Rerouted

After capturing Celith, Inella was thinking of going to Ko’fell, but she was informed of a rumor that changed her plans. “There’s a raid party from the Tufula islands fighting in Ko’fell right now. If we go to Ko’fell, who is to say the Tufulans won’t attack us. The chance of an alliance with them is not as much of an upside as the chance that they fight against us indiscriminately would be a downside. We should go to Hokurr next. By the time we are done there, we will be able to coordinate north and hit Zoboru with the warriors from Cullah.” Nehaynosh whispered to Inella. Inella had gathered all the witches in the throne room of Celith with the intention of updating their war plans. Nehaynosh looked back at Dremeira. Dremeira nodded to concur; the rumor was heard by her falcons who had scouted East. Inella did not look disappointed by the news that they would go North on their trail East. Inella gave a brief smile to Nehaynosh and Dreimera and motioned for them to step back so that she could begin her address to the gathered women.

“We all know that Ko’fell lost a third of its navy fighting us back at the caves. We have a great deal of momentum behind us after defeating Celith. I think it is most wise to carry on to Hokurr while we have momentum behind us. After we finish at Hokurr, we will be able to coordinate with Cullah to attack Zoboru. Once soldiers from Cullah are on the mainland, it’ll only make our efforts easier.” Inella said. The room was filled with respectful silence. Ihe raised her hand to speak.

“Should we be worried about aid coming from the South?” Ihe asked; clearly no one had informed her of the Tufulan raids being led in Ko’fell.

“Dremeira was able to confirm that Tufula is raiding Ko’fell currently. In all likeliness,

the forces of Ko’fell will be too preoccupied to assist their allies up North.” Inella looked around for any other questions, but no one in the crowd had anything to ask. “If everyone is in agreement, then we shall proceed to Hokurr. We should be there within a fortnight.”

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In private Lyndross suggested that Inella disguise one of the girls like her to have as a decoy; it could be a means of preventing assassination. Nehaynosh approved of this reluctantly because it did have the benefit of Inella being free to counter attack anyone who attacked her doppelganger.

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Man of the Mountains

A dangerous assassin had been sent after Inella. He was known as: the man of the mountains. He was the first of three mythical assassins Inella would face as she headed East. Tall in stature, Felhur Oaksgard, the man of the mountains usually operated in the mountains of Zoboru. However, Felhur would travel south if he was paid enough, and the king of Zoboru offered Felhur more than enough. He was always seen in a thick winter coat carrying a great axe on his back.

“I once bore a name of great influence, but that time has passed. I am not of high rank (unless in the calculation of cruelty), and I am of no house (for none will let me inn). My only true skill is subterfuge. My only bond is to my axe, that it shall not break, that is my bind. I’ve left soldiers I called ‘friends’ behind in the fields of war to die, so I am nothing but my own man, and a man of very little moral character at that (but I would be called lawful by the jury of the word’s own terms). I’ve loved a great deal of women a great amount, the greatest of which I was lucky enough to marry. I am no one’s father, my lineage will stop with me (as it should).”

Felhur Oaksgard, the man of the mountains, was drafting a document of what he intended to submit as a headstone eulogy. Oaksgard was caught thieving in Zoboru when he was in his pubescent years and the thief catchers carved his tongue out with fancy silver knives. Oaksguard hadn’t spoken in his early adult life, which he spent in the brothels of Namelle, where he was known by the names that lovers assign in worried fits of passion, or endless companionate realization. They could be yelled, but only in the irresponsibility of a law abiding sinner (Felhur was aware of his disabilities and his general lack of faculties, by the time he settled in the East). Felhur was called names like: “Milihad, Sansor, and Roljnir.” Many dialects were assigned to his bedside attendance. A mound of dirt, a collection of grime was piled at his door so that it seemed to be attempting colonization or crusade. His friends knew him by the name “Fe Owler.” His friends never thought of him as anything else. When war pushed into the border of Namelle, Felhur joined the fight, and fought in the calvary for two battles (until his horse died). To end his defensive tour to the Southeast border, Felhur Oaksgard earned the nickname “The Iron Beetle.” His armor was too thick to penetrate, but all of his unit died to a poverty that every other soldier was made to suffer. In truth, investing in the brothels and other economic ventures had earned Felhur more money than most lords had, and yet Felhur had no land which to call a lordship upon. He decided to give his armor to the lone survivor and use his thieving skills to keep himself far away from any edged blade.

