High War - Chapter 11.1

Someone speaks in the harsh guttural words of an ancient dead language. A dark cell of a room is lit up for only a moment before blackness soon returns, but time enough to reveal a simple bed, natural earthen walls covered in small dug-out spaces that look like empty shelves and a heavy barred door. The voice speaks the words again and another pale watery orb of light floats up from a paper white hand, though this soft glowing bubble pops even faster than the previous. The voice speaks a third time, quicker and sounding frustrated; nothing at all happens.

Reina sighs and flops down in the bed, “I suppose it wouldn't be that easy. There must be some kind of ward, and that means I can't just call out to Teal with a sending. And would she even come to get me?” Her face shifts and warps to look like Teal as she lectures herself with a deeper voice and wagging finger, “Don't get captured Reina! And if you do get captured, get yourself out! We are strong, confident women and we don't need to be rescued!” Reina laughs as her face rearranges itself back to normal. The chuckle dies over a long period of time until the sound is more like soft sobbing, and she sniffs, stands and walks over toward the door.

“Need to do something I guess. Teal would kick the door down,” she tries but doesn't even produce an echo, “then go running around with the first weapon she could find and probably jump out a window head first.” Reina looks around at the raw earth walls, “Or climb up a mine shaft with her bare hands. However people get in and out of this place.” She tries kicking the door a few more times, but doesn't look like she knows what she is doing. “Light, I could be anywhere in the world. Or maybe those Phoenix people have a base set up in Antopia. It could be well hidden if it's all underground.”

She feels around on the door, her hands searching for the seams, but the seal is tight. The bar on this side is easy enough to lift, but the door stays shut whether she pushes or pulls. Reina drops the bar back in to place, steps back and closes her eyes to concentrate. For a moment her body looks like water and she starts to fall to the floor but then she reforms again, weak and panting.

“Ow. Damn. That felt weird, not at all like usual. So I can shift but any sorcery is - .” Her hand, reaching for the door again, recoils as the head of a glowing spectral wolf pops through. The wolf growls at her and she starts backing away, and soon the rest of the wolf's body follows behind the head. The wolf's skin glows with an eerie light, as if there's a ghost lamp or a wisp inside reflecting out. When all of the spirit wolf is through the door a soft knock comes, along with a voice.

“Be you decent?” The spirit wolf whines and sits beside the door, watching Reina. “Oh, you be of course right boy. That be not an issue for her kind.” Rusty opens the door, wearing only his leather armor and not his usual cloak. He nods to Reina, “Stand there and do not move. I have several questions for you.” Reina only smirks. Her body explodes to nearly double its normal size, her skin grows scaly while jagged spikes shoot from her back, and her face becomes a cross between a goat and a snake with dagger-long fangs and drool dripping down. She takes one menacing step forward.

“Release me human or I will call down the legions of - .”

Rusty rolls his eyes and backhands the demonic visage. The face shatters like glass, the insides almost hollow, as Reina falls backwards in her Shape-shifter form, wearing only a loincloth. Her body is a bit smaller than an average Shape-shifter, though the mandibles of her mouth are larger and more bulbous. She lays where she fell, conscious but shocked into silence, as the spirit wolf growls once.

Rusty laughs, “Be more honest, Shape-shifter. Your kind's mass be always the same, despite what shape you may take, so you can't scare me. Now be a good little monster and behave yourself.” She inches away, still not speaking, as he looks around the room with a wistful sigh. “Ah, how I have wished to visit these quarters under different circumstances. Now this room means nothing to me, and my own quarters be everything.” The spirit wolf whines and covers its head with one paw, and Rusty laughs again.

Reina speaks from the floor, her voice quivering, “What do you want? Why am I here?”

“You be kept in my love's previous accomedations, little groundling, because I thought you might be useful. The Phoenix Army takes its soldiers from the ground and you do have skill. Or if your loyalty be in question, we can find you another Shape-shifter to mate with and your skill might be inherited to your offspring. The Phoenix Army must stay strong with each new rebirth.” Rusty steps closer with a grin, “Your soul or your genetics, either will do.”

Reina backs away from him even faster and ends up crouched against the wall, her many-faceted eyes bulging, “I could work for you, I can cast magic and serve on the front lines of combat and - .”

“Unfortunately I don't believe you. Your loyalty be undoubtedly fluid like your magic.” Rusty sighs and holds up his hands, “But that was to be expected. You will be fitted for a slave collar, and in the meantime I have other questions. Such as this.” He reaches in to a pocket and pulls out a small scrap of skin and coarse fur, holding the ragged pelt up in front of Reina, “Do you recognize this?”

Reina's body snaps back to her white-skinned human form and she sits up, “Ruff? What is … what have you done with Ruff?”

“It's not what I've done.” Rusty shrugs and puts the pelt back away. “I delivered the children to the White coats and it was their Chief who took the beast child aside. He gave me this scrap later and told me to find out everything I could about the child.” Rusty mutters to himself, “Telling me what to do, ridiculous! If the Black Emperor hadn't been there I - .”

