They pulled a bit further back from the forest’s edge. There was a good five hundred paces of clearing in between there and the outpost anyway, from the west side. Yuriko’s and Marron’s effective ranges were at half a longstride and any attempt to snipe at the figures on the wall would have exposed them.

Anyway, it looked like their prey would enter the forest which made what they needed to do much easier.

“Let’s move farther north,” Marron decided. “We’ll draw them away from the first camp.”

Yuriko agreed and the three of them headed north, keeping the rising sun to their right. They kept to a loose triangular position, with Yuriko nearest the forest’s edge. Her brother had protested, but it only took materialising a sunblade to convince him otherwise. The weapon hovered at her back as she shaped a parrying dagger that she decided to call a sundagger. She did a few half-hearted forms just to get used to the disparate blades and her dances. It was easy enough to adjust, and since most people were right-handed she kept the sundagger on her left.

An hour later they made a sniper’s nest on top of an odd rock formation next to a small hill. Pine trees covered most of the hill, but there were enough gaps and clearings within the surrounding forest for a clear shot within a couple of hundred paces. Of course, Marron knew Da’s Guiding Shot technique, even if he didn’t inlay it, so he could have his bolts curve around the trees. That, along with Enhanced Sight allowed him to double his current range. Sheamus wasn’t able to do the same, so he stuck to shooting at close range.

As for her, she stalked the forest floor looking for a barbarian raiding group. She could have used the arboreal highways but pine trees didn’t have widespread branches, and what was there was more liable to break under her weight if she tried.

By midmorning, the sounds of battle drifted from the southeast. She hurried towards it and by the time she went over a ridge, the battle was all but over. A sole barbarian fled from the ambush point where a few militia teams had caught the savages in the crossfire.

Eying the fleeing man, Yuriko’s kinesis lifted one of her metal pellets and shot it at his back. It struck him on the shoulder and blew the arm off. The barbarian youth screamed, rolled on the snow spreading a carpet of red, twitched a couple of times, and fainted. He’d die of blood loss soon enough.

Debating internally, Yuriko decided to retrieve the pellet. The man was only a hundred paces away, and it was easy enough to see where the bullet went. Her kinesis plucked it out of the two-inch hole from a tree it had embedded itself in and walked back.

“Knight Davar.”

One of the militiamen, a youngish lad that was probably older than she by a couple of years but was either in the First Order Journeyman level or High Apprentice. He fingered his Plasma Caster nervously.

“Go on with your team, unless you have a message?” she asked curiously.

“Ah, no, ma’am. Good work, thank you.” He hesitated for a moment then said, “This is the second scout group we took down and we’re moving a bit farther west.”

“I see. Good luck.”

The man waved goodbye and walked back to his teammates, who jostled him good-naturedly. Yuriko looked towards Marron and Sheamus’ sniper's nest and nodded, knowing that her brother would have seen her. She stood in the open, thinking to wait out barbarian reinforcements, but moved on after half an hour of nothing happening.

They only had to stall out the enemy force for the day, since by tonight, the camp would move to the second campsite. If the barbarians didn’t make it to the first camp by then, it wouldn’t be easy to follow the trail.

She moved southwards for a while, then cut towards the east. When she crossed a stream at the base of a gully, a barbarian group walked over a hill. Yuriko flinched in surprise, but they didn’t. In fact, the barbarians rushed towards her without any hesitation, weapons raised.

She absently noted a couple of them hanging back, but since they weren’t carrying any ranged weapons, she disregarded them for the moment.

Before the closest barbarian could even come within five paces of her, a purple bolt slammed into his face, melted into his skin, and cut his pained screams short when it melted his throat. Yuriko grinned as she activated her dances. Her Anima flared then condensed, protecting her from anything they could throw at her.

A couple of them faltered when the lead man died, but the rest, fifteen of the brutes, continued their charge. All of them were as tall or taller than she was, and definitely wider. It made no difference.

She launched herself at their midst, slicing with the sunblade and stabbing with the sundagger. She danced around them, using their own bulk as a shield so that she wouldn’t face more than a couple at a time. A quick stab, a furious slash, and then two more were dead.

She kicked one in the knee, and the accompanying pop of broken bone melded with his scream of pain. Another she stabbed at the guts, then twisted her body to rip the blade sideways. His hot entrails melted the snow and his screams made a fine counterpoint to the first one. Her Anima tinged red, and she felt the waves of her Mien reach out, fueled by her anger and hatred…and glee.

The vicious emotion felt so foreign that she froze for a heartbeat, but the Mien didn’t falter. It seized the young men in its grasp, and each one of them trembled with a mixture of fear and lust.

‘Eh? Why that?’ A part of her squealed in confusion and disgust. She could see their crotches start to bulge, even as their knees continued to shake. The confusion was written clearly on their faces and they didn’t know what to feel and do.

She reaped their lives once she got a hold of herself. Although she didn’t need the advantage, the barbarians were little more than swarm fodder to her, it did make things easier anyway.

A few minutes later, she was the only one standing, still immaculate. The blood spatter had been stopped by her Anima, and whatever clung to it slowly steamed away at the Radiant light.

