Dark Flower Ch. 14 (previously The Flower Ch. 8)

[Mikayla]

The Flower, Part 8: Growth.


***

Night in the far north is unlike night anywhere else in Faerun. The air is cold, clean, crisp and quiet. Even when the snow comes, the unnatural calm prevails. Only when the blizzards howl is the eerie silence broken, and no such blizzard blew this night.

Sheyreiza Auvryndar was keenly aware of just how silent the night was. She moved through foot deep snow trying her best to make as little noise as possible. Though her knee-high furred boots were enchanted to soften her footfalls, even their magic could not completely deaden the sound of crunching snow beneath her feet. Around her shoulders she wore a fur cloak. The grey fur was now speckled white with fresh snow that had fallen only a few minutes earlier. Beneath the cloak, Sheyreiza wore a shirt of mithril chain links forged by the Battlehammer dwarves. The shirt was not as nice as the armor Sheyreiza had carried with her as a priestess of Qu’ellar Auvryndar, but the dwarves had melted down her beautiful Auvryndar breastplate. It seemed the Battlehammers were none too fond of enchanted items adorned with the spider and web motif of Lolth’s priestesses. So be it. The dwarves had, in the end, replaced the lost armor with her new shirt. While not as protective as her old breastplate, the shirt moved and hung like silk and made moving silently much easier.

Silence was paramount this night. Sheyreiza had snuck away from Lonelywood and was now stalking across the frozen wastes on a hunt. The lords of Lonelywood, Sheyreiza’s lover Jain’n, forbid his subjects from leaving the woods alone unless they could pass his test. Jain’n’s test entailed finding a winter wolf, sneaking up on it undetected, and then killing it in single combat. If a follower of Jain’n’s could do that, then Jain’n believed that the person possessed the combat and stealth skills necessary to survive outside the woods.

Sheyreiza had not taken the test. She was not opposed to it; indeed, she considered it an interesting challenge. On the other hand, she also did not consider herself subject to Jain’n’s commands. The sun elf was her lover, not her lord. She would accept his help at salvation, but not his dominion. Naturally, Jain’n would likely have a different opinion, so Sheyreiza slipped away from Lonelywood silently and unseen.

At the moment, she headed south paralleling a snow dusted trail. She knew there was a cross roads ahead where the orcs of Stormhold frequently ambushed travelers. They were her prey this night. Sheyreiza had been practicing her fencing with Jain’n and her woodcraft with others in Lonelywood. She had grown tired of practice however. In her time in Skullport, Sheyreiza had killed and killed often. Since leaving Skullport, she had fought only infrequently. For too long her blades had been dry. True, she had fought along side Jain’n and his elves against the Talonites and their frost giant, but one or two battles a year hardly kept her in peak fighting form. Tonight, she would stalk orcs and do it alone.

Slowly, methodically, she made her way down a snowy hillside, her mismatched. Red and blue eyes scanning the snows for any sign of orc. Though she had gradually been getting used to the light of day, her eyes had not lost their incredibly keen night vision. She could still see better in the dark than any surface elf or orc. Ahead of her lay the crossroad. More than once she had walked this way with Jain’n only to find the stripped, savaged corpses of unlucky merchants and travelers sprawled about the trail.

Her eyes saw movement and she froze. There, at the bottom of the embankment which rose up near the crossroad, she saw half a dozen large figures. They were huddled close together, barely moving. Orcs. They were closer to the road than she had expected. For some reason, she thought the orcs would be watching the trail from the ridge above. That was where she would watch from. The orcs, however, staged their ambush almost directly on top of the crossroads itself. Perhaps their bows were weak. Certainly it had been her experience that orcs preferred melee to missile fire. The orc disposition was a bloody and barbaric one, and nothing was as bloody and barbaric as hand-to-hand combat.

Sheyreiza moved again, slower, more quietly. She reached the base of the hill and crouched low in the snow. She pulled her shield off her back and planted it in the snow beside her. She then checked her weapons. On her back, she wore a quiver of arrows, and her drow-made long sword, the last of her weapons from home. Because of its large size and her small frame, she wore the long sword like a human might wear a great sword or a hand-and-a-half sword. On her left hip was a magic rapier, its scabbard suspended by her silken baldric. The rapier had belonged to Vraja before the frost giant felled him. Jain’n had given it to Sheyreiza after Vraja was laid to rest. She supposed she needed it more than Vraja did now. Tucked into her belt in the small of her back was an enchanted dagger and on her right hip was her second quiver.