For a period, Felhur considered himself a pacifist. He was so good at thieving that he was never caught, and by that condition he never had to fight anyone. This was a short period. One of the brothels that Felhur owned, The Trotting Fox, was only a few blocks away from the royal keep of Zoboru. As Felhur made his daily rounds to the establishment, he walked in beholden to chaos. Women were screaming in pain upstairs. A bloody prostitute stumbled down the stairs, and Felhur had to dash to her so that he could catch her as she collapsed. The prostitute said, “please save them” as she lost consciousness. Felhur laid her gently on the floor and sprinted up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, two guards were posted outside of the door from which the screams originated. Another prostitute tried to enter the door, but one of the guards pushed her back with the butt of his sword while the other guard smirked and taunted her, “I’ll cut you if you come any closer, whore.”

Felhur grabbed the nearest guard by the collar and tossed him down the stairs, then he started elbowing the far guard in the nose and kneeing him in the groin. Kicking the door open, Felhur took less than a second to observe the scene. Inside the room were three girls and a slim, short man. Two of the girls were sliced all over their naked bodies, wailing on the floor in cloaks of their own blood. The other girl had bruised ribs, which the man was furiously punching. Without any hesitation, and absolutely no warning, Felhur grabbed the man’s head in his palm and ripped him backwards into a nightstand. The hardwood corner connected with the base of the man’s skull. A weak squirm and a faint pant later, the assailant was limp- slumped on the floor.

Felhur carried the two bleeding women on either of his shoulders so that he could attend to their wounds. The other women who were in The Trotting Fox helped him gather salves and bandages. Once Felhur knew that their condition was no longer critical, he went back upstairs to get the third woman. In Felhur’s attendance of the third woman, a group of royal guards came inside and called for Felhur to present himself. This event would lead to his indentured servitude as an assassin. One of the lords of Zoboru explained to Felhur that the man he’d killed was a noble from Namelle, and that Namelle was calling for Felhur to be executed. The king of Zoboru desired Felhur for other things after having heard legends of the man called “Roljnir,” and “The Iron Beetle.” Kings are never above scheming.

“Felhur, I have been made aware of your rich history, and I plan to make use of it- to make use of you. The man you killed was Ajin Deleve- a high ranking noble from Namelle. The people of Namelle are expecting me to give you over to them so that they may execute you. However, I have a particular man that I need killed, and I do think that you are the person who needed for this task of assassination. The kingdom of Zoboru has not had an assassin for many years, because they are so untrustworthy. You, however, you are someone whom I believe I can charge with my personal faith. As of yesterday your assets have all been seized by the kingdom. I figure that we can make a deal. You will work directly for me for several years, and, in return, your assets will be given back to you. I will also expunge your criminal record. I’m sure that in a few months this drama over Deleve’s death will be forgotten. What do you say?” King Borundu asked Felhur, and since Felhur could not speak, he nodded his head yes.

After several years of servitude as Borundu’s assassin, Felhur was released with his criminal charges cleared and his assets returned. The Trotting Fox had burned down two years prior, and Borundu paid Felhur roughly half of what the establishment was worth if it were to have been sold. Felhur had other brothels he could have managed, but he decided against the idea. He was making good money as an assassin; it was better suited to his skills than management was. After two years of galavanting the mountains of Zoboru as an assassin, Felhur earned his final, most enduring nickname, “the Man of the Mountains.”

