Vumile

‘’Where are they leading us?’’ I whisper to a Liva next to me, she grunts struggling to keep up with the strenuous pace the pale skinned man has set. ‘’What’s the point of going anywhere if we are going to die of exhaustion before the Aldermen get us?’’ I whisper between panting breaths of my own. Has it ever been this hot anywhere in all existence?

‘’Would you shut up!’’ the blond that introduced herself as Liva shouts startling all with her high pitched voice. Spears point at her, magics haze the air around, primed. I have both my hands in the air having dropped the spear seeing the redheads bloodshot eyes glaring at me, Liva deflates like an airless balloon.

The others relax their startled guards, I understand being jumpy after what we’ve been through but yikes. The crazy redhead is walking right at me, I make myself none threatening as I pick up my dropped spear.

‘’I-I Mn na, it wasn’t ah—‘’ Live protests with her own arms up panickingly explaining, she is ignored.

[WAM]

--

‘’Get up, get up.’’ A slightly flushed but otherwise still fine Liva wakes me roughly incognisant of my throbbing face. I flinch as my lip twitches causing a stabbing in my cheek that cascades through pain centres I didn’t know I had arresting my hand midway to feel the damage.

‘’Sounded like you broke something, don’t touch it. Hold still, hold still.’’ She dabs my face with something cool that quickly becomes too cool, then cold, then freezing. I contort my body trying to keep my face still as the pain shoots into my head and down my neck. Not that I could scream if I wanted to with how heavy my tongue suddenly is, the pain passes with a sigh from me.

‘’There, you’ll mend in no time. That’s thanks for getting us a rest stop, don’t expect me to patch you up every time you break a nail and don’t ever talk to me again.’’ The hateful woman says, she has the nerve to humph in offense as she leaves my side, bitch. I watch her almost subserviently return whatever concoction applied to my face to the Witch they call Isis. I look away quickly only to regret that as my gaze lands on the madwoman that broke my face.

Slowly so as not to alarm her I turn around onto my side and close my eyes. Exhausted sleep comes quickly.

*

Shea

‘’Why have we stopped?’’ Saya asks between clenched teeth, her berserker rage is always a hairs breath away making her aura uncomfortable even for me to be around. I ignore the threat in her stance as she faces me, turning towards Isis I lower my voice so the hanger ons don’t hear.

‘’Two of the kids are moving that way,’’ I say indicating south. ‘’Towards another blood relative I think may be Didi.’’

Saya hisses looking south, knuckles turning white around the spear she took from one of the patrols that stumbled upon us.

‘’You think they know we’re still here tryna get them back?’’ Isis asks with weary eyes looking at me then gazing into the rolling golden hills stretching far into the distance.

I shake my head tiredly, I have no idea about anything but they are alive so I have hope. ‘’No, they wouldn’t only move the two... they’d separate them but not into pairs if they knew we were coming. Something else is going on.’’ I try not to let fear into my voice, I can tell how broken they all are by what’s been done to them. The only thing keeping us going now is hate and the fact that my blood magic tells me the little ones are still alive pointing me to them.

‘’We’ll get them back,’’ I say placing a comforting hand on Saya’s shoulder. I feel her flinch almost attacking at my touch, the scares they inflicted on her psyche deep and raw. It breaks my heart seeing her like this; I look at her, at Isis, at our companions that chose to stay in this cursed place for one reason or another. They are all so young, ‘’we’ll get them all back.’’

They don’t respond, even to my own ears the words sound hollow. What horrors have those precious little ones been exposed to in captivity, what has been done to them? I resist sighing in despair as I move away to rest with the others, at least the Alderman don’t sexually abuse their child slaves. Not openly anyways, a heavy sigh escapes me as I sit on the dry grass.

‘’I say we go to Didi, no-way she’d let them take her alive. No-way,’’ Saya says the last part in a low voice. Her gaze having not wavered since I pointed, ‘’if she’s still out there then she’s free. Didi might be the smartest person I know.’’

I feared they truly broke something in her in captivity, the way she kills, the way she looks at even me like she’s struggling not to slit my throat. But hearing that we might be going towards Dishna there is something hopeful in her voice, something that gives me hope.

‘’It would have been easier had they stayed at the same place,’’ Isis says looking lost. ‘’As soon as we take any now we may be condemning others.’’

‘’They’ll know its us,’’ I say finishing her thought.

She nods absently, ‘’they’ll know it’s us.

‘’How far have they moved?’’ Saya asks, determination and anger radiating out with her aura. At least she is still strategic in her bloodlust.

‘’I can’t tell from here, we’re still days away from any of them though. I can’t even tell whose who from this far out,’’ not without trying either. My Blood Call leading me towards the kids but depleting my mana quickly when used this way, and without mana I won’t be as effective if we run into more Sotho hunters.

*

Nyye

It’s the witch that always spots an ambush first, the Sotho savages are upon us from the swaying grass like summoned nightmares the second of warning the witch gives only enough for me to get my spear up. Saving my life again by the barest of margins, I kick, push and scuffle. A sound attack from Sarah stuns all the unprepared attackers.

My assailant and I locked in struggle, me losing my balance under his strength but straining with everything I have. The hunter does a move I dodge by the barest margin on instinct but end up falling having lost my footing. I’m kneed, I’m bitten into, I’m scratched and punched but I made sure my opponent went down with me keeping him in a compromised position.

I have no doubt that more of these hunters come at us from every direction, I have no doubt that they outnumber us at least 2 to 1, I have no doubt they even have a lion or two complicating things further. But with blood pumping hard in my ears, the strain of keeping this fucker from gutting me and the fast pace everything is going at prevents me from confirming any of this as we grapple.

