47

Miraveh tried to hide the horror she felt upon seeing the unicorn horn in the hands of an enemy such as Yaerual. Her eyes remained upon him and he stood with a nonchalance that told her he knew exactly what he held within his ruined hand. An object of such power, he could destroy the entire keep and everyone inside. If he had the strength to channel that immense power. He had shown that even with only fragments of the horn, his relic rings, he would put himself in peril for that power without question.

If he had already bonded with it, corrupted it with a soul as black as his burned and broken fingers, Miraveh could see no hope of victory here. Without saying a word, Yaerual raised the horn and the keep rumbled, shaking everyone upon their feet and setting loose stones crashing to the ground. The fighting stopped as all eyes turned toward the man who now examined the unicorn horn with appraising eyes.

"Fascinating." His undamaged fingers traced along the length of the horn, almost in reverence. "We only took pieces of the horn, allowing it to regrow that we may always have a supply of relics, but you? You take the whole thing. Though, I see no cuts upon the base. Interesting. Have you freed the unicorn?"

Miraveh said nothing, trailing her senses outward, testing the magical power within the horn and sighed inwardly as she felt no corruption within it. The magic remained golden and pure, unsullied by the hands of the Hunter. It appeared bonding with relics may take more time than had passed since Yaerual had found the horn.

"You have no right to it, Yaerual!" Brothimir, finding his courage at last, stepped forward but Miraveh held him back. "The horn was given to Miraveh Dragon-Friend!"

"Given? Then you have freed the beast. Noble, if foolish. Tell your traitor to remain silent or I will kill him." Yaerual pointed the horn toward Brothimir, twirling the tip in a circle, as though trying to decide whether, or how, to kill him. "Now, imagine my surprise when I chased a little goblin behind this stockade, only for her, him, it to stumble over a pile of garbage, revealing ... this. The first spell of this wonderful artefact one of death for the creature that revealed it to me. Ironic, I suppose."

A chanced flick of the eyes showed a pair of short legs protruding from behind the redoubt where Miraveh had hidden the unicorn horn. Uncorrupted as yet, Yaerual had still managed to taint the horn. She allowed herself to rove her eyes around the courtyard and saw other bodies, from both sides. The defenders had fought well, but now they faced a far greater threat. Hostilities had ceased, for the moment, but they could not fight against Yaerual.

Only she could and she was not certain she had the power to match the Hunter. Not now. Not with the horn in his possession. Oh, she had finally embraced her power, accepted it, as Sialira had taught her, but even her potential could not compare with the strength of the unicorn horn in the grip of Yaerual. The man had his own strength, greater than many others, she had sensed it. Added to the horn, Miraveh could not hope to match him.

Even as she had made her visual tour of the courtyard, she could tell Yaerual had started to become impatient at her silence. A thousand thoughts running through her mind stopped her from speaking too early, however. Thoughts of racing to the man, creating a magical barrier around them and creating a ball of white hot flames to consume them both. She didn't know if she could cast two spells at the same time, however, and now was not the time to test it. Though something she saw within the pile of bodies left by Turotara gave her a semblance of hope.

"Let them all go." Her first words. Words Alran would have spoken. Or Sialira. Or Daras. All self-less. Miraveh's words were not. "Your people. My people. Send them all away and let us see whose power is greater. 'Hunter'."

They were distractions for Miraveh. Not least of which Sialira and the little goblin, Peknida. The Candidate. She needed them all out of the way while she fought Yaerual and she did not want their faces adding to her nightmares because of her actions. If she lived to have another nightmare. She had not seen Sialira as she had looked around, nor Peknida. She could only hope they remained safe. No-one in the courtyard was safe, though.

"Let them go? When they could witness the greatest magical battle of this age?" Yaerual looked over his shoulder and nodded. "But, no. We're not going to fight. You're going to surrender or I will kill every one of your little band of runaways, one-by-one, in the most horrific ways, slow and painful. Starting with this one."

Sialira, her face bloody, long, blonde hair streaked with dirt and blood, one eye puffed and swollen. Even in that state, she refused to allow her captors to push her, choosing to walk before them, chest pushed forward, chin high. With her one good eye, she gave Yaerual a look of contempt but stopped walking as he pressed the unicorn horn against her chest. The two captors, Yaerual's white-sashed comrades, remained at her flanks, swords bared.