“Darling, with all that money you could retire early. You wouldn’t have to go around killing people no more.” Delilah said to Felhur. He smiled in response. Felhur had ended up marrying one of the prostitutes he had saved from Ajin. Felhur and Delilah had lived together happily for some time now. Delilah had dark skin, plenty of scars all across her body like a drunkenly scripted map, and short hair that roosted atop her head in tight curls. She also had a neck tattoo of a fox, and three earrings split between her ears. Delilah’s friends often asked her what it was like dating a man who was dumb. Typically she would answer that it had its difficulties, but it wasn’t too hard because men rarely said anything of substance. Delilah’s friends also asked her what it was like being married to an assassin, and she had a much more amicable response to that question. Being married to an assassin meant good pay and plenty of travel (although most of the traveling Delilah did not get to accompany Felhur for).

“I think that with all that money we could move south and soak up the sun for the rest of our days. You wouldn’t have to be the Man of the Mountains anymore.” Delilah dropped her right shoulder as she did when Felhur got close enough to kiss her. After a brief interlude of passion, Delilah continued on, “you’ll have to tell me what your plan is. If the king is paying you this much money it has to be quite the dangerous job.” Felhur reached for a scrap of paper and a writing utensil. Delilah waited intently, but did not wait for long. Felhur handed her the piece with only a few words scribbled on it.

‘Go kill person’ was all that was written. Delilah looked up from the paper at Felhur and saw him smiling. This made them both laugh. Felhur took back the paper and wrote down a detailed plan of what he was going to do.

“Alright. I know that you always come up with good plans, so I will expect you back in three weeks, tops.” Delilah got a twisted feeling in her stomach as she spoke. “Although, I think you can do it in two.” Felhur nodded and smiled at her. He would be leaving in the morning; that meant that the night was all theirs. Felhur’s current home up in the mountains of Zoboru didn’t have any neighbors, thankfully. The noise that the two of them made was, by all classifications, loud. Afterwards they slept like babies swaddled in each other’s arms.

Felhur set off in the morning before Delilah awoke. He knew that she would want him to linger a little longer if she caught sight of him. He took a sturdy horse, walked it at first, and then rode it once they were on solid terrain. The ride to Hokurr would take five uneventful days, and the heat each day would increase by a few degrees. The trees changed from tall pines to a variety of stouter, deciduous trees. Felhur rode hard on the last two days to Hokurr because his plan involved arriving in the city before Inella did. When he got to the city, he prepared himself on the Western outcroppings. Borundu’s missive to Felhur had informed him that Inella would be heading Eastward, but at this point almost everyone on the continent knew that Inella and her coven of witches were headed Eastward. She had already swept through Celith with an undeniable swiftness, and had destroyed a smattering of small towns after that. What had started off as rumors and new wives tales was now a nation wide fear… and a threatening reality.

Inella and her train were close to Felhur’s trap. Lyndross had suggested that Inella disguise herself and let one of the novice girls play doppelganger. Inella was stationed towards the rear of the witches; her decoy was several women in front of her.

“This city will provide more provisions than Celith, it’s a fair amount larger.” Ihe said to Nestelle.

“Perhaps. I do think that the farms in Celith were bigger, however. Celith is a large exporter of food and goods. There should be a great deal more money in Hokurr, though.” Nestelle responded. Nestelle took out one of her voodoo dolls, a faceless one, and started thumbing it nervously as she bit her lower lip.

“If we accumulate enough money we could purchase an army of mercenaries to help us with our cau-” Ihe was cut off by a large explosion on either side of the dirt road they walked. The shockwaves made several women fall to the ground, and it made Nestelle drop the doll she had been fidgeting with.

The smoke in the air was an impenetrable blackness. Many of the women shouted orders, while others screamed in shock. One of the girls near the left explosion was convulsing on the ground. In all of the pandemonium no one noticed Felhur enter the fray. He went straight for Inella’s decoy with a running lunge; his shoulder knocked the girl to the ground and his axe cut her head off in a devastating swing. Felhur grabbed the severed head by the hair and ran in the opposite direction that he came from. Sprinting hard to the right, he was chewing on the smoke that was filtering through his mouth. As he got off of the road and into the grass he ignited another explosion- this one caught the grass on fire. It was Felhur’s hope that the flames would keep the witches from pursuing him.

