.

Her nostrils flared in anger before she dropped her shoulders and shrugged.

“I guess you would not know,” her calm voice returned, “You create soul ordained weapons by sacrificing lives. Their pain, rage and agony powers those weapons. The souls bound and trapped in eternal torment forever.”

That was an unexpected revelation.

“What else were they supposed to do?” I asked, “They are hunted, forced to hide like animals in caves.”

Lyria’s eyes held a hard squint at my support for the cultists.

“Guess what Lyria,” I threw my hand in exasperation, “I have been hunted and if I could barter the lives of my pursuers to survive, I would do the same.”

“Do not justify their vile acts,” raged Lyria back, “Killing hunters to come unscathed is not the same as sacrificing to a diety for favours.”

For a single heartbeat, it appeared as if Lyria would shove me aside and deliver her notion of justice. She raised her right hand and instead, laid it gently on my shoulders.

“Rils, The cult of the Shaper, the creed of the forger, sect of the refabricator, “her orotund voice flew, “No matter how many times I crush, they keep multiplying.”

Her voice fell and I felt the fatigue contained inside her, seep with her words. She needed no voice of reason at the moment.

I extended my arms and held her tight, cooing for her to calm down. In a soft soothing voice I whispered in her ears, “Lyria, I am here with you. You don’t have to bear the burden alone.”

At my touch, the years of self-imposed constraint crumbled and warm tears, bereft of refrainment, flowed down her cheeks in a steady stream.

“The burden is mine alone to bear,” she replied between her sobs.

I let her continue. This is the closest about her past that she had ever spoken.

“I need to eliminate them before they sprout,” she slowly spoke with fortified resolution.

“Lyria, they are children and you butchered their parents in front of their eyes,” I countered while still holding her as tightly as I could.

At my words, her callous arms shoved me aside.

“Rils, please do not pretend to be a saint,” her temper returned, “You have made your fair share of orphans. Ravaging villages, burning their crops and razing towns, all because their lords looked at you the wrong way.”

Her words hurt like the sting of a thousand poisonous bees for deep inside I knew her words were pregnant with truth.

I stammered, forced to confront my own failings, my tongue refused to co-operate.

“But,” I struggled desperately to answer her, “it was war. I never slaughtered parents in front of their children.”

“Is that what you console yourself with?” mocked Lyria, “is that how you live with yourself for what you did to Savvas?”

Like an impalement artist choosing to kill, she threw her accusations repeatedly and precisely. And she knew where to hurt me.

“Is it how you absolve yourself from the responsibility of making him an Orphan?” she continued, “Did you adopt him to your family because of a guilty conscience?”

The Sentinel left its sheathed before I could gather my thoughts. The whistling sound of the blade cutting the air echoed through the cavern walls. With quick lucent arcs, The Sentinel, as if responding to my will, finally attempted to taste its maker’s blood.

Lyria, guided by the very hands of premonition, casually side-stepped and avoided the strokes from The Sentinel. Repeatedly.

While The Sentinel shared its will with me, Lyria, apparently shared its mind. She moved in perfect synchronisation that could only be achieved by sharing thoughts.

Eventually, my inner strength failed. My legs trembled and soon gave away. Collapsing on the ground, I discarded the blade.

With a quivering voice, I finally called out to her.

“Lyria, the past few days that we travelled together, I rejoiced that I found my old love. I foolishly convinced myself that you are the same. But now, before me stands a stranger wearing a familiar face. A phantasm donning her memory but nevertheless just a phantasm, not my love.”

Lyria knelt closer to me and examined my face with deep piercing eyes. She leaned closer and her warm breath caressed my unkempt hair.

“Rils, you never knew the real me,” she scoffed with a strained smile.

“I am no different from the demon sovereigns,” she continued with strangulated voice holding back tears, “Just like them, I will willingly abandon all who believed me if it meant securing my own wishes.”

Lyria gritted her teeth and for a moment, it appeared as if she was about to continue but yoked herself with great self-restraint.

She straightened herself and said, “Rils, you deserve someone better than me. We should part. I am unworthy of all your efforts.”

She placed her gentle finger on my left arresting my protestations and retreated.

In the gloomy setting light of the sun, partially reflected through the cavern walls, the amorphous form of Lyria strode out, dimming with every step she took until she left an unfillable void behind.

*****

The girl with green eyes and freckles still considered me with a timid hostility. Her green eyes bore with accusation.

“Pack some immediate clothes and rations,” I instructed, “and don’t bother with seeking survivors. We would be of no help there.”

Some of the older children looked up to her for guidance while the girl was overwhelmed with a host of turbulent emotions. She looked every bit like a ragdoll tossed into a tempestuous drain. Eventually, she nodded and the other children scurried collecting whatever measly belonging that they could forage.

As our ragtag bunch stepped outside the cavern, the girl with green eyes and freckles turned once again to look at her abode. She inhaled deeply and wiped the single teardrop from the corner of her eye before urging the other children to move.

I for my part held The Sentinel as a temporary crutch and walked beside them. Some of the children, the older ones held their reservations while the younger ones deliberated interacting with me.

As we proceeded further along the trail, I realised what I was missing.

The goblins.

They were nowhere near. Maapu and Theko, I could imagine straying away from me, but Taltil shadowed me. It is unlikely for her to disappear and even more unlikely was the remote possibility that Lyria would do anything to them.

My questions were soon answered in the form of a rumbling behind a boulder and an unpleasant yet familiar grating laugh.

Maapu, Theko and Taltil lay bound and gagged. Maapu’s cloak was dyed crimson. There was no need for me to infer the source of the colour. Maapu’s battered state said it all. Theko could only see with one eye while a dark pulp mass of swollen tissue covered his other eye. Gagged, Taltil’s wide beady eyes darted around in terror.

After a low whistle, arrows and crossbows pointed in our direction, they revealed themselves from their hiding places. At a glance, I estimated them to be more than thirty. Clad in forest green and dull greying cloak to blend themselves in the terrain, they are definitely seasoned bounty hunters.

“You are hard to track drow, Lady Rylonvirah,” came the unpleasant voice jolting my memory, “You have an uncanny reputation to turn the odds in your favour, that is until you meet me.”

I scoffed in return.

“Since the last time you crippled my operation, I have been ruminating over ways to turn it into a profit. Now you have a huge bounty on your head to cover my losses,” the cruel smile still lingered, “I cannot possibly ignore it.”

I could only give a self-deprecating wry laugh in return. Fate likes to play cruel games. When I wanted to hunt him, he disappeared and now when I cared least, he dares to intrude.

Aram.