A purple plasma bolt slammed into the ground a pace from her and jolted her out of her reverie. Yuriko shook her head and rolled her eyes at Marron’s antics. Or maybe he was warning her of something? She walked past the corpses and headed towards the direction Marron indicated, pausing for a moment to see if she interpreted his message correctly. When no follow-up bolt came, she continued walking.

Soon enough, she heard more battle sounds and found a different group of legionnaires wiping out the barbarians. Since they looked like they had everything in hand, she just watched. She used a pellet to kill one of the runners.

Huh. For that matter, weren’t there a couple of barbarians that hung back during her own fight? She didn’t notice and she didn’t count corpses. Anyway, if they ran back to the fort and brought word of the ambushes, then the goal of diverting the pursuing forces would have been met.

After all of the barbarians were dead, she returned to the sniper’s nest. They should move to another point lest they attract the Chaos viscounts towards them.

_________

The Wielder of Divine Flame stared out from the top of the hill. The humans’…or rather, the Verdanian Imperials’ camp had been built here on this bluff, but they ruined the walls and the buildings when they left. Selfish rotters, really, and after they massacred her poor little darlings too.

A white tongue of fire, the so-called Divine Flame, hovered above her head. It wasn’t really just flames and in truth, it contained her consciousness and the core of her Anima. Not that one that was exposed, of course, but the one that burned all over her body. A puppet, no more, no less, even if it had been the same body that she had been reborn in. Having kept it safe for the past hundreds of years, the corpus had taken on a meaning of its own, and Flame would have been saddened if she had to abandon it.

The Weaver of the Warp and Weft of the World stood next to her. Three of his incarnations anyway. She wasn’t sure if the man was just cowardly or cautious to a fault. His fourth incarnation was hidden in the Chaos, not even in the Telurian Court’s home Fysalli. She knew that as long as an incarnation of his lived, he wouldn’t die. That went beyond the immortality granted by being able to separate their Anima and reform a body.

Nyctferrum nails could stab into his body and corrode his Anima to pieces so fine that they wouldn’t be a way to recover, or he could be burned by pure Radiant light, or transformed and subsumed by Luminous force, and he still wouldn’t die. His hidden incarnation’s Anima would slowly grow and rebuild what was lost. Of course, each of his incarnations was only half of the strength they could have had if they were one, but that was the price he paid for.

Flame herself had newly risen to her new station and she was already stronger than an incarnation of his. The next step for her to continue ascending was to craft her own sobriquet and shed the title given to her at birth. Alas, one does not choose a new title willy-nilly. No, great deeds must be accomplished, defining moments that mark her Fate.

And so, the reason she was here.

“The Watcher commanded me to leave the young Ancient be,” Weaver said slowly.

“Why? So she could grow stronger than he when enough time passes?”

“Perhaps.”

“The Watcher is a fool,” Flame hissed.

The Weaver gave her a sidelong glance. “Careful girl, he is your liege.”

The white flames above her roiled with her heightened emotion, and they bubbled with laughter. “That old thing will not act. He cannot.” She smirked. “He chained himself by his own foolish Will.”

“And yet his power grew to such an extent,” Weaver murmured.

“What use is power if one cannot freely exercise it?” She asked rhetorically, “It might as well not exist.”

He raised a questioning eyebrow, “You wish to form your own court?”

Flame shrugged, “Why not? Better to rule a lesser domain than be a servant forever.”

“And yet such a role ensures survival,” Weaver murmured.

“But it is not living.”

The Incarnation of Calm chuckled, “I am content. If I seek more, then the risk is high. I might be undone, a new Anima would take over my ruin and all that I am now will be lost. You are still young and impetuous. Much like the Whisperer. She couldn’t wait. She has no patience, and her gambit could prove to be her undoing.”

“And yet the Watcher does nothing.” Flame snorted in derision. “It's no fun to plot against him. He sees and knows all, but doesn’t act. All he does is peep and enjoy the show. Such a perverse man.”

“He could be watching us now?”

“Does it matter? Does he watch when we feed? When we entertain ourselves? When we fight? Of course, he does. And it doesn’t matter.”

Weaver sighed. “We talk and talk yet nothing moves. Do what you will. Hunt the young Ancient down. But I warn you, she is not an easy mark.”

Flame snorted in derision. “We’ll see about that. You felt her gaze just now, didn’t you?”

“...I did.”

“Then come along.”

Weaver shook his head. “My duty is to bring the new thralls to Baratrum. You can play with the dross, but these will make valuable warriors to the cause.”

Flame glanced down at the courtyard. The barbarians roaming outside were those deemed too useless. But these were not. New life aspected towards the Chaos isn't easily born. Much better to corrupt an already extant life. Even better if they were only at the cusp of being.

The Wielder of Divine Flame’s eyes were cold as she stared at the stiff and frozen figures standing in the courtyard. About a third of them showed gravid bellies. Even though the others didn’t show anything, she could see the embers of new life within. A part of her, one buried underneath bindings and chains so thick it could barely move, winced in sympathy and deplored the need for such savagery. But the greater part said that they were better off with the Telurian Court.

She had already maimed men who couldn’t control themselves in her presence.

She licked her lips. She so enjoyed watching her flames devour flesh. The Great Ones willing, she would feast on Ancient flesh and sup on rarified blood.