Silent words passed between Miraveh and Sialira. Questions asked, answers given with only the slightest movement of their eyes. Sialira gave a pained smile as she directed Miraveh's gaze with her good eye toward one of the white-sashed men. He bore a long, wicked, bleeding cut to his face. From his chin to his forehead and Miraveh smiled at Sialira's resistance.

"Whatever happens, Brothimir, you will take Sialira, you will find Peknida and you will guide them to safety. Understand?" Her lowered voice, for Brothimir's ears alone, sounded cold and distant even to her own ears. "I am relying upon you. I have given you my trust."

"I will not fail you." Brothimir looked into Miraveh's eyes and she saw all colour wash from his features. He dipped his eyes. "I will never fail anyone again."

He began to step back and Yaerual noted the movement, squinting at what it may portend. His forehead furrowed as he looked to Sialira, still stood as defiant as Miraveh had ever seen her, but now Sialira had tears in her eyes. She knew. Were Turotara not a crumpled heap against the keep's wall, she would know, too. They had all seen the look upon Miraveh's face before. They had all witnessed her actions and knew her heart.

Sialira knew Miraveh did not expect to survive this.

"You fail to understand one thing, Yaerual." Miraveh unfastened her sword belt, allowing it and the empty sheath to fall to the ground. She kicked them to the side. "We all know your like. We have all seen the actions of the Hunters O' The Dark and you have no mercy. We all heard you give your word and then break it. You have no honour. Everyone here knows they are already dead, whether we fight and lose or we surrender. Unless ..."

"Unless you fight and win." Yaerual chuckled, his face breaking into a grin. "Unless you win."

Miraveh let loose her magic. An instantaneous explosion of bright, purple light that seared her eyes even as she had clenched them tight. The light that she had learned from Sialira upon the rocky path to the rope bridges. Another casting and she stepped through the portal she had learned as she watched Brothimir struggle to create one in the tall grass outside Comragon.

Emerging from the portal only feet away, behind Yaerual and his compatriots, she rushed forward, grabbing Sialira and pushing her toward the arms of Brothimir. But she had used up all the surprise she had created in doing so. She almost felt the cold steel of the sword arcing toward her, but she had not remained at a standstill. She rolled forward, stopping before the pile of bodies created by Turotara in her rage and grasped hold of something she had noticed before. A relic around the throat of a dead Karline.

The Hunters were one or the other of two things. Warriors, or Karline. Oh, the Karline had some martial training, she had seen that, but they also fought within their own talents. Karline wielded magic, the warriors their swords. Miraveh was not a Hunter. Nor was she a Witch. She had received martial training by the greatest warrior she had ever met, and she had learned her magic the hard way. She could no more abandon one over the other than she could choose which leg she preferred to walk upon. They were both very much a part of her and she saw no division between them. Magic and steel, together.

With the relic in her hand, she drew upon its filthy power, adding it to her own, gripping that tainted energy and making it do her bidding. With a thought, a memory of a spell she had fallen upon back in Comragon, she clenched her fist, focussing on the bodies between her and Yaerual and obliterated them, sending a shower of blood and gore fountaining to the sky and, with that curtain of blood as a distraction, she launched herself forward.

The barrier of blood split apart, Yaerual swiping it away with a wave of the unicorn horn, but Miraveh had not come to attack him. Instead, she aimed her sword for Yaerual's companion, the one with the cut across his face. Her sword bit into his upper arm, passing straight through his mail shirt, digging into the muscle and rendering that arm useless. But his companion in arms had recovered fast. She ducked as his sword sought to take her head, then raised herself, pressing a hand upon his chest and tossing him six feet away with ribbons of purple magic tracing across his chest.

That left Yaerual. For now. Against him and the unicorn horn, Miraveh alone could not stand. With a relic in her hand, she could sense a sliver of hope.

-+-

Miraveh knew the Karline before her, as powerful as he was, could not unleash the full potential of the unicorn horn. Those twisted, blackened and broken fingers testified to that and that only came through use of relics. Mere slivers of the full power of the horn. If he even tried to use too much power, it would burn him to ash. At least, she surmised it so. She needed to provoke him. Cause his anger to outweigh his caution.