Amidst the chaos Inella was focused. Using a spell to amplify the sound of her voice, Inella yelled “Lyndross, clear this smoke away. June, get up in the air and get eyes on whoever did this; it was obviously a trap. Everyone else, quiet down. We will get medical attention to anyone who needs it as soon as the smoke is cleared.” Inella walked over to the flames and preemptively smothered them by churning the earth. June took to the sky on a large gust of air that blew everyone’s hair in wild directions. Lyndross used wind of her own to blow the smoke to the left (except for a lingering cloud that was floating from the right).

“I see him! He’s running fast back to the city.” June shouted as she released her spell and floated back down to the ground.

“What can you tell me about him? I need details.” Inella asked June with a cold fury in her eyes.

“He had an axe on his back, and he was covered from head to toe in black. He’s tall, but other than that I couldn’t tell you anything else about him. He was running very fast, you’ll probably need a speed enhancing spell to catch him.” June was looking at Inella and patiently waiting for orders.

“Lyndross and I will catch him, then.” Inella looked out at all the women around her briefly and concluded that they would be fine without her. There were few women hurt, only one confirmed dead. “Lyndross, let’s go.” The two women cast movement enhancing spells on their legs and started their chase. Leaping over the smothered fire and smoldering dirt, the two women were sprinting through the ankle high grass. Neither of them could see the person that they were chasing, but they weren’t discouraged. Moving at such a high speed, the women’s hair was parallel with the ground; their eyes were frantically scanning the ground for traps.

“Jump here!” Lyndross yelled as she leapt over a tripwire that was connected to a shearing trap. The walls of Hokurr emerged as a gray line on the horizon, and beneath it was the silhouette of a man. The sight of the assailant provoked the women to run faster, but they were reaching their limit.

“We can’t let him get into the city.” Inella said through gritting teeth. It was obvious to both of the women that if the assassin got inside the city he would be able to disguise himself, or conceal himself among the citizens. Lyndross took Inella’s command as an incentive to hurl a fireball at the man, even though he was still a great distance ahead of them. The fireball soared through the sky and landed just behind Felhur’s heels. The whooshing sound of the flames spreading on the ground caused Felhur to look behind him. As he looked, he noticed that he was being chased. This made him chuff in anger. At this point, there was nothing he could do but keep running, though he felt that they would catch up to him before he reached the walls of the city.

Inella manifested a spear and threw it with perfect form all the way to Felhur. The assassin rolled to the right at the last second, and got up in a fluid motion to continue his retreat. Lyndross held her hands out and shot bolts of fire at either side of Felhur. Inella recognized what Lyndross had done, and was proud of its tactical nature. Inella launched a fireball in between the two bolts so that Felhur could not dodge all three in the same way that he previously had. Felhur reacted by stepping back and leaving the ground in front of him to be scorched by the foreign, burning tyranny of a triumvirate of flame. Felhur assessed the situation, and saw that his only option was to try and fight. Fighting wouldn’t be easy since his two opponents could use magic and he couldn't. Inella and Lyndross recognized Felhur’s halt and tensed themselves, waited for him to make the first move. Felhur threw a copious amount of smoke bombs on the ground and swung wildly with his axe. Lyndross put up a barrier of ice in front of her which Felhur shattered. Before he could swing again, Inella raised the ground around where he stood and trapped Felhur.

As Lyndross readied a lethal spell, Inella stopped her. “Wait.” Inella said. “I think that I will keep him as a zombie, so don’t make a mess of him.” Felhur struggled in silence, everything up to his neck was surrounded by stone. He had no way to climb out, and acceptance started in his eyes, then uncurled his scowl, and unclenched his jaw. Felhur closed his eyes and asked his wife for her forgiveness since he would not return.