As she prepared, she counted. There were at least six orcs she could see. All of them were huge compared to her. She thought back to her time in Skullport when she had faced overwhelming numbers.

As a part of Sheyreiza’s return to Lolth’s favor back in Skullport, Sheyreiza had allowed a Qu’ellar Claddath wizard to polymorph her into the form of Elvaelaeyl Tlabbar. Elvaelaeyl had been the leader of the patrol in Skullport when Sheyreiza arrived, but Elvaelaeyl’s weakness and Sheyreiza’s ambition combined to make that tenure short indeed. When the ceremony of atonement was done, the real Elvaelaeyl had been sacrificed to the flames of Lolth’s altar and Sheyreiza had been transformed into her likeness. From then on, Sheyreiza had answered to Elvaelaeyl’s name and took command of the dead woman’s patrol.

Not long after the ceremony, Sheyreiza had teased Hartex Claddath into a murderous rampage. Hartex was the elder boy and primary assassin of Qu’ellar Claddath, and a prodigious killer. His rampage was destructive to say the least, and earned him the enmity of a local shadow dragon. The dragon did not know who Hartex was, but the dragon was confident he could find out: he had drow allies after all, namely, Sheyreiza and her patrol. This put Sheyreiza in a difficult position. The dragon demanded she find the killer responsible for the murderous rampage, and of course, the killer was her own tutor. So Sheyreiza did what came naturally: she stalled.

The dragon grew impatient however and resorted to less subtle means of investigation. The beast kidnapped a wealthy and important looking drow. After killing the man’s guards the dragon took the wealthy-looking drow back to his lair for interrogation. Unfortunately, the wealthy looking drow was none other than the Qu’ellar Claddath wizard who had transformed Sheyreiza into Elvaelaeyl. The wizard not only knew that Hartex was the killer the dragon sought, but he also knew Sheyreiza’s real identity. Once captured by the dragon, the wizard’s fate was sealed: Hartex and Sheyreiza decided to kill him.

With Hartex leading, the pair had snuck through the Underdark to the shadow dragon’s lair. There, Sheyreiza was able to burn the Claddath wizard down with her unholy spells while Hartex held off the dragon’s underlings. The sublime pleasure of tying up that particular loose end was not free however. Hartex and Sheyreiza had to battle the minions of the dragon and the dragon had many minions. Undead shadows were everywhere in the narrow caverns of the dragon’s lair. At first Hartex and Sheyreiza encountered the shadows singly, or in pairs, but by the time they found the wizard, they had stumbled into a veritable nest of the incorporeal undead.

Though not strong, the shadow’s touch was deadly cold. It could drain the life from a person in mere moments. Hartex had stressed the need for footwork. It was footwork that would keep the shadows at blade-length; footwork that would keep Sheyreiza from getting surrounded; and footwork that would keep her alive. She had trained for long hours with Hartex on footwork, and in that battle, footwork did keep her alive despite being badly outnumbered. She did not walk away unscathed, but she did walk away.

Now in the snow of the frozen north, Sheyreiza thought back to that footwork. The orcs did not have the life-draining touch of the shadows, but they were strong. One blow from a two hundred pound orc would knock her straight to the ground, mithral shirt or not. Once down, six orcs would not likely let her get back up again. Sheyreiza would rely on footwork to survive again.

Sheyreiza stood from her crouch and drew an arrow from her quiver. In her mind, she went over the basics of footwork she had been taught back in Ched Nasad and Skullport. Close footwork could do three things: first, it could draw an enemy’s attack; second, it would allow you to slip that attack; and third, it positioned you for your own attack. Footwork also enabled you to choose the distance you fought at. That would be key. She could not afford to get to close for fear of grappling with the huge beasts, but she could not get too far either, for their reach was surely greater.

With a deep breath she notched an arrow to her composite longbow and drew the bowstring back. She sighted down the length of the shaft at one of the orcs. She breathed. The arrow slipped from her grasp, its release coming almost as a surprise to her. The shaft flew true and transfixed the targeted orc through the neck. The beast shuddered, its arms flailing to the sides for a moment, then fell forward into the snow, its legs still kicking. One of the other orcs laughed, but a third slapped the laughing orc on the chest with an axe then pointed in Sheyreiza’s direction. She had been seen.