Yaerual had paused, circling away from the bodies that Miraveh had caused to explode, his eyes flickering toward the remnants that were once his warriors, his Karline. He held the horn as though pointing a sword towards her, ready to fend off any attack she attempted, but Miraveh was not about to expend her own energy upon worthless assaults. Another lesson of Alran's. Battle was not one, fast push, but drawn out. A good warrior tested their enemy and only fought to their own strengths, their own abilities.

She felt something, then, a shift in the magic that surrounded them. With the number of magic wielders in the vicinity, the power of the unicorn horn and the presence of the dragon still clouding everything, she still felt it. A tiny, easy missed bloom of magic. Not from the unicorn horn, but of Yaerual's own magic. He was learning, even in the midst of conflict.

Bones erupted from the remains of the bodies upon the ground. They flashed outward, sending pieces of flesh curling into the air, blood to spatter to the sides and the bones flew toward her. She remembered the spell Yaerual used to turn aside her sword, back in the tall grass, and used that spell now. Instead of swiping the bones away, her magic smashed down upon them, knocking them toward the cobbles of the courtyard and shattering them into slivers and shards before turning the magic the other way, gathering those shards and aiming them back to Yaerual.

He raised his magical barrier and the shards and slivers bounced away from him in several directions and then, once again, Yaerual paused. She could see sweat begin to bead upon his forehead and, without raising her hand to check, she knew that she, too, had started to perspire. She had never imagined that magic could take so much from a person.

"Miraveh!" Sialira's voice calling from behind. Brothimir had failed to drag her away. "To the side!"

The warning came a little too late as the Hunter she had stabbed in the arm crashed into her. They rolled for several feet, struggling against one another and Miraveh found difficulty making a grip upon the man. Her sword in one hand, the relic in the other. She dared not lose either. Air rushed from her lungs as the Hunter fell atop of her, pressing his entire weight down with his remaining good hand.

That hand became a fist and that fist began to pound at her face. She felt her nose break with the first punch. The second hit her jaw so hard, she heard the click of her bones. The man stayed too close for her to use her sword, leaving only the relic at her disposal. She prepared to use her magic to send the man flying through the air but, as she began to draw upon the energies, the man disappeared from her chest.

She rolled to the side to see Turotara, back in the fight, though her leg looked broken. How she could even move, Miraveh would never know, but the burly guard now had advantage over the man that had attacked Miraveh, her own fists battering the man and those strikes echoing from the walls. With that one occupied, Miraveh flashed a glare back toward Sialira and, especially, Brothimir.

"Get everybody out of here!" For safety, Miraveh had created a magical barrier about her and her caution paid off. Something heavy struck the shield, causing her to scrape along the ground. "I'll keep the Hunters occupied. Just go!"

Even as she gave her orders, she could tell Sialira would ignore her, but it wasn't only about her, or Peknida, or Brothimir. Every moment any of the refugees remained in the vicinity, Yaerual could call her bluff and attack them. The other Hunters had become caught in the spectacle of the magical battle, but that could change in an instant. Miraveh needed to fight without fear of others becoming hurt.

She wrapped the leather string of the relic about her hand, tying it tight before picking up her sword again. Yaerual seemed to take delight in not overwhelming her, as though he enjoyed the possibility that she could win. He did not attack wantonly and that gave Miraveh a scant fraction of a moment to take in her surroundings. She had to try something. A quick calculation told her there were at least two score of Hunters within the courtyard and she concentrated upon them.

Her hand, holding the relic, slammed onto the cobbles at her feet and she used yet another spell she had seen before. The courtyard had stood empty for years, decades, with only occasional footfalls from Hunters on their way to claim relics. Dust had collected, soil invaded, tiny stones fallen. In an instant, she lifted it all, but only in certain places. Only surrounding the Hunters O' The Dark. Like the magical barrier she formed about herself, she formed barriers of dust around as many Hunters as she could, blinding them, scoring them with a million million tiny fragments circling them at great speeds as though caught in a frantic, ferocious whirlwind.

Two spells at once and it had the effect she wanted. Many of her refugees, her defenders, took the opportunity to run, to rush toward the gates of the keep where Sialira and Brothimir stood. Almost all of them managed to run before Miraveh had to defend herself once again. Yaerual had stopped finding it amusing.

"Very clever." The entire structure of the hastily constructed redoubt, from one corner of the keep, smashed against Miraveh's magical barrier. "I think I have grown weary of this battle. Strong you may be, but against this you stand little chance."

