48

A silence fell. Not a true silence, as the sounds of yelling and screaming still came from other parts of the stronghold, but a globe of silence that surrounded Miraveh, filling her ears with nothing but the rushing of her own blood within her veins, the beating of her heart. She had lost something precious and grief overcame her anger. If only for a moment. If only for this blighted time within her sorrow-filled life.

She crawled, fingers digging into the soil and ash created from the battle with Yaerual, to the place where the Hunter and Sialira had clashed. Where Sialira had pushed herself beyond all reason. The girl had only wanted to teach Miraveh how to use her magic and to show that her own magic had worth. It had, in the end. A great worth filled with great courage. Miraveh's hand stopped before touching the unicorn horn. Hesitating once again.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" The voice of Brothimir broke through the silence like a storm, battering Miraveh's sense of loss and she snapped her head around to the former Hunter. "I tried to stop her. I did. I honestly did!"

The bruise forming around his eye proved that. The white ring surrounding his pupil becoming red, his cheek becoming swollen and puffy. Of course she had not allowed him to stop her. Sialira allowed nothing but her own lack of self-confidence to stop her. Only ever listening to Miraveh when she saw no other option. The young Witch had a mind of her own. Had.

"Miraveh. It's not over." Now Turotara hobbled to Miraveh's side, a hand reaching for Miraveh's shoulder, only to stop short, fingers curling away. "The others. There are still Hunters within the stronghold."

"I know." Miraveh's eyes remained upon the unicorn horn, even now recoiling from picking it up. She hadn't even managed to whisper the name of the girl in Yaerual's ear, as she had promised. Massabri Eyes-Like-The-Ocean. She hoped thinking the name proved enough. "Go. Do what you can. I'll ..."

A yell interrupted Miraveh as the last of the white-sashed Hunters returned to the fight. Thrown some distance by Miraveh's magic, the man ran toward Miraveh, his face bloody, one arm twisted and limp, the other clutching his sword as he rushed forward. A man that didn't know he was beaten, but he would know soon enough. Grief had taken precedence over Miraveh's fury, but not any more. She could mourn Sialira later. Her hand wrapped around the unicorn horn.

Bolts of thick, purple energy lanced out from Miraveh, piercing the Hunter's arms and legs, lifting him from the ground, his face a mask of fear of a sudden. Miraveh held him aloft with her unicorn horn strengthened magic, separating his arms and legs wide. A fifth column of energy snaked outward, covering the entirety of the man's head and Miraveh squeezed with her magic. The man's screams became muffled before Miraveh pulled apart the shafts of purple magic, tearing limbs and head away from torso. She let the pieces fall to the ground without a second glance.

No more hesitation. No more conflicts within her mind. She had failed far too often and she would not allow it to continue. Not allow more to suffer because she feared for her own soul. Her soul be damned! She would beg forgiveness and expect none on the day of her judgement. Even the looks of shock upon Turotara and Brothimir's faces were not enough to give her pause.

"What are you going to do?" Now Turotara did lay a hand upon Miraveh's shoulder and Miraveh could only stare at it. "Think of what Sialira would say, or Daras. You can win without becoming worse than the Hunters."

"I already am worse than the Hunters!" She shoved Turotara aside with magic as she spat out those words. "I'm destined to break the world, or so so many have said. Who am I to deny destiny? No matter what I've tried, destiny has prodded me and led me exactly where it wanted me to go! I'm tired of fighting it, so I'll become what it wants. I'll bring down death and destruction and fear and pain and it'll be up to you to stop me!"

Brothimir stood before her and Miraveh almost smashed him to the ground. He would dare to look at her with those pitying eyes! Eyes that had witnessed his own evil actions. Eyes that had never blinked as he had made Witches and magical creatures suffer. He dared pity her! She raised her hand, purple magic coruscating up and down the twisted, knobbly length of the unicorn horn and he stood to the side as a good coward would. He pitied her? She pitied him!

She could see them, through the broken gates of the keep's courtyard. The Hunters, chasing after their prey, striking and attacking. The refugees, trying their best to defend themselves, to run. Miraveh had seen the same scene dozens of times, hundreds of times over the years. In Thurambor. Elsewhere. Faces added to her nightmares, adding accusations to accusations and Sialira and Daras' faces would not be the last. The faces of every Hunter O' The Dark would come to fill her dreams and she would welcome them.