For a brief moment, Sheyreiza thought about notching another arrow and taking down as many as she could with her bow. Her archery skills were not in doubt, however, and it was not her archery skills that were likely to be tested when she returned to the Underdark to find her son. She needed to work on her sword-craft.

The savage orcs turned and began running through the snow towards Sheyreiza. The huge gray-green beasts held monstrous axes in their thick hands and they grunted out loudly what Sheyreiza could only assume were curses. She set her bow down and retrieved her shield. From her hip she drew her rapier. Four orcs were charging her but one held his ground and put his own bow into action. Sheyreiza crouched down low in the snow behind her large shield and waited. An arrow whistled past. She stood. The first orc, sprinting and screaming with blood lust was almost upon her. He charged headlong and Sheyreiza realized these were what the Auvryndar weapon master would have called ‘brutes.’ Brutes were fighters with little or no finesse. They simply ran towards something they wanted to kill and chopped at it, relying on strength and ferocity. If one stood toe to toe with a brute, one played into the brute’s strength and got what one deserved.

Sheyreiza bounced on the balls of her feet and started stepping forward to meet the onrushing beast. She swung her hips left and right and back as if to break in one direction or another with every step. A moment before the beast was on her she stepped sideways, seeming to plant herself to receive his charge. It was, of course, a feint, the first step in her routine. The feint drew his attack. The beast changed course slightly for where Sheyreiza stood, raised his axe and swung. Sheyreiza was already stepping, her shield coming up, not to meet the axe head on, but to simply guide the orc’s weapon to the side. Shield-craft was something Sheyreiza learned by watching Jain’n. Never did he take a blow straight on if he could avoid it. A blow straight to the shield was liable to sunder the shield, break the shield arm or both. The shield was for deflecting, not blocking, if one could help it. Sheyreiza realized now it was footwork that made a deflection rather than a block possible. First step: set up. Second step: slip.

Her third step positioned Sheyreiza to the orc’s side while the fourth step was a lunge as the orc tried to recover his weapon. Sheyreiza’s rapier plunged into the beast’s armpit and ran through his lung. The orc stumbled, grunting and coughing up pink froth. He was still standing as Sheyreiza turned her attention to the other three, but she knew the strike was fatal.

As the next three brutes lumbered forward, Sheyreiza bounced on her toes again, mixing up her steps. This time she did not attack, but simply feinted right and left, drawing the orcs’ attacks then slipping them, using her shield and sword to help redirect their blows. As she did, she also used her footwork to thread her way between the behemoths. Once through their initial charge, she danced around them, using her foot speed to keep them from surrounding her.

Feint. Slip. Set-up. Strike. Another orc fell. Sheyreiza felt the rhythm inherent in her footwork. There was a basic four-note melody of feint, slip, set-up and strike, but she realized she could mix those notes up as she saw fit. If needed she could also change the tempo.

Now there were only two brutes, both of which were starting to show signs of fear and winding. Their rage and numbers, however, kept them from fleeing. The two survivors moved on Sheyreiza more cautiously now, seeking to pin her between them. Sheyreiza kept moving, always keeping one orc between her and the second. The brutes were no longer charging headlong into her feints, but circled warily looking for a way to pin the lithe she-drow down. For a few moments, the trio danced back and forth, their weapons and shields barely connecting, no one daring to commit.

Sheyreiza broke the stalemate. She moved quickly between the orcs even as they tried to pin her. Her moved surprised them. The moment she came between them she was too close for them to strike easily. They both back-peddled and swung awkwardly. Sheyreiza spun slipping both predictable blows at once, redirecting one with her shield and the other with her sword. As the orcs recovered from their swings, Sheyreiza stepped again and slashed her rapier across the throat of one assailant. The brute fell backwards an arc of bright blood marking his fall. The other orc stepped forward and swung.

Feint. Slip. Strike. Three beats this time, and the last orc was caught off guard just as he thought he had gained Sheyreiza’s rhythm.

The orc fell to his knees, clutching at his chest where Sheyreiza’s rapier had pierced his hauberk. Dark blood flowed freely through his thick fingers. He struggled to regain his feet but Sheyreiza stepped around him and ran her bloody blade through the orc’s back. With a yell that sounded vaguely like the name of his one-eyed god, the brute fell into the gore stained snow, never to rise again.

