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Mage of Swords
As the candle struck the straw, the light dimmed for a heartbeat, then a blaze of fire sprang from the pile, basking the warehouse in the stench of burning whale-oil. The flames went so high that they immediately began to lick on the beams and even the roof. Anya looked back towards the pit-spawn, hoping that it would at least show her where to find a door when exiting, but it was already gone. No sound. No movement. One moment it was there and then it was away. But something else was moving.
From behind a crate, something tiny stepped forth. At the first glance it looked like a too small child or maybe fearie kin, then she noticed the tears. A small doll awkwardly ambled forward, it's dress torn and stained and the stuffing quelling out of many nicks and scratches on it's arms and legs. The eyes were missing, just two black pits where they should be, the fire reflecting in the hollows and giving them a red sheen. It was dragging something along and as it came into view, Anya's heart sank. A billhook. Rusty and stained with dark red. The thing looked at her, the tiny, red glowing pits boring into her. It's wooden mouth moved, spreading into a grin that went literally from ear to ear and revealed needle sharp teeth haphazardly stuffed into it.
Laughter sounded through the warehouse again, a mix of the childlike mirth and the wailing of the damned. From every nook and cranny the things poured forth, dragging knives and hook and daggers along. They all were torn and damaged, though their wounds were bleeding silver and black, oozing caustic fluids that hissed when they struck the ground. It was not an assembly of possessed things, but something far worse. Something that Anya knew was wrought by darkest magic and the pit itself. How else would you make a thing that drove nails into it's trailing guts and brandished them like a whip? And above it all, perched on a crate and nearly eye-level with the bound woman, stood what must have been their leader. From the left shoulder of the doll rose a monkey-like face, crowned with horns, red scales pulled taught over the thin skull. The dolls head itself was a bleeding ruin, only parts of it's face remaining, but the crater left behind looking just like the remains of a man that had been struck by a hammer.
It said something in a language that seemed to be only hisses and guttural sounds to her ears, a hand tipped in barbed claws pointed at her. Pain blossomed in her side without a warning. One of the things had jumped up and drove a boat hook in her side. Now it hung on the grip, cackling madly while shaking around as much as it could to tear her belly open. It didn't move though. It had caught in her chain-mail. Anya couldn't help but thank the gods for the fiend having not taken that from her, then drew her leg back for something she would enjoy. With a vicious kick she struck the thing hanging onto her, tearing the boat hook out of her flesh and making her grunt of exertion one of pain half way through. The doll sailed into the wall, the licking flames setting it's dress alight. But it just got back up and began to dance, giggling madly all the while. The other things looked at it, amused by it's antics, even as the fire began to consume it's flesh and an arm came loose.
She needed to get out. They would tear her limb from limb until the flames caught them all. It had already spread all around her, bathing the room in light and making the air painfully hot to her lungs. Above her, the room was filling with smoke, but it seemed a far better bet to take then the tiny monsters and their blades. She hadn't much room to move her hands, but it was enough to grasp the rope she hung from. In painfully small steps Anya drew herself upward towards the beam she hung from, barely able to put one hand above the other. She just needed to get up there. Away from the increasingly agitated monsters and to loosen the rope up there. Then... she would figure something out. The smoke was getting unbearable, yet after a few tries, she finally could lift her fingers above the beam, the rough would driving splinters into her digits as she hung her whole weight on it.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw their leader again. He stretched out his hand and brought it down in a cutting motion. As she looked back above her, she saw the burning red eyes of a doll looking down at her, a razor from blackest steel in it's hands. She screamed as the metal cut through her fingers as if they were not even there, two of them tumbling to the ground. She screamed again as the rope stopped her fall, nearly tearing her arms from the sockets. One of the blighted things dropped it's knife and picked up her severed fingers, waving them at her in mockery. The two-headed abomination made the same gesture again and Anya knew perfectly what it meant. In desperation she fought back the pain and swung her legs with all her might, praying that the gamble would work. Then the rope went limp and she fell.
It was not a graceful tumble, her face impacting hard on the wooden floor and one of her feet landing in a heap of burning straw, making her scramble to get upright before her clothes caught fire. Though she was out of the circle and the little bastards surprised that she hadn't dropped right into their waiting blades. Without a moment to spare, she kicked the straw, scattering the embers and flames all over them. Dry cloth went up like the tinder, the laughter of the things giving away to pained wailing. Anya scrambled backwards, always keeping an eye on the burning monsters, waiting for them to charge out of the flames to murder her, but nothing came for. One by one the voices went silent, the stench of burning flesh adding itself to the smoke.
She looked behind her, trying to find an exit from the building before she would share there fate, but there was only solid stone in sight. Just as she wanted to move again, pain speared into her from behind, her chain-mail rattling from the blow, yet unable to stop it. Anya tried to run. To walk. Just to get away, but her legs didn't want to obey her anymore. She sunk to a knee and then completely, barely managing to turn around to sit instead of falling face first again. At least she wanted to see what was coming for her. As she tried to scoot away to the wall, farther away from the roaring flames, a shape became visible among it. It was the two-headed thing, brandishing a throwing knife. The flames licked all over it's form, yet bothered it not in the slightest. Not even it's badly mutilated dress was burning, just swaying slightly in the inferno.