The unicorn horn almost throbbed in her hand as she raised it. She strode through the broken gates, sending out streams of purple energy to catch arms and legs of those white-cloaked demons. She readied herself for the tide of blood that would flow through the stronghold until a sound pierced the rushing of blood in her ears once more. A terrible sound. A roar.

Keeping a hold upon those Hunters she had caught with her magic, Miraveh raised her eyes to the skies above and saw the dragon wheeling upon leather wings, high above. As before, though she could not see the dragon's golden, cat-like eyes, she knew they could see her. The dragon flapped its wings and soared, circling around and around, witnessing Miraveh's fall into a darkness she had feared, but now embraced.

"You have a choice, Miraveh Arachild, and it is that choice interested forces wish to observe." The voice of the dragon came, unbidden, to Miraveh's mind and she couldn't tell whether it was memory, or the dragon speaking in her thoughts. "You can vent your righteous fury upon these parasites below, or you can find another avenue to victory. One choice could lead to peace for the world, the other to even greater conflict."

Miraveh shook her head, relieving herself of those words, and moved on, through to the space between the keep and the outer walls. She didn't tear the limbs from those she held with her magic, not yet. She wanted some to survive, to witness the fall and the deaths of their comrades. More ropes of purple magical energy whipped outward, gripping those Hunters that she could see, dragging them away from would-be victims, the bodies of the dead, their brother and sister Hunters.

She felt some of the Hunter Karline attempting to bring their magic to bear upon her, but tendrils of magic detached from the thick magical ropes binding them, wrapped around their relic rings and necklaces, crushing them and leaving them as dust as she left the Karline bereft of their magical enhancement. She passed onwards, dragging Hunters from the battlements with her magic, collecting her enemies within ever-growing numbers of magical strings and ropes and taut bindings. Her hand felt warm, hot even, but she knew she could withstand the rigours of using so much magic now.

"What is the first principle of magic?" Those words, so clear and distinct. As though Sialira stood at Miraveh's side, berating her as was her wont. "The first principle of magic is 'Acceptance'. You must accept many things in service to magic. Accept that you have that power, that responsibility, but also to accept the power itself. Accept it and use it. For good or ill. Preferably for good."

That was unfair! If it were the dragon invading Miraveh's mind, she had never known any words so cruel. She could fight against swords and spears. Against a man or a woman stood before her with cruelty in their hands, but she could not fight these words. They stung. They struck too hard at her heart and she could not bear it.

Up ahead, a group of Hunters, all Karline, stood in a line. A last bastion against her assault against the invading forces. She held so many of their people in unbreakable magical bonds that Miraveh almost laughed at their temerity. To think they could begin to match her while she carried the unicorn horn! With contempt, she threw out more of her magical appendages and caught them all together in a mass of arms and legs and heads, their relics removed and crushed. Miraveh almost had enough of them to perform her show. A mass execution that the Hunters could never conceive of in their greatest imaginings.

"There's something about you. I don't know what it is, but it feels like fate dances to your tune." Miraveh remembered these words. Daras had spoken to her as an equal for, perhaps the first time. "If you want me to do something, you need only ask and it is done. You don't have to make excuses, force me, cajole me. I will do as you ask because I believe great things will happen around you. For good or ill, I could not guess, but great things nonetheless."

For good or ill. Both Daras and Sialira had said the same thing and Miraveh, if she were honest with herself, could not say which she felt her actions could lead to. The dragon continued to wheel and circle the stronghold, those eyes that Miraveh could not see burning into her, baring her soul and her insecurities. She had power, now, to make a difference, to make those who performed evil suffer for their actions.

Yet others were watching. Innocents. Huddling behind fallen stones, clutching at each other, weeping over yet more dead and injured. Miraveh couldn't even say how many they had lost now. They had started with dozens. Were there even enough left to count a dozen, now? For that alone, the Hunters deserved to taste her wrath. Except, the eyes of the innocents were upon her, now, and they looked at her with fear almost as great as that for the Hunters.

"A warrior that cannot control themselves can never control a battle." More cruelty. Echoing words spoken to her by the greatest person she had ever known. Alran. A good man. A kind man. A man that used violence only when necessary.

"You can vent your righteous fury upon these parasites below, or you can find another avenue to victory." The dragon. Why did those words bite so deep?

"What am I doing?" The question she should have asked at the beginning.

