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Ember Cawood · Adventurer Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 44

Ember’s stomach was doing nervous little flip-flops throughout the afternoon. She returned again and again to the battered old chest in the back corner of her tent: opening it, fiddling with a buckle here or a button there, examining the thin green film on her blade, or using her apron to clean dust from the crevices of the shield.

Rain was falling outside, and dripping steadily from patched holes in the tent. The thick scent of rain and moss combined with the smoke from soggy campfires, giving the whole encampment a heavy, musky smell. Ember sat against the wall of the tent and curled her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly. Henry stood half-in and half-out of the tent, his hindquarters drenched and tail dripping while he kept his head and front shoulders warm and dry. He stared at Ember, knowing something was amiss, but unable to discern the reason.

Ember raised her head and looked up at Henry’s gentle face as he watched her. “It’s a’ight, Boy. Ye dinnae need teh worreh aboot me seh much. C’mon in ‘ere, yer gettin’ soaked.” Henry lowered his head and took a few slow steps until he cleared the flap and the rain no longer spattered his flanks.

Ember looked back at the old chest in the corner and rested her chin on her knee. She wondered if Steve might have come back, had he only taken his armour with him. What could have befallen him, unarmed and unarmoured, that he might have defeated if he’d only had his blade and shield? She took a slow breath, her chest squeezing her being so tightly that she felt like she’d rip something loose inside if she inhaled too deeply. She wondered if it was the meeting tonight with Lady Ceinwyn and her fold that made her heart heavy with dread, or if maybe facing so many memories of her brother weighed on her spirit. Perhaps it was both…

Henry’s head was lowered, eyes closed, lips twitching occasionally. Ember wondered if he dreamed of eating pears by the basketful. At least the rain was subsiding. The steady rumble of rainfall on canvas slowed to a sparse splattering, and she couldn’t wait any longer.

It was time for the barefoot gypsy to become a warrior. Ember stripped out of her clothes and stood for a moment to revel bare-skinned in the rain-cooled spring breeze that whipped at the lashings and the loosed tent flap. The sensation cooled her from the inside out, slowed her racing heart, lifted her spirits as she unfurled mental sails to catch the wind and push her onward. She breathed deeply and easily for the first time in what seemed like years.

Ember lifted the latch on the old chest and pulled out Steve’s old grey leather armour. He was taller than she, and far more muscular. She slipped the armour on, examining the fit again. The armour had fit her so loosely that she’d had to take it up a bit. It still stood out over her skin like a protective bubble in places. The leather straps were all pulled as tight as they would go and buckled into place. The aging grey leather bulged around the straps like a cinched potato sack. But the armour was still sturdy, and it would do. It would have to.

Ember opened the chest again and knelt in front of it. She pulled the kryss, the steel dyed blood-red, from its sheath and held it reverently for a moment before resheathing it and cinching the belt around her hips.

She took up the shield, pausing for just a moment to remember how heavy it had felt to her when she was younger. Ember’s job as a young lass was to carry Steve’s shield out to him, and using both hands, hoist it up to him as he sat on his horse. But memories from Steve’s hunting days were interrupted as again the echoes of the agonizing moans and screams from the northern mountains began to ring in her ears. These men, too, needed their shield. Ember slid her hand into place, gripping tightly and lifting the shield to chest-level. It was no longer heavy, no longer a burden. Back then, she had always been a shield-bearer. Now, for so many reasons, and in so many new ways, she knew that she always would be.

Ember Cawood · Adventurer Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 44

Night was falling slowly across Luna. Ember hurried down the cobblestone pathway, having bought a handful of healing potions from a bleak-faced apothecary in a dark patch of forest outside the gates. Henry, as always, followed two steps behind her. Hushed conversations floated past in broken phrases as Ember reached the magical fires at the entrance. The lanterns and torchlight against the sandstone, she noticed, made the city even more beautiful than it was in daylight.

She arrived at the shimmering blue moongate a few minutes early, her heart thumping furiously in her chest. She could hear her blood’s mad rush inside her ears, as she swallowed hard and tried to breathe. This was no time to hesitate, Ember told herself. She steeled her courage, set her jaw, and stepped into the moongate. Bathed in a glittering azure light, she whispered the word through clenched teeth, as if the word when merely breathed would make it less real than if it were spoken aloud. “Umbra.”

On the other side, a dark figure stood silhouetted against a tree. The moongate here did not glow, but instead seemed to suck in light from every direction. Ember knew it was only her imagination, but it felt as if she were trying to breathe in a vacuum, and she couldn’t stumble out of the Umbran moongate fast enough. A faint laugh came from the dark figure. The Lady Ceinwyn stepped out of the shadows and said, simply, “Come.”