It said something to Anya. Not in the tongue of the pit, but in low Valyrian, yet she couldn't make out the words. She was still bleeding from her hand and the wound in her side had torn badly from her pitiful attempts at acrobatics. Maybe she would be granted the small mercy of bleeding out before the creature could indulge itself on her flesh. Her vision swam and the heat on her skin dimmed. Her hands clasped the bauble left to her by the plant spirit, while her eyes moved upward. The room had nearly filled with smoke. Red leaves were shaken loose from the weirwood by the wind, falling all around her.
The pit spawn slowly stepped closer, his knife raised. It was not a bandit, she understood with a start. It was a men-at-arms, draped in the livery of some nobles house. He lowered the torch he bore and grinned at her, black teeth shining in the fire around them. She had run as fast and as far as her legs would carry her, just to collapse beneath this tree. The grey stone was cool behind her back. Her hands were torn from the underbrush she had to lift out of the way, the two finger cut off by the black blade still hurting. Something cold was running down her neck and for a moment she thought it blood before realizing it was sap running from the face in the wall above her.
She didn't know what she did. She didn't know they why, let alone the how, yet her hand rose all the same. She drew it through the air, feeling a blade that was not there. The edge sharper then any that steel could ever hold, harder then anything men had ever wrought. The blood from her hands stuck to it, red trails outlining the blade that was not there. Yet it was there. She wanted it there and so it was. She needed a blade to cut down the pit-spawn in it's ugly armor. It had taken her parents and hounded her all night. And now it would
bleed for it.
The blade surged forward, faster then any arrow and surer then the best marksman. The men-at-arms looked on in incomprehension, it's clawed fingers clasping the wound struck in it's belly. Blood seeped from his lips and he fell among the roots, white wood grasping and drinking eagerly the bounty offered to them. But as Anya sunk down further, she knew that she would not leave this place. The roots twisted and turned around her, the mud growing soft and warm. It was not hunger that drove them. It was an embrace. The caress of someone wishing to soothe her pain and welcome her home.
It was almost too late when the door on the other side of the room burst open. For a terrified moment, Anya thought another fiend had come to carry her to the pit when she beheld the horns on the shape that grasped her. But as the searing heat was banished by comforting warmth, her nostrils caught the slight whiff of wet fur. Of cow. She was outside, laid down on the smooth stone of the street and the bull-man above her gazing down not in hatred and contempt, but in worry. And he was not alone. To her left stood a tall woman in armor, a bony and sharp face bearing an almost accusing look. To her right kneeled a man in dark clothes, her hazy mind making her almost think them wrought from shadow. His face she couldn't even make out, just the words he spoke. "What happened?"
She tried to laugh at that question, but it turned into a cough as her dry throat tried to evict the lingering soot. How could she even explain her last few days? How could she explain a murdering fiend playing her for a fool? The thought of the bastard that had orchestrated all of this sobered her. He was still out there and probably more of the vile things he had made. "Fiend." She had to croak the word and nearly coughed again, but it was getting easier. "Tyroshi Merchant. Gift to the Deep." The mans face was still indistinct to her eyes, but she got an impression of worry from him. Was he believing her? Would he still believe her when she told him the rest? "Fiendish dolls."
Her heart sank when he turned around to the woman, clearly not quite buying her fairy-tale. Yet the woman's features just got more intense as she kept staring to Anya as if accusing her of a lie. Anya tried to shrug, though it came out more as a shuffling around on the ground. Then the woman looked back at the man and spat a single word in disgust. "
Arusities."
The man kept looking at her as if still not quite grasping the idea of a murderous toy for little girls, though his voice was sharp when he turned back to Anya like a warrior headed for battle. "Rest for now. We will talk later."
She couldn't quite keep the annoyance down. "Wish people stopped trying to make me sleep."
"You should though. I can see that you went through a lot." He stood up and gestured at the woman, who quickly strode out of Anyas field of view. "When this is over, I think I might have a proposition for you. A promotion, so to speak."
Anya just closed her eyes and sighed lightly. Why did that sound more like a threat then a reward?
AN: And that concludes Anya's little adventure. The horde of dolls was a bunch of Arusities, which were called into alchemically prepared bodies, thanks to a special deal struck by our enterprising Devil. Obviously, it took a bit to work out the kinks of the process and that left him with a good dozen of very weak and very crazy failures. Anya was strung up to tempt them into 'accidentally' dying in the flames, so that he could get around his oath to not harm any of the Arusities he had called.
The rest is just the clean-up and Garin should be more then capable of that, especially with an Erinyes tagging along.
)