“Please, is Ruff alive!?” Reina's pleading eyes drip tears, “Please, I have to know that he and the other children are alive! I am begging you, I will do anything!”

Rusty looks away, uncomfortable with her anguish, “The children will be soldiers fielded by the White branch of the Army, that be not my area.” Reina freezes in horror. “As for the beast child, he seemed important to their Chief. He will be scarred by what he is put through, but he may yet survive.” Reina collapses again, wailing, and Rusty scowls. “Weak, pitiful groundling. Be you not ashamed? Where be your pride? What use be this abhorrent noise?”

The Shape-shifter woman hiccups to a stop, sniffs several times and then nods, “There's no point to it. If I was clever it would be some kind of ruse, but I'm not clever. I just needed to cry for what the children are going through, for this whole terrible mess.”

The human man shakes his head, “You be mistaken. Your orphans be not in some terrible situation, they will be made strong, they will be made to fight for the Phoenix Army and in so doing see much of the world and its ways.” Rusty lifts his arms high, “They will not be prey, they will be the greatest of predators!”

“I will not allow you to turn my children into soldiers!” Reina whispers a half dozen small words in that same guttural language, causing figments like fire to appear around her body. Even as they disappear she calls more, some like lightning, others like smoke. They swirl around her, always vanishing before they can do anything other than create harmless flares. She speaks from with the storm, “I will fight you. I will defeat you and escape from here and free the children.”

Rusty laughs, “There be no children in war groundling, only soldiers and orphans. And really, fight me? Defeat me? Where be your desire to kill little monster?”

“Unlike you people, I am not a killer.” Reina twists her arm forward through the gap in the illusions caused by not speaking the old words for a moment, then shouts another. A wind whips up in the room and bursts outward from her hand like a cannon of air, sending Rusty flying backwards to hit the wall and fall to the ground. The spirit wolf wavers a little, but seems unaffected. “This room needs time to adjust to a spell's frequency, but if I keep adjusting then I should - ,” she falls to one knee, winded.

“That be half-clever, though you will use up your magic quickly doing so.” Rusty stands, “I accept your challenge groundling, though for now you be more useful alive. Boy, make it quick and painful, this one can take your best.” The wolf growls and bares its fangs at Reina, who starts whispering the chaotic chant again. The spirit wolf lunges forward and sinks its teeth into her arm, which dissolves into water and forms again around the wolf's throat. The wolf dissolves too, into a smoke black haze, then reforms and snaps at Reina. Her body shrinks and tightens, taking on a smooth appearance as thick blades grow from her hands and she slices out at the spirit. These it avoids, ducking through the wild slashes, and the wolf again bites Reina, this time on the leg. As the leg dissolves into water, Rusty speaks up from across the room, “Boy, try that new thing.”

Crackling lightning forms within the spirit's translucent mouth and is unleashed inside Reina's solid white body. She staggers backwards, the cloud of magic fading away as her voice stops, her form taking on many identities and shapes and colors before settling back to her natural insectoid body. The echo of her hitting the stone floor is almost thunderous in the small room, and for a moment there is only silence. Then the wolf huffs and turns away, leaping to enter Rusty as he approaches.

Reina looks up at him, her faceted eyes smoky and unfocused, “What – your familiar, why can he - .”

“That be a mystery to me as well groundling.” Rusty looks down at his chest, “He be changing somehow, I think due to something he ate. But that be not your concern.” The human sighs and looks to Reina again, “Where did you find the beast child? What be his origins?” Reina says nothing, but Rusty smiles. “Groundling, do you think me above torture? It be a simple question, but we can find tools to make the asking interesting.”

Reina shakes, “Ruff was found near Foe Hall. We do not know of his parents or race, I thought at first he might be a Shape-shifter stuck in one form due to trauma. He cannot speak as we do, but he understands us. He prefers meat but can eat almost anything, his fur keeps him warm without much clothing and he loves to play in water. That is all I know. Is that enough? Please do not harm him, Ruff is a good boy, he never would have jumped at you if you hadn't - .” She stops, blinking several times as tears appear in her eyes.

Rusty laughs, “If I hadn't killed your mayor? Fair enough, the beast child was only doing as his nature prompted.” The human steps away, “This will require further investigation. Do not cause trouble and you will live.”

“Why did you kill the mayor?” Reina's question stops Rusty, and he turns back to her with only a wicked smile. She asks him again, her tone higher, “Why did you kill Jack?”

“You do know that fat groundling prey invited us to your town, don't you? He heard the chosen few words I spoke about spending coin and perhaps adopting a few of your orphans and with only that was completely trusting, like a lamb for slaughter. I had to kill him, the world cannot allow fools like him to live.”

“You are evil.”

Rusty sighs and shakes his head, “There be no evil in war naïve groundling.” He walks away, “Only power.” The door closes behind him with a solid thump.