She raised her arms and uttered a few words that Ember did not understand. Another moongate appeared where Ceinwyn stood. Awed, Ember squinted in the darkness at the radiant light, but she dared not delay for even a moment. She plunged into the gate and emerged from the light again a moment later in an unfamiliar place. She seemed to be inside an arena of some sort. But the black stone that made up the walls told her that she was still in the land of the Umbrans. Ember blinked and focused her eyes on the line of cold faces in front of her.

A smell like rancid honey overwhelmed her so completely that her breath caught in her throat. Henry faltered behind her, his hooves clattering as he reeled backwards. But Ember turned and reached back instinctively, cupping Henry’s chin in her hand and speaking softly to him.

“It’s a’ight, ‘Enry. These folk in’t ‘ere teh ‘urt us. Ah promise…” Ember thought about what she’d just said for a moment and then laughed. “Well, they in’t ‘ere teh ‘urt you, anihow.” At her reassuring tone, Henry calmed, but his nostrils still flared objectingly to the scent that Ember had come to accept as the scent of death. Or more accurately, the scent of the undead…

Ember Cawood · Adventurer Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 44

“As I had previously explained,” Ceinwyn began, “Ember will be training with us in exchange for her skills as a poisoner. She hopes to gain experience as a fighter.” There were no pleasantries. The Umbrans did not seem to care one way or another for Ember’s presence. The Lady Ceinwyn matter-of-factly summoned Ember and another lass named Sylvan to the center of the room.

Seh this is it, is it? Jes’ pull oot me blade an’ whack this poor lass teh pieces wifout e’en seh much as a greetin’…Ember mulled over the situation for a few seconds before the order was given for the battle to begin. Henry stood fifteen, maybe twenty feet away, backed up against a wall and looking with distrust from one face to the next. His chestnut hair stood up in a ridge down his spine.

And suddenly, there was no more time to consider the implications of the battle. There was only the fight. All else fled from Ember’s mind as she concentrated on landing a blow here, a jab there, with her kryss. With Steve’s kryss. She parried Sylvan’s blade as it flew at her, then slashed back with the poisoned edge of her own weapon. The blade found its mark, and Sylvan bled. But she stood firm on her feet. The poison had no effect. Ember struck again, attempting to poison her opponent, but the result was the same.

Ember’s eyes widened with the realization. “Resisted?!”

The Lady Ceinwyn chuckled. “Don’t waste your energy trying to poison an opponent who will resist it.”

Ember nodded and focused her energy instead upon dealing damage as quickly as possible. The battle only lasted a few more minutes before Ember was too weak to lift either her sword or her shield. Sylvan was also showing signs of fatigue and injury, and Ember took the opportunity to gulp down the bitter yellow potion. Her strength rallied, and she landed a strike on the girl that brought her to her knees. Ember gasped and backpedaled as Sylvan's breath gurgled in her throat. The girl's pretty face was distorted with agony. The reality of the situation finally caught up with Ember, and she sheathed her bloody kryss immediately. She looked frantically to the line of faces who were observing.

“Is the battle over?” Lady Ceinwyn asked.

Ember nodded. “I almos’ kill’t ‘er!”

The Lady Ceinwyn seemed unconcerned. “Very good,” she stated.

Ember nodded as she applied bandages to Sylvan’s wounds. The girl stood, then walked back to her place in the line with an air of determination. Ember blinked for a moment before returning to her place as well.

The other tests that Ember endured throughout the evening did not go as well. She was finally overcoming her fear of inflicting pain. She was growing accustomed to the feel and rusty smell of her own blood as it spilled down onto the black cobblestones. And more than that, she was growing fond of the the adrenaline rush she felt each time her blade found its mark.

Before long, she faced a man she knew as Jase. He had once, months ago, accused her of being a common thief. Ember was keen to show him her blade, to allow him a taste of her poison, to watch him stagger in disbelief and regret as Ember proved to him that thievery was not her strength. Ember crouched slightly, preparing to spring as soon as the signal was given. And she did, leaping with fury at the man as he confidently backed up a few steps and uttered a handful of strange words. Ember’s blade never reached Jase. She doubled over in pain as a feeling like cold rain washed over her. Wytchery!! He spoke more unfamiliar words, and the sensation changed, but pain was still intense, insurmountable. She felt as though every muscle in her body had been twisted and torn. Ember screamed as she fell to her knees. She looked up into Jase’s cold eyes one last time as he spoke, more softly, but still with the same fierce determination. She did not recognize the words, but the pain that wracked her body all the same. The room spun out of control, greyed out, and then went black.