She collapsed to her knees, yet still maintained the bonds upon the Hunters O' The Dark, and two pairs of hands came to hold her. Brothimir and Turotara had followed her.

-+-

It all felt so easy. With the unicorn horn in her hand, she could crush those Hunters held by her magical bonds. She could emerge through the shattered gates of the stronghold and reduce those remaining Hunters to ash and ruin. She could. She felt no darkness within the horn, save what she put into it and her anger, fuelled by grief and loss, could permeate and taint the horn forever.

Sialira would caution against it. Daras would look at her with those intense eyes and ever-present grin and expect better of her. If she couldn't control herself for them, then it could only bring more suffering to the world that had already seen too much. Not even the Hunters deserved that. Vengeance was not justice. Justice had to prevail or it could only lead to more violence and suffering. That was what Sialira would say. At least, Miraveh believed she would.

"Gather the survivors." Clutching Turotara's offered hand, Miraveh forced herself to stand. "We will end this now."

The Hunters within her magical grasp lowered to the ground behind her, struggling against bonds they could not hope to break, fearful of what would become of them. Miraveh offered no words of comfort for them. She barely glanced their way as she began to walk toward the gates of the outer walls.

As she walked, others began to follow. The weary, the injured that could still walk. All joined the line as Miraveh made her way along the cobbled way. Bodies littered the path, but she didn't stop to check who had lived and who had died. There were more important things than counting the dead. It felt empty without Sialira by her side. As empty as it felt after the loss of Daras, but this time she had no intention of taking her own life.

The dragon continued to circle, high above, following Miraveh's progress as much as any of those mortals behind her. At the outcropping, where she had observed the first attacks of the battle, she stopped and lifted the Hunters in her magical bonds high into the air. It felt effortless with the unicorn horn in her hand and even the heat from channeling so much power felt little more than a hand above a candle flame. She could suffer that for a while longer.

Below, she could see Hunters racing down the slope, toward the remainder of their comrades on the plains before the stronghold. One-by-one, they faltered and paused in their flight as murmurs and shouts passed between them at the sight of their brothers and sisters held by Miraveh. Portals began to open but, with only a minor, passing thought, Miraveh closed them. The power available to her astonished even herself.

With no escape, a terrible foe holding their brothers and sisters in the air as though they were nothing, the remaining Hunters arrested their rush to escape. Miraveh would have felt much the same had she observed it from the other side. Indeed, she had. Once. As Kay had faced the Shade of Xirasir, she had almost wet her underclothes in fear of the power of the mortal vessel of a god. Miraveh wasn't a god, but she must appear so to those below.

"You have your victory. What do you intend with it?" Stepping to her side, Brothimir looked down upon his former comrades and Miraveh saw a tightness to his jaw. They were as family to him, once, she supposed. "I will not, cannot, beg for their lives. I know what we Hunters O' The Dark have done. I can only urge mercy for your sake, not theirs."

"Mercy." Miraveh rolled the word around her tongue. It felt like ash in her mouth. "Go down to them under the sign of truce. Tell them to come to me, in the courtyard, or I will bring them myself. Tell them to disarm before entering the gates, or I will remove their limbs. Tell them ... tell them that now is the time for words."

Brothimir hesitated, glancing down to those Hunters that awaited their fates, before nodding and moving away. As he passed one of his former allies, he took the white cloak from about their shoulders, cut a strip from it, tossing the remains to the ground before heading down the slope alone. He would be safe, she would make sure of it.

Her eyes fell upon the remnant of the cloak, the circle of white surrounded by a circle of black. The light within the darkness. She didn't doubt that, at one time, the Hunters truly believed they were performing righteous acts, but they had become corrupt, evil in their deeds. Magic was a danger, but only in the wrong hands. Behind her stood Witches and magical creatures that had done nothing but feel the touch of magic. Intent and context was everything in judging the merits of magic.

Brothimir had reached the scattered ranks of Hunters and they had not attacked him. Miraveh felt glad about that. She doubted she could ever forgive him for his time as a Hunter O' The Dark, but he had turned away from them. That had to count for something and, as he began to return, the Hunters following in his wake, Miraveh knew she would have to find a suitable penance for him to perform. Though not today.

By the time the Hunters began to file into the courtyard, heads bowed, eyes twitching to the sides as the surviving refugees watched in silence, Miraveh had taken a position upon the steps to the keep's great hall. She waited until Brothimir signalled that all the Hunters had arrived before she performed her next act.