One by arrow, four by sword. Sheyreiza spun as she counted. There was one left. She crouched and raised her shield just as an arrow came whistling in. It missed. Sheyreiza jogged forward, peering over the lip of her shield as she moved. The distant orc drew another arrow, notched and drew his bowstring. Sheyreiza crouched completely behind her shield and waited. The shaft struck the shield square on and stuck in the metal-bound wood. Sheyreiza was up in an instant, moving forward again, but not running. Again she kept her shield high, just peering over the edge. Again the orc drew and notched an arrow, then pulled back the bowstring to aim. Sheyreiza crouched and braced against another impact. The arrow hit and she was up again. The orc, judging Sheyreiza’s pace, went for another arrow, but this time Sheyreiza sprinted at him. The beast dropped the arrow even as he tried to notch it. In a panic, his right hand reached for the short sword on his belt. The blade had barely cleared its sheath when Sheyreiza hit him.

Sheyreiza leapt into the air, aiming her body, shield first, at the orc’s weapon. As she crashed into his blade, her shield pinning it against the orc’s body, she thrust her rapier over the top edge of the shield. The point of the rapier sank into the beast’s clavicle just above the line of his hauberk. Bright red blood jutted from the wound. Sheyreiza’s momentum and leap knocked the orc backwards. Wounded, he was unable to keep his feet and he fell. Sheyreiza followed him down. Leaving her rapier stuck in his neck, she quickly drew her dagger from the small of her back and thrust it up into the downed orc’s armpit repeatedly until he stopped moving and grunting.

It was over. The six orcs were dead. Their bodies lay in red-stained snow, the blood still steaming in the cold night air. As Sheyreiza looked across the carnage she had wrought, she thought about how similar the dead orcs looked to all those dead travelers she had seen at these crossroads before. The orcs had finally shared in the same fate that had befallen their victims.

The unnatural quiet of the northern night returned. The only sound was Sheyreiza’s own breath, coming from her open lips in frosty gasps. The silence of the night was the silence of death, and it had been broken only by the rhythm, the music, of her killing. Sheyreiza walked back to where the larger melee had taken place. She studied the footprints. Holding her sword in front of her, as if still fighting, she re-enacted the fight, trying to learn what she could have done better. She moved, left, right, forward, back. Each step, each sequence, had rhythm and purpose. The orcs failed to hear to hear the music or feel the rhythm. They simply lumbered and swung. Sheyreiza had danced. As Sheyreiza retraced her steps she saw how the fight had progressed with each one of her moves separating the orcs, dissecting them, misdirecting their attacks and opening the beasts up to be slaughtered. It was as if fighting combined dance and Savva.

She moved through the fight again and again, sometimes retracing the steps faithfully, other times improvising, trying new steps to see where they would lead. A century ago, Sheyreiza Auvryndar had been born to be a priestess of the Spider Queen. She had been raised from birth for that task, and though she learned the social dances of her city, true dance training was something so frivolous, so utterly foreign to the training of a Yathrin, that she had never partaken. Dance was something she could not waste time with. Now, beneath the moon of the far north, Sheyreiza danced. She danced across bloodstained snow, her dance partners dead at her feet. No, that was not right. The orcs were not her partners in this dance. True, they danced with her, but not as her partner. Sheyreiza’s partner in this dance was her sword. She moved and the sword blocked. She moved again, and the sword killed. In, out, forward, back, left, right. Feet finding position and rhythm, sword parrying, lunging, slashing.

Sheyreiza’s dance was the dance of the sword, the dance of the Dark Maiden, and as Sheyreiza danced by the cold light of the moon, she knew the Maiden watched.

[Vendrin]

Nice to see some of the old mik in there.

[Inaubryn]

Somebody's been watchin' Troy. Good deal, Mikky.

Hey, kept me interested.

[Mikayla]

Inny wrote:

Somebody's been watchin' Troy.

DAMN! You are good Inny, very good. That is precisely what I have been watching and damn you for seeing through me! Oh well, all artists have to draw inspiration from somewhere.

The 'Troy' influence can be seen in a lot of my writings from the LotA to The Flower. Luther's character in the LotA is based on Brad Pitt's Achilles (though admittedly, Luther's character is not invincible or undefeatable) and the fighting style of the Zhents was based on what I saw in Troy as well. What can I say, I LOVED that movie! So, yes, this battle was written with Shey's fighting inspired by what I saw in Troy.

Damn it, I hate being transparent.

Ciao!

[Burt]

I stopped caring when she had sex with Eilistraee...

Wait that was the bit I liked the best...

I'm sure I stopped caring at some point...