A distraction now would mean my death for sure; my breath is knocked out of me as something stabs into my kidney. A baying sound comes out of my mouth my grip loosening from the one I have pinned on the ground. We both grab for his belt knife but he nearly breaks my hand before slashing across my ribs slicing me like a fish.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck I’m going to die! The stab to my neck goes through my warding hand instead; I grab the hilt with clawed fingers jamming more fingers into the crazed man’s wide eyes. I bite into his neck latching on as he pulls away from me; sweat blood and desperation filling my mouth. Flash, he is stunned taking the attack up close allowing me to gut him with his dagger.

I look around panthing holding my side to stem the bleeding, I need to see which way blood mage is facing.

The mad redhead is in a heated struggle with one of the lions with grizzly claw marks raked across her body ignored as she wrestles it into the ground. Tucked under its neck with teeth and knives sunk in she ignores the fangs that can’t reach instead focused on keeping the powerful claws from cutting her in half.

The others are similarly occupied each fighting two or three hunters with the man Shea having the most success as usual at keeping the hunters hesitant. He moves like a snake whipping this way and that with spear stabbing and cutting. The wounds are deep bleeding things even as he takes his own. The Sotho hunters are just that, hunters and not used to protracted battles, their abilities leaning more on ambush. Wounds are exchanged, blood is spilled filling me with dread as I am on the wrong side of the blood mage.

I am going to die! I think again trying to staunch my bleeding whilst shambling fast to get away from what I know is about to happen. I hear the wet wrenching as someone’s blood is yanked out of them forcefully; misting the air in red everything is red!

I am yanked sideways by my blood betraying me; the wound tearing further as the blood is vacuumed out of me. I crash into something that gives, dizzy I see red, holding my split side together tightly with clawing hands. I hit hard on the ground rolling, I don’t know which way I’m heading but I hope it’s away from the blood mage and his spell.

Something stops my movement, a foot, the world is spinning and I must have gone mad to be glad to see the redhead psycho standing over me. The others are all here watching the blood mage at work having activated his magics. I hear the slaughter happening behind me with relief at having gotten away.

The spell is directional, only active the direction he is facing but when it pulls on the blood of all the bleeding that are still alive there is no friend. I don’t pretend to know how it works but I know it doesn’t discriminate in its reaving of blood.

The world has gone mad. Truly this is beyond anything I could have imagined when this was foretold in Shwemwara; Sister sings as I twirl her in my fingers moving the air into butterfly wings around her blades.

I jump slashing out with Phantom Blades at the smoke aberration wailing its combat ability icy teeth bared forward. Its wail attack stuns the children to petrified stiffness behind me [slash] the psionic blades slash slicing the thing apart a moment later dispersing its black smoky form.

I pay the human children no mind knowing exactly how much my Influence infused with Phantom Cloak is blunting the magic attacks.

Blade Whip shoots out into the sky. I slash through something obscure that was flying towards us fast using the blinding sun for cover. I drag the stunned kids with Phantom Hold as I trudge forward through the smoking ash. That’s what the world has been reduced to now, all around is piles and piles of ash that fills the air with impossible darkness from all these disturbances.

The girl child wakes herself first, stumbling forward falling forward crashing with a puff into the black sooth covering the ground. She falls well but is disorientated being dragged by my Influnce having not have fully woken from the stunning effects I allow to get through to affect them. The red cheeked Ian wakes next but just collapses having no conscious control of himself as he gains consciousness. The second of Sachihiro’s girls, Kira, wakes next stumbling to her knees being dragged, still stunned she is but she has great intrinsic balance.

[Zwee] I swing Sister with a Phantom Slash propelled forward using her as the medium. [Swoosh] The whirling cyclone of darkness collecting heavy ash forming some 15 kilometre away loses form again as its sliced cleanly.

The other children wake falling in various ways, urinating themselves dragged forward by my Phantom Hold of my Influence.

Phantom Blades whistles forward through space. The ambushing smoke creature of darkness blows an icy wind as it disperses before unleashing with its stunning wail attack. The children aren’t ready to try themselves at another one of those just yet, they’ve pleasantly surprised me with their resilience and foundational training. Them Awakening to mana helped quite a bit, children Awakening; I shake my head at the madness of the world.

Any other time I wouldn’t be allowing any attacks to reach them but the world has gone mad and so I push them as far as I think they can take and survive. I don’t want to be lugging around helpless children in this madness nor will I just leave them without at least trying to teach them something.

I eat the distance careful not to go too far too quickly as I sense dangers I’m not sure I could face every other moment, my heart quickening in worried excitement when some of them get close. I do not want to be delayed or possibly killed by an unknown before reaching Nyx but the thrill in my old bones is not just worry about missing the Closing. Had I known things were this bad outside the Alderman Foothills I would not have agreed to take these children at all, but having given my word...

I divert our route slightly away from the unknown’s path and sure enough it just passes by some 40 kilometres away, rushing by with impressive speed. It seems everyone has somewhere to be, at least everyone not a mindless hungry creature born of raw ether.

The shock of ether infusing me when I left the Foothill boarder broke the limiters I had on myself such that I’ve broken from Lord to a hair’s breathe from Imperium in the time I was knocked out. My psionic power feels complete, I have complete control in a way I never thought possible and the urge to test myself is there even as old and supposedly wise as I am supposed to be.

Reaching Imperium means leaving though and that’s something I’ve been putting off until I found an heir, I look back at the dazed foursome struggling within my Influence. Kids this young Awakening to mana, I shake my head covering the miles in moments killing everything in my path. Maybe things have changed, maybe even if I allow myself to evolve to Imperic Psion I still have time.