Unbound

The Witches of Cold Rock stood tall in the snow, ten strong and ready for battle. Though their blue skin was lined and their wispy white locks were far from the luster of youth, they had eyes like ice and the bearing of queens. Behind them, fifty Risi stood in leather and fur, with black iron clubs hefted onto their shoulders. The warriors—if one could call them that—were as young and unproven as the Witches were ancient and calculating.

“You are not welcome here, traitor!”

Kimaris took their words like a blow, but met their gazes, chin held high. “I will say it again: the Chieftain has fallen. Grimmar is dead, and his cause abandoned.”

A woman with sharp cheekbones sneered. “Then who stands before us? Are you not Kimaris, Witch of the Wilds, Frostborn to the Wastes, kin of Cold Rock? The first to follow Grimmar? The Witch who spoke of the Mother in dulcet tones and stole away our bravest die?”

“I am all of those things, Naberius. But I am more.” Kimaris gestured to her people, the warriors that stood at her back. Twenty had come, those that had grown strongest under the Autarch’s training, and they were a bulwark of fine armor and weaponry. “We are more. Transformed by the might of our new leader, as I have told you time and again.”

Naberius smirked. “You come bearing a few levels and new gear and hope to…what? Sway us into following yet another blood-mad tyrant? No. A thousand times no. The deprivations of Grimmar will never be forgotten, nor forgiven.”

“We—”

“You will not be heard! Our warriors have dawdled in this Pass for too long. We will subdue our Domain and then we shall return to Cold Rock. You,” the Witch jabbed a sharp-nailed finger at Kimaris. “You and your pawns will return to the fog wall and never return. You are not welcome in the Hoarfrost.”

The blizzard around them raged, howling from the north like a fell beast. Curtains of snow swirled around them, tearing at cloaks and hair, yet Kimaris’ eyes never left her former friend. “Let us close the Domain, then. Your charges are barely beyond their first Evolution, their weapons unstained by true battle. To risk them on a Domain break is suicide.”

“They are ready to lay down their lives for their people,” another Witch spoke up. Berith. “The Domain is an anvil, and we are the cold iron. Battle is but a hammer to shape them for their destinies.”

Sudden screams tore through the storm, sharper and frenetic than the howling wind. The young warriors shifted, a few even flinching, as the Witches hissed out rapid fire Skills of detection.

“Heartsblood Seeker!” Kimaris did the same, casting her senses upward, feeling through the omnipresent chill for spots of warmth. Magic spun behind her eyes, flaring brighter and brighter as she picked out forms in the sky. “Brumalbats. Perhaps two dozen.”

“Did the walls fall already?” another Witch asked, clutching a stout stave in her withered hands.

“It is too soon!” Berith hissed. “There are days left before it breaks!”

Kimaris stepped forward, her warriors left behind. “Let me aid you. Together we can slay the monsters—”

“This is only a small escape. Those of the Hoarfrost will take care of it,” Naberius said, venom on her sharp face.

“You lost your people—our people—to mere Humans,” spat Berith from around Naberius’ shoulder. “Do not speak to us of martial prowess. Begone!”

The Witches of Cold Rock huddled together, drawing their young charges close as the cries of monsters increased tenfold. Kimaris stifled a curse and went back to her men.

“What should we do?” Battlelord Vidar asked the moment she was close. He was a stocky male by Risi standards, only topping Kimaris by three feet, but had proven himself in a dozen bloody battles. He had joined Battlelord Ari and Kimaris as one of the Risi’s leadership right before they left Elderthrone. “This has gone on too long.”

“Tuata na. We are speaking to a wall,” another warrior said. Trond, Vidar’s second. “They are not willing to move. So they must fall.”

“You think we should leave them here, to fight a Domain break on their own?” Kimaris scowled up at the bearded warrior. Trond held her gaze for only a moment before he shifted his feet nervously. “They will not survive. I have spent too much time in the Ironskin Domain to know its dangers. I sent word to Karys for aid.”

“Aid that will not come, not before they are eradicated,” Vidar pointed out. “And us along with them, if we stay here. Let us retreat to the Enclosure. We have extended our hand. Let them reap the consequences.”

That would be the simplest play, Kimaris silently agreed. Let Cold Rock fail before rescuing them… Yet if a dozen Brumalbats escaped already, then how long did they have until more descended? And if something else, something worse within the heart of the Ironskin Domain emerged? They would all die.

The Domain’s inner portions were not broached by their people—only Grimmar had ever braved the core and survived. It was one of the reasons Kimaris had chosen to join his faction in the early days. Before the world had gone mad.

“Back!” Trond cried, shoving Kimaris and Vidar to the side. Piercing shrieks exploded from above, ripping apart the ground where they had just stood.

Kimaris rolled to her feet, furs and robes split around her legs, hands already coated in a corona of purple-white vapor. More explosions racked the field, but the majority of them were focused on the Cold Rock warriors. Jagged-winged shapes darted from above, swooping low before unleashing more of those screeching blasts. Not two dozen, but two hundred. It was hard to make out details in the chaos, but they had hidden themselves somehow. Each monster was at least as big as herself, with double that in wingspan, and their sonic attacks were deadly.

“Should we help?” Vidar asked.

Kimaris gritted her teeth. Her people were dying—and no matter what that desiccated Witch Berith said, all Risi were her people. “Fall in! We’re fighting, whether they like it or not!”