He waved the unicorn horn as though tracing musical notes in the air and Miraveh felt the very ground shift beneath her, sending her sprawling onto her back. All the cobbles surrounding Miraveh, for near a six feet wide circle, erupted into the air and then crashed down upon Miraveh. Her magical barrier saved her from most of it, but, as the last cobbles crashed against her shield, it collapsed.

Only two cobbles managed to hit her, but they were enough. She howled in pain as one struck her sword hand and she felt bones in her wrist snap. The sword, Alran's sword, clattered away before coming to rest in the soil revealed by Yaerual's magic. The other cobble glanced against her head, striking her temple and sending sparks and faerie lights flashing behind her eyes. She lost all control of her concentration and felt her magic dissipate, freeing the Hunters she had imprisoned in dirt, but they were not her most pressing concern, even as they began to rush toward the escaping defenders.

Yaerual stood above her, unicorn horn pointed at her chest. He had moved it to his other hand and Miraveh, through pain-induced tears, could see that his other hand had become nothing more than a shrivelled, remnant of what it once was. He hadn't made a sound, no matter how excruciating his injury appeared. Not even a whimper, though his cheeks had become hollow and wasted.

She could end it. Right here and now. She could use the full power of the relic tied around her hand and her own power. She could create a ball of fire that would consume the entire stronghold. She could topple every wall, every bastion, every tower, down upon them and no unicorn horn or vast potential could save either of them. But Miraveh could see Turotara, to the side, hobbling for support after killing a man with her bare hands. She could hear Sialira, urging refugees through the broken gates of the keep, Brothimir urging Sialira to follow them.

It almost made Miraveh laugh. That she supposedly had all this great power, this great potential, but she couldn't use it. Not in any meaningful way. She lifted her hand, pointing her palm toward Yaerual, only to feel a searing pain shoot through that palm. With a swipe of the unicorn horn, not even touching Miraveh's hand, Yaerual had sliced into her flesh, cutting the leather string of the relic. She watched it fall to the soil beneath her, blood dripping around it and knew she had failed once again.

Yaerual had shown a friendly face to his horrific and brutal self. He tried to appear affable, talkative. He had shown that in their few interactions, but she saw none of that now. He looked down upon her as though she were the most disgusting, filthy creature in the world. His lip curled, teeth bared. He showed his hatred of her now, even as he conjured a spear of twisted, contorted dark blue magical energy. Almost black, the energy writhed upon and down that magical spear as Yaerual aimed it for her chest. Even if she tried, Miraveh could not create a magical barrier strong enough to stop it.

But something did. Or, rather, something stopped Yaerual. The spear faded from his hand as he looked down toward his feet, brow furrowing in surprise. Miraveh followed his gaze to see plants growing about the Karline's feet and legs, curling around them and each other. Long dormant beneath ancient cobbles, brought back to life by ... Miraveh whipped her head to the side but could not move in time to stop her.

Sialira passed Miraveh without even a glance. She twisted her fingers and the plants began to burrow into Yaerual's legs and now the man screamed. He looked to Sialira, not understanding how such a weak Witch could have caught him by surprise, but Miraveh knew. He only thought in increments of forward, backward and to the sides. Sialira had attacked him from below. He had not learned well enough from his experiences.

The young Witch grabbed ahold of the unicorn horn in Yaerual's remaining hand, trying to wrest it from his grip, but Yaerual still fought back through his pain. He tried to magically throw Sialira aside, but she held on to the horn and Miraveh felt the girl's magic bloom. The delicate, pale blue of Sialira's magic grew, given strength by her contact with the unicorn horn. The plants continued to grow around her and Yaerual and Miraveh could tell what plant it was. Hagethorn. The thorns piercing Yaerual's body, causing him to scream even louder.

But Sialira was not stopping. More plants began to grow, different plants within the space created from the missing cobbles. A tree began to sprout and still Sialira could not stop and Miraveh could only watch. The girl turned her face to Miraveh, filled with fear and pain, peeling, blackening as far too much power passed through her. Her bright, beautiful blonde hair shrivelled and then Sialira burst into flames.

The flames burned high and hot, the inferno reducing the newly formed plants to ash, Yaerual to ash. Sialira to ash. Miraveh felt her skin prickling as the heat spread outward, but she couldn't move. She could only watch as the only thing to emerge from the flames intact was the unicorn horn.