The days were warm and long. The sun would rise and hang in the sky, as if someone had forgotten it was there at all until very late, and would set around nine thirty. This made the overdressed witches sweat profusely- to the point that attacking Hokurr seemed harder with each passing day; they would need to start soon, or they would be at an insurmountable disadvantage. The plan of attack was yet to be devised, but Inella’s war council was working tirelessly to come up with an efficient plan. The best they had come up with thus far was a short list of things that they could not do. Attacking Hokurr could not be a siege, as they did not have the numbers to siege the city. Obviously they were not able to walk through the gate. Scaling the walls would not work either, as they all would be shot down before they could get over. Destroying the walls would not work because it would exhaust too many people before the fighting began. The women discussed plausible options in a makeshift tent that Inella held up with magic. June blew cool air around the inside of the tent in a circle, which acted as air conditioning. Inella had requested June do this… not for the sake of the unbearable perspiration, but because she needed to keep her zombies cool. She did not want their skin to get necrosis, and the summer heat worked hard against the preservative magic that was tied into the reanimation spell. Edmund Tygrowthe, Felhur Oaksgaurd, Braun, and Inella’s other living dead were huddled in the corner of the tent dormantly; they were a small crowd of lifeless eyes and pallored skin that made Rasha (the illusionist teacher) mildly uncomfortable.

Moira sat with her legs crossed. She was far away from the tent and its coolness. Adda was standing next to her, staring down, looking at how sweat rolled between the folds and creases of Moira’s facial scars. At this point Adda no longer felt a pang of guilt when she saw the burn marks, which was more than most of the witches could say. As a general defense, Adda had spent more time with Moira than anyone else at this point, and not just in the romantic sense. Doing day to day things builds a familiarity that erases the remarkable; the continued observance of the unchanging creates comfortable complacency.

“Why don’t we go to the river?” Moira asked in a begging tone. Adda did not object to the idea, so she became an adjunct to the river goers. Koa, Calaime, and several of the other women were lounging on the riverbanks with their legs (or more) in the river. It would be easy enough for most of the witches to cool themselves off with magic, but there was a certain leisure that the women were enjoying. Not a single one of them was casting or channeling any sort of magic. The natural coolness of the river added to that sense of leisure. The women had been receiving their lessons in magic from the instructors as they traveled further East, and the event that had happened in the morning was another thing that created a desire to lounge.

Moira and Adda walked up to the water holding hands, but Dousza slipped in between the two of them, splitting the interlaced fingers into globes of lonely personal space. “What the-” Adda started, but Dousza turned around immediately, her finger raised to her lips in a signature of silence. Moira and Adda retethered, and watched as Dousza crouched down and walked forward. Being a stealth specialist without using magic was much harder, but it was much more rewarding. Dousza grabbed Calaime by the shoulders and screamed, which caused a chain reaction scream of unbridled fright from Cailaime. Adda, Moira, and all the other women at the water laughed at the incident. Calaime looked back at Dousza, who was smiling a cheeky smile, and began to laugh at herself.

Back in the tent Dremeira’s ears perked up at the laughter, which caused her to look out at the women lounging in the water. “What if we went into the city through the river?” Dremeira asked with a furrowed brow. All of the other women discussing in the tent stopped to think about the possibilities of aquatic infiltration.

“On the one hand, it shouldn’t be too difficult for us to cast spells that allow us to breathe underwater. It could be as simple as a sustained pocket of air.” June, being the elemental teacher, led her to think about whichever elements would be helpful in the situation.

“A handful of girls would be able to transform into sea life, myself included.” Dremeira added. Dremeira could transform into a shark, fish, or an otter initially, and then turn back, or turn to her preferred cougar. The druids under Dremeira’s tutelage were few, but those that could transform themselves into sea life wouldn’t have to worry about learning a spell that allowed them to breathe underwater.