“Aye! You heard her, men! Votan tii nata!” Battlelord Vidar met Kimaris’ eye and nodded as the warriors pivoted smoothly into position. “We await your direction.”

Kimaris activated her Heartsblood Seeker, and the heat Mana generated by all living things was unveiled. The chaos of storm and furious combat was simplified, her erstwhile allies demarcated from the flying monstrosities. “Ready your strikes! Aim for the bulk of their forces! On pain of death, do not hit a single Risi!”

“Aktalla! Mid-range! Draw on your ice!” Vidar lifted his hand, now wreathed in crackling ice vapor. “Steady!”

Power gathered around her as Kimaris readied her own power. Curses boiled across her core, grown potent on the glut of experience and Mana she had absorbed these long months. Black joined the purple-white of her Mana, shadows so dark that they buckled the icy element of her Skills, twisting them into newer, deadlier weapons. The Brumalbats struck again, and the bulk of them lifted up, twisting into the air in great loops. Now. While they’re away. “N—!”

Heartsblood Seeker is level 43!

An abrupt explosion of heat cast the snow and ice around them vibrant, violent relief. Colors skewed, blowing out her Skill’s sensitivity until, for a moment, everything was painted in shades of crimson.

“Gah!” Kimaris shouted, eye’s half-blinded. The Status Condition floated across her notifications.

Dazzled: Sight Impairment (Minor)

Yet she was not so blinded that she missed what happened next. The monsters wheeled in the sky, pivoting away from the denizens of Cold Rock and toward the origin of the explosion.

“The creatures are distracted!” Kimaris shouted. “We attack now!”

Her words were loud, perhaps louder than necessary, for Naberius shrieked in response. “No! They are ours, traitor! Witches! Loose your power!”

Icebolts and curses tore through the storm, converging upon the Brumalbats just as the monsters descended upon that strange new arrival. Mana steamed and the blizzard howled, as if echoing the Brumalbats’ impending agony, and Kimaris felt a glimmer of triumph thrill her Spirit.

We are worth your attention, Cold Rock! We have not abandoned you!

Skills landed before the monsters reached their target, tearing through one after the other with brutal efficiency. Brumalbats were fodder enemies in the Ironskin Domain, but a hunting party had not faced so many before, not all at once. The sheer mass of them was undaunted by their attacks, and unleashed their screams all at once. The snow burst, ripping outward in a concussive blast that peppered the Witch with shards of ice. Kimaris stared, aghast and alarmed, but not at the debris.

A figure stood in the center, dark as midnight and gleaming with blood-red fury.

Autarch.

Lightning blasted in all directions, followed by a thunder so loud it drowned the storm out entirely. Witches and warriors fell back, driven to their knees as incandescent tendrils ripped into the Brumalbats. All of them at once. The monsters screeched, and flapped their massive wings, but the hundreds did nothing but careen wildly, hurting one another with their claws.

“SOVEREIGN OF FLESH!”

The words shook something in Kimaris, grabbing hold of a piece of her that she had never known existed. The sky itself darkened, pressed low upon her shoulders as if it were collapsing upon them all. Unholy shrieks filled her ears as clouds and snow and wind roared in sympathetic rage…and then it was gone.

Kimaris stood, barely maintaining her balance, and gazed outward.

“Tuak na,” Vidar whispered. “They’re all gone.”

“Not gone,” she said, pointing at the cloud of red and black as it swirled above them all. There was no sign of the two hundred Brumalbats, but their pulped bodies had been smeared across the sky—rendered into paste where it wasn’t turned to mist. The cyclone pulled down, and all of it vanished into the maw of the only being that terrified her more than Grimmar. More than the Mother of Monsters Herself. “Taken. Consumed.”

“Autarch,” Trond said, his tone nothing short of reverence.

The word spread like flames on tinder, a whispered affirmation. A devotion.

Felix Nevarre. Lord of Nagast and Ahkestria.

The Fiend.

“Well that was exciting,” Felix muttered. Those monsters—giant bats made of ice, it looked like—had a good deal of Essence and Mana in them, but not nearly as much as some. “Everyone alright?”

“F-fine, sir,” Errol said after a moment. “A few minor nicks from debris. Nothing a Healing Potion won’t solve.”

The other Shadows grunted or nodded earnestly in agreement, so Felix put them out of his mind. Pit, on the other hand, he patted on the neck. “You good too?”

“Stop worrying,” Pit growled. “And next time leave some for me.”

Felix lifted his hands into the air. “Alright, alright.” He looked to the field around them. His burst of power had cleared the area of falling snow for a bit, but it was coming back in force, hanging like a curtain in front of their eyes. Still, he spotted two distinct groups of Frost Giants. “Looks like we showed up at a bad time. That’s Kimaris and her team, but…Veddi, Devvi, do you know these folks?”

The giants beside him frowned through the snow. “Witches,” Devvi said, followed by Veddi’s words. “Cold Rock.”

Ah. The aforementioned pissing contest.

Those Witches, ten of them, stomped forward with anger and fear stamped across their Spirits. Youthful warriors followed them, many of whom were limping or supporting one another. A sharp-faced Witch took the lead, back far less bent than the others. She looked close to Kimaris in age, who was even now hustling forward with all twenty of her warriors in tow. “Who dares interfere in a hunt of the Kin on their own lands?”

“Hi there,” he said, smiling pleasantly at them all. “I’m here to save your lives.”

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