She had seen it in the trials below the stronghold. Seen it and understood how it worked even as she suffered in the trial itself. A black, thick, miasma appeared from nowhere. It sloughed down the steps where Miraveh stood and swept outward. First curling around the feet and legs of the gathered Hunters before rising, creeping up their bodies until only their heads remained uncovered. Miraveh's features did not change as the Hunters cried out in fear, or as the refugee survivors gasped at the oozing liquid that held their enemies.

"Hunters O' The Dark. You will not die this day." She paused, letting her words stew in the minds of everyone. Hunters and refugees alike. "But there must be a reckoning for your actions, not only here, but for all the ill you have done. There must be a punishment, but the punishment must be just and not founded upon vengeance."

Murmurs passed among everyone before her. From the Witches, elves and goblins that remained, having suffered at the hands of these Hunters, or others of their order. From the Hunters themselves as they fought to breathe, even though Miraveh's black miasma held them only tight enough to prevent any escape. There was no escape from what was to come.

"Miraveh." Turotara took pains to reach the step beside Miraveh, using a stick to hobble. She leaned in to whisper. "The goblin girl, Peknida. She didn't survive. I'm sorry."

"I know." Her heart had skipped to hear it confirmed, but she had already sensed as such. She held her features tight, showing nothing to the Hunters below as she raised her voice once again. "You have a choice. Join me, serve me, and together we will truly stand against the misuse of magic. We will not attack senselessly, as you have done in the past, but find those who use magic for evil ends and we will stop them. Choose not to join me, and you may leave, under certain conditions."

Another series of murmurs passed around the courtyard and Miraveh knew she courted controversy. These people, these Hunters O' The Dark, could prove useful in the future and it was better to turn their cultivated instincts to a similar function than expect them to abandon their principles altogether. Properly guided and trained, they could become an asset for the future. A future still clouded by too many possibilities.

"I choose to leave!" A single, dissenting voice from a Hunter near to the front. She sneered, struggling against the miasma and spitting to the side. "But know this, I will speak to my commanders and we will return to this place in numbers. You're better off killing us now."

"No. I'm not." Miraveh descended the steps, reaching the Hunter, allowing the black, murky liquid to slough away from her shoulders, where Miraveh placed a hand and her magic bloomed. "You will leave this place in peace. You will never return. You will not communicate with anyone in the Hunters O' The Dark or any of their allies or servants. You will only fight to defend yourself, those you love or an innocent for the rest of your life. You will return to your home, work hard for your community and live in peace."

Miraveh allowed her magic to fade and the belligerence upon the Hunter's face faded with it. She gaped at Miraveh, mouth opening and closing. The black miasma fell away from the Hunter and, without saying a single word, she turned, removing all the vestments of the Hunters O' The Dark as she walked towards the gates of the courtyard. The compulsion, had Miraveh performed it with only her own magic, would have faded, too, after a time. Months, years later. With the power of the unicorn horn, the compulsion would last for the rest of the Hunter's life.

It was a punishment, of sorts. Miraveh had taken away choice from the woman. She had no say in it, had not agreed to it, but Miraveh did not care. It was the most humane punishment she could think of and far better than the Hunter deserved. As Miraveh moved to the next Hunter, she gave them the same choice. Whatever each Hunter chose, Miraveh removed choice from their future actions. They would serve her, or they would serve no-one. That was the only choice she would allow.

As she moved through the gathered Hunters, each Hunter gave their answer. Over half chose to leave, the remainder became Miraveh's army compelled to follow her orders to their deaths. In the future, should she ever encounter more Hunters O' The Dark, she would give them the same choice. Once all the Hunters had made their choice, Miraveh returned to the steps of the keep and gazed around. It could be rebuilt, she hoped.

Above, a screech and a roar caused Miraveh to raise her eyes to the dragon. She had almost forgotten about the great beast, watching from above and assessing her. The dragon roared once more and Miraveh saw a circular rip open in the air before the dragon and the dragon flew into the portal, disappearing without saying a word to Miraveh.

That was probably for the best. She turned her eyes to the south, but she could see nothing through the mountains in the way. She knew, however, that a Candidate to become one of the Pillars of the Gods lay that way. The Seeker's Urge had returned upon the death of Peknida. The Urge could wait, however.

Miraveh had things to do.